– Kurt Angle is expected to take at least a month off. The decision was made by the company, not Angle himself, which felt that it had no choice but to actively force him to physically and emotionally rest. ECW currently has house shows line-ups booked through till the end of August and Angle is not a part of them.
– The idea of having Paul Heyman turn heel and cost Rob Van Dam the title was only suggested the night before the taping and only finalised on the morning of the show. It had been vaguely proposed as something they might do in the long-term, but not this soon and not tied to Van Dam, who was originally meant to hold the ECW Championship well into next year in order to give it some credibility.
– The negative reaction of the crowd at the recent Philadelphia house show was said to have been hugely influential in Vince McMahon decreasing Paul Heyman’s input in ECW. He was said to have been keen to move away from a fanbase that would not accept any changes or updates. Heyman’s inability to win over the crowd during his promo on the show was taken as a sign that he was not as important to the product as many claimed he was. McMahon is said to currently be more hands-on with ECW than he is with Raw.
– The segment with Sandman caning creative team member Chistopher DeJoseph’s fat male stripper character was meant as an inside joke, yet Heyman and some other agents were against it due to DeJoseph having no training and never having worked before a live crowd before. The original plan was to have Mike Knox accidentally bump into Sandman as he pulled Kelly off the stage, leading to a program between the two, yet Brian Gerwitz went with the DeJoseph skit instead. DeJoseph was the one that came up with the Edge/Lita ‘live sex celebration’ segment on Raw back in January, which drew big ratings.
– Trinity underwent arthroscopic knee surgery this past week after crashing to the floor at the ECW Arena show on the 24th June. She was doing a moonsault in a match with Francine and Kelly but she was not caught. Francine has been getting some negative heat backstage, but more because of her attitude towards Kelly than because of Trinity’s injury.
– A Canadian TV deal is expected to be announced soon. It is said to be on a big station but in a bad timeslot.
– Jim Mitchell has been in contact with WWE, trying to convince them to bring him in as a mouthpiece and manager for Sabu.
Credit: Wrestling Observer newsletter (click here for subscription information)
