justcoz

I can see why you would say that. And you're right. That isn't necessarily a vision that can be sold to Vince McMahon, Kevin Dunn or any exec at NBC/Universal. Obviously I think workrate should be a more important focus for any version of ECW. WWE have no competition. TNA is the closest thing (although I guess you could say UFC but it's a different animal to me) and they have no clue as to what type of company they want to push themselves as. The one positive they have going for them is the talent they've pulled from the indies and ROH stand out as being different from what you get on Raw and SD. And I think it's foolish for WWE from a business perspective to give them that niche, especially after relaunching ECW. WWE creative aren't going to turn Jamie Noble into the next Chris Benoit. Matt Hardy into the next Edge. Paul London into the next Ricky Steamboat. Brian Kendrick into the next HBK or hell even Ricky Morton. Johnny Ace is going to continuously let people the caliber of Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Jay Lethal, Chris Daniels, etc. go off to a competitor because they don't fit Vince's image of a pro wrestler. Well, if someone didn't challenge that image back in the early 90's, we wouldn't have had Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels. And even after that, Vince McMahon didn't have any interest in guys like Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio, Sabu, Mick Foley, Eddie Guererro, Chris Jericho and Dean Malenko until people like Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff used them. You may say it's a higher production ROH that I want but to me it's just the logical role a relaunched ECW should be. It's true to what ECW was. True to their fan base. True to the development of talent, creating guys that can generate money for the future. True to the development of an alternative brand to Raw and SD. And there would still be room for bimbos, catfights, Zombies, Macho Libres, etc. You can still have wrestling and sports entertainment.

I also feel that it's too early to tell the fate of modern day ECW. This past week's show was a huge improvement and from what I've read it's because Paul Heyman was given more freedom to do as he wished. Hopefully this trend continues and once Vengeance is done with we can see what Heyman and Lagana can do creatively with this roster and establishing ECW as it's own brand. The one thing I'm concerned about however is the talent that they are choosing to bring into ECW. Kurt Angle was fine. Big Show and Test however are not. Granted the old ECW had their share of big stiffs but there are so many guys lost in the shuffle on Raw and Smackdown who could really use the new ECW and opportunity to work with Heyman. I don't think the ECW mutants would necessarily shit on a new ECW at the ECW Arena if they were seeing guys like Jamie Noble, Matt Hardy, Paul London, Brian Kendrick, Super Crazy or Kid Kash. Even a repackaged Val Venis. There could be an open door policy where anyone is welcome to wrestle in ECW or they could easily do storylines where talent walk out on Raw or SD to go to ECW, even the entire cruiserweight division. This would still allow some cross promotion between the shows. If London and Kendrick are jobbed out to Great Khali they can angrily storm into Teddy Long's office and announce that they are taking the SD tag titles to ECW next Tuesday. I understand that they don't want to resemble an indie promotion but they need a larger roster, even if it's only a 60 minute show. Guys like Danny Doring, Justin Credible, Balls Mahoney, Roadkill and Stevie Richards are for the most part enhancement talent, although I'd like to see Stevie get a fair push. SD losing the names I mentioned above will do nothing to hurt their product since most of those guys are hardly ever on television. Matt Hardy is still ridiculously over despite being a jobber. They should bring in guys like Nigel McGuinness, Bryan Danielson or the Briscoes also. The idea should be to create a brand with a different style and more direct competition to whatever TNA is doing.

WWE listed it last night on the ECW schedule. Looks like it's not very unlikely, it's happening. Yes, Meltz was wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!

I think we'll have to wait and see with this one. Meltzer is saying that it's very unlikely they will tape ECW at the Wachovia Center one day after the Supershow taping at the same arena. He thinks this is a mistake on Ticketmaster's end. I also don't believe ECW Arena could handle WWE's production, especially a live broadcast. So I'm not sure what they will do 7/4. I was just looking forward to seeing ECW outside of the Smackdown tapings, in an intimate setting, hoping they would tape at least two weeks worth of programming. The perfect home is the Hammerstein Ballroom in NY.

Or couldn't they at least record a generic instrumental version of the song, kind of similar to what they've done with Tommy Dreamer's Man In the Box and Taz's War Machine themes. This way, the audience can still sing the words to Enter Sandman even though there are no vocals on the song itself?

I WANT TREKKIES!!!!! Including Sign Guy Trekkie.

And I totally agree with where you are coming from. You can't build a company around those old characters. I'm one of those people who weren't bothered at all by Kurt Angle destroying Justin Credible. They could have had a more interesting match with some time but Justin Credible didn't deserve to be ECW Champion and main event 8 years ago and he doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the top of the card now. Sandman, Dreamer and Balls are easy characters to book. They just beat people up. You don't have to center the show around them. Their roles are as ECW legends. Let them destroy some indie guy or stupid gimmick wrestler one week and put over someone you are trying to build a company around the next week. Sabu is similar but I liken him to a Mick Foley type where they can just harp on how he's sacrificed his body over the years and give him moment of celebration. Stevie Richards on the other hand has been underutilized ever since ECW and I think could amount to something if pushed to some degree and managing to stay injury free. I'm glad you get that because I was arguing with a friend of mine about this today too. Like you said, promising a show with Sandman, Sabu Tommy Dreamer and RVD wouldn't mean much to people who didn't follow ECW ten years ago but John Cena, Rey Mysterio and Edge showing up does generate an audience. And each of those guys have had some of their better performances of the year due to the ECW environment. The storylines have been a mess because WWE Creative just completely suck but Edge and Cena have played the characters they've had to play to an ECW crowd perfectly. Edge got a pop at ONS for spearing Cena because I actually think a good bit of the audience thought he jumped to ECW... and they would have accepted him. But the whole thing is reeking of the Alliance and really needs to end so we can judge what they really want to do with their version of ECW.

But it would be pretty funny. I'm sure no matter how rabid the fans are they would know not to get physical with him. I'm sure he could handle some obscenities and beer drenching. He could ham the asshole character up and probably have a good time. Sit Shane with him and have Shane 'become' one of the fans, do all the chants, drink beer as his father sits there business like. You're right, a promo alone with him standing in front of those fans would be good as well. Yeah, I'm sure they wouldn't be into the false advertising thing but it would be a way to get the ECW rebellion vibe back to it. Yeah, you sign our checks but we play by our own rules and make you money, what are you going to do? Plus, by showing RVD and Sabu at the ECW house show, even if it's on tape delay, they are still technically appearing on the show. One Night Stand was not a great show. You saw bits of the direction that they went into on the debut start to creep into the product. Those fans made the show however and it was that vibe alone that still made it feel like old ECW despite the in-ring product and finishes not necessarily being ECW-like. Look, even something as ridiculous as The Zombie would have worked ten times better in front of an ECW crowd. Most of them are smart and would 'get' the fact that they were playing into Sci-Fi's ridiculous demands. The SD audience had no idea what they were doing with the character. Agreed. I also like the 'open door policy' where certain underused Raw and Smackdown fans can wrestle in front of the ECW crowd. It would be harmless for Paul London to come in and wrestle a competetive (but doing the job) match against someone ECW are trying to build up as a star. Fit Finley would lose nothing by doing a job on an ECW show against Balls Mahoney. It would make ECW feel all the more unpredictible and still allow 'WWE Superstars' to appear on the show for ratings boost without it necessarily being main event tier talent. If ECW taped several weeks of television and you read spoilers that contained RVD vs. Matt Hardy, Paul London vs. CM Punk or Kurt Angle vs. Jamie Noble, would you want to tune in? The whole thing about not wanting to exhaust the tv crew and budget an additional night's worth of tapings never seemed right. More and more black curtains are going up at Raw and SD tv tapings. Doing super show tapings would likely sell out arenas and would save money. Taping ECW in three week intervals would actually save money and manpower. ECW needs their own taping. Their audience is different. SD and Raw audiences are the same. And with Vince no longer running the Garden with any regularity - you'd think he'd be into the idea of monthly show from a New York venue like Hammerstein Ballroom (which looks cool as hell on television) to have his finger on the pulse of the New York audience he built his company around. And besides the concept of ECW tapings at an intimate venue like Hammerstein Ballroom is pretty much the original concept of Monday Night Raw.

Because while it's not the old ECW, there was still an opportunity to produce an alternative, based on ECW traditions with ECW style booking. Heyman proved in OVW that he can still create interesting characters and book good angles. The point of this third brand should be to create another set of marketable wrestlers and characters. Something that hasn't necessarily been WWE creative's strong point. Because there is a corporate power behind it they may never win back every old ECW fan but for the sake of good business there should have been an attempt to win some of them back. A debut like this alienated a ton of old fans I'm sure and I don't look for the rating to hold up at all. I still feel very strongly that they could have made it work. This was the debut. The whole concept has been rushed. I still think it's too early to know for sure if it can work or not. It certainly got off to a poor start. The things that I'm hoping they take from this poor debut: 1) they need an ECW audience 2) they can't be 'live' because of Sci-Fi's worries so like someone posted, just give them their own tapings or tape house shows in front of 'their' audience 3) it can't be produced and paced like a WWE show, it's one hour, you can't have a ten minute promo, stupid backstage vignettes, pointless T&A (and why the hell wasn't Kelly's bra trauma edited?), 'earlier tonight' video packages and outside arena shots that make it look like Raw and SD. 4) let Joey Styles and Tazz be true to themselves, when they were given that freedom, their commentary stood out on the WWE-ECW special and the ECW PPV 5) it's ok to have this current tie-in with Raw and using guys like Cena (who's actually gained some of his edge back thanks to working ECW) and Edge (who would have fit into the old ECW anyway) but it MUST END and they must debut new faces, create new stars and salvage the careers of those in ECW who are salvageable (Sabu, Sandman, Dreamer, Balls Mahoney, Stevie Richards and FBI)

I agree with what you have to say about Shane having the pulse that his father lacks. What does the rest of the statement mean though? I was under the impression that Vince was originally going to let Shane be heavily involved with the ECW project before he got over-zealous and took it from under him. I know that Shane wanted to run the show on the internet but Vince saw dollar signs. Was there something I missed?

Lagana worked closely with Heyman on Smackdown. He was Heyman's right hand guy when he first joined the writing team. There were talks that their relationship cooled when Heyman was demoted and Lagana pretty much took his spot along with Bruce Pritchard. I also read that Lagana was looking forward to working with Paul when they brought him back on to Smackdown's creative in '04 with that real short stint. I never read of any heat between the two from that point but Heyman was fired for listening in on the Raw creative team's conference call.

It was right after Kelly's strip tease, also the point when Tazz and Joey made complete asses out of themselves and shilled for that terrible stuff.

I'm going to try to be optimistic just because I'm tired of still being pissed off about last night's show. This thing can still be saved. I'm really hoping that this mess of a debut was just a case of 'too many cooks in the kitchen' wanting to mix different ingredients and now that they see what works vs. what doesn't it will result in a better product. I remember actually wanting them to debut as an internet only show as I anticipated things being a mess in the beginning. But this is WWE of course and who is to say that anyone in that company outside of those behind the original ECW, regardless of the internet backlash, actually recognize how f'd up this show was. My suggestions: Do next week's ECW from the SD tapings in Albany, NY. Pretty much the same formula as this past week but at least try to add some ECW elements back to the product. For one, let Heyman produce Tazz and Styles on the headset and not feed them the insincere bullshit they were being fed on Tuesday to say. Tazz lost all credibility whenever he said the new ECW was going to be better than the old ECW after the embarrassing Kelly stiptease skit. Hearing Joey Styles try to get over John Cena's punch. Um, no. Allow them to express displeasure when WWE elements are pushed, like Kelly appearances for instance. Let Mr. McMahon appear and add some questionable stipulations to the Edge vs. RVD and Cena vs. Sabu Vengeance matches and remind Paul Heyman that this is Mr. McMahon's ECW, not his anymore. Have at least one competetive match, perhaps RVD vs. Sabu or something with the predictible Edge/Cena involvement. Let the Vengeance hype run it's course and have this be the end of the WWE vs. ECW shit. This is where that nasty Alliance vibe is coming from and as long as they are pushing ECW guys appearing on Raw and this PPV, they won't be able to really start the third brand as they intend to. The weekend of Vengeance, tape some matches from the ECW house shows at ECW Arena. Super Crazy vs. Sabu, CM Punk vs. Stevie Richards and Kurt Angle vs. CW Anderson. Have Cyrus return as The Network debuting a stable of Trekkies, The Zombie and The Mummy. Let Paul Heyman cut a promo about Vince McMahon not "getting ECW" and welcoming him to appear at the ECW Arena for the July 4 tv show taping. The following night, the live PPV broadcast of Vengeance is interrupted by an ECW feed from their house show in Belle Vernon, PA. Paul Heyman is standing in the ring with RVD and Sabu - who of course are supposed to be at Vengeance. RVD states that he'd rather be wrestling in front of his ECW fans than be set up for failure on a WWE PPV. He throws down the WWE championship, holds up the ECW championship and states that he welcomes all disgruntled "WWE Superstars" to come on to ECW's turf and challenge him. The WWE announcers rip apart Sabu and RVD for no showing their PPV appearance and Paul Heyman for condoning it. Mr. McMahon hurridly changes the Vengeance main event to a hardcore match between John Cena and Edge with the winner being declared new champion. That Tuesday's ECW telecast consist of matches taped from ECW Arena, Heyman's promo asking for Vince McMahon to sit front row at the 7/4 ECW Arena show, the debut of Cyrus and the Sci-Fi Squad and footage of RVD throwing down the WWE championship from Sunday night. The next tapings are 7/4 from ECW Arena. Vince McMahon sits front row. It's broadcast tape delay and three weeks of television are taped. The ECW open door policy is initiated and some Raw and SD superstars take it. Matches include: FBI vs. The Trekkies, Balls Mahoney vs. Fit Finley, CM Punk vs. Tajiri, Jamie Noble vs. Kid Kash, RVD vs. Matt Hardy, RVD vs. Paul London, Sabu vs. Sandman, the debut of Joey Mercury and Justin Credible as a tag team, Sandman vs. Eugene (with Eugene turning heel), Evil Doink The Clown vs. The Zombie, Big Show vs. King Kong Bundy (haha, I know, tell me it wouldn't be cool though). In my dreams...

This may not be a bad idea. Lagana was an ECW Arena fan and was also Heyman's right hand man when Paul was in charge of Smackdown's creative team. I think there needs to be a middle man between Paul Heyman and the McMahon/Kevin Dunn duo. From what I've read Lagana is well-liked enough within the company that he could possibly fill that role while Heyman can still get something resembling his vision of ECW into the picture. I don't know. I'm still sickened from last night. Paul did great in OVW and I really thought they'd just let him be as head of ECW's creative but McMahon and WWE creative's finger prints were all over last night's show. I'd be satisfied with a happy medium and if Lagana is the answer and it keeps Gerwitz, Steph and Vince out of the picture somewhat, it's a good move.

Matt Hardy CM Punk Paul London Brian Kendrick Juventud Guerrero Jamie Noble Kid Kash Samoa Joe Brian Danielson Jimmy Yang Homicide Lo Ki Teddy Hart

I'd have more faith if they committed to Supershow Raw and Smackdown tapings every Monday and ECW tapings every other Tuesday from Hammerstein Ballroom or the smaller venues they are running ECW house shows. The ONS crowd was 80% of that pay per view, they need to tape in front of ECW only crowds. Running this show in front of Smackdown fans just won't have the same vibe. The 7/4 ECW Arena and 8/1 Hammerstein Ballroom ECW shows will be telling as to whether or not this can work.

There were no rest holds on WWF tv at that time. Even though the Russo era was long-gone they were still very much following the crash tv format with a lot of backstage stuff and really short matches. It was also a case of timing and doing something in the wrong location. I think if they would have ran the WCW return in a city like Atlanta there may have been a different response but they were also foolish not to make big money plays to bring in guys like Eric Bishoff, Ric Flair, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Hogan, Sting, Rey Mysterio, Goldberg, etc. That would have at least resembled the WCW that was popular rather than the one that died. You have to wonder, if the crowd didn't totally shit on Buff vs. Booker, the landscape of the business could be drastically different today. I mean, they at least appeared to have serious interest in bringing WCW back to the point of giving them 20 minutes on Raw, bringing in an announce team, changing the lighting and even having a WCW ring apron and logo on the screen.

I think Angle makes perfect sense. If Heyman is handling most of the booking, Angle, for the first time in his career, gets pushed as a legitimate bad ass wrestling machine. Hopefully they will can the 'You Suck' music. His ring style can be more mat based and shoot fighter-like. He doesn't have to wrestle on every house show and if he does appear they are mostly on the east coast near his home town. That makes for less demands on his body from the heavy travel. I'm sure there will be plenty of people on the ECW roster that Angle can have good matches with and I hardly consider it a downgrade considering the shape of Smackdown these days. Plus, if Angle wins the ECW Title, would that make him the first WWE, WCW (i'm pretty sure he won that title during the invasion angle) and ECW champion?

Too many guys but I'd say Super Crazy, Matt Hardy, Joey Mercury, Steve Regal, Jamie Noble, Kid Kash, Charlie Haas, Matt Stryker, Nick Dinsmore, Doug Basham and Stevie Richards. Maybe a stint down the road for someone like Ric Flair (perhaps one last match w/ Terry Funk or Dusty Rhodes), Paul London and Brian Kendrick.

RVD should've been brought into the WWF with Fonzie by his side. It adds an abundance of "cool" to his character...Alfonso being the cheerleader while RVD stood there and calmly told you how great he was was definitely a great visual... EXACTLY!!!! The key word there is "calmly". RVD is supposed to be laid back and arrogant. When he plays to the crowd it's supposed to be smug and not 'please cheer for me' but instead 'cheer for me because i'm the shit". The reason RVD screams and looks awkward doing a different type of promo and playing for crowd response is because it's not what he should be doing. It worked better with Fonzie because RVD would calmly tell you how great he was and Fonzie would yell, blow his whistle, jump around the ring and get people to chant RVD. They need Fonzie bad. Especially if RVD is the top guy in ECW.

RVD needs Fonzie for the pick me up. RVD won't have to struggle on the mic when talking to the audience because Fonzie would be there blowing the whistle, yelling that RVD is the greatest baby, RVD is going to be the champion baby, etc. and playing to the crowd.

Good call. So the suspects are Terkey, Test, Trytan or local talent. It'd likely a signed talent and I doubt they would waste Test in fake kane role. I'd like to add Taker to the lineup for the fake Kane. Would anyone be surprised if WWE got him to do it? So Kane is really the Undertaker and the Undertaker is really Kane? Well, when the Undertaker debuted he was briefly called Kane The Undertaker...

They really need to tape Raw and Smackdown together to create a super show taping and give ECW a regular tape schedule from intimate arena settings with their own fan base. ECW could even be taped once or twice month. Hell, this should actually lessen production costs. There is no need for the seperate SD tapings. Maybe they worry about giving up that weekly house they pull in for the SD tapings but with their ratings on the network down and insistence on treating SD like the "B" show those tapings may not even draw for much longer. I would even save face with the network and make Smackdown 60 minutes or 90 minutes so the network can run a show that keeps the wrestling audience. ECW is not going to work with WWE fans in Cena and Mysterio t-shirts. Especially when they are in cities that weren't necessarily ECW hot beds, we've seen examples of that the past few weeks on Raw with lukeworm reactions to ECW. Put the Heyman-Foley debate from tonight's Raw in the Hammerstein Ballroom with Faith No More Guy, Hat Guy, and the fan regulars and it would have played entirely different They need ECW fans and an intimate setting to be ECW.

I could see them doing perhaps a Sci-Fi/Trekkie heel group - may be a good way to group some average developmental guys together or something for Stevie and Meanie to do? Perhaps another "Network" type character that pushes for Sci-Fi elements on the program at the direction of Vince McMahon that Paul Heyman and the original ECW guys find offensive. They could have fun with it with some creativity.

Yeah, it is cheap heat in the way that they want fans to respond to JBL's actions but it's obvious that JBL loved Eddie. Everytime he does the three amigos or mocks the Eddie shuffle strut he puts his fist to his heart and hits his chest several times meaning he's doing so with love. I don't think the casual fans are as stupid as people make them out to be. They do catch things like that. It's so much different than Randy Orton saying Rey is in hell or HHH saying Eddie could come back from the dead and it wouldn't matter. If there is anyone that I buy into the idea of 'keeping Eddie alive in memories' justification that WWE uses - it's JBL.