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One of the many reasons I fell in love with ECW. If ever a promotion had a perfect blend of wrestling, it was them. They had crazy ass hardcore brawls usually involving New Jack, Sandman, Dudley's, Dreamer, Balls & Axl, etc. Crazy spot matches like New Jack's balcony dive, Sabu, RVD, the cruiser weights. And a collection of wrestling classics, anything involving Guerrero, Malenko, & Benoit, RVD vs Jerry Lynn, the 6-man tag at their first PPV, Lance Storm, Shane Douglas, Scorpio etc. etc. Along with the best promo's, The Dudley's for instance, Lance Storm and Justin Credible were great towards the end of their run, Shane Douglas etc.
Heyman is a friggin genious, and in my humble and honest opinion, could build people up like no other booker/promoter in the history of the business. Like the DVD said, he made the absolute best out of people's positives and hid their negatives, and it's absolutely true.
As has been said, a strictly traditional wrestling show would not work. And the instance you pointed out of Savage vs Steamboat is moot, that was one match on the card that was "technical". That's exactly what we still have, there's normally one MAYBE two matches per PPV card that are for the technical wrestling fan.
Austin and Foley didn't ruin anything. Austin was there for the brawling and main storyline, Foley was there for the hardcore factor, both essential parts to a wrestling show (these days and back in '98). It wasn't like there were NO technical matches from 1998. The Rock vs Triple H at Fully Loaded immediately jumps to mind.
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