ECW show 2/12/2008

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Pre-show runthrough:  Last week CM Punk defeated Chavo Guerrero in a very mediocre first-ever Gulf of Mexico match with a GTS.  Punk has got the momentum back now, let’s see if he can keep it up tonight.  I’m really strongly guessing we’re going to see Chavo admit he can’t swim and accuse Punk of attempted murder.  I couldn’t really care less.  Moving on, the never-ceasing grab bag of whether or not we’re going to get a passable women’s match landed on ‘stinker’ last week…Tommy Dreamer failed in his quest to avenge Colin Delaney as he fell to John Morrison…and we learned that Stevie Richards would be returning this week.  Kane and Shelton Benjamin now hold countout victories over each other, as on Smackdown Shelton added a sneaky countout win to his cowardly countout loss to the Big Red Machine.  The only other thing to watch is whether WWE can get their head on their shoulders and come up with a role for Elijah Burke this week.

We get a video package from last week’s Gulf of Mexico Match.  Well put together, but it once again proves that there were no interesting spots in that match.

(Opening song)

Joey asks if we’ve heard ECW is in HD.  I think I might have.  The show tonight is in Houston, Texas.

Chavo Guerrero is out, we get footage of Chavo being rescued by scuba divers, because apparently even though he could stay afloat, he couldn’t swim eight feet back to the pier.  Riiight.  Chavo has a mic now, ‘Chavo sucks’ chants are heard.  Chavo says he’s lucky to be alive because he couldn’t swim, and now he has a sinus infection, migraines, and a rash.  Not only that, he was stung by a jellyfish.  The crowd is eating up Chavo’s complaining.  Anyways, Chavo wants to defend his title against Punk tonight because he is a warrior.

Estrada is out to put a stop to all this giving away of PPV matches.  He praises Chavo, and says Chavo must be very offended by ~MARIACHI PUNK!  However, the title will not be defended tonight.  Chavo will have the night off, while Punk will have a tune-up match against…Mark Henry.  HAHAHAHAHA!  This is ridiculous.  Everyone already knew that Henry was the cross-brand jobber to the stars, but using him in the exact same role for Punk/Chavo as they did for Cena/Orton…just ONE NIGHT LATER…that’s a bit much.

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We get a reminder that Stevie Richards is returning.  Good recap of why Richards still wants to fight, for those who may not have heard of him.  Stevie is out to a surprisingly good crowd reaction.

Richards starts with a side headlock into the off-the-ropes shoulder block.  Again surprisingly huge pop for Stevie.  Richards repeats the sequence again as a big “Stevie” chant starts up.  Elbow drop to the back, and then Richards locks in a hammerlock.  Fox gets out with an elbow to the head and punches.  Richards hits a sloppy snapmare and a gloriously stiff kick to the back.  He follows it up with an equally loud kick to the chest.  Stevie hits a back body drop which was well sold by the jobber.  Richards with another loud kick, this one a boot to the face.  Running thump in the corner, and then he finishes with the Stevie T (double underhook DDT) for the win.

Very solidly worked, the jobber sold like a champ and the action never slowed down.  Outside of the botched snapmare, everything went off very crisp.  Stevie’s kicks were money.  They kept it short, kept it simple, and had the common decency to let Stevie have a real jobber for his return instead of jobbing out Burke, or worse yet having Richards lose.  No complaints here, it was three minutes of the show very well spent.

Match Rating: 5.7/10

We get the same Henry vignette they’ve been using for two years.

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Well, we’ll see if all the on-the-job training from Victoria paid off for these two.  The last time(s) they went one on one they managed the two worst consecutive matches I’ve ever seen.  Kelly starts with two headlock takedowns, Layla comes back with a headscissors for an extended period.  Kelly escapes and gets the headlock back on.  She hits a lariat, then a second-rope lariat.  Layla tossed her by the hair.  Kelly gets her left arm worked over for a while.  Layla hits two legdrops on the arm.  A cover only gets two, so Layla locks in the armbar.  Kelly counters a suplex and hits one of her own.  She goes up top and gets two with a diving crossbody.  Kelly finishes us with a move similar to Big Show’s old standing legdrop during his ECW run, except Kelly’s faceplanted Layla instead of driving her on her back.  It looked impactful enough for a finisher, no problems there.

This wasn’t by any means brilliant, but it was probably as good as Kelly’s match with Victoria, which is saying something considering the original matches Kelly and Layla had.  All in all, good stuff, they got a couple of minutes to work, they didn’t screw anything up majorly, Layla came off as pretty vicious when she was working the submissions, and Kelly got the win and the chance to come up with a finisher at last.  Good stuff, the best use of the Divas’ segment of the show in a long time.

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Knox is back as a jobber after disappearing from the program for a year.  That’s awesome on two levels.  First of all it finally gives Kofi someone to beat that we’ve heard of, and second Knox is boring as hell so I’m glad they’re not trying to make him a big deal.  Also, they’re not pretending they’ve never heard of Knox either, they mention that he’s beaten CM Punk and Tommy Dreamer.  THIS is how you effectively use Knox…he’s got no starpower in his own right, but he can lend some credibility to Kofi’s initial push.

Kofi hits a kick, dodges a big boot, then locks in a headlock.  Knox powers out and hits a shoulder block.  Kofi goes for an armdrag, Knox tries to counter, and Kofi re-counters into a picture perfect high-angle monkey flip.  That was nothing short of gorgeous.  Just the ability to pull that move off just gave both of these men about forty cool points in my book.  Kofi hits the top rope bronco buster and punches, he gets thrown into the turnbuckle to slow things back down.  Knox gets good elevation on a legdrop, then locks in a choke.  Kingston gets thrown to the corner, but gets his boots up.  Punches, a lariat, a nice side kick, and Kofi is firing up.  Bo-Bo legdrop and Kofi hits the buzzsaw.  The camera angle was bad on that, then it switched to a better one mid-move, THEN Knox sold it beautifully with a delayed fall.  I approve.

Excellent all around.  Good choice of opponent, good match length, good spots, and great selling by Knox.  It brings Knox back to the program as a big, strong, scary jobber (*coughMarkHenrycough*), which we can use to put over other people.  It makes Kingston look like a beast, he busted out yet another innovative move, and also got all of his usual spots.  It’s about time to move Kofi on to taking a loss to get the undefeated monkey off his back, and working him in as a normal superstar instead of a newly-debuted guy.

Morrison and Miz are out, beautiful camera work to do the slo-mo effects on Morrison with Miz completely out of the picture so it’s not awkward, then immediately show them together as soon as the slow-mo ends. 

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Morrison shushes the crowd, and Morrison and Miz introduce themselves and bask in the boos.  Miz is still wearing a scarf indoors in Texas.  I guess there aren’t many better wardrobe choices to succinctly say ‘I’m a tool’, are there?  Miz says that the men you’re about to see are the two biggest losers in ECW history.  Morrison tells us to ‘be jealous’, which they seem to be pushing as a catchphrase.

Dreamer’s entrance gets a big reaction from the crowd.  This is a great crowd here tonight.

John Morrison vs. Tommy Dreamer

Morrison starts with a headlock and Dreamer pushes him off the ropes into a shoulder block.  They’re overusing that beginning a tad bit tonight.  Dreamer gets a drop toe hold into a headlock, and after some running of the ropes Dreamer stops short and hits a fallaway slam.  Morrison is clotheslined over the top and Dreamer gets a shoulder block from the apron.  Miz gets a sneaky cheapshot and drops Dreamer on his arm on the steel steps as Tommy tries to return to the ring.  Back inside, Morrison hits knees and a gutbuster.  He works an abdominal stretch on the ground, but Dreamer escapes smoothly.  Morrison keeps on offense with a round kick.  He goes for the swinging dropkick from the apron to the inside, but Dreamer moves and Morrison crotches himself.  Dreamer hits punches and a neckbreaker, then follows with an elbow drop.  Miz tries to interfere like last week, but Dreamer knocks him off.  Like last week, Morrison capitalizes, setting up for a springboard enziguiri and connecting.  While Dreamer is down, Morrison goes after Delaney and kicks him in the head.  Morrison tries to finish with the Palace of Wisdom, but Dreamer counters straight into a gorgeous Dreamer DDT for the win.

After the match, Dreamer and Delaney are ambushed by Miz.  The tag champs throw Dreamer out and hit an interesting double-team suplex on Delaney.

Solid stuff.  Not Morrison’s best, but that was mostly because it was so short.  It was very good for the time it was given.  I also really agree with the decision to get Dreamer his win back from last week, and I don’t think it hurts Morrison at all.  The post-match beatdown works to keep the feud alive, and we’ll probably see a tag match soon.

Match rating: 5.2/10

Backstage, Mark Henry says that the upcoming match will be closer to a funeral.  You’re not wrestling Taker anymore, Mark.  I know sometimes it seems like it because you’ve jobbed to him so many times.  Henry adds “DOHSH!” for good measure.  I really don’t even know anymore.

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Chavo joins the match at ringside to observe.

CM Punk vs. Mark Henry

Punk starts out with a kick to the knee.  Henry is not amused.  Punk gets body blocked, then Henry stands on him at the ropes.  Body slam by Henry, then he comes up empty on a weird-looking splash attempt.  Punk goes back to the kicks, and hits a very loud Knee of Doom.  Henry catches Punk in the middle of the bulldog, throwing him to the ground.  On the outside, Henry rams Punk into the ring post and brings him back inside.  Henry chokes Punk in the ropes, and gets DQed.  Well, that was thrilling.

After the bell, Punk pops right back up and enziguiris Henry from the ring.  Chavo is mysteriously standing on the ring apron, and Punk pulls him in to give him the GTS to stand tall as we go off the air.

Very anticlimactic finish, both to the match and to the show.  The ref just stands there doing nothing while Henry rams Punk into a steel post, but then calls for the bell on a rope-assisted chinlock?  At least make the disqualification worth remembering.  For that matter, this match did nothing to advance Chavo and Punk’s storyline.  Punk won on a technicality, Chavo stood there with his hands in his pockets, and Punk attacked him.  Not good booking decisions.  Before the ending, however, this was fairly passable for a Henry match.

Overall Analysis:  

This show was so close to getting an A.  It did all the right things up until the main event.  It would have even worked to have Chavo run in for the DQ and get killed by Punk.  But having Henry get DQed for a simple offense, then have Punk immediately kick him out of the ring and attack Chavo…the whole sequence was not at all helpful for anyone involved.

Other than that, a very solid show.  Kofi Kingston and Mike Knox put on a surprisingly excellent match, as did Kelly and Layla, strangely enough.  Dreamer vs. Morrison was not quite as good as last week’s but it did move the story along nicely.  Stevie Richards’ return got a great reception and his match was very nice.  I’m kind of curious why we didn’t even get a mention of the Shelton/Kane feud, but we didn’t have time for them tonight and I’m okay with that.  All in all, this was a show very well laid out, it just ended on a sour note.

Overall Show Grade: B+

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