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The latest Extreme Championship Wrestling (June 30th 2009) (Episode #160) is available to watch under “Wrestling Video” in the left sidebar of the page. Here’s the scoop.

Extreme Championship Wrestling episode #160 started with general manager “Tiffany” announcing that the new line up was no cause for alarm. My first thought was.. does this completely invalidate the WWE draft? Then, as if to certify my thought, the first match occured.

Shelton Benjamin vs some Japanese jobber for the WWE. What a joke! Shelton is finally getting a personality and gets crowned with one shot by a noob. This is crap. Benjamin is talented, he just needs acting lessons.

In the next set, we get more “extreme” with a completely unenlightening interview of the Bella Twins by a new interviewer named “Abraham Washington”. This was the worst. Not only was Washington anything but entertaining, the Bella Twins acted like 16 year old kids. If Extreme Championship Wrestling wanted to live up to it’s name, one of the Twins should have attacked the other. I didn’t get it but maybe they are going somewhere with this?

ECW presents two noobs against eachother.. my immediate thought was “Oh Tiffany, your night just gets better and better”… Shamus vs Oliver John. Shamus is this huge red headed Irishman that looks a lot like a biker. Three things that stood out were his music, his look, and his in-ring performance. The series of wrestling moves leading up to his finishing move was great.. the finisher was a killer. Looked wicked.
He still lacks in character, when he introduced himself at the beginning of the match, it was slightly… uhm.. silly. But he’s a noob and his performance caused decent crowd reaction which is rare in recent ECW performances.

The final match of the night (yes, there were only three folks, but the show’s not in trouble Tiff) was Extreme Championship Wrestling’s title holder (and true extreme wrestler) Tommy Dreamer and Christian vs William Regal and Vladimir Koslov. The first thing I noticed is Koslov lost the tightie whities, which is a relief to me since my kid’s not asking why that Russian guy is out there in his underwear, he struck me as more believable than his previous appearances. He limited the amount of successive head butts and actually wrestled a great match. Christian and Dreamer are both hardcore wrestlers and belong with the “Extreme Championship Wrestling” brand. Dreamer shows he is a veteran in the ring, using the ropes and his opponents mistakes against them and Christian’s dropkicks and hi-flying style were peak. Finally, William Regal was a perfect compliment as his partner ending the match with Koslov getting the pin-fall on a blind tag to Regal.
Oops, Koslov tagged and stood there looking at Regal and waiting for him to get out of the ring? What is he thinking? Tommy saves the performance for him, taking a nasty looking slam for the pin.

This edition of Extreme Championship wrestling was decent, but it started out slow and boring. With Shelton Benjamin and the Bella Twins starting the show, there should have been more action and less talk. Both need character development, but giving them half the show to do it in is a bit ridiculous IMHO.