Brad Armstrong’s recent trial run at colour commentary on ECW arose from a production meeting in which Vince McMahon said he felt one of the reasons the show was failing was the lack of humour. Bruce Pritchard started talking about how funny Armstrong is and it grew from there. By all accounts Armstrong is genuinely funny behind the scenes but, unlike B.G. James, has been unable to show it in front of the camera. Tazz reacted quickly to make Armstrong look bad as he continues negotiating a new contract. Tazz’s current deal expires in March.
Joey Mercury is expected back in February and will be used as an undercard worker on Smackdown. He was on the verge of being cut a few months ago but Paul Heyman wanted to bring him into ECW. Now that Dave Lagana is running that show, Mercury was allowed to go back to Smackdown instead as Lagana wanted to bring Snitsky into ECW instead. Arn Anderson and Finlay have also been pushing for Snitsky to get a bigger role lately. The plan is to shave his beard and hair to make him the “ECW heel Kane”.
Following up on the Heyman/McMahon split, the general feeling is that it was inevitable as they were never able to agree on a direction for ECW. Heyman was blamed for informing talent of ideas he had pitched for them that were turned down by McMahon, such as C.M. Punk perhaps making Big Show tap out in the Extreme Elimination Chamber. McMahon was more concerned with remaking ECW in his own image to the extent that it became detrimental to the product, such as instituting cheap DQ finishes to matches and rushing the house shows into a full-time schedule to prove how few fans ECW had in the first place. Now that Heyman is gone, Rob Van Dam is slated for a heel turn, Sabu and Sandman are being phased down and Heyman’s security are gone while Lashley is on top and guys like Punk, Holly and Test back him up, all links to the original ECW have been severed. The buyrate for December to Dismember will determine whether or not there is a third One Night Stand.
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