Did WWE stop doing One Night Stand because of the rawness?

[STILLNWO4LIFE]

I know that WWE did stop running ECW as a brand. Technically, I believe they had to stop because Vince basically killed the brand by bringing in his current superstars and going away from what ECW was. The fans lost interest and ECW just became another dumb idea created by Vince.

I truly believe that if One Night Stand were to continue, they would have been able to keep ECW alive for a little while longer. Vince buried ECW just like he did WCW, not giving guys the chance they had when they were with their perspective companies. That's a different topic for a different day though.

So anyways, my question remains, why did they stop producing One Night Stand? The event was sold out both times, the loyalty of the ECW fans was there both times, and they were great pay per views, honestly, some of the best pay per views produced by WWE in the past 8 years. Did they stop it because of the rawness? Did Vince stop it because of the filth by the ECW fans?

I don't call it filth or garbage wrestling like some of my fellow wrestling fans do, because fans with that kind of passion and wrestlers with that kind of passion belong in the wrestling world. It was a way of life and it was freaking awesome. I miss fans that get that into the event on hand, today's WWE crowds are somewhat dead and they just don't back it like what we have seen before with fans from WCW and ECW. Nonetheless, your opinions please.

 

[GI Cake]

The WWE stopped doing One Night Stand because of the sheer fact that ECW as a brand doesn't draw money anymore. And to be fair, it wasn't all that much of a promotion that drew in much money anyway. It was unique and it had it's appeal to the smarks, but ECW no matter if it was the original, or if it was the WWE's reincarnation of it, always suffered from poor booking. The One Night Stand Pay-Per-View stopped being booked not because it was "Too raw." Though one could say the ECW product and hardcore wrestling doesn't have a place in WWE's current direction.

And lastly, any promotion will tell you that any money is good money. It doesn't matter if it comes from the pockets of ECW fans or the purses of Middle-Class mothers. All that matters if they make plenty of it. And One Night Stand failed to do just that.

 

[Nate DaMac]

They stopped because it quit selling.

05- 325,000 and it could have been more had the website not fucked up.

06- 280,000

07- 186,000

08- 194,000

WWE's solution to the buyrates dropping was changing the name to Extreme Rules. It worked for a year.

You can blame it on the rawness, but each and every member of the ECW Originals have more than surpassed their expiration dates. The only people who are going to pay to see them are the fanatics, and those numbers aren't nearly big enough for the WWE to profit.

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

The reason is much simpler than many think ... "One Night Stand" (I am sure everyone here knows what the urban definition of this phrase is) was not a name WWE wanted in their PG era. So they switched ONS to Extreme Rules for a more family friendly event.

 

[Benson]

If WWE were to do an Old School ECW show on Raw one week, much like they do the Old School or Blast from the Past, I would be more than happy with that. Chuck's right about the lack of drawing power. Those numbers are absolutely abysmal.

The PG era started in 2007. So they went two years before determining that it wasn't a family friendly name?

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

The PG era started in 2007. So they went two years before determining that it wasn't a family friendly name?

Cena's move in 2007 and 2008 was still called the FU and diva's were still doing playboy shoots in those years too.

While some transitions were happening 2009 was really the year where WWE really went PG.

 

[Headman]

Let's see, a pay-per-view featuring mostly people who don't even work for the WWE. People who the audience for the most part have either never heard of or are no longer popular enough to hold a regular spot on the WWE roster. And then celebrate a promotion that has not existed for over ten years. This doesn't sound like a concept with a very long shelf life, does it?

 

[ProWrestlingFan]

When they got rid of ECW : One Night Stand, they should have stopped with the "Extreme Rules" concept as Extreme Rules isn't Extreme anymore.

 

[wooooo]

The first ONS was for former ECW stars only, the second was to help build the brand that was set to start the tuesday after, there was no angle for it to continue in the years after.

 

[obamartins]

Let's get some things straight the PG era didn't start in 2007 it offically started in August 2008.

ECW ONS 2005 & 2006 were the only original ECW PPV's produced by WWE. Others like December to Dismember & ONS 2007 were WWE's version of ECW.

ECW ONS 2005 & 2006 drew very strong PPV buyrates.

Have you seen the rating for the debuted episode of ECW on Sci Fi? It drew a 2.79 rating becuase fans thought it might be the original ECW but after 6 months of WWE's version of ECW it drew a 1.4 rating by the end of the year & the worst PPV buyrate of the decade for December to Dismember.

I don't know why they stopped doing the orginal ECW shows but they basically stopped the very first night after ECW ONS 2006 on sci fi but obviously it was Vince McMahon's call & a very dumb one aswell.

 

[neildittmar]

ECW was founded as an alternative to what WWE (and WCW) were doing at the time.

ECW was brought back to life by WWE with the same premise initially. The first ONS mimicked the ECW experience to a T... same venue, same wrestlers, same crowd for the most part. The second one at the very least embraced that ethos. The brand revival began with the same premise... a product that was "different" than other WWE shows, using the same format and many of the same participants as Paul Heyman's original.

Somewhere along the line, that vision got lost.

Despite borrowing many match concepts, storylines, and angles from the company during its "Attitude Era", to this day I still don't think Vince and Company truly understood what made ECW work for the fans that enjoyed it. ECW was never a cash cow and generally only appealed to a certain segment of the audience that became disenfranchised with pro-wrestling in the early to mid 90's. Despite the WWE "touch", it was never going to be a brand that was congruent to RAW and Smackdown on a financial level. That's not what ECW was all about anyway. That's not how ECW was advertised and sold. In fact, quite the opposite on both accounts.

That said, the buy rates on the first One Night Stand represent the old ECW faithful coming out in droves, as well as the curiousity factor amongst the WWF/E contigent who may never had seen ECW in its original incarnation but heard cool stories about it. The second show was less successful, but still represented a strong segment of the audience coming out one more time. Even the TV show on Sci-Fi had generally high ratings initially... probably from the ECW hardcore (pun not intended) and folks who didn't buy the preceeding two PPV's.

Once ECW started feeling the full force of WWE creative, that's when things began falling apart. I know this thread is about ONS, but the ECW brand in general suffered the same fate. Despite being pre-PG era, the more mature themes of the show were toned down. Things like Extreme Expose were watered down, dismantled, and eventually ceased to exist. Slowly, yet consistently, the ECW "originals" were let go one by one without adequate replacements (by ECW standards anyway) being filled into the empty slots. In short, ECW lost all of what made it cool and different and became nothing more than WWE's C-level show.

... so goes One Night Stand. Cool premise that would allow WWE to significantly deviate from its norm turns into just another gimmick PPV that got lost in the shuffle. Renaming it Extreme Rules didn't help, as the content never changed. In fact, matches eventually became stuff you could probably catch on RAW and Smackdown on any given night.

 

[Workrate]

Once ECW started feeling the full force of WWE creative, that's when things began falling apart. I know this thread is about ONS, but the ECW brand in general suffered the same fate. Despite being pre-PG era, the more mature themes of the show were toned down. Things like Extreme Expose were watered down, dismantled, and eventually ceased to exist. Slowly, yet consistently, the ECW "originals" were let go one by one without adequate replacements (by ECW standards anyway) being filled into the empty slots. In short, ECW lost all of what made it cool and different and became nothing more than WWE's C-level show.

... so goes One Night Stand. Cool premise that would allow WWE to significantly deviate from its norm turns into just another gimmick PPV that got lost in the shuffle. Renaming it Extreme Rules didn't help, as the content never changed. In fact, matches eventually became stuff you could probably catch on RAW and Smackdown on any given night.

^^ This. ^^

Frankly, I don't get why this topic gets drudged up over and over again. Extreme Championship Wrestling is gone. The final episode of WWE's incarnation of ECW aired almost two and a half years ago. The original ECW ended more than a decade ago. Basically, One Night Stand went away because time had passed. It doesn't get much simpler than that. It doesn't exist anymore and it never will again. Its cool to reflect on what was, but at some point the longing needs to stop.

 

[closet_fan]

If anything, WWE did the right thing by stopping it because it was eventually going to peter itself out anyway. It was able to market because hardcore guys like Sabu and Balls Mahoney were still fresh in everyone's minds.

Did you see TNA's version? It was one of the worst PPV's I ever saw. And being able to use the ECW, Extreme and Blue Meanie copyrights wouldn't have made it any better.

Eventually you were going to have to pass the torch to younger guys and I think even then you would still have lost many of the hard ECW fans who were used to the older wrestlers like Dreamer and Sandman.

 

[b the man]

I think WWE stopped doing One Night Stand because the of the name itself suggests that it's only supposed to be for one night only. Can you imagine?

ONE NIGHT STAND: YET AGAIN!!!!

 

[Equimanthorn]

I would be very interested to see how people round here would have booked the new breed of ECW superstars. Obviously, Punk worked, but is there anybody else out there you felt would have worked as a replacement for Sabu and co.

The one that springs to mind for me is Homicide. I think he could've been great in ECW.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

"keep it alive a little longer" is where you should have stopped. ECW was a niche product and looked dated. That's it. Things end. A Jerry Springer wrestling show with gratuitous violence had it's place and time and now that time is over. Get over it.