Welcome, WrestleZone readers, to the latest installment of my weekly take on ECW on Sci-Fi.
The show opened up this week with a lengthy bout between CM Punk and The Miz. John Morrison kept getting involved in the match, leading to his exile from ringside. Punk won, after a lot of back and forth, nailing the Go to Sleep for the pinfall victory.
It was a good opening match, though I’m surprised how long it went. Seems like ECW is switching to a format where the matches go longer and the show takes a few more twists and turns. Punk vs. Miz had a chance to unfold and tell more of a story this week.
Colin Delaney was told he’d be given another chance at a contract in the main event. However, his opponent was Tommy Dreamer – who would be fired if he lost the match. Seems a little too early and sudden to take the angle in this direction.
Contract signing…oh boy. Contract signings are my second least favorite recurring segment on WWE TV. They trail only arm wrestling contests in being predictable and completely uninteresting ways to promote pay-per-view contests. Seriously…who hears that announcement at the top of the show, “Tonight, there will be a contract signing” and thinks, “Ooh! I’d better stay glued to my seat!”
The other thing with contract signings is that they invariably end with one guy going through the contract table. How can the announcers ever possibly be surprised? Kane was splashed through, after Chavo introduced his new enforcer: an “unidentified” guy, who is actually Justin “The Ox” LaRouche of WWE’s farm territory. Justin is not to be confused with Lyndon LaRouche, or his LaRouche Youth, and he can’t possibly be as scary a presence.
I don’t see Chavo winning at Backlash, but Justin will be in his corner anyway. Probably there could be a better debut for the guy. I’m too lazy to suggest anything else.
Elijah Burke defeated Nunzio. Whoa! Well…one of them had to finally win a match! I’m a big fan of both guys. I also always enjoy Joey Styles commenting on the size of Nunzio’s feet during his matches. You know what they say about guys with big feet…
Yup, they wear big socks.
Kofi Kingston faced off against Domino. I’ll give you ten guesses as to how the match ended. If you guessed “Kofi by pinfall, following a Jamaican buzzsaw kick” nine of out ten times, you earn a score of 90%. I like Kofi. I like the ending. But they need to do something else with the guy.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that they gave Delaney vs. Dreamer the main event spot. Fight though both men did, Dreamer won the match by pinfall. Colin Delaney still doesn’t have a contract. I guess Justin LaRouche does, though? This can only go so much longer, and I know I complained earlier about the suddenness of this match…but this angle needs to be built to a pay-per-view and then ended with Colin’s first win. ASAP!
Aaaand, that’s the show. It was a bit heavy on the midcard this week. All the main event stuff happened in the first half, unless you consider Colin Delaney an upper-mid card angle. Actually, I think that’s a fair statement to make. That said, Punk needed the win. We didn’t need a contract signing. Kofi’s good, but I want to see him in a feud. Elijah Burke won. Let’s see what else they do with him.
The April 8th edition of ECW on Sci-Fi scores a 7 out of 10.
Kevin McElvaney is also a contributing writer for Pro Wrestling Illustrated and The Wrestler / Inside Wrestling. Send questions or comments to [email protected].
