By Michael Simmons, Torch specialist

Hi everybody! (Insert lame Simpsons reference here.) Welcome to yet another week of the column that dares to go beyond what meets the eye in the Land of Extreme. Ladies and gentlemen, this ... is ECW: Under the Microscope.

Just a reminder, this is not a recap. If you want match by match analysis and results, check out Caldwell's, Mayer's, and Parks' ECW TV reports on the main page. If you want ECW analysis, check out the ECW Roundtable Reviews on the main page as well. If you want to keep seeing The Boogeyman on television every week, get your head examined. Let's get it started.

Jack Swagger, at the age of 26, is the second-youngest ECW Champion in history, only behind Mikey Whipwreck. Whipwreck was only 22 years old when he captured the title in a ladder match against the Sandman on October 25, 1995. Whipwreck's reign only lasted 42 days. Here's hoping Swagger will keep the title a little bit longer.

Swagger's first entrance as ECW Champion produced a hilarious moment. As Swagger paraded around the ring with the title, he shouted into the Chicago crowd, "Yes We Can." At that moment, you can actually hear cheers for the cocky new champ. Or maybe it was because a certain Senator from Chicago was going to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States that next day. (Microscope note: the taping was held prior to Raw on Monday night.)

Todd Grisham and Matt Striker made mention of Ricky Ortiz's football background in the Arena Football League, Canadian Football League, XFL, and the NFL. Ortiz pulled out an old wrestling favorite during his match this week: the three point stance. The move has been used by many great mat technicians of the sport over the years including Goldberg, Lex Luger, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Okay maybe "great" isn't the best word to describe them. Ho!

Ortiz was billed this past week from Paradise Valley, Arizona. Paradise Valley is home to a few notable people, from wrestlers (Superstar Billy Graham) to basketball players (Shaquille O'Neal and Grant Hill) to umm…actresses (Jenna Jameson). You can insert another "Ho!" reference here if you like.

Ortiz's opponent this week was established independent wrestler Adam Evans. Evans started training to become a professional wrestler at the tender age of 14. Since then, he's gone on to wrestle for numerous indy promotions including IWA Mid-South, and even holds a win against a young Ken Kennedy.

Matt Striker, self-proclaimed wrestling nerd, proved once again this week he is the most knowledgeable wrestling commentator in the game. It's not because he correctly called a Saito Bomb or spent an entire Boogeyman match examining how worms are hermaphrodites (I'm serious, he really did that). Striker is an X-Men fan.

Striker called Katie Lea Burchill a "Scarlet Witch," which prompted a follow-up assumption that her brother Paul must be "Quicksilver." The brother and sister duo was part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants first seen in the 4th issue of the legendary comic book series X-Men.

During the main event, Matt Striker said, "Could you imagine a world where The Miz wins the Royal Rumble and goes on to win a title at WrestleMania?" Todd Grisham responded, "If so, that's one of the few championships Cleveland has ever won."

He's got that right. The Cleveland Browns were considered to be a dominant force throughout the 1950s but haven't captured an NFL title since 1964. The Cleveland Indians haven't won the World Series since 1948, and even with LeBron James at the helm, the Cleveland Cavaliers still can't win an NBA title. As bad as their sports woes seem, I don't think they'll settle for a title as long as The Miz is involved.

The commentators made mention of the fact Mark Henry has the most Royal Rumble experience out of all of the men at ringside. Tony Atlas made his only appearance at the 1991 Rumble as Saba Simba, a horrible conceived, poorly received, borderline racist gimmick.

Finlay, The Miz, and John Morrison all have two years of Rumble match experience, while Mark Henry has been in the Rumble match, by my count, four times. I'm not a math major in college so if you catch any errors in my arithmetic, feel free to let the good folks here at the Microscope know.

Neckwear is definitely popular in the ECW locker room as I caught six wrestling personalities wearing something around their necks. Matt Hardy had his Hardy Boys pendant, Swagger had a silver cross hanging from his neck, Striker had a silver beaded necklace, Katie Lea rocked a locket, Boogeyman had his clock, and John Morrison had whatever the hell he always has around his neck.

I know the idea of Under the Microscope is to pick up on things you might have missed, but this is too easy to pass up. When I saw the video package for this year's Royal Rumble: "By the Numbers," I thought it looked very familiar.

(By the way, look out for Psycho Sid, Big Bossman, Savio Vega, Vader, Raven, Al Snow, Steve Blackman, Marc Mero, and others in both videos.)

Here's the video preview the 2008 Rumble:



Check out the video for 2009:


They look just a little familiar, don't you think? Have fun watching the Rumble!

Michael Simmons has been a wrestling fan for 18 years and is co-host of The Atomic Drop Wrestling Show. Quite often, he goes into deep thought about some of wrestling’s greatest mysteries. You know, thought provoking questions like, "If the #30 spot in the Royal Rumble so great, how come in 20 years, only one #30 entrant actually the stupid thing?" If you know the answer, feel free to leave comments below or e-mail him at Sironsim@aol.com.

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