A while back, I saw a promo on Raw. A low-quality promo, voiced by Paul Heyman, telling me about One Night Stand. The crappy graphics and Heyman’s voice were a blast from the past, and I instantly knew what it was for, I just didn’t know when and where. Turned out, it was a show in Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom. Names for the card started popping up. Find a gritty arena, put Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer in charge of the card, and I’ll be a happy guy. As the rumors and facts started circulating about the card, I got more excited. This could finally be my chance to see an ECW show live. Heyman was in charge, this might be an opportunity to see an ECW-like show live. A good wrestling show with a good crowd… and some time to enjoy.
Somewhere along the line, culminating and summarized in a recent post on 411 and PWIInsider, stuff turned south. This is very quickly going from a show I was overly excited for, to a show in which I’m afraid I wasted my money.
Let’s take a look where things wen’t wrong.
Mistake #1: Ticket Prices
For those of you who have never been to the Hammerstein Ballroom, take your general 2500 seat theater. Everyone’s got one, whether it be an old Broadway theater or some other small venue. There’s not a whole lot of “bad” seats in the Hammerstein. Therefore when the cheapest tickets came out at $150, and ringside were $400, we obviously picked the “cheap” tickets.
Everyone else did, too.
The WWE is very much behaving like the music industry has for the last few years, and the movie industry is behaving this year. The movie industry is convinced the reason ticket sales are down this year is because of Bit-Torrent. They’re not willing to admit part of it is because there’s not a single blockbuster movie that’s come out this year (save Episode 3). The “epic” movies, like Kingdom of Heavan have flopped because the movies are awful. Couple that with the fact I’m paying $10 for a seat in a theatre, you’re going to have problems.
The WWE decided demand for the 2700 seats in the Hammerstein Ballroom would be worth a premium amount. So they laid down a pricetag of $400. A couple problems with this:
- ECW Fans don’t trust Vince: After seeing what Vince McMahon did to ex-WCW stars, and ex-ECW stars for that matter, they don’t trust the event to be pure. And they certainly don’t trust it to the tune of 4 bills.
- ECW Fans are poor: Not poor in the homeless definition of poor, but think about this for a second. ECW’s been off the air for almost five years. Assume the people watching this started watching when they hit the 17-34 age bracket. Assume further that all the people who only were exposed to ECW on TNN don’t give a damn, which is a safe assumption. Guys who were in that “free-spending” bracket are out of it now. Crazy, 21-year-old ECW fans, are 25 and 26 now… $400 is a lot to explain to the fiancee or wife. The reason there’s enough people to populate Wrestlemania every year is because the WWE is always generating new fans. ECW no longer generates new fans, and it’s original fanbase is in their mid to late 20s… then put the event in the most expensive section of the country (which they have to since they were based in the Northeast)… and figure a few of these people have families now, and probably don’t watch much wrestling anymore. 400 bones is a lot to drop on something random. At 27 year olds go, I’m doing pretty well for myself, and I wouldn’t consider spending that kind of money on a wrestling ticket… and I was as big an ECW fan as they made. You’re counting on a subsection of a subsection of a subsection (ECW fans who watch Raw who the product hasn’t driven off yet) to pay this price. Bad idea.
- Cheap DVDs: You can buy the entire library of ECW DVDs, including out of print ones on Ebay, AND buy the PPV, for less than one ticket to this show.
- WWE Style: People have been watching Benoit, Guererro, and Jericho work in the awful, boring WWE style for the last few years. They also saw what was considered an “ECW Match” on Raw a couple weeks ago. If the whole show is like that match, not worth it.
- ECW never chared $400 for anything: In fact, 2 days before this PPV, someone is putting on a Hardcore Homecoming at the ECW Arena in Philly. Ringside seats for this show are $150. It features Jerry Lynn vs Justin Credible, Shane Douglas (w/Francine) vs Sabu (w/ Alphonso) vs Funk, and The Eliminators. I couldn’t find information online, but I’d be willing to bet an ECW PPV ticket never went for more than $200. Had this show been staged $50, $100, $150, it would have sold out in a day. Staged at $150, $200, $400… you start thinking about what else you can be spending that on.
You can’t take a federation that’s been out of commission and buried for years and expect people to shell out serious cash to go watch it. There’s a reason the $150 tickets sold out immediately and the $400 ones are languishing. People want to go see it, they just don’t want to decide between it and a car payment. It’s a good idea, but it’s not Wrestlemania.
Mistake #2: Including It on Raw and Smackdown
The second Eric Bischoff mentioned this on Raw, red flags went up all over the ECW fanbase. Until Eric mentioned it on Raw, the possibility existed this was the real deal. Maybe it would just be a tribute ECW show. However, when tickets didn’t sell out in minutes, like the WWE expected, they went into panic mode.
The minute the tickets didn’t sell out, the WWE decided: “it isn’t the fact they’re $400, it’s the fact there isn’t enough WWE talent on the roster.” In fact, the reason they didn’t sell-out at $400 was the suspicion there would be too much WWE influence on the roster. ECW fans want a show with ECW fans. ECW fans went to events to escape the fat, gap-toothed, trashy parents with their dirty little kids screaming for Randy Orton. ECW fans went to events so they could start chants like “slut,” “she’s a crack whore,” and “you f*cked X,” that would be acknowledged, enjoyed, and not downplayed. ECW fans went to events so they wouldn’t be tortured by an Undertaker sign all through a Raw event, WHILE THE UNDERTAKER’S ON SMACKDOWN, and if said idiot didn’t get the point through chants and dirty looks, it was accpetable, if not encouraged, to throw things at and accost said fan.
Including WWE faces increases the chance you’ll be sitting next to an Edgehead in the Hammerstein Ballroom. To the ECW fan, this devalues the tickets even further. It gets a little tougher to start a “suck my ball-sack” chant when you got a five year old starin you in the mug.
Mistake #3: Assuming ECW Fans are WWE Marks
ECW fans are the smartest wrestling fans you find. Most of us are on this here intarweb. Most of us read websites. When we find out “WWE Creative” is part of the show, we know what that means. We know Vince is not going to allow Edge to get caned and pinned by Sandman. We know Sabu is not going to give Kurt Angle and Arabian Facebuster and pin him. The WWE guys will not be made to look weak at the hands of the ECW guys. We watched this in Invasion, and we know better. We know the reason RVD, Jericho, Benoit, and other ECW->WWE converts are there are to be the ones to fight off the WWE guys. We also know that if it comes down to Kurt Angle and Sandman facing off in the ring, Angle no-sells the Kendo Stick and Sandman gets worked.
ECW fans have a general idea of what they’re in for. You tell them it’s Benoit vs Guerrero, we’re happy. They’re two WWF guys, but we know what we’re getting out of them. We know it’s going to be good. You give us Jericho vs Storm, we know what we’re getting out of that, too. We watched the WWE bury both the WCW and ECW champions during the Invasion. Now, we are getting a 1-shot event with guys NOT in the company vs guys IN the company. We know who comes out on top. In our hearts, we even know it makes sense for business purposes, but it doesn’t mean we like it, or that it’s something we want to watch. Flea would tell you that we’re all the same level of stupid mark, I disagree. People write ECW fans off as insane slugs who crave blood and violence. That’s true, but we also generally know what we like and what we’re talking about. We know what we’re expecting to make us happy, and then we know what the WWE is going to give us.
Mistake #4: Gene Snitzky
I mean… come on.
Mistake #5: Taking control away from Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer:
This is possibly the most damning of them all. If there’s one thing that will ruin the event, it’s this right here. I have no problem with WWE Creative being involved, as long as Paul and Tommy have the final say. Paul and Tommy know what we want. They know what will make us happy. Take that away and feed us the same drivel we’ve been fed for the last five years, we will not be happy. We don’t want to see Edge spear anyone. We want to see Edge coming in for a spear and getting a stop sign to the lips.
If there’s one thing ECW fans hate, it’s “big wrestling.” We hate Bischoff, we hate Vince, we hate what they did to the company we loved. We want to see everyone involved decimated. That’s if we have to see them at all, which we’d prefer not to, but if we have to, we want to see them destroyed.
We also have a bad feeling they won’t be.
I bought tickets for this show the day they went on sale. For $150, I was ready. For $400, I wasn’t, and neither were a lot of people. The irony is, everything they are doing is actually making ECW fans less interested in spending money on the show. The more they do to make it more like “another WWE PPV,” the less people want to go to it. The more they do to make it more like “another WWE PPV,” the more people would rather see Hardcore Homecoming. Hardcore Homecoming will be done the way ECW fans want to see One Night Stand done. It will be uninvaded by Edge, Kurt Angle, Maven, and Gene damn Snitzky. The moment my concern reached its apex was when JR spoke the words “It doesn’t get any more extreme than Snitzky.” I just gaped.
I’m still going to this show, obviously. I laid down $150 for what I thought was going to look like an ECW show, done for ECW fans, by ECW people. What it’s looking like I’m going to get is nothing of the sort.
I’m not stupid enough to say: “If they ruin this, I’ll never watch wrestling again.” I’m not that short-sighted. In fact, my obsession with DVDs of wrestling shows I’ve attended says I will even buy this show’s DVD. In fact, I won’t even say I won’t attend another event ever again. But it will be the last time I get sold on the hype of a show, and buy my tickets before the whole thing shakes out.
I want Simon Dean to turn on Maven to reveal the Venom version of Nova gear.
I want the BWO to punk out the Raw faction.
I want Kurt Angle telling us how we should be ashamed, then Tazz choking him out.
I want Tazz choking out everyone in his path.
I want a match with no ref bumps because they don’t matter.
I want matches that don’t have to end on a finisher.
I want RVD/Sabu
I want Impromptu Matches
I want Vandaminators and Arabian Face Busters
I want Balls Mahoney going through a flaming table.
I want the Chairshot Heard Round the World
I want Raven v Dreamer
I want the chants to be so bad that Edge and Lita leave in tears.
On March 13th, 2001, I wrote a farewell column for ECW. I closed with the following:
My only regret is I’ve never seen a live ECW event. I had my chances. They came to the Mid-South Coliseum in Poughkeepsie, the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan, and 30 minutes from my house in the IUE Hall in Schenectady. In fact, Scott Hall made his ECW debut in Schenectady, and I wasn’t there to see it. It’s one of those things that goes on the lines of “do when you have the chance.”
I’m going to miss ECW, and I’m very sorry they didn’t hit it off better on TNN, or didn’t find themselves another cable station. It’s also unfortunate they never got any mainstream exposure when they were the only ones doing what they do. If they did, things might have turned out a little better for them. Regardless, it was a fun something to watch for the 5 years I managed to see it. “The Little Promotion that Could.”
I’ll miss them.
Now that I have another chance, don’t disappoint me.
Thanks for reading.
Daniels
