ECW 8/29
The ECW brand continues to make minor strides, even with the rushed booking of the main event on the Tuesday night show of Paul Heyman vs Sabu. The match was made Monday behind the scenes by Vince McMahon due in part to the fact he felt the show needed a strong main event since ratings for RAW would be weak because it was on Sci-Fi and not in its normal time slot on USA. Heyman-Sabu was supposed to be the ECW version of McMahon-Austin of 8 years ago, and while it wasn't the worst idea or match that ECW has rolled out, the interference from the word go from others made it come across as somewhat weak.
While Heyman himself is supposed to come across as an evil GM that is a coward once confronted, the angle of putting him in a ring is all wrong. He and Sabu had only 2-3 run ins with each other leading up to this "match," while back in the day they would spend weeks, maybe even a month of two with the authority figure vs wrestler going back and forth before they would actually face off. As usual with the WWE and its current products, this was rushed.
The opener with Bob Holly vs RVD was pretty solid, despite the weak DQ finish, which I think most will agree is the weakest part of the entire ECW product. I like Holly in this role, as it was made for him to come across as the tough guy heel that we all know is the best character for him. With the finish this feud could extend another couple of weeks until they finally put the pair in an Extreme Rules Match.
The Matt Striker-Sandman back and forth was probably the weakest part of the show. Does anyone think that after watching Striker get beat on for the last three months on RAW that he could just show up on ECW and take on its toughest character, and leave him bleeding? I have no problem using Striker, and think with some work he can be a decent character, but come on. How about a couple of matches with some of the lower level guys just to get the guy some wins, and some heat, before a feud with Sandman. I guess this also means that we are done with the Sandman-Dreamer vs Knox-Test feud. I still think we could have seen a blowoff Extreme Rules Match between the two teams.
By the way, is there any chance we'll see Shannon Moore in a match anytime before the end of the year? I love the 15 second "look at me, I'm a freak" promos they have been running week after week. Word is Moore bombed at ECW house shows, and they have backed off putting him in a match on TV. If that's the case, why do we see him in these stupid TV promos every week?
So the main event with Heyman-Sabu had its moments, but for the most part did what it was supposed to - protect the evil GM with tons of interference, and have Sabu lose to be able to set up his revenge down the road. With three months to go before the ECW PPV, I find it hard to believe that they are not going to rush the RVD-Big Show rematches at house shows and on TV. If that's the case, they will have to do something special, and I mean REAL special for people to shell out $40 for that show.
