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TV Review: Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) on Sci-Fi Channel

15th Jun 2006, 03:10 GMT

Contrary to popular belief and the marketing material, Extreme Championship Wrestling is not back. In fact, this abomination -- that premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel (?) of all places -- doesn't even deserve to feature the CW in the name, let alone the E. It's nice to see some of the fans' favorites in action, but beyond that, anyone who put this together should be replaced. This hour long disaster was lucky to have 10 minutes of total wrestling. What the WWE has done is turn this into a promotional piece for their Pay-Per-Views and RAW. The show began with an extended promo segment involving Edge, Rob Van Dam, Paul Heyman, and John Cena. It eventually degraded into a melee that led to nothing other than letting the audience know they can pay for the upcoming PPV. Usually, ECW break out brawls generally featured some sort of weaponry, broken tables, or even a little blood. Fans were treated to nothing of the sort during this premiere. The first bout featured ECW favorite Sandman. Apparently, Vince McMahon was too cheap to spend the money to use Metallica's Enter Sandman for his entrance theme. He "battled" The Zombie, a ridiculous gimmick (also a cheap shot at Sci-Fi who requested characters like this before they agreed to run the show on their network). After a few shots with his Trademark Singapore Cane, it was over. The total match time was around 30 seconds. More promos for this week's Monday Night RAW followed before Kurt Angle took on Justin Credible in another short, disappointing match. A little technical wrestling can go a long way. Sadly, it doesn't help when it lasts less than five minutes. Following a commercial break, we're treated to the Jerry Lawler/Taz match from Sunday's One Night Stand PPV. As if they were trying to keep things in order, this too lasted less than a minute. The entrances of each wrestler lasted longer than the match. Paul Heyman then announced a battle royal as the main event; the winner would go on to face John Cena at the Vengeance PPV. After a brief stripper routine that went horribly wrong (how does a stripper forget how to take off a bra?), the introductions began. Tommy Dreamer, Sabu, Big Show, Little Guido, Roadkill, Al Snow, and Balls Mahoney amongst others took part. Dreamer seemed to be the only one to really "get it," blasting people repeatedly with scattered weapons littered about ringside. That's what ECW used to be about and why their rabid fan base is still vocal years after they initially went bankrupt. The fans had nothing to cheer about after this show and their "This match sucks!" chant was rightfully deserved. Sabu, obviously injured after his match at One Night Stand, came away the victor. As if on cue, a match with 10 people barely lasted more than five minutes, while the sloppy wrestling recalled nothing from the glory days of ECW. All of this was a pale, obviously rushed attempt to cash in on a name. This should have been a special night. Instead, all fans were served was disappointment. Matt Paprocki is the reviews editor for Digital Press, a classic video game website which he called home after his fanzine (Gaming Source) published its final issue. The deep game collection which spans nearly 30 systems and 2,000 games line his walls for reasearch purposes. Really.

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