Not a bad show, I thought, but not terribly impressive. It might have been because of Joey and Tazz' recent announcing jobs, but it just felt like a one-hour episode of Raw or SmackDown, with mostly different guys.
What's with calling the WWE Title "THE" title?
Also, who was that with the FBI, and where has she been all my life?
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I personally loved the fact that Big Show didnt win the battle royale. when i saw him come out i was so hoping he wouldnt win and he didnt! :). sabu won! Great match!
Gugs beat me to the punch on posting the thread. Man, that was like the best Smackdown ever. Seriously though, it was a pretty decent show. Just for being the new ECW, it felt a lot like the old WWE and not much at all like ECW. ECW is about respect? Have they even watched their promotion's old tapes? To be fair, I did totally misjudge the battle royal. I had picked Show as the winner as soon as Heyman announced the match, but they went ahead and gave it to an ECW guy. Best part of the show: the Zombie - a Promo Man for Our Times.
"Speaking of Thomases, I loved your recent Atrocious GM Summit column, although I think that you flatter Isiah Thomas far too much by suggesting that he is merely one of a number of atrocious GMs. The truth is that Rob Babcock and Billy King are Einstein next to him. The mess he is creating right now in New York will be studied by business school students 50 years from now alongside Enron and pets.com."
Way to make ECW look strong...I'd have to say that I expected a lot more out of this first show as I thought they might...I don't know...show some ECW stars...I agree that this was no more than a glorified RAW. I am sure thought that given time to develop on its own that it will do just fine.
That show was horrible. I mean, really bad. And I'm usually easy to please, but I didn't see any redeeming qualities in this show that makes it look good for the future, or to differentiate it from Smackdown or RAW. It was just....what's the word?....EXTREMELY disappointing.
That segment with the so-called "exhibitionist" had to be the lamest T&A segment ever, and that's saying something considering the lame T&A segments WWE have done. Whoever that girl was with the FBI was more titillating during a 10 second entrance than that whole entire LONG (at least it seemed to take for ever) striptease.
Other than that, I thought the rest of the show was interesting, and personally I did think it had a different feel from a typical WWE show, which I think will be necessary. I was kind of glad Sabu went over Big Show, as you would start to wonder if any non-WWE built superstars would be getting anywhere had he not. I will be curious to see how long they run with the ECW vs. RAW angle, and when they decide to completely cut ECW loose to run completely on its own.
I wonder if running these shows as Smackdown/ECW shows will negatively impact the crowd for BOTH shows. It seemed like a pretty mixed crowd tonight.
The Bored are already here. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. And no... we won't kill dolphins. But koalas are fair game.
I thought it had a different feel tonight also. I loved the way Dreamer got eliminated! That was amazing! I only caught the second half of the show so I have to ask, what happened during the 1st half? I started seeing the show where Paul Heyman came out and said that he was going to be bringing ECW to Raw and announced the battle royal, so what happened before the promo?
There are a lot of problems that need to be addressed.
Who are the faces and heels in ECW? They're gonna have to cut back on WWE guys crashing their show eventually and establish their homegrown characters, their personalities and rivalries. Right now, any RAW guy is a heel, every ECW guy is a face, which includes Angle and Show but not the Zombie apparently.
Presentation is another letdown. ECW isn't edited or structured any differently than RAW or Smackdown. And it's way too bright in that arena. ECW is supposed to be dark and dingy. You're supposed to feel like you need a shower after coming out of a show, and that's because you do. At the very least, they could try cutting the house lights out and have a spotlight on Sandman when he enters. Without "Enter Sandman" it would be a help. Same with Sabu. Sabu is supposed to suddenly appear after the lights are off for a few seconds. Anything that's "different" from how RAW and Smackdown are presented ought to be the goal.
The crowd was dead. As expected, that wasn't an ECW crowd. Way too many little kids in Rey Mysterio shirts in the audience, but that can't be helped. Taping the show before Smackdown did them no favors just to appease NBC Universal, and their fears the crowd would chant obscenities was unfounded. We won't know unless they actually go live next week after Smackdown if the crowd will thin out to more adults, hopefully drunk, who will act more like an ECW crowd. (And it's pretty absurd that they switched the time of the show to before Smackdown to appease NBC Universal's fears, the crowd WASN'T obscene, and then they showed the clip of Tazz vs. Lawler from Sunday with the crowd clearly chanting "You suck dick!" at Lawler. Brilliant move.)
They've got a ways to go, but it's only week one. Hopefully they'll figure this stuff out as they go along and the show will gradually become less horrible.
P.S. The Zombie vs. The Great Khali in a debate is MONEY.
They gotta keep The Zombie around. They just gotta. That was quite fantastic. If The Boogeyman can get over, getting The Zombie over should be a piece of cake.
Originally posted by GugsAlso, who was that with the FBI, and where has she been all my life?
That's former TNA diva, Trinity.
Which shows how FAR out of touch I've been with TNA. When did they lose Trinity?
The show wasn't quite as "ECW" as I expected, but then again, I don't think anyone expected it to be that way. This was a fairly good way to introduce the brand to a new audience while slowly bringing in the WWE audience with Cena and Edge early on. There weren't a lot of things wrong what I saw was a pretty entertaining first show. I'll definitely be back for seconds.
Having said that, John Cena vs. SABU at Vengeance? Whose idea of a sick joke was that?!
And I guess this IS the Sci-Fi Channel, so a zombie should be about par for the course.
I was underwhelmed, but not to the point where I'm gonna go "Screw this, I'm not watching anymore." Former ECW Champion Justin Credible gets annihiliated by Kurt Angle? WWE doesn't wanna spring for the dough to get Sandman's real music?
At least Big Show didn't win the battle royal, because I also thought I had the winner picked out as soon as the match was announced.
Not bad for a start, I guess, but not a show I'll remember a year from now.
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...So if I have this straight...RVD is now the WWE AND ECW Champion?
Sandman coming through a Smackdown crowd full of kids just DOES NOT WORK. Actually, the Smackdown crowd doesn't work at all for this format.
What was with that striptease? She couldn't get her bra off?!? Is she not used to wearing one?!?
I don't like the idea of the announce table being on camera most of the time. It just looks weird to see them talking about the action while facing away from each other...not to mention the ring...staring into monitors.
The zombie rocked. Keep the zombie. Get more zombies. Spirit Zombies!
Yes, I'll give it time to evolve. But I don't think very many curiosity seekers who tuned in tonight will continue to do so.
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From WrestlingDVDNews: Fans of Macho Man Randy Savage are going to love this news! WrestlingDVDNews has reported that WWE will release "The Randy Savage Story" on DVD and Blu-ray Tuesday, November 18th of this year.