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Post by King Shocker the Monumentous on Apr 13, 2008 10:46:03 GMT -5
here is a heck of a "What if" Lets go back 20+ years ago....The NWA Talent pool (which hands down was the best of all wrestling) with Vince McMahons Money and business mind and Paul Heyman Booking....God the endless possibilities The "dayjob" era of the early 90s would be nonexistent. No Repo Man, no Duke Droese, no TL Hopper...but on the other hand, probably no IRS, and possibly no Undertaker.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2008 12:45:05 GMT -5
Here's the deal. Heyman is much more creative than Vince, but Vince is the better business man. Vince was smart enough to steal ecw's ideas so they can be seen by a bigger audience and that's why they got out of the hole they were dug in. If Vince didn't have ecw to steal ideas from, I think wwe wouldn't be around today. People totally overstate ECW's influence on the major promotions. This comment above is one of the most overstated I've ever read. If you really believe that the WWE wouldn't be around today if it weren't for ECW, then you are seriously deluded. The wrestling world was a changing place from '96 onwards, with or without ECW, because let's face it, how many people actually watched ECW? Especially in '96 when they didn't even have a PPV deal. The Monday night wars were underway, Hogan had turned heel, the NwO was born and so was the Austin 3:16 era. ECW didn't influence any of that. Vince signed Foley from ECW, but that wasn't ECW influencing the WWE, that was Vince signing a guy who was a proven talent and who was something different and original to what he already had. Foley however, didn't become Cactus Jack in ECW, he'd been Cactus Jack for a few years in WCW and had been successful there. ECW invading Raw that time may have generated buzz of some sort, but nothing spectacular. It certainly didn't help Vince gain an advantage in the ratings war, so there was no influence there, because WCW kept on winning every Monday night. The WWE simply evolved with the changing world around it, and ECW just so happened to be this hardcore, diverse, cult federation which was around at the same time. Had ECW not been around, we would have still got the 'Attitude' Era, and Austin 3:16 and DX and The Rock and whatever else that has happened since then pretty much. How about the Montreal Screwjob? Vince single handedly turned himself into the biggest heel in wrestling following that incident and that allowed him to become a proper on air character and feud with the top 'face in his company, in Steve Austin. Thus setting off the legendary Austin/Mcmahon feud which drew HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. Yeah, ECW was a really prominent part of the WWE's 'survival'. These are the ideas wwe copied from ecw and became big as a result -Wrestlers talking out of character. - Hot women exposing themselves and guys hitting women. - The beer drinking, hell raiser. It was Sandman in ecw before Austin in wwe. - Worked shoots. I don't think wwe did anything like that before seeing the Sandman blind angle and Douglas breaking Pitbull's neck. -Swearing on tv. Oh and someone said that if Paul was a genius then why didn't more people watch his show than wwe? Because ecw didn't have national tv in the mid 90s and by the time they got it in 99 and when people saw it, they figured it to be a smaller version of wwe(since they were doing that kind of stuff in the late 90s before ecw got on national tv).
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2008 12:57:09 GMT -5
From the latest Ask PWInsider
From what I read on the internet and hear from my friends ECW could do no wrong. So my question is, if ECW was as half as good as I heard it was, then home come they never became a bigger company than what they did? A number of factors, most of which were captured perfectly by WWE's Rise and Fall of ECW documentary. The company never had a solid financial infrastructure and was basically run out of Paul Heyman's bedroom for most of the run. WWF and WCW taking talent and concepts hurt the company as well. By the time the company had gotten a national timeslot on TNN, most of what brought them to the dance had been used elsewhere to death. Still, for a company that had no multimillion dollar backing or national TV deal, they broke down the walls like no company before or after ever will. From an artistic and creative standpoint, I still stand by my belief that from 1994-1997, ECW had the best weekly TV and live events I've ever seen in my life. No other company had launched itself on PPV and survived and ECW did for several years. They developed more stars than they are given credit for and the company was much, much more than the blood and guts most assume it was all about.
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