You’ve all come here for a reason. You know that I give you the hard hitting faced paced action of ECW. And you all know that my name is Anthony O’Reilly. I’m back at the same blog time, same blog place. Not too much to talk about today. Just going to give you all my Summerslam thoughts and also my thoughts on the recent WWE releases. 

Summerslam was a great PPV. It’s definitely one of the few PPV’s I’ll get on DVD. We had some great matches throughout the night but as usual we also had the flops. Overall I’d give the PPV a school grade of a B+.

Jeff Hardy vs. MVP was great for an opener. It wasn’t quite the match I thought it could be but still it was a solid effort from both MVP and Jeff Hardy. This’ll be a WrestleMania main event one day and we just got a small preview of it right there. For some reason MVP just works great with both the Hardyz. Probably watched tons of their matches because the chemistry between him and them is incredible. 

The Inter gender match was a fun match. A lot of comedy in here but I feel it didn’t ruin the match. I have to say that Santino is quickly becoming one of my favorite wrestlers on comedic actions alone. Jumping into Beth’s arms and then celebrating atop her shoulders were great. I’m happy Beth’s WWE Women’s Champion but please get the title on Kofi again soon. Santino is a good wrestler but I feel that Kofi is way above him right now. 

HBK delivered one of his best promos in years along with Y2J. As I said in The Talent Exchange “a rivalry should be personal”. It just got a huge push to VERY personal. Obviously HBK will not retire now and something along the lines of a “Retirement” or “Loser Leaves WWE” match occurs. I hope to see some more matches between these two as they are just phenomenal every time they are both in the ring.

The ECW match *cough* I’m sorry segment was pointless. The rivalry was built well on TV and to have it turn into that was a disgrace. Instead of the rematch tonight I say they do a tag match with Atlas teaming with Henry. He looks to be in good enough shape to take a few simple bumps. That double suplex was pretty insane though.

The WHC match went exactly as everyone had hoped. Punk went over without distraction or anything like that. The match was a lot better than I thought it would be. It wasn’t A list material by any stretch of the imagination but it was better than what we had been foreseeing. To sum up my opinion I will recite a line Richard used in during the live coverage of SS: “Great match for Punk and should legitimize his reign as champion”. 

My preview for it was short and this will be shorter. Khali can’t wrestle and sells worse than Cena. Nobody expected Hunter to lose.

Batista vs. Cena was not by any means a great match no matter what you read what marks put up on Youtube. I mean it was good but it did not live up to the hype WWE gave it (if you can call that hype). One insane spot was when Batista reversed Cena’s top rope move into a sit down power bomb. Kind of reminded me of Orton vs. Carlito when Orton reversed Carlito’s move into the RKO. Hopefully with this being Cena’s third PPV loss it means he’ll stay away from the title for a while.

Now if I had to pick one match for all of you to see its The Hell in A Cell match. I have watched every Hell in A Cell and I’ve never seen one with as many insane spots as this one had. MOTY for me as of now. Taker’s ending spot was just jaw dropping. We heard a while ago that Edge wanted a break. Let him have it. He’s f’ing deserved it. 

My next discussion is all of the recent WWE releases. Looks like McMahon’s cleaning out the garbage. I was happy and confused about the releases I’ll quickly go over them one by one. 

Stevie Richards- Great, great wrestler. If WWE still had a cruiserweight division he would’ve done great with it. His legacy will never be forgotten

Colin Delaney- Ha! Good-Bye. I know he has potential but he’s just a waste of precious TV time.

Highlanders- In their first few months they were built up to be the next big tag team. Then they became Heaters. Then one of them went to go see some TNA and the shit hit the fan. Not going to say I’ll miss them but they were good. 

Cherry- Just when she started improving. Oh well. I liked her more as the cute valet but with that team split up I guess that leaves her with the scraps. I didn’t see her becoming a big thing anyway. 

Braden Walker- I watched some of the matches you guys recommended and this guy is fantastic. But wait. He was thin then. It’s a shame because if he was in shape he could’ve really went places in this company. People: DUNKIN DONUTS IS EVIL.

Big Daddy V- He started in this company in the early nineties. I don’t know if he’s been released before or not but WOOOO-HOOO. One less fat guy wasting our time with squash.

Nunzio- Another ECW original falls. He did well with the cruiserweight division but after that there’s no use for him. Maybe if they did an FBI reunion.

Shannon Moore- I thought that his team with Jimmy Wang Yang was really picking up before Yang’s suspension. They could’ve been really good champions.

Domino- I really always liked Deuce better. Domino lacked charisma IMO. You guys should see the video of him cutting Batista’s head.

I got no fancy transition for today so let’s just get into ECW action.

 We start off the show with a video recapping the ECW segment at Summerslam. Again I feel that it would make more sense if today we had a tag team match or a handicap match. However as Todd Grisham and Matt Striker inform us we will have a Summerslam rematch between Matt Hardy and Mark Henry.

To start off the show Miz and Morrison come out together followed by Chavo Guerrrero for a six man tag team match. Good decision there and not making it an eight man tag match by including Bam Neely. For the baby faces first comes out Evan Bourne and Super Crazy. Holy crap could you imagine a tag team with those two. It would be freaking amazing. Mr. ECW (my new name for Tommy Dreamer) comes out lastly. I have to say that this is probably THE best opening match and maybe one of the best matches ECW’s had this year. It was fast paced with a lot of amazing spots throughout the match. Morrison had monkey flipped Super Crazy but Crazy landed on his feet. Evan Bourne jumped up to the very top rope and hurracaraned The Miz off it. Bourne played Damsel in Distress for this match. The crowd is heavily behind Bourne right now. Bourne hits a quick powerslam and is able to tag in Dreamer who cleans house by dumping all three heels outside the ring. Super Crazy launches off Dreamer and outside the ring onto MNM. Not to be outdone Bourne hits an amazing moonsault from the top rope onto Chavo and Bam. The crowd starts chanting ECW ECW ECW. And that’s exactly what ECW was all about. Dreamer goes to pull Miz back in but gets distracted by Morrison allowing Miz to hit the Reality Check. Again that was a great match. If ECW opened with stuff like that more often they’d be getting more viewers. I don’t think I’ve seen a crowd this into a match for a long time. Great crowd. 

Backstage we see Ricky Ortiz get ready for his next match.  

Don’t forget that Raw will broadcast on Sci-Fi next week due to the Olympics.

Ricky Ortiz comes out first for his next match. His opponent: Gavin Spears. His real name is Sean Spears and he’s from Niagara Falls apparently. This guy’s no Evan Bourne but he’s no Braden Walker either. Ortiz shows signs of improvement and I can see he’s a pretty good wrestler. The match itself was boring though. Very slow and not at all exciting. The only note worthy thing I can tell you is that ECW has a new referee. Ortiz flashes a zero and wins with a splash. After the match he continues to flash the zero for his undefeated streak. The crowd continues to show its support by being behind Ortiz throughout the match. 

Backstage we see Henry lift weights before his match tonight.

Back from a commercial break and Irish eyes are smiling as Finlay and Hornswoggle come out with how you spells its and Irish hats for the crowd. Finlay talks about Mike Knox and how Knox says he’s soft just because he dances with Horny and kids in the ring. Yeah that actually DOES mean you’re soft. Go back to beating the crap out of everybody with the get me a dictionary.  Finlay challenges Knox to come out and confront him. Knox does come out and… O MY GOD. What’s that thing on his chin? Oh it’s just his beard. I’ve got to say that that is the most out of control beard I’ve ever seen. Knox says a bunch of blabbity but basically he still doesn’t want to confront Finlay and he’ll do it when he wants. Too bad for Knox Finlay wants to fight right now. They brawl on the ramp for a while before the lamest security since the Jerry Springer show tries to pull them apart.

Backstage Hardy gets ready by jogging in place. Yeah your opponent is lifting weights and you thin you’ll beat him by jogging right where you stand. 

Before we get to the main event we are shown a recap of what occurred with HBK at Summerslam. Rebecca (who is hot) took that one straight to the lip. I give her props.

Hardy comes out for our main event. We’re shown a graphic on the screen informing us that Knox vs. Finlay will take place next week. Again I’m really looking forward to that due to their brawling style. The rivalry should end in a Bar room Brawl. Henry comes out and we’re given the formal introduction because this is a title match. Before the commercial break we get a good bit of back and forth with Henry taking control before the ads start rolling. When we come back Henry is still in firm control. Hardy gets beaten down for a few minutes before going through his whole routine. Hardy manages to reverse a World’s Strongest Slam into a Twist of Fate but Atlas interferes again but this time without being seen. When Hardy gets back in he gets slammed for the 1..2..3. I’m actually glad that Henry won this because if Hardy won then Summerslam was even more pointless. Mark Henry is still the World’s Strongest Champion.

A better than average ECW but not great. Our opening match was fantastic. A new superstar that impressed nobody. Finlay and Mike Knox is a really good rivalry. Hardy and Henry is also a very good rivalry. I’ll see you all next week.  Since I missed the Top 10 last week I’m starting over.

ECW Top 10

1. Mark Henry
2. Evan Bourne
3. Matt Hardy
4. John Morrison
5.  The Miz
6. Chavo Guerrero
7. Finlay
8.  Ricky Ortiz
9. Super Crazy
10. Tommy Dreamer

Comments, questions, suggestions? E-mail me at AnthonyO91@gmail.com  

Tags: Atlas Ortiz, Chavo, Crazy, Dreamer, Evan Bourne, Finlay, Knox, Mark Henry, Matt Hardy, MNM, SummerSlam, WWE Releases