After a celebrated rebirth in 2005, and a tumultuous second life, ECW is finally, really, completely, dead.

Things started out so well; 2 majorly successful “One Night Stand” pay-per-view events in 2005 in 2006, a resurgence of a fan base, and then Paul Heyman’s wish finally granted: a TV deal with a network (SyFy)  that would actually promote the show instead of bury it behind “Roller Jam”, like TNN did with ECW’s first TV deal.  90% of the original talent roster, and 100% of the energy, extreme content, and originality were all there out of the gates.  Until, things went sour.   

 ECW lost its identity.  WWE programming made a move to broadcast PG content.  Paul Heyman and every last ECW Original eventually faded out of the picture and off the roster.  Some got caught doing drugs, some left, and some got fired.  Tommy Dreamer was the final ECW Original to part ways.  Most of the others didn’t want to work for THAT version of ECW anymore (and one part because many of them truly didn’t measure up to other WWE talent from an ability standpoint).  A few of them resurfaced in rival promotion TNA, if at all. 

The “E” in ECW still technically stood for “Extreme,” but you’d be hard pressed to prove it in ECW’s last days.  In fact, you’d be hard pressed to distinguish it at all from the other WWE shows.  The hardcore original version that Paul Heyman incarnated (Paul himself made a huge content shift from the original ECW, which stood for “Eastern Championship Wrestling”, a rather traditional wrestling show) gave way to a kid friendly and family oriented version.  ECW’s “extreme” movement simply meant violence; and this no longer melded with Vince McMahon’s vision of ECW.  Unfortunately, the man with the money controls the show; and Heyman’s ECW was not congruent with Vince’s.  Whether Vince liked it or not though, the hardcore style made ECW stand-out from other wrestling shows, since no other wrestling show took it to that level. 

McMahon has been known to make statements to the tune of him always knowing what the audience wanted.  Most would say either Vince never “got” what ECW fans really wanted, or else just chose not to acknowledge the truth.  Most would agree he’s never been good with characters and concepts he didn’t create himself.  When fans said they wanted hardcore barbed-wire, no-DQ matches with steel chairs and flaming tables, Vince gave them the company’s 3^rd tier show with 3^rd tier stars, performing the same material the others were doing—but worse.  Even the original format of ECW matches – No DQ’s and no count-outs—was abolished.  The show didn’t even stand on its own; tapings were piggybacked before Raw or Smackdown broadcasts, and didn’t even feature a stand-alone tour (though there was originally, it obviously was a failure).  Extreme-C-W had been phased out, and most would admit the writing had been on the wall for quite some time.

So now with ECW’s cancellation, we get what Vince McMahon describes as “the next evolution of WWE; the next evolution of television history.”  We get “WWE NXT”; a reality/wrestling mashup of developmental wrestlers trying to make it to the main WWE rosters with the guidance of current WWE Superstars.  While I’ll admit the concept contains partial originality (smells a lot like WWE’s first reality show, “Tough Enough”), I really don’t think anyone cares to see 8 b-list stars coach 8 complete unknowns to “greatness”. For WWE’s sake, I hope the new show is a success; but methinks this show may end up going the way of the XFL.

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