Credit SESCOOPS.com
Dave Sherer has reported that a meeting took place before Tuesday's edition of ECW on the Sci-Fi Channel between Vince McMahon, Kevin Dunn and Paul Heyman. Citing disappointment with the reaction at ECW Arena in which fans chanted "This show sucks", low ticket sales (particularly for the July 4'th show in Philadelphia) and a 15% drop off in ratings from week one to week two, Vince McMahon made the decision to put an end to the "ECW Style", including a break from all old ECW characters to be re-written and re-cast in the WWE style. The idea is to turn ECW into a third brand of WWE, with a roster and storylines more in line with that of Raw and Smackdown.
Paul Heyman's control of the ECW brand has been reduced to the capacity of "advisor", while Tommy Dreamer has been completely removed from the creative process, and will act only as an on-air character. Heyman had written a script for last night's show, but it was all but thrown out when Vince McMahon disapproved of it's content and had the WWE creative team re-write the show from the ground up. Paul Heyman was also relieved of his backstage duties, as WWE brass took over and ran the show as they ran Smackdown later that night.
It is expected that the staff of ECW referees will be given their release as the company moves away from the ECW image and incorporates the brand into the WWE fold. ECW ring announcer Stephen D'angelous has already been terminated by Vince McMahon.
Mike Johnson adds in his report that beginning with last night's broadcast, the ECW roster will not be flown in for television tapings, but instead will only call for the appearance of those scheduled to work that particular show.
The general opinion backstage is that when ECW finishes it's 12 week scheduled run on the Sci-Fi channel, it may be reduced to an internet program for WWE.com, or done away with altogether.
