ECW Report for June 30 – Developmental Programming
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From Fresno,
California
Tiffany started the show with a brief promo, mentioning that
while they lost some great superstars, they also gained some great ones, too.
And the new superstar initiative is still in full effect.
Shelton Benjamin v. Yoshi Tatsu
I’m
guessing someone in creative is a fan of Super Mario Bros. and heard Tatsumi
Fujinami’s name in passing somewhere. Tatsu is Naofumi Yamamoto, formerly of
FCW where he did wrestle under the name Yoshi Tatsu. He was playing a smiling
babyface, through and through. Before the match, Shelton got on the microphone and made some
generic Japanese-sounding noises. He then bowed to his opponent and to the
corners. Matt Striker: “This is just ignorant.” Did you hear that creative? Shelton then did the
crane kick stance from the Karate Kid, which I must admit was a bit humorous. He
then did a sumo stance and bowed to his opponent when Tatsu hit him with a
round kick to the head. That led to the abrupt cover and win. I’m not sure how
well ECW is going to treat Shelton
this time around. This would be the kind of thing you would do with a
low-midcard act like Santino Marella, not a guy who thought to be arguably the
top heel on the show with Swagger and Henry gone.
Tatsu d. Shelton,
Pin.
Up next was
another debut as Abraham Washington had a talk show with the Bella Twins. He
looks like Dwayne Johnson. Before he brought out his guests, he put over the
Bash and made a lame Paris Hilton joke. The crowd tried to drown the lame
monologue out with “what?” chants. He called 12 Rounds (on DVD today, by the
way) a financial disaster and then reminded us that John Cena beat the Miz
twice this week. He then brought out the Bella Twins. He invited his guests to
sit down by saying that his name isn’t O.J. Simpson; wow, what is with the
tasteless humor tonight? Washington
tried some sarcasm and said that the ladies were considered by SI to be the
sexiest twins in sports and were the number one search on Yahoo once. This is
going way too long as Washington
is nowhere near good enough to cover for the Bellas. He then asked who was the
first to kiss, do more than kiss, who was the better athlete, etc. The girls
bickered and no one cared as the segment ended. This was a terrible segment as Washington needed a good
talker to play against and they didn’t provide him with that.
Sheamus v. Oliver John
This
is officially the developmental show now. Sheamus is the former Sheamus
O’Shaunessy from FCW by way of the Emerald Isle. He cut a promo in Gaelic
before switching to English. He hit a side headlock take over and went to a
choke. He hit a clothesline and went to a chinlock. John teased a comeback
before Sheamus scored with a chicken kick. He then finished with an uranage
into a backbreaker which looked pretty good (on a man of his opponent’s size
anyway). This was a pretty good debut all things considered.
Sheamus squash, 2:26.
William Regal tried to talk strategy with Vladimir Kozlov
backstage.
Tyler Rex debuted backstage by introducing himself to Zach
Ryder. They’re wrestling on Superstars this week. Reks was putting over surfing
in southern California
before Ryder said the best surfing was on Long Island,
you know it.
They replayed last night’s main Raw angles. Despite all of
the wacky turns, the guest GM, the big trade, the false starts with several
midcarders, the abrupt Mark Henry push, and the constant changing of direction,
the show still ended with John Cena and Triple H on top.
Backstage, Christian was vowing to win the ECW championship
while Dreamer was more concerned about the main event tonight.
Christian & Tommy Dreamer v. Vladimir Kozlov &
William Regal
Matt
Striker was putting Regal over like crazy before the match. Regal and Christian
began the contest. Matt Striker mentioned Regal wrestled for a while as Steven
Regal before he realized there couldn’t be two Steves in the WWF. Or because he
came to find out that he was a descendant of William the Conqueror, whichever
you choose to believe. Christian hit an elbow off of the second rope for a near
fall. Kozlov tagged in and basically no sold some of Christian’s punches before
hitting a shoulder tackle. He held a backbreaker submission before Christian
slipped out and tagged in Dreamer. Kozlov went to work on him in the corner.
Tommy came back with a knee lift and crossbody. He then low-bridged Kozlov to
the floor. Christian hit a baseball slide as the match went to break. After the
break, Regal held a chin lock on the mat and then Kozlov came in with a series
of elbows for a two count. Regal then came back in and allowed Dreamer to make
the tag. Christian did some good stuff including a missile dropkick for a two
count. He then hit a sunset flip off of the second rope. Regal came back with
and tagged out. Kozlov did some work on the shoulder of Christian for a bit.
Regal tagged in and followed suit. Kozlov came back in with a head butt and a
belly-to-belly suplex. Regal tagged back in and drew a loud “Regal sucks”
chant. Christian and Regal collided and
we had a double tag. Dreamer hit a clothesline off of the second rope and got a
near fall. Tommy then hit a neckbreaker for a near fall. On the outside, Regal
threw Christian into the steps and tagged himself in as Kozlov gained the
advantage back. Regal then hit an awful-looking exploder suplex as he could
barely get Dreamer to go up with him. Kozlov then blind-tagged himself into the
match. Kozlov then hit his finisher for the win. They teased that there may be
dissention between Kozlov and Regal after the bell.
For
what it’s worth, Kozlov didn’t look all that terrible here compared to what we
have seen before. They actually had him take bumps which you never see him take
(missile dropkicks, crossbody, etc.). The match still slowed down a lot when he
was in there and his selling was very erratic.
Kozlov(x) & Regal d. Christian & Dreamer(o), Pin,
13:07, **.
Next week, ECW airs at 7/6 central on Sci-Fi in the United States.
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