First and foremost, I would like to thank all the wrestling dirt sites that took notice and linked to my passionate tweets at twitter.com/wwejoeystyles. All of the media coverage has resulted in a 20% increase in followers in a single week!
Sunday night at Extreme Rules, fellow ECW Original Tommy Dreamer won his second ECW Championship almost nine years after winning his first one at The ECW Arena in Philadelphia. While I didn't have the privilege of calling the match (I would have come out of retirement just for Tommy and The Original ECW), I did interview Tommy immediately after his match exclusively on WWE.com and both of us shed tears of joy.
In 2000, after winning his first ECW Championship, Tommy was challenged to defend the title immediately. Tommy let his pride get the better of him, accepted the match, had his own manager betray him and lost the ECW Championship. Tommy never got to wear the title belt.
Well, Sunday night after our online interview I accompanied Tommy Dreamer to our locker room photo studio and personally snapped the ECW Championship belt around the new champion's waist so history could be properly documented and will live forever.
ECW without Tommy Dreamer would be like the New York Yankees without pinstripes. Sure, they would still be called TheYankees but what's in a name? A name is just a name. A rose by any other name would not smell as sweet. In fact, I would argue that it would stink on ice.
I complete this blog feeling an inner peace because The Yankees wear pinstripes and ECW has Tommy Dreamer.
Dream on Original ECW fans because in some ways, the dream lives on.
It's been quite a while since I last blogged but frankly, I don't have much to say publicly as I believe in the words of The Godfather, "Don't ever let anyone outside the family know what you are thinking." However, I do have a few innocuous thoughts that I don't mind sharing with you members of the WWE Universe.
Speaking to the UK Sun, current ECW Superstar, Evan Bourne said the following,
"If you compare ECW now to the old ECW on TNN - we blow that show out of the water. Every week we blow it out of the water."
As controversial as this may be, I agree with Evan. While I feel the Original ECW was superior to today's ECW overall. ECW on TNN was an awful TV show and it showed the world that ECW was on it's last legs by the year 2000.
However, the underground late night ECW TV that aired on various sports networks from 1993 through 1999 was groundbreaking and breathtaking. As far as I am concerned, The Original ECW had it's much needed conclusion at ECW One Night Stand 2005 and I am eternally grateful to WWE for making that dream a reality.
Many of today's WWE Superstars would have been a great fit for the Original ECW which was much more than the common misconception of being solely bloody weapons matches. In fact, future WWE World Champions, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, Mick Foley, Steve Austin and Rob Van Dam all graced the ring at the ECW Arena with most of of them never shedding a drop of blood but instead putting on wrestling clinics.
Don't believe me? Invest $3.95 for one month of WWECLASSICS.com and get back to me.
Working with and getting to know The Miz and John Morrison for over one year on The Dirt Sheet, I am thrilled that both of them are well on their way to becoming singles standouts. Eventually, Miz vs Morrison will be fun to watch.
Madison Square Garden is getting a desperately needed 500 million dollar renovation. As unpopular as this might sound, once you get over the great history of that arena, you can look at it objectively and see that it is an obsolete, overpriced experience for fans and performers. I look forward to working at the new MSG and taking Mrs. Styles and Joey Styles Jr. to MSG to see the circus.
As a lifelong WWE fan, I really enjoy WWE's new announcing teams. I think each pairing has great chemistry and perfectly offsetting personalities. At first, JR being switched from play by play to analyst seemed odd just because JR has done play by play for so long. However, who better to add color and insight to WWE action than the greatest wrestling announcer ever? Plus, Todd and JR are so opposite in every way that just seeing them on camera together makes me smile. I just can't figure out which one is Felix and which one is Oscar.
I am looking forward to my favorite PPV of the year, Extreme Rules. For those of you who are surprised that I prefer Extreme Rules to WrestleMania...think about it. I might wrap my laptop in barbed wire and set it on fire for the Live Chat.
Win or lose, I will be first in line to greet Tommy Dreamer when he returns from the ring and his Do or Die matchup this Sunday for the hideous looking ECW Championship. ECW without Tommy Dreamer is like New York Yankees uniforms without pinstripes. Sure they would still be the Yankees, but they would be stripped of their legacy. Let's hope ECW doesn't lose it's legacy this Sunday.
I was just sent an online commentary I posted in October 2005, approximately one week before my WWE announcing audition at Taboo Tuesday 2005. Yes, I auditioned as a WWE television announcer on a live pay-per-view; WWE is not a company for the sqeamish. In any case, take a look at what I wrote long before I was offered my current position with WWE.com:
As the entire world moves to broadband over the next five years and streaming online video is full screen and TV quality, what if WWE did not need to air their programming anywhere but WWE.com? What if pay-per-views were only available online where WWE keeps 100% of the revenue vs. TV pay-per-view which allows WWE, TNA, UFC, etc. to keep only 40% of the revenue?
Today's ironic discovery leads me to Judgment Day this Sunday. The online PPV Webcast is available right here on WWE.COM by clicking:
United States Champion, MVP will be our special guest on the WWEUNIVERSE.COM Judgement Day Live Chat at 7:30 PM EST. The Judgment Day Live Chat will continue through 11 PM EST. Join myself and WWE Hall of Famer, Howard Finkel while you enjoy Judgment Day.
Don't forget, WWE.COM will be posting my post match interviews throughout the event in addition to hundreds of ringside photographs.
WWE.com racked up over 100 MILLION page views this past Monday. Yes, you read that correctly, 100 MILLION page views.
Internally, we slated 80 million page views as our goal, eclipsing the previous WWE.com record of 69 million page views.
However, after 2 months of preparation and mining through analytics to discover what all of you wanted to see most, the WWE.com team created a very detailed plan of what we would be posting. After seeing that we reached 40 million page views on Wrestlemania Sunday, I quietly felt we had a shot of reaching 100 million on the day following WrestleMania 25 as the days following PPVs are our highest trafficked days thanks to all of you who make visiting WWE.com a part of your PPV weekend experience.
This was my first WrestleMania as Director of Content for WWE.com as opposed to a WWE TV announcer. I can tell you that seeing us surpass 100 million page views at 9:45 PM EST on Monday night was more of a personal accomplishment for me than calling my first WrestleMania match.
In fact, my work at WWE.com is more personally satisfying for me than announcing. Announcing will never change. I would prep, go to ringside and call matches...week after week, month after month, year after year for the foreseeable future.
WWE.com and the Internet as a whole will always be evolving. The Internet is the most powerful medium ever invented including Telephone, Radio and Television. I can say this with certainty because all of the afformentioned can be done on the Internet.
VOIP changed home telephone use forever and IPTV will change Television forever. Have you ever imagined what it would be like if your home's wireless router not only sent the internet to your laptop but also your television. Imagine seeing whatever is on your laptop (websites, music, video) on your Television. Imagine watching WWE.com's RAW, ECW and SmackDown video highlights on your big screen HDTV. Better yet, imaging seeing WWE.com's thousands of Diva photos on that same TV.
Now stop imagining. Sooner rather than later, IPTV will be readily available like VOIP. With four hours of original weekly programming, PPVs and WWE.com Legacy, WWE.com will be in as good a position as any other entertainment company to make the most of IPTV.
As you can tell, I get very excited when thinking about the future of WWE.com and I hope all of you feel the same way.
After some arm twisting by WWE Universe Community Leader, Corey Clayton, I now have a Twitter account at twitter.com/WWEJoeyStyles
Rather than blog here which requires me having access to a laptop or PC, I will be texting my Twitter updates from my mobile phone which is with me at all times.
Yes, I believe this is one of the signs of the end of the world...Joey Styles "tweets". OMG! I hate that name.
Tommy Dreamer, his wife Beulah and I will be travelling together to tomorrow's Hardcore Reunion in Allentown, PA to join many ECW Originals including almost every Original ECW World Champion ever to wear that historic belt including soon to be WWE Hall of Famer, Terry Funk.
