Author's Note: The following is a re-published article from Bleacher Report.com and has been authorized to be re=published.

In this day, if you were to say professional wrestling, the first thing that most people would say is World Wrestling Entertainment.

Besides Total Nonstop Action (TNA) and Ring of Honor (ROH), there is really no other promotion that is large enough to compete with the WWE.

Today, I will not be here to cry about the past and how we miss the Attitude Era, or all the fun segments that made us anticipate Raw so much more than we do now. I am simply here to look back and celebrate the legacy of the most unique pro wrestling promotion of all time, Extreme Championship Wrestling.

To those who might be unaware, ECW had once been its own individual company which would feud with WWE and World Championship Wrestling (WCW).
Unfortunately, Vince McMahon had bought his competition out.

This was not the offical end of ECW, but it had now been owned by WWE. It is now the "C" show brand in WWE and I find that disrespectful to all that ECW stood for.

But once again, I remind myself that I am not here to weep over modern-day wrestling, but to look back in time at Extreme Championship Wrestling.

ECW had been founded in 1991 as part of the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance, but it was short-lived as the owner at the time, Joel Goodhart, sold a large share of his company to his business partner, Tod Gordon, who renamed the show ECW (Eastern Championship Wrestling).

Gordon had a vision for this show to be unique, as stated in an interview with ClubWW1.com:

"We try to give them a mixture of old school, new school, highspot kind of wrestling with a little psychology thrown in there, because somebody seems to have forgotten that that was an art form at one time, and there doesn't seem to be much anymore."

Due to financial issues, Gordon would have to showcase ECW in The Arena in South Philadelphia, which in fact was a former warehouse. ECW's rough environment would become the home of the promotion all the way until it fell in 2001, and actually lent to the rustic charm of the promotion.

Gordon picks up the narrative again:

"The budget was definitely limited. Our studio in the beginning was some guy’s basement basically up in Paoli, Pa., where we did some of these great promos where his desk became my commissioner's desk.

His bathrooms were where Tanaka and Diamond had their battles with Public Enemy. His parking lot is where Jason would get his new suits and drive off in his car.

We did all this in one little place and it looked like we were in this giant, you know, we're all over the country when really we're in this one little basement. It's all…an illusion. It's about making people believe."

Eastern Championship Wrestling would later be absorbed into the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), where Gordon hired the legendary "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert to lead the creative booking team.

He was shortly replaced as the head of booking by the eventual "Dictator of ECW," one Paul Heyman, who had just walked out on WCW.

Heyman bought into Gordon's original vision of being different, being special, and being...Extreme. Heyman then escorted ECW out of the NWA and into an era which would revolutionize professional wrestling as we know it.

Shortly after WCW had withdrawn from the NWA, taking the prestigious NWA title belt with them, ECW became the focal point of the NWA. With it being the most successful NWA show at the time, ECW would garner much more attention from a televised audience as well as the privilege to hold the new NWA World Championship at the time.

The NWA Championship would be won by future ECW legend, Shane “The Franchise” Douglas, but shortly after he was awarded the belt, he had tossed it on the floor, picked up the ECW Championship, and proclaimed, "I am ECW!"

This was when ECW officially left the NWA and now referred to themselves as Extreme Championship Wrestling. The wrestling world would never be the same again.

“The National Wrestling Alliance was old-school when old-school wasn't hip anymore. We wanted to set our mark, we wanted to break away from the pack, we wanted to let the world know that we weren't just some independent promotion," said Paul Heyman as ECW departed from the NWA.

Later in 1996, the ECW Dynasty would officially begin as Paul Heyman would purchase ECW from Tod Gordon. Heyman then had a big image, one that he wanted to build on from Gordon's original image. He wanted to be extreme. He wanted to exceed limits that no other organization would even consider.

This image would soon make ECW the most controversial wrestling promotion in history. To add to this, Heyman would continue having ECW in a bingo hall in Philadelphia, where ECW got it's big break due to Tod Gordon's financial issues.

"I think ECW itself was a gimmick,” Heyman commented years later. “I think getting the audience to chant ECW was really something.

"I don't care if you draw 70,000 people in a dome for Wrestlemania, nobody chants WWE. The only time you ever hear anyone chant WCW, it's always followed by the word "sucks."

“I was on 57th Ave. in New York City and there was a three-car pileup and a bunch of people looked at the car wreck and started chanting ECW. It's become part of the country's lexicon. It's an accepted, acknowledged phrase.

“For us to have built that from a bingo hall and then extend it out is really something. For us to accomplish that is really my favorite gimmick."

Heyman was a very shrewd man and he helped groom no-name wrestlers into legends. ECW had been the home to &feature=related" target="_blank">Sandman, " target="_blank">Tommy" target="_blank"> Dreamer, " target="_blank">Rob Van Dam, &feature=related">Rey Mysterio, " target="_blank">The Dudleys, &feature=related">Rhino, &feature=related">Terry Funk, " target="_blank">Taz, and many more.

"I hate to admit this but I'm gonna shoot straight with you,” Heyman’s biggest star, Taz, said recently. “I was probably the biggest A-Hole back in the original ECW days. I don't think most of the locker room "liked" me....and they shouldn't have.

“At times, I was a bit immature and difficult to deal with....it took me a long time to "make it" and I was always told I would NEVER make it in the industry and that motivated me but also developed a huge chip on my shoulder so I wasn't mature enough (sometimes) to handle the push and was very protecting of what I achieved.

• Add New
• Search

Comments (0)

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Website:

Comment:

Title:

UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 4.0 beta2