Movie Quote of the Night: “Oh, you’re about to learn who you’re gonna call… Ghostbusters!” Time for ECW!
ECW opens with a tribute to the troops in honor of Veterans Day. Hey, they pay tribute every week when John Cena pretends he’s really a marine and it’s not just a role he played in a crappy movie. They don’t have anything to prove to you!
Oh man. Why am I doing this again? ECW opens with the terrible Abraham Washington interviewing the caricature, Yoshi Tatsu. Tatsu is sloppy and not very good. He earned a brief respite from my hate with the Misawa inspired Emerald Tights, but now he’s back to being just another crap wrestler who isn’t ready to be on television yet.
In a segment only Tony Atlas and Roy Reynolds think is funny, Tatsu and Washington do a Rush Hour scene that most of the current target demographic is too young to remember. This mercifully ends and we go to a William Regal hype video.
I love that the Regal and Christian feud has been confined almost entirely to ECW. They don’t need PPV exposure or special shows, they just build a feud until the heat is good enough, then blow it off with a big match that gets as long as necessary. It’s episodic television in the Watts mold and I’d bet if it were more focused upon, ECW would do pretty good house-show business.
Match 1: Paul Burchill w/ Katie Lea vs. Goldust
Burchill blows off his Hurricane feud next week in a career vs. mask match that will probably be pretty good. Dustin has become a pretty reliable hand on ECW, working simple matches with good meaning against young guys, without letting his character overpower the matches.
They have a solid back and forth match, with Goldust continually trying to speed things up, while Burchill is intent on using a bruising style to wear down to older Goldust. Burchill almost succeeds when Hurricane distracts him and Goldust hits a final cut to get the upset.
Goldust defeats Burchill (Pin, Final Cut, *)
Zach Ryder likes Rosa Mendez, but tells her in a breathless, nervous manner, even though his boys don’t support it because she distracted him and cost him last week’s match. Ryder is then shown daydreaming about her being his manager. Corny? Sure, but it makes the Zack Attack stand out and will draw great heat when she costs him enough matches that he turns on her.
William Regal and Tiffany discuss his title shot. I love that Tiffany is the most-effective GM in wrestling at limiting interference and making sure that only deserving guys get title shots.
Match 2: Vance Archer crushes a jobber.
Apparently, we should be impressed at how “intense” Archer is. Sorry, I remember Lance Hoyt of Rock and Rave too well. It’s like if the WWE brought in Eric Young and pretended he was a great wrestler or brought in R-Truth and acted like he wasn’t a bad stereot… nevermind. That Archer, he’s intense!
Match 3: ECW World Title Match: Christian © vs. William Regal
And this is getting almost a half-hour, even with full entrances and big-match introductions. The best wrestling show on television, bar none, is ECW. Smackdown is too inconsistent, Raw too flashy, TNA is a goddamn mess, and ROH has better wrestling, but not enough storyline or continuity. Let’s get to the match and see exactly why.
The English crowd is 50-50 between the English Regal and the awesome Christian, as we begin with a technical wrestling, feeling out process.
That continues until Christian gets an advantage, forcing Regal to the floor. When Christian capitalizes, it’s with speed, including a great baseball slide on Regal on the floor, but Regal consistently tries to slow Christian down with heavy strikes and grind down moves. As Christian finds he can’t strike with Regal, he begins using his superior quickness and athleticism to catch Regal off balance, though keeping Regal off balance seems to be the problem. Regal is having just as much trouble keeping Christian down until he hits a double-arm off the top heading into a commercial.
ECW returns with Christian missing a baseball slide and getting caught with an exploder suplex on the floor.
Back in, when that isn’t enough for a pin, Regal goes back to trying to stretch out Christian. Regal really heels it up, which makes me wonder why they’d do this in England. When he acted as a face and crushed Santino in England at least the crowd followed. Here we have the wrestler the fans want to cheer as a heel, slowing the fans and match’s momentum.
The Regal beatdown continues until Christian reverses a full-nelson into a Killswitch for a near-fall. Both men struggle on the mat, brawling up to their feet, as Christian builds momentum with a sliding lariat and elbow drop, but can’t but Regal away. Christian takes an unneeded risk, going for a tornado DDT, but Regal tosses Christian off the top to the floor.
William Regal gets impatient with Christian on the floor, knowing he can’t win the title by countout, so Christian uses that impatience to get Regal to walk into some flying moves. Regal is nailed, but not out, as he uses some strikes to come right back and locks in the Regal stretch. When Christian escapes, Regal goes for the running knee, but eats a dropkick. Christian hits a second rope European Uppercut, but can’t hit the Killswitch, walking into another exploder! The knee trembler again misses, but the Killswitch finally doesn’t… Christian wins!
Christian defeats William Regal (Pin, Killswitch, ***)
Very good match with Christian’s speed allowing him to control much of the match, but a bad habit of running into stiff strikes kept him from putting his opponent away. Eventually Christian started simplifying his strikes and that allowed Regal to be worn down enough to finally take the Killswitch in a spot where Christian could take the match.
The match was good, not great, but certainly capped the Regal-Christian feud in satisfying manner. You can tell how much the WWE trusts a wrestler by the structure of the match. Young guys are left to constantly rely on near-falls for crowd reaction, while the veterans get to build a meatier match. The champion Christian didn’t seem as close to losing as he might with more near-falls, but came off looking like a smart world-beater instead. That’s a far better position for the champion to be in going forward and I look forward to a similarly good blow-off to Hurricane vs. Burchill next week.
