OAO ECW TV Thread - June 13th 2006

[Downhome 0]

A few random bits from PWInsider:

 

Axl Rotten and Francine's pictures and bios are off of the ECW wrestler page. I think it's a pretty good bet that Axl Rotten was let go for last week's no-show. I am not sure what's up with Francine but I am under the impression that her profile was taken down because she hasn't debuted for the company yet and will do so soon.

 

The final number for the ECW debut was a 2.8 cable rating, with a 4.5 share.

 

Variety ran the followiing about ECW's debut on Sci Fi: "The premiere of Sci Fi Channel's "ECW" (Extreme Championship Wrestling) averaged a 1.5/4 in 18-49 -- the best for any program on the net this year -- and 3.38 million viewers overall. It was the most-watched cable show of the night."

 

The Programming Insider reported that "the median viewer age of ECW was 32.3, 16 years younger than the second quarter to-date time period average of 48." That is why the show is on Sci Fi folks, younger viewers.

[NoCalMike 0]

Well the best news to come out of the ECW debut is that at least Sci-Fi seems pleased at the rating.

 

Plenty of time to fix the ECW project.

[benoit4hor 0]

For the wrestlers this is the best ECW ever, the checks don't bounce.

[Lil' Bitch 0]

I'm confused, so does this make RVD a double champion since he's the WWE / ECW Champion?

[NoCalMike 0]

Speaking of the show from Tuesday. Did anyone think for a second(before Edge came out) that RVD was going to turn heel? After Heyman gave him the ECW belt, and RVD said thanks, then he said he still wanted to keep the WWE spinner belt, Heyman said "why?" and had this look on his face like "why the fuck do you want that" I thought it was going to maybe lead to RVD turning....but alas Edge came out and all was lost.

[Maztinho 0]

Speaking of the show from Tuesday. Did anyone think for a second(before Edge came out) that RVD was going to turn heel? After Heyman gave him the ECW belt, and RVD said thanks, then he said he still wanted to keep the WWE spinner belt, Heyman said "why?" and had this look on his face like "why the fuck do you want that" I thought it was going to maybe lead to RVD turning....but alas Edge came out and all was lost.

 

I thought the same thing. I was waiting for Mr. Monday Night to come out, and be the lead heel that ECW needs. Begging Vince to draft him back to RAW so he doesn't have to work for Heyman anymore... it would have been brilliant.

 

Alas... Edge.

[hyperchord24 0]

I'm confused, so does this make RVD a double champion since he's the WWE / ECW Champion?

I was wondering that myself.

 

Vince COULD have RVD throw the WWE belt down, but why crap on that legacy. He'll be double champ until he gives it back to Cena, which is why the name plate hasn't changed and RVD didn't breal off the spinner.

[NoCalMike 0]

I am thinking at Vengeance they either do a double pin where Cena and RVD both pin Edge OR at Vengeance it is only the WWE title on the line, not the ECW title, so RVD drops the WWE Belt without actually being pinned.

[SuperJerk 0]

I'm confused, so does this make RVD a double champion since he's the WWE / ECW Champion?

I was wondering that myself.

 

Vince COULD have RVD throw the WWE belt down, but why crap on that legacy. He'll be double champ until he gives it back to Cena, which is why the name plate hasn't changed and RVD didn't breal off the spinner.

The nameplate said "RVD".

[NoCalMike 0]

From www.ecw.com

 

Most Extreme Player for 6/15

By Joey Styles

June 15, 2006

 

 

Effective with the world premiere of ECW on Sci Fi, ECW.com has asked me to choose a weekly ECW MVP (Most Valuable Player) or, in my words, an ECW MEP (Most Extreme Player).

 

This week’s ECW M.E.P. is without question The Zombie. The Zombie’s riveting entrance, intensity and pre-match interview embodied everything I have come to expect from sports-entertainment.

 

The Zombie immediately made this lifelong wrestling fan conjure up images of such other sports-entertainment greats as Max Moon, The Goon and The Gobbledygooker.

 

Unfortunately, former 5-time ECW World Heavyweight Champion, The Sandman, did not find The Zombie nearly as entertaining as did I and summarily caned the undead sports-entertainer repeatedly before quickly pinning The Zombie after his signature White Russian Leg Sweep.

 

Runner-up honors go to new ECW “exhibitionist”, Kelly, who I deemed ineligible when she failed to unhook her bra.

 

 

Sounds like Styles is already pissed and decides to shoot on his own show...lol.

[dubq 0]

A few random bits from PWInsider:

 

Axl Rotten and Francine's pictures and bios are off of the ECW wrestler page. I think it's a pretty good bet that Axl Rotten was let go for last week's no-show. I am not sure what's up with Francine but I am under the impression that her profile was taken down because she hasn't debuted for the company yet and will do so soon.

 

The final number for the ECW debut was a 2.8 cable rating, with a 4.5 share.

 

Variety ran the followiing about ECW's debut on Sci Fi: "The premiere of Sci Fi Channel's "ECW" (Extreme Championship Wrestling) averaged a 1.5/4 in 18-49 -- the best for any program on the net this year -- and 3.38 million viewers overall. It was the most-watched cable show of the night."

 

The Programming Insider reported that "the median viewer age of ECW was 32.3, 16 years younger than the second quarter to-date time period average of 48." That is why the show is on Sci Fi folks, younger viewers.

 

Wierd, Francine is back on the page.

[Downhome 0]

Here is another bit from Dave Scherer over at PWI:

 

Where Styles is concerned, I know that he is very vocal about wanting to be a presence on the ECW website. He owned half of the old ECW site (which I ran for him) and loves the online medium.

 

I talked to a number of people in the company over the past few days and they all realized that the first show was a bomb, despite the excellent rating. The realize that the rating wasn't drawn off of the show, but rather the curiosity of those who wanted to see the new brand. Sources close to the situation told me that even Vince McMahon realized the show stunk, but he didn't really sell it to anyone. There's a lot of pressure to make this week's show better. The feeling is that they will have the audience back this week, thinking that even those who hated last week's show will at least give it a second chance before tuning out for good. So, they need to deliver.

[NoCalMike 0]

If Vince agrees it stunk, I hope he is actually open to Heyman's ideas on how to make it better.

 

On the show Tuesday when he did his angry promo about "everything I had originally planned for tonight is out the window...." I almost think that was an accidental shoot because there is NO WAY IN HELL, Heyman planned the show like that.

[razazteca 0]

From www.ecw.com

 

Most Extreme Player for 6/15

By Joey Styles

June 15, 2006

 

 

Effective with the world premiere of ECW on Sci Fi, ECW.com has asked me to choose a weekly ECW MVP (Most Valuable Player) or, in my words, an ECW MEP (Most Extreme Player).

 

This week’s ECW M.E.P. is without question The Zombie. The Zombie’s riveting entrance, intensity and pre-match interview embodied everything I have come to expect from sports-entertainment.

 

The Zombie immediately made this lifelong wrestling fan conjure up images of such other sports-entertainment greats as Max Moon, The Goon and The Gobbledygooker.

 

Unfortunately, former 5-time ECW World Heavyweight Champion, The Sandman, did not find The Zombie nearly as entertaining as did I and summarily caned the undead sports-entertainer repeatedly before quickly pinning The Zombie after his signature White Russian Leg Sweep.

 

Runner-up honors go to new ECW “exhibitionist”, Kelly, who I deemed ineligible when she failed to unhook her bra.

 

 

Sounds like Styles is already pissed and decides to shoot on his own show...lol.

It's missing the classic lines of "Yeah you'll see that on Monday Night next week" and "Nova invented the Zombie gimmick"

 

There's a lot of pressure to make this week's show better

ECW needs Jericho, Foley, Funk, the luchadors, and whatever japanese wrestlers they can find.

[Downhome 0]

On the show Tuesday when he did his angry promo about "everything I had originally planned for tonight is out the window...." I almost think that was an accidental shoot because there is NO WAY IN HELL, Heyman planned the show like that.

 

 

Yeah, when Heyman said that I said to myself "no shit".

[iggymcfly 0]

I know that the show has been discussed to death, but since the thread was down earlier, I still want to give my thoughts.

 

There was basically one huge problem with the show. Yeah, the arena looked bad, and the production wasn't done right, but that stuff's all fixable, and they couldn't be expected to get that right the first night.

 

The biggest problem is that everyone from ECW was treated as a total jobber! Honestly, they might have well just screamed from the rooftops: Our entire roster is terrible! Sabu and Sandman are treated like midcarders at best, and everyone else signed gives off the impression that they're below Velocity level.

 

Justin Credible who's one of the more marketable stars they signed was squashed in a minute and a half by Kurt Angle. In case you forgot, Angle used to run an invitational every week where he'd squash local jobbers, and they'd usually last about 2 and a half minutes. That's longer than Justin Credible lasted. Basically, in the WWE hierarchy, former ECW champion is one step below local jobber.

 

And the main event was even worse! They basically took the entire roster of new ECW guys, everyone they've signed for the new promotion (minus Sandman) that they think might interest people, and fed them all to the Big Show. To start with, he basically took on the roster by himself, and sent evey one of them running from the ring. Then they came back, and of the ten entrants in the battle royal, he eliminated 8 of them by himself.

 

Then, Sabu who's one of about two people they're trying to give a little bit of a push to couldn't even eliminate Big Show by himself, he needed someone holding onto him from the outside to knock him out. Would it have been that hard to let Sabu hit a couple of cool spots, and just knock him out of the ring cleanly? Then the story would have been that Big Show was a total monster but Sabu was a badass and he was still able to best him. Instead, the story was "ECW's so full of jobbers that even ten of them have to cheat to be able to beat one WWE wrestler."

 

I just can't imagine who thought the best way to bring back ECW was to bring in two WWE guys and have them squash the entire roster. You could summarize the show as:

 

1. Promo where WWE products representing WWE completely outsmart and humiliate Heyman and RVD.

 

2. "Comedy match"

 

3. WWE product squashes ECW product.

 

4. WWE product squashes 9 ECW products at the same time before taking a fluke loss.

[dubq 0]

Here is another bit from Dave Scherer over at PWI:

 

Where Styles is concerned, I know that he is very vocal about wanting to be a presence on the ECW website. He owned half of the old ECW site (which I ran for him) and loves the online medium.

 

I talked to a number of people in the company over the past few days and they all realized that the first show was a bomb, despite the excellent rating. The realize that the rating wasn't drawn off of the show, but rather the curiosity of those who wanted to see the new brand. Sources close to the situation told me that even Vince McMahon realized the show stunk, but he didn't really sell it to anyone. There's a lot of pressure to make this week's show better. The feeling is that they will have the audience back this week, thinking that even those who hated last week's show will at least give it a second chance before tuning out for good. So, they need to deliver.

 

Holy fuck I really hope that's true. Even though I don't get any channel that carries the show, I want it to be good and watchable.

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

WWE vs. ECW reminds me of the Invasion. I'm ok with Angle and Show in ECW but they have to put people over. Wrestlers like the Sandman and Sabu need to squash jobbers. Poor Justin Credible, he deserved better than the treatment he got from Angle.

 

RVD should have wrestled in the main event.

RVD should have never won the MITB match. He should have lost it and left the WWE and he could have said, "When I come back, I'm bring back ECW with me".

 

He shows up around May with Paul and they announce a one night tournament at ONS to declare a new ECW champion and RVD wins it.

[randomguy 0]

A lot of the ECW roster is old and broken down. It will take them a while to bring up and get over new guys, which is what they will have to do. In the long run other than a few notables I wouldn't expect the original ECW guys to do much.

[Downhome 0]

Are any of you almost worried about the show ever being live now? If the crowd was that bored with it being taped before SD, with ECW being the crowds first taste of action for the night, then imagine how they'll react to that type of product after SD where they get to see Booker T, Batista, Lashley, maybe Taker, and everyone else. Hell, some people might even just leave.

[luke-o 0]

Which begs the question, why bother?

 

Why not just bring these young guys to Raw or Smackdown? Why bastardize the once great name of ECW?

[dubq 0]

Are any of you almost worried about the show ever being live now? If the crowd was that bored with it being taped before SD, with ECW being the crowds first taste of action for the night, then imagine how they'll react to that type of product after SD where they get to see Booker T, Batista, Lashley, maybe Taker, and everyone else. Hell, some people might even just leave.

 

True enough. Another reason for the "just tape ECW on their house show tours" argument.

[SuperJerk 0]

Which begs the question, why bother?

 

Why not just bring these young guys to Raw or Smackdown? Why bastardize the once great name of ECW?

Vince sees it as a potential source of revenue.

[Ravenbomb 0]

ECW notes

 

- Expect more "Sci Fi" style characters in the fashion of The Zombie in the coming weeks. The plan is for The Sandman to come out each week and squash them.

 

- Vince McMahon wants the ECW brand to be built around Sabu as the top heel, while Paul Heyman wants to use the established ECW players to put over younger talent. McMahon has been telling people backstage that the WWE should have signed Sabu years ago.

 

- Expect the WWE vs. ECW storyline to end after Vengeance. The plan was to cross promote on RAW and ECW leading up to the PPV, to hype both the ECW debut and the PPV. Vince wants established WWE stars on ECW at the beginning to get the regular WWE fan tuned in, and the hope is that those fans will remain once it becomes all-ECW.

 

- Paul Heyman is focused on building a strong tag team divison in ECW.

 

- Vince McMahon was originally against the idea of The Zombie, because he figured the majority of fans watching wouldn't understand the joke.

 

- Nothing is even close to being finalized, but the general thought right now is that the main event of the first ECW PPV should be Kurt Angle against either Rob Van Dam or Sabu.

 

PWI

 

@ the stuff in bold

[razazteca 0]

- Paul Heyman is focused on building a strong tag team divison in ECW.

If this is going to be done WWE style the division will consist of Doring & Roadkill and two other teams so who will be the lucky 4 random wrestlers to be paired up to work the "extreme" style? Will it be Richards/Snow, Justin Credible and CMLL's Terrible, Zombie/Vampire, Sandman/Mahoney, I just can't wait to see what they do on the Sci-Fi channel.

[Enigma 0]

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.

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

ECW notes

 

- Expect more "Sci Fi" style characters in the fashion of The Zombie in the coming weeks. The plan is for The Sandman to come out each week and squash them.

 

- Vince McMahon wants the ECW brand to be built around Sabu as the top heel, while Paul Heyman wants to use the established ECW players to put over younger talent. McMahon has been telling people backstage that the WWE should have signed Sabu years ago.

 

- Expect the WWE vs. ECW storyline to end after Vengeance. The plan was to cross promote on RAW and ECW leading up to the PPV, to hype both the ECW debut and the PPV. Vince wants established WWE stars on ECW at the beginning to get the regular WWE fan tuned in, and the hope is that those fans will remain once it becomes all-ECW.

 

- Paul Heyman is focused on building a strong tag team divison in ECW.

 

- Vince McMahon was originally against the idea of The Zombie, because he figured the majority of fans watching wouldn't understand the joke.

 

- Nothing is even close to being finalized, but the general thought right now is that the main event of the first ECW PPV should be Kurt Angle against either Rob Van Dam or Sabu.

 

PWI

 

Looks like Vince is the sane one in all of this. And I'm ecstatic that Vince has become a huge Sabu mark. You think he would've seen some of Sabu's matches years ago, so he wouldn't have to bemoan the fact that he didn't sign him earlier.

Nah, I'm sure Vince just sees this as "Oh God! Sabu = A-RAB. And we're not on UPN with this show. Now we can finally do that awesome angle we tried with Mohammed Hassan that got interrupted!"

 

 

I was at a WWE Raw show, when Hassan was still just promos, and after the promo aired, the security guard was like..."What are they thinking? Are they wanting people to riot?"

 

Still don't think it's a good idea.

[Scroby 0]

- Paul Heyman is focused on building a strong tag team divison in ECW.

If this is going to be done WWE style the division will consist of Doring & Roadkill and two other teams so who will be the lucky 4 random wrestlers to be paired up to work the "extreme" style? Will it be Richards/Snow, Justin Credible and CMLL's Terrible, Zombie/Vampire, Sandman/Mahoney, I just can't wait to see what they do on the Sci-Fi channel.

 

If its a WWE's style tag team divison, then it'll be Roadkill and Doring and just the FBI until WWE decides to push another tag team and then Roadkill and Doring split whlie the FBI are champions and the other team is pushed.

[Angle-plex 0]

-- It now looks like Test will be involved with the new ECW. Right now the plan is to have him come in as a top tier heel.

 

ECW is doomed.

[dubq 0]

-- It now looks like Test will be involved with the new ECW. Right now the plan is to have him come in as a top tier heel.