David Harding
Kaine Jacobs
Cain LynchThe road to the end of ECW
February 14th 2010 03:05
Eddie Gilbert was a lead booker of the company until September 1993 when he and Tod Gordon fell out, just after leaving WCW Paul Heyman was looking for a new challenge and was made the new head booker of ECW. ECW contrasted contemporary professional wrestling with many cartoonish gimmicks and was marketed towards children, but EXtreme Championship Wrestling was aimed at males between 18-35 and in doing this they broke a lot of taboos, the main one was the blading at the time very few wrestling companies did this, in WCW if you bladed at the time, you were fired, Dustin Rhodes can attest to this, after a match in 1995 he bladed in the King of The Road Math and was later fired.
Heyman envisioned ECW as a new movement in wrestling, much like the grunge movement in music that was sweeping the nation, and focused on making ECW move in that direction making this a very new wrestling product unlike that of WCW, and at the time the WWF. In 1994 Jim Crockett's non-compete agreement with Ted Turner who purchased his company Georgia Championship Wrestling, later becoming WCW in 1988 was up and decided to start promoting the NWA again. Crockett would then go to Tod Gordon, asking him to hold a turnament for the NWA World Heavyweight Title at the ECW Arena in August of that year, NWA President at the time Dennis Coralluzzo thought that Crockett and Gordon were going to monopolize the title, much like Crockett had already done in the 1980s, and would tell them they did not have the NWA Board's approval so he took control of the tournament.
This would then make Gordon upset, which if there was bettter communication probably would have seen a better resolution here, Gordon and Shane Douglas, who was booked at the time to win the tournament and the title from 2 Cold Scoprio, planned the famous throwing down of the NWA World Heavyweight Title and would officially start the break away from the NWA once and for all. Douglas would tell all the big named former holders of the belt to kiss his ass and proclaimed he was the ECW World Champion. After ECW withdrew from the NWA, it officially became known as Extreme Championship Wrestling, even though at the time they were releasing home videos labeled Extreme Championship Wrestling, I have myself a few copies of very old ECW events from the period.
The unorthodox style of moves and controversial storylines made ECW popular among many wrestling fans in the desired demograpgic of 18-35 year olds. ECW showcased many different styles of professional wrestling, popularising bloody hardcore wrestling matches and the 3-Way Dance. ECW was always intended to be counterculture and a grittier alternative to multi-million dollar organizations such as WWF and WCW. In addition to their hardcore match types, they provided an alternative to North American wrestling with technical wrestling that was common overseas.
A lot of the people overseas, wouldn't be able to watch ECW without the help of the tapetrading business, a lot of ECW's events were from the ECW Arena, a bingo hall in Philadelphia, a lot of the promos shot for ECW over the years were filmed from the basement of Pauls house.
But what a time to be a wrestling fan, if you were able to watch ECW, you got to see the growth of Tommy Dreamer, Taz, Public Enemy at the time, Tommy Dreamer was a pretty boy wrestler that no one liked in ECW, because he was a pretty boy, as they would call him, he was the 1993 NWA Young Wrestler of the Year until the future caning he got from The Sandman he was never liked, once he showed he could take a beating, and come back for more, he won the hearts of ECW fans, and from there until the day the doors officially closed, Tommy was a favourite around the company.
ECW also took a young man, a guy working on the ring crew and wanted to be a wrestler Mikey Whipwreck and made him a star, sure the early days Mikey never had an offense, and never had many moves, boy he could take a beating, even won some titles, he tagged with Cactus Jack and won the ECW World Tag Team Titles. Before he left for WCW Raven and Tommy Dreamer had possibly the longest ECW fued and would have been close to the best one. While early on Eddie Guerrero, and Dean Malenko had an awesome series of matches for the ECW TV Title, before heading to WCW, even their last night in ECW they tore down the house. ECW was really the first to introduced a lot of the smaller wrestlers into North America. Chris Benoit for example, he had worked WCW, and WWF in a minor jobbing role as Pegasus kid/Wild Pegasus before eventually heading to Japan, and getting his first major wrestling start in ECW.
Benoit would break the neck of Sabu, when Sabu for whatever reason at the time tried to land on his stomach and was moving way to fast to do it and broke his neck. ECW unlike most companies at the time, replayied many times, even had the telestrator and The Canadian Crippler was born. Rey Mysterio was another name that got a start in ECW he was very young, learning the ropes of touring and such, and fueded with Juventud Guerrera, Psicosis, the Psicosis feud arrived in WCW later, and they later did battle at ECW One Night Stand. Psicosis ws trained by Reys uncle the original Rey Mysterio, the man that Rey took his name from, but added Junior, he later in the E dropped the Jr.
Eddie Guerrero, like Rey, Psicosis, got some exposure early on with his former Tag team partner the late “Love Machine” Art Barr when the crossbranded AAA (Asistencia Asesoría y Administración ) & World Championship Wrestling PPV When World's Collide on November 6th 1994. The team of La Pareja del Terror (Art Barr& Eddy Guerrero) battled Octagón and El Hijo del Santo in a Two Out of Three Falls Hair vs Mask match, which they would lose the match lasted 22 minutes and 29 seconds. The team of Eddy and Art would lose their hair which was a minor thing, it helped put them on the map. Art Barr would sadly pass away 21 days after the event, having never really gotten the respect he should have in WCW, since they would saddle him with The Juicer gimmick which was a rip off of the movie Beetljuice.
Eddie Guerrero would sign with WCW in late 1995 he would enter WCW with Dean Malenko, and Chris Benoit during his first few pay-per-view events, he competed in dark matches against Alex Wright. His first televised pay-per-view appearance was at World War 3 where he competed in the 3-ring, 60-man World War 3 battle royal for the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Guerrero was one of the final nine men in the battle royal until he was tossed out of the ring by Four Horsemen members.
Dean Malenko would arrive in WCW in September 1995, he would play the villain early on in his WCW tenure. Malenko came to be known in WCW as "The Iceman" Dean Malenko because of his cold, calculating demeanor and was also given the nickname of "The Man of 1,000 Holds" Dean would win his first WCW Title on May 2nd 1996 by beating Shinjiro Otani for the WCW Cruiserweight Title. He held the belt for 2 months beating another former ECW star Rey Mysterio, who later took the belt from him on July 8th's Monday Nitro. He would regain the belt at WCW Halloween Havoc 1996, before losing the belt to Último Dragón it was title for Title as the J-Crown Championship was on the line.
Chris Benoit's entrnace into WCW came while WCW was working with New Japan Pro Wrestling where Benoit was currently working Chris would sign with WCW in lae 1995 along with a number of talent working in New Japan to be a part of the angle. Like the majority of those who came to WCW in the exchange, he started out in as a member of the cruiserweight division, having lengthy matches against many of his former rivals in Japan on pretty much every single broadcast. At the end of 1995, Benoit went back to Japan as a part of the "talent exchange" to wrestle as a representative for New Japan in the Super J Cup: Second Stage, defeating another former ECW star Lionheart (Chris Jericho) in the quarterfinals (he received a bye to the quarterfinals for his work in 1995, similar to the way he advanced in the 1994 edition) and losing to Gedo in the semifinals.
Chris Jericho would also find his way to WCW after a stint with ECW, he had trained with, and tagged with future ECW Tag Team Champion, and future WCW Triple Crown winner Lance Storm in SMW as The Thrillseekers. On August 26, 1996 Jericho made his first appearance with WCW, and on September 15, he appeared at his first pay-per-view show in a match against Chris Benoit at Fall Brawl. It would be not long until WCW raided ECW once more bringing in Juventud Guerra, and Psicosis, WWE would help promote the first ever ECW PPV that was almost never done, ECW faced many problems but the Mass Transit incident was one that almost ruined the debut on PPV for ECW.
From Wikipedia: Eric Kulas, an untrained 17 year old boy who convinced Extreme Championship Wrestling President and booker Paul Heyman to allow him to fill in for Axl Rotten, who was scheduled to work a tag match with D-Von Dudley against The Gangstas (New Jack and Mustapha Saed). Heyman was allegedly unaware of Kulas's age. Kulas performed as Mass Transit.
During the match, D-Von and New Jack brawled outside of the ring, while Mustafa and Transit fought inside the ring. The match was booked as a squash and D-Von was quickly isolated outside the ring. The Gangstas then double teamed Kulas inside the ring, with New Jack beating the young man forcefully with toasters, crutches and various other objects. The end of the match saw New Jack blading Kulas, making him bleed profusely. This sparked a series of events that included New Jack's arrest and the almost cancellation of Barely Legal, ECW's impending first pay-per-view broadcast.
The incident led to the cancellation of the Barely Legal pay-per-view by pay-per-view provider Request TV, on Christmas Eve, 1996. Heyman, by his own admission in The Rise and Fall of ECW, "begged and pleaded" with Request, and was finally able to convince the company that they had been misled, and were placed back on the schedule on Sunday night, April 13th, 1997, at 9:00 PM.
During the match, D-Von and New Jack brawled outside of the ring, while Mustafa and Transit fought inside the ring. The match was booked as a squash and D-Von was quickly isolated outside the ring. The Gangstas then double teamed Kulas inside the ring, with New Jack beating the young man forcefully with toasters, crutches and various other objects. The end of the match saw New Jack blading Kulas, making him bleed profusely. This sparked a series of events that included New Jack's arrest and the almost cancellation of Barely Legal, ECW's impending first pay-per-view broadcast.
The incident led to the cancellation of the Barely Legal pay-per-view by pay-per-view provider Request TV, on Christmas Eve, 1996. Heyman, by his own admission in The Rise and Fall of ECW, "begged and pleaded" with Request, and was finally able to convince the company that they had been misled, and were placed back on the schedule on Sunday night, April 13th, 1997, at 9:00 PM.
ECW also faced a problem on the night of the PPV, the generator blew up and they were very close to losing the feed, luckily they had enough power left there to have the PPV end with Funk capturing the ECW World Heavyweight Title. Former World Champion Raven would later leave ECW for WCW at Wrestlepalooza 1997, his feud with Tommy Dreamer would finally come to an end at the event, the same event in which Jerry Lawler would appear and really piss off ECW fans in the WWF/ECW promotion partnership that would see Lawler wrestle in ECW the same partnership also saw Taz, Sandman, at WWF Mind Games In Your House attacking Bradshaw during his strap match with Savio Vega. ECW also was on WWF Raw as well, a night where Sabu was meant to jump from the set, but eventual fell off the set.
There was also a mole, supposedly in ECW, that was trying to get ECW talent to leave ECW for WCW, Tommy Dreamer was one of the names that was raised as a possible name to leave, but he was asked by Raven to come join WCW. Stevie Richards would join WCW for a period of time with Raven, but would not last long there he and Raven had a falling out and Richards went back to ECW. Tod Gordon would later be fired from ECW as well being considered a mole within the company being overheard on an answering machine speaking to Terry Taylor about poaching ECW stars.
A new era was starting in ECW but ECW wasn't finacial enough to keep guys being paid the House of Hardcore saw Danny Doring, and Chris Chetti in ECW, Chetti being the cousin of Taz. Taz would also later leave ECW in a sad farewell in November 1999, when he was offered an ECW contract and had to ask Paul if he wanted him to stay, well Taz left for WWF and debut at the Royal Rumble in 2000. Taz returned to ECW defeating the departing Mike Awesome, who after a lawsuit against WCW was not allowed to be mentioned as ECW World Champion, he was booked to show up with the ECW World Title. Once Mike lost the title that was the end of that basically.
The Dudley Boyz later departed ECW, Stevie Richards and Blue Meanie also departed the company all were signed by the WWE. Blue Meanie had been working apart of The J.O.B Squad late in 1999 with Snow, Scorpio who also are former ECW names. Lance Storm departed the company in 2000, Lance Storm had an agreement that if he had 3 missed cheques he was leaving, he never had another bounced cheque but he left. Justin Credible left for the WWF as well. 2000 was not a great year for the one great company, there were a lot of young stars around, some good veterans, Raven would come back in 2000, but he'd soon depart again later in the year heading to WWF.
Tommy Dreamer would capture his ECW World Title a title he never wanted, not because it was not special to him, but he wanted to go on without winning the title, ECW was close to dead, but they had a TV deal on a network that never cared, the same network that later had WWE, and now TNA on there promoting them and doing everything for them but did nothing for ECW. Heyman would take out his frustration on the network as well, even used it as a storyline as Cyrus was brought in as a network member to choose the champion, which saw Rhino win the ECW World Television Title as Rob Van Dam had to vacate the belt due to a long term injury after almost 2 years as champion. Van Dam worked some matches with Jerry Lynn, a feud for the ECW in 2001 could have been on the cards if the company survived.
In honor of ECW I have recently purchased an ECW DVD and will hae a week long ECW revival of ECW events to say goodbye fully as this week will mark the last time ECW will be broadcast as WWE will introduce their new NXT show which I have no problems with, ECW was never the same under the WWE banner, ECW One Night Stand the first one was a great show watching the ECW Originals again battle it out, Lance Storm battling it out again and seeing the Impact Players sneak away with a cheeky win, to a pop! It was sad to see Rob Van Dam injured for that event Jerry Lynn and Rob Van Dam one more time, even though TNA contracted stars were not permitted on the show because it was a rivals show.
It would have been good if TNA and WWE put behind them their rivalry and allowed a full on ECW Revival once a year, you know, the real ECW not a watered down shell of it's former self. No one that was rabid enough to love ECW for so long would have enjoyed seeing the way the ECW product was portrayed. I am a traditionalist by nature and I was not happy with the watered down product of ECW, because ECW stood for a rabid cult like company that pushed the boundaries of good taste, and were there to shake it up. WWECW should have been labeled as Velocity because while there were many good shows the brand was not ECW and was falsely advertised.
R.I.P ECW.
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