By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

This was a typical flat line ECW. There was little to get excited about, but not much to get upset about either. Maybe it is just because I have been desensitized to the fact that nothing is going to happen on this show, so I don’t bother listing “nothing happened on this show” as a Miss. The one major event that happened that isn’t on my list is the opening 24 man tag match. I thought it was solid, and about as good as you can do with so many people in a tag match. It had some nice action and a good sequence of multiple guys leaping to the outside of the ring. But, it was way too short and ridiculous in scope. By that I mean that there were 24 guys in the match, but we barely saw some of them at all. It could have been an epic match to really sell the idea of these guys trying to gain momentum heading into WrestleMania and a chance to win the ECW Championship. Instead, it felt rushed like almost everything else on the show.

ECW HITS

Carlito vs. Benjamin: This is one thing on ECW that didn’t feel rushed. It was a good long uninterrupted match which surprised me. When the two heels came out for the match, I assumed it was going to be very short, but instead it went over 10 minutes. It did drag a bit early on with the repeated chin locks from Carlito, but it had many nice moves and good wrestling action. It suffered from being heel vs. heel, but the crowd certainly seemed to get behind Shelton Benjamin. The last few minutes of the match were particularly strong with some nice near falls. I especially liked the sequence when Benjamin went for his finisher, but Carlito caught him and turned it into a back breaker. I was a bit disappointed at the end when Benjamin didn’t do the full leap to the top rope, but what he did do was still very athletic and impressive, and probably a lot safer so I am fine with it.

ECW MISSES

Battle Royale before WrestleMania: Not that I was looking forward to seeing the 24 man Battle Royale at WrestleMania, it is weak that it is only going to be on wwe.com before the actual PPV. If WWE had announced that from the start, I would probably be fine with it. But, when they announced multiple times that the Battle Royale was going to be on WrestleMania itself, I feel a little ripped off when less than a week before the event they change the lineup. If this was the plan all along, then it is ridiculous. WresleMania’s card is looking less than thrilling, and the Battle Royale would probably not add too much, but it would be something.

Main Event: I was intrigued during the early scene between Chavo Guerrero, Tommy Dreamer, and Colin Delaney. I was curious to see where WWE was going with Guerrero vs. Dreamer. I thought it had the potential to be a good TV main event. After the Hall of Fame video, it looked like the match was going to have a good amount of time, but then they had the mixed tag match, which wasn’t needed on this show, and by the time they went to multiple commercials and had ring intros, the Main Event only ended up being about three minutes long. Dreamer looked weak. I guess Chavo looked strong going into WrestleMania, until he got beat up by the guys at ringside. It just didn’t work for me.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and TNA Impact each week. Email him at jmezz-torch@sbcglobal.net.

For another view from the original Hitlist author, compare Jason Powell's views to mine by visiting prowrestling.NET's "Hitlist" section here.

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