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ECW & TNN - TWO WEEKS OF HARD CORE HELL
I'm gonna go off on a rant here (apologies to Scott Keith who, I believe, has
trademarked the word rant). Before I do this I want anyone who reads this to
know that I want ECW to succeed and succeed big-time. A lot of people whose
opinion I respect at 1wrestling.com, Wrestleline and elsewhere have me believing
that Paul Heyman is a guy who, very much like Vince, has it in him to rewrite
the rules and therefore the history of wrestling. That said, I'll be upfront
honest and tell you that I think the WWF is great and compelling television --
and ratings tell me that I'm not alone. ECW is competing in THAT ball park now
-- not on syndicated local television against local promotions in the middle of
the night. If that makes me a WWF mark, so be it. There's worse things to be
right now...
Corporate Time-Warner/WeCan'tWin has become a waste and will likely remain so
until some of the dead wood at the top can drift downstream. Giving Benoit the
strap at Nitro next Monday would be a start and might jumpstart the program for
a few weeks. I think that Vince and the WWF need the competition to stay sharp
and let's face it,
everybody wins when two or three feds are trying to one-up each other.
Here's what I think after having seen two TNN shows. Rip on this at will. I
haven't copied any of this out from Meltzer or anyone else. I actually had it in
the back of my head to do a weekly recap but I have shelved that for now for
reasons which will become apparent. All opinions are my own even if I agree here
and there with the Lords of Wrestling (tm).
I will preface this by saying I've never seen the syndicated ECW shows so my
only exposure to the product has been on a couple of PPV's (one good and one
suckfest) and their two TNN shows. I suspect that for the average Internet
wrestling fan, I'm likely typical in that -- Here goes:
1. TOO MANY commercials. TNN would help itself and ECW by giving about 3 or 4
minutes back to the show until it's better established. Right now the show is
getting buried in the clutter. This is TNN's problem to solve.
2. I do NOT need to see ANY single commercial 5 times in one hour much less the
Kevin Nash "I've got Monster Truck Madness" commercial. Also TNN's problem.
Could be partially solved by re-reading and acting on point 1.
3. I don't like replays during matches even though I know they're editing around
things so you won't miss anything. "There's a spot, and here's another
spot...Let's interrupt the match and look at that spot again...oh, my God!..."
Don't like it here or anywhere else. Put the replays at the end of the match.
Don't disrupt the flow. ECW's
problem.
4. I understand the folks in the audience are having a good time but the show
actually just stops dead during the chanting in talk segments. It's already
gotten old for me and is terrible television -- especially for a show that
doesn't really have a second to waste. Simple introductions take several minutes
while the audience chants "ECW ECW" and "New York City" or whatever. What it
amounts to at this point is the audience getting itself over at the expense of
the promotion and the show. That said, I think a hot audience is a fine thing
during actual wrestling matches but last Friday I thought they were GETTING IN
THE WAY of actual wrestling matches. I haven't a clue as to how anyone would fix
this or even if they want to but I would suggest that for a show that's already
a little short on time they could reclaim another minute or two by addressing
this somehow. Another real distraction from what should be the focus. ECW's
problem.
5. Production values are just OK so far... nowhere near even WCW quality much
less the WWF. ECW still looks like a local promotion and I'm not sure that ECW
can afford that this day and age. Vince and his production people have seriously
raised the bar on what a wrestling show can look like -- much to WCW's detriment
and now maybe ECW's. ECW doesn't have to look THAT good but they shouldn't look
like amateurs either. I suspect that if you want to pull big-time numbers (let's
say greater than 2.5 on cable) you're going to have to look like a
big-time promotion -- I could be dead wrong on this one, though it wouldn't hurt
ECW to use camera angles and lighting that suggest that the hall is bigger than
it actually is. Time will tell. ECW's problem but TNN should be able to help
with production assistance if
necessary.
6. Too much talking so far (especially the 2nd show) and not enough of what ECW
is supposed to be good at which is guys breaking their collectives asses to put
on a good show. I saw the JL/RVD match on the first show but since that was
broken up twice by commercials any flow was pretty much destroyed and it just
became a TV spotfest. One break in a match is bad enough, two is unacceptable.
ECW's problem - they can fix this by realizing that they are now on supposed
big-time network television and book accordingly so that a show has some flow
and makes sense.
7A. ECW may have already lost its niche to the WWF since they have admittedly
borrowed (stolen) heavily from ECW and then ramped it up a bunch (see notes on
production values above). WWF can be as extreme as it wants or needs to be with
USA's blessing and look great while doing it. For further reference, see women's
hard core match on Monday's RAW. ECW's problem.
7B. ECW, so far, comes off looking like a minor league version of the WWF. It
doesn't help that during the talk fest of the second show most of the talk was
highly complimentary of the WWF. To survive on TV, it doesn't matter who was
actually there first - it's more important who got it on TV first in front of
the millions.....and millions... ECW's problem but one they can beat by being
innovative. Concentrate on your own product while you're getting established and
don't mention the competition at all. Set yourselves apart from them. Show me
why you're different enough that I'll devote another night to watching wrestling
on television. If ECW is so great then why did all these guys leave is a fair
question a viewer might ask? Graduated to the real big-time might be the obvious
answer and that's NOT the answer that's going to help ECW. ECW's problem.
8. We'll see about Gertner. Actually, I like Joey Styles just fine by himself.
Nobody's problem, just a comment.
9. Lose the videos for a while and introduce the talent by letting them wrestle.
If they're that good, let ME see it. I haven't really yet. For a small company
trying to introduce itself, I would have expected to see more work from more
people than I have so far. The videos will be fine later once ECW and its new
audience are one happy family. ECW's problem.
10. I'm happy that Raven's happy but to devote a good portion of the second show
to the Dudley/Dreamer angle and then have Raven show up without explaining the
back story was a waste. It just reeked of what I was talking about above in that
it was shouting "We're just like them, We're just like them!" If ECW wants me to
think that they are just like the WWF and WCW I'll eventually find something
else to do on Friday nights and I suspect a lot of other people will, too. The
sad thing is they're not at all like WCW so why bring up the comparison. Those
that know, know...those that don't probably didn't get it. ECW's problem.
11. Wrestling might be overexposed and ECW is the straw that breaks the camel's
back or ... (everybody's problem)
12. Friday night may just suck for a wrestling program on television and ratings
may never get that good. People may not have the patience to sit through Raw on
Monday, taped Nitro on Tuesday (if it was any good), Smackdown on Thursday, ECW
on Friday (I think I might want a night out about now...) etc. etc. (TNN and
ECW's problem).
In ECW's favor, the Internet contains a large group of people who are reasonably
smart about the business and more than casually interested. These folks are
generally known to advertisers as "early adopters" and right now they really
want to see ECW hit a home run and give it every possible chance. Early adopters
can help a product to succeed (because they are willing to pay $1000+ for the
first DVD players) since they are the ones who start good or bad "word of mouth"
but if the early adopters don't like something, well, you've got another Divx on
your hands.
In all of the past week's discussion about the "power of the Internet" I have
yet to see an intelligent analysis on how early adopters affect the marketplace.
Early adopters will never get the show a 3 rating by themselves but through word
of mouth and subsequent good press they can move more of the marketplace than
one would think. Those that criticize the power of the Internet by pointing at
ECW's initial ratings miss the point -- totally.
If the early adopters (like me) who are seeing ECW for the first time on a
regular basis, are given a reason to watch the program TNN and ECW will likely
do just fine. If not, 15 months from now, this will be the great experiment that
failed.
To sum up, ECW has about 37-40 minutes a week after intro's and commercials to
get themselves over. This goes out to an audience that is clearly getting tired
of the glacial pace of 3 hours of Nitro and seems to be quite happy and used to
the two hour length of RAW (even if they don't like the program, I haven't heard
anyone complaining about the length). I think ECW needs to get a sharper focus
on wrestling and tailor their TV matches for television (what a concept) so that
stories, however brief, can get told coherently without a bunch of
interruptions-in-the-middle-of-important-business. Let Styles and Gertner fill
in on back story for now or better yet, start fresh and build new stuff as you
go.
Somehow, they need to provide a really compressed show that delivers the
emotional/markout/humorous impact of Raw and Smackdown in a little under 40
minutes a week. And keep in mind that they need to do it pretty quickly as a lot
of people will not come back 14 times to see if they're getting it right. I
think that they've largely wasted two weeks already. If they are still rumbling
around in the low 1's in December I think they're in trouble. And that would be
a shame because somebody really needs to shake up WCW and ECW could do it.
Byl Strother
freelance
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