No Resistance to ECW in the Right Setting

Making a wager worth making
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein

Friday night, Resistance Pro Wrestling, Billy Corgan's wrestling promotion, held their third card, seeing their inaugural Champion Harry Smith defeat Rhino in the main event. After the match, Rhino became incensed over losing and wanted a restart so badly that he was willing to stake his ECW Championship belt (he was the last Champion of the genuine, non-WWF/E owned entity) over getting a rematch. Corgan was happy to sanction such a match... at the next R-Pro show.

I am very much a critic of those who use the corpse of ECW as a crutch. It was a big reason why the last half-hour or so of the final show at the ECW Arena felt so cheap and flat to me. That being said, I really don't have a problem with Rhino using his title as a prop in his current R-Pro title feud with Smith for two distinct reasons. The first is that unlike Sabu, Sandman, Justin Credible and others among the old and decrepit alumni, Rhino is still either in his prime or he's just past it. He's been keeping himself in shape and active since ECW ended, wrestling regularly for WWE, TNA and other independent promotions. He's not a guy just trying to hang on to his former name; he's actually been enhancing it as a legitimate competitor.

The second reason is that this doesn't feel like a cheap stunt to me to cash in on the ECW name. It's not really a tired trope either. To my knowledge, Rhino hasn't busted out the "legitimate" ECW Championship a whole lot, and he certainly hasn't broken it out in the last year. It's not only NOT stale, but it's an actual good storyline element. Rhino wants the R-Pro Championship so bad that he's willing to stake valuable personal property (let's face it, the ECW Championship belt is more a priceless artifact at this point than it is legitimate Championship) to claim a title that is in its infancy, to be a standard bearer for a company that is new but could very well be a big deal some day, sooner if not later. It's simple but it's powerful, and it has a ton of potential to be a defining indie story for 2012.

That being said, there is a major caveat. Smith and Rhino (and Corgan and his advisors/bookers) need to be very careful with how the ECW belt is presented. If told right, this story has potential to really give the R-Pro Championship a shine, a big boost that will automatically put it among the most hotly sought-after titles in all independent wrestling. If not, then we start to venture into ECW corpse rape, and that's better left to the people who think it's a good idea to do ANOTHER new breed vs. ECW original angle in EVOLVE/DGUSA. They are off to a good start though, because why would Rhino risk that ECW belt if he didn't want the R-Pro title more?

So, three shows in, and R-Pro has my attention in a big and good way. Here's hoping that they keep on the right path here and that they don't fall into the temptation of doing the same thing that other, tired old companies have been doing in regards to ECW. If they keep on the right path, this will be an example of how to use the past as an inspiration for the present, not the way that WWE, TNA and now EVOLVE are. In a pro wrestling landscape where very few do it right, that's a huge deal.