Original subtitles

The CCW audience here again booing both competitors.

I think the entire relaunch of ECW is doomed from the start.

That's good.

He's got himself disqualified because of his non -extreme rules.

It was crap. And it was a horrible workplace.

Dude, I don't want to be wrestling anymore. I'm so over pro wrestling right

My mistake was taking on the project to begin with. I remember talking to Tommy

Dreamer and telling him up front, I want to let you know that within one year,

this is going to be an absolute nightmare and it's going to collapse on

heads.

We're more than 25 years past when I took over the creative for the original

ECW, and still to this day, I can't find the words to convey

what that opportunity meant to me.

It was

the greatest

time of my life, and even today.

I attribute to ECW everything I have in my life.

That company was amazing.

It was a bunch of men and women who were literally changing the business, and we

didn't realize it at the time.

In ECW, from the time you got to the building, you were having fun.

You were being with your boys. You were being with your girls. You were all one

big family. The industry itself needed a disruptor, and we came along looking to

disrupt the business.

And in doing so had the most passionate fan base

because they were our army. They were our cult. They were our

rallying cry.

ECW was not run in terms of a business. It was

run like a religion.

See, physical pain can be blocked out, but mental pain lasts a lifetime.

The Monday Night Wars were going on, and if we had the money that a WCW had, or

if we had, you know, the television that a WWE had, we would have taken over.

Well, the death of ECW was an inevitable death because, as a product of its

time, its time had come due.

ECW didn't have to go out of business. They didn't trust Paul, and they wanted

to keep the show on syndication until they found the network.

There was a lot of money in it, and Paul no -showed the meeting.

It was something that I really wanted to beat him up for for a lot of years, but

I let it all go because you can't dwell on the past.

Had we been able to secure a national TV outlet, the product itself was going to

have to evolve into something else. We couldn't secure a national TV outlet. We

were dead in the water. That was it. The game was over.

After ECW went away, we got a lot of credit for the changes that we helped in

the business.

I don't know any other ending that would have made sense historically other than

the fact that we accomplished our tasks and it was time for us to go. And that's

the only way that I can look at it because any other way is just too

I worked in talent relations.

It was Rob Van Dam who went to Vince and said, hey.

All these players were here, and it became from the success of the DVD

the rise and fall of ECW, that, hey, what if we did this?

ECW One Night Stand in 2005 was really our last chance to experience each

And by that, I mean the audience and ECW and ECW along with its audience.

to see one of my most genuine smiles is when they hit Sandman's music because I

was just so happy. And to me, it was what ECW should have been, could have

It was giving me closure.

I was at the first One Night Stand show. So I was like sitting there. I wasn't

quite backstage, but I wasn't in a seat. Does that make sense? I was just like

standing in the audience watching the show.

I have goosebumps right now just talking about it. It was one of the best shows

I've ever seen live. And I think that was the last.

ECW show.

And had we

stopped right there, it would have been an ending for ECW and closure for

both us in ECW and for the audience as well that none of us could have ever

even craved.

I got two words for you. Shane McMahon.

Shane McMahon was.

the guy who I guess was kept on being in Vince's ear and saying, we can do this,

we can do this.

At the end of 2005, it was Shane McMahon that came to me.

And Shane had the concept of an online -only presentation.

which was pretty forward -thinking now that you think about it, because that's

what streaming is.

DCW was always a very interesting play.

They had a lot of talent.

It was different.

They were more niche. The thinking behind it was it's a place where talent

be developed and come up, and also as talent needs to be refreshed or veterans

need to help younger guys, et cetera, it could be for other talent on the way

down. They still have marquee names they can draw.

As this evolved, there had become interest.

from networks to actually carry this product, which of course took it out of

Shane's hands and placed it on Vince's desk.

And once Vince understood that there was a serious profit to be made, it was

completely taken out of Shane's hands. And Vince wanted to maximize this new

third brand of WWEs as much as he could.

And in order to maximize that concept, It had to stop being the authentic ECW

and had to become a third brand under the umbrella of World Wrestling

Entertainment.

The reason we wanted to go digital was because you are allowed far more freedom

from a digital standpoint than you are from a network standpoint.

And it would have done two things. One, it would have kept the ECW moniker and

brand a little more edgy.

You know, from a business standpoint, you're also then getting into where

want to watch it on their own time.

It was all kind of rumors and all that stuff. And then all of a sudden I was

brought into John's office and, hey, we're going to go full boat with this.

I had about two months of really, really.

cool hopes and expectations, and then all of a sudden it's, we're going to

more of a WWE influence, and we had different writers involved.

From that moment, there was just things where that wasn't ECW.

And Tommy calls me, he's like, yo, WWE wants you to sign this. I'm like, get

of here, dude.

None of us expected for it to be ECW in WWE.

And, you know, here we come with another one.

The type of extreme has risen again!

The second ECW One Night Stand was built around Rob Van Dam pursuing the

WWE title from John Cena.

And that match was the only time on the show that you had that authentic

ECW feel.

What the hell is that?

As soon as that show ended, I knew it wasn't going to be the same.

We're starting on Sci -Fi Network that night.

They had an alien all booted up. They had this dude in an alien costume.

You know, nobody knows what's going on. And then literally like 20 minutes

before I'm supposed to go to the ring, they changed the alien dude to the

or whatever dude.

What is it?

Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is scheduled for one fall.

Introducing first, the zombie!

A zombie?

The zombie?

The network wanted something for the sci -fi thing, so that's where they came up

with the ECW.

Zombie. Nobody knew what was going on until it almost happened back there. It

was crazy.

Oh, my God.

Oh, welcome to the world of extreme.

ECW rules, Stiles.

Do it any way you want. Look at that. The white Russian leg sweep.

That's my comment,

Zombie. Hey, the first official match on ECW is over.

The Jam Man.

That's just an example, Stiles.

of the new breed of ECW. The company wanted to establish that there were

in this ECW.

I think it was one of the first TV tapings that I was on. We were in

Minneapolis. I think it was Just Incredible versus Sabu.

And during the match, Sabu put Just Incredible through a table, and I had to

call for his call of attention because we wanted to establish there's rules

And fans didn't really like that new thing. You know, on live events, I'd get

heckled all the time because...

I'm calling for hair breaks, you know, different things.

And I was hearing all the time, this is ECW. There's no rules.

Why are you counting?

You know, it became much more locked down, much more cookie cutter, if you

because it fit more into the mold of our distribution partner.

That's why it changed. And it might have started not to work because you're

getting rid of these.

Sandman, he smartened me up to something one time at one of the shows. He says,

I want to show you something. Come here, kid.

So we went up to the promenade, the main deck, where all the fans are before

they go down into the arena.

And all the merchandise that was put up was all WWE merchandise.

There wasn't any ECW merch.

It was funny that, you know, Sandman went on to explain to me that, you know,

this is a lot of why ECW will never be the same.

The attempt to resuscitate the product as it was could not

work in 2006.

But to present a different product would only cause the fan base that had come

to... create a myth that was larger than life to feel alienated.

So you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. It's just damned.

I remember Rob Van Dam and Sabu getting pulled over and there were

suspensions after that.

You people are the reason that I had to suspend Rob Van Dam for 30

days. Rob had to drop the title right away, and now it's on Big Show, and

started to turn right around then. For this brand that had so much hope, it

seemed to kind of turn a sharp corner, and it didn't take long to get there, to

be honest.

Things would have been better if RVD and Shabu didn't get caught.

I think the storyline would have changed a little bit.

I know the ECW fans weren't happy about me taking the ECW championship from RVD.

As things happen, fans cycle out.

They're intense fans, and they fade away, and they come back.

And I think just after a while, that ECW loyal fan kind of faded out.

ECW is live and sold out from the Hammerstein Ballroom in Midtown

York City.

I remember that night really, really happy. We got the old school

loyal fans.

We really didn't have two original ECW guys in their house.

That's the worst feeling in the world when people start, you know, on your

because you've lost them somewhere in your match.

Back then, I didn't know how to get them back.

I didn't know how to get them in. I just was like, oh, crap, here we go.

How much time do we have left?

Can we just go home now?

Like, you're embarrassed.

I didn't say, hey, put me in this match, and hey, book me in the main event of

this. You know, I'm doing the best I can. Like, why is it boring?

It's boring because they're not interested. They're not emotionally

The two guys that they want to see in that match is not Dave Bautista, and

not me.

December 3rd, 2006, ECW's next pay -per -view, the December to dismember.

If December to dismember happens, it was crap.

I actually had asked for my release from WWE after that.

It was a lot of turmoil.

We were all really excited about December to dismember because our jobs

the line. We all felt that way, and we were fighting hard to make this thing

work, even though there were so many obstacles we had to overcome.

I remember going into it, and everybody was like, well, there's only really one

match that's being advertised, and what's on the rest of the card? No one

if they were going to be on or not.

But still, we were very optimistic, hoping that maybe if this does well,

it's going to kind of turn things around for us.

I was at that December 20th member as well as part of the company in

developmental.

OK, so I was at one night stand. It was awesome. I was at this show and it

sucked. You know, I was sitting there and I'm like, wow, this sucks.

Like this is not ECW. And I think the fans knew it. I think, you know, all the

pay -per -view buy rates showed it.

I had actually resigned as the lead writer for ECW twice within two and a

weeks before the December to dismember.

And Stephanie would not accept my resignation.

So by the time we got to the December to dismember, it was fait accompli.

I had to go.

When we got to the actual event, and Vince and I were on completely

different pages.

I think the choice was very easy.

Paul Heyman had to leave.

Everything changes. We have new writers.

Thankfully, the American Dream Dusty Rhodes comes in.

And he kind of said, hey, this is going to be a fresh start for a lot of guys,

and a lot of guys are going to get their opportunities now.

We had, like, the new superstar initiative after that.

Without ECW, I don't think I would have, you know, taken off. I started my new

character, the woo -woo -woo, the broski, like on ECW when Hawkins and

split up. I got drafted ECW. I would have never got that shot and that

opportunity and that time to talk and to have long matches on Raw or SmackDown

at that time. So I owe it all to my time in ECW.

Like, you look at ECW, yeah, it was just, like, this one -hour show.

But for me, like, I was becoming a star and I was building confidence and I was

having matches against guys like Christian. You know, like, ECW title

and the main event of the show against Christian. I would never be in the main

event of Monday Night Raw at that time.

As time progressed, I think right away John Morrison and I were put in a tag

team. And so I'll never forget, like, getting one of the producers saying,

this is your last chance. Like, it's either...

Go now and become something or you're going to get fired. It was never going

be the original ECW. And going into it, you knew it wasn't going to be that. But

what it was going to be is our own niche, our own thing.

We didn't have NXT back in the day. We didn't really have that platform. Being

on the roster of ECW, I was definitely grateful for it because we were actually

highlighted.

So the point of ECW was it was a great place for Kofi to cut your teeth, to get

comfortable in that ring, to know where the cameras were, and how to relate to

the audience.

It was crazy, too. Kofi actually spoke with a Jamaican accent.

Unreal, you know, Kofi King.

Right there, the bitch, you know what I'm saying?

Boom, boom, looks like trouble in paradise.

I still got it, you know? Yeah, man, yeah.

Fooled everybody.

I would like to proudly announce that in three weeks' time, ECW will be going

off the air.

I would like to thank all of the technicians, cameramen, directors,

everyone, certainly the superstars who made ECW the success that it truly was.

I would say the legacy of WWE and ECW.

For me, I think WWE was passionate about the opportunity to try to recreate that

ECW spirit.

Eventually, it lost its chance to bleed.

It definitely holds a special place in my heart because that was my start.

That's what got me hired.

And to this day, in my office, I have an ECW ref shirt hanging out because it

means that much. That was where I started with this company.

I think it was a lot of people that had a chip on their shoulder that said, you

know what, even though you put us here on the third show, on the C show, if you

will, we're going to fight as hard as we possibly can to give you the best

product that we can possibly give you. I don't know if the new ECW deserves

the credit for launching the careers of CM Punk and The Miz and

Sheamus, et cetera, et cetera, because...

Those were talents that were going to be launched within the system no matter

what. It just so happens that they were launched within this abomination of

a product called the new ECW.

If a legacy has to be attached to the new ECW, there is the one

bright light the project offers.

Besides the first one -night stand,

and Rob Van Dam versus John Cena in 2006.

But these talents were so extraordinary. They were going to become stars no

matter where you launched them.

It just so happens that the breeding ground was this diseased product that

needed to be put out of its own misery, and certainly put out of my misery as

well. Well, we've recreated the brand.

that we were trying to do a long time ago with ECW and the business model,

it's now a developmental system under Paula Beck, Triple H's leadership, is

turned into NXT, and so we've now created our own.

It's going to be talked about until the end of time, and I feel that's because

people love ECW so much. There were some good things about it. There were some

bad things about it.

But everything happens for a reason, and I was happy to be a part of it. I'm

happy to be a historical note in the sense of the only person to hold the

original ECW title and WWE's ECW title. I was happy that I got to be on

WrestleMania with my friends.

And it's almost like people forget the new ECW happened. It's just because they

want to remember it in the best of times as opposed to the worst of times.

I always say, I was in ECW. People try to correct me. No, you were. You were in

WWCW. Me?

Yeah. You know what? F**k it. I was in ECW.

The big thinker mindset attached to ECW doesn't work.

ECW was a revolution, indeed an evolution of the industry.

But when the rebel becomes the establishment, it's no longer the rebel.

It's the thing you rebel against.

We called this new promotion anything but ECW. It would have succeeded.

Look at the talent roster in and of itself. Look at the new stars that were

being introduced on this show. But because it had both the cachet and the

stigma of being ECW, there was no way it was ever going to work. ECW!

ECW! ECW!

We'll be right back.