Lots more on Joey Styles being pulled from ECW and his new WWE role
On Wednesday, April 16, 2008 at 4:02 PM EST As reported earlier, it was announced at the beginning of last night's ECW on Sci Fi that Joey Styles has been "promoted" to WWE.com and Mike Adamle will replace him in the ECW announce booth along with Tazz.
According to a lengthy report by PWInsider, the decision to make this move was pretty quick in developing since last Friday and took many within the company by surprise when everything went down yesterday at the TV tapings in London.
It should be noted that while it was announced that Styles is being promoted as the "Head of WWE.com", the website will still be overseen by Brian Kalinowski (who is the VP in charge of a number of areas). Styles is expected to take on a role as some what of a point man for the website or more as a managing editor and will be in charge of a majority of the content you will see on WWE.com from this point on.
Styles will be working both in the WWE.com offices in Stamford and will also travel to all of the WWE televisted events. He was overheard telling people at TV yesterday that his new role will be to tighten up the website and make sure that embarassing situations (such as the flub with the King of the Ring graphic) no longer take place. Styles will also sit in on production and creative meetings at live events and will be able to convey to those on the website what should be reported, who should be pushed, etc.
Styles' new role with WWE will see him actually become in the loop in a much larger way than he was previously, giving him much more responsibility within the company this time around. Based on those who have spoken to Styles so far, he was said to be excited about this new role and looking forward to the challenge to show another area of his abilities for WWE. Considering Styles co-owned both ECWWrestling.com and 1wrestling.com for quite some time, he already brings a lot of experience to the table.
As for why he was removed from the ECW announce table along with Tazz, there are a number of theories making the rounds. According to Dave Scherer, Mike Adamle's hefty contract is more than what likely made the company's decision to move Styles out since they no longer wanted to use him in a "sideline reporter" role. It is also no secret that Vince McMahon was never a fan of Styles and the way he does play-by-play. However, there hadn't been much talk within the company over this issue. Despite that they had to place Adamle some where and ECW looks to be the most logical choice at this point to help him gain experience. It should also be noted that a number of people within WWE stated that Styles' stock went up considering Adamle's less than impressive performance last night.