ECW may have never reached the heights of WWE and WCW, but they were an extremely popular wrestling promotion when they were still running. They had wrestlers on their roster that were passionate about the company, and their arenas were filled with fans that were equally passionate about it. So, when the WWE announced that they were bringing it back on their own Television programming, fans were excited. However, the excitement soon died with the manner in which the show was run. Some fans believe that Vince McMahon purposely sabotaged ECW, and even former champion Rob Van Dam thinks the same.
Also read: Vince McMahon Once Fired a Close Friend of Triple H To Punish Him
ECW started with a bang. However, as time went by, it felt like any other WWE show but worse. There was rarely anything extreme about it. WWE did not treat it like a third brand. It felt like the step sibling to RAW and SmackDown that were very well produced while ECW rot into extinction.
Rob Van Dam believes Vince McMahon brought ECW back just to destroy it
During an interview with WrestlingNews.co, Rob Van Dam revealed that he thought Vince McMahon was trying to make a mockery of ECW. He believes that the fans chanting EC Dub may have rubbed him the wrong way, which is why he chose to destroy it.
“You know, I thought he’s making a mockery of ECW. I thought he might have even brought ECW back just to destroy it because he didn’t like the fans chanting EC Dub,” RVD said.
RVD added that there was nothing to separate the show from RAW and SmackDown because the extreme in Extreme Championship Wrestling had been wiped clean.
He also claimed that ECW had a much lower budget than RAW and SmackDown, and it wasn’t advertised as well as the other two. The house shows were staged in the same arenas that ECW had back in the 90s. They would even film some nights after SmackDown.
RVD thinks Durag Vince McMahon looked cool
On the same interview, RVD talked about the time Vince McMahon appeared on ECW TV while wearing a durag.
“I thought Vince looked really cool in durag. I loved it because he’s all buff in the black sweater shirt with the sleeves,” he said,
Despite his thoughts on the way Vince McMahon ran ECW, the WWE Hall of Famer stated that he loved working with him. He recalled the three on one match he had with Vince, Shane McMahon and Umaga and said that looking back at it now makes him feel like he was considered to be in a much higher position than he felt at the time.
“Something like that when I think back makes me think maybe I was considered in a much higher position than it felt like at the time because that wouldn’t normally be something they would do with like, a mid-carder, or whatever,” RVD said.
Well considering that RVD was made the WWE and ECW Champion, holding both titles at the same time, it is more than clear that Vince did indeed think very highly, and correctly so, of his abilities as a wrestler and a draw.
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