First off I’d like to thank everyone that participated in the Kofi Kontest, I thought that it was a big success and I hope everyone had as much fun with it as I did. There ended up being two winners for the contest as I decided to name what was previously dubbed the “People’s Legdrop” the Cool Runnings (because of the switch over in the Blog Spot all of the earlier comments were lost and I apologize for not being able to credit most of the submission ideas). The winner of the finisher challenge was an e-mailer named Jeff that made a great argument that it should be called the “Trouble in Paradise”, connecting it to the promos that Kofi filmed prior to his debut. Other top submissions were the Kingston Kick, the Kofi Kick (from Blair), the Jamaican Jam, and the Jamaikick (from Shawn). If there is a great outcry that any of these should have won feel free to let me know via comment or e-mail. Also, because this was so successful and people seemed to enjoy it why don’t we try another this week featuring John Morrison’s neckbreaker. Not to stifle any creativity but I think this would lend itself to some Door’s allusion. Let’s get it rolling again.

Also, let me apologize if I seem a little out of it this week, I’m still getting over that painful Superbowl loss, but all credit goes to the Giants, they just flat out beat our brains in and showed they wanted it more. Why the Pats went for it on 4th and 13 instead of going for the field goal will be something I always question, but there are no excuses the Giants earned the victory and are the better team. Finally, I’m a little bit of a political junky and with today being Super Tuesday I’ve been flipping between all of the news channels all day. Now it is time for Guilty as Blogged.

The show opened up with Punk coming out to the ring to invoke his rematch clause and get a title match with Chavo tonight, after showing a video recap of the Mariachi segment from last week. It looks like Punk enjoyed that tremendous mustache almost as much as I did. With the gauntlet thrown out comes oooooo Chavo who talks about how disrespectful Punk was last week and informs him that he will not get his rematch until No Way Out, prompting me no applaud the fact that at least the rematch will be able to make a pay-per-view, especially if it is the blow-off match with the feud not carrying to Wrestlemania (which it very well may). However, Punk and Chavo will be fighting tonight as GM Estrada announces the first ever “Gulf of Mexico” match, all of the time with me trying to see if it was Vince Russo under the hat and sunglasses. The match will end when one of the participants is thrown into the Gulf of Mexico, and will be competed under “Extreme Rules” (thank you for that rather than no DQ Estrada). While I like both Punk and Chavo this match sounds like a recipe for a crowd-killing disaster. All I could think about during the commercial break was the Hardcore Championship match between Hardcore Holly and Al Snow at St. Valentine’s Day Massacre 1999 that ended up in the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tennessee.

The first match of the night was a diva’s tag match with Victoria and Layla, with Lena yada yada yada (still with no team name) taking on Kelly² and Michelle McCool. Coming off last week’s surprisingly passable match with Victoria I had high hopes for Kelly² but felt she regressed a bit this week as she looked to be concentrating a bit too much on her hitting her spots than staying within the flow of the match which just killed the psychology. I thought that McCool presented herself a lot better, but not near Victoria’s level, but felt that the WWE missed a golden opportunity to have either Palumbo or Noble appear during this segment to further their feud as again, with no men involved and no title on the brand there is no real point to diva matches, I’d much rather they all be given male superstars to valet for and have the occasional mixed tag match with, or be shipped to Raw if they are good in the ring, such Victoria is. With Vince’s apparent anointing of Kelly² as the diva of the future I wouldn’t be surprised if Victoria is on the brand exclusively for the reason of working with her so when she is eventually shipped to Raw she can have a passable match and they can someday put the Woman’s title on her. Anyway, the match ended with McCool not loving Layla and being too distracted outside of the ring to breakup the pinfall after Kelly² ate a widow’s peak. The crowd was absolutely dead for this match and with no real story to tell and shaky in-ring work there was no reason for them to get into it. I hate to say it but I’m starting to miss the choreography challenged Extreme Expose because you got the double bonus of seeing them and knowing they would be off the T.V, within 5 minutes.

Before the break they teased the upcoming Shelton “Sisqo” Benjamin-Kane rematch this week on Smackdown!. The only question I had about this was I was under the impression that Kane resided on ECW, rather than being part of the “talent exchange”, but a trip to wwe.com cleared that up. I don’t remember either Tazz or Styles referring to him as a Smackdown! superstar recently which probably explains my confusion.

Upon return from the commercial break it was time for John Morrison, with the Miz, to take on Tommy Dreamer, with Colin Delaney, stemming from Dreamer’s save of Delaney from the tag champions’ post-math beatdown of Delaney last week. Again, it might just be my memory failing, but I thought this was billed to be a tag match between the four. While Miz was dressed in street clothes and a scarf (I don’t know why) Delaney was out in his wrestling trunks and bandages to sell the injuries. This was an alright match with Morrison hitting a very pretty outside-inside dropkick to Dreamer who was on the apron. The match ended with Dreamer taking Morrison’s as-to-be-named finisher after saving Delaney from a Miz attack. A pretty good match and the furthering of a feud is all you could really ask for from the mid-card placement of this match and feud and the crowd was into it, even starting a “Tommy” chant a couple times.

Before the break Joey Styles had a sit-down interview with Stevie Richards who is returning next week from throat/neck surgery which all stemmed from Terry Funk dropping a bicycle stand on him in the original ECW back when Stevie was leading the Blue World Order. It’s sad when a 15 second clip of someone getting seriously injured is better than 75% of what is currently being put out on this brand. I hope that this results in Stevie getting a decent push as I have always enjoyed him throughout his career, even when he had the most annoying entrance in the business with Right to Censor.

Next up was the subject of last week’s Kofi Kontest who this week took on jobber James Curtis, who looked like he could fit right in with Cade and Murdoch. Curtis was given more offense than mini-Tomko and Rob Echo combined, mostly in targeting Kofi’s arm. But, much like the last two weeks this match was more about showcasing Kingston’s great athleticism which it succeeded in doing very well as he executed a great Sisqo-esque leap to the top turnbuckle, but seemed a little lost when he got up there. Kofi won after the Cool Running and Trouble in Paradise combination and I still love this guy. I’ll give him one more week to be visiting Joberville but after No Way Out he’ll have to move on to someone who at least has entrance music.

Finally, we got to see the “Gulf of Mexico” match and it was every bit as bad as I feared. Punk came out first dressed in street clothes with Chavo coming out next after borrowing Dreamer’s No Way Out promotional t-shirt, any reason he couldn’t be wearing his “Warrior” shirt that a guy in the crowd had on? Anyway, this was an extreme rules that featured no weapons, that’s really all that needs to be said. At one point Punk and Chavo fought to the back and no cameraman followed them, I guess Vince doesn’t pay them as much as he did during the Hardcore title days. After Punk and Chavo ran (I’m guessing here) to the nearest exit, and Tazz and Styles did a poor job filling the time, they fought into the street and Punk was thrown onto a car and kicked Chavo into the cameraman, leading it to fade to black and a commercial break. I’m usually not big on “commercial break placement” criticism, but it would have flowed much better to place the break while Punk and Chavo were booking it to the exit rather than have two awkward pauses in the match, especially so close to each other. The match ended with Punk hitting the GTS on Chavo, sending him into the water. The fishermen acted exactly as I, and I’m guessing many of you, did at home looking very uninterested in the fight going on right next to them. However, I’m sure the great WWE film/promo team will make the visual of Chavo on the drink look like gold.

All in all tonight’s show was average, maybe a little below, as the matches, aside from the Dream-Morrison one, weren’t that impressive but the show did do a good job of furthering the main-event feud and the Kelly²-Layla, Lena yada yada yada one, even if I think it is a weak one and would have booked a Palumbo or Noble appearance. Before I finish I wanted to address one of the comments from last weeks blog regarding my wish for ECW to have a secondary title where I believe it was Kingaj (?) who suggested that rather they adopt a Ring of Honor Style ranking system and I wanted to say that I think this is a great idea as it would give every match meaning. With that in mind I’ll debut my own ECW top ten and would be more than happy to read all of yours. Anyway, lets heat up the comment board and e-mails again as we have the Morrison finisher contest where the winner can have their fifteen minutes of fame.

ECW Top Ten

1.Chavo Guerrero (Heavyweight Champion)

2.CM Punk (#1 Contender)

3.John Morrison (Tag Team Champion)

4.Miz (Tag Team Champion)

5.Shelton Benjamin (Sisqo)

6.Kofi Kingston

7.Big Daddy V (fat)

8.Tommy Dreamer

9.Elijah Burke (At least he wrestled last week)

10. Stevie Richards (is there anyone else?)

Tags: Chavo, ECW, Kofi, Punk