Casualities of ECW: A Look at the WWE's Midcard Six Months after Their Midcard Show Went off the Air

The letters "ECW" have been in the wrestling news for a good couple of months now, given all the attention TNA has lavished upon the original entity (although they can't legally string those three letters together without the WWE slapping them with a cease-and-desist). Around this time last year, the other entity that called itself by those letters, the one reviled by fans of the original product, was arguably the best week-in, week-out wrestling show on TV, or at the very least was a hair below Smackdown for that title. Conversely, around six months ago, that program was put on ice for good as it was replaced on SyFy Network by WWE NXT. Back then, I was distraught about losing the program that featured not only the future of the WWE but some measure of the company's past, but was hopeful about what NXT would bring to the table.

Right now... errr, well, yeah, I don't view things through glasses tinted with as much rose coloring. The loss of ECW from the airwaves has left a void in WWE programming and a valuable hour for helping to develop young wrestlers and allowing veterans a stage where they could be the focus of a show without taking time away from the John Cenas and Triple Hs of the world. It's a void that hasn't been filled with NXT completely, and it's sent the guys that it was helping along greatly into a buzzsaw of oblivion for the most part. It's clear to me that the WWE misses ECW more than it will ever let on, despite the fact that they've done a good job in elevating a select few.

The buzzword within WWE right now is "elevation" it seems. Yes, Titan is doing a good job, not great, but good if sometimes inconsistent, in creating new main eventers to help soften the blow of guys like Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Batista and Undertaker all retiring or getting ready to retire. However, it seems like if you're not main event or flirting with the main event right now, there is seemingly no place for you in a storyline. There are matches and maybe one midcard feud here and there, but no longer is there the rich and vibrant midcard that the WWF had up to even 2001. Therein lies a huge problem when it comes to elevating guys such as, say, Jack Swagger.

Swagger could have used a whole ton of seasoning with a few midcard feuds before he won Money in the Bank seemingly out of nowhere. He was given the ball to run with in ECW, and then he got shunted to RAW where after a feud with MVP went south, he wasn't seen nor heard from for months except to embarrassingly job to other guys or to wrestle occasionally on Superstars. What followed? Well, there was a raging debate over paying dues and such that could have been avoided if, y'know, Swagger was doing the jobs he did to Orton and such BEFORE winning Money in the Bank.

The sad part was that Swagger was an awesome heel and character in ECW, where he got to display his talents to a limited-but-still-sizeable audience. Instead of being eased into the bigger crowd, he was stowed away until the WWE was ready to push him in earnest towards the main event. That's not effective booking.

My hope was that once NXT took over for ECW that both RAW and Smackdown would develop vibrant midcards again. The situations have improved slightly, but the fact of the matter is, unless you're a main-eventer, you're there for comedy or you have tits, you're not going to get any meaningful feuds or character build. Sure, you'll get matches each week, and maybe if you're lucky, you'll get some protection, but it always seems to be such a blur because you're not called upon to develop yourself unless you have a main event program or are part of one.

This is terrible news for guys such as Zack Ryder, Yoshi Tatsu, Goldust, William Regal, Christian, Shelton Benjamin (who was future endeavored because without ECW, they had nothing for him), Chris Masters, the Dudebusters or any member of Nexus who isn't Wade Barrett once their angle is completely over and done with. They will always remain fodder instead of having a place to ply their wares.

I mean, take for example Ryder and Tatsu. Both of them were among the most protected wrestlers on any of the three brands in the last six months of ECW. They got to be in angles, or at the very least, were part of ongoing series of matches where they were able to be built up as part of a vibrant brand. Now? They get time on Superstars, but Superstars is watched by fewer people than ECW was. Plus, there's no context, no storyline impact. If they do get bones thrown to them on the big shows, it's to do embarrassing jobs like the one Ryder did for Sheamus in the "main event".

I think the bigger travesty is the veterans not having time to go. On ECW, guys like Goldust and Regal would provide great foils for the younger wrestlers to help them get acclimatized to the WWE style. Obviously, you're not going to dedicate 15 minutes on RAW to a Goldust match anymore or give Goldie any kind of context even in his short squash matches, but on ECW? You could build an angle around a vet like Goldust, and it would produce great matches and give young guys valuable experience with wrestlers who've been to the rodeo before, like one of my favorite feuds from last year, Goldust's feud with Sheamus. You could argue, and I certainly will, that Sheamus has shone as brightly as he has in part because of the experience he had with Goldust.

You don't get that kind of build with NXT at all. Yes, the Nexus, comprised of all NXT Season 1 rookies, is one of the hottest acts in all wrestling right now, but none of that momentum came from anything they did on NXT. The build given to the group would have been effective whether they were NXT rookies, invaders from another company or even disgruntled low-to-midcarders already in the company. They hit a homerun with the Nexus angle that they will never in a million years be able to replicate with the Season 2 rookies even if they tried. This wouldn't have been all that bad if the format of NXT wasn't so demeaning to the rookies themselves. The challenges are stupid for the most part, and the rookies are rarely ever allowed to go over any of the Pros of note, unless you count Carlito or Ryder as big time WWE hotshots. I don't.

My biggest criticism of NXT is that there are rarely any big feuds, any stories that are being told other than "ZOMG WHO WILL BE THE NXT BREAKOUT STAR OF THE WWE~!!!11" each week. They've teased it with Daniel Bryan and David Otunga last year and with Alex Riley and Michael McGillicutty this year, but other than that, you have short-term Pro vs. Rookie feuds, Pro vs. Pro spillover and other WWE angles spilling into the show, like for example when the Nexus came calling during the battle royale a few weeks back. Yeah, guys like Bryan and Kaval, who have name recognition before their WWE tenures, get pops, and guys like Wade Barrett and Alex Riley get some heat from the crowd, but other than that, nothing is really being done to make anyone care about any of these guys during the program. At least in ECW, when you had guys of the same stature, they were given feuds and stories that helped endear them to the crowds or make the crowds boo them.

The real kick in teeth for this entire NXT experiment has been the lack of ratings. NXT has struggled to exceed ECW's ratings, and in fact they've had trouble even replicating them some weeks. So, at the expense of destroying the only prolonged display of midcard angles the WWE had going for it, they got a net return of zero on new viewers gained to that timeslot.

Honestly, if there were a show I'd have looked at knocking off the air in favor of NXT, it would have been Superstars, but even that show has merit. The economy has been flagging to the point where it's hard to sell people on the idea of expanding a brand, but at the same time, pro wrestling has been on somewhat of an uptick in the last couple of years that trying to get airspace for a Wednesday night show has been in the back of McMahon's mind for awhile now. Be that as it may, I feel like the NXT experiment has been a failure to date, and that taking ECW off the air was a bad, bad move. For a company that is trying to build new stars, they fail at grasping the concept of needing to season them. It's not all about look or working ability or promo skill. It's about honing those talents in a way that tunes into what the crowd is feeling. Working in the midcard is the best way to get that seasoning.

We're in an age where most guys can't cut a promo, where guys have no idea what working a good match that tells a story is all about, where it gets so hard to build new stars that promoters rely on tired old characters and gimmicks instead of building new talent. Granted, the WWE misused the ECW brand, but the brand has produced guys who got reactions even if they weren't followed up on (Mark Henry is the biggest example here). However, now that it's gone and they don't seem to want to spend time giving angles to people who aren't ready for the main event so that they CAN get ready for the main event, well, they won't be able to count on this uptick to last for much longer.

Photo Credit: WWE.com

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!