By Jon Mezzera, Torch Specialist

ECW HITS

Tatsu vs. Burchill: After a horrible start to ECW, the show turned out to be quite good, starting with this match between Yoshi Tatsu and Paul Burchill. Burchill has really found himself in his feud with The Hurricane / Gregory Helms. His character work has improved, as has his in ring work. He delivered well in this 6 minute match. Tatsu continues to show his unique and fun style. He hits some great high flying moves and his kicks look strong. I assumed Burchill would get the win, setting up Hurricane to make the save, so I was pleasantly surprised when Tatsu got the win. I would have been fine the other way, but I like being surprised.

Ryder vs. Christian: After some nice ECW tv, the show had a very good ending with the main event ECW Title match between Zack Ryder and Christian. Ryder has arrived on ECW. He deserved to get a Title shot and delivered well. Christian was great too. They really worked well together to put on a very good match. It went 13 minutes and was exciting from start to finish. I liked how Christian played head games with the less experienced challenger early on. Ryder did a good job of working on Christian's ribs after throwing him into the steps. Christian made several mini come backs to keep things interesting as Ryder controlled the middle of the match. There were some very nice nearfalls and Ryder was clearly elevated by coming close to becoming ECW Champion. I wonder what happened to Kurt Hawkins? Does he sit at home watching thinking "I can say 'woo woo woo' too!"?

ECW MISSES

Abraham Washington Show: This was a good episode of ECW, but it got off to a piss poor start with the Abraham Washington Show. I read a few weeks ago about what seemed to be a write off for the show that was taped but didn't air (other than on wwe.com). I was hoping that was going to be the end of the show, but I guess not. The dated references are so bad. It is bad enough when you get Washington and Tony Atlas making lame references to Lucky Charms, etc., but to have a badass heel wrestler making "Sanford and Son" reference, it really hurts his credibility. I also wasn't thrilled with his look. His look makes him unique, and a large part of that is his hair do. He just looked too normal. Shelton Benjamin didn't help matters with his poor mic performance and the ridiculous red hair graphic he showed. Shaemus vs. Benjamin has potential to be a very good match, but the build has been really crappy so far.

Jon Mezzera is PWTorch.com's WWE Hits & Misses Specialist, providing his point of view for Raw, Smackdown, ECW, and Superstars 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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