James Caldwell, Torch Assistant Editor (6.5)

Good, solid episode of ECW TV that effectively built anticipation for the ECW Homecoming battle royal. Ezekiel Jackson winning the deal was telegraphed on the weekend house shows when WWE booked Christian and Ezekiel Jackson in three weekend matches, but the match-up fits WWE's formula of stacking the deck against the babyface champion. Will it be a good match at the Rumble? It remains to be seen, but I'm sure it will be kept short and sweet.

Zack Ryder and The Hurricane had a nice mid-ring promo exchange to start the show...but then they had a match after the break. WWE had to fill time before the battle royal, but that match needed to be Week two or three to build anticipation after the nice promo exchange. The match itself was okay, but Hurricane was booked to have close to zero offense with Ryder winning, which pretty much put an end to the feud in Week 1. Odd booking.

Tony Donofrio, PWTorch.com Contributor (6.0)

Other than the main event, this was a tough ECW to get really excited for, but it still wasn't bad. As far as that main event goes, I was surprised with the outcome. A large part of me was still surprised that The Miz or John Morrison (especially The Miz) didn't interrupt Tiffany when she once again announced that the best past performers from ECW all returned for this. Either one of them, or both, would have been a great addition/last second surprise since they were overlooked in the rest of the "homecoming". All that aside, I was excepting CM Punk to walk out of this match as the #1 contender. I think a Punk-Christian feud for the ECW Title would result in some great TV and a couple of great matches. Doesn't look like that will happen...hopefully later in '10 on Smackdown. I guess we will see how much confidence WWE has in Ezekiel Jackson now. Upstarts Zack Ryder and Yoshi Tatsu have also had pretty good title matches with Christian and haven't gone over. If Jackson does, it could be a sign that WWE is testing the waters for bigger things for him.

As for the rest of the card, it was mostly forgettable. Ryder and The Hurricane wasn't bad but it wasn't anything we're going to look back on, even a week from now, and say "that was a good match". Goldust has been really good in his latest WWE comeback stint in the ring. Him doing the clean job to Trent Baretta is a positive and a negative at the same time. Part of me feels that Goldust deserves better based on his recent work, but the other part of me sees it as young talent getting put over, which is a good thing. I still don't know how I really feel about Baretta or Caylen Croft at this point, so I guess this wasn't the worst thing in the world.

As far as Christian goes, most people that know me, know I am a huge fan of his work. On commentary, he was again tremendous. However, they seemed to almost be setting up a heel turn with him based on his comments and how he was treating Byron Saxton and Josh Matthews. Christian did something similar during his feud with Tommy Dreamer on the Abraham Washington Show, months ago. He came off sounding like a heel during that segment and I thought it was a sign of things to come. I, obviously, was wrong then so there's a good chance that I'm wrong again especially since he will now feud with Jackson (at least until the Royal Rumble). Either way, Christian works well as both a face and a heel, so it all depends on where he goes from here. Though, something tells me that both ECW and Christian may see significant changes in the coming months, regardless. Christian could/should end up on Raw or Smackdown shortly before or after WrestleMania. Rumors are still swirling that ECW may get a major overhaul or dissolved altogether. Christian has carried the brand during the first year of his WWE contract. With all of that being said, the next few months could be interesting for ECW and it's current champion.

Greg Parks, Torch Columnist (5.0)

I was hoping that CM Punk would win the Battle Royal and feud with Christian heading into Royal Rumble, and perhaps afterward. Punk is mired in his own world on Smackdown, without a real program at this point. They just keep throwing him out there in random promo segments to get over his character, and he keeps knocking it out of the park. Working with Christian would've been fun, probably more fun than getting Zeke in that spot.

The other two matches didn't do much for me. I liked Zack Ryder beating The Hurricane, and the beginning of that feud was straight out of booking 101. Goldust and Trent Baretta had a decent match, and since Tatsu won one and Baretta won one, we'll get the rubber match in tag-team form next week. That should be a match worth watching.

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