Ideas on making ECW a permanent fixture?

Danny Diamond

Founder/Admin

How does the WWE capitalize on the ECW One Night Stand PPV and make it a sucess for months or hopefully years to come.


Sign former ECW talent?

Have them "invade" and cause many a matches to end in mayhem?

Have them "takeover" a show like Raw of Smackdown?

Have them play consistently in the Ballroom in NYC?

Give them their own timeslot?

What's the right mixture?

Be realistic as well.

Create A Poster for No Mercy

AudioSavior

Sell it and help finace it. It is the only way.

pp2

I have no interest left in ECW. Maybe its because Heyman's such a sleazebag, or maybe they're just not relevant to me anymore. I think the way ECW was constructed it didn't have much choice but to crash and burn eventually anway, and was doomed to exist longterm as a fond memory.

I think the hardcore elements ECW introduced pretty much burned themselves out. Yeah, Vince took a lot of them and brought them to the mainstream, and they no longer became special in time. Who's to say that if ECW had been a higher profile fed the same thing wouldn't have happened anyway?

Granted the writing in the WWE is consistently bad anymore, but how many high profile ECW alum have gone onto better things in WCW or the WWE? I don't mean guys like Benoit who basically had a cup of coffee there. I mean the icons: Tazz, Mike Awesome, Sandman, Balls Mahoney, New Jack...where are they now? The successes are outnumbered by the failures, and I think that says a lot about ECW in general.

(on a side note, I was sad Balls Mahoney never caught on anywhere)

Blitzkrieg

Hmm...PP2 makes a great point about the "stars" of ECW not being able to translate into the mainsteam.

However, I think the brand ECW, can be sold down the line and be succesful. I'm not talking about having a federation that travels the country or trying to find a timeslot on Cable Television, and an Invasion angle would only be interesting at first.

What I'm saying is the whole concept of Hardcore wrestling can be sold to certain viewers in moderation.

What you do is...sign some of these guys along with some wrestlers who are already under contract, and you kind of re-create the hardcore division. No, 24/7 rule or anything like that..I mean you really try to make it work.

You call it the ECW Heavyweight Title and you let the champion defend on special occasions or PPV's. Then, you can have ECW type PPV's down the line as well...All Hardcore PPV's and do it that way. You just make it a little branch off of WWE, not go full blown with it and try to make it equal to RAW and SD! because that would prolly be overkill and it would die quickly.

thirty7

Sure the thing that got noticed was the blood and guts "extreme" style. Even with all that, they still had great lucha libre action and sweet technical matches (Malenko v Guerrero has been mentioned a bit on these boards). I think if they toned down or at least made it more of a special treat, that being the "extreme" bloodshed, Heyman could produce a quality show once a week with McMahon's financial aid.

Also, a new ECW doesn't have to have all of the old stars. the original ECW was to build guys up, give them a name. Why not do the same for this incarnation if it happens?

I wish my sex life was like ECW, first you get a One Night Stand followed by 2 months of nostalgic orgasms and then 6 months of constant sucking.

Tyler Durden

I really hope they just let it have it's one night of glory and then let it die, but know full well that if it makes any money then Vince will shill this out as a regular PPV every year, or even worse/more often.

Vince missed the boat on this when he screwed up (on a monumental level) the invasion angle a few years back and now, it's just too late. Have the nostalgia and then let it go.

pp2

I totally agree with that. That was kinda what I was saying about the "destined to crash and burn" thing. That's a pretty steep pace to keep up over the longterm, and I think it loses its luster over time. The spots that were amazing the first couple times become common-place, and eventually the audience reacts to someone getting put through 3 tables from the top of a ladder like they do to a regular body slam.

Totally agree with that. Vince totally botched both the WCW and ECW angles, and this is the best he can hope to do with it now. Its sad, really.

Dr. Giganto

Personally, I'd rather not see ECW come back. I want this one-time show to happen, since the company folded with such a whimper, and they deserve to go out on a high note.

But its time has come and gone...let it die with dignity

K Jay

I think just a a big stable would be good, call it something like ecwx2 managed by Heyman with new stars destroying first the old ecw stars (tazz dudleys richards benoit guerrero tajari etc) thus ushering in "the second coming" then doing a invasion/nWo angle. I think it needs one headliner (trips or batista if it was done on raw, cena or angle if it was done on smackdown) then fill it with mid-carders who are newish but have lost their way a little (ie Rene Dupree or Randy Orton) a good tag team (MNM or La resistance) and a couple of Monsters (heidenriech snitsky tonko morgan). I think it would probably work best on Smackdown which needs a shot in the arm plus Tazz would give them instant heat being one of the old ECWers that had been destoyed (lets face it King would probably kill the angle in a week). It`s about time we had a good proper heel faction, I miss Evoloution on Raw and the cabinet was never taken seriously. Perhaps this is the sort of sit-up storyline that could save smackdown.

I had a sig, once.

Blitzkrieg

I don't think having a yearly PPV would be stripping ECW of it's dignity. Wouldn't it be praising ECW for all the good it brought to the sport of professinal wrestling?

Like I said, if they tried making it a whole federation it would fail again, but if they did something as little as bring back the hardcore title, it could be something different for people to look forward to...

You guys always talk about NOT wanting to see the same old shit all the time, so a Hardcore division would be something a little different to watch out for. Not a whole federation though.