Should WWE focus more on ECW?

[HBK-aholic]

Raw and Smackdown are easily the main shows for WWE, with millions of people watching them each week. They watch them because of the huge amount of talent on each show. We can Cena, Triple H, HBK, Undertaker, Orton, Jericho, Batista, Edge etc. The list is endless. Now what do you think of when you hear "ECW stars?"..I can't actually think of any.

There is more than enough talent in the list above to be spread out over 3 shows instead of just 2, should the WWE notice this and add 2 or 3 of them there? Maybe a Orton and Cena move? Straight away, they increase viewing of ECW. Yet all ECW is used as is a 'training' ground for mid-carders. Think they should pay more attention to it?

 

[Dr. Stinger A. Zoidberg]

Yea they should, with the talent on ECW, they prove that they can put on some damn good matches Hence Morrison-Bourne.

 

[crazyzelse]

To be honest i don't think they should focus more on ecw because it's basically a mid card brand that help develops the younger stars riseup. Now if you add a huge star like edge or cena there they would just outshine the rest of the brand and win almost every match since the ecw stars aren't big enough yet. If you think about it ecw as a mid card brand is good because it lets people shine who proabaly wouldn't on other brands like Finaly or Zack Ryder. (if they give him a push.) In fact the only thing i would like wwe to do to ecw is make it extreme again.

 

[AnthonyMango/NoFate007]

I don't think anybody from the top of the WWE hierarchy should move over to ECW any time soon. With Raw and Smackdown, you've got two 2 hour shows, so you need lots of people that can carry more intricate feuds to spread it out. With ECW, you could pretty much have just 3 matches + the normal allotted network commercial time and that's your whole show. No need for promos, no need for recaps/rewinds, etc.

Basically, ECW is a "big fish in a small pond" scenario compared to the other brands. Raw and Smackdown, associated with the two top titles in the company and being on a longer time frame, are better supported with the biggest stars out there spread out evenly. ECW can survive with the top guy on the brand being someone who's basically an upper midcarder status player on Raw or Smackdown. For instance, could you picture the WWE using The Miz as the top guy that Raw revolves around? In the next few years, definitely, but not at the moment. Right now, he's at the top region of the midcard, like MVP, Shelton, etc. But on ECW, could you picture The Miz being the champion and the focus of the show? I could, without a doubt. So by doing that, and having a wrestler that hasn't hit main event status yet be the top focus of the ECW brand, you're allowing him the opportunity to increase his credibility and be used as a lower tier main event caliber guy when he moves to Raw/Smackdown.

Plus, when it comes to ratings, I don't think it has all that much to do with moving one or two people. Obviously, Cena garners better ratings for the WWE when he's active than when he's on inactive, but I don't think Cena moving to ECW would transfer them from 1.5's into 3.2's or anything. I think ECW's three main problems with ratings are:

1. The time. Not an issue for me in the slightest bit, but some people find it tough to get through Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday as its the middle of the week and Monday set them up to be worn out by the time they get home on Tuesday. Plus, its not an "off time" of the week, like Friday night is to most people. Tuesday night is like, bill night and stuff lol.

2. Its on Sci-Fi (soon to be SyFy...how stupid lol) and Sci-Fi doesn't get incredible ratings for anything at all. So that's saying something right there. MyNetworkTV causes Smackdown to suffer since its not available to everyone, but as far as I know (and I could be wrong) Sci-Fi is available to everyone that has cable. They just don't get a lot of traffic.

3. Recaps/Rewinds. With the addition of Superstars, we now have six hours of wrestling a week just from the WWE...on a week WITHOUT a ppv. They run those damn rewinds and recaps so much that its impossible to just sit down and watch those 6 hours on the normal broadcast. You pretty much HAVE to DVR them so you can skip forward. And if people are getting tired of seeing the same crap over and over and over again, and they're looking to sacrifice one of the shows, they're going to choose ECW or Superstars over Raw or Smackdown to miss. Even if you moved people over to ECW that they wouldn't want to miss, they'd just miss half of Raw or half of Smackdown accordingly, because they'd still see the recaps and rewinds on the other shows.

I think if you moved some big names over to ECW, all it would end up doing is prevent some people from elevating themselves up the ladder and the small boost you might get in ratings for ECW would be reflected in a small dip you'd get in Raw and Smackdown. Not worth it.

 

[z99zazn]

No, WWE should not focus anymore on ECW. The show is a place for a few top midcarders, and for young wrestlers to develop and get their feet wet. You can have entertaining wrestlers and matches on the show. Look at Jack Swagger, he's a young guy that is getting some big time exposure as a champion because they have ECW as a place for something like that to happen. Christian is a star and Finlay is a solid upper midcarder. Evan Bourne is exciting to a lot of people, especially the kids. If you are a wrestling fan, you can be entertained by ECW, especially now that Ricky Ortiz got drafted to SD.

My only two problems with ECW are these. For one, I really don't think that Morrison should have been drafted over to Smackdown. While he could break out on that show, I think that they should have had him stay on ECW to win the title again to recieve another major push. But my biggest problem with the way ECW is used by WWE is the fact that it's name is ECW. While none of us should have expected this new ECW to be anything like its predecessor, I wish they wouldn't have used the ECW name again. I just don't think that it should have that title. And if they DO have to use the name ECW, at least the announcers and WWE shouldn't refer to it as the land of the extreme. There is absolutely nothing extreme about the current ECW.

 

[kingdirrtysouth1]

I don't think so, because they would take notice of how much actual wrestling there is & cut it down tremendously. Instead of three solid matches a week, we'd get three 2 minute matches & loads of re-plays from Raw! Remember what during the last ECW before Mania? You don't want that to happen again, do you?

 

[KillBill]

My only two problems with ECW are these. For one, I really don't think that Morrison should have been drafted over to Smackdown. While he could break out on that show, I think that they should have had him stay on ECW to win the title again to recieve another major push. But my biggest problem with the way ECW is used by WWE is the fact that it's name is ECW. While none of us should have expected this new ECW to be anything like its predecessor, I wish they wouldn't have used the ECW name again. I just don't think that it should have that title. And if they DO have to use the name ECW, at least the announcers and WWE shouldn't refer to it as the land of the extreme. There is absolutely nothing extreme about the current ECW.

Tommy Dreamer. He is what ECW is about. So theres something left. I wouldn't be surprised if the second he retired, they changed the name.

But I disagree with you guys. Many people think that ECW did very well in the draft. It got more talent than in previous drafts, which makes me think they would like to see it succeed more. If they didn't care about it, I'm sure Christian and Swagger would be gone. Doesn't matter if Vince doesnt like Christian, everybody else does, and most likely could have had him move. But with so many fans, ECW should get more viewers, since underutilized talent like Helms, and darkhorses like Zeke are there. I for sure am more interested than I have been.

 

[Deexter Jorgan]

I agree that they should move talent, but not main event talent, the talent such as shelton benjamin who are suffering due to lack of push, guys in the lower card like hawkins and ryder and anyone else who cant catch a break on the two big shows and give them a chance to shine, someone for instance like...

Jamie Noble, heres a guy with a shed load of talent and no time to exhibit that talent, the guy was on raw for only a few days in 2008 and then got taken out after his feud with Regal got stale, he is one of the best workers in the wwe but cant catch a break, ECW is the perfect place for him and anyone like him, they should just move them all there add a midcard title and give the brand its chance to shine, and am not being funny but WWE doesnt promote the brand on raw or smackdown but they promote the first and second brand on ECW, it sucks ass, it takes away airtime sorely needed from the talent.

As long as the wwe puts the spotlight on these young stars i believe ECW can be a sucess, and remember it is the highest rated show on scifi and has been for over 25 straight weeks which is tremendous for any first run production let alone wrestling!