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ECW HITS

Jack Swagger: Swagger carries himself like a star, and he is really showing his great potential. He had a very good showing against Tommy Dreamer in the extreme rules match last week, and he handled himself very well on the mic this week. He has a lisp, but it is natural and shouldn't fit in with his gimmick. He still sounds good and confident on the mic which is what is important. I like how he demanded Teddy Long come to the ring and officially name him the new #1 Contender for Matt Hardy's ECW Championship. Things went downhill with Ricky Ortiz's appearance. Tiffany is a little too biased towards him, and Long is too biased against Swagger. However, Swagger held up his part of the bargain. He also did well in the match, which wasn't very good. It was o.k., but Ortiz just isn't very impressive. Luckily, Swagger is.

Mark Henry: Mark Henry can deliver a promo. I like the fact that he still has Tony Atlas in his corner, but he is back to talking for himself now. His back and forth with Finlay was good. It was nice that they followed up on the lame non-ending to their match from last week. While both were good on the mic, Henry was particularly memorable. I loved what he said about Hornswoggle (or the little troll) coming from fighting stock. It worked well to advance their feud and set up what should be a pay off match. I don't particularly look forward to seeing the match, but I am hopeful that it will lead to an end to the feud.

MVP vs. Hardy: This was a nice reminder of the angle that was the highlight of the year on Smackdown in 2007. It is too bad that Hardy had appendicitis causing the feud to have too much of a gap in it. These two work very well together. They put on a good main event match. It had plenty of good wrestling action, with several counters. The announcers did a nice job of putting this match into the context of their previous feud in talking about how well they know each other. Really, Todd Grisham and Matt Striker deserve a lot of credit for the job that they are doing on ECW (by the way, did I catch a veiled reference to Chris Benoit from Striker in talking about MVP's first big feud which culminated at WrestleMania 23?). I'm still not thrilled with how Montel Vontavious Porter is being used, but I would much rather see him lose to Matt Hardy in a 14 minute competitive match, than lose to Funaki with the help of The Great Khali.

ECW MISSES

DX: I don't mind these Degeneration X shopzone infomercials as a general rule. Both have had some funny parts so far. Both have had some not so funny parts. The real problem that I have is that we have to see them three times in a week. It gets old after the first. ECW is only an hour, and it already is shortened by a video on Mr. Kennedy's new movie which we also saw on Raw. Throw in an appearance by a jobber and another by a Smackdown wrestler, and there isn't enough time in that hour devoted to the ECW roster. Who watches ECW, but not Raw? It can't be very many people if any. So, don't waste time with less than stellar videos that we already saw the night before.

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