Well, as a fan of actual wrestling, this version of ECW on Tuesday night was painful to watch. Interesting that the entire "strip poker" premise was reportedly done to combat the free Ortiz-Shamrock UFC match on Spike TV, but that 2+ minute match was well over by the time that ECW began. Meaning that if they were that concerned about it, you could have easily watched the UFC show, which I did, then with plenty of time to check out the ALCS on Fox, turn back over to Sci-Fi to catch ECW. Just a train wreck from the word go.

I can't believe that what I thought was momentum with this show actually thought that by rolling out a bunch of sluts to show us the same underwear we've seen a 1,000 times before was going to make the product better than it has been. Note to the writers - get a clue. If fans want porn, fans can find porn elsewhere. I have no problem with divas, and some show of skin, but this was just nothing more than a boring strip tease that got no one's interest.

The actual matches (there were three by my count) were okay, but were clearly the backdrop of the show. The headliner was a six-man tag with Sabu, RVD and Sandman vs Matt Striker, Test and Big Show. A decent match with the faces getting the pin in the end as Sandman beat Striker. Just a thought, but isn't Sandman starting to show his age quite a bit? Let's remember that he's 43, and that he was not wrestling all that much until the ECW shot gave him a full-time wrestling gig again.

CM Punk beat Rene Dupree in one of the other matches, and in the head scratcher of the year, Tommy Dreamer got over clean on Kevin Thorn. No better way to stop someone's push then to lose to Tommy Dreamer, a wrestler who hasn't won a meaningful singles match in about 6 years. Can't figure that one out for the life of me, but again, I didn't get much out of this show or its booking anyway.

As for the "strip poker" fiasco, I was totally bored with it about two minutes in. Trinity looks like a dude in the version of Victoria, Barbie "Kelly Kelly" Blank is just that, blank. Maria played her part as the dumb chick, Candice Michelle was the typical slut who you knew would eventually get naked, Ashley was the rock and roll chick with the ever classic "F**k Love" shirt (gee, a bit bitter about a past relationship?), and Krystal was playing the role of the high-class slut.

Nothing more than a stupid way to stop any steam that ECW had. Again, I know it was a taped show, and I know that maybe the WWE felt the competition from UFC and Major League Baseball would drop ratings, but a word to the wise - please don't waste our time ever again with this crap.

Posted by Matt Loede on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 at 6:30 AM | Permalink