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THIS WEEK IN WRESTLING

Hey everybody and welcome back to This Week In Wrestling. Obviously we end the week on quite the sad note, condolences without a doubt sent out to the entire family of Umaga. But with sad moments, usually writing is quite the cathartic process, so lets see what we can do here.

1. I remember being hugely impressed by 3 Minute Warning when they debuted, and when they got reduced to jobber status during the latter portion of their tag career, it didn't seem right. So I was mega excited when he returned to the company several years later with the equally awesome Armando Estrrrrrrrada [remember that?]

2. Now part of me still thinks the only reason the WWE brought him back in so quickly was because of the success TNA was having at the time with Samoa Joe, even leading my friends and I to call him Samoa Jamal for the first couple weeks of his debut. But just wow, what a talent Umaga was when he was on fire.

3. Favorite Umaga memories — debut against Ric Flair, defeating both members of DX in back to back weeks, having what I thought was one of the best matches of 2007 at the Royal Rumble against Cena, the cage bump he took against Lashley on ECW leading to Styles only legit OMG call with the brand, his two week face turn, and his final feud with CM Punk. RIP big guy, won't be anyone else like him for a while.

4. Alright, also big this week looked like the possible demise of my favorite brand, ECW. Real shame, but let's look at the positives here. It had a good run, introduced guys like Punk, Bourne, Kofi, Swagger, Hart Dynasty, Sheamus, etc. Also allowed for guys like Miz, Morrison, Benjamin, Henry, Chavo etc. to refresh their characters and get some television time. Apparently now the show will be just like how it is now, but more like FCW. Should be an interesting few next months.

5. And since I don't know how many more ECW comments I can make, I highly enjoyed the debut of the Dudebusters. Loved the theme song, both of them have a pretty good look, and the finisher that was basically a Hart Attack but with a running knee instead of a clothesline was pretty sweet. Next step I would assume is to call up Curt Hawkins to join them, perhaps do a little rivalry with Ryder over Rosa as well.

6. Staying on the ECW theme, let me look back on one of my favorite superstars. How did the WWE miss the boat so badly on The Pope, D'Angelo Dinero. Every time he comes across TNA he is straight money. Champion within 2010. I promise. There is only daylight in front of his promising career.

7. Which leads me actually to a theory I had from a while back. The former Elijah Burke would have been the perfect son in the McMahon storyline. Just months prior, Vince talked about how highly he thought of Burke on television. Then the clue was things are looking up. Burke has 4-Up on his wrist tape. It made sense! And could have been a perfect fallback from Kennedy. Ah well.

8. Interesting news coming out this week that it looks like Low Ki will debut soon with the WWE as a masked wrestler to feud with Rey. Can't wait. He's been in developmental long enough, so hopefully the injury healed and we can get some solid matches out of this feud. I wonder if the former Senshi may even make his debut before the ball drops to close out 2009...

9. Anyone else a little confused about what's going on with Carlito by the way? Is this starting a new program for him or is it his last hurrah before being future endeavored? In any case, something tells me we are going to get two matches for RAW - Sheamus vs. Primo and Cena vs. Carlito.

10. And just want to go with some TLC predictions to round out the column. Besides for DX-Jerishow, Cena-Sheamus, Christian-Shelton [going to be an awesome! match] and Batista-Taker, I say we get...Morrison-McIntyre, Punk-Truth, Mickie-McCool, and Kofi-Orton.

Well thanks for reading. Be well everybody, I'm off to go rewatch Cena-Umaga from the 07 Rumble.