ECW on Sci-Fi 09/02/2008 #117

We’re in Pittsburgh and we start with The Dirt Sheet. John Morrison brags about beating Stephen Hawking at 44 consecutive games of Pachisi. It gets no reaction so Miz says hello and gets booed. He mentions Unforgiven is taking place in his hometown of Ohio and gets even more boos. I don’t know much about American cities but I know that Ohio is up there with Detroit for ”name somewhere that’s going to get booed.”

Mark Henry & Tony Atlas join them and Miz & Morrison kiss up to them. Then Chavo & Neely show up with overdubbed farting and mocking mariachi music. Miz & Morrison explain Finlay couldn’t be here as he couldn’t get a babysitter for Hornswoggle so they cut to Finlay’s brothers:

Morrison & Miz talk about Finlay being a loser and wetting the bed every night and losing to girls at school and oirish oirish beggorah etc. Finlay comes out and tells Hornswoggle to say hello to his uncles so he kicks Miz in the shin to the biggest pop of the segment. Matt ”guy who beat Morrison to qualify for the Scramble Match” Hardy is next and he calls Miz and Morrison gay but it’s cool because it’s 2008. He talks about Chavo hanging out with Bam to seem like a good conversationalist. It all dissolves into a big brawl and The Dirt Sheet got a lot of love on WWE dot com but live the dumb sophomore comedy died a quiet death with anything not involving Miz.

Back from break the brawl is continuing backstage so Teddy Long intervenes.

Miz: They ruined our show!
Teddy Long: Your show was ruined as soon as your mouth opened.

Teddy makes an eight-man tag match because he’s Teddy.

Super Crazy vs. Gavin Spears

Or SoOOoper Crazy as Tony Chimel calls him. This is Spears’ second appearance. This is the future Tye Dillinger’s second appearance, you may remember him as that over guy who said TEN but I think that happened before his run as Gavin Spears as it feels so long ago. Crazy does some cool-looking leg locks to begin as everyone talks about Rey Mysterio replacing John Cena. Did we get Crazy vs. Mysterio ever? Spears dominates with the default Smackdown 2 CAW offence (knee drops! drop toe holds!) and crowd doesn’t care enough to get behind Crazy when he’s in a rest hold. Crazy powers out and starts nailing dropkicks to wake the crowd up. Crazy lands a springboard moonsault to end it out of nowhere.

Winner: SoOOoper Crazy (Gavin wasn’t ready to be on TV as there was nothing impressive about him but it didn’t help they gave him nothing in terms of gimmick or segments like Ricky Ortiz or Braden Walker. Happy to see Crazy doing something though.)

Ricky Ortiz vs. Ryan Braddock

Ryan’s also known as AAW stalwart Jay Bradley and Impact wrestler Aiden O’Shea. He doesn’t get an entrance and doesn’t deserve one. Ricky is getting bigger pops every week and there’s a decent amount of rally towels in the crowd too. See the benefits of having a character and gimmicks? Eat shit Gavin Spears. Braddock’s offence is plodding and clubbering until Ortiz sends him down with a flying shoulderblock. Todd says he tried to speak with Ryan earlier but he ignored him to cover for the fact he doesn’t know anything about him. Striker deals with this by making up stuff about him. Braddock gets a nice knee-of-the-second-rope-onto-Ricky’s-head-like-a-skateboard that gets ignored by the commentators as they talk about Mark Henry. An extra-long chinlock brings the crowd up then kills them again. Ortiz nails more shoulderblocks and ends it with The Big O.

Winner: Ricky Ortiz (Week by week Ricky gets better. He’s still greener than the 17th March but the pops are getting bigger which makes up for it.)

RAW REBOUND: HBK is still mad about Jericho punching his wife and showing no remorse so he’s coming out of retirement because the Saudis offered too much money to get his revenge. The Unforgiven Unsanctioned Match turned out to be nothing due to HBK’s injuries during the brawl on Raw but the feud was white-hot. This segment also gave us this reaction picture that stuck around for years:

Josh Mathews is at the Republican Centre with Mickie James and Mr. Kennedy to tell us to Smackdown Your Vote and ah fuck it, these segments are too boring to recap. Get Val Venis at the Libertarian Convention high as a kite and then we’re talking.

Matt Hardy, Tommy Dreamer, Evan Bourne & Finlay vs. Mark Henry, Chavo Guerrero, The Miz & John Morrison

Morrison and Matt start off and it’s won by Matt who tags in to Finlay who takes Morrison into the corner who tags in Chavo. Rest of the baddies are able to attack Fit in the corner but he powers out and goes back to beating up Chavo. Guerrero tries a dive on the outside but Finlay smothers him with the cover and Hornswoggle takes out Bam Neely because Bam Neely sucks.

Back from break and Finlay is surprisingly still beating up Chavo. Bourne tags in and this is first TV main event so he’s extra smooth in turning for a Chavo tilt-a-whirl. Miz gets planted with a standing moonsault for two and that brings in Mark Henry to hurl Bourne around like a kleenex at a snot party. All the wrong ‘uns take turns in beating up the twunk until Dreamer tags in and pounds away on Chavo. Henry charges in to demolish Dreamer and Chavo tags back in to lick the bones clean. Tommy’s able to tag in Matt to massive cheers but he can’t pin Chavo who quickly tags in Henry again. Henry misses the Splash so Bourne tags in and connects with the Shooting Star Press. Dreamer tags in and nails a Frog Splash off the top and then Finlay connects with the Earthquake butt-drop. All the goodies knock the baddies off the apron and Matt finishes Henry with the Twist of Fate.

Winners: Matt Hardy, Tommy Dreamer, Evan Bourne & Finlay (Decent, fun and loud main event to tide us over until Unforgiven. Nothing else to say.)

Overall: Well the big PPV match was set up last week so this was clock-watching until the main event. Not an essential episode but still light-years ahead of 2007 so I’ll forgive it.

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