HUGE ECW NEWS

I am sure that all of you know by now that ECW is making it's comeback to a full time, once a week show. Well, early news was that ECW was going to come back full time this September, but that has been moved way up. More on that later.

WWE has been very happy with the job Paul Heyman has been doing since he took over the writing at OVW when Jimmy Cornette left. Paul, who DOES NOT get along with Stephanie McMahon, was writing for Smackdown before OVW, and the two clashed constantly over storylines and ideas. So Stephanie stayed on at Smackdown while Paul went to OVW and took the promotion in a whole other direction, to a resounding success.

Word started to spread about ECW coming forth as it's own brand, and Rob Van Dam, who won the money in the bank match all but promised that he was going to use it at this years "One Night Stand" PPV. However, with the rebirthing of ECW, it will be interesting to see if Rob does challenge for a belt because he is coming on board as one of the major stars of ECW. Taking a belt from either Smackdown or RAW would mean that either the two brands, Smackdown and Raw, will be ran as one again, or they will have to come up with another world title belt. I think a more likely scenario would see ECW resurrecting it's own World Title and RVD doing the honors for it. But then, how does Rob utilize his MITB contract?


As far as when it will be aired, the talk is that ECW, for the time being, will take over the Velocity slot that can be seen at WWE.com. This June USA Network will have a Saturday night/Sunday morning slot at 2 am. But it is important to note that these are just "leaked" rumors, and have yet o be confirmed.

As of right now the following stars HAVE SIGNED long term deals with WWE to be a part of ECW. They are: Sandman, Francine, Danny Doring, Tony Mamaluke, Sabu, Jazz, Axl Rotten, Balls Mahoney, Tommy Dreamer, Al Snow, CW Anderson and Cm Punk. All of these stars, with the exception of CM Punk who was a standout star with Ring Of Honor and a short stint with TNA, are old ECW alumnus. Rob Van Dam, being the one of the major stars, they base things around. Young, but promising, stars from OVW will be brought up to ECW. Of course, Raven, Spike, D Von and Bubba Ray Dudley, Shane Douglas and Jerry Lynn are all ECW alumnus, but are under contract to TNA, so they won't be on board in the beginning. But who knows what the future holds? Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer are going to be left alone to do the writing for ECW, as well as the booking, and so far, with the names of the superstars listed above as already on board, it is thought that maybe the Cruiserweights from Smackdown will find a new home in ECW.

As for announcing. This could not have come at a better time for Joey Styles because his announcing wasn't up to par for RAW standards, so they were going to axe him anyway. However, with ECW coming back, he will be the announcer for them, therefore keeping him employed in the wrestling arena. It will just be interesting, because in the old ECW he did play by play post production work, he commentated the matches from a tape, and not live. However, he did call ECW's PPV's all by himself, so I don't know how much of his old style will return. On the Raw side I already reported to you that Jim Ross will be back at the announcers table this coming RAW with the King, Jerry Lawler. They sent Coach off to do other things, in mostly character roles, THANK GOD!

On June 24th WWE will launch "WWE Presents ECW", from the old ECW arena/bingo hall, with weekly house shows to follow thereafter. The tenative timeline for this brand extension is as follows, USA will have a two hour special on June 7th which will set up more of the "One Night Stand" PPV to happen on the 11th, and set further storylines for ECW's future. Then on the 24th is the "WWE Presents ECW" will kick off the full time ECW show as it's promotion, but interestingly enough, WWE wants everyone to know that they are still the parent company of ECW, kind of squashing the renegade flavor I thought they would have if they kept it totally separate, except on paper.

NEWS COURTESY OF BELLAONLINE.