The Land of Extreme is in Cincinnati, Ohio and it immediately opens with Jack Swagger sitting in the middle of the ring. He doesn’t look too happy. He says that we won’t leave until he has justice over what happened at Judgment Day. Two referees try to talk him out, but he won’t budge and tells them to go ahead and get blondie.

Interim General Manager Tiffany does end up making her way to the ring. She demands that he gets out of the ring, but he still won’t leave until he gets his title back because Christian cheated to retain the title. Neither one relents to the other, so Tiffany threatens that she will ensure he never receives another shot at the ECW Championship if he doesn’t get out of the ring.

After a minute, Swagger finally gets up and leaves the ring.

Tiffany apologizes to the fans and welcomes them to the show. She then introduces Christian for the first match. Christian makes his way down to the ring and has a staredown with Swagger, who then pushes Christian off the ramp. Christian appears to have tweeked his knee as Swagger walks away and we go to commercial. Pretty good segment that continues to build up the heat between Christian and Swagger.

Non-Title Match
Christian vs. Paul Burchill w/ Katie Lea Burchill

Burchill immediately tries to go after the leg while Christian does all he can by side-stepping or by fighting him off. Christian then tries to keep Burchill grounded until Paul finally finds an opening to attack the leg. They go outside where Burchil rams Christian knee first into steps. He works over the leg with a single-leg Boston Crab and various other assaults to keep it injured. Christian gets the momentum back by side-stepping a charge to the corner and hits a tornado DDT. Christian keeps going with quick strikes and attacks while fighting off any attempt by Burchill to slow things down. Burchill manages to nail a suplex, but is quickly caught with Pendulum Kick. He follows up with a flying uppercut, which Matt Striker geekishly calls the “ShoRyuKen”, and then connects with the Killswitch for the win. Good match that told a good story and the fans were into it.

Striker goes over the replay before Josh Matthews gets into the ring for an interview with the champ. Christian states that he’s going to make Swagger even more angry by giving Tommy Dreamer, whose contract expires in three weeks, the next shot at the ECW Championship due to their last match at Madison Square Garden not getting a proper ending. Looks to be setting the stage for what’s to come at Extreme Rules. Still to come, David Hart Smith in his ECW debut against Finlay.

The Did You Know This week states that ECW last Tuesday was the Sci-Fi Channel’s most watched show of the week. If that’s the case, Sci-Fi Channel must have really sucked since ECW was below 1.0. They mention that it’s for the 33rd week in a row, but I don’t buy it since most of those weeks had Battlestar Galactica. In the back, Swagger complains to Tiffany some more until she can’t take it. She tells him to take the night off before his mouth gets him into any more trouble. Swagger reluctantly leaves.

Zack Ryder vs. Adam Green

My God, Zack Ryder has the cheesiest Joey Lawrence-inspired theme music. And it works. Matthews notes that Ryder claimed to have gotten three thousand new Facebook friend requests since cutting his hair. Striker adds that it takes a hell of a man to dare wrestle in the trunks Ryder is wearing, which has the left leg portion cut off. Typical squash match. When Zack does what appears to be a leg drop lariat, Striker takes a shot at Carmello Anthony. Obviously a Vince feed right there on an otherwise impressive move. Zack then finishes Green off with what I guess is a knee smash neckbreaker for the win. This character just might have some working legs. All he needs is the right program to get him going with.

Striker and Matthews recap David Hart Smith’s appearance last week with clips to promote tonight’s main event. Cut to the back where “The Hart Trilogy” gather together to psyche David up. Natalya notes that his father would be proud of him. David said his father is… because he is better than his father ever was. Bold.

After a WWE Rewind of Vladimir Kozlov beating Chad Collyer, Kozlov appears on the ramp in Russian uniform to cut a promo. A mixture of Russian and heavily accented English. It’s getting him the heat, that’s for sure. But it’s the in-ring stuff that needs to be fixed the most for all of this to work.

Striker and Matthews then get a “breaking news” report from Gregory Helms. Helms announces that Tiffany has signed Christian defending the ECW Championship against Tommy Dreamer for Superstars this Thursday. Helms then gets a word from Dreamer, who thanks Christian for giving him an opportunity he didn’t have to and will take full advantage of it since time is running out. Cut to Finlay making his way to the ring before we go to commercial.

David Hart Smith w/ Natalya and Tyson Kidd vs. Finlay

Smith comes out to an updated version of the Hart Foundation theme. They’re really looking to make him a huge star. Long lock up before Finlay connects a headbutt and takes control. He nails stiff uppercuts and lariats right away. Smith attempts to fight for control, but Finlay finds the opening to take him down. Finlay then works over Smith’s left arm and keeps it locked in for a good long while. Smith manages to get the action out onto the floor where he gets Finlay up and nails his father’s running Powerslam on the floor before we cut to commercial.

We return with Smith working over Finlay, focusing most of his attacks on Finlay’s lower back. Finlay makes attempts to fight back, but Smith takes him down with a power move. There is a long stretch of Smith working over Finlay’s back. Finlay attempts a comeback by fighting out of an abdominal stretch and then just unloads on Smith. Smith manages to get in a big boot to the face, but Finlay moves out of the way of an elbow drop. Still, Smith manages to pull Finlay into the corner after receiving some more punishment and then locks Finlay into some more submissions. This is getting really long.

After getting pounded some more, Finlay shoves Smith into the post and then starts the comeback. They play into Finlay having his back too weak from the overlong submissions to do the Celtic Cross, but he still maintains control and knocks Smith out of the ring.

After Smith is rolled back in with the referee’s back turned, Natalya slaps Finlay to open him for Tyson. But Finlay catches Tyson with a boot and throws him into the railing. Finlay prevents Smith from catching him coming in with a right hand. Tyson then distracts the referee just enough for Natalya to pass Smith one of her shoes and he smashes it over Finlay’s head. After the shoe is thrown away, Smith nails a belly-to-back suplex for the win. “The Hart Trilogy” strand triumphantly, though Finlay looks on as if to say it’s not over between them.

It is a good match. Good psychology, well executed, and both Finlay and Smith carrying themselves all the way. The kind of match to help get Smith over as a star. But it went way too long. Way way too long. Hopefully this doesn’t end up being a detriment to Smith because he’s been otherwise booked very well so far.

Overview: A decent show this week with a number of things getting accomplished. The further pushing of the Christian-Swagger feud while playing up to Dreamer running out of time. Ryder is getting his character fleshed out pretty while. No Kozlov match, so that’s a bonus. And Smith getting to wrestle, which is a good thing. The only problem is that, while in a psychological sense the match was very well structured and executed just as good, it was still too long. There were a number of moves that could have been cut out that would have made the match come out better. Longer doesn’t always mean better. Still, wrestling-wise we had a good show with Christian and Burchill putting in solid efforts and Ryder showing off some unique moves.

Dan Short
dan@ifight365.com