By Wade Keller, Torch editor

This was originally published as Wade Keller's editorial exclusively in the PWTorch Newsletter #1021 (4-19-08)...

If you missed ECW this week, you missed a historical performance. The month of March will be remembered for Ric Flair's big weekend at the Hall of Fame, against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania, and on Raw in his retirement ceremony. April could have been remembered for Samoa Joe's TNA Title win over Kurt Angle or the big ladder spot on top of the cage between Christian and Styles. Instead, a veteran journeyman announcer named Mike Adamle stole the spotlight.

In a ridiculous decision by Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn, the overpaid and ill-equipped Mike Adamle (of network sports, local sports, and American Gladiators fame over the past couple decades) replaced Joey Styles as host of ECW. If there was anything left that gave ECW any lineage to the original of the '90s, Styles was it. Sure, there's Tazz and Tommy Dreamer and now and then a little Stevie Richards and Balls Mahoney, but Styles was the constant presence for 60 minutes.

It had become pretty pointless in certain respects to talk about the old ECW, though. Tuesday night's on Sci-Fi is basically Smackdown Lite, with various guest stars from Smackdown visiting while ECW-exclusives such as Colin Delaney, Dreamer, Mike Knox, and Elijah Burke, and C.M. Punk fill out the show. Oh yeah, there are the dancing divas to justify the "E" in the title as they're supposed to be "extreme" and "edgy" when they dance provocatively. Otherwise, there's no much left of the original ECW. (It was fitting that Tod Gordon announced his retirement from pro wrestling this week after years promoting on the indy scene since leaving ECW over ten years ago.)

Had Styles been replaced with someone younger, with more potential, and with better political skills behind the scenes, it might have been forgiveable. Instead, he was replaced with someone who put in a performance as bad as that old guy doing the guest shot at WrestleMania however many years ago it was. Adamle, though, wasn't a guest celebrity filling in for fun. He is a professionally trained, highly paid (reported 300K per year), experienced announcer who has been groomed the last couple months for this opportunity. Yet he went on the air without knowledge of the names of ECW wrestlers or even the names of the most basic holds. You may have heard of "Boom Goes the Dynamite" and Bryan Collins. (If not, look it up on YouTube.) This was on that level of bad, except it last 60 minutes.

Between the uncomfortable stretches of dead air, Adamle managed to do the following:

-Called his broadcast partner "The Tazz" instead of "Tazz."

-He got around to calling the first cover of the show after the kickout had already taken place.

-Referred to Shelton Benjamin as "Shel-DON."

-He called an obvious boot by Kane to John Morrison's face a "knee to the chest."

-He called a legbar by Miz a "figure-four leglock." (Tazz corrected him promptly.)

-He stammered when trying to say Jimmy Wang Yang's name. Tazz had to save him.

-He said Kofi Kingston's "reputation preceded him" because he got an ovation from the fans. (That's just stupid on several levels.)

-He called a dropkick by Kofi a "leg kick."

-He said Kofi was "Jamaican me crazy!"

-He said he talked to Mike Knox and learned his strategy against Tommy Dreamer was to be "methodical" and "put him away early," a contradiction if you think about it for a second or two.

-He called Miz & Morrison the "WW Tag Champions," leaving out the "E."

-He called Miz "Mike the Miz."

-When Miz reached out to tag in Morrison, Adamle said, "Reach out and touch someone, Michael!" (That's a phrase from AT&T commercials for those under age 40 who may not have seen those commercials in the '70s.)

-He said you have a tendency to look at Morrison and say he's built like Tarzan but punches like Jane - until you see him wrestle.

It was one of those nights where you had to call fellow wrestling fans and tell them to tune in because nobody would believe it if they didn't see and hear it for themselves. Adamle is not equipped for this job. WWE should buy him out. There's no recovering from this. It revealed too much about Adamle that he's this far behind. He'll never have a "feel" for things even if he can memorize the basics.

The fact that Kevin Dunn thought Adamle was ready to go on the air is the biggest indictment against his respect for and knowledge of this industry. He's always been about veneer over substance. This was the personification of that bankrupt philosophy.

RELATED STORY at PWTorch.com: ECW Reax #1 for Mike Adamle's Debut: "Watching ECW tonight felt like tagging along on a really uncomfortable first date."

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