Catch 22
Without a doubt, the overwhelming negative reaction to the ECW show last night will get back to Vince McMahon. And he will likely want to make changes. The problem right now is that while changes are needed, the changes Vince will have in mind will be counterproductive. The way to build ECW is to feature guys who aren't associated with WWE and who have potential. Then you use old ECW stars and a few current WWE stars to add enough credibility and interest to help build these new stars. Unfortunately, the worse the television they put out is, the more likely they are to panic to improve things, and the panic move will be more involvement from WWE wrestlers, which undermines the whole concept in the first place. WWE is better off forgetting last night ever happened and focusing on next week as a new beginning. Sandman and Sabu are no more the answer than Big Show and Kurt Angle. If this thing is going to work, it's going to be because of the CM Punks of the world.
posted by Todd Martin at 1:39 PM
3 Comments:
I havent seen the show since I live in Canada. I did get my hands on it and will watch it after Jericho's appearance on OTR.
However, one thing I will say is they need to get away from Smackdown. I know Dave said Vince isn't budging on taping ECW and SD together, but that's going to be a problem that just doesnt get better. I know people bought their tickets months ago expecting to see Rey Mysterio and company, but in a few months from now, you're still going to have conflicting crowds.
But again, I didnt see the show. How was the crowd?
Exactly what you would expect. They didn't react to anything because they were a Smackdown crowd, not an ECW crowd. And like you say, they absolutely need to get this in front of an ECW crowd. This is sort of a weird observation, but the Sandman-Zombie thing would have worked in a smaller ECW crowd. They would have shit all over Zombie, and then cheered loudly as Sandman caned him out of the arena. It's a formula they did a bunch of times with Sandman back in the day. But because the crowd didn't react to Sandman or Zombie, it made Zombie feel like part of the show. He wasn't an invader knocked back to the graveyard, but rather an "ECW character." Those sorts of crowd issues will present themselves frequently in front of SD audiences.
When they do the ECW Arena taping on Tuesday July 4th, and it's just an ECW crowd, NO Smackdown, that will hopefully spell it out in HUGE BLOCK LETTERS to Vince that it's the only way this new ECW will succeed. And maybe just maybe, Vince will see the light, and get it away from Smackdown & on it's own. That show regardless of how good or bad it is that night will simply be fantastic because of where it is & the crowd they are working in front of.
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