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The Specialists
12/30 WWE ECW Hits & Misses: Dirt Sheet, Finlay & Boogeyman, Hardy vs. Henry Dec 31, 2008 - 12:40:10 PM
The Dirt Sheet: This Hit is for the Dirt Sheet before Finlay and Hornswoggle's appearance. The Miz and John Morrison were their usual great selves on the mic. They were very funny in issuing their own New Year's Resolutions. Their bickering over who will win the Royal Rumble was great, particularly when Miz said that Morrison would just show up to Bedazzle his abs. Their short list of Resolutions of Superstars wasn't great, but it certainly was funnier than Goldust's list of Christmas presents on Raw. Unfortunately, the segment went downhill once Finlay and son showed up (more on that later).
Henry vs. Hardy: This wasn't a great match, buy it was good enough to land in the Hit column. Mark Henry has had a good year and it was nice to see him involved in a solid match with a very good storyline progression to end the year on ECW. Matt Hardy played his part well and really created some movement with the slower Henry. His comeback towards the end was very well done. His Side Effect on Henry was actually quite impressive. I liked the interference from Jack Swagger. By hurting Hardy, it advanced what needs to become a real feud for the ECW Championship. It also angered Henry and kept him from getting a win over the ECW Champ. Henry's facial reactions were very good too.
ECW MISSES
Finlay and Boogeyman: I just haven't been into Finlay and Hornswoggle lately. Their act has grown so stale. I used to list Hornswoggle in the Hit column early this year, but no longer. Finlay can still get it done in the ring, and there is still comedic potential in Hornswoggle, but the writing for the two has been way too redundant the last few months. Boogeyman can't wrestle, and it was wise to keep him out of the ring during the main event tag match. However, if he can't wrestle even in a tag match, why keep him around? His gimmick is old and stale too, despite taking several months off. The Main Event wasn't good. The only thing to save it is that Miz & Morrison picked up the win. Afterwards, Finlay acted like a heel. I would take a heel turn at this point.
Burchill vs. Gabriel: This was a pretty boring 6 minute match. I don't see much use in having Paul Burchill on ECW. Having Katie Lea on ECW with few Divas to wrestle doesn't make much sense, but I guess she can continue to appear on Raw (or even Smackdown) with the working agreement between the two brands or whatever. I would have a role reversal and push Katie Lea in the women's division on Raw with Paul as her enforcer. That would be something different and might work. But, I don't think WWE wants to push two heel Divas at the same time on the same show. Getting back to the match, it was just rather slow. I thought both guys were heels, so there was nobody to cheer for, but I guess DJ Gabriel is a babyface? I don't even know. He is the one on the rise, yet he got to show very little offense which doesn't make sense.
Too Many Videos: I have said this way too many times in 2008, but I have to say it again one last time (at least this year). On a one hour show, there are too many pre-produced videos. This week's had the video from Smackdown of Kizarny stating that he will be on the show on Friday. Why is a Smackdown video airing on ECW? Later they showed the latest video that had already aired on Raw hyping "Behind Enemy Lines: Columbia." Then they showed the Raw Rebound for the one household that lost power on Monday Night and missed Raw but decided to tune into ECW.
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.
Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.
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