by Dominick Mayer, Torch specialist

Tonight on ECW: A gigantic battle royale for a spot in the MITB match at Wrestlemania. Victory, thy name is Boogeyman. Oh...wait. Too soon for Boogeyman jokes?

Title sequence.

The Miz is on his way out, apparently for singles action. Striker then takes us to exclusive footage of this week's Dirt Sheet on WWE.com, in which they make bad colon jokes about the Colons. Morrison is on guest commentary. Yes.

Primo, Carlito, and the Bella twins are out to what sounds like a pretty huge pop. Wonder if that's sweetener or genuine. This Friday, on Smackdown, Miz and Morrison versus Primo and Carlito for Miz and Morrison's titles. Yay for giving away more Mania matches!

1 -- THE MIZ (w/John Morrison) vs. PRIMO COLON (w/Carlito & The Bella Twins)

It's Miz and Primo for this one. Morrison and Carlito go at each other on commentary right away. Primo with a shoulderblock. Miz leapfrogs him, but Primo kicks Miz's legs out from under him. Primo takes Miz into the corner and hits some standing punches. Primo with a near fall. Primo gets a boot up out of the corner, but Miz sends him to the floor after blocking a springboard attempt. Cut to break. A quick note: Morrison is hysterical on commentary. He and Carlito are also being funny without being too distracting, which is usually a big problem with these setups.

[Commercial Break]

Miz is in control out of the break. Primo gets a huge cross body block off the top rope for a two count. He goes for one off the ropes, but Miz ducks and Primo eats mat, rolling to the outside. Miz taunts Carlito while forearming Primo. Miz gives Primo some knees to the back, but Primo gets a boot to Miz's face. Miz catapults Primo into the bottom rope for two. Miz applies a surfboard stretch. He keeps alternating versions of the hold, which is pretty cool. Primo breaks free, but Miz runs him into the corner. Miz takes Primo up top, but Primo rolls over Miz's back and hits an electric chair drop. Nice move.

They strike back and forth, with Primo hitting a flying elbow and a big dropkick. He gets a springboard dropkick on Miz for a close two count. Miz hits a rolling snapmare for another close two count. An exchange of close pins goes down, with Miz taking the advantage. Primo goes for a cross body block off the second rope, but Miz counters into a powerslam for another near fall.

[Q2]

Miz goes for a running knee into the corner, but Primo ducks and while Miz is suspended on the second rope, Primo gets a backstabber for the pin and the win.

WINNER: Primo Colon in 12:00. Out of nowhere, we get what might be one of the best matches on ECW this year so far. Really good back and forth action, with Miz leading as the heel grounding the high-flier. The last three minutes or so of the match saw some great near falls (I don't think I've seen that modified snapmare Miz used before) and Primo getting a win. Carlito and Morrison were great on commentary as well, advancing their feud without falling into the annoying shouting match territory I expected. It's also really nice to see an undercard TV match get twelve minutes; regardless of promotion, that doesn't happen much these days, even with the main event.

Grisham and Striker talk about "12 Rounds" and go to the video package on the villain that ran last night on Raw.

Backstage, Great Khali is getting psyched for the battle royal later tonight.

[Commercial Break]

Did You Know: Last week, more male teens watched ECW than anything on ABC, NBC or CBS.

A recap runs of Natalya beating Alicia Fox last week, and DJ Gabriel beating on Tyson Kidd.

Kidd and Natalya are on their way out. Kidd looks to be in singles action. Gabriel comes out staring at Kidd instead of dancing. Nice little touch to the character.

2 -- TYSON KIDD (w/Natalya) vs. DJ GABRIEL (w/Alicia Fox)

Gabriel takes Kidd down early on with an uppercut. Gabriel misses with an attempted clothesline in the corner. On the outside, Kidd kicks Gabriel around the post. In the ring, Kidd kicks Gabriel in the back, hard. One count. Kidd locks in a modified camel clutch, but Gabriel breaks free. Kidd gets more kicks. Gabriel gets a reverse flapjack for two. Gabriel lifts Kidd for a vertical suplex, but Kidd leads him over to the ropes. Kidd hangs Gabriel on the ropes, and gets the springboard elbow right after for the win.

WINNER: Kidd in 2:00. It's funny, I was just about to write about how this is the best Gabriel has looked in the ring to date, and that there was some good back and forth action going on, but then it ended. Good while it lasted. I'm really intrigued by this sudden burial of Gabriel. He's not the worst undercard wrestler in WWE; in fact, he's not even the worst one on this show.

Later tonight: Battle royale.

[Commercial Break]

[Q3]

The latest Evan Bourne video airs. He's back next week.

Grisham and Striker recap the horror movie chase scene from the end of Raw last night. My take on this is that when Austin and Pillman did it, it worked because they were both convincing as nutcases. Also, there was a gun involved, and removing the moral issues that presents for a second, it actually seemed like a home invasion. With this, Triple H is defending a group of people most fans don't care about against a guy being booked as a wuss next to him. I'm not a Hunter hater, and I think these guys will have an excellent Mania match, but the visual of Hunter tearing through the door like Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" is the silliest thing since his WM22 Conan the Barbarian getup. On another note, this video package is a waste of ECW time.

In the arena: Battle royale time. Entrances in order: Cryme Tyme, Vladimir Kozlov, Christian, William Regal, Great Khali and then we cut away to a break.

[Commercial Break]

The Wrestlemania 9 package airs. Do we really need to get nostalgic for that? I remember thinking even as a little kid that it was dumb, and when I re-watched it last summer, it was just as terrible as I remembered.

After the break: R-Truth raps his way through the crowd. The crowd is popping huge for him.

[Q4]

3 -- MONEY IN THE BANK BATTLE ROYAL

Ricky Ortiz gets rolled seconds into the match. Justice is served. Kung Funaki is next, and Kozlov goes down courtesy of Khali. Everybody does the gang-up thing on Khali and gets rid of him. Dolph Ziggler gets rid of Jimmy Wang Yang. Charlie Haas sighting! He's out, though. Ziggler lowbridges Golddust to get rid of him. Ziggler is out next. Cryme Tyme gets rid of Paul Burchill not long after. Then, right before the final break, JTG throws Shad out of the ring.

[Commercial Break]

After the break, R-Truth, Christian, William Regal, Chavo Guerrero, and Tommy Dreamer are the final five left in the ring. A strange Doomsday Device goes down that leaves only Regal standing. Dreamer gets a spike DDT on Regal, but Regal skins the cat and throws Dreamer out of the ring. R-Truth and Christian go at each other with some hard shots. Truth misses with an axe kick that leads to him getting hung up on the top rope. Chavo takes advantage of this and throws Truth out. He tries to get rid of Christian, but Christian hangs on. Christian goes for the Unprettier on Chavo, but Regal breaks it up. Regal tries to throw Christian out, but he skins the cat and suplexes Regal to the outside. It's down to Christian and Chavo now. Christian slides between Chavo's legs and back into the ring. Chavo hits the Three Amigos. He goes up for the frogsplash, but when Christian gets up, he improvises and rolls through. Some acrobatic, and then Chavo skins the cat. They struggle near the top rope. Christian hangs in midair for a wild amount of time. They fight side by side, and Christian finally kicks Chavo to the floor for the win.

WINNER: Christian in 12:00. Decent battle royale, though Christian was pretty much the obvious finish from the start. Good action between him and Chavo at the end. Christian has to be the MITB favorite at this point.

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