The New ECW or the New Tuesday Night Heat?

Long time wrestling fans will remember the days when Sunday Night Heat was a one hour broadcast on MTV. It was an entertaining Sunday evening program meant for jobbers to put over stars that were receiving a push. A big star would always headline the main event for good measure. Sound familiar?

Anybody who was a fan of the original ECW, even a casual fan like myself, watched ECW to see tables break, blood shed and bodies fly all over the place. ECW was the hardcore promotion with no rules. It needs not be reiterated that the WWE's ECW is no longer hardcore. ECW's "resurrection" arguably was also the WWE's counter technique to TNA's growing success on Spike TV. ECW on Sci-Fi now resembles the defunct Sunday Night Heat, a dumping ground for misused talent.

The greatest example of misused talent at the moment is arguably Shelton Benjamin. This guy went from gaining consecutive victories over Triple H in 2004 and stealing the spotlight at the first Money in the Bank Ladder Match at Wrestlemania 21 in 2005, to being reunited with his old tag team partner Charlie Haas and jobbing to more popular tag teams and finally, being further demoted to ECW. It certainly didn't happen for lack of athletic ability, but possibly a lack of mic skills, as has been the case with Matt Hardy, a guy who went from a high profile feud with Edge to pizza-eating contests with MVP while Edge went on to win three world championships. While more television time and a possible feud with current champion and popular newcomer C.M. Punk may be good for Shelton, he is a long way from where he was in 2004. Benjamin is also an example of how ECW has become a dumping ground for black wrestlers.

Now that Shelton is on ECW, Cryme Tyme has been fired, Booker T is on TNA, retired Ron Simmons only makes cameos to say "Damn!" and Bobby Lashley is on the shelf, there are currently no black superstars competing on RAW, and yet the bulk of African-American superstars keeps getting piled into the ECW roster. ECW may as well stand for Ebony Championship Wrestling. Elijah Burke, a gifted young athlete in his own right, has been stuck in ECW purgatory. The WWE acquired one of TNA's top talents in Monty Brown, and where they did they stick him? As "Marcus Cor Von" in ECW and rather than capitalizing on his acquisition as a major coup from TNA, he was reduced to being the enforcer of the short-lived and ill-fated New Breed before deciding to leave the company.

Bobby Lashley was a credible ECW champion, but let's face it, the ECW title is worth about the equivalent of what the European title was back when Heat was on the air. Lashley, often referred to as "Black Lesnar" because of his resemblance in power and entrance mannerisms to former superstar and champion Brock Lesnar, may be given the push he deserves upon his return, but that remains to be seen. Although Mark Henry is listed as a Smackdown superstar, he is currently on ECW television partnering with another black wrestler who was reduced to being one of the WWE's go-to big man jobbers before being dumped on ECW, Big Daddy V. Both Henry and Big Daddy, whose combined weights equal almost 900 pounds, have been in the business for over a decade and received major pushes before going on to... absolutely nothing.

Henry, billed as "The World's Strongest Man", has made a million comebacks over the last decade as a dominant force to be reckoned with before going back to jobbing to more popular stars like Dave Batista and The Undertaker. Big Daddy V, who is best remembered as Mabel in the mid-90's, won the 1995 King of the Ring Tournament (which usually led to a push that eventually would lead to the championship) and a few years later, was in and out of the WWE competing as big jobber Viscera before morphing into the dominant Big Daddy V.

While Big Daddy V and Mark Henry combined make a formidable colossus of a tag team worthy of competing for the tag titles on RAW or Smackdown, ECW seems to have become a dumping ground for mongrel tag teams as well.

On tonight's broadcast (December 11, 2007) we saw Kane, another superstar who has been poised on countless occasions over the last decade as a dominant #1 contender before repeatedly plunging back into the mid-cards, teaming up with ECW champion C.M. Punk against the mediocre pairing of Deuce and Domino. Kane, who had the shortest World Championship reign in WWE History (he won the title in 1998 from Stone Cold Steve Austin before dropping it back to Stone Cold the next night on RAW), was the first Smackdown Superstar to compete in ECW as part of the so-called "talent exchange" between the ECW and Smackdown promotions. The 7 foot tall "Big Red Machine" is one of the latest casualties of WWE misused talent demotions.

The current World Tag Team Champions Mike "The Miz" Mizanin and John Morrison can be called the WWE Tough Enough mongrel tag team. While "The Miz" is better remembered for stints on MTV's The Real World and Road Rules reality shows than he is for wrestling ability, he was the runner-up in WWE Smackdown's 2004 Tough Enough competition. He placed second to Daniel Puder, and when Puder proved to be a dud, "The Miz" was given his shot. Morrison, formerly Johnny Nitro of the three-time champion tag team MNM, has proven time and again to be a highly gifted and athletic legitimate competitor. However, Morrison was promptly handed the ECW title that Chris Benoit was supposed to win over CM Punk at the 2007 Vengeance pay-per-view. Unfortunately Benoit, a former World Champion who himself was being demoted to ECW, tragically murdered his wife and son before commiting suicide on the weekend of Vengeance.

On tonight's ECW broadcast, Morrison and Miz faced yet another mongrel tag team in high flying veterans Jimmy Wang Yang and Shannon Moore, two more highly talented and underrated superstars that have been wrestling for almost a decade and are still being misused. The pre-main event match was a female mongrel pairing of 2006 Diva Search winner Layla and veteran female wrestler Victoria, yet another highly gifted wrestler who won the WWE Women's Championship several times and has been reduced over the last few years to jobbing for divas-in-training.

And the main event?: World Champion Batista squashing Elijah Burke. It's Heat all over again as a main eventer is brought in to save the day.

Resurrecting ECW was something that the hardcore ECW faithful and even casual fans wanted to see, and have been consistently let down by the WWE-branded version. At least when they first brought it back, some of the ECW "Originals" like Sabu, The Sandman, Rob Van Dam, Tommy Dreamer and former owner Paul Heyman were all part of the broadcast. And while Dreamer, as well as ECW originals Stevie Richards and Balls Mahoney are still on the roster, they are not getting much television time and have been career mid-carders. The only semblance of the original ECW besides those guys is having former ECW champion Tazz and original announcer Joey Styles calling the matches, and the possible return of RVD after his appearance on the 15th Anniversary edition of RAW. ECW as we knew it and remember it is no more. Gone are the days of flaming tables, kendo stick beatings, barbed wire bats and sheer brutality. Gone are the "ECW rules", which meant no rules. Even the "talent exchange" between Smackdown and ECW is a sign that the WWE may scrap the ECW brand altogether and merge the two rosters into one. Poor ratings may lead to the WWE pulling out of Sci-Fi altogether and only broadcasting RAW and Smackdown.

But should the new incarnation survive, and a one hour broadcast continue running Tuesday nights on Sci-Fi, they can call it Heat, Velocity, or whatever they want, just don't call it ECW.