*Alright, I didn't mean for this to be as long as it was, but when trying to put down my thoughts about this TNA/ECW stuff, it just snowballed. Read it, don't read it, up to you.*
While the Dreamer promo wasn't bad, it was... well, I'm just tired of it. Out of all the ECW guys, Dreamer is the one whose entire gimmick as a wrestler can be boiled down to 'I love ECW!'. Frankly, he should love it, since he's been coasting off it for over a decade now. Go ahead, outside of something for the original ECW, name an important Tommy Dreamer moment. Paul Heyman's ECW ended in 2001, and it's never coming back. Why wrestlers, fans, and companies can't grasp this, I have no idea.
The original ECW wasn't just a company, it was a lifestyle, a mindset. It was a niche product at a time when wrestling was red-hot. It was, also, headed up by arguably the most charismatic and creative bookers ever. Paul Heyman took guys no one cared about and made them stars, even if they didn't really have the fundamentals of wrestling down. I really do believe that it changed the landscape of wrestling, but ECW was always destined to fail. No amount of heart, no amount of money, no amount of fan love was going to change the fact that you were never going to get a promotion that violent into American homes and be accepted. That's to say nothing of the fact that your wrestlers simply wouldn't be able to work a national (i.e., WWF, WCW) type schedule in the ECW wrestling style. ECW was the perfect wrestling example of better to burn out than to fade away. Problem is, note the 'was'.
WWE put on, arguably, one of their best PPVs ever when they did One Night Stand in 2005. That's the closest to a resurrection of ECW that there was ever going to be, and it was fantastic. They were in a unique position, because they got to showcase the past and, most importantly, the legacy of ECW. The originals were there, but they also were able to use their own now-WWE wrestlers who first gained popularity *in* ECW. While most people think of Dreamer, Sandman, and Sabu when ECW is mentioned, the bottom line is that people like Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero, and Mysterio were just as important to the brand, because they brought honest-to-god wrestling. ECW was always more than hitting each other with objects, but those are never the guys that seem to be mentioned.
So, WWE brought ECW back, and very quickly discovered that, no, ECW was not a viable business model. There were network shackles, there were McMahon shackles, but they had the most important ingredient, Paul Heyman. For what it was worth, Heyman, in 6 months, made WWECW just about as good as it could've been. WWE realized, however, that the brand needed to change and grow. It couldn't be Extreme Rules all the time. It couldn't be just based around a group of semi-broken down ECW Originals. The brand had to evolve, it had to incorporate other wrestlers, and the fans of the original ECW refused to budge. I admit, that Batista/Big Show moment was hilarious, but it showed just how not viable running WWECW as the original ECW was. The fans knew what they wanted, but it was the same thing that killed the brand 5 years ago. Heyman aside, McMahon also ran into the problem of who to base the brand around. He needed a strong champion that could stand with the other two, and that both WWE and ECW fans could get behind. Van Dam was the obvious choice, but in a move that had the worst timing ever, McMahon discovered that some of the ECW Originals may not be the most trust-worthy bunch. Van Dam gets busted as the WWE and ECW champion, so there's no option but to strip him of both. WWE title is easy, but what of the ECW title? As ECW was, the Originals were a pretty sorry looking group. Sabu was arrested with Van Dam, so that was out. Dreamer isn't really a 'title' guy. Sandman certainly wasn't getting the belt. That left the WWE main event guys that were thrown into the brand, Big Show and Angle. Angle, as history has shown, was likely put in ECW because WWE was beginning to see that he had issues and needed him away from big spotlights, so he wasn't getting the belt. By default, they were left with Show, which is going to continue a trend until 2 years into WWECW. Without going into how awful D2D was, the biggest mistake McMahon made wasn't pulling Heyman, but putting the belt on Lashley. It marked that he had given up on the brand and was using it as nothing more but a springboard to get 'his' guys over. Lashley left, and there was hope to put the brand in a new direction with a new veteran at the helm, someone people respected and liked, someone who could wrestle with just about anyone, someone that Angle should've been to the brand 3 months in, someone who murdered his wife and child the night before he was going to win the belt. Again, by default, we got Johnny Nitro as ECW champion, and the era of glorified developmental began.
The point of all that was I truly don't believe that WWE is completely to blame for the destruction of WWECW. I think, initially anyway, that the feeling and heart were in the right place. Problem was, no one wanted to change. No one, not Heyman, not the fans, wanted to acknowledge that they were playing in McMahon's sandbox. The Batista/Big Show night, when the fans shit on McMahon's product, was a likely a turning point for the brand and McMahon's feelings towards it. Whether they liked it or not, ECW was back because of McMahon, and that meant playing by his rules, even if they didn't run the same way as the original ECW. That, to me, was the bottom line... it was never the original ECW, and it was never going to be. Problem is, people deluded themselves into thinking that. Nostalgia is a bitch like that.
This finally brings us back to Tommy Dreamer's tearful speech from last night. I've already aired my feelings on Dreamer, and I mean every word. Tommy Dreamer hasn't been relevant for anything but nostalgia in close to a decade, and that's not going to change. Dreamer wasn't ECW. He wants to believe it, he wants to portray himself as the still-beating heart of the original ECW. Problem is, strip away the wrestlers, strip away the fans, strip away the wrestling itself, and ECW, at the very core, was Paul Heyman. He gave the wrestlers carte blanche on storylines and matches, but the heart and soul of ECW, the beating heart, was Paul Heyman. You can have Dreamer vs. Raven and Van Dam vs. Lynn, but at the end of the day if you don't have Heyman, it's not ECW.
Heyman's notable absence from this angle is a problem. The man has a huge ego and refuses to believe certain truths about himself and ECW, but he's a great booker and motivator. Without him, it's a collection of used-up wrestlers waxing poetically about things that happened a decade ago. It's the opportunity for Target managers and breastick makers to get into the spotlgiht one more time. It's yet another stab at the nostalgia dollar for a company that hasn't figured out that it doesn't work.
Dixie Carter can come out and talk about how she's personally interacting with fans on the internet and that she knows they have a love of 'hardcore wrestling', but without understanding why. She'll listen to those fans, but yet seemingly ignores the ones who cry for the dismissal of Russo, or the ones who loudly wonder why people like Wolfe, Styles, and Joe are used so poorly, or even the group that asks the timeless question of why Scott Hall keeps getting chances. Those groups are ignored, yet she listens to the people that want to see ECW back. A decade dead brand that is the cult favorite of people who want the Attitude Era back. That's fine, though, because bringing back old favorites can never miss, right?
I want to tell TNA the same thing I want to tell Tommy Dreamer: Let. It. Go. It's over, and it's never coming back. Concentrate on the now, and stop coasting on nostalgia acts. The sheer fact that Hard Justice is being set up as a 'ECW' PPV is terrifying, as it's another example of TNA consistently taking the spotlight off of TNA. The highest buy-rate they ever had was Angle/Joe. Angle is now doing a throwaway storyline with a ranking system no one cares about, and Joe is only now recovering from carrying a large knife and being, uh, kidnapped. The ECW Originals, though, get their own PPV. If this isn't 'vintage' TNA, I don't know what is.
The original ECW was hugely innovative, entertaining, and it changed the landscape of wrestling in the 90s. It introduced new styles to America, and ignited a passion in fans that is still unmatched to this day. It did what it did very well, but with no potential for growth. ECW was always going to die, but it was a hell of a trip. Heyman always compares ECW to the grunge movement, and the Cobain parallel isn't terrible... both at the forefront of a movement that changed an industry, and will always be remembered more fondly BECAUSE they didn't stick around. WWE already watered it down and, staying true to their mantra, TNA has decided to suckle on that long-dry teat. Part of this problem is that fans won't let ECW stay dead, and the wrestlers who have never moved on are more than happy to oblige. Tommy Dreamer can go ahead and complain about WWE 'bringing it back', but he accepted a paycheck for long enough that he maybe, just maybe, loses some credibility with that.
The saddest part about all of this is that, for a company that thrived on innovation, change, and going against established wrestling conventions, it's become nothing but a watered-down nostalgia act. It's like that teenager that runs out of the house in the middle of the night screaming "I'll never be like you!", only to find that 20 years later, they've become exactly what they were rebelling against in the first place. That's a god-damn shame.
ing Global title from ROB TERRY of all people. God, this company...
