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The Specialists
1/13 WWE ECW Hits & Misses: Dreamer's Speech, Hardy vs. Swagger, New Champ Jan 14, 2009 - 5:25:12 PM
Dreamer's Speech: It is hard to take Tommy Dreamer seriously at this point in his career. But, that was actually incorporated into this promo, so it worked. This was about how he isn't as good as he used to be. He is questioning himself, just as the fans are questioning his abilities at this point. Dreamer was good on the delivery. It sets up an interesting program over the next five months to see how this develops and where WWE goes from here with it.
Swagger vs. Hardy: This was Jack Swagger's best match to date, which makes sense given the time allowed, the importance of the match and his opponent, Matt Hardy. The match had a few flaws, but mostly from the production side. I could have done without two commercial breaks. I know the match was long, but at 16 minutes, it wasn't that long. They could have come up with a better plan to show more of the match itself. That would have been nice as the match itself was very good. Swagger needs to learn some new arm holds, as the one he used multiple times grew tiresome. I did like how he later went for a fujimara arm bar to shake things up a bit. Plus, that hold just looks better than the lazy one he was using. The match really picked up nicely the last few minutes as Hardy made his come back and hit some big moves. It was nice to see Swagger selling more than we've seen him before. He looked good. The ending sequence was strong, as was the use of the exposed turnbuckle.
New Champ: I am a big fan of Matt Hardy, and I enjoyed his Title reign on ECW. He was a deserving Champion, and I hope he will get the belt back again. But, I like the idea of giving Swagger the Title. If you are going to push him as a big star, why not give him the Title so soon? Unlike Vladimir Kozlov on Smackdown, Swagger has a lot of skill and is still actually undefeated. They can really build him up on ECW as the Champion, keep him undefeated and ultimately move him to Raw or Smackdown in a meaningful way. Keep him off those shows for now. A feud with Hardy for the belt (considering the victory was slightly tainted from the exposed turnbuckle, a rematch would certainly be in line) could be great t.v. for a few months. Can they get this guy a PPV match now?
ECW MISSES
A Lot Happening, But Nothing Going On: That is how I felt about most of ECW before the main event. Tommy Dreamer's speech felt important, but nothing else in the first 40 minutes or so of the show did. It reminded me of the old 1 hour Impacts, when TNA crammed too much content into the one hour. A lot happened in those 40 minutes, but nothing felt important. Nothing sank in. Nothing was very entertaining. My notes for ECW were much longer this week than last as so many little short bits aired. The show started with a Jack Swagger video. Then there was a short mixed tag match, followed immediately by the Steve Austin Hall of Fame video. After Dreamer's speech, they played another video on Swagger. There was a bizarre random scene backstage with Tiffany, Ricky Ortiz, Hornswoggle and Finlay which seemed to accomplish nothing. That was followed by another Boogeyman squash which is by its very nature meaningless. Then they aired a Smackdown rebound, which was at least not the normal Raw rebound. Then they had a very short interview with ECW Champion Matt Hardy. That was four scenes crammed into one segment, and none of them felt important. They even managed to waste even more time with a Vince McMahon video squeezed in before the main event.
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.S
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