Nothing quite like working through an Independence Day hangover with last night's ECW.
The old ECW theme is welcome to hear over the opening video package, but it's weird to see Johnny Nitro and Extreme Expose clips playing over the grinding tones of "This is Extreme!"
Two matches only on the show, which I totally dig. I'd rather have a couple of long matches than five three minute Heat/Velocity-style squashes.
The format is Pick Your Poison. "CM Punk chose" Tommy Dreamer to face Johnny Nitro while "Nitro chose" Kevin Thorn to face Punk. Dreamer waddled his way through a decent match with Nitro, who flippy flopped his way to a win with his flippy floppy corkscrew neckbreaker.
Extreme Expose promises to return next week! Tazz is excited, Styles quickly changes the subject. I suppose with everything that happened last week involving He Who Must Not Be Named, Brooke still hasn't found out Kelly Kelly has been dating The Miz behind her back.
And now a special treat because there's plenty of time to fill -- a bonus match, for the first time in its entirety on Sci-Fi: the CM Punk vs. Johnny Nitro ECW Championship match from Vengeance 9 days ago. Over the past 9 days, they've had ample time to edit out any mention of He Who Must Not Be Named, including the crowd's chanting of "We Want [He Who Must Not Be Named]!"
The Miz promises to debut on ECW next week! Hoo-boy.
CM Punk vs. Kevin Thorn. I like both these guys. Actually, I like everyone on this roster except The Boogeyman and Miz. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, just a good match with good crowd reactions for Punk's offense. Punk finishes Thorn with a step up enzuigiri followed by a Magistrol cradle for the win. Nitro's music distracts Punk so Thorn gets in with the Pearl Harbor, but Punk turns the tables before Nitro gets in the ring. Nitro thinks better of his run in and stares down his number one contender from the aisle as the show ends.
Well, that wasn't bad. Now to Fenway Park for more booze and an all-American afternoon watching the National Pastime.
I was curious to see what was going to happen, when the ECW taping at the Supershow lasted those two matches. Nice of them to throw in the Vengeance match as well. Nice to see they've already WWE'ed the footage, since they made not one mention of Benoit, which isn't that surprising I suppose.
My buddy made the comment, nice day of work for Tazz and Joey, since they were out a whole 25 minutes I think.
Co-Winner of the 2006 Time Magazine Person of the Year Award
I didn't like the show. The two matches were ok but nothing great, there were too many filler video packages and segments, and replaying the entire 2 star classic from Vengeance made me lose my patience.
I'm going to take the optimist's view and predict that though HHH will get involved, it will end with Brock beating both of the older stars, and Project Brock will continue as it should. Do I sound like Scaia?