*Vince and Shane McMahon were backstage at last night's ECW taping and by all accounts, were very happy with how the taping went. If you watch the backstage vignette where Paul Heyman is shunned by his ECW performers, you can see Vince watching on a monitor in the background. Yes, that was Francine making her TV debut last night in the same segment.
*There is talk of putting Rene Dupree, who worked a dark match last night against Balls Mahoney, in the ECW brand full time. Dupree looks facially like Erik Watts now that he's grown his brown hair out. He did a good job on the mic before his match with Mahoney.
*There have also been discussions of putting Boogeyman in the brand when he returns from injury since his character is tailor-made for the Sci-Fi Network. It actually makes sense as Boogey can be protected by keeping him out of the ring and focusing on some of the more supernatural elements of the character. I can see Boogey vs. the Vampire already!
*CW Anderson's new official ring name is Christopher W. Anderson. I was told by sources that the name change was a decision made by WWE officials to keep CW from having the same name as Smackdown's new network (CW Network) and also to differentiate him from CM Punk.
*Fit Finlay and Dean Malenko worked as agents for the Hammerstein taping.
*WWE claimed that the Hammerstein Ballroom was sold out last night, but it certainly seemed that there were a lot less fans there compared to the two One Night Stand PPVs. Tickets were available at the box office all the way up to show time. There were also a lot of fans outside trying to unload extra tickets for well below face value.
*ECW Vixen Trinity, still recovering from knee surgery, was backstage at last night's taping sporting a knee brace.
*Tony Devito, Simon Dean, and Jazz were also backstage.
*Brian Kendrick suffered a bloody nose during his tag match with Paul London against the Full Blooded Italians.
*The new referees working for ECW last night (who I believe are getting WWE tryouts this week) were Scott Armstrong and James Beard. Armstrong is a former WCW worker and obviously, the son of Bullet Bob Armstrong. Beard worked for a long time with the Von Erichs' World Class Championship Wrestling.
*Since WWE were in the Northeast this week for the ECW taping, several members of the old ECW referee troupe were used as well.
*Although there weren't any loud chants, there were a ton of fans catcalling ring announcer Justin Roberts all night over his replacing Stephen DeAngelis. WWE had Roberts enter the ring while the lights in the venue were off during a video feature on ECW One Night Stand 2005, which I have to wonder was done purposely to prevent Roberts from being verbally assaulted by the old school fans that were there.
Credit PWInsider
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