WWE brought back Paul Heyman’s ECW as the company’s third brand in 2006, following
the successful One Night Stand PPVs.
While the show didn’t get off to the best of starts, they announced their first brand
exclusive PPV under the WWE banner: December to Dismember.
However it was a show that was so badly promoted and poorly received, it spelt the end for
ECW and it’s creator.
I am Luke Owen and this is the PPV That Killed ECW.
Paul Heyman and ECW announced December to Dismember around six weeks before the show,
revealing Big Show’s ECW Championship would be defended in the first ever Extreme Elimination
Chamber against former champion Rob Van Dam, Test, Sabu, Bobby Lashley and CM Punk.
The only other match announced for the card - a PPV remember - was The Hardy Boyz vs.
MNM - none of which wrestled on the ECW brand - which was announced a week before the show.
According to reports from the time, this was Heyman’s idea as he only used to promote
a couple of matches for ECW PPVs in the 1990s.
The problem was that December to Dismember was the second of three $40 WWE PPVs in just
four weeks - one week after Survivor Series and two weeks before Armageddon.
“This was, almost without question, the worst-promoted PPV in company history...
As of Sunday afternoon, WWE creative was still only aware of four matches.”
- Bryan Alvarez, Figure Four Weekly #598, December 11th 2006
The show was having other issues outside of its undercard.
Heyman and Vince McMahon were constantly disagreeing over the booking of the show, with Heyman
going to bat for CM Punk to win the ECW Championship while McMahon wanted Lashley to beat Big Show
for the belt.
Heyman’s idea was to start the match with Punk and Big Show, and have Punk tap out Show
before the third man even joins the match - guaranteeing a new champion and cementing
CM Punk as their new guy moving forward.
McMahon wanted it to be Lashley, and felt that he needed to beat Show and another heel
two-on-one at the end of the match.
Although neither man could see the other’s point, one wrestler liked Heyman’s more
than Vince’s.
“Vince hated [my idea].
He especially hated the fact that Big Show liked it...
Big Show is so underappreciated in terms of how smart he is to the business, and how willing
he is to make new stars.”
- Paul Heyman, The Sun, February 4th 2008
Another problem was Sabu, who was reportedly becoming difficult to work with in WWE.
A few reports said there was an incident at the Nassau Coliseum a week prior, with the
homicidal wrestler unable to get through one of his infamously short promos.
Heyman made the call to remove him from the match and replace him with Hardcore Holly,
meaning ECW’s PPV main event would only have one ECW original in Rob Van Dam.
The show opened with The Hardyz and MNM, but quickly fell off a cliff with unannounced
matches like Matt Stryker vs. Balls Mahoney, Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay vs. FBI,
and Daivari vs. Tommy Dreamer.
And then, an hour and a half into the PPV, Paul Heyman came out to introduce the main
event.
“Not only did I realise that this is going to suck, not only is everyone going to throw
this back at us, but this show is going to run short.
And during the show, I pointed all this out to Vince, which just angered him even more,
and he didn't care.”
- Paul Heyman, The Sun, February 4th 2008
It was very clear going in that the crowd were only behind Punk and RVD.
So of course, they were quite upset when Punk was eliminated first and RVD went out shortly
thereafter.
Fans began to boo and chant “where’s my refund”, even chanting for rival promotion
TNA at one point.
In the end, Lashley won and the show went off the air after only 2 hours and 17 minutes.
“[It was] an indescribably bad show.”
- Paul Heyman, Steve Austin Unleashed!
2014
December to Dismember was not only a catastrophe on screen, it only drew around 90,000 PPV
buys - the lowest in WWE history.
The following day, Vince McMahon and Paul Heyman had a closed-door meeting where the
two reportedly shouted at each other for a long time, with McMahon upset about how the
PPV went down and Heyman criticising Vince for holding him back while booking ECW.
“Heyman was very upset with the limitations McMahon had given him that had resulted in
an ECW product nothing like the ECW of the 90s.
McMahon ended the meeting telling him to pack his bags and go home.”
- Bryan Alvarez, Figure Four Weekly #598, December 11th 2006
The ECW brand never recovered from December to Dismember.
Following the PPV, Bobby Lashley would enter into a feud with Vince McMahon, which resulted
in Vinny Mac winning the ECW Championship.
The brand was eventually cancelled in 2010, replaced with a new reality TV show called
NXT.
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I’ve been Luke Owen and that was wrestling.