ECW sucked. Period. Christian got the biggest pop of the night and even though Dreamer is champ, he is the top babyface. Abraham Washington needs to get fired immediately. That interview segment was one of the worst I have ever seen in my life.

It was a bit too much. All these new stars debuting, I had no idea what the hell was going on.

Where's Ricky Ortiz?

RESPONSE FROM KE: On Smackdown roster.

I thought the Godzilla comment was funny.

Being one of the top guys at FCW is like being the hottest person over 15 that Michael Jackson ever slept with.

Kev - I don't usually watch much of the McMahon products , but last night in between innings of the O's game I tuned in . The Benjamin match had just started ...... well , I saw enough .
And as I said in a comment yesterday and reiterate today , while fresh faces can be nice , it also serves to water down the product .

Kev,

You are right on. That was the most painful episode of ECW I have ever seen. I kept watching just to see if they could pull it out of the toilet...they did not!! The Abraham Washington show was the worst thing I have EVER seen on WWE programing.

Seems strange that Reks just recently won the FCW title and Washington is the brand new GM of FCW. My guess is they are gonna split their time between ECW and developmental.

And of course, I am extremely happy to see Regal on EC Dub. He's awesome.

I was curious what you'd say about the Shelton Benjamin thing.

Honestly though I kind of have to disagree with you.

I found his insulting antics extremely offensive and he was really walking that line for me between major heat and get-off-the-stage heat.

I was very pleased to see him get knocked cold that quickly...frankly I liked it better than if they had had a match because it would've been less plausible for Tatsu to win a match than it was for him to simply catch Shelton off guard with a clean head-shot that would leave him stunned long enough for a pin.

Speaking of offensive, Abraham Washington is far more offensive as a stereotype than cryme tyme - I hope he never shows up on TV again...

In the age of so-called PG rated WWE I'm surprised they get away with such offensive material...

ECW was beyond horrible this week. The segment with Shelton Benjamin and Yoshi Tatsu was inappropriate on top of not being remotely entertaining. The segment with Abraham Washington was godawful. Vladimir Kozlov still looks incredibly slow and telegraphs every move. Sheamus' win was the best part of the show which doesn't say much.

The fact that Christian is still on ECW shows just how much Vince McMahon holds a grudge.

Oof...that Abraham Washington segment was AWFUL. The guy might have some talent on the mic, but as you said, the material bombed bad. It was boring, went on way too long (I wanted someone to start a "We want wrestling!" chant), and served no purpose. If the Bella twins aren't going to wrestle, why highlight them this way? Why not use this segment to give Shelton some more mic time and tell us his thoughts on being in ECW, rather than booking his unbelievable, wasteful loss to a complete newcomer. That kick didn't even look that devastating -- Shelton's taken much worse. Such a waste of talent...

Shelton's monologue before his match was rather hilarious, though. The mimicking of a Japanese person speaking English, although somewhat racist, many might argue, was dead on.

His mannerisms before the match also sort of reminded me of this match between Shawn Michaels and the 1-2-3 Kid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf3bt1YHxuc

It was a rough start for sure, but it's nice to see new, young talent. It's also nice to see that ECW is paying off. You have Swagger, Bourne, CM Punk, The Miz, John Morrison, The Hart Dynasty, and Kofi Kingston, all of whom got their break in ECW, getting good tv time on the two big shows. ECW's return may have been shaky at first when they went with the ECW originals, but they have found a great identity in this "new superstar initiative" and are running with it. The future of the WWE goes through ECW.

When they initially showed Washington back stage, I immediately thought mini-Rock. When he got in the ring, though, I agreed with the live fans and wanted him gone. Sheamus reminded me of Adam Savage from Mythbusters. It may be time to tune away from ECW for me.

I am very happy Kev finally a wresler with my name even if he spells it sheamus. The one mistake they made was debuting to many first timers all at once.It is only natural that some of these guys are going to bomb aka Mr Abraham Washington but I am glad that they are using ECW to develop young talent. Shelton showed great mic skills even though I thought it was racist to a certain extent. It should serve as notice to any ex WWE wresler who is thinking about rejoining from TNA if you do come back Vince will have his revenge just look at Gail Kim and Christian they way they have treated since their return.

RE: mimmicking a Japanese person speaking english...

In Japanese neither the Alveolar Liquid (L) nor the Retroflex Liquid (R) exist as sounds in their syllabary.

Hence the common misnomer where Americans think that Japanese people "mix up" their Rs and Ls, the truth is they don't mix them up, they simply don't say either one, they use the Alveolar Flap (similar to the middle sound of the word "butter" or "letter") - and we English speakers only hear that whatever they say is wrong.

For example, if an American says the word "Really" a Japanese person will hear the same sound twice. If they then repeat the word back (りり), an American would hear "Leary" - even though the Japanese person didn't say R or L at all.

So regarding Shelton's "mimmicking" - it was horribly off. He constantly used sounds that don't exist in Japanese - his speech pattern was still essentially english - he just exaggerated the vowel sounds a lot.

In other words, Shelton used a very generic and inaccurate "accent". It wasn't even close to Japanese. It certainly wasn't anything resembling "dead on".

The only thing he did accurately was portray how badly tuned most Americans' ears are to Asian accents.

That's not a bad thing necessarily, after all their ears aren't any better tuned to our accents...if they were, they wouldn't have accents of their own...

I did think it was sort of cool that Yoshi said "yatta" afterwards...at least HE speaks Japanese...

Jeremy (just above) said it right. Introduce a new Japanese wrestler with pathetic humor revolving around bowing and Godzilla...how very sad.

Benjamin needs to find his DIGNITY and leave for TNA. Pay cut? Sure, but he'll have far less travel expenses to pay.

The New Superstar Initiative doesn't have much promise outside of Kawal (Low Ki/Senshi) and Lance Hoyt, but then again I haven't watched any FCW (online) since Kawal was injured.

Didn't the WWE have Claudio Castagnoli under a developmental deal a while back? Why on Earth did they release him? He has main event written on his "Very European" face.

I wonder if Striker's comment about Sheamus O'Shaunessy not following backstage protocol was a shoot.

How ECW has fallen...

The Benjamin thing was a disaster - I actually considered firing off an e-mail to WWE to express my outrage, but then remembered that that would be pointless. Do we really need such blatant (not to mention unfunny) racism? And having the crowd laughing LOUDLY at a heel making racist jokes to a new guy does not make us wrestling fans look good. And even though he won, I still know absolutely nothing about the new guy! Terrible, terrible idea all around.

What are they doing with Kozlov!? It's a different gimmick every week! I was never his biggest fan, but I can see him as a serviceable monster heel, if the creative team would stop being so schizo with him. It was looking like they're setting him up for a face turn!

I agree, Sheamus looked very impressive. Look forward to seeing more from him. He reminds me of Swagger; hopefully they'll cross paths at some point. I could see either a great rivalry one hell of a tag team.

And if Ryder sticks with this lame, circa-2001 gimmick he's got going, I'll have to change the channel whenever he's on. Was there really that big of a demand for a Scotty 2 Hotty knockoff?

I couldn't watch that "interview" segment at all. Fire all three of them.

wow from the sounds of things i'm glad i was watching Nancy grace instead of the Trian wreck that just became ECW

Shelton has paid his dues and has been a strong competitor the last couple of years. He deserves better than this. You're right. Stars should never lose to incoming talent, especially in that manner. I know I'll get mocked for bringing up the past but do you remember when The Genius beat Hogan or when the 1-2-3 Kid beat Dibiase. The shock resinated throughout the Federation and was talked about for weeks or months after. That's how it should be handled. Only once in a blue moon should a low-tier wrestler score an upset unless you're setting up a meaningful feud. Tatsu better get a big push or else what they did was meaningless.
I was really enjoying ECW until this.
Hopefully these incomers will become stars.

Jeremy,

I am not sure where you get offensive, but there was certainly something not quite right about the Abraham Washington segment. I have see middle school drama club shows that were more convincing that that thing was. I thought the "match" with Benjamin was a joke but the humor part was actually pretty good.

to Frank in Dundalk, what is a Trian wreck? never heard of that b4. Anyway, ECW totally sucked this week.when Shelton Benjamin bowed down, i yelled at my TV "kick him in the head!" u could see that coming a mile away. P.S. When r we gonna see more of Gail Kim? i was happy she came back to WWE, but Vince's punk ass wont give the fans what we want

Wow I missed this ECW and now regret it based on the comments here.

Sounds like WWE really lowered their high cultural standards for some reason this time around (sarcasm....).

C'mon folks this is professional wrestling, one place where politically correct should have no relevance because it generates heat, which is a good thing in this business!.

KEvin, hope for more train wreck ECWs like this one. It seems to generate a lot of interest in ECW if this entry in your blog is any indicator.

And weren't blatant train wrecks a lot of what original ECW was all about?

Hmmm. I wonder if I should bother to watch the Canadian airing in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Jeremy Hale, I don't mean this in a challenging way; I am genuinely curious: how is the proper name, Ryu, pronounced in Japanese?

There's a darker reason why Shelton Benjamin isn't his shot if you know what I'm saying, Kevin.

I think Shelton is the perfect guy to put over people right now. He has been given numerous pushes and nothing ever comes of them.

In Portugal actually wrestling shows air with a month distance, and since the live streaming usually start at 2am and I've gotta work soon in the morning, this blog is the only quality way of catching up on a regular basis with the WWE here in Portugal. Thanks for that Mr. Ecks.

A few things I'd like to add. ECW as of late has been more a testing ground for future stars than actually a good storyline based show (not that RAW is right now). So I'm not that downhearted if the whole Shelton and Abraham stuff didn't work out at all. For what I've seen on youtube from FCW, Abraham knows how to cut an at least decent promo, so if he didn't is the guys writting his lines that should take the blame. As far as the Shelton Japan deal is concerned, I think everyone's overreacting. In a way, WWE has been made of stereotypes, even the great ones, as STSA for instance. Nobody complains when Finlay comes out dancing like an Irish idiot with a lepreuchen (or whatever is it that you spell it) wannabee minion? Not very respectfull stuff for Iris people in my book. Still, considering that WWE doesn't actually believe they're real audience is into ECW at all, and probably the all PG deal isn't worth concerning about regarding ECW, maybe it isn't such a bad idea to do a bit more controversial stuff in ECW, since the ones who see it are the hardcore fans who will, mostly, keep watching no matter how bad some segments come out sometimes, as long as there are new interesting talents being brought. Maybe we'll even get some real blood in ECW!!

PS: Kevin, did you heard the rumors about making one of the PPV's Hell in a Cell PPV, with all matches on cages? Can it be that WWE is actually taking a page out of TNA's book?

RESONSE FROM KE: The Oct. 4 PPV is called Hell in a Cell.

There's a darker reason why Shelton Benjamin isn't his shot if you know what I'm saying, Kevin.

______________________________

It's strange how that didn't stop Bobby Lashley from getting an enormous push, despite the fact that he hadn't connected with the audience and was arguably one of WWE's worst talkers ever.

Lashley was pushed because he had something that Shelton does not: a "holy #@%*!" amount of muscle mass.

2 weeks ago I was telling everyone that if they wanted to see a quality pro wrestling product watch ECW... I am regretting saying that now. I got halfway through the washington segment and changed channels... I may try to catch the replay tomorrow afternoon I may not.

Smackdown this week is well worth the watch however

Well, this is the first time i have ever tuned in to see ECW, mainly due to my faves William Regal and Goldust drafted, but i have to say WOW what a trainwreck. The whole Abraham Washington interview was so bad, i thought i just didn't get his humour because i am English but by the looks of it nobody got his humour.

I understand the whole reason of Shelton Benjamin's draft was to tune up the mic skills, which he did but for a cost of losing to a guy who comes out with the worst computer game music.

ECW is the place to be for young talent but is it the palce to be for established entertainers such as Christian??

I'll give ECW one more go

I am mostly in agreement with you. Although Benjamin is sthletic, he does not posess enough to be that big star. I liked Sheamus in the ring and I definately think Rekks is gonna be big . He has it all. I felt bad for the Bellas and Washington, what mic skills??

@ Christopher

Well, it's hard to explain exactly because you can't write that name properly in English...

In Japanese it would be written りゅ.

So here's my best shot at explaining it...

Think of that sound I mentioned that goes in the middle of "Letter".

The name りゅ starts with that sound, so you start with your tongue very gently resting against the back of your teeth, that's the consonant sound at the beginning. then add the sound you'd make in the word "you" except make it a crisper vowel sound (more like oo with slightly flattened lips).

If you have trouble with that opening consonant (not uncommon) then "ree-yu" would be acceptable to most Japanese people you talk to. "Ree-yu" would definitely be better than "rai-yu".

Technically speaking, that consonant sound is very similar to the letter D, except to make a D you restrict air for a short time in order to create a plosive sound, and the sound you want is called a flap. So mechanically in your mouth it's closer to D but the sound created is closer to an R or L.

I'm still glad Yoshi knocked him out. I hope Yoshi gets some better tights, some better entrance music, and he and Shelton have a little feud to get Yoshi started. I'd love to see it. I just find his music and outfit irritating...

Thanks, Jeremy.

I agree with Kordny: everyone is blowing Shelton's actions out of proportion. Shelton - the heel - got kicked in head and embarrased for his insults, did he not? Had HE left YOSHI laying after saying those things, it wouldn't have sat well with me. In regard to Yoshi's entrance music I don't mind it; I find it amusing.

The next time Abraham Washington is on ECW, I hope that he is wrestling, if you know what I'm saying.

The thing is that Shelton is suddenly dissing other minorities (R-Truth and Yoshi for now) in order to get cheap heat. Lame gimmick, that's all. No one's calling for Vince's head yet, but they should find something less cliche and belittling for a star on a roster full of "rookies."

Didn't anyone think Shelton was going to win gold the last time he was on ECW? It's probably not going to happen now either. Funny, I'm listening to "Swallow My Pride" by the Ramones right now.

Oh so that's who that Sheamus guy is? In Auckland we just had the Raw Live show and he came out and nobody here knew who he was.

Kevin could race play a role in the Benjamin situation before the Rock( WHO IS BI-RACIAL) came along Vince had issues with putting black guys in the four front of the angles.

RESPONSE FROM KE: It's a fair question, but remember that Vince gave a mega-push to Bobby Lashley when a lot of people did not think he was ready for it.

Y'know, I'm kinda tired of people trying to make race situations where none exist. Benjamin, in spite of his awesome skills, can not throw a decent promo! This is part of being a top-floor star! Vince tried to remedy this situation once with "Shelton's Mama". Yes, it was a misguided attempt which embarrassed me, too, but it wouldn't have happened at all if SB had mike skills. Besides Lashley, one of the WWF's biggest stars at the time Vince, Jr started going national was JYD who also won the main event of one of the first PPV's. Let's stop looking for what isn't there, OK? If someone will make Vince money, he's in.