The Death of ECW
ECW has come up a couple of times on my journey through the Attitude Era. Mostly as a place that talents spent some time in before jumping to the big leagues and THAT is very much ECW’s story, sadly.
Founded in 1992 as Eastern Championship Wrestling, the promotion was owned by Tod Gordon with the creative powerhouse of Paul Heyman and Eddie Gilbert.
Those early days had the promotion as a member of the NWA and so its regional titles were overshadowed by the NWA’s main champions who toured all of the member promotions. This did allow them to book the bigger NWA names to bolster their own ticket sales and so for a time, life was good.
In 1995, at the behest of Paul Heyman, ECW talent Shane Douglas won the NWA title in a tournament. It was a big moment for ECW which by then was the largest member of the NWA following WCW’s departure however Douglas, Heyman and ECW famously “went into business for themselves” and in an unscripted promo, Douglas threw down the NWA title, declared his ECW title a WORLD title and ECW dramatically withdrew from the NWA. To say this was dramatic is an understatement and to this day, many old school characters in the wrestling business refuse to forgive Paul Heyman.
“Eastern” was changed to “Extreme” and from there it was off to the race. We got the ECW that fans of 90s wrestling know and love. Around this time, Tod Gordon left the promotion and Paul Heyman (via his subsidiary HHG which stood for Heyman, Heyman and Gordon, the other Heyman was Paul’s dad, a lawyer) assumed control of the company.
ECW in the late 90s with Paul Heyman as a mad scientist type genius booking the shows broke barriers, and signed the best talent from Japan, Mexico, Canada and the United States and gave them a platform. Stars like Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero and so many others used ECW as a stopgap to get themselves on TV and make a name for themselves in order to be signed by either WCW or the WWF and make some real money.
ECW is best known for its hardcore style - something both WCW and the WWF owe it for ripping off - but actually gave us a wide variety of styles. Lucha Libre, chain wrestling, hard hitting Japanese strike-based wrestling, weapons filled blood baths, flaming tables and world class technicians. ECW had every style and type of wrestling you can imagine.
There were plenty of dramatic moments for the company along the way as they struggled to promote their first PPV event, became embroiled in legal battles and generally lived month to month but the 1997 - 1999 era of ECW, based mostly out of the ECW arena (a bingo hall in south Philadelphia) was the company’s heyday.
Paul Heyman always had a good relationship with Vince McMahon and so unbeknownst to most, McMahon provided many loans to ECW in exchange for a loose talent sharing deal. The WWF sent a few of its less polished talents to ECW to gain a bit more experience and exposure. The most successful act out of that arrangement being Al Snow who developed his crazy mannequin head gimmick in ECW. The relationship with McMahon paid off for Heyman in 2001.
Too big to use unknown talents, but too small to be able to afford to keep the ones they had, ECW’s roster was constantly being picked at. The beginning of the end came in 1999 when after having finally signed a major TV deal, they lost most of their big homegrown talents - Sandman, Mike Awesome and Raven went to WCW while The Dudley Boyz and Tazz went to the WWF.
Heyman battled with TNN for the entire length of their business relationship - unable to tone down his product to be more TV friendly and angry at them for not giving ECW more money and promotion, it was doomed to fail. Without the proper support of a TV network but still having to pay a fortune to put on a TV quality show every week, ECW’s debts began to spiral. They launched a video game which didn’t make any money, they launched a toy line which didn’t make any money and the occasional delayed pay cheque to the talent spiralled and turned into Heyman owing some of his wrestlers tens of thousands of dollars in back wages.
In January 2001, the company stopped producing events. Paul Heyman arrived in the WWF as an on screen talent in February and that was the sign to everyone that ECW was over. Officially ECW closed on April 4th, 2001.
The WWF used the ECW name on television throughout 2001’s Invasion storyline. They brought in many ECW stars and promoted a storyline where Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley had purchased ECW to stick it to her dad. The bankruptcy court which was at the time sorting through ECW’s almost $9 million in debt was less than pleased and the ECW mentions were toned down considerably after that. WWE officially purchased ECW’s assets and tape library in 2003.
In 2005, WWE promoted an ECW PPV - One Night Stand. That was basically a reunion show, and the farewell that Heyman and ECW never got. It was a huge success both commercially and critically and so ECW was relaunched as a stand alone brand in 2006. That lasted about four years and had its highs, but mostly lows.
ECW now is remembered for its late 90s glory, and the violent bloodsoaked product they brought to mainstream wrestling. A lot of the Attitude era owes itself to ECW’s influence and Paul Heyman. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2024 and a whole new generation of fans have gotten to enjoy his on screen work as a manager and mouth piece for the last two decades. ECW has a complicated legacy in wrestling with plenty of highs and lows but its 9 years of existence had a profound effect on wrestling and that is something everyone in the business owes it a debt of gratitude for.