WWE Hall of Famer D-Von Dudley appeared on an episode of 1 Of A Kind to discuss several topics, including how he believes WWE’s revival of ECW in 2006 couldn’t be saved.
Dudley said, “I’ll be honest. My opinion, and Rob might be different from me, but when WWE did their version of ECW? No, I don’t think it could have been saved. I think the crew that we had was like no other. And by the time WWE got their hands on ECW and made their own version of ECW? I think, knowing how we were back then, I just think it was over. Unless you have Paul Heyman running it, unless you have myself, Rob Van Dam, Balls Mahoney, Axle Rotten, The Gangsters, The Eliminators, you know, Sabu, the thing goes goes on and on. Unless you got those guys in there, you’re not going to have an ECW. It’s just that it was a watered-down version of what it once was. And it’s not just because it was WWE putting a hand on it.”
On the importance of ECW:
“We were special, we were different. That’s why we became the revolution that we became, because we were different. And people wanted different, and we gave it to them. I don’t think this generation could subdue the pain that we encountered, because it was painful. And that’s why when people say, wrestling is fake? Go F yourself. Okay, because you can’t do what we do. You can never be on the road 300 days out of the year, still get up from a hotel room and still go, you know? So it was one of those things where I get pissed off when people talk crap? But it is what it is. Again, if it wasn’t for us this new generation would not know what wrestling was all about.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
