Wow. Where do I begin with this?
I’ve been an ECW fan since 1995. I was very unsatisfied with the WWF and WCW’s cartoon-like vision of wrestling at the time. I stumbled upon an edition of PWI Magazine and saw these bloody, gruesome pictures of Tommy Dreamer, New Jack & Raven, whom I had known previously as Scotty Flamingo and Johnny Polo. I immediately became interested in this, completely based off the blandness that the WWF and WCW were presenting. I got a buddy from New Jersey to tape about 4 or 5 episodes of ECW’s syndicated show. After viewing this tape, I was hooked. Absolutely hooked. There was no going back.
Let’s fast forward to 2006. Here I am unsatisfied with WWE’s direction. I don’t agree with the evolution of the company from wrestling into sports entertainment. TNA came around, but I don’t like and never have liked that company because all it’s just WWE-light. Sorry, but I have no interest in a company that uses the same people in the main events that were in WCW’s main events the year they lost $80 million in one year. The news broke that Vince McMahon had decided to bring ECW back as a full-time brand. Seeing how much I loved ECW One Night Stand 2005 was and remembering how, if just for one night, I actually felt in love with wrestling again for the first time in years, I was excited. I was right. I was about to go on the ride again. There really was no going back.
At least, I didn’t think there was. But after watching the new ECW’s debut on the Sci-Fi Channel, maybe there finally is a way to go back; a way to undo the process of becoming a wrestling fan.
What I saw tonight was the most disheartening, saddening (yet infuriating), empty, pathetic excuse for an ECW product. Let me just begin to count the ways to tell you why.
I’ve had my reservations about the idea since it was revealed that the ECW show was going to be done at the Smackdown tapings. That immediately put a bad taste in my mouth.
Upon hearing that Joey Styles told the fans in the crowd not to make obscene chants because there were families there to watch Smackdown, I threw up in my mouth a little bit. What is an ECW crowd without obscene chants? For a show that is supposed to be so different and against the WWE grain, why are they telling people to adhere to the people there to watch Smackdown? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Instead of being different, this show started off just like a WWE show: with a 10-15 minute angle. The first segment of the show summed up everything that is wrong with this vision of ECW. ECW just does not work in a big arena. It was never meant to. ECW was meant to be presented in mid-sized, intimate settings. If Vince wants any hope at all to this ECW project being a success, he has a lot of things he needs to fix and adjustments he needs to make based on this show. This is just the first thing. Get ECW away from the big arenas and give them their tapings in the usual ECW settings. Why is WWE backup announcer Justin Roberts doing the ring announcing instead of ECW ring announcer Stephen D'Angelis? This was the first thing I noticed wrong, and I noticed it immediately. So much for authenticity, I guess. What is up with Rob Van Dam not throwing down the WWE Championship? The main thing that got ECW noticed was the historic moment when Shane Douglas threw down the NWA Title in the ring, proclaimed it to be worthless, and accepted the ECW Title. So when RVD is presented with the ECW Title…he keeps the WWE title? Yeah, whatever. And instead of giving RVD back his cocky edge that he had in ECW, they made him still be a dopey face that had no idea Edge was going to beat him up. Edge & John Cena’s overall appearance on this show were major problems for me. The fact John Cena got cheers and nothing of the response like he got at One Night Stand immediately kills any feeling I get that this is ECW. Speaking of which, I don’t recall hearing one “ECW” chant all night. Some ECW show, isn’t it? Why am I even watching John Cena & Edge fighting anyways? Why is Paul Heyman even being used as an on-screen character? This isn’t ECW. It’s an advertisement for Raw and Vengeance.
If the WWE influence wasn’t beating beaten into your face enough, we had a segment where Heyman proclaims that he is going to bring ECW to Raw. There’s nothing to see here. It’s just an advertisement for Raw. Also, I find it incredibly corny and lame seeing the ECW wrestlers chant “ECW.” That has and always will be a fan-only thing.
Next up was The Sandman’s sad segment. I don’t know about the rest of you, but there’s something really awkward about seeing Sandman come out to music that is not Enter Sandman. Even more awkward is watching him drink and slam beers against his forehead without fans swarming him and instead around a bunch of 10-year-old, confused John Cena fans. I understood what his 20-second squash of “The Zombie” was trying to accomplish (not to mention the tongue-in-cheek jab to Sci-Fi’s ridiculous demands), but that doesn’t make me feel comfortable with it. What was even worse was hearing Joey Styles & Tazz trying to pawn this off as incredibly awesome and what the new ECW is all about. If this is what the new ECW is all about, this isn’t going to be pretty.
More WWE influence comes ahead with our second match of the night, Kurt Angle vs. Justin Credible. If it wasn’t clear to you that the WWE creative team booked this show after this match, you need a lobotomy. Here you have a guy that was a former ECW World Champion for 7 months, and he gets killed in 2 minutes by Angle. I don’t care about his past ECW rushing. Kurt Angle is a WWE guy through-and-through and I don’t like him being a part of this if he is continually going to be booked like he was in WWE.
What in the world was up with the Barbie Blank segment? I thought it was very indicative of how this ECW project is going to turn out when Blank couldn’t undo her bra. This is supposed to be extreme? I guess boy shorts are more extreme than skimpy g-strings. It was clear that the Kimona Wana-Leia striptease was the inspiration here, but this didn’t live up to it at all. I was waiting for Francine to come out and whip ass, but nothing. I thought it was rather stupid. At least Kimona's attire was more risque. So much for being different when the ECW women have to follow the WWE's no-thong policy. I don't see how this sexuality was more extreme than WWE's like Joey Styles & Tazz told me it was.
Then we have our battle royal, which was a fittingly sad main event to a very sad debut show. It’d be one thing if the winner of the match got an ECW title shot. But what does the winner get? He gets a match with John Cena at Vengeance. Why would they give a damn about John Cena? Once again, this is nothing but a Vengeance advertisement. What the hell was Big Show doing with pyrotechnics? I thought this was supposed to be different from WWE? Just a note to WWE: plugging the Wreckless Intent CD when Big Show comes out isn’t going to help break him away from WWE. Once again, the WWE influence bled through the booking of this one as Big Show eliminated every ECW guy except for Sabu. As an ECW faithful fan, I did not enjoy seeing a WWE guy beat the crap out of all the ECW people. This is supposed to bring the hardcore ECW fans back? And what was with all the commercial breaks during the battle royal? That is not ECW at all. As if the ECW feeling wasn’t killed by this point, seeing a DX Vengeance commercial during the break didn’t help.
We end the show with Joey Styles & Tazz telling us how awesome tonight's show was and reminding us to...watch Raw? Meanwhile, a copyright notice with WWE’s logo and “WWE Entertainment” right on it comes up. How is this supposed to be different from WWE when mentions of their shows & commercials and their logos are all over the thing? This was the final death blow to an ECW re-launch that seems to have been dead on arrival.
I had problems with other things on this show. One thing is the production values. If this makes any sense, they were too good. I don’t enjoy seeing ECW in a huge arena, a video wall, pyrotechnics, all the camera angles, shots outside the arena, fancy lighting, or all the fancy video packages. ECW’s production didn’t look fancy at all and that’s what I loved about it. I don’t like all the animated nameplates used when the wrestlers come out. I enjoyed the simple nameplates used at One Night Stand ’05. It felt more apropos to ECW. I hated the fact that, once again just like the other WWE shows, they felt the need to replay every single thing that happened previously. I hate it when they do it on WWE shows, and it’s a travesty that they are doing this on ECW, a product that is supposed to be different. I also enjoyed the grainy, frame-by-frame filter ECW used to use when showing footage that wasn't live action. I also beg you to find one ECW show where Joey Styles sat at ringside and not in front of an ECW banner.
I was on the fence on another issue until tonight. If Vince is really dedicated to making this work, he needs to pony up the money for all the music the ECW wrestlers used. The Sandman not using Enter Sandman made me really think about it and Justin Credible coming out to his old WWF production music made me decide that the money needs to be spent for this music. The necessities here are Enter Sandman for The Sandman, Big Balls for Balls Mahoney, Walk for Rob Van Dam, Man In The Box for Tommy Dreamer, Snap Your Fingers Snap Your Neck for Justin Credible, and Stayin' Alive for The FBI. There is no debate now. It must be done.
Speaking of music, for being told so much that this was a new ECW, I am getting really sick of hearing that Drowning Pool song from 2001 constantly. Not only is it an old song that has been played way too much, it also reminds me of the InVasion a lot more than I'd care to remember it.
I watched tonight’s show with a non-wrestling fan that was at my place when I watched One Night Stand on Sunday. He put down the video game he was playing because he kept glancing over at the TV and liked what he saw. He was just as into the show as I was because of the environment and the way it was presented. When I told him about the ECW show on Sci-Fi, he said he wanted to come over and check it out. By the time Sandman got done squashing "The Zombie," he said to me, “There’s no way this is supposed to be the same thing as Sunday. This is just the typical crap wrestling.” The insight of a non-wrestling fan can speak volumes.
The bottom line is this project is going to be an enormous failure if things follow the blueprint tonight’s show followed. The first step is to immediately get ECW TV tapings out of the Smackdown arenas. There is absolutely no way it’s going to work. Every step after that is to bring the show back to an ECW feel. Get Ron Buffone on the horn and get him in here to help out with the ECW production to make it feel more authentic. Honestly, if the ECW logo wasn’t splattered all over the place, this would have been no different than an episode of Raw or Smackdown. If Vince thinks this is going to pull in all the fans that quit watching wrestling when WCW and ECW died, he’s got another thing coming. I dare Vince to put on this type of show when they do the live ECW TV show from the ECW Arena on 7/4. I guarantee a show-long chant of “This Show Sucks!”
This is going to be a bomb on the level of the XFL if things continue like this. Joey Styles & Tazz should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for shilling this the way they did and having the nerve to call it ECW. This is not ECW. This is not the ECW I fell in love with in 1995. This is Vince’s incorrect vision of ECW. As a hardcore ECW fan that this show was supposed to appeal to, allow me to send a message to Vince McMahon: Let your vision and your creative team stick to ruining Raw and Smackdown. I barely watch wrestling anymore as it is. The prostitution and tarnishing of ECW’s legacy is the one and only thing that will ensure my total permanent dismissal of professional wrestling from my life. And you are starting to toe that line, Mr. McMahon.