10 Wrestling Moments That Exploited Nostalgia (And Failed)
3. WWECW
The bloody, transgressive, authentic WWECW One Night Stand events were awesome: produced by the original visionary and performed by the original crew - in improbably decent knick - each event also made tremendous use of the WWE interlopers. Our intelligence was not insulted; they were framed as the enemy, a means of getting the originals over.
And then they had to spoil it all by doing something stupid like McMahon you.
Yes, because the resulting televised reboot was firmly in Vince McMahon's purview, the resulting televised reboot was another WWE show. Where the detestable Randy Orton was cunningly used to get new ECW roster member Kurt Angle over, in a lesser of two evils scenario, this strategy didn't extend to the Big Show Vs. Batista, who wrestled a "The road agent is hungover and tired" match in the hardcore fan mecca of the Hammerstein Ballroom. Those fans despised it, anticipating every patterned, cliched story beat, knowing to the second when to make their work almost comically futile.
From this early set of tapings forward, the nostalgia died.
CM Punk got over - he performed in the idiosyncratic mould of the original promotion, where he almost certainly would have worked if the timing were different - but WWECW was otherwise a sad waste of time. The arena setting compromised the aesthetic and the atmosphere, visualising the core issue behind the very pitch. The 'Originals' had peaked in ability and relevance.
It was, in general, staid product operated in total contravention to the original company: dispassionately under a obligation to a TV station.