Recently we’ve been hearing that Vince McMahon has a vision for the new ECW, and it’s nothing like the old ECW. Vince has an attitude about the whole situation that screams “Love it or leave it” as Shawn Michaels would say. While everyone’s reported that ECW is headed in a new direction, no one wants to talk about the direction. It’s taken a few months for this “new style” to emerge from the confused direction ECW started in. The ECW roster always seems to be evolving with talent coming and going either released or to the top tier shows to fill in programming holes or specific needs that a show might have. The core of the ECW roster has remained though.
Everyone thought it was an odd pairing of ECW and Test when the videos first started airing of his re-introduction to the WWE. Why ECW? Test had proven to be a mid-card talent on RAW and eventually was dropped after his neck surgery. I don’t blame the WWE, they tried to push him as a face against HHH and the crowd just didn’t latch on to him as someone they wanted to get behind. And he had the Big Show and Mankind on his side too.
Anyway, why does Test fit on the ECW roster? That’ll click later.
The next questionable move was Hardcore Holly. While his name might include the word “Hardcore”, no one was farther from what more people remembered as ECW as Hardcore Holly. This guy bleeds WWE, and worst of all, he was Sparky Plugg. The ECW fans forgave Raven for the sins of Scotty Flamingo and Johnny Polo, but they could not forgive Hardcore Holly for being Sparky Plugg. Why? A multitude of reasons a few being that he intentionally works stiff of new guys, nearly ended someone’s wrestling career before it started in front of cameras and was proud of it, and was never considered a top guy even when he was feuding for the title.
So why does Hardcore Holly fit on the ECW roster? It’s not just because it looked like the island of misfit wrestlers, there had to be an idea behind it.
There are a few more examples of odd booking choices as well. Mike Knox debuted as Kelly Kelly’s boyfriend. Knox was a vanilla jealous boyfriend heel, and when it comes to the ring, he is as much of a brawler as they come. There’s nothing fancy about what he does, but he does it and it looks like it hurts.
Ring of Honor’s golden child, CM Punk, debuted with a different style then we had been used to seeing him fight in Ring of Honor. While in ROH his style would change based on his opponent, in ECW he had a brawling ground and pound based style. His time in OVW and on the Heat roster probably had something to do with his change, but it seemed like a deliberate change.
The reasoning behind all this didn’t really click until two things happened. The first was moving Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay to ECW from Smackdown!. They weren’t exactly successful with the crowds on Smackdown!, but they weren’t flailing like dead fish either. The second was Marquis Cor Von’s debut in ECW. Cor Von’s fnisher while he was Monty Brown in TNA was the Pounce. Now it’s the Pounce, a Russian leg sweep and an arm bar. Many people thought that the WWE and ECW wasn’t necessarily portraying Cor Von as an MMA fighter, but were trying to push him to wrestle in a style closer to MMA than he was wrestling prior to that.
MMA fighting organizations are a growing threat to the WWE. While Vince and company might not outwardly admit that the Ultimate Fighting Championship group is an immediate threat to their audience, it absolutely is. Here’s the question you should ask yourself: what’s more smash mouth than a WWE fight? A real fight. Even the IWC has embraced MMA fighting. Look at the Inside Fights section of the Pulse. Notice how the writers overlap with the wrestling section? 1wrestling and the Observer also have MMA sections. This is a movement amongst wrestling fans as well.
To counter this movement of fans towards MMA, some people think that the ECW product has wrestlers that the company is trying to portray as MMA fighters. Apparently Cor Von’s style is going to be closer to that of a brawler than he was previous. CM Punk’s style has been narrowed down to what he is today. They’d added Test and Bob Holly to the roster, two time proven brawlers. Outside of Rob Van Dam, the ECW originals they’ve chosen to keep on board have been Balls Mahoney, Sandman, Tommy Dreamer and Sabu. All brawlers.
The new direction that ECW is headed in is a brawler show.
Discuss.
