By Dillon Avery
Are you ready to get extreme!? Again?! Yes, like a bad horror franchise, their baaaaaack!! However I’m still wondering if I should be excited or just rolling my eyes at the latest ECW reunion. When the first ECW reunion show, One Night Stand, happened years ago, it was great. Then naturally Vince McMahon saw money in it’s nostalgia and did a text book job of milking the hardcore teat for all it was worth until the letters ECW were barely recognizable with blood, barbed wire, and passion. Instead when you heard ECW, the thought that came to mind was of a low-rated show on an ill-fitting network, a show comprised of mid-carders who were pushed as main eventers in a company who stopped the show at a hint of blood. But we all know how the WWECW saga played out.
The return of the Hardcore Originals reminds me of the cast for the upcoming movie “The Expendables”. Both are full of stars from an era gone by, but still have huge fan bases and represent “the good old days” to their respective fans. I’m excited to see that movie because I like the stars in it, and I know the movie will be mindless action. Same for the latest ECW-themed TNA PPV. I truly believe TNA can put on the show without sticking their noses in it like WWE did.
Speaking of which, the crowd reaction to John Cena for his match with RVD is one of my favorite moments ever in wrestling.
But to use another movie reference, it’s almost as if you might miss a GOOD vampire movie because the theaters, book stores, and TV’s have been flooded with them and you just give up on the fad and pop in something quality like “Lost Boys”. I almost gave up on vampire movies because of the Twlight craze and it’s screaming fans. Then I re-watched the Blade franchise and Daybreakers, and was reminded that there are some worth watching and to not give up.
The same can be said about this latest ECW revival. I almost didn’t want to give it a chance. Been there, done that. But TNA has not only the most complete roster ever for a great revival ECW PPV but they also have the sense to either let it run for one night only or keep it going a bit longer but not let it get watered down to where it’s a spinoff show with Shark Boy as it’s World Champion. Who knows what will happen. What would I do if I had the book?
I’d have the Hardcore Justice PPV feature only matches between former ECW stars, and I’d let them go all out. In a world where the competition is almost G-rated, where a guy gets fired for fake choking someone with a tie, and the main event scene is changing at a snails pace with the same guy overcoming the odds week after week, it will be refreshing to let the relics of a past niche come out, if for only one night, and give us violence. WWE gives you “entertainment”. TNA gives you wrestling. And this Hardcore Justice PPV will give you one last trip down a violent memory lane.
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