10 Times WWE Gave Us Something Awesome (...And Immediately RUINED It)

3. WWE ECW’s Weekly TV

Vince McMahon CM Punk Rey Mysterio
WWE.com

Paul Heyman deserves immense praise for hiding the weaknesses of his roster during the original ECW days. Acts like The Sandman, Tommy Dreamer and more played to their strengths, and the cult-like devotion of the group's (literally) hardcore following got people talking.

Following back-to-back One Night Stand specials, WWE decided to revive ECW full-time as a third brand behind Raw and SmackDown in 2006. Many had doubts about Vince McMahon's ability to book an extreme product people wanted to see, and rightly so - the debut edition laid bare McMahon's vision for a WWE-ified version.

Rotten gimmicks like "The Zombie" and other supernatural silliness (booked solely because the show was on the old Sci-Fi channel) disturbed high hopes for an ECW comeback. The weekly was ECW in name only, and eventually turned into a show similar to old 'C' level programming like Heat or Velocity.

Then, in 2010, Vince took it off the air for good.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.