Controversy: One of the worst pay-per-views of all-time; Vince McMahon may have changed his mind about Paul Heyman and ECW because of it If we're being honest with ourselves, WWE's version of ECW was never going to be a success with Vince McMahon being the man who ultimately made the decisions. Like he did with the WCW "invasion", Vince was set on incorporating many of his own wrestlers into the ECW "brand", even if they had nothing to do with the original promotion or had no real connection to the "hardcore" style. Going in to the pay-per-view, there wasn't a whole lot of excitement. The overall card looked horrible, with many names that had no business being in pay-per-view matches being featured. That lack of excitement translated into only 90,000 orders, which was a record low for WWE that lasted until the WWE Network arrived to kill off the pay-per-view model altogether. The biggest news coming out of the event was the firing of Paul Heyman, who was running the ECW creative team at the time. Vince was upset at how poor the show was, and the numbers that came from it, so he sent Heyman home after spending weeks clashing with him. Heyman wanted to book CM Punk to win the ECW Title in the Extreme Elimination Chamber main event, but Vince was set on Bobby Lashley winning the title. Vince felt that the fans would react well to Lashley's win, while Heyman continuously told him that fans would reject Lashley, especially when his win came at the expense of fan-favorite Punk. Lashley got the win, and sure enough, fans didn't react, but Vince still put the blame on Heyman's shoulders. It showed just how different the viewpoints of McMahon and Heyman really are.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
