ECW: 7 years of extreme...A look back

So, it's Wrestlemania weekend, and we've seen 25 of them. Today, I want to talk about the 7 years those Wrestlemanias had to share with ECW's existence. From 1993 (year of Wrestlemania 9) to 2000 (year of Wrestlemania 16 or WM 2000), ECW was the "little engine that could" wrestling organization that was known for one key thing: they were counter-culture. They rebelled against any and all wrestling norms in any way they possibly could. Whether it was with storylines, matches, or wrestling characters, ECW was counter culture....and they loved it....and we loved it. So, today, I'd like to take my time analyzing the seven years ECW existed as its own entity, free of the branding, the Sci-Fi channel and whatnot. I'm going to give my thoughts on the organization, what has happened, a synopsis of what ECW is, where it lies on this special night, and why its existence made a very large difference in the world of wrestling.

So, here's a rundown of what the original ECW entailed, year by year, from my own memory of what I've known or found out. If there are inaccuracies, I apologize. You can correct me if you like, but don't be a complete jerk about it.

In 1993, Eddie Gilbert booked and Tod Gordon ran NWA - ECW. It was then known as Eastern Championship Wrestling. As Tod and Eddie had a falling out that resulted in Eddie leaving, he called up Paul Heyman for help. Paul was just out of his WCW contract as he was fired. Paul agreed to help Tod Gordon and came on board as ECW's head booker. On his first night out, he introduced the fans to Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock, the Public Enemy. They started out as two guys who used to wrestle each other almost all the time there was tours. So, Paul figured that they would make a great tag team since they know each other so well. During their tenure as a team in and out of ECW, they became notorious for their dancing, table usage, and ability to be, well...public enemy #1 in all their organizations. Other stars that got their break fell into two different categories: veterans looking to belong, and new stars beloved for their unique styles. What made them all alike was that they were misfits elsewhere. ECW truly was the land of the misfit toys. These toys included the brutal and savage Tazmaniac, the beer-swilling, cane-wielding extreme icon known as the Sandman, the extreme "babyface", Tommy Dreamer, the original extreme enigma (sorry Jeff Hardy fans), Raven, the hardcore legends, Terry Funk and Cactus Jack, the "franchise" wrestler, Shane Douglas, and a plethora of wrestlers looking to be discovered in Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, 2 Cold Scorpio, among others. This crew could not have been so adverse or obscure than some of their names. What they brought to the table every night was a combination of great wrestling matches, hard-hitting brawls, excellent promo work, and tremendous desire. It was a sight to see.

1994 was to be the turning point year for the organization. Even though they were making some strides with ground-breaking storylines (Tommy Dreamer's caning and Sandman being stricken blind), Heyman knew that change had to be made. He knew that in order for ECW to get off the ground, he had to break it away from the NWA. So, when Shane Douglas won the tournament to determine a new NWA champion, he admired the belt, then threw it to the floor, and decided to cut a promo about how he wanted to represent the "new flame" of wrestling, instead of the old-school flame given to us by the NWA. He declared himself the new ECW champion and that this was the start of the ECW. It was a controversial move that only he and Heyman planned from the start. As they were being chastised by the NWA, the decision was made to sever all ties with the NWA and call ECW "Extreme Champion Wrestling". From there on, it was off to the races.

In 1995, they received new stars and lost long time ones due to their growing popularity. As new stars like Juventud Guerrera, Rey Mysterio, Psychosis, Konnan, Chris Jericho, and others made their mark, the older stars in Malenko, Benoit, Guerrero, and Public Enemy found greener pastures in WCW. Eric Bischoff was looking to ECW to strengthen his WCW empire to compete with the WWE, and they were ripe for the taking. This already added fire to the hated rivalry between Bischoff and Heyman. Meanwhile, some of the older stars were coming into their own as unique entitites. Cactus Jack was bitterly sticking it to the fans by wrestling without his hardcore mentality because of the intense pressure he felt to destroy his body for their enjoyment. Raven began his psychological war with Tommy Dreamer as their high school rivalry traveled over to ECW. This forced Dreamer to finally take a more violent approach to his work which the fans had been asking of him for a while, bringing life to Tommy's nickname "The innovator of violence". The Sandman found himself a very tough rival in the form of a man who would spend his career being an "extreme jobber", Mikey Whippwreck. Mikey always got beat up, never won, and somehow found a way to win gold, thanks to his endless amount of resilience. Also, another new face came onto the scene in the form of "Superstar"Steve Austin. His message was clear: he was held back by the WCW for too long, and later, fired over the phone while injured, but in ECW he was free to do exactly what he wanted to do, and that's wrestle. He was going to prove he was the best wrestler in the world, no question about it.

Come 1996, the only new stars that were left were the ones who were not international stars (except Jericho) as they were all taken to WCW. Later that year, both Cactus Jack and Steve Austin left to the WWE to fulfill their careers and reach icon status. 1996 would also be the year where many huge happenings would occur that were positives and negatives to the organization. The Tazmaniac character died, and in his place was Taz, the human suplex machine. Taz became a cruel, bitter grappler who took pleasure slamming the life out of someone. Sandman would fall victim to Raven's psychological terror as Raven used Sandman's son and ex-wife as tools to obtain Sandman's ECW title. Also, the Blue Meanie and Stevie Richards culminated their mimicking ways by impersonating the new World order. They called it the Blue World Order, and were the talk of the dirt sheets. ECW would fall victim to three different forms of controversy this year. One involved a storyline where Beulah McGuillicuty, a girl from Raven and Tommy Dreamer's past that teamed with Raven to antagonize Dreamer, was impregnated by.....Tommy Dreamer. This angered Raven and set up the long-time relationship between Tommy and Beulah as they united for the first time. As more evidence came out, it turned out it was a lie perpetrated by Beulah to hide that she was cheating on Raven with ECW valet, Kimona. They were wrestling's first lesbian couple, which Tommy was ok with, but the censors weren't, and ECW lost their time slots. When ECW returned to t.v., they had olympic gold medalist, Kurt Angle on their show as a guest. He threatened to sue Heyman when he saw an altercation between the Sandman and Raven end up with the Sandman on a makeshift cross, with a barbed-wire "crown of thorns". Angle wanted nothing to do with this form of religious iconography that proved to be very sacrilegious, coercing Raven to publicly apologize for offending anyone. Incident 3 was an incident at a show where a man came on to replace a wrestler who couldn't make it. He took part in a tag match against the Gangstaz, New Jack and Mustafa. New Jack, being the violent wrestler that he is, severely beat up this wrestler. The problem with this was that the wrestler was only 17 years old. He falsified his documents to get the job that night and ended up suing ECW and New Jack. Both were acquitted but the publicity was enough to hinder ECW's latest endeavor: going into PPV.

The year 1997 was where they achieved their dream as ECW had their very first PPV event, called "Barely Legal". On this night, in the ECW Arena, history was made. There was a six-man tag match involving young stars from Japan. Rob Van Dam made his debut of sorts against Lance Storm, only to point as a fill-in for an injured wrestler, which coerced a promo from RVD that established his "I'm too good for this" attitude. Sabu and Taz had an epic grudge match to settle their scores. They hated each other in their 1993 matches, struggled to team up in 1994, and when Sabu no-showed an event, forcing the team to relinquish their belts, Taz had all he needed to inspire him to destroy Sabu. Sabu wouldn't return until 1996 after he broke his neck. They finally confronted each other and their match was set, but not without a lot of build-up. Lastly, a new ECW champ was crowned in Terry Funk, whom at his age, found a way to win major gold, by beating stars like the Sandman and Stevie Richards, and then later, Raven. It was a great year for ECW as they even got a chance to promote this and themselves on WWE television from September of 1996, well into 1997.

In 1998, the problems with keeping wrestlers continued. Sure, they had PPVs and television, but the allure of great paydays in WCW and WWE was too great. Saturn, Raven, and Richards all left before this year became 6 months old. At the same time, both the WCW and the WWE were utilizing ECW 's cutting-edge nature by mimicking their hardcore style and mentality on national television. To top it off, Heyman got the impression that someone was feeding the ECW stars to WCW from the inside. Because of such, he fired Tod Gordon as president, and confronted head referee and manager, Bill Alfonso, about it. To prove his loyalty, he got involved in an extremely violent match with Beulah, where he was beaten mercilessly. It earned him his respect, though. Also, with Gordon gone, Heyman was assuming all of the responsibility of controlling ECW. Wrestlers pitched in to help him as much as they could in different avenues, as ECW continued to survive on PPV events, ticket sales, and continued to invite new and different stars to the fold.

In 1999, the wrestling pace quickened without a halt, and only the strongest would survive. WCW was losing the ratings war every night they had television against the WWE. They lost money, wrestlers, and then, Bischoff was shown the door. The WWE continued to dominate, making new stars, earning new things, like IPOs of stock, and making new shows like WWE Smackdown. As for ECW, the stars were seriously considering disappearing to greener, more lucrative pastures. Debts continued to rise, checks bounced and Paul Heyman was running out of ways to keep his extreme followers happy. While he thought of this, the Dudleys were becoming the most hated and most successful tag team in ECW, utilizing their family, their managers, and even burning tables as ways to destroy the competition. Also, a continued rivalry between Super Crazy and Tajiri was tearing up the charts with incredible athleticism being shown. Then, Heyman had an idea: television. So, ECW secured a deal with TNN (pre-Spike T.V.), and ECW got a timeslot there. The deal was a raw one, as ECW was being swerved by the network left and right. Paul Heyman fought back with insults to them, and even angles about them, which made things worse. T.V. isn't all it's cracked up to be sadly.

In 2000, before the problems on TNN, but after the deal was inked, ECW lost Taz and the Dudleys to the WWE. With these stars gone, and their deal getting ruined, ECW was in plenty of trouble. As things got significantly worse, TNN made a deal with the WWE to bring Raw to the network. Heyman hit the roof and went on a tirade on live television. This tirade was censored heavily. Then, to make matters worse, Mike Awesome left to WCW as ECW champ. In an attempt to save face, ECW called upon Taz to win the title, while under a WWE contract. So a WWE contracted wrestler fought a WCW contracted wrestler for the ECW title. Bizarre, but sad. After the title was saved, the organization could not be. The last show was in 2001, as Heyman left to the WWE and cunningly found a way to have them pay for all the ECW debts, making ECW debt free and the property of WWE. ECW was then paraded around in a bad invasion angle in 2001 orchestrated to have the WWE fight both WCW and ECW, resurrected for an excellent reunion show in 2005, then a bad one in 2006, and now it's been on the Sci-fi channel with new WWE-style episodes for 3 years.

That's ECW in a nutshell. It's a large nutshell, but no matter. As to where it belongs on this special night, the answer is...nowhere. The WWE cleverly had all ECW talent involved in mixed brand stuff that puts the emphasis on everyone else but them. They don't even have Grisham or Stryker on for commentary. So, just as WWE wanted, ECW is out of the way. It's a footnote to a grand show like Wrestlemania. As for the show, well, it's meeting up with some serious changes, that might or might not be addressed here, let alone might or might not happen. The future might very well be uncertain. They've gotten rid of just about anything that bleeds "original", their new stars are ready to fly the coop to new brands, and the ratings have never looked worse, well, in standards compared to the other shows, and even the competition.

In all honesty, I think ECW has made a great impact on this business. It helped give wrestling some direction and progression. It was a different vibe that was to be remembered for what it has done for all of us fans. Now, there are some people who say that ECW wasn't groundbreaking only because of their negative reactions to all the violence. To you, I say, get off your high horse because you haven't come up with anything as cleverly has Heyman did. So, save it. Heyman did a great job coming up with these new characters and feeding off of pop culture to do it. It was a clever move, without a doubt, and you can't deny that. ECW was more than just violence, and if you just lowered your noses for a second, you'd realize that. In fact, ECW did do something great for the wrestling world by providing a litmus test for all independent federations. If you can survive for 7+ years while going national without any major funding or backing from some company, you can make it anywhere. So far, ROH has a PPV deal, a new T.V. deal, and have existed for 7 years with no public funding or multi-million dollar owners. If they can make it, they can make it anywhere. TNA has been around for 7 years with only PPV, and some significant t.v. time under their belts. If they can make it, they can make it anywhere. Sure, they have Panda Energy feeding them money left and right, but it's not the WWE or Titan Sports. So, it's stil a big accomplishment.

I know I'm probably clumping this all together with little or no direction, but I'm just a little too perturbed to think very straight (I saw the results of WM 25 live on PPV. If anyone needs me, I'll be trying not to break my television, because my head is hurting from all the crap). I just want to say thanks to ECW for the memories. You have made my wrestling experience great. It's a shame your legacy has been reduced to being nothing more than a clip show filled with recaps at times, or a show where new stars can be showcased, or semi-showcased, and old stars are struggling to get by. It used to mean something to say "ECW" out loud. Now, saying it has lost virtually all of its meaning. If this incarnation of ECW even knows survival for another 3 years, I'll be amazed. It's because at the end of the day, even though it's being molded into Vince's vision, it's not his idea. He won't use or care for something that succeeded without him. ECW is still being dangled over the garbage bin, and he's not sure if he should cut the line yet. He might not be, but with all the negatives on said show, as compared to the original, the line is breaking on its own....