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The Katz Files – Arnie Katz
My Weekly ECW Notebook
The Kingfish Arnie Katz discusses issues raised by the most recent episode of ECW on SyFy/.

The Ruthless Roundtable
or “Who’s Ruth? Maybe She Could Help.
Jokes – and shoddy implementation — aside, this isn’t such a bad idea.

The basic concept is good, though the announce team needs to saying that Regal has “a triumvirate at his side.” Well, either that or add another man to the triumvirate so that there are three at his side.

The Ruthless Roundtable makes sense, because both Vladimir Kozlov and Ezekiel Jackson lack mic experience and, therefore, mic skill. They weren’t getting over by themselves, which explains why WWE pulled the plug on their incipient feud.

Regal gives them a presence outside the matches. In fact, his best role might be as the manager/leader who seldom, if ever, wrestles. The Ruthless Roundtable, if it works at all, is supposed to boost the careers of two of their younger talents, not a performer who appears to be coming to the end of the line as an active wrestler.

The way WWE brought the group forward, however, was less than flawless – and maybe not entirely fair to the fans. The eight-second match and perfunctory post-match beat-down didn’t belong on a pay per view. The match and beat-down on ECW would’ve been a nice replacement. It wasn’t the greatest match, but at least it was a match.

Talkin’ about Tiffany
The ECW General Manager is a work in progress, no doubt about it. She has apparently survived early WWE dissatisfaction with her performance, but she still isn’t very good.

Her presentation is pitiful. She looks and acts like one of those girls who doesn’t quite make it as a Diva, because she can’t wrestle and doesn’t have a properly dramatic style. She looks like an indy valet, good looking but not sleek and glamorous like most of the women who work for WWE and TNA.

A good start would be to stop referring to her as “Tiffany” and give her a last name. She is supposed to be a General Manager, not a tired topless dancer at an airport-area dive. WWE doesn’t send Teddy Long out there as just plain “Teddy,” so why do that with her?

The clothing needs some re-thinking, too. I’d suggest something more along the lines of Miss Hancock’s old outfit, which was very sexy but also businesslike. Kind of a female business executive as portrayed in porn films before the clothes come off.

The Sheamus-Golddust Feud
The only thing wrong with this feud is that the fans aren’t into it. The pair even had a relatively decent match on the 8/25 episode of ECW on SyFy, but there’s just no heat here. The crowd, which roared when Christian came out to banter with The Ruthless Roundtable, sat in silence through most of the contest.

The missing ingredient could be mic time. Golddust gets a surprising amount of face time on the show, but he and Sheamus need to conduct the feud on all fronts, not just in matches. They need to give interviews and bust into their foe’s interviews and maybe do something online. A dual guest shot on Abraham Washington’s show wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.

Tag Team Rising
When Tiffany threw together Shelton Benjamin and Zach Ryder as a reluctant tag team, I assumed that they would win their match and be forced to continue together for a while before they turned on each other.

So when their match turned out to be with Yoshi Tatsu and Tyler Recks, I groaned. I feared it would be another case of feeding two promising young wrestlers to a couple of guys who’d had chances to make it but had not fully achieved star status.

The Recks-Tatsu victory shows that they are a team on the rise. That’s appropriate, because they are a very exciting duo.

I’d like to see them have a seesaw feud with The Hart Dynasty. Hot, competitive matches would boost both teams – and ready one or both for series against the Unified Champions.

If WWE wants to develop Recks and Tatsu as a tag team attraction, they need some combo moves and each should have a better finisher. Tatsu can’t do anything on the mic, but Recks shows promise as a stickman.

That’s it for today. I’ll be back Monday with another installment of the Internet’s fastest-rising pro wrestling column. I hope you’ll join me then and, please, bring your friends. I’ll tell Nic Farey, so that’s covered/

— Arnie Katz
Executive Editor
[email protected]
(8/28/09)