Major ECW Future Changes/Plans

[PullMyFinger]

From PWInsider.com's news Hot News Hotline: A meeting was held before last night's Smackdown/ECW taping with Vince McMahon, Kevin Dunn, and Paul Heyman. The decision has been made to pretty much break away from all the old ECW characters, ideas, and style of booking. The new plan is to make the show a full fledged third C brand of the WWE. Vince McMahon was really let down by the reaction of the crowd at the ECW Arena house show, last week's 15% ratings drop, and the so far low ticket sales for the Smackdown/ECW tapings especially for the July 4th taping at the Wachovia Center. Those things were said to be huge factors in this decision. Paul Heyman now has even less control over the product while Tommy Dreamer has none. Heyman did script last night's show but alot of it was re-written by the WWE writers. Also for the first two weeks Heyman was in charge of running the shows backstage but that all changed last night as the show was ran pretty much like the usual for Raw and Smackdown. A decision has been made starting with last night's taping to only fly in the ECW wrestlers that are scripted to work on the show. Only for the house show events will the entire roster be flown in. Also the old ECW referees are expected to get the axe very soon like former ECW ring announcer Stephen D'angelous did last week.