WWECW R.I.P.

Tonight marks the end of an era. In June 2006, Vince McMahon exhumed the rotting corpse of ECW, to the dismay of the hardcore fans. We thought it was a wretched attempt to cash in on something that he deserved absolutely no credit for. While that may have been part of the reason, the full truth was something far more diabolical. Vince's ego couldn't stand that ECW's legacy was still strong. He wanted to undermine what was done. He wanted modern fans to associate those three letters with HIS vision and HIS product.

Despite the bad feeling that we all had, we watched out of some morbid curiosity. To us, it was a personal matter and we still had to see what was going on, despite our powerlessness to stop it. From the beginning, they began to rape the spirit of ECW. We had to endure a zombie, among other ridiculous characters. Lame and worthless pieces of garbage, like Test and Bob Holly were on the roster. Sabu was being disqualified for using a table in an "ECW" match However, there were some positives (if you could stretch that far). Rob Van Dam, finally, achieved his goal of becoming ECW World Champion and though most of us don't really count this resurrected belt as part of the true ECW World Title lineage, RVD's reign counts. It was also nice to see some familiar faces on television again, such as Sabu, Little Guido, Balls Mahoney, etc. The problem was that they were all jobbed out, immediately. Instead of building the Originals before feeding them to the new guys (so the victories would mean something), they simply turned them into jobbers from the start. Also, the launch of CM Punk's WWE career was a major highpoint of WWECW. Most will agree that Punk was tailor-made for ECW and would have been there had the company survived. Thanks to the fact that he debuted in front of the ECW fans at the Hammerstein Ballroom, his career has been quite successful thus far.

Outside of seeing some old friends getting nice paychecks, RVD becoming ECW World Champion and the rise of CM Punk, WWECW was a doomed affair. There were a few key events that were detrimental to the success of this endeavour. The inclusion of so many Raw and Smackdown wrestlers, right off the bat, only served to water-down the product. Enforcing the rules was another negative aspect of the show. The RVD and Sabu drug bust was the first serious blow. RVD was carrying the show and it was being built around him. Following this ordeal, he was suspended and never regained the momentum that he lost. We were then forced to suffer Big Show as ECW Champion. The crowds expressed their disgust to the point that WWE gave up running traditional ECW areas. Following this, it seemed that Kurt Angle would step up and carry the brand, but he suddenly left for TNA. Angle never belonged in ECW, based on his pathetic objections to the product in 1996, but it can't be ignored that this was another blow for the new show. As a result of the RVD bust, the ECW Title eventually came to rest around the waist of Vince himself, as the ultimate "fuck you" to the fans. Bobby "Webster" Lashley was no better. Finally, in the summer of 2007, it appeared that things were looking up. Chris Benoit was drafted to WWECW and was set to win the tournament to, finally, become ECW World Champion. Imagine a heel Benoit working a program with CM Punk. We were set for some real classics. Then, the Benoit incident took place and all those plans were scrapped. They tossed a no-name midcarder into the title picture and made Punk look like a weak contender. He only finally got the belt after Morrison was suspended for some wellness violation, though it seemed clear that a Punk title run was in the cards at some point.

WWE's vision of ECW was sabotaged from early on. It was quite likely Vince's intent to water it down and turn it into more stale and typical WWE nonsense. In a few short years, casual fans associated "ECW" with some bullshit that they saw on Sci Fi, as opposed to the true ECW. They stopped chanting those letters anytime something extreme happened, as it lost all meaning to the casual fans. There was never any effort to really make this project succeed. While we knew it was never going to compare to the real ECW, they did have the opportunity to do something different from the norm. "A New Breed Unleashed" seemed to imply that we'd be getting some alternative to the garbage on Raw and Smackdown. Despite the plethora of issues, the early episodes managed to be some of the most entertaining stuff WWE had produced in years. Of course, that's all it took for them to realize that they must put a stop to it and sabotage it. It was loaded with green rookies and washed-up pieces of trash that had no business there, for the most part. I gave up on it, with the exception of watching Punk's title run, about six or seven months in. I couldn't take it anymore.

The time for even considering a McMahon-run ECW would have been back in 2001, when they had so many ECW wrestlers on the payroll and if they had allowed Heyman a free hand in booking. 2006 was far too late. They still could have come up with something, but Paul E. was neutered and the Originals were all jobbed out and disappeared. RVD jobbed himself out with his dumbass mistake. Thankfully, it all comes to an end tonight. Hopefully, the title will be retired as well.

It was good to see RVD as ECW World Champion. It was pleasant to see Angle booked as a wrestling machine, briefly, and the debut and rise of CM Punk. Outside of this, the entire thing was worthless and served only to tarnish the legacy of ECW. Tonight, the final episode airs, before being replaced with a reality TV show. Good riddance. Let's hope this abomination is soon forgotten and that only the true ECW is remembered.



Some past thoughts on this matter; a few words from 2008 and some quotes from my initial reactions in 2006:

In the last few years, those of us who truly cared for ECW have witnessed nothing short of the total raping of its memory. In 2004, WWE released the "Rise and Fall of ECW" DVD. On the one hand, it was a decent tribute. However, Vince and Co. like to rewrite history. While this was no big deal to those of us who lived it, it misrepresented the company for those just being introduced to it through this DVD. And that brings me to my next point.

Following the release of the "Rise and Fall of ECW", suddenly, thousands of 'experts' sprang up out of nowhere. You couldn't get within a hundred yards of a wrestling message board without seeing these children talking about the subject as if they were the authorities. One idea that was expressed within the DVD, in particular, seemed to take hold with these marks; especially since it was a common mistake already. Many seemed to believe that ECW was simply a niche promotion; that it was all about blood and guts. This was something that true ECW fans had to deal with, even back in ECW's prime. Somehow, the barbed wire, tables and chairs took precedence over everything else. In reality, "Barbed Wire City" only ever promoted about half a dozen barbed wire matches. ECW was not a garbage promotion. That's one reason these other wannabe organizations, like XPW or CZW, can never hope to achieve what ECW did. They focus on one aspect: the violence. Even worse, these imitators strive for violence for the sake of violence, with no regard for telling a story or having a decent match. Sure, Ian and Axl Rotten did this, but that was the exception, rather than the rule. Raven was one of the most brutal wrestlers in ECW, yet what he did mattered and worked toward telling a story.

ECW was more than blood and guts. Anyone that was watching, in the mid 90s, can tell you that the best wrestling action in the US was taking place in ECW rings. Yes, ECW had Terry Funk, Sabu and Cactus Jack. However, great technical wrestlers made their home in ECW as well, including Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Eddy Guerrero, 2 Cold Scorpio, The Steiner Brothers, Taz, The Eliminators, Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam, Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffatt, etc. Many wrestlers got their first exposure in the US, thanks to ECW, thus allowing them to be noticed and offered jobs with the Big Two.

ECW was hardcore, yet many fans don't seem to know what that means. Hardcore doesn't just mean swinging chairs or putting people through tables. It's a state of mind. Hardcore is going out there, night after night, busting your ass for the people that paid to see you. It's getting in the ring and wrestling, despite being injured, for the good of the business. It's about giving 100% whether there's a thousand people in the audience or ten thousand. Shane Douglas, Mikey Whipwreck, Perry Saturn and countless others sacrificed their bodies and wrestled through the pain of injuries. It doesn't take a body covered in scars to prove how hardcore you are.

But I have digressed for too long. After the DVD, there was renewed interest in ECW. Most of this must have been from fans that had never really been exposed to it. There was also a wave of nostalgia. In 2005, WWE promoted an ECW reunion PPV, called One Night Stand. This served as a decent nostalgia trip and was a fitting goodbye to the most revolutionary wrestling organization of the 1990s. It even inspired the Hardcore Homecoming tour and the "Forever Hardcore" DVD (a good companion piece to the "Rise and Fall..." DVD).

With the success of One Night Stand, the McMahons saw that there was more money to be made off ECW's legacy. In truth, that's the real motivation behind the DVD and the PPV. No one gave a damn about paying tribute to ECW. They simply knew that there was money to be made off the memories. However, by 2006, it went from exploitation to pure rape.

Some of my thoughts, at the time:

"First of all, this is a bad idea. What I mean is, for anyone that actually cares about what ECW meant, this is terrible. To dig up a rotting corpse and parade it around as if it's alive... This is a disgrace. But, on the other hand, let's assume that the idea isn't lame. The time to have done this was back in 2001 when WWF first acquired all of the ECW and WCW guys; before they completely buried each and every one of them. They had Raven, RVD, Dreamer, Snow, Storm, Taz, Credible, Awesome, the Dudleys, Jericho, Saturn, Rhino, and by early 2002 Benoit and Guerrero were back in as well. If Vince had plans to rape the memory of ECW, the timing would have been much better back then. Not to mention the fact that the casual wrestling fan would have been more likely to remember it. WWE fans have short attention spans and limited memory. Many probably don't have a clue as to what ECW was. The timing is off on this one. But it doesn't matter since it's a bad idea, anyway."

"There is no new ECW. This is not a return, it is sacrilege. I miss it like hell, but this will be a disgrace. A McMahon-owned ECW will be about as extreme as elderly Japanese women knitting sweaters..."

"Let's see how long it takes for Heyman's optimism to be crushed by the final word of Vince McMahon...He has the final say. I can't see Heyman putting out a great product and making the other shows look bad for long. Vince's ego would never allow that. And am I the only one who thinks that, good idea or bad idea, the timing for this would have been much better back in 2001 when they had so many former ECW stars on the roster, such as Lance Storm, Mike Awesome, (an active) Taz, the Dudleys, Justin Credible, Raven, Rhino, Dreamer, RVD (before being squashed all to hell), Jericho, Tajiri, etc.? Instead of the dumbass Invasion angle, they could have put more time and planning into it and given this idea half a chance back then....."

"Another thing to consider is the dedication of the wrestlers. Back in the day, the wrestlers would give their all and break their bodies because they believed in ECW and what it stood for. How many are going to be willing to sacrifice their bodies for McMahon? ECW was the perfect stage for these men to come in and prove themselves and showcase their talent. How neutered are they going to be? I certainly don't expect to see Dreamer being chokeslammed from a balcony, for example. I don't see any of the former ECW wrestlers falling for this and actually caring about the product the same way that they once did. For what purpose? To line Vince's pockets with their blood and sweat?"

"Vince is playing the nostalgia card. Period. He's USING the name and legacy of what once was to make a buck. It's not a bad idea for him to make money, but it's a bad idea for anyone who ever truly cared for what ECW stood for. And I guarantee, yeah 'new ECW', whatever; it will be a far cry from what it once was. So again, why bother using the name for something that is admittedly going to be quite different? And I'm sorry to those too blind to understand, but Big Show, Orton, etc...these people do not belong in ECW or even being on an ECW show. So, think back to what it once was, and why people like me might think that what is currently going on is a god damn disgrace. Why couldn't they have just come up with another (un)clever name for the third brand? Why rape the memory of something important? I don't think I want to see ECW become what it always hated, sports entertainment...."

"The Smackdown environment is really killing any potential for this to be enjoyable. I mean, I have to sit through the utter bullshit of Big Show being ECW World Champ and now lame people like Hardcore Holly (Hardcore, my ass) and Matt Striker coming in to join with Test and Mike Knox in the "let's be as anti-ECW as possible" group. And, personally, I find Holly's presence on here to be very insulting. There is nothing hardcore about that guy, period. Anyone that approves of this just shows how little they understand... While I knew this wasn't going to be ECW, only in name, I thought it would at least be an alternative to their regular, hard-to-watch, programming... Instead, it seems to be the 99 cent bin for WWE's reject wrestlers..."

"I am trying to judge this on its own merit, as I do with TNA. I have seen some positive things, not by true ECW standards, but I'm not holding this to those standards. A standard response to those of us who are disgusted with this is, "Don't watch!" "It's not supposed to be like the old ECW!" No kidding. I don't think any true ECW fan expected this to be like the real thing. My inital problem is that they were whoring out the name and even some of the talent but, make no mistake, I'm clear on what this is. Now, all of the advertising has indicated that this is supposed to be somewhat different from the regular product. At times it is. But, more often than not, it seems like the same old shit, as the Hammerstein fans noticed as well. Now, they proved that they could put on a decent wrestling program, and those are the standards I am holding them to. I've been watching this, putting the ECW part out of my head. The show in front of the Hammerstein crowd was actually enjoyable, and CM Punk's debut match was nice as well. I was hoping for something at least as good as that, not old ECW. They gave me a decent show or two, and now they don't seem to be doing so."

"I understand that they want to put these "new" guys over by giving them wins over all of the "ECW Originals", but why do they feel the need to totally bury the real ECW people? RVD and Tommy Dreamer, for example, don't need to be jobbing to put over Big Show and Bob Holly. Anyone that has been watching WWF/E for the past 5 years know that the old ECW guys have already been jobbing to these guys anyway. The "ECW Originals" have been buried for years, and it doesn't seem to make sense that they're still being buried. It doesn't matter for, say, Big Show to beat up Tommy Dreamer in an "ECW" ring, because to WWE fans, Dreamer is nothing but a jobber anyway. I thought, maybe, they'd take the time to showcase these guys and build them up a bit, first, before feeding them to make new stars, or to establish their vision of ECW.

If it was important enough to start a new show and call it ECW, then to showcase some of the old ECW guys, it would also make sense to me for them to undo the damage of the last several years (burying the ECW guys that were on the WWF/E roster) before using them to build the guys that are new to WWECW. It doesn't make a star out of anyone to get a win over somone who hasn't won a match in ages.

I realize that RVD beat Holly. Really, Rob Van Dam did a lot to hurt this project show. His irresponsible actions cost him and all of us. The show seems to have made an abrupt shift since his trouble with the law and subsequent suspension.

In his short reign, Big Show has already beaten all the major ECW guys (Sabu, RVD, Sandman, Dreamer) so it makes them all seem lame. When one of them does defeat him for the title, it seems that it will make less sense since he already decimated the whole roster. If he destroys everyone, then who will be a believable contender? They want these old ECW guys to lend credibility to the new guys, by jobbing, but they haven't established them (in my view) as anyone worth beating anyway.

Sabu is probably getting more exposure than he's gotten in years. The matches aren't really doing much to cement his legacy or to show any newer fans why he is/was such an innovator, but it is good to know that after busting his ass for years, he's finally going to make a few bucks. I hope that he can save enough to make his life more pleasant in the future. He certainly deserves quite a bit, in my opinion, after all that he's contributed. I hope he finally gets the recognition he deserves from mainstream fans.

I understand that Dreamer lost quite a bit, in ECW. Most of those losses were to Raven, but he did manage to beat others. See, losing to Raven didn't make him look like a jobber. He still got in plenty of offense, during the match, and put a hurting on Stevie and Beulah when he got the chance, as well. He still carried himself a certain way, and was perceived as a top guy in the company, regardless of wins or losses. Since joing WWF/E, in 2001, he has been reduced to a joke. He was buried, in my opinion, and they never did anything to really change that. They didn't even bother building him up for this WWECW thing. It seems to me that they could have established him a little better, before feeding him to Big Show and Test. Hell, give him a few wins over Little Guido and Stevie Richards first...

And I think Sandman should have been kept away from Big Show. I thought they were trying to build him up a bit, but they killed it already by jobbing him out already and making it seem like all of his offense comes from the cane, in the process. As if he couldn't get a win without it. I wasn't happy about him only being used to get rid of the gimmick people each week, anyway, but he should have been kept in reserve. I feel that they already jobbed all of the main talent to new people, at one time or another, and now their credibility (which has been damaged for the ones already in WWE for the last few years) is suffering from it. For mainstream WWE fans, Sandman is still relatively unknown. They should have built him up a lot more before jobbing him out to the champ. A few video packages of his accomplishments in the real ECW wouldn't have hurt. They might as well make some use of all that footage.

As for Justin Credible, I feel that he was overrated in ECW and I never agreed with Heyman's decision to push him to the moon at the expense of the older ECW wrestlers. I'll just say that he's one guy that I wouldn't mind to see get put in his place. I couldn't care less if he got buried, since he didn't belong in the first place.

Kurt Angle as the "Wrestling Machine" is very nice to see. His match with RVD was one of the best I've seen from WWE, in years. However, and it hurts to say this, he has no business in a ring with the letters E-C-W on it. Kurt Angle opposed ECW in 1996, making a big deal and ruining the crucifixion angle, between Raven and Sandman. Despite his wrestling acumen, it's a further insult to have him associated with this in any way, despite the good matches he's capable of having."

The summer of 2006 was a painful time for true ECW fans. The few remaining ECW alumni were jobbed out and buried even deeper. However, after several months, the complaining began to die down. Many simply accepted it for what it was. Vince got what he wanted. He killed the memory of ECW, for a lot of people. Now, casual wrestling fans associate those letters not with the revolutionary Philadelphia-based independent promotion that took the wrestling world by storm, in the mid to late 90s, but with this mediocre abomination on Sci Fi. He shaped it to what he saw it as and most don't notice the difference. In 2007, he even put the ECW World Title on himself. In the last couple years, even the most argumentative of us became desensitized to what was going on. I stopped watching, around September 2006, only tuning in again, a year later, to see CM Punk win the title.

Really, the only worthwhile things to come out of this were RVD's reign and Punk's rise to the top. All the hype from 2006 was wasted. "A new breed unleashed" really meant, "Watch us job the ECW Originals out to our developmental talent and neuter the name ECW as much as possible." The Heat and Velocity concepts seem to have failed, but with name ECW, they seem to have accomplished several goals... much to the disappointment of fans of Extreme Championship Wrestling.