The Goodness 12.05.06: ECW Must Go
Posted by on 12.05.2006
This summer, I wrote that I really liked ECW. Today...well let's just say I've changed my mind a bit.
I was prepared to write this column on Saturday as I was homebound with a terrible cold but I thought better of it. I mean, ECW had a pay-per-view Sunday night, right? Even if I had personally had no intention of buying it and it had been built poorly, maybe those wacky WWE officials had an ace up their sleeve. Maybe they were preparing to unleash an unbelievable show that would make fans forget about the debacle ECW has become. I didn't watch the show but if Arnold Furious is to be believed and I think he should, they didn't. I just mention this because I did not watch the show Sunday night, only bits and pieces of the drivel each Tuesday night.
The Goodness 12.05.06: ECW Must Go
When ECW returned this summer, there was predictably a lot of backlash. I was never a big fan of the original incarnation of ECW but those that were had their arms in the air quickly to protest the once-proud company coming back as a third WWE brand. I was one of the early skeptics but found myself quickly enamored with ECW's initial product. Heck, here's proof . As a respected (ha!) Internet journalist, I feel I have the right to change my mind. And boy have I changed my mind...
Those first few shows on Sci-Fi provided the wrestling fan with something completely different than anything the WWE and TNA had been given us in the past few years. The standard big screen was nowhere to be seen. Even in SmackDown arenas, the dark lighting, edginess of the production values and different wrestlers gave ECW a unique quality to it. This uniqueness only tripled when they gave us a show from the small Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. No, it wasn't the ECW that arguably led a pro wrestling revolution in the late 90's but it was different enough to get me hook. It was fun to watch old ECW guys like Sabu and Rob Van Dam mix it up with a new crop of ECW wrestlers like Mike Knox, CM Punk and, yes, even Kevin Thorne, who had at least had a cool gimmick. I really, truly thought ECW had a serious chance to hit on something special. Even with the addition of the Big Show, they turned him into the Extreme Big Show, who wrestled less like a lumbering giant and more like an unstoppable monster. This is something I could get into.
The first few weeks featuring Big Show going at it with SmackDown and Raw wrestlers but even that soon ended. It was finally Big Show against ECW guys and it seemed like they had hit on a nice alternative to what we saw on Monday and Friday nights. This would not last long.
If you still watch ECW on Tuesday nights, you're just seeing another version of Raw. The cool, old-school ECW entranceway through a destroyed brick wall has been replaced with a ramp and a video screen over it – gee, what does that make you think? Yep, just about every pro wrestling show on television since 2000. The ECW house shows have been completely scrapped, meaning this extreme wrestling will take place in front of 10,000 people waiting to see Batista fight Booker. Not that there's anything wrong with a big crowd – but what's the point of ECW? It doesn't have its own house shows, it has but two pay-per-views a year and wrestles on the undercard of another promotion for all intensive purposes. The ECW World Champion? Talk about a misnomer – ECW does not have a World Champion, just someone who holds a belt with ECW plastered on it.
The real problem with ECW started with the introduction of Test and has continued as more and more SmackDown and Raw talents make their way onto the ECW roster. One of the two matches announced before the pay-per-view was the Hardys vs. MNM featuring four guys who are not part of the ECW roster. Wow. If you caught SmackDown on Friday night, you heard Michael Cole selling the pay-per-view hard as MNM – two Raw guys who were fired from SmackDown – took on the SmackDown tag team champs. Yep, ECW is just SmackDown's little brother at this point. I'm not even going to get into Bobby Lashley strolling in and winning the title – heck, why does CM Punk need to be any more over, right?
The tipping point for me when it comes to ECW is the angles we've been treated to. I know a lot has been made about the lack of extreme wrestling on a show called Extreme Championship Wrestling and, yes, that is a problem. But they manage to give us at least one match a week that borders on extreme, so maybe they're trying. And the WWE is smart enough to realize that it behooves them to keep their wrestlers healthy. But yeah, a little violence would be nice every now and then.
Like I said though, the real problem at the heart of the show is the recycled angles. Paul Heyman is now an evil GM/Owner/Guy Who Makes Matches. I've never seen that. In fact, the only people to do that on-screen are Vince Russo, Vince McMahon, Eric Bischoff, Teddy Long, Shane McMahon and Jonathan Coachman. Phew, thank God we're not being treated to a rehash of that...oh wait. And then there was the way Bobby Lashley got himself into the elimination chamber match on Sunday. He knocked out Paul Heyman and signed a contract that wasn't meant for him! I mean, no wrestler has done that besides...you get my point.
The beauty of ECW in its original form and for a brief, fleeting period of time this year was that it wasn't Raw and it wasn't SmackDown. It was something different. It featured personalities that didn't fit in a wrestling show aiming for the mainstream. It featured segments like Kelly Kelly just taking her clothes off or Ariel gratuitously showing off her ample, ample bosom. It featured thumbtacks, chairshots and blood. It didn't feature long, rambling 10-minutes interviews from the champion in lieu of anything actually going on. It featured wrestling instead of sports entertainment. It featured angles that were progressive, not rehashes of angles that are so played out they have become pro wrestling clichés.
But that's where ECW is right now. It's no longer a legitimate third brand. It's no longer a viable alternative for wrestling fans who have grown tired of the WWE formula because it's now just part of that formula. I truly believe that a lot of the momentum that got ECW on the air and made it successful when it hit the air this summer is due to the increasing portion of the wrestling audience that is sick of the WWE formula. You know the formula, it's been ingrained in your skull for about the past five years since ECW, V1 and WCW folded. It's been the same thing over and over and over again and this was an opportunity for change. This was an opportunity for the WWE to recapture that audience, give them the wrestling show they wanted to see and, by golly, make some money off of it. They have failed.
The most glaring mistake came in its handling of Hardcore Holly. With a name like that, how could Holly not fit in with ECW? I was no fan of Holly myself but his match with RVD – the one where he took the nasty gash on his back – was the stuff of legend. I complained a few weeks back about a lack of killer TV matches that get people talking. Well, this was one of them. The match was held in such regard by some writers and reviewers here that I tracked it down via the Interweb and watched it. I cannot tell you the last time I did that. I watched it, I liked it and I, as did many others, had a newfound respect for Holly. It seemed like they had stumbled onto a new face for ECW because he fought through the pain. So what did they do? The same thing they have done non-stop for the past five years without rhyme or reason – they turned him heel. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. He was getting cheers for a month, was inexplicably turned and now no one cares about him again. He'll join the heap of Carlito's and Shelton Benjamin's where wrestlers get over on their ability and are summarily ignored.
For me, I'm done for now. I have a tough time getting through Raw these days and SmackDown is a little better, if only for the pure, unadulterated joy that is Mr. Kennedy and MVP. I watched ECW in its inception this summer because it was new and different – two things all wrestling fans are marks for. Instead, it's turned into the tired junk that wrestling fans are proving they're tired of – both by turning off their television sets and not ordering pay-per-views. The WWE gave ECW chance...and now it's giving it no chance at all.
