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By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

Let me start off by saying that this was mostly just a blah episode of ECW (although that is largely what they have been producing week in and week out). Most of the show barely registered in my Hit / Miss O-Meter. CM Punk’s backstage confrontation with Matt Striker and Big Daddy V was o.k. Mike Knox vs. Nunzio was an o.k. squash. Same for Miz vs. Silas Young. Even the Main Event was decent enough to stay out of the Miss column, but not quite good enough to land in the Hit column. It was a typical, nothing special, but nothing much to complain about, thumbs in the middle type ECW. But, a few things stand out:

ECW HITS

Burke vs. Dreamer vs. Thorn: This was the best match of the night. It wasn’t nearly as good as last week’s four way match (it was a bit sloppy and didn’t have the unpredictability as last week since Kevin Thorn was by far the most likely man to get eliminated here). But it was a good match. Like last week, it had the advantage over typical triple threat matches in that there was no reason to break up pin attempts. That being said, why did Kevin Thorn stop Tommy Dreamer from continuing to hold Elijah Burke in a submission hold? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to let him force Burke to tap out? That, along with some of the sloppy moments brought the match down a peg or two. But there was still enough solid action and ring psychology to endorse the match. Dreamer’s attempt to wait out the match was clever. There were some nice exchanges of quick pin attempts. And it built nicely on the ending from last week with Burke getting the pin after Dreamer did all the work.

Dreamer and Burke: Clearly the best segments on ECW this week involved these two. They had a very nice follow up to their match later in the show in their backstage confrontation. Burke cut a good promo about Tommy Dreamer being good ten years ago, but surpassing him now in youth, speed, agility and strength. Dreamer did a very good job in his quiet and understated questioning of Burke’s heart (possibly how Dreamer feels about a lot of younger WWE wrestlers?). It was a good way to follow up on the earlier match while promoting their match for next week.

ECW MISSES

Balls and Miz: I have been worried for a while now that ECW would drag out the Balls Mahoney, Miz and Kelly Kelly storyline for too long and now they have done it. I want to be clear that I don’t think this storyline should be over. I like long, drawn out stories that advance from week to week. The problem here is that this story hasn’t advanced enough over too long a period. It had been advancing pretty well through last week when Balls finally asked Kelly out. But this week we got more of the same. He asked her out again, and she still hasn’t answered him. She is in the same exact relationship with the Miz and the rest of Extreme Expose as she was a month ago. Where is the story advancement there? The story needs to be taken to the next level, where she finally dumps Miz and goes out with Balls so that we can see what will happen next. But doing the same thing each week is not growing very stale very quick.

End of the Show: As I said above, the Main Event was decent. I enjoyed seeing Matt Striker work on CM Punk’s hand, which is a nice variation on the more traditional work on a knee or a shoulder. We don’t see a focus on the hand very often, if at all. But the match just didn’t last long enough to amount to anything. But after the match, we saw Big Daddy V destroy Punk, which was very predictable and very disappointing. They hinted at this feud before Punk had even won the Title from John Morrison, and it seemed like they were jumping the gun then as the Punk vs. Morrison feud was far from over. Now they’ve moved on to Elijah Burke, and either he or Dreamer is going to face Punk at No Mercy. But instead of having Punk watching their matches and scouting his future opponent, they have him involved with Big Daddy V. They need to have Punk involved in the Elimination Chase for it to be more meaningful, and there has to be interaction between him and the winner so that there is an issue going into the PPV. But now, Punk’s issue is with Daddy V, who we know for sure he will not be facing at the PPV.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hitlist Specialist, providing his point of view in the Torch's hitlist format for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

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