ECW MONEY IN THE BANK REVIEW!

Coming from outta nowhere like a slithering viper, Zaiah Meltzer is back for another CAW show review!

On this edition, we are going to be taking a look at Eldorado Championship Wrestling for the first, as we take a look at their most recent show, Money in the Bank

As always, these are my non-kayfaybe opinions and shouldn't be taken too seriously. With that said, ON TO THE REVIEW!

ECW MONEY IN THE BANK STAR RATINGS

Tiger Baraki vs Scott Adams - *** (Ok so let’s start off with the positives. This was a really hard hitting contest and was probably the best match start the show off with. I’m a real big fan of Tiger Baraki’s wrestling style and how well implemented it is during the duration of the match. Scott Adams, even in defeat, looked like a badass, so props to that. As for the negatives, there was some really iffy editing for the majority of this match. The audio was out of sync so many times during this contest that it started getting annoying. The match speed went from slow, regular, and fast which messed with the pacing. And the usage of the highlight reel looked weird at times. Don’t get me wrong, there were some edits that I liked. For instance, Baraki’s reversal of the power bomb into a guillotine choke. However, for every good edit, there always seemed to be another one holding this match back. A good match that could’ve been better with tighter editing. 

Lewis Rivers vs Shawn Walsh - ***1/4 (Pretty much take everything I said about the last match and apply it to this one. To be fair, the usage of highlight reel and match pacing got a bit better in this match, but the out of sync audio is still a problem. I enjoyed Lewis Rivers in this, but to be honest, this match belonged Shawn. He was the entire highlight reel for this contest with the top rope cutter, a pop up sharpshooter, and even a springboard leg drop bulldog. It looked like Shawn was on his way to a victory, but Rivers partner came down to save him and caused a DQ. This would lead to a beat down on Shawn until Rey Gettys would come and make the save. It looks like they are building to a bigger match between the four men, so I wasn’t upset with the result. I think that Lewis Rivers needs to stand out more next time, because he was out showed by his opponent in this one. However, I will admit that drive by low blow at the beginning was pretty good.) 

Benjamin T. Bishop vs Sean Nice vs Steve McCarty - ECW Intercontinental Championship - ***1/4 (In terms of pure action, this is the best match on the card by far. However, my problems for this match has less to do with the action and more with the stipulation itself and how little it’s played up. This is suppose to be a triple threat match, but the only time this feels like one was at the beginning for about 2 minutes. The rest is like 3 singles matches happening at once. I mean you had Bishop and McCarty go at it for 5 minutes. Then Sean and McCarty go at each other for another 10-15 minutes. And then Sean and Bishop finish up the rest of the contest, with McCarty coming in and pretty much stealing the win. This felt more like a gauntlet match than it did a triple threat. McCarty was the iron man for this contest by competing for a majority of it. Sean looked like a goober at the beginning, but redeemed himself towards the middle and end. And I honestly didn’t believe Bishop was going to win this one even for a second. Good action but poor use of the triple threat stipulation.) 

The Forever Youngbloodz vs The Franco Brothers vs British Hit Squad vs Rush Hour - ECW Tag Team Turmoil Invitational Championship Scramble - ***1/2 (So I believe this was a turmoil match to determine new #1 contenders for the tag titles. I thought this was for the titles before the ending, but I digress. This was very chaotic and all over the place. There were points where we got some cool spots, as well as some sloppy ones as well. This match was pretty much what the title entailed: turmoil. The Youngbloodz were the obvious MVP’s of this thing. Going through each tag team in this thing and coming out the winners in the end. It was a pretty good way to put over this tag team. I believe the Franco Brothers got the short end of the stick because they did virtually nothing compared to the other teams in this. British Hit Squad made for a good heel tag team and Rush Hour was a nice surprise and made for a memorable moment. All in all, I really liked this match. Even if it was a bit crazy) 

Eric Silva vs Matt Black - ECW NXT Championship - ***3/4 (A really good contest that had some factors that kept it from being great. Most of the edits and spots were done very well and both competitors showed chemistry in parts of this contest. Matt played the heel role perfectly by avoiding Eric as much as possible and taking cheap shots when they were presented. Eric looked like a mega babyface during and after the match was over. He really made you feel that he was going to pull it off. My issues with this match, again, has to do with the audio. It was out of sync, here and there, again and made it kind of hard to enjoy the match at times. There were also an abundance of mistimed spots and moments where it seemed like the wrestlers were just waiting for their next spot of the match. Like they would just stand still for 3 seconds and wait until they figured out what they wanted to do next. It messed with the pacing a bit. However, with that said, It still told a good story, had some great action, as well as some fantastic moments.) 

Aether Atomsk vs Ryan Azrael - ECW Championship - ***1/4 (This match was… Weird. For one thing, it started off with Aether not getting in any offense at all for the first 10 minutes of this match. That’s right, for like 10 straight minutes, Ryan is in complete control. Now, for what the story was, this makes a lot of sense. Aether is the underdog going into this championship fight against a literal monster. Of course he was going to get his ass kicked. It’s what comes after that doesn’t make much sense to me. So after Aether takes his beating, the match just continues for like 15 more minutes like any other normal match on the card… A couple of reasons why this doesn’t work. Reason one, doing a 15 minute match completely devalues the damage Ryan did earlier. Reason two, it drags the match. We just saw Aether get his ass kicked, now we want to see him make a fiery comeback, not just wrestle a normal match. Plus, having a guy like Ryan wrestle a 20-30 minute match doesn’t suit his character at all. The edits and the spots were cool at least and the ending was most certainly feel good. The action, for the most part, was exciting and both wrestlers played their roles well. If this match was structured a bit more properly, this could’ve been really good.)

Walter Scott vs Ed Gucci vs Jeremy McGlasson vs Riddilyn vs AJ Hawkx vs Caleb Blair - Money in the Bank Match - ****1/4 (Easily match of the night. Quite possibly one of the most insane, fun, and creative ladders match that I’ve seen in virtual wrestling. The match still deals with the usual issues like audio synching and dodgy editing, but the spots and overall presentation of this thing, is just impressive enough for me to give that other stuff a pass on this. Every single one of these men were out to kill each other. It started off with AJ actually air raid crashing Caleb off a fucking ambulance and after that, the match was set. These guys put each other through tables, ladders, and everything else they could think of. Some of the high spots in this contest are so crazy and so well done, that you actually need to see them in order to believe them. And the finishing sequence to this whole ordeal is just the cherry on top of this murder cake. If you are going to seek this show out for anything, seek it out for this.)

OVERALL SCORE: 7.5/10 (While I can’t say that this is a bad show, there is obviously a lot of things that ECW can do to make their shows better. They seem to have a firm grasp on what they want and how they want to present their show, but they have litter errors that drag the shows from being great. Most notably, the constant out of synching audio, the weirdly sped up and slowed down highlight reel clips, and not so well planned out spots, are all things that drag the show down in my opinion. If this was way more properly edited, ECW would probably have a lot more events in the running of “show of the year”. The action is great and the moments are done well, now they just need to work on their presentation a bit more.) 

I still have more shows to get through, but if you have an event you want me to review, make sure to leave a response in the comment section below.

THANKS FOR READING!