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The WWE has released a total of seven on-air talents so far this year, with five of them coming in the month of February. Maybe some of them can find a new career in insurance advertising.

Anyway, Tommy Dreamer was the first talent released in 2010, followed by Eric Escobar later in January.

That was mild until WWE decided to cut the ECW-brand one-hour show on SciFi, ending the ECW brand for now under the WWE banner. Cutting that show meant imminent layoffs, especially since the replacement show, WWE NXT, will feature developmental talents working with veterans to become the WWE stars of tomorrow. That means some veterans would be cut, and that’s exactly what happened in late February.

The cuts include wrestlers Gregory Helms, Paul Burchill and Charlie Haas, as well as referee Scott Armstrong. Also, WWE Diva Maria was released to allow her time to participate in Celebrity Apprentice, which kicks off on NBC later this month. She also has an album coming out on iTunes in April.

Helms had legal troubles in January that may have contributed to his release; Burchill just never caught on, and Haas had similarly struggled to attract a following.

Expect more releases between now and WrestleMania as the company trims the fat after dropping the ECW show, consolidating talent to Raw and SmackDown, as well as Superstars and NXT.

Former ECW worker Jerry Lynn is no fan of WWE’s version of his old stomping grounds, calling it sad, among other things. Said Lynn:

“He (Vince McMahon) is just using it as a place to put wrestlers he can’t figure out what to do with on Raw and Smackdown.”

While ECW is definitely the company’s third-tier show, the real problems are the shift on the creative side; moving the promotion from hardcore to “just another WWE show” has definitely limited the appeal of ECW under McMahon’s ownership.

Maybe Lynn and McMahon should hang out in some comfy bean bag chairs and work out their differences?

It was a swerve that worked.

After months of knowing that TNA’s Christian Cage would be returning to WWE, the wide-spread speculation was that he’s come back on Smackdown to be reunited with Edge, Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy. The internet burned up bandwidth speculating about Christian’s possible role in Matt’s betrayal of Jeff.

Fooled ya.

In a swerve that worked, Christian made his first appearance in a WWE-owned ring earlier this week, but not on Smackdown and not even on RAW; he debuted on ECW, inserting himself into the Jack Swagger-Finlay feud. It was the first time in a while I can remember being genuinely and pleasantly surprised by a move in the WWE, storyline-wise.

While the appearance was not necessarily electrifying – after all, they are taking a TNA champion and placing him on the lowest broadcast on the WWE totem pole – but it was genuinely surprising and that counts for a lot, no matter how much safety equipment they keep handy to make sure nothing goes wrong in the matches themselves.

Mike Bucci, who portrayed the character of Super Nova in the original ECW and went on to be fitness guru Simon Dean in WWE and has been out of wrestling for nearly two years, has resurfaced. Pro Wrestling Torah has tracked Bucci down, and he is now in the real estate game.

Pushing real estate loans in the mortgage industry, Bucci has apparently gained weight since leaving wrestling, but has leveraged his pop culture background to his advantage in his new venture. I guess it pays better than writing Orovo detox reviews.

Kudos to Bucci for realizing there is a life beyond pro wrestling.

For an opening match, the ECW Title match between current champ Matt Hardy and challenger Mark Henry was, at least, more entertaining than an infomercial for the best acne treatment. Hardy and the ECW Title have received a lot of positivity recently; Hardy pinned Triple H on the MyNetwork debut of SmackDown, and this win over Henry solidifies and legitimizes Hardy’s place as ECW champion.

The match was under 10 minutes, though, and opened the show, so it’s not like ECW is gaining that much respect; but at least with the strap on Hardy, they’re getting better than the lumbering performances recent super-heavyweight ECW champs have been able to produce.

WINNER: Matt Hardy retains the title

RATING: 7.5 (out of 10)

With a five-person scramble over the ECW title to open the evening, WWE’s Unforgiven 2008 PPV was a special event that was really special. After being an afterthought promotion for the better part of a year, this 20-minute match was well-booked, exciting and a great way to open the show.

Like tossing freshwater pearls into a Mardi Gras crowd, the fans were popping and excited, especially over the finish, which featured Matt Hardy finally winning a significant solo title. Coming out on top clean over Mark Henry, The Miz, Chavo Guerrero and Finlay, Matt Hardy delivers ECW a champion who can deliver on the “extreme” in Extreme Championship Wrestling.

What a great way to open the PPV, and what a great match! Finally, ECW is given some respect in the WWE empire.

People washing their hands in a glass sink shouldn’t throw… stones? Whatever; the point is that there are some big changes on the way for ECW that could conceivably improve that show’s standing in the ratings.

Traditionally, ECW tapings have been the “warm-up act” for Smackdown shows, ever since the WWE brought ECW back a couple years ago. However, the company recently unveiled a plan to move ECW tapings from Tuesday nights with the Smackdown brand to Monday nights with the Raw brand.

There are some natural fallouts of this strategy, of course. First, it means curtains for WWE Heat. Second, it means more cameos on ECW tapings by Raw-branded WWE superstars, and fewer by Smackdown-branded superstars.

This is a huge hit against the Smackdown brand; not only is it moving from The CW this fall to MyNetworkTV, a huge step down, but it is losing the extra draw the ECW brand brought to its tapings. While details like two ECW superstars currently holding the Smackdown-branded WWE tag team titles are sure to be worked out before the switch is made, one can only hope that the switch will also means Raw and ECW won’t brand-blend to the extent that Smackdown and ECW did.

For me, that diluted both brands. I’d hate to see RAW dragged down that path. No start-date has been announced just yet.

The six-person diva tag match proved ECW is more in need of cat supplies than it is in need of Mike Adamle’s incompetent announcing services, but the real mystery surrounding ECW last night was why The Miz is suddenly getting such a strong push from the Fed.

C.M. Punk, the golden boy of the ECW promotion since its WWE-powered relaunch, and since WrestleMania, the new Mr. Money In the Bank, punked out to The Miz in an almost meaningless, six-minute match to open, rather than close, the broadcast.

The former Real World reality star, Miz’s star has been on the rise a lot lately… but at Punk’s expense? That rooster just don’t crow!

With the firing of Joey Styles as the play-by-play announcer of ECW, Vince McMahon has effectively severed one of the last ties to the upstart rebel promotion Tod Gordon and Paul Heyman started about 15 years ago. His replacement, Mike Adamle, formerly best known as the announcer of the original American Gladiators, is a wrestling newbie whose inexperience hurt the ECW telecast this week, and could very well doom the promotion in the ratings.

Perhaps there were good reasons behind the scenes for letting Styles go, including a price tag issue brought up by the company’s budgeting software. Who knows? But for anyone who was holding out any vestige of hope that ECW could rebound and recapture its former glory, the last spark of hope was snuffed out with Styles’ dismissal.

In a performance management move, The CW network has confirmed that WWE SmackDown no longer fits in with their network concept. Of course, this move has been a long time in coming, seeming inevitable ever since UPN merged with The WB.

Word on the street has it that The CW wants to gear its programming more toward a female demographic, which of course SmackDown doesn’t fit into. The WWE is said to be actively marketing the SmackDown program to other networks, including MyNetworks as well as NBC/Universal, with an eye toward forging a home for the show on USA or SciFi, both of which already play host to WWE programming.

In other WWE-related TV news, USA Network just signed an extension with WWE to keep Raw on their network until 2010; no word on whether ECW will be renewed on SciFi, moved to a new media partner, or combined with SmackDown.

Of course, none of this is cause for panic; WWE’s contracts were up and change was inevitable. It will be interesting to see if WWE continues the three-brand approach or retracts. It could easily be argued that the main reason for WWE SmackDown being removed from the CW’s schedule is not only falling ratings, but the fact that the show lacks any significant star power, while Raw is overflowing with it.

Prediction: For SmackDown to survive, WWE will have to shake things up significantly on their roster, balancing the shows far more evenly than they currently do. While MyNetworks is a good underdog destination for the show, we expect USA to stand pat with Raw, while SmackDown will go away as a brand, and ECW will be expanded to two hours while staying on SciFi. To protect their brands, expect an ECW Invades SmackDown storyline this summer, coinciding with the One Night Stand PPV, that creates the new product, which we think will be called ECW SmackDown. Yes, that’ means no WWE on broadcast network TV, though NBC may agree to increase the number of Saturday Night Main Events to as many as six broadcasts per year, coinciding with the bigger PPV events, as alternate programming to Saturday Night Live reruns. And finally, yes, by eliminating SmackDown and expanding ECW, some wrestlers will lose their spots in the company; but a leaner, two-brand approach is just what WWE needs to regain a foothold on viewership.

With all the top-name wrestlers on the Raw roster these days, it’s no wonder ECW and SmackDown seem like second-rate broadcasts for WWE. While having big names on one roster can make some fans so joyful they’ll toss wedding flowers even at Stephanie McMahon, the power-shift could be hurting the evenness of WWE’s brands.

Consider for a moment all the main-event caliber talent on the Raw roster, including wrestlers who are scheduled to return from injury eventually. We have:

• Randy Orton
• Triple H
• John Cena (injured)
• Bobby Lashley (injured)
• Jeff Hardy
• Umaga
• Shawn Michaels
• Mr. Kennedy
• Chris Jericho

That’s nine headliners on one show. Compare that to ECW:

• CM Punk
• John Morrison

ECW is so talent-dry right now (even Rob Van Dam isn’t listed on WWE.com) that The Miz is probably in the ECW main event mix. That’s sad. And SmackDown isn’t much better off.

• Edge
• MVP
• Batista
• Undertaker
• The Great Khali
• Rey Mysterio

Now, SmackDown has former main eventer Kane, who wore out his welcome long ago, and Matt Hardy, who’s never really taken off like his brother Jeff, primarily because WWE got skittish about truly capitalizing on the real-life heat between Edge and Matt over real-life girlfriend issues. And they’ve tried and failed to transform Chavo Guerrero and Mark Henry into main eventers. And of those names listed above, Batista, Undertaker and Rey Mysterio, for various and different reasons, should all be one rung down below main event status.

Obviously, some roster shuffling needs to happen to rebalance the three brands; and it needs to happen well before next summer, when the annual draft usually mixed things up. Sending Ric Flair to SmackDown, as seems to have happened recently, isn’t enough of a fix.

Mutilchannel News broke the story that NBC-Universal and the WWE have extended their current TV contract by an additional two years, through 2010; the current deal only ran through 2008.

Although no Cartier watches were exchanged, the new contract does call for a higher payout to WWE for programming, above the current level of $31 million per year.

NBC-Universal airs WWE Monday Night Raw on the USA Network, as well as ECW broadcasts on the SciFi Channel; the agreement also means there will be more WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event specials on NBC periodically throughout the year, when Saturday Night Live would normally be broadcasting reruns.

The agreement keeps the lion’s share of WWE-branded programming on NBC-Universal venues; the exception is WWE Friday Night SmackDown, which airs on the CBS-Warner Brothers-owned CW Network.