Straight Blazing: ECW Report for 04/21/09

ECW: Then and Now

Welcome Ladies and Gentleman to this weeks edition of Straight Blazin! This week we will be delving into the success of ECW as a brand since Vince decided to bring it back. As well as I will of course give you a review of this past weeks ECW. The reason this is an article about ECW and how its been along with the results is because this past weeks ECW didn’t leave me much to write about at all. So lets kick this puppy off!

This weeks ECW was based around a Midget for a good portion of the evening.. I was highly disappointed in the fact they were hyping up Hornswoggle leaving ECW like hes actually going to get a push on Raw. But that’s what we got from this weeks ECW. He ended up taking on Natalya in his final match in ECW after Tiffany made the match happen, I don’t think I have to actually say who won in the report, but Hornswoggle won via a roll up. It was as disappointing as could be and I am so glad to finally have Hornswoggle off of my ECW. I think he will be in the unemployment line before too long.. I refuse to rate this match as it was just a complete disgrace to a wrestling match..

The next match of the night was Evan Bourne v Paul Burchill. With Bourne you do expect a decent match especially after the amazing match he had last week against John Morrison. I guess he couldn’t carry Paul Burchill or maybe I just had high expectations off of last week. This match was a pretty quick match with Burchill dominating some of it, but of course it wouldn’t last and Evan Bourne picks up the win via a Shooting Star Press. Paul Burchill got a mixed reaction from being in his home country and I was surprised he wasn’t the favorite. Quick match that I wasn’t impressed with at all but I guess it did its job and filled up a few minutes of air time.

Match Rating: 1.5/5

The next match we had was another squash match with Vladimir Koslov. I said last week and I’ll say it again.. Why do you have this guy in squash matches? I thought he already went through this on Smackdown. Why do you have someone tear through jobbers on two different shows when you already gave him that push just to bury him? I really hope in the upcoming weeks he actually has an opponent worth watching him fight. I don’t like Koslov but I think he could atleast be minorly successful on ECW if they give him a chance.

Match Rating: Big Daddy V/5

The next segment, which would be the last of this short show, was Jack Swagger and Christian signing the contract for the ECW Title match at Backlash. For the record on WWE Superstars Christian defeated Finlay to win the title shot like this article writer predicted correct. Tiffany comes out and introduces the challenger Christian first who gets a HUGE pop from the crowd and comes down and looks as serious as can be. He takes a seat and then Tiffany introduces Jack Swagger. Swagger comes down in his nice suit with the title on his shoulder. He takes a seat across from Christian and the contract signing begins!

Christian doesn’t make any jokes the whole time and he is very serious about signing the contract. Swagger makes note of this and the two stare each other down while Tiffany explains about the title match to the crowd and such. They both sign the contract then the official pre match stare down begins as usual. Some punches are thrown and Tiffany quickly exit’s the ring and Swagger takes down Christian with a hard clothesline. He then picks him up and gives him the Gutwrench Suplex through the table where the contract was signed. Clearly giving Christian the advantage if you think about it from an outside standpoint. Christian is right now the underdog in this match and if he doesn’t walk away from Backlash as ECW Champion I will be very surprised.

Overall ECW Grade: D+

The reasoning for this is you have two squash matches that are really pointless. Then you have another match which should deliver and it fails to do so. This show was saved just barely by the segment between Christian and Jack Swagger at the end of the show. I think they have built this match up well with the whole elimination challenge and the fact Christian and Swagga have had beef since Christian came back. It looks to be a decent match and its good to see the WWE actually doing something with the ECW title.

Now onto the history lesson.. Lets take you back to the Summer of 2006.. Long after the “invasion” angle had died out and ECW was basically a forgotten name except in Philadelphia and in memories. Vince McMahion decided to try and cash in on the past success of ECW as a name and launch a new show to air on the Sci-Fi channel. Most people thought this was actually going to be like the old ECW.. And those people in the upcoming months would prove to be right.. But not for too long would the E stand for Extreme.

Paul Heyman served as the General Manager of ECW and at first things seemed like it was the old ECW. Different camera angles were used in the matches making it seem different than Raw and Smackdown. It featured a huge ECW logo in the middle of the ring unlike the other brands and it also didn’t have the WWE logo on the turnbuckles like the other brands. There were many matches involving weapons in the first few months of them being on the air and the show featured many ECW originals on its program. Most ECW fans were pleased at first.. But this wouldn’t last long at all..

Towards the end of 2006 most people had come to realize that this new ECW was nothing like the old one. They ended up taking away just strictly hardcore matches and made it so that every once in awhile there would be an “extreme rules match” and their champion was Big Show. Most old school fans disliked this because of all the original ECW talent that was still there. Also a dark day in the WWE occurred in December of 2006 when ECW aired their first and only PPV as a WWE brand.. It was called Decemeber to Dismember. This is widely considered one of the worst PPV’s of all time and for many reasons, some including they went way below their time allowed to air, the matches were horrible, and their main event elimination chamber match was completely terrible and they had Bobby Lashley win who most felt was the most undeserving of the members in the chamber. After this PPV Paul Heyman was dismissed from the company and therefore also not the on air GM for the brand anymore.

During this time the ECW Champion Bobby Lashley would be seen more on Raw then he would on his own brand of ECW. Him and Vince McMahon had a feud that would culminate in Mr. McMahon winning the ECW title from Bobby Lashley after putting him through hell so to speak. Not too long after this Bobby Lashley was moved to Raw and the ECW title was up for grabs. They held a tournament to see who would face off for the vacant title and it was supposed to be Chris Benoit v Johnny Nitro to see who would become the new ECW Champion. Everyones bets were on Chris Benoit to take over the brand and help establish the newer guys and also bring some prestige to the show. Chris Benoit did not show up for the PPV when he was scheduled to win the title and was replaced with CM Punk who then lost to Johnny Nitro. Chris Benoit was found dead in his home along with his family the next day. Some wonder what ECW could have been if this tragedy never occurred.

Johnny Nitro changed his name to John Morrison and the second important feud of ECW’s short existent began with CM Punk and Morrison having MANY close battles with Morrison always edging Punk out. Eventually Punk would take the title from him but in this period of time I think ECW was at its best. We were seeing a bunch of good wrestling matches from CM Punk and John Morrison. As well as Elijah Burke and others were really stepping up and showing what they could do. The first important feud I DIDN’T mention was the ECW Originals v The New Breed. It was a failed feud that seen the newer generation guys on ECW take on a bunch of people from the original ECW days. I found this feud poorly done hence why I didn’t mention it that much.

After CM Punk’s reign as champion we saw Chavo Guerrero step up to the plate and feud with CM Punk for it and eventually become champion. He held it for barely more than 2 months when Kane squashed him in a match at Wrestlemania to become the new ECW Champion. Now at this point the E in ECW was clearly not extreme.. It was for entertainment.. WWE had killed the extreme long ago and besides a few Extreme Rules matches here and there it was basically just a developmental show for younger WWE stars. Every big name that comes up to ECW gets moved to a bigger show if they are good enough.  The next two champions in my opinion didn’t deserve this title especially because it is for younger talents.

Mark Henry became the ECW champion and held onto it for a short time which was suprising because when he became champion they re-designed the belt to completey get rid of the old ECW title. It is rumored that they gave the old ECW title to Tommy Dreamer who is currently the ONLY ECW original left on the show. After Mark Henry’s short reign we seen, for some reason, Matt Hardy win the title and hold onto it for a good bit of time compared to the previous people. Matt Hardy then dropped the title to Jack Swagger on an episode of ECW and he is still currently the champ.

ECW had grown from a small time promotion who made it big with their extreme style of wrestling and their constant pushing of the boundaries and rules. They made a name for themselves and then went bankrupt and the WWE purchased the name and the rights. By doing this Vince has officially ended the Extreme era.. The ECW we get now isn’t bad for what it is most of the time.. But when people hear ECW they think extreme… This is what you don’t get with the new ECW brand. You get a showcase of young talent that you hope to see on the two big brands in the future. Or you get a veteran there to hone their skills or just help out the youngsters. ECW now is fare more appealing to me then the old ECW but then again I wasn’t a fan of seeing people get beat up by chairs and sinks and irons. I think ECW has come along way in their short time and hopefully it continues to be a showcase of young talent.

I hope you enjoyed this weeks edition of Straight Blazin! I hope that I get some good matches to work with next week.. STAY BLAZIN!

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