If Sabu Doesn't Win, We Riot.

Typical evening. Second Hour RAW Torpor. A muscle in my jaw starts twitching unconsciously. Sports "Entertainment" in full effect, and my eye creeps toward the remote control. The "Channel Up" button beckons. With just the tiniest effort, I could be watching Yetis devour someone on the SciFi network, if only... damn this journalistic integrity.

And. Then. "Tomorrow Night, on ECW! Kurt Angle! Rob Van Dam! And Sabu! In! A! Number! One! Contender! LADDER MATCH!!!!!" A chill runs through my tired frame, and I surge back to life. Like a complete sucker, I start Marking Out With Tremendous Force.

Look, kids, I know there's no way this debacle can possibly live up to my expectations. It's a new-school ECW main event on basic cable, a tease for Big Shew's Summerslam title defense, and as such sure to end in some form of unsatisfying Shew antics (are there any other kind?). I debased myself by getting all worked up for last week's Angle/Sabu shrug, and I probably shouldn't go down that road again, but this match MATTERS. Because if Sabu doesn't win, we riot.

Look, I've already committed to Summerslam. The Iron City is in the fridge, the wings are in the sauce, the cable company's obscenely large check is in the mail (you'd think that using Comcast's internet provider to cover their PPV product would entitle me to a discount, but no such luck). I'm watching this turd, and you can't stop me. Other than Flair/Foley and (to a much lesser extent) Mysterio/Guerrero, the ONLY match that registers on the give-a-shit-o-meter is Shew versus whoever. And I assure you, if "whoever" ain't Sabu, I'm tossing bricks.

Allow me to run it down: Angle versus Shew equals pure agony. Shew no-sells everything Angle does, Angle grits his teeth, rolls around on the mat, and looks faintly embarassed at having to carry yet another underworking joke through a main event.

RVD versus Shew is marginally better, but Van Dam hasn't been back from his suspension long enough to build any heat. Look for RVD to pinball uselessly around the ring while Shew does his tiresome "mighty oak in a gale" routine. Maybe a few awkwardly executed high spots, but that's it.

Sabu, however, stands a very real chance of finally getting all that beautiful blood out of the Big Shew. I'm not naive enough to think Our Man Sabu can actually get the strap off the Isle of Wight, but he could inject some badly-needed heat into the equation. ECWWWE's been building the feud between these two for WEEKS, and the few remaining old-school ECW fans are chomping at the bit to see Sabu hurt Shew. There's the beauty of this combo, frankly. Sabu doesn't have to win at Summerslam to keep the diehards happy (thank god, 'cos it's not going to happen). He just has to hurt the Big Shew really, really, bad. Hopefully he can reestablish ECW as a risk-taking promotion in the process, perhaps by shattering his own spine halfway through the match, fixing himself up with a bit of twine and a paperclip, and then dropping th' facebuster on Shew through a flaming barbed wire exploding glass tack table. That ought to do the trick rather nicely.