ECW REVOLUTION 2005

Ready To Change The Face of Wrestling … Again!

By Will Welsh

ECW One Night Stand wasn’t just a wrestling pay-per-view. It wasn’t just another three-hour card meant to fill space between two of WWE’s four showcase events. It wasn’t a way for Vince McMahon to milk more money out of his most loyal customers by putting together a jazzed up Raw or Smackdown lineup and calling it a must-see pay-per-view.

ECW One Night Stand was a rebirth. It was a declaration of faith. It was a thick, yellow wad of spit into the face of corporate executives who don’t understand sacrifice and the fanaticism that it can produce. It was a big middle finger to the past half-decade. It was a blood-tinged tear running down the face of those fans and wrestlers who never got to officially say their goodbyes the right way. It was a warm embrace to those faithful who have been wishing that wrestling could return to the good ol’ days, back to when matches never ended in a DQ, barbed wire wasn’t made out of rubber, and red-hot valets actually got away with using names such as Kimona Wana-Laya.

ECW One Night Stand wasn’t just a tribute to a promotion that folded under the weight of fiscal problems and creative burnout four-plus years ago. It was a tribute to a revolution and a radical way of thinking that led a little company based out of a dumpy neighborhood bingo parlor in South Philadelphia to become the most influential wrestling promotion of the past 20 years.

Let this not be forgotten: When ECW evolved from nothing to become a recognizable number three, WCW and the WWF stopped scowling at each other for a while and started ripping ideas and wrestlers from ECW. By the time the Big Two were through feasting on ECW, the mad scientist behind ECW, Paul Heyman, was burned out, the ECW locker room was filled with newcomers failing to fill the void, and the television situation had been scuttled by the very network that had promised to make ECW a centerpiece of its Friday night lineup.

Enough was enough. Shortly after the 2001 Guilty as Charged pay-per-view, the little hardcore promotion that could officially tapped out after a long, arduous battle, and nobody could blame it.

On June 12, 2005, ECW visited with us once again—and wrestling fans everywhere rejoiced. Early estimates from industry insiders have the pay-per-view doing at least 300,000 buys and maybe as many as 800,000—a WrestleMania-like number if there ever was one.

WWE will accept the success, but it’s safe to say that most people inside WWE headquarters had no idea that it would do so well. Most WWE staffers expected a moderate buy rate with decent support from the live crowd; in the end, they got what is expected to be an inexplicably strong buy rate with one of the hottest wrestling crowds in recent memory.

Because of this, the promotion also put itself in quite the quandary: What to do now? ECW One Night Stand was named thusly because almost everyone expected the rebirth of the brand to take place over one night only. Hardly anyone thought that ECW would have any legs after the evening wound down.

Oops!

In this special section, we’re going to look at ECW One Night Stand and its many repercussions. It’s funny how a simple three-hour pay-per-view can revolutionize and reinvigorate an entire industry, isn’t it?

WHY WAS ONE NIGHT STAND SO SUCCESSFUL?

There are a lot of people in WWE asking this very same question … over and over again. The promotional hype was decent, but it wasn’t anything extraordinary. The match lineup came out very late and, on paper, it didn’t seem like anything spectacular. The Raw and Smackdown angles may have helped publicize the pay-per-view, but Jerry Lawler, Eric Bischoff, Kurt Angle, John Bradshaw Layfield, and a host of other WWE wrestlers buried ECW probably more often than it was praised during the weeks leading up to the show.

Heck, among ECW faithful, there was significant outrage concerning the participation of any non-ECW-related talent on the show.

As we all know, though, none of that really mattered. One Night Stand was successful really for one simple reason: People cared. Wrestling historians will inevitably call ECW a failure in the end, but if that’s the case, it was a failure with which people lived and died. Wrestling fans who followed ECW in its prime knew that its wrestlers sacrificed more than wrestlers from any other promotion, and because of that, they felt closer to those wrestlers and to the promotion as a whole. They were part of it. It was part of them. They wanted to see it succeed, and when it ultimately didn’t, it ripped their hearts out.

When WWE bought WCW, a good number of fans thanked the McMahons for sparing them further episodes of Nitro and Thunder. When ECW went out of business, a good number of fans cried on the inside. One Night Stand was their catharsis. It was their chance to say goodbye to their promotion and wrestlers about whom they cared so passionately.

JBL and Bischoff will enjoy taking some credit for popping the buy rate if it’s as strong as we anticipate it being. We know they want to think that they’re the reason so many wrestling fans ordered the pay-per-view. Well, we’re here to tell them that they’re wrong. One Night Stand was successful because fans and wrestlers wanted it to be special. The fans didn’t want to disappoint the wrestlers, and the wrestlers sure as heck didn’t want to disappoint the fans. Together, they promised each other a night that they’d never forget.

ECW One Night Stand was the culmination of their promise to one another.

DID NON-ECW WRESTLERS HAVE TOO STRONG A PRESENCE AT ONE NIGHT STAND?

A lot of fans thought they did, and it can certainly be argued that their presence took away from the in-ring action at times. Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit were distracted by vulgar chants directed at Bischoff during their bout, and there was a percentage of fans who spent most of the pay-per-view screaming at the WWE contingent instead of following the matches closely.

It doesn’t matter. This may not be the most popular opinion out there, but the role that WWE’s wrestlers played on One Night Stand wasn’t just effective—it was downright necessary.

Think about it for a second: If the WWE wrestlers hadn’t been on hand, the crowd would have been a little lost and probably a lot less vocal. After all, other than Mike Awesome (who walked out on ECW while he was World heavyweight champion), it’s hard to imagine the fans in attendance at the Hammerstein Ballroom booing any former ECW wrestler—no matter how heinous their actions during ECW’s heyday may have been. Even Justin Credible, one of the leading heels during the last few years of the promotion’s existence, was over huge—in a positive way—with the crowd. Asking fans to boo any former ECW wrestler on a night in which they’re supposed to be hailing all former ECW wrestlers just doesn’t make any sense.

One Night Stand needed the WWE wrestlers in attendance. It needed a group of people to take the heat and make the ECW wrestlers look like heroes in comparison. ECW wrestlers competing as heels couldn’t have done it as effectively; they couldn’t have elicited such genuine hatred from the crowd. Without the participation of the WWE Crusaders, the fans at the Hammerstein would have been cheering everyone—and that would not have made for an authentic ECW experience. Not even close.

The members of the WWE contingent weren’t there because they wanted to be there. They were there because Vince McMahon was smart enough to realize he had to have them there.

DID WWE DO THE LEGACY OF ECW JUSTICE?

The pay-per-view didn’t even last two hours and 40 minutes. It featured seven matches, most of which felt hurried and not entirely satisfying. Only two matches (Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka and The Dudley Boyz vs. Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman) broke the 10-minute mark (and just barely at that), and those bouts were widely regarded as the best of the evening not because they ran longer, but because they ended up being highly entertaining train wrecks the likes of which hadn’t been seen since ECW folded.

Chris Jericho vs. Lance Storm felt forced at times. Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Psicosis never got into high gear—and a good percentage of the live crowd actually booed Misterio (who was hurting a bit going in) when he performed his 619 maneuver because that only entered his repertoire after he joined WWE. Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero was not close to the caliber of match that anyone expected from them, and reports from backstage indicated that both wrestlers knew that and were upset about it. Sabu and Rhyno delivered an entertaining, emotional match, but part of the credit for that match being as successful as it was must go to Rob Van Dam, who energized the crowd with the best promo of the evening—and of his career—before getting jumped by Rhyno.

RVD, with his leg in a brace and choking back tears, spoke from his heart in a way that we rarely see wrestlers do anymore. He berated WWE’s creative team for scripting him poor promos, and then he went a step further by saying that WWE had no idea how to showcase his talent. He bemoaned his injury, calling his inability to wrestle at One Night Stand more heartbreaking than missing out on this year’s WrestleMania. He openly challenged WWE’s Crusaders and dared them to take the credit for the night’s success.

In many ways, RVD’s promo was the show’s number-one highlight, and that’s saying a lot.

But the question, again, is this: Did WWE do the legacy of ECW justice? Sorry, folks, but two heartfelt promos (the second being Paul Heyman’s) and many rushed matches on a less-than-three hour pay-per-view can’t do nine years of blood, sweat, and tears justice. WWE tried, as did every wrestler appearing on the program, but ECW’s in-ring product was about showcasing the promotion’s wrestlers in the ways that they always wanted to showcase themselves. It was never about fitting so many matches onto the card that they’d all have to be cut short, or making sure that everyone on the roster got to make an appearance on every show.

Was One Night Stand fun? Absolutely. Was the atmosphere vintage ECW? No doubt. Did the fans eat it up? More than most WWE higher-ups could have hoped for. Did it give ECW’s fans a final chance to say goodbye? You betcha.

Did it live up to the legacy of ECW? Not entirely. But it was still one heck of a wonderful night.

WILL ECW INFLUENCE THE STYLE OF WWE ONCE AGAIN?

As thrilling as One Night Stand was, Vince McMahon and a host of WWE wrestlers really have to hope that the answer to the above question is a resounding “no.”

ECW’s hardcore, extreme style of wrestling is entertaining as hell to watch. There’s definitely something to be said for watching men recklessly throw each other through tables, hammer each other over the head with steel chairs and Singapore canes, and sacrifice their own bodies just to win a match. It’s sick, twisted and sometimes addictive.

 No doubt Sigmund Freud could have written a book or two on the mindset of such wrestlers and the fans who cheer them on.

WWE, though, doesn’t want the ECW style of wrestling to catch on again. Heck, the promotion has spent the majority of the past two years trying to dig wrestling out of that manner of thinking by forcing its wrestlers to adjust to a new style that preached mat wrestling over high spots and methodically paced matches over high-speed train wrecks. It got tired of losing its wrestlers to injury and covering the costs of their expensive surgeries.

Remember, neck fusion surgery wasn’t a commonplace term in wrestling until a few years into the era of the high spot—an era that ECW can most definitely take credit for launching.

Of course, just as the fans had become receptive to the new style, WWE gummed up its own works by reintroducing ECW to the national stage via One Night Stand. The pay-per-view’s multitude of broken tables and stiff chair shots, as well as its one flaming table, suddenly made the matches you see on Raw and Smackdown passe by comparison.

WWE can’t allow that. It simply can’t let ECW upstage its own product—which is another reason why future ECW pay-per-views, if they actually happen, will be few and far between.

WWE has worked hard to recondition its audience to accept its current product; if Vince McMahon allows one ECW pay-per-view to dictate WWE style and force it to regress, he’s not nearly the genius that so many people think he is.

WHAT’S THE FUTURE OF THE ECW BRAND?

One Night Stand was a huge success. If those early buy rate forecasts are anywhere near correct, there will be a future for ECW. There has to be. The pay-per-view looks to be a financial windfall for WWE, and where there’s a windfall, there’s generally at least one sequel.

The question that now remains is this: What kind of sequel will we get?

There are a few distinct possibilities. WWE might decide to …

•Do a reunion tour supported by occasional pay-per-views.

•Schedule a few pay-per-views supported by ECW appearances on either Raw or Smackdown.

•Schedule only a second pay-per-view and then re-evaluate from there, which could lead to an ECW PPV becoming an annual event.

•Fully promote ECW as its own brand with its own television show and touring and pay-per-view schedules.

Unfortunately for all you hardcore ECW fans out there, of those possibilities, the option that is most likely to happen is option number three: WWE will schedule a second pay-per-view many months from now and then re-evaluate the future of the brand after the financial results of that show are known. It could be that fans were into seeing one big reunion show, and that’s it.

Now, this isn’t to say that some of those other options couldn’t work. A reunion tour featuring most of the wrestlers from One Night Stand and a few select others could make WWE a decent amount of money. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Chicago, and Boston are just a few of the cities in which such a show would likely do well. With the proper promotion, the tour could probably even encompass cities in which ECW wasn’t traditionally strong. It’s not hard to imagine every show selling out.

Of course, in order for such a tour to work, WWE might have to pull wrestlers like Chris Jericho, Rey Misterio Jr., Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guerrero from its main roster and move them to the temporary ECW roster—and that won’t ever happen. Vince McMahon will never sacrifice the success of WWE for what he deems a secondary promotion.

WWE could also try to book a series of ECW pay-per-views supported by ECW storylines on either Raw or Smackdown. Because it wouldn’t require the departure of key WWE wrestlers, that option might appear more feasible to WWE executives—until they inevitably realize that the ECW storylines would overshadow some of their core storylines. It already happened with One Night Stand (didn’t it seem odd that the feud between Triple-H and Batista got pushed aside for a few weeks?), and it’s hard to imagine WWE allowing such a situation to happen on a regular basis.

As for the final option, WWE relaunching ECW, here’s a promise: It’ll never happen. Most of the ECW wrestlers not under WWE contract who appeared on One Night Stand are fading. They’re not going to be around the sport on a full-time basis for much longer (and some are already semi-retired); they’ve had their 15 minutes, and now it’s time for most of them to walk away.

How much longer can you expect The Sandman to hang around, anyway?

This means that WWE would have to devote a sizable amount of its developmental system—a developmental system that has been hit-and-miss in terms of creating new stars—to ECW, and WWE can’t afford that. Raw and Smackdown need new stars more than WWE needs ECW.

Relaunching ECW as a full-time brand—however tempting it might be—is a luxury that WWE can’t afford right now.