Retired Legend Says WWE "Totally Blew" ECW Revival
One WWE stalwart believes Vince McMahon and others dropped the ball on ECW.
Gerald Brisco freely admits that WWE "totally blew" the ECW revival.
Speaking via his 'Stories With Brisco & Bradshaw' (JBL) podcast, Brisco conceded that Vince McMahon and other members of upper management fudged the chance to make a weekly ECW alternative work as part of WWE's ecosystem back in 2006.
He does think that things started off on the right foot for WWE's version of ECW though. Brisco said, "Our early TVs were really good ECW product". Then, problems started when McMahon decreed that the program needed to be "slicker" and more in line with what fans consumed on Raw and SmackDown.
ECW didn't need "slicker", and Gerald knew it.
Sadly, he also knew he (and others) would be powerless to stop Vince from getting his own way. McMahon owed the company, so his will was law. Gerald watched from the sidelines as WWE "just started messing with it" and turned ECW's unique atmosphere into a sanitised, corporate one.
From there, general fan interest faded and WWE could never reclaim it. Vince ended up killing his own ECW spin off in 2010, and it has never been seen since.