Exactly how much did Vince help ECW.

sounds about right to me.......Vince had his eye on loads of their talent and wasnt really being as benevolent as WWE makes him out to be.

i don't follow. he essentially did try to do that and just failed because they over-commercialized it, which obviously the wwe would do with anything.

Vince McMahon, for all the crap people give him, was not a bad guy to ECW back in the day. He gave ECW a lot of money, he allowed WWF wrestlers to appear on ECW shows, he allowed ECW wrestlers to appear on WWF shows....

I mean, Vince McMahon dedicated an ENTIRE EPISODE of Monday Night RAW to matches of ECW wrestlers.

WWF didn't put ECW out of business....ECW's money troubles put ECW out of business. Vince McMahon could only do so much to try and help and when Paul Heyman was going out of business you can't expect Vince to swoop in and save the whole thing, but he did as much as he could.

And then even after ECW went out of business at one point or another Vince gave essentially every ex-ECW wrestler a job for at least a little while.

Exactly right. It was clearly a business decision, Vince wasn't trying to be benevolent. Ever since he took the helm in the 80s, he was basically on a search and destroy mission, buying up everything he could. He got a nice influx of talent from ECW in the coming years.

I also think Vince was going to try and copy the NWO storyline and do an invasion in 1997. The exposure Vince gave the wrestlers and the seed money he gave to Heyman would have been a nice investment if it ever panned out. I think Vince recognized early on, however, that no matter how much money he gave ECW, it would never have been a threat to him, as the sponsors and networks never would've backed a product as violent as ECW.

Its been said by raven, sandman, new jack and others that drugs were heavily in use, and heyman told sandman to get come coke when he was on acid . . . . yeah, money went somewhere!
this video also sums up alot, all be it vince did finance ecw, he ruined pro wrestling and wcw/ecw, sure they went out of buisness from their own troubles with cable networks and such, but its a damn shame vince just consumed them along with every other organisation

What was ECW in 1997? A place for young guys to get their start and become discovered, and place for older wrestlers to become reborn.

What was ECW 2008? A place for young guys to get their start and be discovered (Punk, Sheamus Swagger) and a place for older wrestlers to get reborn (Mark Henry, Christian, Chavo)

It's pretty much the same. You had your occasional hardcore match, and you also had a lot of good wrestling.

Also in what universe is a man going to finically support a competing business just to be "benevolent"? I'm pretty sure he's mentioned that he did it get talent. ECW didn't get exactly screwed over here either, for one as mentioned by Lorenzo Alcazar, ECW had a ton of promotion for their brand, and PPV's from the WWE, as well has having WWE wrestlers work form them which in turned only helped guys like Droz and Al Snow in the long run.

Also keep in mind the number of guys that would leave for WCW regardless. At least WWE paid for the right to get those talents. In the end this decision was a win-win for both promoters as well as the wrestlers. I'm not sure why you guys would even bother to spin it any other way..

how so?

I think the new ECW would've stuck much closer to the original product had RVD not been busted for pot after they had JUST given him the world title to both shows. Apparently Vince did have some faith in it, but RVD totally killed all of that. But I think it was destined to fail from the get go. So much bad luck was brought upon the brand. Like RVD getting busted, which I already mentioned, Kurt Angle getting let go and then Benoit doing what he did.

Just think... if that brand would've stayed strong and had RVD, Angle, Benoit and Punk all at once.

But to go back to the original question, Vince must've REALLY loved the company. He gave them their own PPV and then brought the brand back and rehired at least 15 or 20 guys. He must've gave them some serious cash back in the day.

I don't think it was so much that he loved ECW, it was that he loved the idea that he could still make money off of the ECW name, several years after they were shut down.

And even without those talent you mentioned, the ECW brand would have had a better chance, if Heyman was given more control, when he was part of the creative process. Remember, for the ECW Elimination Chamber, he wanted to have Big Show eliminated first and early by CM Punk via tap out, to help give a big rub to Punk's character, but he was shot down, and they went with Show and Lashley to finish it out.