The main idea for moving ECW tapings to Monday nights is that WWE will have longer to do post-production work on the show before it airs on Tuesdays. There is, however, some concern among the ECW crew since the Raw tour has more depth than Smackdown and so the ECW workers may not get as many spots on the cards. Brian Gerwitz, head writer of Raw, is also said to have never been a fan of ECW. His Smackdown counterpart, Michael Hayes, was in comparison more enthusiastic about utilising Smackdown/ECW talent on both shows. It also remains to be seen just how much extra post-production time ECW will get, since Mondays are always far more hectic than Tuesdays for WWE owing to the live Raw broadcast and ECW will always remain a lower priority for stressed producers and management.
Vince McMahon’s decision to give away $1 million on Raw actually apes something that Eric Bischoff had planned to do on Nitro in 1999. Bischoff went so far as to announce the idea on-air before Time Warner nixed it, with Bischoff being replaced by Vince Russo soon afterwards. The plan for the WWE version is to give away the million dollars through a lengthy sweepstakes. Entrants must pre-register on WWE.com and then tune into the start of Raw to receive a code, which they must say if and when Vince calls them in order to win a part of the pot.
The producers behind the reality TV show that Mick Foley was at one point signed on to star in and be executive producer of, which was to have been called Hey Dude, are now hoping to get Kevin Nash or Twisted Sister’s Dee Snyder to star in it instead. Other names that have been mentioned included Jake Roberts, Kurt Angle, Diamond Dallas Page, Survivor‘s Rupert Boneham and Jon Bon Jovi.
Credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter, 02 June 2008 (subscribe here)
