Ruthless Roundtable Dominates ECW; New Ring Announcer; ECW Not So Extreme

ECW opened up with William Regal and his Roundtable, Ezekiel Jackson and Vladimir Kozlov, making their way to the ring to announce the #1 Contender for Christian's ECW Title.

In light of what happened to GM Tiffany, Regal felt it critical to name himself as the new #1 Contender. This decision was not popular amongst many of the ECW fans, but none more spoken than Zack Ryder.

Zack Ryder was screwed over last week from his one-on-one match against Christian and now William Regal is #1 Contender?

With both parties arguing over contendership status, Christian came out with 3 people, he felt, more deserving for a title shot.

1) A Janitor 2) Tony Atlas 3) Yoshi Tatsu

Yoshi Tatsu has been winning matches as of late, and pinned both Regal and Ryder in the past couple of weeks. Should he be considered #1 Contender?

Honestly, Yoshi Tatsu just arrived in the WWE and should not get a title shot already. How about people who have actually strived for years for a title? This recent yo-yo effect with the World Titles amongst the WWE Superstars is annoying. The WWE and World Heavyweight Titles have become interchangeable - Orton said, "I am now a 6-time WWE Champion." Wrong, he is a 5x WWE Champion and 1x World Heavyweight Champion. The correct term is a 6x World Champion.

Thing about ECW, it's mostly a developmental show with 1 title. If one wins the ECW Title, it doesn't make you the best in WWE, just the best on ECW. Despite ECW being considered a 3rd brand, it is not equal to SmackDown or RAW. The Real ECW had Mid-level titles and was not a brand it was its whole company. And has anyone notice that their is nothing Extreme about The Land of Extreme? What happened to Tornado Tag Teams? What happened to blood, thumb tacks, and flaming tables?

Back to ECW, Tiffany has returned to resume her role as GM and announced 3 matches that would take place during the course of the night. WWE Storyline is that Tiffany was involved in a car accident, explaining the arm cast. In reality, she injured herself at an FCW event.

First match: Vladimir Kozlov and Ezekiel Jackson vs. Tommy Dreamer and Goldust. No, the WWE is not forming a new tag team, but for the past three or so weeks, Dreamer and Dust have been involved in Tag Team action. It's surprising how WWE is building Goldust, seeing as this is a multiple go-around in the WWE again. Dreamer was aggressive in the ring, which is good seeing as they are going up against two muscular giants. Kozlov and Jackson build some credibility as a tag team as they face an actual team of superstars. The destruction of jobbers was getting a little stale.

Second Match: William Regal vs. Yoshi Tatsu. The match to determine whether Tatsu's win last week was a fluke. And after this match, it might have been. However, the referee gave the win to Yoshi Tatsu, despite the fact that Regal's foot was under the rope. Josh Matthews said that a Ref's call is absolutely final - well, on the contrary, if the GM decides to, they can change the decision or have the match restarted. Appears Tiffany avoided the situation.

Main Event: ECW Champion Christian vs. Zack Ryder. The announcers stated that these two competitors have had two classic matches together and that Christian is getting closer to figuring Ryder Out. As I recall, Christian pinned Ryder twice, so if anyone should be figuring who out, it's Ryder. It's one thing for Ryder to come out in half trunk/tights, but that see through black shirt is NOT cool bro! The match would have made a nice tri-fecta in their rivalry, if it wasn't for the Ruthless Roundtable attacking Christian outside of the ring. Not only did they destroy Christian, but they attacked Zack Ryder for speaking out.

And just incase you haven't noticed, ECW has a new ring announcer by the name of Lauren Mayhew. She is a singer and actress, most likely hired to take over Lilian Garcia's singing of the National Anthem at WWE events. A lot of people were unimpressed by the new announcer's ability to introduce superstars - but everyone has to start somewhere. Not everyone is a Justin Roberts or a Tony Chimel on their first night. Through time, she will get better - I think, lol.

Final Assessment: ECW needs to become 2 hours long like the rest of WWE, and introduce a mid-level title. Possibly bring back the Hardcore Title? And hire more superstars - new people are the future of the company. Mayhew is rather new to the whole experience and will need a lot of practice before she can fill Lilian's shoes. Regal was cheated from victory last night, its time that ECW realized that Regal is a force to be reckoned with.