ECW a waste? Or just me.

AirDemon

I'm just wondering how everyone else feels about the ECW brand, ECW is the past was interesting and I've a lot of respect for what they did but this WWE version of ECW imo is a waste.

I don't want to tune in every week for a show where talent in thin on the ground, the titles mean nothing and the storylines are as the rest of the WWE in the most part is, tame.

John Morrison I will admit is a great talent but the place isn't exactly overflowing with it, more importantly I thought that WWE was having enough problems before they started ECW up again with delivering interesting and entertaining storylines so why put even more pressure on?

I've also heard that turnouts for ECW house shows were virtually non-existant. Is this true?

ec18

i completely agree

SuperWoody101

I was happy it came back cos guys like Balls and Sandman got a job out of it, but I have to agree that the new ECW is a waste of time.

Double C

For me, ECW has been more watchable than either Raw or Smackdown recently. I like Morrison, especially with the new gimmick. Punk is improving all the time, he's a fully blown WWE style wrestler now. And there are other guys who are good in defferent ways like Striker, Burke and Cor Von.

WWE definitely doesn't need three brands, but currently, out of the three, I like ECW's style most. Maybe it's because it's only an hour long and there is less talent to showcase, i.e. less **** like Hacksaw Jim Duggan and dare I say, Ron Simmons (am I the only one not amused by that?) Although that being said, no one wants to watch the Boogeyman, Viscera or the Miz.

Besides, it's a good breeding ground for new talent like those mentioned above who will eventually move up to Raw or SD.

gimmick

I dont particulary like new ECW, but it is not a waste of time. ECW now fills the role of brand 3, it gives exposure to people who are not quite ready for Smackdown and Raw. It is a stepping stone from OVW to the big leagues.

It also gives people like John Morrisson and CM Punk a chance to hone their skills as the guys who are top of a brand, rather than being low - mid card guys on the main brands.

Now, what I just don't like about it, is the name. ECW was a small promotion in the late 1990s, early 2000s. It was a renegade promotion which didn't stick to any particular formulas. It was anti establishment and hardcore, everything the new version isn't.

Poor brand maybe, waste of time definitely not.

Vince135792003

Its not a waste of time but theres nothing must see tv about it.The problem with the brand was that I don't think the WWE was ever sure what they wanted it to be exactly.

By calling it ECW and signing a lot of old ECW talent, it gave a perception to fans that it was going to be a certain thing and 12 months later you have a developmental show with Bogeyman versus John Morrison in the main event.

My problem is that they need more people on the show who have the potential to develop. No one needs to see the Bogeyman wrestle for 6 minutes in the main event. He won't develop.

ShawnRaven

I always took it for what it was, another brand, and one that didn't really interest me. Especially when we had mummies, vampires and "The Reject" Shannon Moore? A lot of people had more expectations for it, like it was gonna begin where it had ended, while others knew damn well that it could never be that way, not with WWE's production values alone.

In some ways it was a success, as Gimmick and Vince135792003 have pointed out, in other ways it was a dismal failure, (December to Dismember anyone?)

Give it about another six months before they can the whole thing and bring back Velocity, at least that was more interesting.

VR!

AirDemon

I can see all your points, I'm not a huge fan of the show myself and have to admit I feel kinda annoyed that to see Morrison I have to watch another show of what I believe is poorer quality.

I was completely against the brand split to begin with, I don't understand why you can require two brands when you don't have enough talented people for it. The filler we have to put up with these days is a joke, like what has been said I'm sick of Duggan and Simmons and DiBiase too. This along with very poor booking in sections of the last three years has really soured my view of the WWE.

Vince135792003

AirDemon wrote:

I don't understand why you can require two brands when you don't have enough talented people for it. .

Money. More brands means the potential to do more shows on the road. Simple as that although I get where your coming from.

I see the other pluses for them in doing brands in that it keeps characters fresh, gives more people jobs, gives more people oppurtunities to get a push and creates "dream" match scenarios that you can do from time to time.

There are downsides too obviously. Dept like you said is a big issue and as fan it definitely reduces my interest when you see shows like Smackdown last week which was night and day to what Smackdown was like at its peak.

Fozzy

ECW's been a pretty entertaining show the last couple of months, bar last week where they needlessly jobbed out their champ and number one contender to two big untalented guys. There's some very good wrestlers and some decent angles, nothing groundbreaking happens on it but it's usually worth watching

I've heard a lot of people say that the show is bad because they only have an hour. That's a ridiculous statement to me, of course you can have a good wrestling show given an hour

estebancambias

I like ECW a lot, People like Striker, Punk, Morrison, Thorn, Monty Brown and Burke are all very good and entertaining. Even add Stevie Richards to the mix, and that is a good talent pool for one hour. ECW goes through phazes of putting on good solid wrestling matches, and then other times it's just hard to look at. I think the wrong talent is in ECW.

Mossy Monk

I don't bother watching it. What turned me off it was time wasting crap like Extreme Exposé. I have no idea if they are still a regular feature though.

Fozzy

Mossy Monk wrote:

I don't bother watching it. What turned me off it was time wasting crap like Extreme Exposé. I have no idea if they are still a regular feature though.

I haven't seen that since one of the ppvs, I think it was the Rumble. The girls are still on the show doing something with The Miz, I'm not sure what exactly because I don't generally watch those bits

Mossy Monk

Oh The Miz is there too, another reason not to watch!!

Furious-Red

i would love if they scrapped ecw and even but OVW in the time slot. so then people will be a lot more familiar when certain stars debut on Raw or SD.

AirDemon

I don't think that would make much difference, I look at it as WWE's third brand, not as ECW. If they replaced it with OVW then we would end up with OVW being as bad.

Some people like this brand but I doubt there are many out there that would put it down as their top show to watch, maybe in WWE but not over every other promotion.

To me ECW is just causing problems on the two main brands by making Raw and SmackDown resort to pointless filler like Duggan and Simmons. If they really want to push guys then my oppinion is that they should have them on the main shows and slowly making a push to the top.

Give a guy a storyline on Raw and it's better than giving him a belt on ECW, it will help him get over a lot more.

ShawnRaven

AirDemon wrote:

I don't think that would make much difference, I look at it as WWE's third brand, not as ECW. If they replaced it with OVW then we would end up with OVW being as bad.

I'd be inclined to agree here, case in point - Cryme Tyme. If OVW was on a weekly programming schedule, they would not be as over now as their time in OVW was less than spectacular. Many feel they were called up way too early, hence why they had so many vignettess before their debut.

They were as funny as hell though!
VR!

AirDemon

I think Cryme Tyme could be a really good tag team.

I'd love to see them win the titles and then maybe Chad is like, we don't need to steal no more. So they keep going winning matches and behind Chads back JTG is stealing stuff all the tyme.

Then they find out... have a little bit of a match over it with maybe Cade or someone refing and at the end of the match they could beat him up and steal something off him.

Bit crazy but just came to mind. Would never happen though.

But yeah more importantly, Cryme Tyme have struggled a few times on tv I think. Some of their matches are less than spectacular but they are getting better I think.

I'd like to see them given something to sink their teeth into.

ShawnRaven

AirDemon wrote:

I think Cryme Tyme could be a really good tag team.

I'd love to see them win the titles and then maybe Chad is like, we don't need to steal no more. So they keep going winning matches and behind Chads back JTG is stealing stuff all the tyme.

Then they find out... have a little bit of a match over it with maybe Cade or someone refing and at the end of the match they could beat him up and steal something off him.

If WCW ever comes back into business, PLEASE make sure you get your application in for lead booker. Thats about as Russoriffic as it comes! TNA is calling your name m'man!

VR!

john concannon

The thing with ecw is that there are about four decent characters at the most.I would love to see better talent drafted as its morrison,punk,burke who are making the show even the slightest bit watchable.
P.S When is cor von coming back coz I heard he had some family issues?

Fozzy

They don't really need to get more talent onto the show though because it's one of the highest ratest shows on the Sci-Fi Network (maybe the highest?). They're not under any pressure to improve the ratings for ECW, but they are for Raw, so it's Raw that they'll be putting their main talent

AirDemon

validreasoning! wrote:

If WCW ever comes back into business, PLEASE make sure you get your application in for lead booker. Thats about as Russoriffic as it comes! TNA is calling your name m'man!

I'll take that as a complement, I actually liked Russo, sure he had his bad points but hey he did come out with some amazing storylines. Better than the Hollywood crowd that is working for the WWE right now.

I can't see ECW getting sent any real talent. By real talent I mean people who are at the main point of their careers, Morrison and Punk are really developing as far as the WWE powers that be are concerned even though I think Morrison was one of the more entertaining characters on the Raw brand while he was there, WWE obviously think he has something to gain from being on ECW.

As outlined before, maybe it's the idea of giving him the experience of being the main guy on a brand, not sure how useful being the main guy on ECW will be as it's a huge step from the ECW champ to the WWE Champ.

Vince135792003

AirDemon wrote:

I'll take that as a complement, I actually liked Russo, sure he had his bad points but hey he did come out with some amazing storylines. Better than the Hollywood crowd that is working for the WWE right now.
.

If I owned a wrestling company in 2007 I'd take the WWE writers over Russo in a heartbeat.

Bubs101

Vince135792003 wrote:

If I owned a wrestling company in 2007 I'd take the WWE writers over Russo in a heartbeat.

Russo in his prime???

AirDemon

I'd take the Russo of the 90's over WWE writers any day and I can understand why anyone wouldn't, shows today are boring, storylines are more repetitive than ever. Why? Not because they are rehashing old storylines but because 90% of the time they have no storyline apart from... I want the title, you got in my way... now i beat you.... uga!!!

And if I see one more friggin scene with Kane or some giant getting a cup of coffee splashed on them and getting angry I'm goanna snap!!!

Vince135792003

Bubs101 wrote:

Russo in his prime???

What does that mean? He's never changed. He still thinks its 1997 the way he books. Time moves on and Russo hasn't. Welcome to 2007 everybody and the major things that have drawn on ppv in the last 12 months are miles away from a Russo 1997 vision.

- Angle/Joe 1- There were no angles really. Just two guys seen as great wrestlers going to fight. It did a record 60,000 buys for TNA. Every ppv match with the 2 after that was filled with wives leaving (and then not leaving), girlfriends being beaten up, gimmick matches and a whole load of other crap I have forgotten leading to LESS BUYS.

- De la Hoya/Mayweather- Anybody who seen the hype specials will know what I mean. Nothing complicated, all very simple but masterfully done.

-Micheals/Cena- I loved the build up for this. I watched the tag match before Wrestlemania and when Michelas finally hit Cena with the superkick after weeks and weeks of building it, he finally did it and it left many, many people pumped up for 'Mania. And no, the WWE writers did not have Cena beat up Michaels and his wife (only for her later to turn on Shawn!!!) when they were attending church in the buildup. They didn't need do.

Russo as far as I can tell had a big role to play, under the control of Vince in some of WWE's most exciting times (we'll forget about WCW). But its 2007 and I don't think the majority of people watching wrestling want what Russo has to offer today.

ShawnRaven

Vince135792003 wrote:

What does that mean? He's never changed. He still thinks its 1997 the way he books. Time moves on and Russo hasn't.

... this is the correct answer folks
VR!

Bubs101

Vince135792003 wrote:

What does that mean? He's never changed. He still thinks its 1997 the way he books. .

Oasis still make the same style of music but the quality is nowhere near the old stuff. It's the same with Russo.You could hardly compare the Russo of Blindfold Match fame with the one of the attitude era

Vince135792003

Bubs101 wrote:

Oasis still make the same style of music but the quality is nowhere near the old stuff. It's the same with Russo.You could hardly compare the Russo of Blindfold Match fame with the one of the attitude era

Yep, I can. I just watched 1997 Summerslam where the stipulation was that the loser of Shamrock/Bulldog had to eat dog food. If you want vintage Russo, there's a show called TNA impact thats currently running in America.

It's the Vince Russo equivalent of an Oasis concert where they sing all their old songs (except Vince McMahon didn't show up , so I guess we'll make him Noel for the analogy. Thus, the concert isn't quite as good as nostalgia allows you to remember it because you know, its just not quite the same without Noel. In fact without Noel, (meaning Vince McMahon) its kinda ****).

You'll get swerves, unquantifiable logic wholes, loads of gimmick matches that nobody ever asked for and a fair few people that mattered 10 years ago. Just another vintage Vince Russo day. You might get lucky and get 15 minutes of wrestling depending on the week too.

Fozzy

The only problem Russo has when it comes to booking wrestling is that he doesn't believe that wrestling fans want to watch wrestling. He'd prefer to get non-wrestling fans (the majority of the potential audience) watching, and to do that he has to focus less on wrestling and more on "getting people talking". You can only swerve people so many times though. Imagine what The Usual Suspects would be like if there was a swerve every ten minutes in the film! The effectiveness of it would be sucked right out, and that's what's happened in TNA and what happened in WCW. At least in WWE there was McMahon to keep a certain amount of sense to whatever Russo came up with

AirDemon

I see your point about it being 2007 and Russo produced good stuff back in the 90's but if it was me I'd prefer the WWE didn't go with the writers they have. As far as I've heard they have mostly been hollywood non-wrestling people.

I think the WWE needs to embrace the guys that worked for them in the past, surely to god there is someone that worked for them that can come up with a better storyline than a DX revival. That being said, I have to admit that most of this years shows have been improving apart from the obvious dip around Benoit time.

***SPOILER***
Well done to Cena getting his 100th win of 2007, he's only had 115 matches reportedly

Anyway I'm still happy to be compared to Russo, he's come out with some great storylines, sure everything he did wasn't perfect, far from it but some people never come out with anything decent.

Vince135792003

AirDemon wrote:

That being said, I have to admit that most of this years shows have been improving apart from the obvious dip around Benoit time.
.

Yep, the first quarter of Raw this year was largely great. There were some great matches and angles at the time.

And then, virtually every week something went wrong which screwed their plans up

Fozzy

AirDemon wrote:

I see your point about it being 2007 and Russo produced good stuff back in the 90's but if it was me I'd prefer the WWE didn't go with the writers they have. As far as I've heard they have mostly been hollywood non-wrestling people.

And Russo's a B-movie non-wrestling person!

As much as I disliked the comeback of DX, the business is all about money and I'm sure that drew a lot more than anything we could come up with

EDIT: Oh yeah, just about

I think the WWE needs to embrace the guys that worked for them in the past, surely to god there is someone that worked for them that can come up with a better storyline than a DX revival

The guy that replaced Russo as the head writer in late 1999 was very good at his job. He was in charge when ratings were at their highest and there were barely any of the continuity errors you see constantly these days. He died two years ago though

Vince135792003

Fozzy wrote:

The guy that replaced Russo as the head writer in late 1999 was very good at his job. He was in charge when ratings were at their highest and there were barely any of the continuity errors you see constantly these days. He died two years ago though

What was his name again?

Fozzy

Chris Kreski

AlphaMale 3OO

AirDemon wrote:

***SPOILER***
Well done to Cena getting his 100th win of 2007, he's only had 115 matches reportedly

Anyway I'm still happy to be compared to Russo, he's come out with some great storylines, sure everything he did wasn't perfect, far from it but some people never come out with anything decent.

FFS! What kind of a spoiler warning is that you idiot! If you havent already seen what was written about this in the last few days go check it out!

AirDemon

Sheesh, you sound like a right... I'll stop there, Anyway as far as I knew those numbers became true at Raw and so I didn't read every single thread, sue me jackass!!!

ShawnRaven

AirDemon wrote:

Sheesh, you sound like a right... I'll stop there, Anyway as far as I knew those numbers became true at Raw and so I didn't read every single thread, sue me jackass!!!

In his defense (and forbesii and i have come to verbal blows on here before), he is right. You posted the spoiler without including the tags, which isn't difficult to do in fairness. Some of us actually have work or college on Tuesday mornings and really couldn't care to stay up until stupid o'clock especially for a WWE product!

So realistically AirDemon, that makes you the jackass, and an inconsiderate one at that. Spoilers are mentioned in the charter at the top of the page. So Ignorance isn't an excuse, especially as you made more than one post in the Estrada thread which had more than one complaint about spoilers posted by someone else!

VR!

AirDemon

My mistake I apologise, I didn't know the rules about posting spoilers correctly which is my fault.

Mossy Monk

AirDemon wrote:

My mistake I apologise, I didn't know the rules about posting spoilers correctly which is my fault.

Why didn't you read the rules at the top of the board before posting.
Point number 9 is just for you.

AirDemon

I had I just had forgotten them, then I seen someone else post a spoiler so I posted a message in the same way, with the text the same as the bg and thought, hey that should be enough, if you want to see it then you will have to highlight it. Should be grand.

My mistake, I apologise and there's nothing more I can do.

MikeHoncho

Rating is up from a 1.5 to a 1.7 this week so they are obviously doing something right. Its tied as the top show on SciFi in the U.S with Eureka.

I dont think ECW is a waste of time at all infact I really like what they are doing with it. Its a place for new guys to get the TV experience before coming onto the main rosters and they can send older guys to be repackaged. Just look what they have done with Big Daddy V. Even after just this short few weeks they could slot him back on to one of the main rosters as a legitimit threat where if they had just left him on Raw he would still be a joke.

Guys like Punk and Morrison who would just be in mid card obscurity on Raw or Smackdown are given the opportunity to hone there skills in top programes and WWE can asses better if these are the types of guys who could be future main eventers (which i think they both are). I think its actually my favourite of the 3 shows at the moment.

Fozzy

AirDemon wrote:

I had I just had forgotten them, then I seen someone else post a spoiler so I posted a message in the same way, with the text the same as the bg and thought, hey that should be enough, if you want to see it then you will have to highlight it. Should be grand.

My mistake, I apologise and there's nothing more I can do.

I take it you use the black background as well, I didn't actually spot it myself. Others may be using a different background where the text is in black anyway. You know in future. Although, in fairness,

does anyone think Snitsky would beat Cena?!

MikeHoncho wrote:

Just look what they have done with Big Daddy V. Even after just this short few weeks they could slot him back on to one of the main rosters as a legitimit threat where if they had just left him on Raw he would still be a joke.

The only problem with that is that less people watch ECW than Raw or SD, so a lot of them will still see him as a joke if/when he gets moved

ShawnRaven

I think AirDemon has got the point now, we can stop lambasting him
Actually looking forward to the Raw repeat tonight for the first time in weeks.

As for Big Daddy V, they can repackage him, change his ring attire, change his name. But you can also put a dress on a pig, but it's still a pig. If you get what i mean?

VR!

MikeHoncho

Well I for one have enjoyed his squash matches the last few weeks. Really top class as far as squashes go. Kali, Snitsky etc could learn a thing or 2. Building him up to feed him to Cena or Taker I suspect.

blackjackbaby

ECW is, at the moment, one of the better wrestling shows. The main reason being that the show is actually about wrestling more than just filler, this weeks raw was the weakest pre PPV raw in recent memory, it did absolutely nothing to sell the PPV, yet ECW by all accounts was enjoyable.
I have seen it regularly over the past few weeks and while there are undoubtedly faults to the programme such as the fact that only the main eventers make it onto a PPV, the wrestling matches are often entertaining, even if I do have to put up with seeing Mables man boobs.


Also, if you like rugby..you can join my fantasy league on http://www.lorealmenfantasyrugby .ie once you register your team the code for my league is 794.

nillox

i hate the new ECW its nothing like the old one and that just makes me sad, its all a gimmick now, like WTF why the hell did nitro beat cm punk in such a crap match.
its just painful to watch now.

ShawnRaven

nillox wrote:

i hate the new ECW its nothing like the old one and that just makes me sad, its all a gimmick now, like WTF why the hell did nitro beat cm punk in such a crap match.
its just painful to watch now.

It was NEVER gonna be like the last one, that was a given from the day it was re-launched. That died in 2001 and will never return unless Heyman starts up a new promotion and learns how to be a businessman.

As for the match, because with the amount of talent that are slowly getting injured or suspended, they need to drag out a feud. Keep watching Morrison vs Punk, the matches will get better.

VR!

Vince135792003

No but when they signed up alot of the old talent, had 2 ppv shows that were at least somewhat similar to the old ECW, and then used "ECW" as the name of the third brand, it did give people the impression that they were gonna get something that they didn't end up getting.

AirDemon

I don't think many people expected it to be the same as the old ECW, from the get-go the extreme idea was taken out like, only half the matches on the first few shows were hardcore as far as I can remember. More importantly it was never really going to be the same because the look and feel of the show just couldn't be replicated.

ECW now though, it's got a slim roster with very few really talented people on it, but after all the messages I'd seen about how it's actually really good I gave it another chance, I would have done sooner or later anyway, but I was happy I did. Sure it's not Raw or anywhere near as good but it's a decent show, the Morrison/Punk angles are good-ish. I'm not sure if Punk can truly cut it as a face, something about him strikes me as a heel in waiting, I'm not hugely familiar with his career though so I could be wrong.

The Miz I will admit is really annoying, the show could be a lot better if they axed him and went with something different from the usual Raw/SmackDown show, like more gritty. Maybe use a dirty word or something.... might be pushing the limits with that though.

ShawnRaven

Simple answer - if it was WWE produced, then ECW would never be the way it was!

VR!