ECW was anything but special tonight for their 100th episode. Instead we were treated to another lame show that was far from extreme yet again and still reminds us why it’s the third brand. We kicked off the festivities with a lame speech/apology from Mike Adamle. He tried his best to warm up the fans and explain why he walked off the show last week. Let’s face it the fans hate this guy so play that angle. Last night on Raw was good with him intentionally butchering the calls, so why not keep this up.
The matches did no favors to add to the celebration either. The extreme match between Tommy Dreamer and Mike Know was sloppy at best as both men lacked any type of timing in the ring. Yes there were extreme moments with body slams onto shopping carts and some table action, but overall the match went too long. Kofi Kingston took out Matt Striker quickly, only to be taken out himself after the bell by Shelton Benjamin. And Colin Delaney finally got his contract by beating Armando Estrada. Like I said nothing really to exciting out of these matches, and throw in the horrible dancing of Kelly Kelly and you really don’t have much.
and The main event at least was worth staying up for as we saw Kane and CM Punk against ChavoBam Neely. This really was our fist look at Neely tonight and he did a decent job matching blows with Kane. Overall the mix was good as the in ring action was a combination of brawling and high flying moves. Nothing really special but a decent enough match to say you got your moneys worth.
Now that we have reached this millstone for ECW under the WWE’s guiding hand I feel it’s time for a hiatus to rethink this brand. We all know the real extreme days are dead so please quit referring to this brand as such. They should just kill the ECW name all together, especially now since Dreamer, Nunzio and Stevie Richards are the only ones left competing from the old days. If they want to make this a developmental brand that’s fine, just don’t package it under the name of a famous brand like ECW. Bring back something like the old Velocity name and at least save some face on the current mockery that is supposed to be Extreme Championship Wrestling now.
