ECW News (Page 15)

RAW this week drew a 3.4 first hour rating and a 3.7 second hour rating, with a 3.9 overrun and a 3.6 overall average.

The numbers grew consistently until the McMahons' interview ended and the three-way tag match aired.

On Tuesday night, meanwhole, ECW drew a 2.1 rating, up from last week's 1.9 rating, but below the overall average for the show.

The ratings grew throughout the show, beginning at a 1.8 and closing with an overrun rating of 2.4 when DX took on The Big Show.

It's nice to know the WWE has SOME moral line it feels badly about crossing.

Vince McMahon issued an apology for a remark Matt Striker made regarding Steve Irwin's death on Tuesday's ECW show.

"We at WWE apologize for the remark alluding to the death of Steve Irwin which was made on ECW on Sci Fi Tuesday night. The remark was, in the least, disrespectful to Mr. Irwin's fans and family," McMahon said on WWE.com Thursday.

Thank goodness. The insult was out of line.

During a promo in which he distanced himself from "dumb jocks," Striker said that fans would never catch him swimming with stingrays, referencing a the way in which Irwin died.

With ECW drawing strong ratings, the Sci-Fi channel has agreed on a deal that will keep the extreme brand on national TV through at least December, 2007.

Needless to say, Paul Heyman is a bit happy about that.

“This extension means that we now have the ability to think long term. What do we envision for Big Show at WrestleMania? The twists for RVD, Sandman and Sabu. When will C.M. Punk be put to the test? Who are the next breakout stars that have yet to debut on ECW?," Heyman said.

"In the original ECW, Sabu vs. Tazz was the number-one storyline for 18 months, and they never touched each other until our first pay-per-view. We had the luxury of long-term planning. Now, we finally have that luxury again, to take the time to tell these kinds of epic stories.”

Right now, ECW on Sci-Fi is just a one-hour show. Heyman fully supports that frame for now ... but woudn't be adverse to adding another hour, of course.

“I love the one-hour format because it’s different,” said Sabu's recent opponent. “It’s so fast paced. You’re just slurping down your first beverage when the main event is headed to the ring. I would also love to see a 75 or 90 minute offering of ECW as well, but if they told me tomorrow, ‘we are going to two hours’, we’d be ready.

"It would give us more time for longer matches, more characters like C.M. Punk to introduce, more time to explain the background of legends like Sabu, Sandman and Tommy Dreamer. But right now, one-hour is a god-send. It sure beats marketing only the memories. Now, we’re creating new moments, new characters and new memories. This is a fantasy come true.”

How well has ECW been doing on the Sci-Fi channel in its brief return back to the airways so far? Well enough to have the channel issue a press release, praising the success.

The following must make Paul Heyman proud ...

Extreme Championship Wrestling On SCI FI Is #1 In Households On Tuesday, August 15th

New York - ECW has remained consistent throughout its summer run, averaging a 2.3 household rating, ranking as one of SCI FI's highest rated weekly programs. It has consistently been one of the top-rated programs in primetime on Tuesday among male teens and one of the top-rated cable programs in households.

In its 10 week run, ECW has been among the top three rated primetime programs on ad-supported cable television five times since its premiere on June 12, 2006.

The ECW premiere has brought more than 1.8 million new viewers to the SCI FI Channel. 43 percent of ECW's premiere audience had not watched the SCI FI Channel during the prior four weeks.

Now that his baby, ECW, is sort of back, how does Paul Heyman feel about the brand? The creator of extreme professional wrestling recently sat down with The Poughkepsie Journal and talked about this brand revival, among other topics.

On ECW''s audience: "The biggest star in ECW was always the audience and the crowd in Poughkeepsie never let us down. What appealed to me about Poughkeepsie was they always had a great history of delivering a great TV audience in WWE. We would have done more there, had we stayed in business.

You had people coming from Albany, White Plains and across the river, over the Mid-Hudson Bridge. It was a rabid crowd and a great audience."

On his role in the new ECW: "I thought it was great closure. It was a night everyone waited five years for. But people wouldn't stop buying the DVDs, the books, the t-shirts. It became this huge domino effect. It's far different. Before I was the sole proprietor. I was doing the creative and I was taking creative input from everybody, whether it was the top star or the janitor.
Here, it's a huge corporation and as lead writer, the buck stops with Vince McMahon. I organize all the pitches and the concepts, but it's much different. It's much more a large entertainment conglomerate than eccentric and personality-driven."

On working with Vince McMahon: "It's an interesting clash of two eccentric personalities with two totally different takes on the business, but who respect each other's visions. Familiarity breeds contempt. I think Vince got too familiar with me."

On why ECW cannot be just a nostalgia show: "You really need to help people understand that this can't be a nostalgia show. It's great to go to Yankee Stadium for Old Timers' Day. It does great business one day a year. But nobody wants to see Stan Musial step up to the plate. They want to see A-Rod. Well, maybe not how he's hitting today.

But they want to see the A-Rods, the Mike Piazzas, the Johnny Damons. Once a year, it's wonderful. But presenting these guys as though it were still 1999 is not going to happen."

On C.M. Punk: "You have to look into the eyes of a guy like C.M. Punk. Five years down the road, this is the guy that stands in Rob Van Dam's and Sabu's and Kurt Angle's shoes. The groundwork from today has to be laid for tomorrow."

For the first time since One Night Stand in June, ECW will host its own pay-per-view event in a couple months.

Prepare yourself, fans, for a December To Dismember. It will be held on December 3 at the Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center in Augusta, Georgia. Die hards will recall that this will be the second-ever ECW PPV in Georgia, after 1998’s WrestlePalooza.

It's obviously way too early to have any spoilers for the event or any idea about what will be on the card. But it says here The Big Show will still be champion and Sabu will defeat him for the title in the main event.

The new ECW resembles the old WWE.

It made little enough sense when Vince McMahon called out The Big Show to help during SummerSlam - how, exactly, can the WWE chairman order around an ECW wrestler?!?

Now, two more WWE stars guys have changed brans. At last night's ECW house show in Altoona, PA, fans got a suprise when Hardcore Holly of Smackdown, along with and Raw superstar Matt Striker, made their debut for the new version of Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Holly, who is just coming back after a life-threating injury, worked as a heel against Balls Mahoney, picking up the victory with the Alabama Slam.

Striker, who has been in a semi-feud with Rob Conway lately on Heat, was the MC of the "Best Body" contest between Francine & Kelly Kelly.

There's no word on why these changes were made, aside from Vince seeming to wish to confuse fans as much as possible.