The Straightshot- Extreme Nonsense

THE STRAIGHTSHOT- Extreme Nonsense
(By "The Straightshooter" Greg Andrews)


Kevin Nash claimed recently that he'd hate to see TNA Impact go up against WWE Smackdown because as he says, "It would be like beating up a guy with one leg."

If Smackdown has one leg, how many does ECW have?

The old ECW used to be a guilty pleasure, the 'new' ECW is corporal punishment.

We should have known ECW wouldn't work with Vince McMahon running it when we heard he was concerned about how it was lit. We are one hundred episodes in and there still hasn't been much worth illuminating.

Yes, ECW has given us C.M Punk, against all odds and despite the McMahon directive that all wrestlers resemble Greek statues, Punk has shown us what he can do with even the smallest bit of opportunity.

But, that's where the success ends.

You know things are bad when your one hundredth episode show offers past 'highlights' of wretched times now considered fond memories of better days.

ECW is a dump site, a last stop depot before oblivion. Kane, Big V, Chavo and Dreamer are all in the winter of their careers, wrestling now for the residuals from another brand in which an action figure will be made. Miz, Morrison and Punk's time in ECW will be forgotten quicker than the Chris Benoit tribute show, Shelton Benjamin will be sleepwalking through TNA this time next year and I'm not saying Kofi Kingston is the 21st century SD Jones, but he might want to learn to shoot a few rounds off from his fingers during his ring introductions.

But let's suppose that ECW's talent roster gets equipped with the horses to make a go of it. Mike Adamle will snuff them out 8 Belles style as somewhere David Crockett expels a sigh of relief like Tim Robbins after crawling out of the sewer pipe in Shawshank. Adamle might be the most out of place person to appear on a wrestling broadcast since Liberace. Only in WWE can a 58 year old man replace a 36 year old man and be called the future.

Sometimes I consider whether selling out my morals and values for a buck is worth it, then I look at the grim expression of doom stuck on THE Tazz' visage each week and I know no amount of money would ever be enough. He knows what we all know, that we are watching the Pet Sematary version of ECW coming back from the grave, distorted and unstable, killing off anyone who ever loved them.

Vince McMahon is very good at creating his own product, or at least one time he used to be. However, when given a WCW or an ECW, he destroys them because in McMahon's mind, the idea that something created outside his dominion, even if he now controls it, can succeed is incomprehensible to him. Instead, McMahon attempts to incorporate what worked for him into things that only worked because they were unlike what he was doing. The result ends up the WCW Invasion, and the current ECW.

The question is, can things in ECW improve?

It seems highly unlikely that ECW will ever find success in any form other than something close to what it was in its hey(man) days. In the current TV landscape and with WWE being a publically traded company with an image they are just now learning they have to toss out racists to uphold, the possiblity that crucifixions, staple guns and slashing arteries of fans turned wrestlers is remote, unless of course Triple H wants to do it, in which case you'll see it three segments a week for the rest of your life.

The vanilliazation of ECW is an all too honest portrayal of where television and society as a whole is right now, where uninspired work mixes with safe, repetitive themes that allow the spectator to feel as if they are moving freely through changing times when in reality they just keep passing the same pile of rocks like Fred and Barney headed to a Water Buffalo Lodge meeting.

ECW has joined a long list of TV programs that follow the current trend of being something to watch, rather than something to enjoy, a spectacle more in the model of a car accident than contribution to the betterment of the human condition. I can imagine there are millions of incensed Sci-Fi fans out there that see ECW taking up an hour every week that could be devoted to Battlestar Galactica or at least Robot Chicken. But as we have all encountered at one time or another as TV viewers, shows we feel for often get yanked and replaced by displays of asinine behavior that make people feel nothing.

The new ECW makes us feel nothing. At first, it's assault on everything held dear about the old ECW did inspire fury and hostility. Now, there has been so much punishment, so much destroyed, there is nothing left to feel.

This is the apocolyptic, new reality of pro wrestling that many saw coming in 2000. A reality that Vince McMahon controls, shapes and creates in any fashion he deems necessary. He doesn't care that ECW has been bastardized and turned into a televised, flea market quality, independent show. His company is making more money than ever (largely due to marketing his product to untapped countries) and so Vince McMahon sees no reason why anything has to change.

So, for now we'll continue to see lethargic crowds only there to see Smackdown, treating ECW like a series of dark matches to stand at the concession line through. At home, we'll be forced to watch the ongoing adventures of Colin Delaney, the human crash test dummy, take a beating each week even Superman would take a few moments to collect himself after, and we'll see Tazz, who once was the face of rebellion, hide behind ever-widening sunglasses that will never be quite dark enough to shield him from the disgrace of a company he now pretends hasn't become what he always abhorred.

A joke.



(Questions, comments or thoughts? Send them to straightshooter72@hotmail.com)



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