On this day way back in 1992, The Extreme Championship Wrestling, or ECW, was founded! So hey, let's delve a little into the illustrious history of this once proud underdog of wrestling heavy hitters...
Before becoming the ECW, the company was originally known as Tri-State Wrestling Alliance, which was founded in 1989 by a dude named Joel Goodhart. The company did well enough to say it was birth following the 80s Golden Age boom brought about by the WWE (then WWF) shaking things up and creating a choke-hold monopoly on the industry, but it wasn't anything to write home about. Goodhart would then up and sell his shares to his business partner Tod Gordon, who re-branded the company as the ECW, though at this point in time this stood for Eastern Championship Wrestling. Under Gordon's ruling, the ECW managed to get a little more recognition than it had as Tri-State, even landing television deals in Philadelphia where it resided, however it was following the hiring of Paul Heyman, who had just been fired from WCW, that things really begun to take off, starting with the rechristening of the company to be EXTREME Championship Wrestling.
Following a public falling out with the National Wrestling Alliance, Heyman began pushing for more alternative styles of wrestling to really set the ECW apart from other wrestling companies running at the time, which included lucha libre wrestling, Japanese wrestling, and of course most famously, hardcore wrestling, of which the ECW would become most infamous by. These televised events would take place in the ECW arena, an old warehouse located under an interstate, which was so poorly maintained that audiences simply sat on folded chairs on the hard floor, and with no toilets available for the talent backstage to use. This only added to the grittiness of the ECW experience for both audiences and talent alike, and due to the show being broadcast at such a late time on an obscure station, it managed to stay off the FCC's radar, allowing ECW to get away with uncensored foul language, extreme violence, and the use of copyright music, which they never got the rights to - most famously using Metallica's Enter Sandman for The Sandman's entrance theme. By 1995, Paul Heyman had complete control of the ECW, and from there he could take his show completely off the reigns.
The same year Heyman took control, ECW talent begun "invading" WWF matches around the country, the most notable ring invaders being ECW's biggest stars Taz and The Sandman, which would result in chants from the crowd of "ECW, ECW, ECW". McMahon took note of this up and coming company trying to make a name for themselves, and although it wasn't known at the time, he actually begun helping Heyman with funds, and ECW stars would get the chance to appear properly on WWF televised events, furthering the brand's fame outside of Philadelphia as well as its talent, especially Taz, The Dudleys, and Rob Van Dam, who McMahon requested access to above all others in the deals between himself and Heyman. This boost in popularity allowed the ECW to broadcast their very first PPV event in 1997, Wrestlepalooza '97, which was a continuation of their previous Wrestlepalooza in '95. It was a big it, and for the next few years Wrestlepalooza would continue to produce successful PPVs for the company. Hell, at one point they also almost scored The Ultimate Warrior following his falling out with the WWF, but after he refused to lose a match to Taz when the discussion came up for his planned storyline, the negotiations quickly ceased. They also almost managed to land Kurt Angle before the WWF, but upon seeing a match in which a wrestler was "crucified", the offended Angle gave the bookers as piece of his mind and stormed out.
So everything was going pretty peachy for the company, right? Well no, on the surface things might have been smooth sailing for the up and coming ECW, but beneath it there were a string of issues that had plagued them event from their earliest days, problems that would soon be forced to surface. Firstly there was the issue with pay - simply put, Heyman didn't pay his staff their wages properly. Even to this day in fact some wrestlers from the ECW claim they have never been paid their full wages, and one particular talent, Mike Awesome, became so frustrated with the situation that he jumped ship to the WCW, and intended to make a spectacle of his betrayal of the ECW before Heyman threatened legal action.
Talent jumping ship wasn't the only issue the ECW faced either, because even their most loyal wrestlers could cause them a headache, especially The Sandman, who had a serious drug addiction that actually resulted in him dying of a Nubain overdose on the way to one of his shows one time. He was dumped off at a hospital where he was revived by an adrenaline shot, and upon returning to the land of the living, he hauled ass to the area to participate in his planned match. Most infamously of all though was New Jack, an absolute psychopath who landed the ECW in some very hot water in 1996 when he "bladed" the head of a seventeen year old named Eric Kulas, a blading which was botched and caused excessive bleeding, leaving Kulas requiring fifty stitches in his head. Kulas had lied to Heyman claiming he was a trained twenty-three year old wrestler in order to get into a match, and he had requested New Jack blade him, however upon the stunt going wrong the truth was quickly revealed. Kulas' family attempted to sue the ECW and New Jack was charged with aggravated assault, but the charges were dropped due to the lies Kulas had spun in order to enter the ring.
Violence from the talent wasn't the only issue the ECW faced either, as the fans were equally as dangerous. Almost every ECW show would result in a riot from the fans, beating each other and sometimes the wrestlers when they would invade the ring, and almost all of the weapons featured in the hardcore matches were donated by fans who had brought items in that night, resulting in everything from golf clubs to VCRs being used to to devastating effect.
Honestly, it's amazing the company stayed running as long as they did. There were virtually no rules to the matches, and all manner of extremely dangerous match-types made the move from obscurity to forefront events whilst featured at the ECW, including flaming table matches, barbed wire matches, and Singapore cane matches, amongst many others.
By the 2000s however, the dream eventually ground to a hault. ECW had found nationwide reach when they begun broadcasting on TNN, however when the station briskly dropped them in favour of the WWF, the ECW fell deeper into financial woes that it was just never able to recover from. Sure they had merchandising deals and even their own videogame as well as VHS sales like the WWF had, but the WWF was a far bigger entity with much better known stars, meaning merchandise sales for the ECW paled in comparison, and so that coupled with them losing out to the Monday Night Wars meant the end of the company. By the end of its reign, big name talents such as Rob Van Dam were owed anything up to $150,000 in wages, which were never seen.
As the WWF snatched up ECW, most of the talent were safe in their chosen career path, with only a few wrestlers dipping out, such as the previously mentioned crazy man New Jack. Elements of what made the ECW so successful also carried on over into the WWF during the Attitude Era, though as the WWF did still attempt to keep hold of some form of family friendly image during this time, things were considerably toned down to what fans had come to expect at the ECW arena.
So all in all, it wasn't the most beneficial of rides for all involved, but man what a ride it was. This small and unknown wrestling company came out of nowhere and managed to take a swipe at the WWE during a time when it was just reaching that untouchable status, and for a few years it did a pretty great job, even cropping up on the company's radar. And for that, along with all the bat-shit events and sights the ECW bestowed upon us, we shall remember it fondly that, on the day of its inception. Radical.
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