Did wwecw serve its purpose?

[whoopin' ass]

With wwe having both NXT and Tough Enough going on, and their version of ECW being gone for a while, I started thinking back on EWC of SciFi. Were people just mad because it wasn't the old ECW? Did it do what it was supposed to do?

Look back at the original ECW for a moment - it was never the biggest draw out there, they may have had some great talent but a lot of it never stayed for long and were never heavyweight champ (Jericho, Austin, Foley to name just a few) and in many cases, they were a transition territory for most - a place for new guys to go to get noticed and for older talent to go to reinvent themselves. It really got noticed because it was so different from what WWF and WCW were doing at the time.

When it was announced that Vince was bringing back ECW, people were expecting the old ECW but of course, that wasn't going to happen and not just because of Vince's ego. The stars were now older, people's expectations were now different having gone through the Monday Night Wars and the Attitude Era and they were no longer the underdog indy promotion fighting the "big two" - the were owned by WWE and everyone knew it. Rumor was it was going to be their talent training ground right from the get go - get these people some tv exposure on a national basis and take those who are ready to RAW/Smackdown. Now look what happened there. New talent were able to establish themselves there - CM Punk, Sheamus, Big Zek and Kofi were able to shine there and get themselves noticed. Sheamus was there for less than a year before he was moved to RAW. Johnny Nitro became John Morrison there and him and the Miz got noticed. Plus there were the older talents like Matt Hardy, Kane, Mark Henry and Christian who were able to come in, be champ, give it a little credibility and semi reinvent themselves as they were away from RAW and Smackdown for a while.

Ultimately, it looks like WWECW did a lot of the same things that ECW did. Now we have NXT and Tough Enough taking its place. Do you think WWECW served its purpose? Would you rather have it(or something with the same format but a different name) or NXT/Tough Enough? Just one request when you post - be somewhat objective and don't say "it sucked because it wasn't the old ECW". We know that, it has been said countless time. Thanks all.

 

[Midnite Express 2009]

I don't think it did. I know it was supposed to be the "B" show but it ended up being the "C" show with declining ratings and a roster of stars who were either new to the company or who wasn't good enough to be on the main shows. For the stars who were new on the show (i.e. Jack Swagger, etc) that's what I thought FCW was for, if I'm wrong then I'm sorry for that. But I just didn't see the purpose, although I understood initially the logic behind the show. Just personally, it didn't do it for me, and it had nothing to do with the old ECW. I just seemed a bit too much going on within the company with all those shows and pretty much only 2% of the talent were being used.

 

[.]

I feel that it did. WWECW did what original ECW set out to do in its original run, have a roster filled with young stars looking to make the big leagues(Aka move from the C show to the A or B show). It also had a fair share of veterans that were there to make the young guys look like gold inside and out of the ring. It was entertaining and though there wasn't as much "Extreme" as we would've liked it was still pretty good.

It sure as hell beats NXT out of the water.

 

[CelticCorey]

I would say it did serve its purpose. It went to shit after Vince McMahon won the ECW World Title but before that I saw it as a legit third brand.

Despite this though, ECW was where it all began for many.

C.M. Punk- multi time world champion, arguably best feud of 2009, one of the guys who is the complete package, got his start on ECW.

Kelly Kelly- Cena is the face of the WWE but Kelly Kelly is the face of the divas. She is the divas champion. No matter what you want to say about her wrestling skills, whatever. I personally don't find her that hot (as hot as I do with others) and some say she slept her way to the top. I don't know but I do know Kelly Kelly started on ECW.

The Miz- he made his debut on Smackdown but soon went to ECW. There he became one half of the most entertaining tag team in recent WWE history. While he got noticed more in the midcard with the U.S. and tag belts, ECW also helped The Miz get to the top the proper way.

John Morrison- Former ECW Champion and possibly future WWE or WHC. I don't know yet. And while it's not saying much, he IS the #2 face on RAW once he comes back. Sure he wrestled in MNM and was a tag team champion and all but I view ECW as to when John Morrison REALLY burst onto the scene.

Sheamus- two time WWE champion, maineventer on Smackdown. Beat Cena twice for the title. He looked relaly aggressive in his first how many months on Raw. But before he signed on RAW as a free agent, he started out a monster on ECW.


ECW DID elevate people and it DID serve its purpose.

 

[whoopin' ass]

I don't think it did. I know it was supposed to be the "B" show but it ended up being the "C" show with declining ratings and a roster of stars who were either new to the company or who wasn't good enough to be on the main shows. For the stars who were new on the show (i.e. Jack Swagger, etc) that's what I thought FCW was for, if I'm wrong then I'm sorry for that. But I just didn't see the purpose, although I understood initially the logic behind the show. Just personally, it didn't do it for me, and it had nothing to do with the old ECW. I just seemed a bit too much going on within the company with all those shows and pretty much only 2% of the talent were being used.

but why was it supposed to be the "B" show? Even when Smackdown is better than RAW, it is still generally considered the "B" show. Besides, who did ECW have for top talent? Kurt Angle left quickly, we all know what happened with Chris Benoit and even though he beat Cena for the title, RVD was never that "top guy" in the company. No one would consider Superstars to be the "B" show and it is about the same in terms of talent and writing as ECW was. I understand what you mean about FCW but both that and Ohio Valley wrestling are not national shows. I have never seen an show from them so while it does get them tv exposure, it isn`t the same as ECW gave.

 

[TUFFY54]

The OP makes a damn good point. People often talked about how many great stars the original ECW made. Not really true. It was more like gave them a little exposure or a breath of fresh air. Look at guys like Jericho, Malenko, Gurerro, Mysterio, and Benoit. None of them were in ECW for a year, and none of them really got noticed before they went to WCW. Austin certainly didn't make his name in ECW, he just used a few months there to work out some kinks before going to WWE.

Point being, the real talent left. With the exception of RVD and Sabu, who were the top names in ECW? Shane Douglas was hurt the entire time and Raven left as soon as he got over. Guys like Dreamer and Sandman weren't exactly superstars.

In reality, WWECW was exactly like the original ECW. New guys came in and got over, then they went to the bigger show.

 

[AntiChristDeicide]

Bah the problem with WWECW, was that people (myself included) expected that it would be like the original ECW. When people realized that it would never be the same thing as the original one, it failed. The good thing WWECW did was to give a world title ( yeah i know it was worth shit but still) to guys that wouldn't have a chance at being world champion in WWE ( Matt Hardy, Ezekiel Jackson and Christian). By the way, don't tell me that Christian got to be World Champion on Smackdown, for satan's sake he was champion for 2 days (5 days by WWE television standarts).

 

[TheConnecticutBlueblood]

I think the fact ECW flopped as WWE is PG. If they had ECW during the attitude era I think you would find it would be as good as Raw. ECW stands for Extreme Championship Wrestling and ECW never was extreme! For crying outloud it was the Dudebusters vs Yoshi Tatsu and Goldust... ¬¬

If they actually had some proper harcore macthes and kept the ECW originals then allowed some bloodshed then it may have been a success but the PG aspect of WWE caused ECW to go down under and will continue to destroy the WWE.

 

[ralphie9181]

The purpose was to launch a TV show using the fresh nostalgia generated by ECW reunion shows, and a best selling DVD. They got us original fans to bite on that first episode and then lost us completely before the hour was over. They thought they could use the name and some old stars to pop a rating for a TV show weekly but once it was clear they had no intention of pushing or even featuring the original stars, the rating tanked. No it did not serve its purpose, it failed miserably, any stars on the main roster now, would have been stars with or without a sham ECW show, and of the guys who would still be there are just on an internet broadcast of superstars.

 

[Blue Chipper]

This was one of those ideas that Vince and WWE hatched, and consequently tested. I think it worked very well for what it was. It got mediocre ratings, or ratings you'd expect for that kind of show, and certainly delivered some unique entrainment with the clash of the original ECW style and the WWE style. A lot of entertaining products came of it (feuds, matches, angles, and so fourth), so for an unsure idea, it served its purpose.

 

[ralphie9181]

The Abraham Washington Show is about as much as I have to say about WWE's bastardized ECW attempt......if the purpose was to give us crappy characters and bad matches then it delivered in spades. Mike Knox, Big Daddy V, The Zombie, Kelly Kelly doing nothing, The Great Khali at his absolute worst, the cookie sheet battle royal, Matt Striker's dumb chalkboard segment, I can probably go on, but its painful.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

I am not really sure about this but I feel that WWECW had two purposes:

1) To push young talent and to revitalize the careers of veteran wrestlers like Kane, Matt Hardy and Christian who had been stuck in the midcard for quite a while.

2) To milk the popularity of the original ECW.

It served purpose number 1 to the hilt. As a number of posters have already mentioned guys like Punk and Kingston got great pushes in this brand and guys like Matt Hardy and Christian got a chance to carry a brand, even though it was a C brand. WWECW always made for some good television once you had got it out of your system that it was never meant to be as extreme as the original ECW.

But that is where I feel that WWECW failed. By naming it as ECW WWE automatically created an impression that they would try to emulate the original ECW in all aspects. Fans of the original ECW were excited to see how well ECW would do with higher production values and with the backing of the WWE. That is something that they never got to see and that is what ultimately turned a lot of people off WWECW.

What I am implying is that WWECW couldn't mainly get over because of its name and the expectations that its name brought along with it. As a brand itself, it was a fine concept but its name is what ultimately caused its downfall.

 

[Almost-Over]

It is easy to look with hindsight and say that guys such as CM Punk, Sheamus, Christian, Kofi and others had successful runs there but almost none of the WWECW success stories were happening at the same time. What I mean by that is there was practically never more than one or two interesting wrestlers on there and it was never a consistently entertaining show in its own right. It was also the retirement home of most of WWE's terrible gimmicks and bad wrestlers as they were reaching the end of their shelf life and were soon-to-be future endeavered such as the Boogeyman, Big Daddy V and Hornswaggle. Oh wait, I'm giving WWE too much credit with my wishful thinking on that last one....

 

[Tequila Dave]

WWECW was around for one reason - to make money. As long as it achieved that goal, it served its purpose. Sure it was an average hour of television that probably failed to meet the expectations of ECW’s original fans (thankfully), and sure it was nothing like it’s vastly overrated namesake (again, thankfully), but it made a net profit. It’s really as simple as that.

 

[whoopin' ass]

okay, so some thing it did and some think it was a total waste of time (like most wwe programming today but that is a different thread). let me ask you think then. say it wasn't called ECW but say they used the old WCW name. would that have made a difference? what if they had just renamed it NXT but kept it the same style/format as ECW. would it have a purpose? when you look at a show like Superstars, a lot of that talent would have been on ECW instead if it wa still running. was the name part of the problem?