ECW's place in the WWE's ever-changing world

Happy New Year to everyone reading. I hope everyone had a great holiday season, but now, it's back to business.

The WWE is heading in a very interesting creative direction when it comes to booking talent, establishing matches, preparing for pay-per-view events, and maintaining their spot at the top of the food chain. On Raw, the plan is to fully maximize the potential of the "guest host" position. While doing so, the move is to place two polarizing entities, D-X and Hornswoggle, together to maintain entertainment from the general masses. Also, moves have been made to promote new talent that either the fans would want to see on top (Kofi Kingston) or talent that gets great reviews with the pundits (Sheamus). All that, plus the WWE is taking interesting measure to keep John Cena in certain situations where he won't do anything to affect the buyrates or ratings negatively, like battling in the middle of the card or not even doing anything on a show. On Smackdown, the plan is to try and maximize the amount of wrestling done on the show with various stars making their plays at being top stars. Some of the things you see on Raw are being seen on SD (talent being liked by the pundits getting over). There has been some talk about making SD as interesting as Raw with something like a guest host. Also, a lot of stars that were big in early to mid 2009 are not so much anymore, while stars that weren't are (see C.M. Punk's fall to the mid-card, and Rey's rise to the main event...again...as long as Batista is there). Throw in the Undertaker's reign of terror and that's SD in a nutshell. So, where does this leave ECW? That part is fairly easy. See, ECW's place is on the chopping block. ECW's plan is to die....or at least take a severe blow so irreparable that it enters a virtual coma.

The writing was on the wall for quite some time now. In fact, the rumor mill had been working hard to dig up this dirt and let the world know ECW's fate. Due to its middling ratings, its lack of support from WWE officials, and now, its non-existent connection to the original ECW, ECW has to go. It has to be done away with, once and for all. The evidence of this being the case has never been more evident than what took place on December 29, 2009 at approximately 11:00 P.M. It was at that moment that the ECW we see on Tuesdays can no longer be considered a part of ECW's actual legacy. It was the moment when Tommy Dreamer's WWE career had ended.

Along the lines of kayfabe, Tommy Dreamer had been challenged by Zack Ryder to a match. If Dreamer couldn't win the match, he'd leave ECW and the WWE for good. Dreamer failed to win, and his career was over at the aforementioned time. In reality, Dreamer had admitted to stating that he asked for his release from the WWE. In other words, he was quitting the WWE. This was the same Tommy Dreamer that had already signed a new contract with the WWE last year after declaring that if he couldn't win the ECW title, he'd be finished with wrestling. In truth, he pulled this little creative coup in order to salvage what was left of his WWE/ECW career and instill some value it. He thought he could get Vince's attention and make himself an important and precious commodity once again. Did he succeed? Well, he won the ECW title, defended it a few times, and ultimately lost it to Christian. After this, Dreamer was virtually absent from anything ECW-related. Sure, he'd pop up on WWE superstars, but that wasn't the ECW brand, that was the Superstars show for all brands. It finally dawned on Dreamer that, despite his best efforts, there was little the WWE was going to do to push him, so, the decision came to leave while anyone still cared. So, Tommy Dreamer said his heartfelt goodbyes, with his wife and kids in the arena sharing his feelings. He left his ECW t-shirt in the ring, and departed to the back with his kids to most likely introduce them to the locker room. Thus, the last remaining piece of ECW's original legacy had departed, leaving the ECW brand an even emptier, hollower, shell and a fading shadow of the original upstart organization that promoted and ushered change into the wrestling world.

What made this version of ECW still remotely logical and even palpable to a point was that it still had three main proponents of the original ECW, albeit altered by the WWE and its officials. This version had ECW's mind, body, and soul. Its mind was Paul Heyman, its body was the ECW originals that went with the flow just to keep the soul of ECW alive, and its soul was the resilience the ECW originals had despite all adversity against it. This ECW lost the mind when Paul Heyman was relieved of his duties and subsequently fired. It lost most of its body when virtually every original from RVD to Joey Styles had quit, was fired, or was promoted to another branch of the WWE, with the exception of Tommy Dreamer. Dreamer became the embodiment and the soul of ECW when he was the last man standing. When Dreamer left, gone was the body and the soul. Now, the ECW you see before you as of Jan. 5th, 2010, is no more than a pale, lifeless, imitation that one wouldn't dare hawk at a trade show. With that in mind, and trust me, the WWE has this in mind, there's no better time than now to put an end to ECW, once and for all. As for Dreamer's departure, well, that's just the beginning.

The next move is to somehow devalue the ECW title. Enter the ECW homecoming (I'll talk more about this in 2 weeks on 1/17). Apparently, it has become a novel idea to involve former ECW brand members from Raw and Smackdown in qualifying matches for a battle royal to see who gets a shot at the ECW champion, Christian, at WWE Royal Rumble 2010. Now, I could go on and on about why this idea has no merit (again, see me in 2 weeks), but I think the most obvious element of surprise to consider here is the possibility of a star from another brand winning the ECW title. All they need to do after that, other than beating the former champ again in his rematch, is either fight another champ in a unification match on that brand, or somehow devalue the ECW title in one of various ways (throwing it in the trash, retiring it, or whatever non-canonical idea the WWE can come up with to eliminate the belts value)

The final move, although it's avoidable, but it would be useful, is the usurping of the ECW GM position. If not that, then somehow, ECW G.M. Tiffany loses power (maybe due to a Vince McMahon crazed power trip) and someone else comes in to fill the spot. Then again, that would be counter-productive to WWE's plan to destroy ECW, so just have her lose power, have some sort of martial law declared, and watch ECW dwindle into obscurity, either through a series of matches with other brands for supremacy, in which ECW loses, or a series of farewell matches in a retrospective form or matches where the winner or winners get to go to any brands of their choice. It seems convoluted, I know, but it's something to help tie up loose ends. However, knowing the WWE and its writers and officials, they will probably just cut off ECW as if nothing happened, start a new brand of sorts with the same mentality of putting over new stars, and go about their business, as if ECW was just a footnote.

The WWE is making preparations to change the landscape once again. However, the changes made are different per brand, while there are some similarities. Raw's motive is to maximize the guest host position, while putting over new stars by having them battle old, established stars, while somehow balancing the main event with both the old and the new. Smackdown's motive is to employ a more wrestling-based approach to the latter part of Raw's motive, instead of incorporating various forms of entertainment like a guest host, although the idea is still on the table. ECW's motive is simple: to cease existence. The WWE can't use it, Vince McMahon never wanted it, and the value of it has plummeted to nothing. There's no connection to the old and original. There's no reason why the show should even be called ECW anymore. The ratings are poor, the writing is sub-par, and the matches, although well-wrestled at times, are glossed over due to the public's general malaise towards the brand either because no major stars they know are on it, or because they know how much of a mockery it is to consider this as ECW. This show is slightly better, ratings-wise, than Superstars, and is now barely comparable to other wrestling shows that can compare to it. The first shot was fired through Tommy Dreamer's retirement. The next moves may very well be in place. Don't be surprised if, by Wrestlemania's return, ECW is as extinct as....well.....good character development.