THIS WEEK…

Bobby Lashley def. Bob Holly in a "What's the betting we see this match again next week, if Lashley vs. Test is anything to go by?" Extreme Rules match

After a recap of last week's Lashley vs. Holly match, and Snitsky's subsequent hairless debut putting Lashley on his ass (probably laughing), the first official show in the WWE's week, jumped straight into the advertised match for the week.  Unfortunately, the entrance was still in the main aisle, so I can only assume it's staying.  Anyway, this match was, for once in a blue moon, an Extreme Rules match, but it was another Non-Title match.  Also, for whatever reason, the perma-hurt Holly was sporting bandages on both his arm and his knee.

This one started out as a slugfest, which quickly went to the outside, where Lashley hit a Belly-to-Belly suplex on the floor.  Lashley went for the weaponry, in the form of a table .  However, after setting it up, Holly nailed Lashley with a clothesline and put away the furniture very neat and tidily.  Kinda like watching the Dudleyz in reverse.  Holly then clubbed Lashley in the back, as Joey & Taz(z) postured whether or not it had to do with Holly's post-suplex gash a few months ago (although for once, they didn't immediately say it was RVD's fault!).  Bob & Bobby went over the guardrail, but didn't stay in the crowd for long.  Indeed, they pretty much made right for the ring.  Holly slipped out of a powerslam, and hot-shotted the back of Lashley neck over the top rope before crotching the champ, as we went to break.

We came back to see Holly with a sitting device in his hand...chair, I think it's called.  Either way, as we saw Holly drop Lashley chest first into the top of the chair in replay, Sparky Plugg did much the same thing is real time, except throat first.  Holly then managed to kick the chair up into Lashley's face, as went to his favourite move last week, the chinlock.  Lashley looked to come back, but Holly put him down and wedged the chair in the ropes.  However, it only hurt him, as Lashley countered and sent Bob into the chair, before hitting a nice Exploder Suplex.  Lashley built momentum with a variety of clotheslines, and a vertical suplex.  Lashley then hit a version of Abyss's "Shock Treatment" (except landing on his knees, rather than his keister), but that only got 2.

Lashley went for his table once again, but ate a baseball slide by Holly.  Holly didn't tidy the table away this time however.  But he did go for the chair again, looking to hit the Alabama Slam on it.  however, Lashley rolled through, popped up, put Holly on his shoulder and hit a powerslam on the chair (well, that was the idea.  If Bob's ass landed on it, it would be lucky) for the three count!

Thoughts - 7.5/10 - This was actually a pretty good match, and for once, the crowd was really hot for it.  it was FAR better than last week's effort, with Holly not constantly going to the chinlock.  Lashley looked crisper tonight too.

Remembering Kane's brother from another mother exists...even if we did see him at the top of the show...

We moved onto another Snitsky video, which much like last week, RAMPED~! up the Kane-ness.  And it was pretty much the same video as last week, with shots of last week's debut intercut in it.  Nothing else to report here.

I can dance better than this.  I have the grade to prove it.

Slutty Nitro Girls.  Bad Dancing.  You know the drill.  Seriously ladies...SYNCHRONISE!!!  Either way, this was some 50 Cent track, which sucked by default, since it was "Fiddy".  This week, they managed to get down to some lingerie, when ONCE AGAIN, it was a member of the New Breed who interrupted them.  I mean, I know it's supposed to be "the bad guy stops the fans form enjoying the dancing girls, and thus, BOO!", but when it's THIS bad, I can only but help like the bad guy.  And this week, the bad guy was the resident "vampire", Kevin Thorn, with, of course, Ariel.  And I have to thank Ariel, in particular.  You may remember that last week, The Slutty Nitro Girls sported pigtails, which saddened me greatly as a look I find incredibly hot.  However, this week, Ariel had them in, and HOO-BOY~!, did she look incredibly hot?!?!

Kevin Thorn & Marcus Cor Von def. Tommy Dreamer & Sandman in a "Walking Cane trumps Singapore Cane" match

Either way, the reason they were out there was to continue the "New Breed/Originals" feud.  Cor Von came out next, as his tag partner, and walked right past a sign which simply stated "Monty Brown".  I bet that guy had a fun night explaining to everyone why he had brought a "Monty Brown" sign to an event where no-one had that name.  It bet it confused a whole bunch of people watching TV too.  Sandman and Dreamer came in through the crowd, as you'd have expected.

Cor Von immediately took Sandman to the outside, dropping him on the guard-rail and sending him into the steel steps, before heading back into the ring, and capitalising on a Thorn-Irish Whip, to hit a Pounce on Tommy, which, as it happened, made Dreamer's head snap off the bottom rope.  Back in the ring, Thorn worked over Dreamer as Cor Von and Sandman settled back into their corners.  As Cor Von worked on Dreamer with a neck vice, as was usually seen on Velocity, Taz(z) and Styles debated the merits of the New Breed and whether or not the Originals should move along.  Not that Taz(z) explicitly took the New Breed side, but he was willing to see where they had a point.

Either way, Dreamer hit a neckbreaker on Marcus, but couldn't make the tag after Thorn tagged in.  The Vampire missed a charge, and Tommy made the tag.  Sandman worked over both guys, even hitting the old Heineken-rana on Thorn.  Cor Von went for Sandman's cane, but Sandman hit the White Russian Leg Sweep.  But while that was happening, Ariel gave Thorn his cane, allowing Kev to drop Sandman with it and pick up the win.

Thoughts - 6/10 - Decent enough action for the 4/5 minutes they got.  The most interesting thing here though was the debate going on at the announce booth.

Some guy they don't push...

And for a man whose push is apparently dead, especially when he, god forbid, loses a match or two, we get a pretty cool video highlighting CM Punk.  Again, nothing spectacularly noteworthy, except that it noted Punk would be in action next and that would they waste time on a video for the guy if there wasn't any belief he could do good business?

They just belong together, don't they?

As Bobby Lashley was packing up for the evening, his old friend Teddy Long wandered in.  Long said he was proud of what Lashley had become since leaving Smackdown.  Long invited Lashley to go to Smackdown this weekend.  An invitation which Lashley accepted.  Without giving anything away, that must have been a wee bit weird for the live crowd, since they had just sat through Smackdown and knew already he was on the show.

CM Punk def. Mike Knox in a "If only Knox was willing to stop Kelly these days..." match

And with a feud happening now that should have happened last year, we revisit one of the first feud's the New ECW had.  Except this time, it didn't have any point, Kelly Kelly was nowhere to be seen and Mike Knox was still Mike Knox.  Punk got a good reaction though.  A funny bit happened as the match started, as Joey just about gave away what will happen on RAW this week with Donald Trump, mentioning that Trump said that Vince was "gonna get his ass kicked at Wrestlemania", despite Trump, to this point in the timeline, having said no such thing.  Taz(z) then reminded everyone that RAW was this Thursday.

Punk got the best of the very early going, but Knox caught Punk in the corner and hit a face first slam, before hitting the chinlock, before moving onto the abdominal stretch.  Punk got out of it with a knee, but ran into a nice dropkick by Knox for 2.  The momentum turned however, when Punk hit an enziguri, which led to Punk's various punch and kick combos, before hitting the bulldog out of the corner.  Knox had a Springboard something-or-other scouted, but Punk landed on his feet and Knox turned round into the uranage, which led to the Anaconda Vice and the tap.

After the match, however, Snitsky hit the ring, driving Punk into the corner before hitting a big clothesline.  Then, he picked Punk up and hit a big boot, to put him right back down.

Thoughts - 6/10 - Again, decent action for the time they got, which was probably less than the tag match.  Then again, you'd have to think with an expendable opponent like Knox, the whole exercise was to build Punk back up a bit having not won for 2 weeks.  Yes, you silly doubters.  2 weeks.  The crowd were well behind Punk too, something that had been lessening for a while.  Let's just hope they weren't building up Punk to feed him to Snitsky.

Halfway between the gutter and the stars...

And so, after missing out last week, I get to see the second Lashley video.  Lashley talked about a ritual where he huffs on one of his sweaty t-shirts (he should probably team with Snitsky the foot-fetishist...), which makes him remember the training he did to get to that point.  Then he talked about the bit of his entrance where he jumps up on the apron like how Brock Lesnar used to.  Bobby said that he came up with it (presumably after watching tapes of Brock Lesnar do it) to show that he wasn't just a muscular meathead but also agile.  Personally, I preferred what he did for the first couple of week's of his WWE career, where he did a chin-up with the top rope to get on the apron.  But that's just me.

Matt Striker & Elijah Burke def. RVD & Sabu  in an "And you thought RVD was a sloppy spot monkey..." match

Possibly interestingly, at least to those with a conspiratorial mind, like me, RVD came out first, wearing a very Japanese design on the front of his singlet, in terms of it looking like the Japanese flag...

Coming back from break, just in time for the bell to ring, Sabu & Striker started this one off.  Taz(z0, rather bizarrely said there was "legit bad heat" backstage, as Sabu hit a reverse springboard tornado DDT, which bizarrely happened in stage.  First Sabu jumped off the middle rope and landed in the DDT position.  Then, in a separate motion, he turned around.  Then in another separate motion he hit the DDT.  He did spike Striker though.  Both men's partners were tagged in as RVD got a LOUD chant.  RVD seemed to get the upper hand, in a clever way, on Burke, but Burke surprised RVD with an elbow, before tagging in Striker.  However, RVD rolled away from an elbow drop, downing Striker and tagging Sabu in for a double-leg-drop.  A distraction allowed Burke to clothesline Sabu, allowing the "New Breed" to go to work on Sabu.

Indeed, it opened up a cut in Sabu's mouth, which became apparent after fighting out of a rest hold.  If I had to place bets on when it happened, I'd say it was a vicious looking kick in the corner by Striker.  As it happened, Sabu managed to make the tag to RVD, who went to work on both Burke and Striker, with his "educated feet".  Sabu was tagged back in, as the faces looked for a Rolling Thunder/Slingshot combo, but Striker pulled Sabu off the apron.  RVD hit a splash to the outside onto Striker while Sabu went back in.  He hit something (I['d hate to declare it as something definite, because it was rather messy), just about, but Burke was the one who recovered, making the pin (putting his legs on the bottom rope for assistance) for the second New Breed win of the night.

Thoughts - 6/10 - Once again, decent stuff from these four.  Well. Sabu was particularly sloppy tonight, but it's Sabu!  I don't expect much else.

After the match, the other New Breed members came out (as we took a look at the final spot to see what happened, revealing that Burke's foot had something to do with Sabu losing his balance), to stare down Sabu & RVD as the show ended.

OVERALL - 7/10 (+ 1 on last week) - This was another pretty decent show this week, with Lashley/Holly featuring in a really good match with the rest of the show being on the good side of decent.  And while, once again, the Originals were jobbed out, neither time was fully clean, and it made me interested to see what happens next.  Either way, TNA must be kicking themselves for letting Dusty go right now, because he's got something of a Midas touch at the moment.  Well, it's either him or me, since we both started on Smackdown and then ECW at roughly the same time, and while I have a Dr. Cox-sized ego, I'm still just Schmucky The Clown.

That’s all I got for now, but if you have something to say about this week’s ECW, you can e-mail me at dedicated e-mail address, or come hunt me down on the WWI Forums!

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Well, I’ll be back on Friday for Smackdown, but for now, I believe I’ve fulfilled my contractual obligations.  For reading this, and continuing to support World Wrestling Insanity, you’re cooler than the other side of the pillow…