At 11/20/04 12:40 PM, The_Redangleking wrote:
I agree whole heartedly. Bring back an invasion of hardcore matches dammit, those were fun as hell to watch.
It's not just that, I miss being able to watch story lines that were about what it should be about, two guys who hate each other letting it all hang out in the ring. I miss the kind of respect that guys were allowed to show after matches (like Jerry Lynn and RVD). I miss titles that had importance, remember that? Remember when titles mattered people? No, sadly...I'm forgetting too.
People confuse ECW with simply being a hardcore promotion, I went to some of the more organized, later shows (if you watch a tape of the Massacre on 34th street, you can see the back of my head, and my father's hat, only time I ever had floor seats at any show), shows where only one or two guys still did hardcore, and crowd brawls, where you saw more just balls out high risk wrestling. You saw real tag teams fighting it out for the Tag Belts, I love tag wrestling personally, and it's sad as hell that Vince is getting like Bischoff did in WCW where he dosen't seem to know what to do with it, so he's devalueing it. Now's the time to bring ECW back I think, the buzz that's been created by the DVD, and the overall quality and interest the DVD will create, just says to me that now is the time to get the most recognizable guys onto a new ECW, call in guys like Storm and Dreamer who aren't working as much, and set them up as trainers and on air personalities, hell, Tommy can still probably wrestle on occassion, but may in fact have more value in a management role since ultimately, if the brand is going to succeed, and be for real, you have to mix new talent in, and as we all know, we ECW fans were a hard group to please. Put Paul Heyman in charge, he's wasted with Heidenreich, and he's wasted as part of a booking team where his ideas are not valued, and his imput is ignored because he's not towing the company line.
Honestly, Vince has to do something, and I really have always felt like the best way to make the idea of competitive brands work is to simply fold one of them into a legitimate "rival" company, and make it look like they really do hate each other, ECW has the fan base, and while yes, the DVD does acknowledge a lot of what Vince did positive, there's still enough negative ammo that can be grabbed from the past (Triple H over Tazz anyone?) or from the now (Paul E. not being used well on the booking team), to turn ECW and the WWE against each other, and make it believable.