No more ECW House Shows after November

[Crippla]

The Wrestling Observer is reporting that as of today, a decision has been made within WWE for no more ECW House Show events to take place after the end of November. The ECW brand will still have TV every week for "ECW on Sci Fi" and ECW wrestlers and feuds will likely continue on other House Show events.

This explains why scheduled ECW House Show events in December were pulled from WWE.com and ECW.com yesterday with no explanation given.

[Mercury Bullet]

This sounds like they're slowly pulling the plug on the whole thing.

[KingofOldSchool]

Probably, that or they just don't want to spend the extra money on additional house shows.

[Übermensch]

Yeah, I don't really see this as evidence of anything being pulled on ECW, considering they just got a TV deal through the end of 07.

[Kane Knight]

This sounds like they're slowly pulling the plug on the whole thing.Sounds like a mercy killing. :y:

[Extreme Angle]

they should of just stuck with the one night stand every year...

[Kane Knight]

Yeah, I don't really see this as evidence of anything being pulled on ECW, considering they just got a TV deal through the end of 07.

Well, pulling the house shows is the start of something, and having a TV deal through 07 doesn't mean they won't start wainding down.
Doesn't mean they will, either, but no longer doing house shows would be a good first step to ending the show.

I'm only saying this because the recent constant inrepromotion of Raw and Smackdown, while I understand it's for a PPV with interpromotional matches, just leaves me with the feeling the roster split is actually coming to an end at some point anyway.

[YOUR Hero]

It's most likely costing them more money to rent arenas, the travel, etc. than they are making $$ off tickets/concessions, etc.

[Übermensch]

Well, it looks like WWE just confirmed the reasoning.

ECW and SmackDown team up for live events
October 29, 2006

WWE officials have announced that as of Dec. 26, SmackDown Superstars and ECW Extremists will be touring together for live events. Officials say that this is a great opportunity for WWE and ECW fans alike to experience the unparalleled action of both brands combined

Sources say that WWE officials were concerned because the attendance at some of the ECW live events hasn’t been as strong as initially projected.

ECW representative Paul Heyman had the following response to these huge changes that will commence the day after Christmas.

“Well, it’s no secret that ECW does not have the resources that are available to RAW and SmackDown,” explained a frank Heyman. “We’re too early into the relaunch of the brand and you can’t expect ECW to perform at the same level as RAW and SmackDown without the same budget, personnel and man-power.”

He continued, “Therefore, in an effort to maximize the budget and give our ECW fans the most bang for their buck, we’re going to be combining live events with the SmackDown brand to bring the most star power, the most action-packed and the most main events available in one given night.”

http://www.wwe.com/inside/news/ecwsmackdownliveevents

[Kane Knight]

Meh with a capital M.

[Dorkchop]

ECW isn't meant for large arenas. I wish the WWE would stop trying to tell us otherwise.

Also no one's going to want to watch if it's the exact same crap they can see every Monday or Friday.

If a WWE house show came here again and it featured both Smackdown and ECW I wouldn't go. If there was an ECW house show coming here and not in a large arena I would consider going. But sadly, the latter is not gonna happen.

[Kane Knight]

ECW isn't meant to be a mainstream B-Company with too many cooks spoiling the broth, eithah.

[AdrianM]

I think it has good and bad things:

Good:
- At least ECW will draw more people because ppl will want to see the Smackdown house shows.
- Will get better exposure by a wider audience watching it.

Bad:
- Problem is, ECW is meant to be a more violent version of Smackdown and Raw, but Smackdown is meant more for a younger audience, therefore it will be toned down even further would think.


Overall, I think its awesome. Contrary to what Dorkchop said, if Smackdown/ECW came here (to Australia) I'd wanna get even better seats than I would if just Smackdown came here alone