Straight Blazing: ECW Report For 04/14/09

Extremely Competent Wrestling! Bout Time!

Alright ladies and gentleman welcome once more to Straight Blazin! Its that time of the week again as Tuesday night rolls around and having come off of the draft it was SURE to be a good episode. Lets recap the major moves of the draft before we kick off this weeks ECW Report! The two “major” moves would have to be HHH bringing the WWE title back to Raw and being drafted and Chris Jericho going to Smackdown. Another big move, pardon the pun, was Big Show being drafted from Smackdown to Raw.

There was some interesting moves as well.. MVP was the first draft pick and brought his US Title to Raw which was almost a gurantee that Rey Mysterio would be drafted to Smackdown with the IC title. Well Rey got drafted as the last draft pick of the night. Melina was also drafted to Smackdown and brought the WWE womens title with her, which once again meant that Maryse would have to come to Raw which she ended up doing. Few other notable moves was CM Punk to smackdown and Matt Hardy to Raw. The move that affects this report, is one I could care less about, but Vladimir Koslov went to ECW!

Now to kick off the show we had an INCREDIBLE match for once on ECW. John Morrison taking on Evan Bourne and wow these two went all out in this one. There was so many good spots I don’t know where to begin to be honest. My favorite one might have been Evan Bourne doing a running cross body over the top rope to Morrison. They went back and forth and ended up putting on a 20 minute match and actually delivered nicely. These two worked very nicely together and shows how good of a talent Evan Bourne and John Morrison really are.

The match itself was such a fast paced beautiful little match I found myself literally just sitting there and enjoying a wrestling match for the first time on ECW in a long time. Morrison nailed a vicious dropkick to the knee of Bourne and a WICKED looking shining wizard to Bourne while he was kneeled on the outside of the ropes. It looked insanely amazing and was sold wonderfully. The end sequence seen Bourne going for the Shooting Star Press and Morrison hopping up real quick and kicking him in the head forcing him to hunch over. Morrison then dragged him a little off the turnbuckle by the head and performed a Super Moonlight Drive! He made the cover and brought a beautiful first opening bout to an end.

Match Rating: 4.5/5

Match Review

Perfect opening style match up but I have to wonder why they would have Bourne lose? Maybe this means Morrison WONT get buried after all…

Well I don’t know what could bring my mood down after the first match… Then they showed Vladimir Koslov on my TV and I nearly cried. So this couldn’t mean good things for the night.. Well that match was up next after a brief commercial break. Vladimir Koslov came down to the ring and the announcers were doing a good job of hyping him up. I was wondering if they would maybe have him take out Henry in his first match since hes eliminated from the Chase for the title but nope.. It was a local jobber by the name of David Floridia. I mean why couldn’t they atleast give him a bloody opponent to face..

Well the match was about as long as the one commercial break and after Vladimir beat him up for 2 minutes he decided to end it by doing that Headbutt. Then he did his Rock Bottom looking choke slam move for the win, Sorry I didn’t catch the name of it if there is one. Just like that Koslov is on his way to a push on ECW…

I think that ECW definitely should have got a better looking guy than Koslov. I don’t mean looks wise of course but talent wise. He isn’t a real solid talent in the ring.. Hes not horrible and he does his job but of all the talent that was out there and you give ECW Koslov? And you take away the best tag team in wrestling and Matt Hardy from them? That seems foolish to me and I know that ECW is just a training grounds mainly for new guys and some vets to help them out.. But they could have benefited from having like a Mr. Kennedy, if healthy, and also someone like Gregory Helms. Koslov will not go far in this business and being shoved to ECW after a solid push on Smackdown which failed proves that fact.

Match Rating: 1/5

Match Review:

If he would have fought an ACTUAL opponent then it would be a lot better.. But very mediocre debut from someone who already tore through jobbers on one shoe..

A brief look at Hornswoggle and Finlay warming up for the triple threat main event match before we go to another commercial break. We come back from that and we are reminded of the Supplemental Draft airing on wwe’s website at 12 pm on the next day. Then we get to see Katie Lea and Paul Burchill in the back talking to Tiffany the new ECW General Manager. They are worried about getting split up in the draft and I honestly don’t know why they threw that in there besides the fact they will most likely be split up now in the Supplemental draft. Jack Swagger comes in looking snappy in a suit without the ECW title and has a proposition for Tiffany. He said on Thursdays premiere of Superstars he was wondering if he could have a Question and Answer segment.. She shoots it down but instead says that the final match in the chase for the ECW title will be on it instead with the two people NOT eliminated tonight facing one another and the winner will face Swagger at Backlash. She also then plays the ultra face GM and tells him what a wonderful idea it was and says that she was proud of his match against Cena on Raw. Which was a very nice match showcasing that Swagger does have a future in this business.. But then again when you are in there with Cena I guess its hard not to look good.

Another commercial break and we are ready for the Main Event. Finlay, Tommy Dreamer, and Christian are ready to fight to see who will NOT be able to face Swagger for the title! Christian came out to a solid all around pop which pleases me knowing he is still a popular star and getting cheered. Tommy Dreamer got virtually no reaction but a little pop nonetheless. Finlay came out and had the biggest “kid” pop of the night as the kids went wild for Finlay and Hornswoggle. The match kicked off with a good bit of action and all three being involved in the match nicely.

Tommy Dreamer and Finaly both go to the outside when Dreamer clotheslines himself over the top rope while taking out Finlay. Christian gets ontop of the turnbuckle and jumps onto the two taking them both out and leaving all three down on the outside. As Hornswoggle looks on with a grimace on his face what is the perfect thing to do? Go to commercial of course! -_-

A decent Backlash Promo in the commercial break and we come back to find Christian on top of the turnbuckle and he goes flying off nearly into the crowd as Finlay shoves him off. During the commercial break the only thing they showed was Christian driving Finlay into the steel steps on the outside. Finlay slows down the match by putting Tommy into a sleeper hold on the mat and he breaks the hold to throw him down to the mat and then kick Christian off the apron as he was trying to come back in. Matt Stryker is once again carrying the commentary once again on ECW as Josh Matthews missed his cue a couple times then they play it off.

Finlay goes to the outside to work on Christian and gets him with a short arm clothesline and delivers some kicks to the stomack and rolls back in the ring to capitalize on Dreamer again and he goes for another sleeper hold and drives him down to the mat. Another slowdown with the sleeper hold YET AGAIN and finally Dreamer fights out and gets a little offense on as Christian returns and gets drop toe holded ontop of the downed Finlay. Tommy dreamer tried a double roll up on the two and got a close two count. Christian and Finaly double clothesline each other and all 3 mean are down as Horny gets the crowd pumped up! Christian climbs the turnbuckle for the fourth time in the mach and Finlay catches him and then dreamer knocks finaly into the tree of woe and superplexes Christian while Finaly is in the tree of woe. Dreamer gets a close count and then sets Finaly up for his little ECW Tree of Woe. The crowd is really into him as he nails that move but Finaly comes back while he was celebrating and throws him out of the ring. Finlay goes to attack Christian and Christian rolls him up quick and only gets a two. Christian gets tied up on the ropes and watches as Finlay finishes Dreamer off with a Celtic Cross to get the win and eliminate Tommy Dreamer. The show goes off the air with the two staring each other down and giving each other a handshake.

Match Rating: 3.5/5

Match Review

There wasn’t really a need for Finlay to use so many sleeper holds in the match and slow it down continuously. A few good spots but nothing that is worthy of a Main Event match. I got to say having Finlay win both matches seems like they are setting him up for failure.

Overall Show Review: 3/5

While the opening match was an impressive contest it set a pace for the show that it couldn’t keep. The main event was solid but I thought it dragged by a little too much and Christian was up on the top rope too often. But overall the show delivered in the one hour slot it had. I hope that they don’t have Vladimir Koslov continue to face jobber after jobber until he is built up again. He doesn’t need that and ECW doesn’t need the 10 squash matches. Solid show and its definitely better than the last couple of shows. Hoping to see Jack Swagger wrestle on the next show and my personal pick for WWE Superstars is Christian to beat Finlay!

Tune in next week and every week! Stay Blazin!