Review: ECW @ SyFy - 2009/10/27

ECW @ SyFy on 2009/10/27

Starting off with a minimalistic hype video for Yoshi Tatsu vs Christian, WWECW does absolutely nothing to get me excited for tonight's episode. Tatsu is, while talented and over with the live crowd, not my cup of tea and the happy-go-lucky persona grinds on my nerves. I guess the kiddies love him, but I can't stand him... oh well, opening credits, roll!

The Abraham Washington Show

Tony Atlas talks worse than Ric Flair, missing letters and entire words. I guess the WWE wanted to do him a favor by putting him on TV, but why the hell do they have to have him in such a prominent role? Besides, the whole Abraham Washington show is stale, boring and serves no purpose other than providing a platform for pushing angles. There are many other ways of pushing angles that'd work better, and be a lot more entertaining, then having this boring "show host" create absolutely no momentum for the show whatsoever.

Tiffany, by the way, is probably one of the worst mic workers in the WWE, on par with Shelton Benjamin. Thank God William Regal brought some much-needed entertainment value to the whole Washington ordeal. There's a guy that's over legit, with a credible character. The rub from Regal onto Ezekiel Jackson and Vladimir Kozlov can be nothing but good for those two. Regal throwing a hissy fit = ratings ;-)

Ten minutes wasted on The Abraham Washington Show yet again... Staler than year-old bread...

Sheamus having his final match on ECW is... good, I guess. I don't really see why anyone would think he's ready for anything but the lowest of lowliest jobber positions on the RAW roster, but maybe that's just me. His feud with Benjamin has been decent over the past few weeks, but Benjamin keeps freezing the feud every time he opens his mouth and I can't say that Sheamus does anything for me on the stick either.

Shelton Benjamin vs. Sheamus

Of course this match was good, athletically, but as is usually the case when Benjamin gets in the ring, the storytelling is half-assed at best. The intensity-level was good, and some of the shots delivered by Sheamus looked fairly stiff, but the credibility went down the drain when Sheamus apparently forgot he was supposed to sell his arm...

By the way, Byron Saxton at the commentary table is extremely solid.

As a feud-ender, I guess the match did it's job (no pun intended), but it seems fairly counter-productive to have the match go for ten-fifteen minutes. They could've brought it home faster and left more time for the ECW title match. Sheamus picks up the pin with a weak-looking Pump Kick and heads off to greener pastures.

Gregory Helms & Burchill "The Hurricane Mystery" segment

Rosa Mendez and Greg pulls of a funny gag, and other than that Paul Burchill and Katie Lea pulls of the threatening heel routine well. I'm really, really liking this feud.

Christian interview (w/ Savannah)

Christian is a top-notch performer and extremely solid on the stick - credible, intense and entertaining. A very good promo by the Instant Classic (including the cheap pop), which did what it was supposed to do - hype the ECW title match.

ECW Championship Match
Christian vs. Yoshi Tatsu

Whenever Christian gets in the ring, you know something good is about to happen. Even though I'm not a huge fan of the face vs. face match-up, I could see where ECW is coming from with this one. Tatsu is apparently, and inexplicably, over as hell with the kids in the live crowd, and Christian is over with the 18-35's. There's no question that Christian got the biggest pre-match pop (and of the evening).

The match started off fairly slow, but picked up speed after about three minutes, with a few false finishes and a couple of low/medium impact moves. This match could've been much more, but Tatsu's lack of overness and the limits of movesets on free TV just didn't deliver on the (though limited) hype. Some good moves to cap off the match, together with a couple of decent false finishes, but after a decent display of agility from Yoshi Tatsu and a few trademark moves from both men, Christian hit the Killswitch and retained the ECW Championship to no one's surprise.

Some excellent selling by Christian and he definitely rubbed some off on Tatsu, but I'll be damned if Tatsu ever becomes anything more than yet another Kung Fu-Naki or Jimmy Wang Yang. The potential may be there, but he definitely isn't at the level he needs to be to hop onto any other brand. Christian, on the other hand, needs to drop the title to Regal and move on to SmackDown for a feud with someone like Dolph Ziggler.

After the match, Ezekiel and Kozlov destroyed Christian and Tatsu, with Regal entering the ring afterwards, grabbing and raising the title belt as ECW went off the air.

All-in-all, a fairly entertaining episode of ECW, but they could do so much more. Two matches in 45 minutes of TV time (excluding commercials) featuring two veterans and but two up-and-comers is just not good enough for a "developmental" show. Scratch the Washington show (and get Tony Atlas off my screen) and put an opening match there instead. I'd take a Zack Ryder or Tyler Reks match over anything Washington/Atlas does.