The ECW PPV....

[TLK]

I haven't watched any sort of wrestling for a very long time, (besides Wrestlemania which is an annual cookout) but I'm intrigued by this PPV. I used to be a huge fan of ECW and this PPV looks good on paper. My only concern is that the WWF will ruin it..... is there any chance for a decent show?

The card:
ONE NIGHT STAND MATCHES

Lance Storm with Dawn Marie vs Chris Jericho

Extreme luchador action:
Rey Mysterio vs Psychosis

A three way dance:
The insane luchador Super Crazy vs Tajiri with Sinister Minister vs Little Guido

Eddie Guerrero vs Chris Benoit

Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman vs Bubba & D-Von Dudley

ECW One Night Stand will feature special appearances by:
Paul Heyman
The return to PPV of Rob Van Dam with Bill Alfonso
Tazz
Spike Dudley
Al Snow with Head
Sabu
Balls Mahoney
Danny Doring and Roadkill
CW Anderson
Rhyno
Joel Gertner
Axl Rotten
Justin Credible
Kid Kash
Masato Tanaka
Mikey Whipwreck with Sinister Minister
The BWO - Big Stevie Cool, Hollywood Nova, and The Blue Guy

Tanaka vs. Awesome is rumored by Meltzer. It looks like a decent show...

[JonInMiddleGA]

That's the $34.95 question, and I wish I knew the answer.

Storm & Jericho should be able to burn it down, ditto Eddy & Benoit. But I don't believe there's any way that Sandman/Dreamer can be allowed to go over the Duds, even though they should in an "ECW World".

I'll say this though, it's the first time anything to do with pro wrestling has tempted me in quite a long time.

[TazFTW]

RVD let it slip that the WWE has been able to get Joey Styles to do the commentary. It would not be an ECW PPV if there was no, "Oh my God!"

New Jack was planning to attend but apparently has legal troubles keeping him away from the PPV.

Haven't payed attention to wrestling in a couple years but the ECW PPV has renewed my interest.

[condors]

I was a huge ECW fan going back to when it was Eastern Championship Wrestling.

To me to see Al Snow with Head one more time

hear Roadkill say chickens

CW Anderson was the best beat up guy in the buisness

BWO i miss them as well

Sabu + RVD wear great

I do wish Raven and Jerry Lynn were going to be a part of this as well as the Eliminators. I this those guys were important ECW stars.

[Joe]

only 5 matches?

[SirFozzie]

ECW had a tradition of announcing matches on the fly, ONS will do that, expect some of those guys in the special appearances thing to wrestle, probably against the Raw/Smackdown "invasions"

[JonInMiddleGA]

If Styles is gonna do it, that might clinch it for me.

New Jack was planning to attend but apparently has legal troubles keeping him away from the PPV.

Interesting. He's been working in Georgia as recently as 2-3 weeks ago.

[Sun Tzu]

No doubt about it, I am getting this PPV. I actually considered flying out and getting tickets to watch it unti I saw the $400 per ticket price tag for the event. I also think that it should have been held at the ECW Arena in Philly, but if everything works out and the ECW goes back on tour that will probably happen at a later date.

[Logan]

Have some friends who are heading to Philly tonight for the show. They're extremely excited (never had an interest in it myself). FYI, I think they paid about $110 per ticket.

[Jesse_Ewiak]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If Styles is gonna do it, that might clinch it for me.



Interesting. He's been working in Georgia as recently as 2-3 weeks ago.

AFAIK, it's warrants specfically in New York.

[TazFTW]

Originally Posted by Logan

Have some friends who are heading to Philly tonight for the show. They're extremely excited (never had an interest in it myself). FYI, I think they paid about $110 per ticket.

If they heading to see the show tonight then they're going to the show Shane Douglas is running called Hardcore Homecoming, which is at the ECW Arena. The WWE's show is at the Hammerstein Ballroom and it is on Sunday.

The match list for Douglas' Hardcore Homecoming is:

Tracy Smothers (w/ Tommy Rich and J.T. Smith) vs The Blue Meanie

CW Anderson & Simon Diamond vs Chris Chetti and Mikey Whipwreck

Kid Kash vs 2 Cold Scorpio

Plus a very special tribute to the fallen heroes of hardcore!

All this plus...

Justin Credible (w/Jason) vs Jerry Lynn

Raven vs Sandman

Terry Funk vs Shane Douglas (w/Francine) vs Sabu (w/Bill Alfonso)

Plus several special guests and unannounced surprises!

[MikeVic]

I'll be watching this for sure.

[jbmagic]

you guys they will use ECW after the ppv as a storyline to wwe.

it seems like its a setup for a big story and maybe there own tv show too

[duckman]

The WWE Invasion is going to make this PPV a disaster. I remember the Invasion angle with the WCW and ECW brand. It was horrid television. I actually refused to watch it until the angle was finished. Nothing good will come out of this.

[Ryche]

Originally Posted by jbmagic

you guys they will use ECW after the ppv as a storyline to wwe.

it seems like its a setup for a big story and maybe there own tv show too

We could only hope, especially if they put Paul Heyman in control and stayed out of the way for the most part. Sadly, that will never happen for multiple reasons, primarily for fear the product would outshine Raw. I'm pretty sure this is a oneshot deal. But if it's successful, you never know.

[Joe]

I was gonna order this ppv if Terry Funk was on it. But he's not, so I'm not.

[Suicane75]

The logistics and storylines of this PPV are a jumbled mess that they somehow are keeping as coherent and exciting as possible. Not a single match on the PPV has been announced or built to on TV, the only thing built up is the invasion so I'm thinking that it will either be a show long storyline or a giant schmozz at once.

Having the draft going on during the build up has created so many angles all pulling at each other that the average viewer has no idea whats going, Cena is a champ but he's on RAW with Batista, apparently that title is not a Smackdown only title, but Smackdown will name a new champ after the draft, so what does Cenas title represent......
SPOILER..................................................................
.
.
.
.
.
.
Cena will end up back on Smackdown in all likelyhood.
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.
END SPOILER

How does the draft work? It isnt really a draft when all they do is pick ping pong balls, but this year they arn't even doing that, guys just show up, no input from the GM's at all is involved, its just a clusterfuck of unexplained things.

As for the ECW brand itself, i'm not sure where it goes after the PPV although they have actually built up a couple of fueds surrounding it Tajiri/Regal, Angle/Taz, Eddie/Benoit.

The saving grace is that Heyman is very involved with the booking of the show, however it's highly doubtfull that he will have near the creative input of any storylines coming out of the show, and we all know how WWE creative handles things.

[AlexB]

As a casual watcher of WWE, I don't understand how they expect any sense of suspended disbelief to be maintained after this storyline: you have ex-ECW people cut by the WWE (e.g. Tommy Dreamer, Justin Credible) or reduced to colour commentary (e.g. Tazz) or just never looked at (e.g. the really fat bloke who has a smoke on his way to the ring) suddenly beating up championship contenders like Edge, or so called machines like Snitsky all to supposedly build credibility for the ECW wrestlers.

When this show is over, how then are the likes of Edge and Snitsky supposed to be contenders when they were worked over by fat/over the hill/plain not good enough people previously released/ignored by the WWE for these same reasons?

While I (and everybody over the age of 3) know it's all scripted, surely there has to be some sense of suspended disbelief for it to have any appeal?

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Jari Rantanen's Shorts

As a casual watcher of WWE, I don't understand how they expect any sense of suspended disbelief to be maintained after this storyline: you have ex-ECW people cut by the WWE (e.g. Tommy Dreamer, Justin Credible) or reduced to colour commentary (e.g. Tazz) or just never looked at (e.g. the really fat bloke who has a smoke on his way to the ring) suddenly beating up championship contenders like Edge, or so called machines like Snitsky all to supposedly build credibility for the ECW wrestlers.

When this show is over, how then are the likes of Edge and Snitsky supposed to be contenders when they were worked over by fat/over the hill/plain not good enough people previously released/ignored by the WWE for these same reasons?

While I (and everybody over the age of 3) know it's all scripted, surely there has to be some sense of suspended disbelief for it to have any appeal?

While I agree with you to a point, that horse has already left the barn.
You have Lita who is a heel becuase she turned on the guy who raped her and forced her to marry him, now the rapist is the face cause he's heartbroken.

Viscera tries to force himself on women, but he's the face because if he's the heel well then its clearly what it is, racist.

Those are just 2 examples of throwing realism out the window.

[duckman]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

You have Lita who is a heel becuase she turned on the guy who raped her and forced her to marry him, now the rapist is the face cause he's heartbroken.

The reason for the heel turn was because Lita (her real name is Amy Dumas) was Matt Hardy's real life girlfriend. Matt got sidelined by a knee injury a few months ago. While recovering from the surgery, Lita began sleeping around with Edge (Adam Copeland). She even got a second cell phone to hide the affair.

Edge's wife discovered the affair and told it to Matt. Matt didn't believe her until he called the number she gave him. When he did, Lita's second phone rang in one of the bags in closet. Matt then went through the bag and found the phone filled with text messages of Edge's love for Lita.

Upset, Matt made the affair public, so the WWE fired Matt and began this storyline to kill the "You screwed Matt" chants during the shows. They were in the middle of pushing both Edge and Lita and didn't want it sidetracked by a real life affair.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by duckman

The reason for the heel turn was because Lita (her real name is Amy Dumas) was Matt Hardy's real life girlfriend. Matt got sidelined by a knee injury a few months ago. While recovering from the surgery, Lita began sleeping around with Edge (Adam Copeland). She even got a second cell phone to hide the affair.

Edge's wife discovered the affair and told it to Matt. Matt didn't believe her until he called the number she gave him. When he did, Lita's second phone rang in one of the bags in closet. Matt then went through the bag and found the phone filled with text messages of Edge's love for Lita.

Upset, Matt made the affair public, so the WWE fired Matt and began this storyline to kill the "You screwed Matt" chants during the shows. They were in the middle of pushing both Edge and Lita and didn't want it sidetracked by a real life affair.

No, i know all that stuff, im talking in storyline terms.

[JonInMiddleGA]

As for as how to suspend disbelief for any ECW wins, that's pretty easy ... those of us who were into it always knew that they were better than the half-witted half-talents that VinnyMac shoved down the throats of the even more half-witted public. If there's an ECdub victory, it's because they're better ... if there's an ECdub loss, it's because the whole thing is corrupt.

[TLK]

fwiw...

Tanaka vs. Awesome has been confirmed by WWF(e).com.

Also, Heyman said in an interview that the "Invasion" will not disrupt any of the announced matches. He also promised four "holy shit" surprises.

[Flasch186]

if they don't continue a yearlong ECW vs. WWE invasion, then all will be lost and it will go back to the same has-been crap. I have been pushing this for a long time, even one time writing a huge prospectus to their offices (whether they read it or not doesnt matter) on how to write and how to get the audiences again. This us vs. them stuff is the only way to get the wheels rolling again then once they have roots again in this they can begin with the spins.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

if they don't continue a yearlong ECW vs. WWE invasion, then all will be lost and it will go back to the same has-been crap. I have been pushing this for a long time, even one time writing a huge prospectus to their offices (whether they read it or not doesnt matter) on how to write and how to get the audiences again. This us vs. them stuff is the only way to get the wheels rolling again then once they have roots again in this they can begin with the spins.

There is no point in any angle if the writers behind it are bad.
It's not the nature of the angle, it's the nature of the writing.
An ECW vs WWE angle booked by Heyman=Gold
An ECW vs WWE angle booked by Stephanie & Gerwitz=Crap

[Flasch186]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

There is no point in any angle if the writers behind it are bad.
It's not the nature of the angle, it's the nature of the writing.
An ECW vs WWE angle booked by Heyman=Gold
An ECW vs WWE angle booked by Stephanie & Gerwitz=Crap

on the inside of the machine, dont they recognize these errs? Dont they see their mistakes as theyre so obvious? I just cant help but shake my head at this stuff. Is it a power thing in the boardrooms or creative meetings? Is it political? It doesn't matter, it is shite until they figure out how to get the audience emotionally involved.

Why'd they fire Matt? He didn't do anything wrong. Amy did (kinda) so why not her?

[MikeVic]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

on the inside of the machine, dont they recognize these errs? Dont they see their mistakes as theyre so obvious? I just cant help but shake my head at this stuff. Is it a power thing in the boardrooms or creative meetings? Is it political? It doesn't matter, it is shite until they figure out how to get the audience emotionally involved.

Why'd they fire Matt? He didn't do anything wrong. Amy did (kinda) so why not her?

Because this is the WWE.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

on the inside of the machine, dont they recognize these errs? Dont they see their mistakes as theyre so obvious? I just cant help but shake my head at this stuff. Is it a power thing in the boardrooms or creative meetings? Is it political? It doesn't matter, it is shite until they figure out how to get the audience emotionally involved.

Why'd they fire Matt? He didn't do anything wrong. Amy did (kinda) so why not her?

Well, there are a multitude of reasons. Vince is an egomanic who often gets more credit than he deserves for the success of his company.

Fact, the turn from the cartoonish style of the 80's to the more mat based style of the 90's was due more to the steroid trial, which forced Vince to push the smaller guys, elevating guys like the Harts and Shawn Micheals, and even in this time guys like Diesel and Mabel were pushed as hard as possible simply because of their size. If there is no steroid trial it's quite possible that the transition to the lighter guys would not have happened.

Now, once Micheals got pushed, his mind for the buisness and his success in the ring led to him having McMahons ear, which was good for buisness in alot of respects because Micheals, as much as an asshole as he was, had a good sense for the buisness, of course there was still alot of cartoonish crap during this time, but the main event was a billion times better centered around guys who could, ya know, actually work.

Now, those years were so-so, there were still alot of dumb as characters pushed instead of actual people but you could get good wrestling, the ratings still werent very good but the matches were better.

Onto the Steve Austin, & The Rock. Austin was pushed as blandly as possible upon his entrance, even after proving his personality in ECW. Austin getting over to the heights he did was a once in a lifetime thing, his matches with Bret Hart were a thing of beauty where you could actually feel a phenomenon occuring as the matches progressed. Sure MacMahon oversaw and approved all of that, but how much of it was his doing and how much of it was his luck that Austin was able to do what he did?

The Rock was pushed as a sweet, 2nd generation babyface upon his debut, and the fans hated it, as anyone with half a brain would of realized they would of, but where dozens of guys would have shrunken and faded away, The Rock had the personality, mind for the buisness and drive to turn that failure into an amazing storyline arc due to his mind for the buisness.

Not to give McMahon no credit, because once he saw the cash he could rake in in these guys he did the correct thing and pushed them to the moon, but again, if those guys hadn't fought the adversity of their initial pushes and just slinked away, things would be a WHOLE lot different.

The 2nd part of these 2 guys factor in things is just like Micheals, they were able, being so integral, to get into McMahons ear and earn his trust, those guys were able to help book, move their characters forward and do shit i firmly believe Vince never would of done on his own. Jim Ross gets alot of credit too as he is a good friend of both of those guys and a big guy in the office, i would credit him as much as McMahon for the storyline success those guys were involved in.

Now the Attitude era. The best (ratings wise) era the company has ever had, had Austin, Rock, Foley, Degeneration X, and Vince Russo. Russo gets a bum rap in retrospect but the fact of the matter is that he brought a new, tighter, more intense TV product to the national stage than anyone ever had, and the fans ate it up. On his own he sucks as a booker, but working with McMahon, each guy reigning each other in, with input from alot of great guys who had a mind for the buisness, it all clicked.

Now, lets look at where things started to go wrong. Russo leaves, Austins back forces him into a much lesser role, Micheals leaves, Hart leaves, Foley pretty much removes himself from the everyday grind, The Rock, while still loving wrestling, is split between the ring and Hollywood. Whats left? Well Vince is left, and who does he entrust to take over alot of the responsibilites left by those guys departures? Stephanie McMahon.

The Invasion angle craps out because of the simple fact that Vince, instead of a big money, greatest angle ever, wants to cut the balls off of the WCW talent. They are never allowed to really get over, and hell, the big guys arn't even brought in because he doesn't wanna pay them. DDP kicks the angle off in a fued against the Undertaker and then proceeds to get stomped for 15 minutes in his first match, WCW was never presented as a real threat, the greatest threat they present is when a WWE guy, Austin, switches sides. It's a ridiculously played out angle that is not 1/10th the angle creativly or monetarily that it could be.

Now, the last few years theres a simple reason for the downswing. HHH & Stephanie. And Vince will let them fail forever, you will never see that he was removed them from their roles, it's a family thing I suppose and one that we the fans will have to live with, but it isn't going to change unless things get so awfull that the company is hemoraging money, which in the worst case scenario would take another 5-10 years to happen.

Another thing to be aware off is that when the WWE hires writers, they would prefer that they have no background or knowledge of the wrestling buisness, why that is I can't comprehend but it's true. The writing staff in recent years is made up of soap opera writers, failed hollywood hacks and sitcom writers, and thats how Vince wants it, for whatever reason.

I guess what i'm saying is that when Vince surrounds himself with first rate minds, things go well. When he surrounds himself with Stephanie and HHH things are not so good, because they don't have half the mind for the buisness they think they do, and will never be told otherwise by anyone that matters.



As for Matt Hardy, he got hurt, during his rehab time it was discovered that Lita, his GF , was cheating with Edge. It was a very public (if you consider the internet public) thing. Fans began to boo Lita even though she was a face and the whole thing was really a cluster for awhile as Lita was being pushed hard as a babyface while getting booed out the building and the crowds chanting "You screwed Matt" or "We want Matt". I guess the WWE decided that it would be easier to release Matt and hope it all went away, but when it didn't they turned Lita heel, pairing her with Edge to take advantage of the heat from the crowds and try and get them both more over. As it stands I think it's pretty clear that Matt will be back at some point but it will probably take some time before the 3 of them can actually work together in an angle, which I think is what the WWE wants in the long run.

[DeToxRox]

Stevie Richards vs Mystery Opponent = announced

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by DeToxRoxDVHStyle

Stevie Richards vs Mystery Opponent = announced

I'd love for Raven to show up, but I don't see it happening.
BTW, not a great big deal, but if anyone posts any spoilers or anything, could you not that it's a spoiler and leave some space. I'm anticipating this show as much as any in the past few years and i'd rather be surprised.

[Flasch186]

my brain hurts.

So basically HHH and Steph are ruining things for the fans. Welp, I was one, had been since I was a kid, luckily missed the Tyson era stuff, and came back when it got good again....so now Im out again and Ill bet Im not alone in that.

PLUS, what happened to that online trading card game. It seemed like a great way to get a younger generation of internet savvy kids to follow along and donate money?

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

my brain hurts.

So basically HHH and Steph are ruining things for the fans. Welp, I was one, had been since I was a kid, luckily missed the Tyson era stuff, and came back when it got good again....so now Im out again and Ill bet Im not alone in that.

PLUS, what happened to that online trading card game. It seemed like a great way to get a younger generation of internet savvy kids to follow along and donate money?

Cant help ya there, never played it, never followed it.
Essentially my theory is this, when Vince is surrounded by smart people, things go well. When he's surrounded by dumb people, things go bad.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Pre-show is on, although it's nothing more than repackaged WeeWee footage from the build-up to tonight.

Still kinda fun though, first time I've smiled so much watching wrestling in a long time.

[TLK]

The crowd is hot.

I put down my $34.95.... don't let me down Vince.

[Joe]

its tonight? can you guys post the matches that happen?

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by George W Bush

its tonight? can you guys post the matches that happen?

there's like 5,257,784 websites that do that. let them watch the ppv

[Joe]

Originally Posted by Chubby

there's like 5,257,784 websites that do that. let them watch the ppv

yeah but that requires more time than having someone else post it here.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by George W Bush

yeah but that requires more time than having someone else post it here.

Storm beat Y2J after Credible chairshots Jericho so Storm can get the pin.

[Joe]

cool i found a website that lists the stuff too. I'm not totally lazy. wrestling-edge.com popped up on my search

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by George W Bush

cool i found a website that lists the stuff too. I'm not totally lazy. wrestling-edge.com popped up on my search

without a popup blocker I'd never go to any of the wresting sites these days sheesh!

[Joe]

no popups for me.

[TLK]

They need to have a hell of last hour to save the ppv. It hasn't been horrible, but the matches have been short and they're concentrating too much on the WWF guys...

[SirFozzie]

Tanaka-Awesome apparently tore down the house. Sick, GREAT match.

remind me to get the torrent of this.

Maybe I'll put up yousendit links of some of the stuff I've been downloading/watching lately.

[TLK]

Awesome/Tanaka was an excellent brawl. Nothing we haven't seen before, but a hell of a fight. Tanaka looked pretty busted up. Amazing how the fans got into that match and not Benoit/Guerrero.

The jabs at Edge are great....

[Joe]

how was the Rhyno/Sabu match?

[SirFozzie]

Fairly short, since Sabu is still pretty much broken up, but RVD got some good stuff in, and it looked halfway decent.

[Chubby]

so how hot did francine look?

[TLK]

Francine has never done anything for me, but she looked a lot better than when she was posing on Missy's site. From the Awesome/Tanaka match, this show has been on fire :heh:. Glad I bought it.... pissed I didn't record it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Tremendous fun, will buy this on DVD if it's ever released.

Austin giving Benoit & Misterio chances to hit finishers on Bischoff was great stuff for a lot of people too. Styles was worth the price of the PPV all by himself.

Do I forgive McMahon? Hell no.
But I do appreciate the burnt offering nonetheless.
First time I've had fun watching wrestling other than a few indies in years.

[TLK]

The DVD is due out sometime soon (I think before the end of July). I hope it's not edited down, but it will be a must buy.