Been a while since I blogged on wrestling, but I feel like I have to. Having endured through 6 months of shambolic plotting livened up by the emergence of Jay Lethal, entertaining face work by Anderson, and the recent Best of 5 series featuring The Motor-City Machine Guns and Beer Money. But this ECW, no, sorry, EV 2.0 reunion is plumbing the depths. I have a lot of respect for some of what the original ECW achieved. They did indeed revolutionise the wrestling industry, but that was over 10 years ago. Times have changed. There is a minority niche for 'Hardcore' wrestling, I just don't see how it benefits TNA to drag all this back up again. Especially when they legally can't use the name ECW, have Joey Styles commentate it or even use the real names of lots of wrestlers. Oh, and Paul Heyman had nothing to do with it.
Surely, WWE's ECW:One Night Stand while being organised by Vince McMahon had more in common with the original ECW? They went to the Hammerstein Ballroom, actually got Paul Heyman involved, and most of the wrestlers were at least still close to being in shape.
It was nice to see Al Snow & Head, Sabu & RVD & Stevie Richards have still got it, but really, the rest of HardCore Justice was lame! What point is there to an ECW reunion when everyone is 10 years past their best, the Dudleys can't be called the Dudleys, Justin Credible goes by his real name, Balls Mahoney is called Kahoneys and they can't even say ECW on the air? Saying Hardcore a lot doesn't take away from this being a dull show. Seeing Tracy Smothers (tits hanging out) dancing is not something anyone needs to see at this stage of his life. One Night Stand may have featured JBL beating on the Meanie but at least all the people involved got to say goodbye in front of their own fans, instead of the rednecks who inhabit the Impact Zone. It also featured some of the names who made their careers in ECW, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Chris Benoit, Lance Storm, Tajiri, Super Crazy, I could go on. I appreciate that a lot of these guys are contracted to WWE but I just would not have bothered with this reunion without most of them.
If you were, AJ Styles, Jay Lethal or any of the other main event level guys in TNA, how pissed off would you be, at firstly losing a paycheck, but also not being big enough stars to sell PPV's, relying on a fat Raven, wasted Sandman and toothless 'Kahoneys' to make the company some money?
Okay TNA, you had your 'HardCore' reunion, now let your actual talent do what it does best, wrestle!
