After a six month disaster in the revival of the ECW brand, the next step in what many on the roster fear is its disintegration, came after the December to Dismember PPV when Vince McMahon sent Paul Heyman home.
The move came after both sides blamed the other when fan services and DirecTV were flooded with complaints after the PPV. Heyman was removed from the creative team, removed as the heel General Manager character, and his tenure with the company is questionable. The WWE web site, when announcing the move, cited the poorly received show and declining television ratings on Sci-Fi.
“Distraught by the results of December to Dismember, ECW representative Paul Heyman appeared to be distant and depressed this afternoon at the North Charleston Coliseum hours before an ECW live event,” the site wrote with wording that made it sound like an angle. “This condition was further exasperated (sic) by Mr. McMahon, who decided to send Heyman home. The WWE Chairman cited slumping television ratings and a disgruntled talent roster as causes for Mr. Heyman’s dismissal.”
With the decision made this past week that there will be no more ECW house shows after the end of November, WWE sources say panic has begun to set in over the brand’s shelf life.
WWE has a contract with Sci-Fi through the end of 2007 for a Tuesday night television show. There have been talks for several weeks about trying to get word out that ECW is really WWE, but exactly how that will be established isn’t clear. Internally, the declining ratings have been blamed on the ECW initials, thinking that because people aren’t aware it is really WWE, they aren’t watching. Clearly that makes no sense because it did great numbers for a few months and it’s only been of late where the decline has been marked.
The house shows have been averaging roughly $25,000 per event on about 1,000 paid attendance, making them big money losers. While some shows have done better, there is no indication after seven months that house show business is improving.
On a special edition of Figure Four Daily, former WWE, WCW & ECW star Lance Storm hosts a solo edition of the show with a singular focus: his memories of the late Terry Funk who passed away last week.
Within pro wrestling, there are far too many stories of overindulgent behavior leading to early deaths. But it’s even more tragic when a young man with a loving family is simply dealt a bad hand that he can’t overcome. Worse, we often like to take solace in the case of deaths by saying that at least the man didn’t suffer. And in this case, there is no solace.
John “Earthquake” Tenta battled cancer bravely for the past few years, and with nothing but complete dignity. He regularly posted updates on the Wrestlecrap forum of his friend, Randy Baer (aka R.D. Reynolds). Every message was about a fight that he was bound and determined to win. He was winning early, and by his words and spirits, at first, you couldn’t envision him losing. He came back after being handed the first verdict by his doctors of a probable death sentence two years ago. In 2004, he was first diagnosed with bladder cancer. After chemotherapy, he got the good news that he was winning the fight and the cancer was barely a dot.
With injuries and burnout affecting much of the roster, fights breaking out, Smackdown ratings plunging badly, yet house show business seemingly strong and ECW about to be launched with almost nothing finalized in plans, it can only be described as nobody knows what is going to happen next. Major booking plans change by the minute, and nobody knows what is going to happen in two PPV events that are just a few weeks away.
It was expected all week that an announcement would be made on 5/23 that the new ECW show would be signed for the Sci-Fi channel and debut on 6/13. With so much going on, things got crazy on the deal. As best we can tell, the announcement will likely be made before any of you read this. Some of the terms were not yet finalized.
The show will air on Tuesday night, either at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., for one hour. Sci-Fi, after first agreeing to a 52 week commitment, started getting some cold feet on the project, and at last word had only committed to 12 episodes. Because of the WWE’s exclusive TV deal with NBC Universal, and USA Network not interested in giving the show a good time slot, and Bravo expressing only mild interest, WWE has very little leverage in this deal.
The gearing up for starting a third brand under the WWE banner, using the ECW name, has been the major behind the scenes news in the company, to the point that any and all booking ideas for both Raw and Smackdown past the early part of June are being labeled as tentative.
A lot of changes, almost all considered positive by those close to the situation, have taken place regarding roster and scheduling. While the TV situation hasn’t changed, in that they will still be taping every Tuesday night prior to Smackdown in the Velocity spot, many other favorable decisions have been made.
While there is still no official TV deal in place, it is now considered close to a lock there will be a TV deal in the U.S. and it won’t be simply an internet property domestically. Ironically, one of the reasons Shane McMahon pushed the idea on his father is because he wanted the idea of an internet exclusive brand, but now Vince sees the potential of this and knows it can’t achieve it without television. The feeling is that if it was just an internet property, Vince would lose his current enthusiasm for it very quickly.
The resurrection of ECW has become the top priority these days in WWE, with plenty of new plans and ideas being batted around.
The first televised angle building to the return took place at the 5/1 Raw show in Columbus, OH. It started with Joey Styles, broadcasting his final Raw (although that was not publicly stated ahead of time), being called by acting G.M.’s The Spirit Squad, being told his announcing lacks spirit. They tried to get him more enthusiasm, and he responded totally unenthusiastic.
They told him if he didn’t show more spirit when announcing Raw, then next week he would have to announce dressed up like a female high school cheerleader, and gave him a cheerleading outfit that Torrie Wilson and some of the other women had worn earlier in the show. When he came back from backstage, he was joked with by Jerry Lawler about not showing enough enthusiasm, and made mention of his past in ECW. Styles then said, “If this was ECW, I wouldn’t be working with a hack like you.” Styles then shoved Lawler twice, as Lawler got excited, saying that Styles was finally showing some enthusiasm. Styles then slapped Lawler in the face. Lawler then called him a little idiot and pie-faced him to the ground. Styles simply walked off.
In a shocking move designed to shake up World Wrestling Entertainment, Vince McMahon made the decision while flying to Europe on 4/20 to revive the ECW brand, spearheading a number of changes.
Meetings have been held the past few days with all different facets of the company to get ready to revive the brand name coming off the 6/11 One Night Stand PPV at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York.
The idea of reviving ECW has come up periodically over the past year, and has always gone nowhere. For all the obvious reasons, both good and bad, most internally were negative. Many probably were because they thought Vince himself was and were, at least to a degree, telling him what he wanted to hear. Others, most notably Stephanie, was simply negative to the idea because many feel it wouldn’t work, so there’s no purpose, but if it did work, she’d end up looking bad if her brands weren’t clicking. When tickets sold out for this year’s One Night Stand in just two hours on 4/15, McMahon broached the subject again with many different officials.
Figure Four Daily with Bryan Alvarez and Lance Storm is back with tons to talk about including Lance’s thoughts on the return of Vince McMahon and what it could mean both for WWE and for AEW, how Paul Heyman helped his career, part 2 of his ECW journey and tons more. A fun show as always so check it out~!
Figure Four Daily with Bryan Alvarez and Lance Storm is back with tons to talk about including the AEW buyrate stats Dave talked about recently, POINTING AT THAT DAMN WRESTLEMANIA SIGN, and then a look at the start of his ECW career leading to the Impact Players. A fun show as always so check it out~!
The name on the video that started the ball rolling was “The Rise and Fall of ECW.” It painted an historical picture of an underdog promotion that revolutionized the industry through a genius creator who ultimately destroyed his life’s work through being a terrible businessman, despite getting secret help from the man whose company produced the video.
Perhaps a more accurate portrayal was, it was a company that was a financial minnow in a sea with two giant sharks. It went on the belief, because its cult following was more rabid than that of the sharks, that when it finally got national exposure, it would win because the general public would see what its cult fans believed, that it was the better product. In the end, the numbers didn’t confirm that belief. The book on the promotion was closed. The history was seemingly written.
This past weekend, the book more than just re-opened. In a phenomenal story that could have never happened at any other time in history, the big picture of the promotion that quietly died in the middle of Arkansas, tangled up in a web of debt and lies, not just the history, but the conclusions, all have a chance to be torn up. Instead, there is both short-term huge money, and long-term huge risk, if the living, bleeding characters in that book are brought back to life. ECW was an important part (not the biggest part, but its significance can’t be downplayed) of many things that helped revive a bleeding business headed nowhere, into its most financially successful period in history.
This time, the business seems to be climbing out of a rut. Economics have changed, and financially, it’s stronger structurally than any time in its history. In other ways, such as its ability to build aspects of its future, through destruction of full-time positions making it harder for newcomers to break in and gain the needed experience, lack of variant styles and thought processes, its creative and developmental structure is weak. While the heart, soul, legacy and past of ECW were celebrated without the name on 6/10 in Philadelphia, a whole book of questions about the future of the industry were opened up two days later in New York. It will no doubt go down as one of the biggest PPV events of all-time, and if preliminary indications are true, a success the likes of which nobody saw coming.
A show, that even with overpriced tickets, had trouble selling out a 2,500 seat arena (it did sellout, but there were about 150 tickets still unsold as late as the day of the show) appear to be doing buy numbers that blow away even the most optimistic predictions. Our response level beat out Wrestlemania, but ECW, as well as wrestling nostalgia, is always going to be strongest to our audience. More importantly, the closed-circuit theaters in Canada have reported Wrestlemania-like attendance. Some theaters beat their Mania numbers. The Canadian closed circuit attendance is as realistic an early indicator as you can get. It’s way premature to make a specific number estimate other than it almost surely blew away all predictions.
The company went in expecting something in the range of 150,000 to 200,000. Anything more than that was going to be considered a success even though they budget the “B” PPV shows at 321,000. Not bad for a company whose PPV numbers ranged from 40,000 on the low end to 99,000 in its actual heyday. It’s historical because the number was drawn with no angles building toward a match, although the group vs. group fake interpromotional confrontation is one of the most tried and true drawing concepts of the past 30 years. In fact, on the television building the show, not one match was even announced. It was the ECW reunion, and it was the WWE heels out to stop it.
The return of the ECW name, spurred on by the strong DVD sales of “The Rise and Fall of ECW,” have led to talks about the future of the brand, or at least the spirit of the brand, more than four years after it died.
Will this be the final chapter for ECW, the beginning of a resurrection, or something in the middle?
The two shows in question are Shane Douglas’ “Hardcore Homecoming” show on 6/10 at the ECW Arena, which will likely more capture the spirit of ECW, and the WWE’s ECW One Night Stand show on 6/12, which will be the better wrestling show, but will include many WWE characters who never had anything to do with ECW.
Both shows will feature heavy juice, tables, ladders, barbed wire and promos from guys telling the fans how much they love them and that they are the reason ECW is still alive. The Douglas show, unlimited by three-hour time constraints and bizarre WWE politics, and held in the building the company made famous, will likely have the best promos and the best real emotion. It will probably have closer to the real atmosphere. But the wrestling, at the top will be suspect, and it may end up being a sad show to watch. Terry Funk is almost 61, Douglas is 43 and Sabu is 42. All are physically racked with injuries. Sabu has been inactive for 10 months and was near death at one point. Douglas rarely wrestles, and Funk is only a few months removed from heart surgery. Worse, their main event is recreating a three-way match from February 5, 1994, which put ECW and the term “three-way dance” (the term actually was created after the match, but was based on the match, and it became an ECW trademark and popularized the style of match all over the world) into wrestling lexicon. That match went 60:00, and while it wouldn’t hold up on video watching today (which is immaterial because nobody goes into the ring thinking how we can use our ESP to figure out what will be in vogue for people watching 11 years later so we can do a match that “holds up” as opposed to a match that means something the day it’s done), it, in hindsight, was one of the most important matches of the past 20 years. It put a company on the map, and it made Douglas and Sabu into significantly bigger stars (Douglas, perhaps more for the post-match face-to-face interview with Funk, who was a legend in wrestling nearly two decades before the match ever took place). It springboarded the company’s growth to whatever it became, which to this day is a hotly debated issue. But there is no way to live up to the legend of this match, although the audience will likely be well aware of that, but this really could be ugly. Other items, like the return of The Eliminators, will put two guys together who haven’t teamed in eight years and are for the most part out of the industry. It’s pure nostalgia, and in wrestling, that can work and already has financially, but it can also be ugly for those watching later on tape.
Former WWE, WCW and ECW referee Mickie Jay died Monday evening due to complications from pneumonia related to COVID-19.
Mike Mooneyham first reported the news on Tuesday. He was 59 years old at the time of his passing and had lived in Key West, Florida, for nearly 20 years.
Born Mickie Jay Henson in Tampa, Florida, in 1963, he was trained by Steve Keirn and Mike Graham, refereeing his first match in 1987 in Florida’s Championship Wrestling. He also wrestled, even competing as an enhancement talent in 1992 on WWF Superstars and Wrestling Challenge.
He began with WCW in 1992, but was not brought over when WWE bought the company in 2001. However, WWE did hire him in 2005 where he worked for Raw, SmackDown and ECW over nearly four years, named head official for both SmackDown and ECW during his tenure.
Due to health issues in 2008, Jay was pulled off the road and was released in January 2009.
He was honored by the Cauliflower Alley Club with the Charlie Smith Referee’s Award in 2018.
It was the biggest week in TNA history, and now, from all signs, when it didn’t pan out, the company is in critical condition.
Here is the basic financial score. Panda Energy, in the two-plus years it has been funding TNA, has lost approximately $15 million on the venture. This came on the heels of the $1.6 million Health South lost in getting the company off the ground. There may have also been losses that Jerry Jarrett incurred during the interim period between Health South money and Panda Energy money. Because of the cost of buying television time, producing television, and signing higher-priced talent, the losses in recent months have hit $200,000 to $250,000 per week. With the exception of WCW from 1999 on, no wrestling company in history is believed to have ever burned money at anywhere close to this rate. Worse, they’ve done so without really making any mark on the industry or having any significant public visibility.
New Jack — one of the more memorable figures in pro wrestling and the focus of an episode of Dark Side of The Ring — passed away Friday at the age of 58 due to a heart attack.
PW Insider was the first to report the news via his wife, Jennifer. He was living in North Carolina at the time of his death.
Born Jerome Young in Greensboro, North Carolina, New Jack rose to prominence as one half of The Gangstas with Mustafa Saed. After a one-year run in Smokey Mountain Wrestling, he and Saed found themselves in ECW where they fit right in with the hardcore style and attitude of the promotion. He and Saed won their Tag Team titles two times and he also held them one time with John Kronus of The Eliminators.
Even after Saed left, New Jack stayed with ECW through their end in 2001. He was involved in the infamous “Mass Transit Incident” documented in season two of Dark Side where he bladed Eric Kulas (aka Mass Transit), an inexperienced 17-year-old wrestler. Kulas bled so much due to the cut that he required hospitalization and 50 stitches. New Jack was eventually acquitted on aggravated assault charges and a lawsuit against he and ECW failed in court.
Outside a short retirement, New Jack worked on the indies from the end of ECW through 2021, notably working for TNA, XPW and Combat Zone Wrestling among others. During that time, he was involved in other controversial incidents in matches with Vic Grimes and Gypsy Joe, documented on the Dark Side episode.
His final in-ring action was in April 2021 in a tag team match in Tampa, Florida.
