WWE - The Beginning of Extreme

[Gungner]

So.. just read through the intire thing, and I'm impressed!

Loving this diary, so keep it up! (Y)

[chazmers]

Has The Rebirth of ECW Been a Success So Far?

Since One Night Stand the WWE has been running Extreme Championship Wrestling as their third brand, expanding their already well acclaimed RAW and Smackdown Brands. Now obviously this was quite a risky move by Vince McMahon with both One Night Stand PPV's selling shed loads than normal WWE PPVs but with the prospect or more TV Time for the WWE and for the WWE to expand as a company Vince has been persuaded to bring back the old franchise. The ball was dropped though when before the announcement of the ECW Brand the WWE website announced the signings of many old ECW Talent and it wasn't long before everyone guessed where this mass signing spree was going.

But now after a month of the ECW Brand and with the Hardcore TV shows selling out most arena's it's visiting it's time for 411mania.com to really find out and ask the audience whether the rebirth of ECW has been a success. One of the main points which has been raised the last few weeks is that the Extreme Championship Wrestling brand is basically a flashback to 2000. What I mean is that the roster if you look at it is basically the same people. The likes of RVD, Rhino and Taz main eventing. The Impact Players, Doring & Roadkill, The FBI, The BWO all in the Tag Team Division. Tommy Dreamer, Sabu, Mike Awesome, Sandman the list goes on. I know the WWE wanted to bring back the ECW feel but by filling the roster with the same guys who wrestled in 2000 for the company isn't what I myself had in mind.

Okay we have seen the impressive CM Punk join the ranks and only last week Rodriguez and Reyes joined the brand but 411mania.com feels that alot more new talent should be brought up and bolster the brand bringing a fresh feel of it. After all down in OVW we have the talents such as Test, Sonny Siaki, Monty Brown, Rob Conway, Sylvan that could easily be brought into the brand and pushed as Main Event and Midcard talents. Everyone expected some new faces when WWE.com announced the signings of Sexxxy Eddy, Chris Hero, Bryan Danielson, and don't get me wrong having the likes of Trent Acid and Frankie Kazarian brought straight into the brand was a good move but putting them in with ECW veterans like the b.W.o and The Extreme Horsemen didn't really feel like they were new stars on the brand and just "superstars" in the factions.

Having the main feud in ECW for the World Title between Rob Van Dam, Rhino and Taz is just solidifying out point that the ECW is just what Heyman was running in 2000. Like we said if Heyman, McMahon and the writers actually thought about it they could've easily brought in new talent to become house hold names, battiling it out for the ECW World Title and even move later on in the future to Smackdown and RAW as McMahon, even though he won't admit it, sees the ECW brand as more of a tougher development brand where writers can experiment different people without having to worry about taking up valuable air time of the flagship shows.

But that said with the last few weeks of Hardcore TV, the arenas throughout the tours have been almost sold out with fans flocking to each arena to watch the new ECW Brand. The ratings have been superb and it looks like the ECW Brand is definately here for the long run. But like we said before 411mania.com believes that the ECW Brand needs a few fresh faces to epitomise what the new ECW is all about. And with there tour of Europe after Vengeance it shall be interesting to see whether ECW is success overseas than it has been in the States.

Tell us here at 411mania.com what you really think about the new ECW Brand. Does it need new faces? Will it survive? Or do you just wish it would die again like 2001? Your thoughts are more than welcome and we look forward to hear from you.

411mania.com

Edited June 1, 2007 by chazmers

[new_era]

ECW has been pretty impressive dude, but really the whole diary is written well. I was maybe expecting some new faces but i think with the signings of the former guys you may have just created yourself a storyline with a new era of extreme so to speak against the guys that created ECW.

The likes of Taz being back makes the diary interesting aswell, it would be awesome if he came back so whatever you do with him, awesome (Y)

The Dreamer/Punk angle is certainly one i wanna read more of lol so keep that up aswell man.

You've got yourself a solid diary my man and yourself a reader.