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.
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...08:52 AM EST