OAO ECW TV Thread - June 13th 2006

[Ravenbomb 0]

I really didn't like the set. Everything just felt really awkward the whole time.

 

 

And I agree that the show needed Cyrus. I'd love for them to reprise the Network and have him plugging Sci-Fi Original Movies or something

[Guest Coffey]

Except for Cena winning the title back, all of those pale in comparison to Big Show destroying the entire ECW roster in one match and Kurt Angle squashing a former ECW world champion in less than a minute. It could not have been much worse. Every single ECW guy now (other than RVD and Sabu) looks like a jobber on their own show. No matter what they do on the next few shows, it'll be almost impossible for anyone to be able to take ECW seriously again.

Even Sabu & RVD are debatable. Sabu was chucked from the ring by TBS but managed to hang on and then only won after an already eliminated Big Guido helped pull him over. RVD was beat up at the beginning of the show by both Edge & Cena.

 

And I agree that the show needed Cyrus. I'd love for them to reprise the Network and have him plugging Sci-Fi Original Movies or something

Tonight, after ECW, stay tuned for the network television debut of...BATS!

[SuperJerk 0]

I doubt he actually said any of that.

Or it was heavily edited.

 

For example:

 

“Our first show sucked ass. Reaction has clearly sent a very strong message that Vince is a moron. There is now legitimate competition out there in the unemployment lines for Kevin Dunn, as a homeless guy could do a better job producing a wrestling show. I hope for the future of both Friday Night SmackDown and Monday Night RAW they distance themselves immediately from this crap. I think that now, everyone realizes that ECW is dead. Like Bobby Ewing returning in the shower and "Dallas" jumping the shark, ECW is not just a dream. ECW is not something that may continue to happen in the future. It’s here now, but it'll be gone tomorrow. It’s to be cancelled soon. Vince has already dealt with and it’s happening. Its as if ECW has and it’s been reborn with Down Syndrome, and it’s on the map for cancellation. There is no wondering what’s going to happen if ECW happens. ECW is happening now, and God does it suck.”

[NoCalMike 0]

Side Question: Does anyone know if the WWE-issued "EC F'N W" t-shirts, still have "Of Course You Know This Means War" on the back, or are the back of the shirts just blank?

 

EDIT: I just had flashbacks of Lance Wright in Hype Central, shilling this shirt to me.

[Guest The Great Muta]

Over the past several weeks, I set in my mind that this is not going to be ECW because it is run by Vince Mcmahon and he is going to run it the way he sees fit, in whatever horrible way that is. With that being said I set my expectations very low...bottom of the barrel low. This way when I watched it I wouldn't be disappointed.

 

Well, after watching that show, I realized that my expectations, albeit low, were still WAY too high. This was not ECW. This was a horrible spinoff of Sunday Night Heat, complete with wrestlers made to look like jobbers, a horribly booked hardcore battle royal from circa 2000-2001 WWF, WWE wrestlers making ECW wrestlers look like fools, Raw-esque camera work, promotion of a WWE PPV, and a friggin Zombie. There were also plenty of other subtle things I noticed that just screamed out WWE.

 

If they wanted to create an alternative product to the WWE, they failed. That is, unless their idea of an alternative is having Zombies come out and grunt into the mic. What are we going to have next week, The Mummy vs. Frankenstein in a hardcore match?

 

If you can't do it right, dont do it at all. It's as simple as that...

[Scroby 0]

Side Question: Does anyone know if the WWE-issued "EC F'N W" t-shirts, still have "Of Course You Know This Means War" on the back, or are the back of the shirts just blank?

 

EDIT: I just had flashbacks of Lance Wright in Hype Central, shilling this shirt to me.

I'm sure if its a WWE shirt, there's something on the back.

[SuperJerk 0]

So...how long does WWECW have to live?

[Guest The Great Muta]

So...how long does WWECW have to live?

For a while. After all, Vince is a sadist...

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

 

"UNNNGGGHHHH GRRRRHHHHHH!"

[razazteca 0]

People should have seen this coming.

I don't think people expected something so incredibly awful and without merit.

I expected ECW on TNN or Hardcore TV but got Heat with 10% recaps from Raw. The beginning of the show could of been a Rob Zombie video with clips of Raw in it now that was old ECW style. What was on tv was no different than the normal recaps that is shown on monday night to kill time. The Zombie match was a shocking experience and I expected Paul E. to come out to shit on "the network" again like he did on TNN but nothing came out of it....should I expect Sandman to beatup another member of the Superfriends Legion of Doom maybe Brainiac next week? The segment with Kelly could of worked if the crowd chanted "Show Your Tits" but the audience was silient and there was no girl-on-girl brawl so Joey Styles couldn't do his trademark "CATFIGHT!" spot, so what was the point in having Kelly on the show?

 

If this show was the pilot for ECW then it needs a complete overhaul in every aspect of the show from sets, arenas, cast, production crew, etc. I thought this was suppose to be a seperate brand from WWE. If that is true then why did ECW on Sci-Fi feel like an episode of Heat/Velocity? The way they had commercial breaks felt like it was an episode of Raw the only missing was "Man Law" beer commericals featuring HHH. Was there really a need to go to a medicine commercial then show 3 minutes of the battle royale then go back to a candy commercial? Why have the overrun if your going to break up the match into 5 short segments? The old ECW would have 10-15 minute matches with decent to good wrestling that incorporated the weapons of choice (plunder under the ring: chair, table, etc) this new ECW looked like WCW copying WWF copying ECW which did not look any good. If there is going to be a match where it is nothing but an exhibition of hardcore weapons being used then let it be a New Jack or Balls Mahoney match.

 

I didn't see any HOLY SHIT moments just alot of shitty moments.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

For those who want to re-live the Zombie promo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl3cdOTR4SQ

[tigeraid 0]

So far, it's shittier than Smackdown. And that's hard to be.

 

This has McMahon's fingerprints all over it. Poor Heyman. So let's see... the main storyline of ECW's first TV Show was Cena vs Edge... Edge got the biggest pop of the night, and Cena punching Heyman got the second biggest pop... the music sucks... the next angle is an ECW invasion of RAW, cuz THAT really puts ECW over...

 

It's taped before Smackdown, and therefore Smackdown crowds, so no one knows who the ECW wrestlers are (see: pop for Doring, Roadkill and Stevie Richards) and the crowd, despite being roughly 5x bigger than an ECW crowd, was 1/4 as loud and into it.

 

And then there's the zombie... but that seemed to be the one thing Heyman booked, since he was squashed by Sandman, as if to say "fuck your stupid sci-fi angles."

 

All of this could've been fixed if it took place in small arenas with 1500-2000 people. But no, to save money, it's taped with SD, and now it's ruined.

 

I hold very little hope.

[dubq 0]

Well, at least the zombie played his gimmick well. I like how he kept walking around after the ref during Sandman's entrance.

[Downhome 0]

Well, SciFi is happy, from PWInsider:

 

SCI FI TOUTS SUCCESS OF FIRST EPISODE OF ECW ON THEIR NETWORK

by Mike Johnson @ 8:05:00 PM on 6/14/2006

 

The Sci Fi Channel issued the following press release this evening:

 

SCI FI CHANNEL PINS THE COMPETITION WITH ECW'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN TO TELEVISION

 

'ECW' IS THE #1 CABLE PROGRAM FOR THE DAY IN TOTAL VIEWERS

 

SCI FI IS #1 IN CABLE FOR KEY DEMOS AT 10PM

 

NEW YORK June 14, 2006 SCI FI Channel premiered 'ECW' ('Extreme Championship Wrestling') last night and was the ratings victor in the 10pm hour. The return of 'ECW' with a sci-fi twist delivered a 2.79 HH and was the most-watched show on cable drawing almost 3.4 million total viewers.

 

The show was #1 among the key demos bringing in 1.89MM P18-49 and 1.68MM P25-54 from 10p-11p. This performance represents gains of +457% among P18-49 and +347% among P25-54 versus its prior four week time period average.

 

Key Ratings Performance Points:

 

--'ECW' on SCI FI is the best performance for any program on the network this year on P18-49s and the best P25-54 performance since the season premiere of 'Battlestar Galactica' on 1/6/06.

 

--'ECW' on SCI FI beat an original episode of FX's 'Rescue Me' by +14% among P18-49s and +3% among P25-54s.

 

--'ECW' on SCI FI delivered the all-time best June performance for any program on SCI FI in both P18-49s and P25-54s, and ranks #1 among all SCI FI 2nd quarter programs ever for P18-49 delivery.

 

--The median viewer age for 'ECW' on SCI FI was 32.3 -- sixteen years younger than the 2nd quarter to date time period average of 48.4.

 

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: WWE) is an integrated media and entertainment company headquartered in Stamford, Conn., with offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Toronto and London. Additional information on the company can be found at wwe.com. and corporate.wwe.com.

 

SCI FI Channel is a television network where "what if" is what's on. SCI FI fuels the imagination of viewers with original series and events, blockbuster movies and classic science fiction and fantasy programming, as well as a dynamic Web site (www.scifi.com ) and magazine. Launched in 1992, and currently in 85 million homes, SCI FI Channel is a network of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Re: The Kelly segment, after she said she was going to strip for the world, I half expected her to come out, and after getting her clothes off (down to her undies), CM Punk would come out and prevent her from doing so, and go "You all have been PUNK'D!".

[humongous2002 0]

Those ratings won't last unless they fix this clusterfuck of a show.

[humongous2002 0]

Re: The Kelly segment, after she said she was going to strip for the world, I half expected her to come out, and after getting her clothes off (down to her undies), CM Punk would come out and prevent her from doing so, and go "You all have been PUNK'D!".

You know something, the same thought crossed my mind but as always Vince didn't deliver anything memorable for this show.

[Guest Coffey]

I'm glad Punk didn't show up on that show. Goodness.

[Jebus 0]

So far, it's shittier than Smackdown. And that's hard to be.

 

Actually, it's not that hard, Raw is shittier than Smackdown every week.

 

Smackdown's in ring quality more than makes up the WWE's not giving a shit about it. Come to think of it, Raw is shittier BECAUSE the WWE puts all their "genius" sports entertainment moments/crap on there.

 

Other than that, you're on the money.

 

A normal man would learn from his mistakes but this is McMahon we're talking about. He'll look at this week's rating and say, "I'm a genius".

[Art Sandusky 0]

I just watched the video of that chick stripping on ECW. It nearly made me want to cry that someone booked that as a great idea. It wasn't sexy, it wasnt entertaining, it wasnt ECW.

 

But i nearly pissed myself watching her unable to undo HER OWN fucking bra!

That was just their way of reaching out to the 14-17 male demographic. You're not alone!

[2GOLD 0]

I've decided I'll look at the positives from last night show in list form:

- the reactions of the fans behind Joey and Tazz, acting tired and bored and just overall pissed by what they were seeing.

 

 

Did I miss anything else?

[razazteca 0]

Those ratings won't last unless they fix this clusterfuck of a show.

Sign Guy Dudley is going to save the show!

[NoCalMike 0]

Luchadores with their masks is as sci-fi as I want wrestling to be.

 

Everyone has already pretty much nailed the problem down. Last night felt like Tuesday night WWE programming, which is the biggest problem. ECW had some not so memorable shows back in the day once in awhile, but at least you knew you were watching ECW, without Styles having to say the word "extreme" every five seconds.

 

Hopefully Heyman is making as much noise as he can backstage to get things changed for the better. Of course Vince probably sees the rating and that trumps everything else in his mind, plus someone posted the Sci-Fi Channels reaction and they seem to be elated about the debut, which in a way is good because it helps the chance of this going beyond 12-weeks.

 

Since they already AREN'T going to be live anymore, I think they should just bite the bullet 100% and just start using footage from ECW house shows which will be in front of smaller more intimant crowds, smaller arenas/venues and most of all be in front of ECW crowds. They can even save money by just having a sparce camera crew like ECW did back in the day, which worked out fine. I have plenty of ECW commercial shows/tapes from back in the day. The production is horrendous, but you know what? I LOVED IT.

[justcoz 0]

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...

[The Amazing Rando 0]

I've decided I'll look at the positives from last night show in list form:

- the reactions of the fans behind Joey and Tazz, acting tired and bored and just overall pissed by what they were seeing.

 

 

Did I miss anything else?

 

 

That was hilarious... the one guy yawning visibly right into the camera and then putting his hands up to his face as if sleeping. GOLD.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Well, that would at least be a solid direction to go in.

 

Oh, I forgot one good thing about ECW last night:

 

Trinity's outfit! Yowza!

[claydude14 0]

I've decided I'll look at the positives from last night show in list form:

- the reactions of the fans behind Joey and Tazz, acting tired and bored and just overall pissed by what they were seeing.

 

 

Did I miss anything else?

 

 

That was hilarious... the one guy yawning visibly right into the camera and then putting his hands up to his face as if sleeping. GOLD.

At what point was this? All I recall is one of the last shots of the announcers being one or two 8 year old Cena fans in Chain Gang apparel throwing up Cena hand gestures. I have it taped so I'd love to see this.

[justcoz 0]

At what point was this? All I recall is one of the last shots of the announcers being one or two 8 year old Cena fans in Chain Gang apparel throwing up Cena hand gestures. I have it taped so I'd love to see this.

 

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.

[Guest Ronixis]

Man... Hard to be Happy. Very Hard.

 

The worst show in the history of modern day WWE, and yet it gets mega ratings.

 

All I want from Spike is to at least put impact at 10 or a 2 hour show because my god if fucking ECW could get mega ratings from the worse show in the modern era, how much more a 4 year startup with a MUCH BETTER show, with MUCH BETTER Talent, in a MUCH better Croud setting?

 

This is gonna break this company.

 

Shane McMahan is the fucking heart of the WWE- he called it from DAY one despite the ratings they got from this bad show. This man has the pulse his father lacks. He should have been President MONTHS no years ago...

 

All I want TNA to do, is to parody this episode, and that will be the best episode they have ever done.

 

But as for the brand...12 weeks aint enough. You need 24.

[Downhome 0]

Oh come on, you can't read anything into the ratings. It was the return of ECW on TV, and they promoted Cena and Edge/Lita as being a part of the debut show. Just wait for the next show, and the one after that. I don't think there's a chance in hell that the rating stays at that point.