8 WWE Reboots That Failed Horribly
2. ECW
In 2006, Vince McMahon made the decision to resurrect Extreme Championship Wrestling in the shape of a weekly TV show, on the back of the success of the 'One Night Stand' event in 2005. Now, nobody expected World Wrestling Entertainment to start producing a show that was indistinguishable from the original ECW, but what was produced sucked the last drops of blood from the long dead extreme corpse.
Old school fans turned on the product in record time, booing Batista and Big Show out of the building in a main event between the two in the Hammerstein Ballroom. A conveyor belt of zany characters and way-past-it ECW 'originals' clogged up the show, meaning we actually saw matches such as Balls Mahoney vs. Kevin Thorn on WWE-produced TV.
There were many positives from the rebooted ECW though. CM Punk was introduced to WWE audiences, John Morrison and The Miz came together on the show and Zack Ryder began to resurrect his career. To a degree.
Still, the ECW reboot was a failure.