actually the original ECW did have quite a few talented wrestlers. Shane Douglas, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit (who?), 2 Cold Scorpio, Rob Van Dam, Lance Storm, Chris Candido, The Eliminators, Taz, Raven, etc.
the thing was, they were booked to their strengths and allowed to actually wrestle. just as guys like Sandman, Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, Brian Lee, Bam Bam Bigelow, The Gangstas, The Dudleys, and so on were booked to their strengths and allowed more brawling/hardcore/holy shit moments.
the key was the booking as Heyman knew how to book to people's strengths and cover up their weaknesses, where as most of the booking in the E over the last several years seems like it's geared more towards covering up what people are good at and exposing their weak points.
I didnt say there was no talented wrestlers,
no, you just
implied it. if that was not your intent, then your wording was poor.
as I fully agree that the likes of Storm, Jericho and Benoit etc were incredibly talented, but guys mostly associated with ECW were the extreme guys.
As you say, Heyman was never gonna book Sandman in a technical wrestling match cause it would never work.
When WWECW started, the bulk of the "originals" signed were the extreme guys, and they were forever being booked in non-extreme matches.
Is it any wonder they ended up looking so bad?
Most of the more talented wrestlers (and by that, I dont mean to say guys like Dreamer and Sandman etc are not talented, I'm talking more about pure wrestling talent) obviously used ECW as a stepping stone to get to what was considered the big leagues (WWF/WCW).
My main point though is that there is actually a lot of decent talent on the current ECW roster, and by using the old ECW formula, it could actually be great.
The failing is not because of who's on the roster, but the booking!
no, much like the other E programs it's a combination of poor booking and lack of talent.
Its easy to look back at the old ECW and remember how many big names were in it, but its easy to forget that at the time, most of them were not actually big names.
if you have good booking, you can make your own names. Austin, Rock, and Foley were not big names when they came into the E, but through a combination of booking, talent, and hard work they made themselves into big names.
