Monday Night Raw

Monday Night Raw

Monday Night Raw

The Masters Dojo

Hello my metal-heads, and welcome to the second edition of The Master's Dojo!!! I hope everyone had and is having a great holiday season.

In today's issue, we will discuss The "ECW Dilemma". More specifically, how WWE needs to improve the ECW brand.

Back when World Wrestling Entertainment started this ECW revival, there were some stars. They were stars such as Sabu, the Big Show, Al Snow and one of my all-time favorite wrestlers, "the whole f'n show", Rob Van Dam. Then even more stars came to ECW, like the late Chris Benoit, and the recently released Elijah Burke. During these times, we (or I did at least) saw promise for ECW...well, the WWE version of ECW. But now what do we have? People like Mark Henry, Matt Hardy and Finlay are the big stars. Actually, I take that back. There are 2 other stars that will mostly likely leave ECW as soon as possible, and their names are John Morrison and Evan Bourne.

Let's start with John Morrison. It seems to me that everyone believes that John Morrison is most deserving or most wanted to have a singles title push. I am definitely part of that group. He isn't necessarily my favorite superstar, but he is a good fighter, no doubt about it. As I said, he'll probably be leaving ECW this summer at the WWE draft, going to either Smackdown or Raw. Either way, he should get a title shot immediately on his new brand, or if he stays with ECW (which I don't think would be a very good idea for WWE), he should get his title push NOW. Another man who should receive a push (when he returns) is Evan "Air" Bourne.

This kid is going to be the next big thing. He'll be bigger than Lesnar, bigger than most of the current talent employed by World Wrestling Entertainment. Viewers love to see high-flying risk takers perform, and that is exactly what Evan Bourne does; he performs. He brought back what I think is one of the best high-flying moves ever, the Shooting Star Press, which was definitely finisher of the year. Unfortunately though, since he is such a good wrestler and is so well liked, his tenure in ECW is not going to last much longer, I believe, and will probably be moved to Monday Night Raw. It's a shame too, because he is the most extreme person left on ECW, since "The ECW Original" Tommy Dreamer has recently changed into the "ECW Original Jobber".

Speaking of extreme, another thing that must change with ECW is that it is becoming less extreme. If they (they being WWE) want to please the fans, they need to add more Extreme Rules matches, more ladder matches, tables matches, anything that will put the Extreme back in Extreme Championship Wrestling. Talking about this really makes me miss the ECW Originals. These were guys like Sandman, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Balls Mahoney and Tommy Dreamer before he started to job to the new stars. Now those were guys who knew how to be really extreme. But then, the ECW Original Stable of ECW started to disband, thus pretty much ending the extreme era with the exception of Dreamer, but I have already said why I don't count him as extreme. So lacking anything extreme is a pretty big problem for Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Now, up to this point, all that I have been doing is saying what is wrong with ECW currently and what will go wrong in the future. But now, I would like to refocus this article on to what is good about ECW currently, and what should happen long term. Let's start with the current champions. The ECW champ is Matt Hardy and the World Tag Champs are Miz & Morrison. I think that Matt could start a real feud, not one of these one or two time fights, but a full-fledged feud. What could work would be Hardy vs. the new kid, who is also getting a ton of hype, "The All American" Jack Swagger. Feuds interest the viewers, and WWE wants to create interest in their shows. If Hardy could turn heel for this rivalry, I would really enjoy it. Giving this talented new kid a start with the fans liking him (unlike Dolph "I will introduce myself until your ears bleed" Ziggler getting off on the wrong foot by beating up Santa Claus/Claas, but I digress) because it is good to get a following behind your stars, then put them in some interesting situations. Also, if Henry and Finlay keep feuding, I see promise.

Miz and Morrison also show great promise. Even though I don't particularly like them, they make good champions. The problem is they defend the belts on Smackdown and Raw, and rarely if never on ECW. Another tag team (other than Finlay and Hornswoggle) on the brand would do a ton of good.

Now, I was watching the 12/23/08 edition of ECW, the most of extreme of ECW this year or whatever it was called, hosted by the Slammy winning announce team of Striker and Grisham (Striker's good, Grisham's bad, but anyway). The funniest part was definitely the clip from last year, of Tazz throwing Styles into the tree, and Styles hurting his "Mahoneys" (if you don't get that joke, you aren't an ECW follower, but anyway). However, this was about the best of ECW, not the funniest. The show starts with the clip, Grisham being an idiot, and highlights from Chavo Guerrero beating CM Punk for the ECW title. That is a problem. Chavo is not a better wrestler than CM Punk, but Edge and Vickie and the rest of the clowns from La Familia were involved, meaning something sneaky was going to happen. Next they show the Money in the Bank Ladder Match...oh, what a match. That was truly extreme, but then again, what ladder match isn't? Anyway, CM Punk winning that match was great. That match jumpstarted that guy's career into near superstardom. Next, more from Wrestlemania XXIV, namely the ECW championship match between Kane and Chavo. Youtube that match, and just look at Chavo's face when he sees Kane. Absolutely priceless. Guerrero was beaten so badly I couldn't believe it. It quickest win in modern history for championship match...impressive, huh? Next up: Night of Champions, with Kane, Henry and Big Show competing against each other. I didn't really agree with Henry winning, but whatever. This was followed by random highlights of Matt Hardy and Finlay. Some praising for Hardy, some Unforgiven highlights. The there is some video of Tribute to the Troops, which I think is a great thing for WWE Superstars and Divas to do. There wasn't much left in the rest of the show. This is why I am saying ECW needs to improve. None of these were very extreme, with the exception of MITB, a couple of attacks on Chavo courtesy of CM Punk, and maybe a couple others. I kept waiting for some Extreme Rules Matches, but nothing. WWE, please improve the ECW brand.

Alright, now is when I'm going to answer questions that were asked in my last article, and as of 1:11 CST, only question was asked, which is not what I was expecting, but whatever.

Q: Do you think that Jeff Hardy is a good enough wrestler to compete with the Undertaker?

A: Yes, I definitely think so. Jeff Hardy is always going to have enough heart to fight, and that determination will take him a long way. Some years ago now, he had a Ladder Match with 'taker, and even though he had been beaten to a pulp, he wanted to keep the match going, and it was a great match (even though it didn't continue). If you haven't seen it yet, YouTube it, it will amaze you. But anyway, I do think that Jeff Hardy is good enough to compete with the Undertaker.

Since we only had 1 question, I have a quick take on a comment from my last article left by "sick of the same old stuff":

"taker has been in too many title reigns, its umaga's turn"

Undertaker has so many title reigns because he is a legend. He deserves to have these title shots/reigns. When Umaga gets healthy and beats some quality opponents, then let's talk.

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