Another One Quits, Another One Is Fired
OK, so the suspension list has been pretty jammed and there are a couple of names that haven’t publicly come out yet that were hit. Eugene was fired, as was Mike Bucci (aka Simon Dean). In a bit of a shock, Booker T quit when he found out he was getting a 60 day suspension, though some of that had to do with the fact that the WWE didn’t pick his group to be the new developmental territory.

Also, the guy’s loaded and made some very wise business moves throughout the last decade. In fact, he’s probably better-off than JBL (who is worth a ton himself).

Sandman got fired. No word on why, but the image that he presents would probably be one of the reasons. He was presented very strongly on the RAW the night before, so I’m not sure why he was let go.

Mr. McMahon’s Son is…
Hornswaggle. I didn’t see it, but I heard it got a laugh. The weird thing is Mr. McMahon is very high on the little guy and giving him the push into a major comedy role is probably the best they could manage after all the folks who were suspended. Still, they wasted a lot of TV on what was just comedy.

ECW
I saw some ECW on tape and I pretty much thought that it was a decent show. The brands are hurting for talent right now, and they’re working around it the best that they can, but still it shows.

They had Armando (who I really like) and CM Punk do a segment with Elijah Burke congratulating Punk on winning the ECW title and setting up Burke as his first challenger. It was good timing and they did this neat little bit where they had Armando try on Punk’s new shirt. Now, the heel acting nice to the face is an old trick and in the last few years, it would lead to a major twist at the end of the show, but not here. That’s good to see. I also think Burke is a really solid worker and should get more big push time.

Such a dreamer...

The Miz is still my least favorite wrestler in the world and he faced Tommy Dreamer. There is talk that Dreamer might go back to being Head Trainer, but no word on that yet. The two of them had a good little match. I wouldn’t say it was the best thing on the show, but The Miz has improved. A lot of near-falls here, which isn’t Tommy’s forte, but he works with it. Dreamer hit a Superplex! The finish was Tommy flying into the corner and The Miz hitting Reality Check for the win. The girls of Extreme Expose are hot, especially Layla!

Kelly Kelly ran into Balls Mahoney, who gave her a Teddy Bear. She was about to kiss him, but then thought better of it and ran off. Balls is good at the out of ring stuff. I always thought he was kinda stiff, but he was funny here. The writing was weak, but what do you expect?

Matt Striker took on Nunzio in a very short match between two guys that can really go. Striker won with a Schoolboy. Meh. Big Viz, or V as they’re calling him, came in and destroyed Nunzio. Boogeyman showed up on the screen and freaked V out.

They had Balls do a job for Mike Knox in the whole Kelly Kelly angle. This was a really bad choice for the direction to take and they had The Miz come out right as Balls took control and that cost him the match. Mike Knox is a weak wrestler and he controlled the match and looked really bad. They ended up jobbing out Balls when they should have given him the win when Mix tried to interfere. I understand that anyone the WWE brought up is higher priority than old ECWers, but Mike Knox needs to be written off.

Elijah Burke and Kevin Thorn took on CM Punk and Stevie Richards. It was one of those matches that’s good TV but would be considered nothing special on PPV. I think that Burke and Punk work better together than John Morrison (who might lose his job if rumors are true) and Punk. Sadly, Thorn’s not nearly at the level he should be. He does have one thing going for him: he’s got good facials and can pull off a hot tag. Punk got a fast tag in and went to town, hit a Go2Sleep on Thorn to win the match. It was plain and simple, but it also worked.

I’d say this was the best ECW I’ve seen in ages. Since I rarely catch a full episode, largely because it tends to bore me, I thought that this would make me want to see more from these guys, even if two of the matches were flat-out bad.