Well, ECW has been gone for 15 years, and Axl had been around for some time - so if you do the arithmetic backwards, it meant he was 29 when ECW shuttered. Which seems unfathomable.
RvB, it does, but more about the "oh,
, our entire upper card is injured, what can we do?!?!" circumstances. They have a lot of guys they could have promoted (e.g, Tyler Breeze, and as long as they can push not-so-great-in-the-ring big men, no reason they can't get The Ascension in there, too) to fill out a card. They've buried them since the moment they started on WWE, though. Injuries stink, but they also dug themselves into a ditch by not having a sensible backup plan (which any promotion worth its salt should always have).