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LOOKING AT A "LET'S SHOW HOW LITTLE WE THINK OF CM PUNK AND THE BRAND, IN HD NO LESS," EDITION OF ECW ON SCI FI

Jeez, was Gillberg not available or what?  With all due respect to Chavo Guerrero, and I think he's a great mid-card worker, WWE pretty much told their audience how little they think of CM Punk and the ECW Title last night by having someone who was pretty much a non-entity on Smackdown come in and take the belt.  Yes, there was outside interference and a stacked deck but still, Punk lost to a guy who was nowhere on one of the company's big brands.  What does this tell me?  Well, it says that ECW and Punk just don't matter that much to the bosses and that being on Smackdown or Raw is important while being on ECW, well not so much.  It's a shame too because they have something in Punk.  He is a solid worker that connects with a good chunk of the fan base and yet he was booked absolutely horribly during his run with the belt.  They would have really had to put some thought into it to portray him any weaker than they did. 

There is a caveat here, however.  If this was done to get the belt off of Punk so he could enter into an extended storyline with Edge, well then it makes some sense.  It's a feud that I would like to see but again, given how they have booked Punk thus far I don't hold out a lot of hope that it will happen properly.  Even if that is their plan, the fact is still that a Smackdown mid-carder has taken the title and is now the ECW champion.  It's hard not to draw a very clear message from that decision.

As for the rest of the show, there were just two things about it that I liked.  One was that it was in HD and the picture looked great.  The other was the Royal Rumble video that they did.  The rest you can skip.

The Angles:

• For anyone who didn't watch the best body contest in HD, yes, they women looked even hotter than usual.  And yes, Kelly Kelly, who is stupidly hot, still had no rhythm in HD.  The body contest was, well, exactly what you would expect it to be.
• As I said above, I really enjoyed the Royal Rumble by the numbers video that they did.  I am a big mark for those kinds of things and it was the best and, frankly, only good thing on the show.

The Matches:

• The mini-Rumble served a twofold purpose.  On the one hand, it pushed Sunday's PPV.  On the other, they gave Shelton Benjamin a big win by having him eliminate Kane.  It was solid, dual purpose booking even if it was nothing to write home about as a match
• Kofi Kingston showed some potential in his debut, even if he tried so hard that he was really uneven out there.  It was not an impressive debut as he was rough in spots.  But, he looks like he might have that something special that could differentiate him from the crowd.  Time will tell.  He got an easy win in his debut.
• Another week, another destruction of Colin Delaney.  As I said last week, they are getting to the point where they better take this angle to the next level soon, if such a thing exists, because it's getting redundant. 
• Chavo basically couldn't get close to CM Punk for three weeks so of course that means he wins the ECW Title last night.  Wow, in one fell swoop they did a great job of making both that title and CM Punk unimportant.  With all due respect to Chavo, him winning that bout didn't elevate him one bit but it did manage to sink the belt and the former champion, unless of course Punk gets a program with Edge.  I don't know what to say other than I am suddenly very scared as to what this creative team will do with Jeff Hardy on Sunday and over the next few months.  It seems like they look a gift horse in the mouth and then spit on it.  Again, if they elevate him against Edge, it won't be as bad but still Chavo as the ECW Champion shows you exactly how little this brand means to WWE.

What to watch if you DVR'd the show:

• If you recorded it in HD you may want to watch some of it to see how good it looked visually.  If you didn't, skip the whole show.  It was a real bomb of a broadcast.

Rhetorical and Unanswered Questions:

• Wow, was the opening in HD the best thing that WWE has done for ECW since restarting the brand or what?
• Did I really see Tommy Dreamer actually appear on an ECW show?
• And, did it shock anyone that he was the first one out of the Rumble match?
• Did anyone really think, despite what Joey Styles and Tazz said, that Shelton Benjamin had any shot at winning the Rumble?
• Why was Coach hosting a best body contest on ECW?
• When Joey asked Tazz if he read the Layla article, wouldn't it have been funny if he said, "No, but I looked at the pictures!"?
• When Tazz said that he loved the color red, did he forget he was built on orange?
• What kind of heel is Coach if he actually called Kelly the winner of the body contest when she legitimately was?
• And damn, who really thinks she has a better body than Layla?
• Should they have named Kelly "Clumsy Clumsy" if they wanted some truth in promotion?
• David Owen?  Is that Jamaican for "jobber"?
• And, was he trying to channel the late Pit Bull 2 or Tomko with that look of his?
• Why did they debut Kofi Kingston the week before The Rumble instead of the week after, when they had nothing to push?
• Did it shock anyone else that Chyna made it on to WWE TV in the Rumble video?
• But, did it also shock anyone that it was only to be shown being tossed out of the Rumble in no time?
• How could Colin Delaney's mom not know he was on national TV every week?
• I mean, are ECW's ratings really that bad?
• Would you believe me when I said you don't ever want to see Great Khali in HD?
• By the time the main event happened, was I the only thinking they needed an off-the-charts match in the main event to even come close to saving this show?
• As soon as you saw Edge at ringside for a NO DQ match, didn't you know he would interject himself into the bout?
• And, did you notice that Edge got pyro while none of the ECW guys did?

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