Update on ECW and Smackdown

[Kurt Angle Mark 0]

by Dave Meltzer

 

[email protected]

 

The lack of an understandable explanation to the circumstances of the death of Chris, Nancy and Daniel Benoit has left virtually the entire wrestling community reeling.

 

Within WWE, the obvious questions and lack of answers are no different from fans and most of his long-time friends.

 

Vince McMahon was the inspiring general both to the wrestlers as well as the office staff all day yesterday. He held it together and was a rock of strength for much of the talent, which because of their admiration and in many cases love for Benoit, were saddened, perplexed and having an incredibly difficult time dealing with it.

 

Vince made the decision to run Smackdown and ECW tapings tonight without any angles or backstage storylines. The show will consist of straight wrestling matches and like last night, the original shows were scrapped. The attempt to put together a show was difficult because the crew and creative staff were said to be both emotionally and physically wrecked after yesterday.

 

The belief is they will brief viewers on what happened early in the show, and then product two low key shows of nothing but matches.

 

 

[BorneAgain 0]

Does anyone know if all three brands will be there? A trivial question in light of everything that's happened I know, but using all them would make sense.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

that's probably the best way to handle it, well except maybe cancelling the shows outright and letting the networks show reruns of other shows.

[converge241 0]

not to sound callous but the networks and their owners might not want to lose the airtime..and the ratings

 

its a tough situation obviously but handled much better than when Owen Hart died

 

morbid or otherwise curious viewers will likely be tuning in as well the networks are probably anticipating it (tough to get them to admit it but thats how they work) but obviously with all the new info they cant really touch on the situation