WWE ECW - A look back

[Troy]

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WWE have a good article about the relaunch of ECW on wwe.com, click on the image above to be directed to the story. It gets comments from Heyman, Foley, Styles, Dreamer, Striker and Richards about the relaunch and why they thought that it failed. I thought that this would be a good thread to discuss WWE's version of ECW to see what people thought about it.

For years after ECW was bought out by WWE, fans at WWE events would frequently chant ECW whenever something extreme happened. ECW had ingrained itself on an entire generation and left a massive mark on the wrestling industry. WWE would occasionally sell ECW merchandise that sold well but what really made them take notice was the success of The Rise and Fall of ECW DVD. It was released in 2004 and is the second highest selling wrestling DVD of all time. That huge success led WWE to create the One Night Stand PPV in 2005, it was billed as a one off ECW reunion show and WWE actually let guys like Dreamer and Heyman run the show to make it feel authentic.

The PPV was a critical and financial success with 325k people purchasing the PPV. That then lead WWE to run One Night Stand as an annual event and two days after the second PPV they debuted the ECW of Sci-Fi tv show. The second PPV was more of an ECW/WWE mix with some WWE stars being included on the show that had never worked in ECW. That PPV ended with a famous win when RVD defeated John Cena to become WWE champion.

The first ECW on Sci-Fi episode was highly anticipated. WWE had brought back a lot of former ECW stars and had loaded the roster with a few big WWE names as well to ensure that there was appeal for casual WWE fans as well. The first episode drew a massive 2.79 rating but wasn't well received because in the end it was just a third WWE brand. The show continued for 4 years and 193 epsiodes and eventually became a place to debut new talents and revive veterans careers.

To me, anyone that thought that WWE would bring back the old ECW style for a weekly television show were slightly delusional. It was never going to happen because in the end it was all under the WWE umbrella. It did have a slightly different edge to it but it couldn't be as care free and extreme as the original was.

I was always a big fan of the WWE relaunch because they used the brand really smartly. They debuted a lot of quality talent on the show and managed to revive plenty of careers. CM Punk, Sheamus, Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston, Evan Bourne, Kevin Thorn, Marcus Cor Von all made their debut on ECW. Kane, Mark Henry, Christian, Chavo, John Morrison & The Miz all revived their careers thanks to spells in ECW.

What were your thoughts on WWE ECW?

 

[SAIYANS]

They had some damn good ecw title matches with Matt, Christian, Swagger, Kane, Henry, Dreamer, RVD, Show, and the like. They had the first tag team reunion of the Hardys. And other great moments like the evolution of Miz and Morrison, The New Breed, Extreme Exposé shaking that ass regularly, and the NTI.


The biggest thing to hurt them was that they simply had an unreliable starting roster outside Big Show and Dreamer. I mean you had RVD who got busted for drugs with two world titles. You had Sabu who got busted with him, slept on the job, and showed up without gear. You had Angle who got two strikes while on the roster. There was Balls who got a wellness strike, bitched about jobbing, and was sloppy. You had Axle who couldn't pass the wellness test to enter. There was Mamaluke who got fired for his behavior. You had Throne who got fired for attitude. Burke who they pushed and got rid of after an attitude from being focused on too soon. There was was Test who got fired because he refused rehab. There was Holly who always had issues and got fired after stealing later on. There was Stevie, never healthy Richards. Don't let me forget Sandman who was drunk and got the company sued by doing a simple entrance.

Then outside those fuck ups above, you still had to absorb Show needing to retire for rest. There was Cor Von retiring to become the guardian of his nieces and nephews so they didn't become foster children. There was also Lashley getting pushed to Raw so soon because Hayes is a racist fuck and had multiple run ins with him, and later would have a final one with his wife.

 

[Defiant]

Was terribly stupid at first but as the show grew, I began to really enjoy how action-oriented it was. Jack Swagger at his best, the emergence of CM Punk, Miz & Morrison killing it, consistently fantastic work from the likes of Christian, Regal and Matt Hardy... and just 1 hour in length, the show was usually well paced. Yeah, I remember ECWWE quite fondly.

 

[Keith]

Thing is in the long term if they tried to recreate the old ECW it would have failed, but at the sametime it still needed to be something different to prevent it feeling like a lesser version of raw or smackdown and it never was that. It got pretty stale quickly, it turned into a decent feeder league, but it was a mistake to bring ECW back and add more hours to a already over crowded TV scudule.

 

[ThatGuyFromNukemHigh]

The extra hour allowed for new names to get TV time, regardless of your personal opinions on WWECW, that is exactly what it did, and they used it well in that way. Ryder, Punk, & Sheamus are only around thanks to ECW giving them that time, and Big Show, Henry, & Miz all managed to invigorate their careers.

Then my all time favorite aspect of WWECW, Styles & Taz. Best announce team since Monsoon & Heenan.

 

[The Cork]

Was meh towards it from 2008 onwards.

It had it's place as an nXt style program for sure, but most the guys they pushed on there were lame. Chavo, Punk and Matt Hardy don't interest me at all.

lol at butthurt smarks denouncing it as the true ECW though. Like their precious deathmatch indy fed was any better back in the day.

 

[Keith]

The extra hour allowed for new names to get TV time, regardless of your personal opinions on WWECW, that is exactly what it did, and they used it well in that way. Ryder, Punk, & Sheamus are only around thanks to ECW giving them that time, and Big Show, Henry, & Miz all managed to invigorate their careers.

Then my all time favorite aspect of WWECW, Styles & Taz. Best announce team since Monsoon & Heenan.

Better than Vantura/Ross, JR/King or any team involving Mike Tenay from 1996-2005?

 

[ThatGuyFromNukemHigh]

Styles & Taz could sell me on a match between Pepe & Moppy.

Tenay & JR are both boring as shit, atleast Styles got into the matches like a fan would.

King is a glorified child, if you have never heard King announce a match before, you can play CoD online and get 99% of his repetoir.

Ventura was a great color commentator, but he was never paired with a decent enough play by play. There were only 2 worth mentioning, and I mentioned both of them in my previous post, Styles & Monsoon.

 

[Crippler]

The idea of bringing to back was cool and it was going well LIKE THAT BIG SHOW HEEL RUN but once Heyman got fired and it turning into on big pile of shit until Christian return during 08/09 and had some of the best matches in the company at the time. Oh Punk/Morrison in that 15 minute match and New Breed/Old guys match are really good ones.

 

[Keith]

Styles & Taz could sell me on a match between Pepe & Moppy.

Tenay & JR are both boring as shit, atleast Styles got into the matches like a fan would.

King is a glorified child, if you have never heard King announce a match before, you can play CoD online and get 99% of his repetoir
Ventura was a great color commentator, but he was never paired with a decent enough play by play. There were only 2 worth mentioning, and I mentioned both of them in my previous post, Styles & Monsoon.

So even in his prime you didn't rate Ross? He is maybe the greatest ever imo. The King has been stale for years, but from about 98-2002 the JR/King partneship was gold.

Don't get the hate for Tenay there was a period in the early 00's that he was maybe the best around and he was always good in WCW.

For me Ross-Ventura is one of the great overlooked partneships. It felt like you were listening to realistic debates, like they were wrestling fans chating down the pub. Also they had that rare mix of passion, colour, wit and being down to earth.

 

[Keith]

The idea of bringing to back was cool and it was going well LIKE THAT BIG SHOW HEEL RUN but once Heyman got fired and it turning into on big pile of shit until Christian return during 08/09 and had some of the best matches in the company at the time. Oh Punk/Morrison in that 15 minute match and New Breed/Old guys match are really good ones.

But it was bad before that the first show was a shambles and Heyman never had that much creative imput.

 

[Gimmick]

The show definitely had its moments. I didn't really care when Heyman left and they pushed the show in a new direction, and I thought the 1 hour format was a nice change of pace from Raw and Smackdown. The roster was hit and miss for the most part. For every Chavo and John Morrison they had people like Punk and Evan Bourne.

I don't miss the show, but I thought it was a pretty enjoyable show at times.

 

[Chris]

I didn't watch wrestling from 06 to the beginning of '08, so I missed it when they were actually trying to be ECW. I started watching once it had already pretty much been the brand for younger guys and people not many cared about. Miz/Morrison, Christian, Henry, Regal and some others were enjoyable on it. The show was bad in the slightest, just felt like no one cared about it, which was probably true.

 

[Dale]

I honestly don't remember when I started this. I definitely watched the latter years and enjoyed all the new talent it brought through like Kofi, Sheamus & Swagger and even the way it reinvigorated old guys like Henry, Hardy & Goldust.

Todd Grisham will always be remembered as a massive cunt by me for the way he totally undersold Christians return.

One of the most baffling decisions ever though was them switching the title over to Zeke on the last ever show, why they did that I will never understand.

Will have to read up on Wikipedia and see if I can pinpoint when I started watching it.

 

[The Cork]

It reinvigorated old guys like Henry, Hardy & Goldust.

Todd Grisham will always be remembered as a massive cunt by me for the way he totally undersold Christians return.

So much truth in this post.

Goldust made Sheamus legit. Still think he was worthy of a title run at one point. Hell, look at the list of jabrones who held that strap and they make Goldust look like Hulk Hogan in comparison.

Christian appearing was a genuine shock, but not a good one. How you are going to have him appear on the C-Show during a Jack Swagger promo instead of going up against one of the hottest heels in the company in Edge with a bunch of history there, I'll never know. Also true that Grisham totally Schiavone-d the guys return by meh'ing it off like it was nothing.