Reported by Adam Martin of WrestleView.com
On Friday, June 16, 2006 at 9:28 PM EST

According to reports, WWE has been crediting the strong 2.8 rating for ECW on Sci Fi over a mixture of curiosity about the new brand and the WWE RAW superstars appearing on the program. Some have found it interesting that they are giving credit to WWE stars for a high rating considering the opening segment featuring Edge and John Cena drew the lowest quarter hour rating for the entire hour ECW was on Sci Fi, capturing a 2.6 from 10:00-10:15pm ET. The final minutes of the program drew its highest quarter hour with Sabu winning the "Extreme" Battle Royal, scoring a 3.2 quarter hour rating.

Tommy Dreamer reportedly no longer has any creative control for the new relaunch of ECW. It was believed initially that he would be booking events or working with the creative department along with Paul Heyman as he did for the first ECW One Night Stand PPV last year. That has now changed and David Lagana (the original head writer for SmackDown) has been moved to ECW to help write with Paul Heyman. It is no secret that based on the shows TV debut this past Tuesday night that it is being molded into what Vince McMahon wants to see. According to reports, Dreamer was said to have been upset that he will play no role creatively with the new brand.

Speaking of ECW's debut on Sci Fi, many of the "ECW alumni" considered the taping to be culture shock for them as many were use to ECW's "point the camera and shoot" gritty type production that Ron Buffone and Charlie Bruzzese handled for the old ECW. What many former ECW stars instead was tons of production people, multiple rehearsals of segments, pre-taped segments and more. According to several people backstage at the event, the show as a whole felt different from the One Night Stand PPV's and things were described as being overproduced.

Credit: Mike Johnson @ PWInsider.com