10 Cancelled WWE Shows

In 2006, instead of creatively flattering Paul Heyman's 'House of Hardcore' as they had done with Shotgun Saturday Night, WWE - monopoly firmly in hand - simply resurrected it wholesale. Whereas in 1997 the company had hoped to jump onto the razor-spoked extreme bandwagon, just under a decade later they were hoping to cash in on its residual nostalgia.

And for a time, it worked. Two extremely successful ECW revival PPVs had convinced higher ups that there was value in the dormant brand, and so the decision was made to afford it its own show, airing weekly on Sci Fi, of all places.

Despite an obviously heightened production budget, the look and feel of the show was reminiscent of the Philly promotion just enough to convince fans this was a true homage. The wrestling on offer however, was not. Sure, there were old favourites RVD, Sabu, and The Sandman. But there was also a zombie. And a vampire. You know, just in case anyone was confused at to why wrestling was on a science fiction network.

To make matters worse, the Ed Wood extras were joined by a cavalcade of WWE 'superstars', making it patently clearly who was running the joint. It was an inauspicious start, to say the least.

Like Shotgun, WWE's ECW comeback gradually deviated further from its original remit, eventually ending up using the same universal staging as Raw and SmackDown and serving as nothing more than a tertiary brand. It was finally put out of its misery in 2010, replaced with NXT.

This... was extreme... ly bad.