By Michael Simmons, Torch specialist

Hello once again and welcome to yet another week of the column that dares to go beyond what meets the eye in the Land of Extreme. Ladies and gentlemen, this ... is ECW: Under the Microscope.

Just a reminder, this is not a recap. If you want match-by-match analysis and results, check out Caldwell's, Mayer's, and Parks's ECW TV reports on the main page. If you want ECW analysis, check out the ECW Roundtable reviews on the main page as well. If you want Bam Neely rehired, well, you're out of luck.

Let's get to it.

This week's ECW emanates from Sioux City, Iowa. Iowa has actually produced quite a few wrestlers over the years, including former TNA wrestler Matt Bentley and legendary wrestler Frank Gotch. Sioux City hosted a Smackdown taping in 2005. It's interesting to note out of the 14 wrestlers who appeared on that episode, only Carlito, Hardcore Holly, JBL, and John Cena are still with the company four years later.

The Microscope picked up the addition of the letters "HD" in the ECW show introduction video. This makes ECW the last of the four national professional wrestling programs to have HD embedded in its show logo. It only took producers 51 weeks after the high-definition switch to figure this out.

On the January 6 edition of ECW, Alicia Fox made her in-ring debut for the brand in a losing effort to Katie Lea Burchill. Fox debuted in OVW on July 1, 2006 under the name "Tori." She shares no relation to Terri Poch, best known as a hysterical Sable fan and X-Pac's on-screen girlfriend for much of the late '90s-early 2000s.

Fox actually won the OVW Women's Championship at a house show in 2006. Unfortunately, the title change was not recognized by OWV officials, and in addition to serving as a valet for D.J. Gabriel, she routinely wrestles for WWE's developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling.

Matt Striker made it a point a couple of weeks ago during Paul Burchill's match against Gabriel that it was his first appearance on ECW in his career. The only problem with that statement is it's simply not true. Burchill's Titanton video features a fairly lengthy shot of Paul and his sister Katie Lea making their entrance from the ECW stage circa-2007.

I'm sorry Matt; please give your Slammy back.

By the way, what happened to Todd Grisham's and Striker's Slammy? It usually sits on the broadcast table for the duration of the show, but this week it was noticeably absent.

Maybe it's a taste of Striker's own medicine.

Then-aspiring wrestler Matthew Kaye was a high school social studies teacher in Queens, New York until he resigned from the position in 2005 when it was discovered he was using sick days in order to keep up with his wrestling commitments.

Hilariously, someone saw him on a February episode of Smackdown match against Kurt Angle and reported him to the school board. The board later found out Kaye was using sick days to go work a tour for the Zero-One promotion out of Japan. He resigned shortly thereafter. I think he rebounded nicely.

During Tommy Dreamer's highly emotional promo this past week, he uttered, "My friends, my wife, my daughters, and the man I am today are all because of ECW." There is certainly truth to that as Tommy met his wife Trisa Hayes through the original ECW, known throughout her stint as Beulah McGillicutty.

The man we saw on the receiving end of The Boogeyman's worm treatment this week was indy wrestler Sammy Savard. Savard is a trainer at the new Gagne Wrestling Academy in Minneaplois/St. Paul, Minnesota. He also occasionally wrestles for the Heavy On Wrestling promotion out of Duluth, Minnesota.

Lee Stevens's Microscope noticed Angle, Mick Foley, Scott Steiner, and Brock Lesnar in Stone Cold Steve Austin's Hall of Fame announcement. The ECW Microscope uncovered more names to add to that list, including D-Lo Brown, Ron Simmons, Sgt. Slaugter, and referees Jimmy Korderas, Tim White, and Mickey Henson, all of whom were wished the best in their future endeavors within the past week.

Matt Striker noted "some dignitaries in attendance," including National championship running back from the University of Florida Percy Harvin and "sexy senior citizen" Cloris Leachman. Striker said, "Marisa Tomei is interested in how it really goes down."

There aren't too many wrestling connections here, however Tomei gives a Golden Globe-nominated along with Mickey Rourke in the critically acclaimed "The Wrestler," which is playing in many markets in the United States and will open nationwide in theaters this Friday.

Jack Swagger is your new ECW Champion, and without suffering a one-on-one loss since his debut on ECW, Swagger joins quite the list of former world champions who carved their way to the title without a loss.

One of the most notable examples was Bill Goldberg, who WCW claimed had gone 173-0 before losing the title to Kevin Nash at Starrcade 1998. There has been tons of speculation about whether WCW inflated his streak to further push the guy. In just his WCW career, he's only suffered six defeats, with three handed to him by Bret Hart. Booker T, Scott Steiner, and Nash defeated him one time each, three of the members of TNA's Main Event Mafia.

Jack Swagger's title win this past week makes him the 45th ECW Champion, if you trace its lineage back to the original ECW. If you only trace the history of the title since the ECW brand re-launch, Swagger is only the 13th champion.

Swagger also holds the distinction of being the fifth ECW Champion since the WWE re-launch to claim the title on ECW on Sci-Fi. Rob Van Dam was awarded the ECW title on the first episode, The Big Show beat him for it on July 4, 2006, C.M. Punk won it on September 1, 2007, and Chavo Guerrero's forgettable reign began January 22, 2008.

Hopefully Swagger can carve a better legacy for himself than Chavo did.

Yeah, I said it.

Long live the Era of Swagger!

Michael Simmons goes "Under The Microscope" for ECW every week. Feel free to leave comments below or e-mail him at Sironsim@aol.com.

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