For 16 years, Extreme Championship Wrestling was a brand that had one of the most loyal followings in the history of professional wrestling. Last night, WWE put the brand to rest, probably for good.
It was August 27, 1994, in a building that had already become known as the ECW Arena, thanks to the two-year-old Eastern Championship Wrestling. The night was supposed to be a cementing of the roughly one-year-old affiliation with NWA, with a tournament scheduled for the NWA Championship. Instead, the night ended with Shane Dougals, tournament winner, declaring NWA a long-dead company and naming himself as the first Extreme Championship Wrestling Champion. From there, ECW would reach incredible heights, and equally incredible lows.
Already with a strong following behind it, and gaining the extra push from Douglas's post-match speech, ECW became a hit almost immediately. Casting off the NWA brand made them a true independent promotion, and they used that fact to foster an "us against the world" mentality. It was here that fans, tired of the clownish gimmiks of WCW and WWF, could turn to see both real fights and exotic wrestling. While the "Big Two" shied away from over-the-top violence and bloodshed, ECW embraced it. They became known for a style that included the fans, as any match could spill out into the audience, and anything brought into the arena could be used as a weapon. A wrestler using a staple gun, frying pan, or crutch on an opponent was all par for the course.
Included in this up-and-coming brand was the Mexican "lucha libre" style. Where the other promotions relied on big physiques and power moves, ECW became a place you could just as easily find two small, masked opponents flying off the top rope at each other. When other promotions tried to run the same style of match, they were often considered boring and not something the fans wanted to see. In ECW, behind the lead of announcer Joey Styles, luchadors were embraced as part of the family. Without ECW's embrace of their style, wrestlers like Rey Mysterio, Juventud Guerrera, and Psychosis probably never would have made it in American wrestling.
Above all else, ECW was a promotion for the fans. ECW Arena, the promotion's home base, was a small building made up of metal folding chairs and portable bleachers. More than in any other promotion, the fans were a part of the show. They were the biggest part of the ECW family. If you wanted a chair from the audience, you got a chiar from the audience:
And when Public Enemy won the ECW Tag Team Championship, nobody celebrated like the fans:
As much as it was about the fans, ECW became known for one thing: violence. The ECW anything-goes style was a breakthrough in professional wrestling. Before they came along, matches in major promotions tended to stay in the ring, unless there was a special stipulation. In ECW, it seemed like every main event would spill out into the audience, and somtimes into the street. Putting an opponent through a table would be immediate grounds for disqualification anywhere else. ECW made it a normal part of a show. Soon, the other programs were catching up. By the late '90s, WCW had lifted their ban on televised blood. WWF was signing such ECW stars as Taz and the Dudley Boys, and introducing their fans to the TLC match. But no one could do it like ECW.
August 9, 1997 was just shy of ECW's third anniversary. The main event that night, in the ECW Arena, would be an ECW Championship match between Terry Funk and Sabu. Neither man was a stranger to ECW's extreme style, but no one could prepare themselves for what would hapen that night. Born to be Wired would be ECW's first and only Barbed Wire Deathmatch. There would be other Barbed Wire matches, but nothing like this. After over four minutes of both men avoiding the wire, Sabu would be the first to feel it. From that point forward, the wire became almost a third participant in the match, doing more damage to the competitors than they did to each other.
By the time the match was halfway over, both men were a bloody mess. Sabu's body was so damaged, he can be seen wrapping a gash in his arm with athletic tape. The gash would later need 100 stitches to close.
At over 20 minutes, the match is quick lengthy, and tough to watch. It was planned to go even longer. With both men wrapped in barbed wire outside the ring, they both knew they couldn't continue like this. Once Sabu pinned Funk, they needed to be carefully cut out of the wire to save them from further injury.
Though ECW owner Paul Heyman vowed to never put two men through that again, the Barbed Wire match had become synonymous with the promotion.
Over the next few years, ECW faces its lowest points. Two years after the Born to be Wired, the promotion would finally get away from the local tv networks that had been broadcasting their shows and hit the national spotlight: ECW on TNN would debut in August of 1999. Though the original deal was for three years, TNN canceled the show after just over one when they signed WWF Monday Night Raw away from the USA network. The lack of sponsorship and national recognition would leave the already struggling promotion in its worst shape. Their last major show, Guilty as Charged, would take place January 7, 2001. Three months later, Paul Heyman filed for bankruptcy.
Though the promotion was dead, its name would be kept alive. Shortly after closing up shop, Heyman and some of the most loyal members of ECW showed up on Raw, joining members of WCW in an invasion angle against Vince McMahon's WWF. McMahon had already bought WCW, and would soon buy ECW's assets, making all three part of the WWF corporate family. With the WWF team beating the WCW/ECW team at that years Survivor Series, the ECW letters ceased being used, except in reference to a former member still in the WWF.
It would be nearly five years before ECW was heard from again. June of 2006 saw a one-off pay-per-view, ECW One Night Stand, bring back many of the old wrestlers from ECW. The popularity of the show led to a second the following year, which was the jumping-off point for the new series, ECW on SciFi.
The return of ECW was met with both optimism and criticism. Many in the wrestling world knew there was potential for the new ECW. It had many of the wrestlers from the old promotion, and the new blood from what was now WWE was making strides to fit in. Rob Van Dam, the longest reigning Television Champion from the old promotion, was the new shows first ECW Champion. Kurt Angle seemed to have found new life there, with a new, increasingly violent style to complement ECW's roots. Both would be short lived. Van Dam would lose the title after he was charged with drug possession with Sabu, and Angle would ask for his release from the company for "medical reasons" around this time. The show would seem to actually regress as time went on. No longer was every match contested under "extreme rules." The Tag Team and Television Championships were never revived. ECW's next PPV event would last just over two hours, while most others in the company came close to three. With champion Bobby Lashley moved to Raw while he was still ECW Champion, vacating the title, it became increasingly obvious that ECW was just a way to get new guys tv time before moving them to one of the bigger shows. The new ECW was nothing like the old, and fans quickly abandoned ship.
Still, the new ECW had its bright spots. Lashley would go on to become a star in the company before leaving to persue a career in MMA. CM Punk would also become ECW Champion before moving on to headline WWE's other shows. Tommy Dreamer, who was with ECW from the very beginning, would be rewarded with his second title reign. It also became a place for former stars to reintroduce themselves to WWE fans after leaving with major injuries or after their previous contract had expired. Kane, Mark Henry, and Matt Hardy all held the title at some point. It was the return of Christian to WWE that would at least give the promotion some hope of continuing into the future.
As ECW Champion, Christian seemed to be almost the embodiment of the new and old. He understood that his job in the promotion was to get new talent ready to move up in the company, and he also seemed to understand what the old ECW stood for. He seemed to understand that the ECW belt wasn't just a step to greater glory, it was a prestigious title with a rich history of its own. Which is what made the final match of ECW such a letdown.
February 16, 2010 is a day that will never be forgotten in ECW's long history. With the ECW Arena long abandoned by the promotion that gave it its name, ECW would have its final show in Kansas City, MO. Its last match would be an Extreme Rules match between Christian and Ezekiel Jackson to determine who would be ECW's final champion. Before the match, Christian delivered a speech remembering everything that had come before him, and thanking the fans for sticking with the program, even though it wasn't the original. He claimed to be proud to have been a part of ECW. He said he was fighting for every ECW Original, and every up-and-comer in the back who would be moving on to other programs. He then went out and lost to Jackson.
ECW's finale seemed like a slap in the face to everyone who believed in the promotion. Taking the belt from someone who really seemed to get what the promotion was about, the longest reigning current champion in WWE, and giving it to Jackson for all over two-plus minutes just so he could get a push before going to another show felt like Vince McMahon's final indignity to the fans who fought so hard for a promotion they loved so much.
The original ECW was loved by almost everyone who saw it. Those ECW Originals still chant its name when they recognize the spirit of the show they saw go from bingo halls to PPVs. And now, the mockery that the WWE made of it is over, and the spirit of the original can truly live again. ECW may finally and permanently be dead, but its memory will live on.
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