May 1, 2006 Observer Newsletter: WWE/ECW, Brock Lesnar
In a shocking move designed to shake up World Wrestling Entertainment, Vince McMahon made the decision while flying to Europe on 4/20 to revive the ECW brand, spearheading a number of changes.
Meetings have been held the past few days with all different facets of the company to get ready to revive the brand name coming off the 6/11 One Night Stand PPV at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York.
The idea of reviving ECW has come up periodically over the past year, and has always gone nowhere. For all the obvious reasons, both good and bad, most internally were negative. Many probably were because they thought Vince himself was and were, at least to a degree, telling him what he wanted to hear. Others, most notably Stephanie, was simply negative to the idea because many feel it wouldn’t work, so there’s no purpose, but if it did work, she’d end up looking bad if her brands weren’t clicking. When tickets sold out for this year’s One Night Stand in just two hours on 4/15, McMahon broached the subject again with many different officials.
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Dave Meltzer is the founder and lead writer on the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the weekly constant when it comes to news and reviews in pro wrestling and mixed martial arts for more than 40 years. Dave also co-hosts Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and had had bylines for The National, Yahoo Sports, MMA Fighting and others.