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The Hook:
Just days before Night of Champions at 8/5 PT Sunday, those who wander the Land of the Extreme continue to search for a way to become the face of the ever-changing franchise. ECW Champion Tommy Dreamer and Christian crossed paths for the final time before their contest at the pay-per-view, while new Superstars to the brand and to all of WWE made significant impacts, suggesting a new blood may be pumping through the Extreme veins of ECW.

Quick Results:
- Yoshi Tatsu def. William Regal
- Ezekiel Jackson def. Local competitor
- Shelton Benjamin def. Goldust
- Tyler Reks def. Paul Burchill

Full Report: (Thanks to Dan Short)

- Yoshi Tatsu vs. William Regal:
Regal immediately gets on the microphone and tells Yoshi that he despises all foreigners. This causes the fans to chant “You suck!” at him. Looks to me like creative has done a decent job so far getting Yoshi over as a crowd favorite. Right off the bat, this match is leagues improved over Yoshi’s match with Paul Burchill last week. It starts with Yoshi getting the better of Regal during back and forth exchanges. Regal then took control in the middle portion. Unlike Burchill, Regal helps craft the match in a manner that brings out Yoshi in a good light. It really helps that the fans seem to dig into it, giving out heated chants against Regal and some good chants for Yoshi. Yoshi mounts a hot comeback, leading to the finish where Yoshi dodges a running knee strike from Regal and connecting with the swift kick to the temple for the win. Good match. Yoshi is starting to look better and his popularity is progressing nicely.

- Ezekiel Jackson vs. Jobber:
Squash time. Running boot to the face. Big standing lariat. Standing uranage finisher. In and out. Suddenly, Vladimir Kozlov’s music plays and Vladimir marches into the ring. Kozlov and Ezekiel have a staredown before Kozlov decides to destroy the poor jobber with the Iron Curtin Descending and then leaves. Ezekiel is like, “What the fuck?” Striker thinks it’s a “anything you can do, I can do better” type of show-off. Still leaves the viewers as confused as Ezekiel.

- They premiere a new segment called Ask the Divas in which the many WWE Divas give out dating advices. Lame. Not worth your time, nor any time on any WWE television program.

- Goldust vs. Shelton Benjamin:
The Gold Standard versus the Golden One. Strange Goldust didn’t make some sort of verbal play on that. They start with a little back and forth before Benjamin gets control. He locks him in a unique reverse tilting neck lock before Goldust starts turning the tables. Goldust tries to get the crowd into it, and does the right thing in following up with a series of quick impact moves. Benjamin manages to catch him and then attempts springboard rotating move that ended up being mistimed as it took Goldust forever to land the countering punch. Benjamin makes up for it by hitting a bulldog that had Goldust clotheslined on the top rope and then hits Pay Dirt for the win. Wasn’t bad, but nothing really special.

- Sheamus cuts a promo backstage of how ECW was formally a land of cartoonish characters. He takes a shot at Finlay, a Celtic who ran around with a leprocauhn. Sheamus that he himself is a true warrior and will claim ECW as his own. At least, that’s what I think he said. There needs to be subtitles for him, his accent is a little too think.

- Striker and Josh run down some of the card for Night of Champions this Sunday before we go TO THE BACK. Gregory Helms in interviewing Paul Burchill on his upcoming match with Tyler Reks when they hear noises. Paul looks over to see Goldust grunt in pain. Goldust looks to be reverting back to the turrets gimmick as he stutters and accidently slaps Burchill while trying to apologize. After the hit, he runs off and Katie calms her brother down, telling him he should concern himself with Reks. Reks makes his way to the ring when we cut to commercial.

- Tyler Reks vs. Paul Burchill w/ Katie Lea Burchill:
Burchill is the wrong guy to be working enhancement with the young wrestlers because his constant use of submissions is making them look bad. The fans are virtually dead as soon as Burchill had control and when Reks starts making a comeback, there’s little to no energy from the fans. The only impressive thing was Reks hitting a springboard dropkick given his size. Reks gets a roll-up in the corner for the win to a very dull match. Burchill blasts Reks out of frustration, but it does little in getting any heat. Burchill either needs to fix his in-ring presentation or get moved to a different brand because he is not doing any good in ECW.

- Abraham Washington is making his way to the ring for the main event segment when we go to commercial.

- Sigh. Time for The Abraham Washington Show. They move the sets from the ring to the stage. To summarize, Abraham stirs up shit to cause Tommy and Christian to get heated at one another until they slap each other in the face. They have a staredown when the show ends.

Conclusion:
Another case of the opening match being the highlight of the show as everything just slowly went downhill from there. Regal did a much better job this week in getting Yoshi over, who really needed it after the disaster that was Paul Burchill last week. They had a good match that was given the right amount of pacing to make it work. From then on, the show just became dull and not-so-interesting.