Script: /smarky/blog/2008/08/27/the_case_for_ecw
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    The Case for ECW

    Wednesday, August 27, 2008, 08:33 AM EST [General]

    Like Rodney Dangerfield, no matter how hard it tries, ECW doesn't get much respect. To many wrestling fans it’s an afterthought, coming in a distant third to the two major shows that bookend the week.

    At best, it's described as a repacking of "Sunday Night Heat" for Tuesdays. At worst, a shell of a former brand, hauled out for cash cow mockery.

    Of the four wrestling shows on television, it routinely gets the lowest ratings. Of the three WWE brands, it continually is shafted in terms of pay-per-view coverage and cross-brand specials like the annual draft.

    It's too bad.

    At its core, WWE's ECW brand exemplifies all the values and qualities that captured the imaginations of original ECW fans back in its late 1990s heyday.

    And because of that, week after week, ECW has been the strongest show in WWE's arsenal

    It's the only show on television where you're getting a solid hour of pure wrestling. There's no time wasted with the same old promo that we've heard a thousand times before (Yes, HBK, we're aware you're going to kick his teeth down his throat. Indeed Batista, I know you respect him but are going to beat him up anyway).

    There's no goofy love affairs backstage. No lightning bolts being summoned from the sky. No weddings. No broken glass arm wrestling matches. No attempted murders with cars or cement trucks. No one walking through literal fire and brimstone. And absolutely no Katie Vick.

    But there's more to it than that. The ECW roster is filled with all the talent that doesn't really fit on any other brand. Sports-entertainment may not be a competition, but it's certainly competitive.

    Like the old ECW, which was filled with all the too small, too fat, too violent, too odd, or too old talent that nobody wanted, the new ECW roster is still in the fight to be noticed.

    As a result, the performers give that much more to put on the great match that could catapult them to stardom on the bigger brands. And the product is that much better for it.

    How many times did you see a John Morrison/CM Punk match that really inspired you? If both were bigger names, they could be headlining WrestleMania with that quality of work. The number one contender fatal-four way from a few weeks ago was magnificent. Even in the brand's early days, the first few meeting between Kurt Angle and Rob Van Dam were phenomenal.

    My guess is that with so much great new talent popping in- Evan Bourne, Ricky Ortiz, et al-it's only going to get better.

    Do I miss the garbage cans full of weapons and the cookie sheet shots to the head? I do. ECW and I go way back, long enough for me to remember having Sabu fall into lap a number of times. But how many times could I watch the same old weapons match.

    You can't capture lighning in a bottle, even if you are the Undertaker. Once you get past the fact that ECW as an independent company died in 2000 and it's zietgeist with Harcore Homecoming in 2005, the replacement is pretty damn good.

    Plus, you can impress your friends when Evan Bourne becomes WWE Champion by saying you saw his WWE debut.

    Besides it wasn't the violence that made ECW legend, otherwise its local successor, Combat Zone Wrestling, would have a national TV deal by now.

    If WCW taught us anything, living in the past might feel good for a little while, but it can't keep you going forever.


    ECW is the future.

    4 (3 Ratings)

    Wow. I never thought about it that way before. It's true we get wrestling, and I'm not making excuses here, but the wrestling is never really all that. I mean, Mark Henry vs Matt Hardy always gets intereupted, which is annoying, and the matches are short. But it's true we don't get promo after promo or anything. ECW could be the future. But let's not get too far ahead.

    ♥мιѕѕ єℓℓ...
    August 27, 2008
    08:52 AM EST

    Personally, ECW has impressed me lately. This is coming from a girl who barely BARELY watched it until after the Draft. The matches have been insanely awesome, and I'm really enjoying it. I think the reason ECW has such low ratings is because of the time slot and length. And the main reason the fans don't take ECW seriously... is because of the fact that niether does Vince McMahon.

    Angel
    August 27, 2008
    01:04 PM EST

    At its core, WWE's ECW brand exemplifies all the values and qualities that captured the imaginations of original ECW fans back in its late 1990s heyday.



    I'm sorry by I almost choked on my drink reading that. You make a compelling argument, but this ECW is nothing like the old ECW. The only thing ECW about this ECW are the letters ECW. Other then that it's just a show the WWE sends people to if they have no place for on RAW or Smackdown and grooms others for their eventual promotion to said shows.

    Phantom Lord
    August 27, 2008
    04:38 PM EST

    wow you have a point. i never saw the original ecw but i've seen the dvds and i liked the voilence but you have a point ecw is the only brand with just wrestling on it. ive been watchin ecw since it returned and i honestly do like it but mate you've just made me see it in a new light, thank you. and when evan bourne or any of the new wrestlers become world champs i will go on and on to my freind that i saw them debut. but going on to talk about what the new ecw is good for, it is bringing in these new wrestlers and making them great, so maybe one day if i become a wrestler and make my debut in wwe it will be with ecw. haha



    anyway just one last point. why doesn't any of ecw's other rivalries apart from the rivalries over the title, get a big finish on the pay per views? i wanna know

    english-bull-dog
    August 27, 2008
    04:52 PM EST

    It really does seem like they're keeping it relatively low key on purpose. It's their experimental brand with more than just new talent, but with new ideas.



    People want better matches, with a more "holy **** how did he do that?" feel. So they've sprinkled a little of that into the major promotions, set up Punk, who was one of the biggest names people wanted in the WWE, as the new face of the company, or at least are trying to, and now did this to ECW. They took out Kane, thank god, because he was just too big, to over to work in that position. Now they have an overdignified jobber who's one of the few guys in the WWE who still gets actual heel heat anymore, push him and give him the spot he (at least I beleive) deserves, and then set up one of the biggest faces in the company who's had the same problem in every other promotion, getting too many chances and eating too many losses, and putting him in a position where he might get the gold to draw in the crowd.



    Now you've got a winning strategy for a nice fanbase in what is essentially a brand being rebuilt from the ground up, and then wow and suprise everybody by, what's this?, giving them what they want, just to see how it goes. Still not quite TNA quality matches, I have to say, but still a hell of alot more snazzy and wowacious than what WWE's recently had.



    It sucks, and then it goes right ahead and sucks some more, that yes indeed, the old ECW, the one that several of us tune in every week with a little kid hopping up and down in the back of our skulls hoping against hope to see is dead. But that bit of god-awfulness aside, ECW's shaping up nicely, it's just that not everyone is an internet smark, and not everyone sees these "holy **** how did he do that?" matches and decide automatically that CNN or Disney wouldn't be a better waste of time than a bunch of, if ppv main event material, unbuild matches by people no body knows about.

    Buhdda of Wisdom
    August 27, 2008
    08:48 PM EST
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