Could an ECW brand have succeeded in 2001?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21u5n_wwewwf-raw-ecw-returns_extreme

This was a big moment. When everyone turned around, I marked like hell...something I hadn't done in about five years, at that point. They had a decent amount of guys in the ring, and several more on the roster that were ECW alumni; Saturn, Snow, Lynn, Tajiri, etc. Also, this was a year or so before things got super stale.

I am aware that they didn't get the rights to the ECW name and such until 2003. For the sake of this question, let's just pretend that they considered it a top priority and sped the process up and that wasn't an issue.

If they had taken Heat, for example, and turned it into a weekly ECW show, with a roster full of ECW guys, and given Heyman the book, could it have been a success?

My thinking is that it could have. ECW had been in decline for a couple years anyway, so a watered-down show that actually featured recognizable ECW talent, as opposed to what ECW had degenerated to by the time it closed, wouldn't have been as big of a deal. Then, anytime decent wrestlers came in, they could get put on ECW. Basically, the few guys that made Smackdown worth watching for that brief time could have been on ECW, instead.

Of course, certain things would have had to have been different. Definitely no Austin berating Taz. I remember that, despite wishing to forget it. All I kept thinking was how Taz would never take such crap from anyone. Oddly enough, the night he choked out Heyman on Smackdown, I walked in the room and saw Taz choking out someone with a big bald head, and got excited for a moment because I assumed it was Austin.

I think this moment was one of the last times I actually got excited about wrestling. Yet, by the end of the program, they were saddled with "WCW" and Steph and I was just scratching my head in disbelief. Anyone that followed ECW should have been aware of Heyman's dislike for WCW, so this pairing made even less sense.

The more I think of it, the more I believe this would have been a total success..if handled right. RVD was so over... I mean, within months of making his debut, he got victories over Austin, Angle, The Rock, Undertaker, Kane, the Hardys, and the mighty Chris Jericho. Too bad I can't have a discussion with Vince and get his reasoning for missing the boat on so many things...