Colin Delaney's quest to win a contract with ECW was the dominant point of interest for that broadcast for the first six months of 2008 culminating in a huge victory on the 100th episode of ECW on Sci Fi over ECW General Manager Armando Estrada. Along the way Delaney faced many of WWE's top stars including former World Champions Great Kahli, Edge, JBL and Kane as well as teaming with Tommy Dreamer against Miz and John Morrison for the tag team titles and against reigning ECW Champion Mark Henry. Delaney would later turn on Dreamer and departed ECW in August 2008.
11 days later Delaney competed in his first independent show post WWE/ECW when he debuted in AWESOME to take on current TNA Star Jay Lethal at Summer Heat in a dream match that had the capacity crowd chanting "This Is AWESOME" as the action raged back and forth.