Negative Internal Reaction Over ECW’s Television Debut

[Ethan Hunt]

Several people in both the WWE and ECW locker rooms have said that all of the talent realizes how much the first show stunk, despite the excellent rating. Everyone realizes that the rating was not drawn off of the show’s quality but general curiously over the new brand.

One source even said that Vince McMahon admitted that the show was a failure, but didn’t make it well known.

There is obviously a lot of pressure to make next week’s show better. The backstage feeling is that a lot of the same audience will tune in again to give ECW a second chance before tuning out for good.

[scorpionf]

Well, the first show was awful... I don't hold out much hope for the next one :(

I don't understand why they would want to tape ECW with Smackdown... They can't expect the Smackdown fans to become ECW fans as well all of a sudden when you are trying to play the two shows against each other. A Smackdown fan probably couldn't care less about Sandman vs Balls Mahoney for example...

Cena got a pop when he punched Heyman. In an ECW environment, they would have pelted Cena with trash.

[the madscotsman]

They better not fuck this up. vince is on thin ice already with wrestling fans.

[Ethan Hunt]

imo they should start EC DUB on fridays and merge RAW & Smack.....that would do a lot good to WWE

[Assassin™]

^I posted that idea a few weeks ago. Also, I believe this report is true, (as I watched the sucky show), but you still need a source. I'm assuming you didn't personally witness Vince McMahon and "Several people in both the WWE and ECW locker rooms" say they didn't like the debut.

I just think there wasn't much effort put into this first show. I think they just assumed because ECW was returning that people would watch and that's all they would need to do. WWE also assumed that just having people like RVD, Cena, Edge, and Sabu there would guarantee viewers. Star power alone doesn't mean it's going to be a good show.

[the madscotsman]

^^ I agree they need to start putting on good matches and good tv. where was the anarchy that there used to be. It seemed to much like a wwe show. they should take it back to the ecw arena. That place had more aptmosphere.