One MIND-BLOWING Secret From Every WWE Royal Rumble

2007 - ECW’s Dismal Night

WWE rebooted ECW in 2006, and for once, fans were reasonable to expect Vince McMahon to do the unthinkable, and promote a brand of wrestling for a mature audience that felt different.

The 2005 and 2006 One Night Stand reunion events were incredible, surreal, actually authentic. They were also genuinely successful, hence why the decision was made to introduce ECW as a third brand proper. Surely, with this proof of concept established, Vince would allow Paul Heyman to get on with it, promoting the likes of CM Punk as guys who would have got over in the bingo hall as long-term replacements for the ageing originals.

Nope: you got zombies in big arenas, and the Big Show Vs. Batista receiving a foul-mouthed hijacking at the Hammerstein Ballroom. To put into perspective just how quickly Vince McMahon gave up on the idea of ECW as a credible brand worth following, consider the dire statistics of Royal Rumble 2007.

Not a single member of the ECW roster made the final eight, much less the final four, which was senseless. CM Punk’s involvement in the ECW title picture was obvious: why not use the Rumble to showcase him ahead of that challenge and run?

Moreover, deepening the stigma that ECW might as well have been Jakked, just one ECW act was booked to eliminate somebody from the Rumble match: Rob Van Dam tossed Chris Masters.

A few ECW guys were involved in the classic “multiple wrestlers toss out the big lad” spot, when in tandem with a few others CM Punk, Van Dam, Hardcore Holly, and Kevin Thorn dumped Viscera - but that hardly counts.