ECW Still Tha A Show

It's hard to believe that a few short weeks ago, ECW was mercilessly plundered of the majority of its big name talent. With the new superstar initiative in place, young new talent is coming up and still making ECW an entertaining show. Last night's show didn't feature a lot of bullshit or silly vignettes. Just match after match after match.

The highlight of the night came early, thanks to Matt Striker's hilarious commentary. At one point in the opening match, Striker flippantly referred to Yoshi Tatsu as "Piston Honda". The Punch-Out mark in me popped big time. Although, in fairness, the match itself was making me do that anyway.

William Regal is a damn solid worker, and Yoshi Tatsu is no slouch. Regal's suplexes looked spot on throughout the match, as did Tatsu's kicks. Bonus points to Striker for, along with the aforementioned Honda reference, playing up the history between Regal and Tatsu, telling stories of battles that Regal had with Tatsu's trainer in Japan. Whether or not they're shoot, that's the kind of thing that makes commentary interesting.

Goddamn, Ezekiel Jackson is built like a brick shithouse. I do believe ECW has found their replacement for Mark Henry. Big Zeke may not be the most gifted worker in the world, but neither was Henry, and he did just fine on ECW. Is Kozlov a face or a heel though? I sense a small feud perhaps brewing between Jackson and Kozlov, but having two big heels either feud or team up won't do either man much good.

Goldust is an underrated worker. He's certainly no Ric Flair, but I think he's doing a fairly good job of making his dad proud. Last night, he had a very good match in a losing effort against the hopefully soon-to-be-pushed Shelton Benjamin. Afterwards, Goldust had an altercation backstage with Paul Burchill, in which the electrocution angle was referenced. Mind you, that angle was 6 and a half years ago. How rare is it that WWE references something that old, especially with a midcarder? Usually they don't even want you to remember what happened last week.

Sheamus does nothing for me. The Celtic Warrior? Yeah, because, you know, all the IRA guys spiked their hair and wore a fu man chu with the pencil thin beard. It really screams badass. Seriously, this guy looks less like a Celtic Warrior and more like some douchebag in his sophomore year of high school. You know what, screw it. That's how he shall henceforth be referenced on this site. Sheamus, The Sophomore Douchebag. If he's half as shit a worker as I've heard, you can expect some weekly Irish-on-Irish crime in my review.

O! Dan-e-o is on ECW! Damn, it's nice to see that my bro finally got...oh, wait, never mind. That's Tyler Reks. Between the dreadlocks, the facial hair, and the skin color, I think Tyler looks an awful lot like Dan. I want him to get pushed to the moon just on that merit alone. But he's a halfway decent worker as well. I thought his match with Paul Burchill was solid. I'm also glad that Burchill is still around, he's another underrated worker and God knows how many times his head was allegedly on the chopping block over the past few years. "Well, creative doesn't have anything for him." Well, have him go out and just wrestle, how about that?

The Abraham Washington gimmick bothers me. First off, it just screams of Vince saying "Hey, let's make a dollar off of Barack Obama's name!" Loyal O-sters know how I feel about Obama. Secondly, the Abraham Washington Show doesn't strike me as being that entertaining. Washington firing cliché one-liners at both Christian and Tommy Dreamer got old real fast. "Hey Christian, you're a technician? Fix my cable! Hey Tommy, you're fat!" Jesus. I think that it's pretty clear how McMahon feels about Obama as well. At least Dreamer and Christian were solid on the mic in this segment.

Considering that Washington didn't get his ass beat by the two babyfaces for constantly insulting them made his presence entirely unnecessary. Seriously, Christian slaps Dreamer, and you hear Washington from off-screen halfheartedly trying to keep the two stars calm. Knee. This could have just as easily been a regular in-ring confrontation between Dreamer and Christian. I do, however, love the fact that they played up Dreamer's impending homecoming of sorts when Night Of Champions emanates from Philly this Sunday.

And there you have it. Good wrestling and good promos seem to be the recipe for ECW's success regardless of who's on their roster. It's still Tha A Show in my book.

Tha Results:
-Yoshi Tatsu def. William Regal
-Ezekiel Jackson def. Mike Williams
-Shelton Benjamin def. Goldust
-Tyler Reks def. Paul Burchill

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