-- 1/12 ECW TV Reax

Braden Farrow, student (8.0): Best Match: Goldust vs. Trent Barreta. Worst Match: None. I thought this show was a solid example of what ECW should be. Granted, none of the matches stood out on the level of John Morrison vs. Evan Bourne or Christian vs. Zack Ryder that ECW has given us in the past, but they were good, they were solid, and there was no silly DX crap. Christian was actually hilarious on commentary rather than the over-aged Triple H and Shawn Michaels who force-feed us crap comedy that continues to de-value Raw. I thought Barreta and Goldust had a very solid match and Goldust does nothing but get better. He went from jobbing to being an actually entertaining mid-carder on the ECW Brand. The Battle Royal was okay, but Evan Bourne's early elimination was a disappointment. I'm not sure how I like Ezekiel Jackson winning, because he's kind of boring, but maybe Christian can help him out a bit. I'm actually hoping Christian loses at the Rumble and ends up qualifying for Money in the Bank, which he could actually win this year. Still, this was better than Raw and I thought Byron Saxton's heel tendencies were nice as they give a more balanced-flow to the commentary. Next week should be interesting.

Justin James of Columbia, S.C., IT professional/author (6.0): Best Match: Goldust vs. Barreta. Worst Match: Hurricane vs. Ryder. There was so little to hold my interest on this show, unfortunately. I like Zack Ryder, but his match with The Hurricane felt slow. There's very little heat to a match premised on "babyface tries to silence the bragging heel." Sorry, but I believe in the First Amendment, and I consider shutting someone up to be a heel act, not a face move. All the same, Rosa and Ryder did a good job pre-match. I enjoyed the Goldust-Barreta match. Goldust showed a lot of fire, and it reminded me of his excellent series with Sheamus. I think that both Barreta and Croft have a lot of promise, and I like the way they work together in tag matches. Both had enjoyable singles matches, which showed some style that differentiated them from the rest of the mid-card. Barreta's finishing move looked kind of neat, but I agree with Caldwell that the "Melina scream" needs to go or become more of a manly roar. The best part of the "over the rope challenge" was Christian tearing Byron Saxton apart. Saxton is desperately trying to get some "heel announcer" thing going, but he's no Matt Striker. He just spits out these bland sayings that could be applied to any sport. Good delivery, poor content. The Benjamin-Archer stuff was great from the pre-match beat down to Shelton sacrificing himself to take out Archer to the post-elimination brawl. Shelton Benjamin is a master of the "street fight," which we saw previously with Ryder, and I really like watching his tackle/beat down combo. I was hoping for a C.M. Punk victory here, but the house show reports gave it away. I am not looking forwards to Christian–Jackson for the Rumble, and it certainly won't sell any PPV buys. I'm expecting some sort of swerve to get Regal back into the picture; he can't have his toady getting the gold he failed to win, can he?

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