ECW 6/12
Well, after a RAW that left us with more questions than answers, the company rolled out its first post-McMahon is Dead show on Tuesday night with ECW from Philadelphia. The show, as will the shows it looks like for the next year or so, was focused on the "death" of Vince McMahon, and they even did a 10 bell salute.
This is wrong to me on so many levels, I don't even know where to start. First off, how many of us real wrestling fans remember the emotion behind the real deaths of Brian Pillman, Owen Hart, and Eddie Guerrero, and those emotional 10 bell salutes. Those came complete with wrestlers, grown men and women, crying in front of the titan tron. Now, we have the same "salute" given to someone that everyone knows is not dead, and just part of the storyline. And for those of you on the "Shoutbox" to the right here that keep thinking Vince is really dead - please get out of fantasy land and back in the real world with the rest of us.
The show then centered around the limo, and of course they showed that to start the show, with Tazz and Joey Styles trying to act saddened by Vince's demise. They did an okay job playing that off, but again, this will get old in a hurry, and I can't wait to see the over the top acting that Michael Cole and JBL do with the McMahon story on Friday.
The ECW show was a waste of an hour overall, as they did three matches, made really little mention that the brand has no champ, and the crowd seemed flat as all heck as they pushed that each match would be done in honor of Vince McMahon. They did an extreme rules match, which was nice to see for once, with Tommy Dreamer and Balls Mahoney. Dreamer won, no shock there, and I thought while kinda flat, at least they tried something new in the brand.
Boogeyman made his ECW debut, and beat Matt Striker in what really turned into a squash match. Striker, who actually was getting a little push for awhile when he was with the New Breed, now seems to be back in the role of jobber. As for Boogeyman, he's just another tired character, and his act on SmackDown was old, and soon his act on ECW will be old as well.
The "main event" was a C.M. Punk and Chris Benoit match vs Elijah Burke and Marcus Cor Von. Decent match, odd finish as Punk got double teammed and the heels got DQ'ed. What they do with Benoit in ECW is going to be interesting. I hope that he doesn't turn into another Kurt Angle, and flames out and eventually leaves the company. Right now it just seems that ECW is the place where wrestlers go for their careers to die.
