Extreme Championship Wrestling

Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was a promotion that was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1992 by Tod Gordon, and closed when his successor, Paul Heyman, declared bankruptcy in April 2001.

The company became known for its loyal fan base as well as its tendency to push the envelope with storylines. The group has showcased many different styles of professional wrestling, ranging from lucha libre to hardcore wrestling.

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) bought the rights to ECW and its library after its 2001 closure and revived the promotion in a full-time fashion on June 13, 2006 with a weekly television series on Sci Fi Channel in the United States, FOX8 in Australia and Sky Sports 3 in the United Kingdom. Since 2005, WWE has promoted an annual ECW-brand event called ECW One Night Stand and in June 2006, it became a separate brand of WWE programming, along with RAW and Smackdown!.

History
ECW was founded in 1992, under the name Eastern Championship Wrestling as a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). After owner Tod Gordon had a falling out with head booker Eddie Gilbert, Gordon chose Gilbert's friend and WCW alumnus Paul Heyman to replace him. Heyman's first show with the promotion was NWA Ultra Clash '93 on September 18, 1993 at Viking Hall (which would eventually be dubbed The ECW Arena) in Philadelphia. Some people have accused Heyman of stabbing Eddie Gilbert in the back and taking his job. The popular belief is that Eddie's drug use and unstable behavior was the real reason for his departure from ECW.

When ECW was branching out, professional wrestlers had far more cartoonish gimmicks. The product was marketed more towards children than the 18-35 male demographic that ECW was aiming towards. There were also far more taboos such as blood-letting and women getting regularly beaten up by the male wrestlers. Heyman saw ECW as the professional wrestling equivalent to the grunge movement.

Extreme Championship Wrestling
In 1994, Jim Crockett's non-compete agreement with Ted Turner, who purchased World Championship Wrestling (WCW) from Crockett in 1988, was up and he decided to start promoting with the NWA again. Crockett went to Tod Gordon and asked him to hold a tournament for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship at the ECW Arena on August 27, 1994. NWA President Dennis Coralluzzo thought that Crockett and Gordon were going to try to monopolize the title (much like Crockett did in the 1980s) and told them they didn't have the NWA board's approval so he took control over the tournament. Gordon was upset at Coralluzzo for his power plays so Gordon and Shane Douglas, who was booked to win the title against 2 Cold Scorpio, planned to have Douglas throw the title down after he won it and break ECW from the NWA. In a now classic post-match speech, Shane Douglas said that he didn't want to be a part of an organization that "died" seven years earlier (presumably when Jim Crockett sold his NWA super territory to Turner Broadcasting in 1988).

After ECW withdrew from the NWA and officially changed its name from Eastern Championship Wrestling to Extreme Championship Wrestling, it became an underground sensation. The group would showcase many different styles of professional wrestling, popularizing bloody hardcore wrestling matches and the 3-Way Dance. ECW was always intended to be counter-culture and a grittier alternative to multi-million dollar organizations such as World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and WCW. In addition to their hardcore match types, they provided an alternative to North American wrestling with technical wrestling that was common overseas. International stars such as Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko anchored a solid technical wrestling core in ECW. Rey Mysterio, Jr., Psicosis, Konnan and Juventud Guerrera brought a lucha libre style rarely seen in the national wrestling promotions.

Wrestlers such as Shane Douglas, Tommy Dreamer, Raven, The Sandman, Cactus Jack, Terry Funk, Sabu, Public Enemy and The Tazmaniac were seen as being too dangerous for the multi-million dollar companies and were given a chance in ECW. They also helped launch the new ECW at this time. One of the promotion's marquee feuds was the long-standing feud between Tommy Dreamer and Raven, which involved many ECW wrestlers over a period of two and a half years. Another was between Raven and the Sandman, which included the crucifixion angle, one of the most controversial angles in wrestling history.

The bulk of ECW's shows remained at the ECW Arena, a rundown bingo hall secluded under a section of Interstate 95. Seating comprised simple folding chairs and four sets of portable bleachers, and the whole sort of unconventional set up reflected the gritty style of the wrestling itself. Shows were actually broadcast on a Philadelphia local cable sports station (SportsChannel America's local affiliate, Sports Channel Philadelphia) on Tuesday evenings. After Sports Channel Philadelphia went off the air in 1997, the show moved to WPPX-TV 61. It later moved to a former independent broadcast station (WGTW 48) in Philadelphia on either Friday or Saturday night at 1 or 2 a.m. Due to the obscurity of the stations and ECW itself, many times expletives and violence were not edited out of these showings, helping to get ECW noticed.

After noticing ECW's growing popularity, the "Big Two" (World Championship Wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation) started adopting their ideas and hiring away their talent. Paul Heyman believes that ECW was the first victim of the "Monday Night Wars" between WCW Monday Nitro and Monday Night RAW. While the WWF had somewhat of a working relationship with ECW (going as far as allowing cross-promotional angles, and providing financial aid to Heyman for a considerable period of time), WCW refused to even mention ECW by name (the sole exception being a passing remark by Scott Hall in late 1996), calling it "barbed wire city" and "a major independent promotion" that wrestled in bingo halls.

Vince McMahon claimed that he put Paul Heyman on the WWF's payroll as compensation for the talent (namely Tazz, Steve Austin, Mick Foley, and The Dudleys) leaving ECW for the WWF. On the other hand, Heyman believed that Eric Bischoff never compensated him for ECW bred talent such as Mikey Whipwreck, Raven, Sandman, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Perry Saturn, Steven Richards, Public Enemy (Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock) and Chris Jericho leaving to go to WCW.

Cross-promotion
Storyline-wise, Vince McMahon first became "aware" of ECW while at the 1995 King of the Ring event in ECW's home base of Philadelphia. During the match between Mabel and Savio Vega, the crowd suddenly started to angrily chant "ECW." At the September 22, 1996 In Your House: Mind Games event in Philadelphia, ECW stars (The Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, Paul Heyman, and Taz) were on hand in the front row with Sandman even interfering in one match (when he spat beer on Savio Vega during his strap match with Justin "Hawk" Bradshaw). McMahon acknowledged ECW's status as a local, up and coming organization on the air.

On February 24, 1997, ECW "invaded" Monday Night RAW from the Manhattan Center. They advanced a storyline, plugged their first ever pay-per-view and worked three matches in front of the WWF audience while Vince McMahon called the action with both Jerry Lawler and Paul Heyman.

The Manhattan Center in New York was peppered with a large number of ECW fans, who gave the WWF wrestlers "BORING" chants when they felt it was warranted. Likewise, when the ECW performers arrived, they popped and introduced the WWF Monday night audience to some trademark ECW group chants. It was said that this episode was the beginning of what would eventually be called The Attitude Era of the WWF.

After a series of struggles, on April 13, 1997, ECW broadcasted its first pay-per-view wrestling card, Barely Legal, highlighted by Terry Funk winning the ECW World Heavyweight Title.

At the 1997 Wrestlepalooza event, Jerry Lawler, a noted critic of ECW made a surprise appearance at the ECW Arena. Wrestlepalooza '97 featured Raven's final ECW match before leaving for WCW. In this match, Tommy Dreamer finally beat his long time nemesis Raven. Dreamer's celebration was short-lived, though, as Jerry Lawler, along with Sabu and Rob Van Dam showed up to attack Dreamer. This set up a match between Tommy Dreamer and Jerry Lawler at the 1997 Hardcore Heaven PPV on August 17, which was won by Dreamer.

In March 2000, Mike Awesome suddenly left ECW to join WCW even though he was still the reigning ECW World Heavyweight Champion. There were rumors that Eric Bischoff wanted to drop the ECW belt in the trash can on television, as he did with the WWF Women's title with Alundra Blayze. This led to threats of legal action from ECW, so Awesome agreed to return to ECW to drop the title to anyone - which turned out to be Tazz, who was working for the WWF at that time. This would mark the only time that a WCW contracted wrestler would wrestle against a WWF contracted wrestler in an ECW sanctioned event.

In August 1999, ECW began to broadcast nationally on TNN (for what was initially a three year contract). Despite no advertising and a low budget, ECW became TNN's highest rated show. ECW on TNN was canceled in October 2000 (with the final episode airing on October 6, 2000) in favor of WWE RAW moving to the network.

To this day, Paul Heyman strongly believes that the lack of a national television deal (especially after the TNN ordeal) was the main cause of ECW's demise.

Bankruptcy
ECW struggled for months after the cancellation, trying to secure a new national TV deal. On December 30, 2000, ECW Hardcore TV aired for the last time and ECW Guilty As Charged was the last PPV aired on January 7 2001. ECW Living Dangerously was going to air on March 11 2001, but because of financial trouble it was cancelled before March 11. Despite help from the WWF, Heyman could not get out of financial trouble and filed for bankruptcy on April 4, 2001.

The company was listed as having assets totaling $1,385,500. Included in that number was $860,000 in accounts receivable owed the company by ON DEMAND Network (PPV), Acclaim (video games), and Original San Francisco Toy Company (action figures). The balance of the assets were the video tape library ($500,000), a 1998 Ford Truck ($19,500) and the remaining inventory of merchandise ($4,000).

The liabilities of the company totaled $8,881,435.17. The bankruptcy filing included hundreds of claims, including production companies, buildings ECW ran in, TV stations ECW was televised on, travel agencies, phone companies, attorney's fees, wrestlers, and other talent. Wrestlers and talent were listed, with amounts owed ranging from $0 for Sabu and Steve Corino to hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of dollars. The highest amounts owed to talents were Rob Van Dam ($150,000), Tommy Dreamer ($100,000), Joey Styles ($50,480), Shane Douglas ($48,000), and Francine ($47,275).

Rumor has it that Paul Heyman didn't pay the wrestlers for well over a month as the company was dying. He supposedly never told the wrestlers the company was on its last legs. ECW performers saw Heyman on RAW and put two and two together. Moreover, Heyman allegedly wasn't even at the ECW shows. Towards the end of ECW's run, Tommy Dreamer had started doing much of the booking duties along with Raven and Lance Storm. He allegedly was able to buy himself time by telling everyone to be patient because he was out in California working on securing a new TV deal for ECW.

Alliance storyline
A few months after the promotion's 2001 demise, ECW resurfaced as a stable as part of the World Wrestling Federation Invasion storyline. As a participant in the inter-promotional feud between Shane McMahon's WCW and Vince McMahon's WWF, ECW was initially "owned" by Paul Heyman and harbored no loyalty to either promotion. Soon after, it was revealed Stephanie McMahon was ECW's new "owner", and she would soon conspire with her brother Shane to oust their father from his leadership position in the World Wrestling Federation. With the creation of The Alliance, the inter-promotional feud shifted into an internal power struggle among the McMahon family. The defection of WWF superstars to The Alliance continued the shift as less focus was placed on WCW and ECW performers. The feud lasted six months and concluded with WWF defeating The Alliance at the 2001 Survivor Series. The WWF's victory also marked the end of the Invasion storyline, and WCW and ECW wrestlers were reintegrated into the WWF.

Documentaries
In the summer of 2003, WWE purchased ECW's assets in bankruptcy court, acquiring the rights to ECW's video library. They used this video library to put together a two-disc DVD entitled The Rise and Fall of ECW. The set was released in November 2004. The main feature of the DVD was a three-hour documentary on the company's history, with the other disc featuring matches from the promotion. The DVD sold well, and is currently ranked as WWE's second highest-selling DVD of all time, behind WrestleMania 21.

An unauthorized DVD called Forever Hardcore was produced by former WCW crew member Jeremy Borash in response to Rise and Fall of ECW. The DVD had stories of wrestlers who were not employed by WWE telling their side of ECW's history.

Reunion shows
The strong sales of both Rise and Fall of ECW and Forever Hardcore prompted both World Wrestling Entertainment and Shane Douglas to run ECW reunion shows in 2005. Douglas's first Hardcore Homecoming show was held before WWE's ECW One Night Stand and subsequently went on tour.

The success of the WWE pay-per-view prompted a second ECW One Night Stand show to be scheduled for 2006 as well as the promotion being revived by WWE. ECW currently has a deal until December 2007 and is airing on the Sci Fi Channel.

Mass Transit
On November 23, 1996, aspiring wrestler Eric Kulas teamed with D-Von Dudley to wrestle The Gangstas. Substituting for Axl Rotten, Kulas was beaten with various weapons and suffered a deep cut as a result of blading incident by his opponent New Jack. Kulas sued ECW and New Jack for physical and psychological damage claiming they were unaware the match was going to be a hardcore match. Furthermore, criminal charges were filed by the State of Massachusetts against New Jack. During the civil trial, it was revealed that Kulas and his father lied that Kulas was 19 years old instead of 17. Also, Kulas had misrepresented his wrestling experience by stating he was trained by retired wrestler Killer Kowalski. In the end, ECW and New Jack were acquitted of the charges, however, ECW suffered long term repercussions. The lawsuit delayed the broadcast of ECW's first pay-per-view after distributors viewed video of the incident. Eric Kulas died on May 12, 2002 at the age of 22 due to complications from gastric bypass surgery.

Tod Gordon
In December 2005, Eastern Championship Wrestling founder Tod Gordon challenged WWE's ownership of the Eastern Championship Wrestling section of the ECW video library, claiming that the state didn't have the right to sell that section of the video library to Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment. He also claims that Eastern Championship Wrestling, Inc. was separate from Extreme Championship Wrestling. On May 8, 2006 the case was thrown out and Gordon plans to appeal the decision.

Tradition
There were several distinctive fans that were always in the front row at ECW shows. Among them were Sign Guy, Hat Guy (also known in the Philadelphia area as Straw Hat), Faith No More Guy, and Kato. They gained their respective nicknames because Sign Guy always had different creative signs with him, Hat Guy always wore a straw hat and Hawaiian shirt, Faith No More Guy bore an uncanny resemblance to "Big" Jim Martin, former guitarist for rock band Faith No More and Kato resembled OJ Simpson house guest Kato Kaelin. Regular patrons of ECW Arena events were given Club ECW status by the promotion and were able to reserve seats ahead of the general public. Many members of Club ECW were present at Shane Douglas's 2005 Hardcore Homecoming shows in Philadelphia, ECW One Night Stand and at TNA Hardcore War in June 2006.

Crowds at ECW events were well known for their rowdiness and distinctive chants that either supported or demeaned what was transpiring in the ring. ECW Chants such as "You fucked up" and "Holy shit" became infamous during those shows, and are still used by fans of other promotions.

In ECW, there were virtually no rules. Weapons were abundant, with much blood spilled. There were referees, but their role was normally limited to counting pinfalls and acknowledging submissions.

ECW was known for making popular several types of matches:
 * Barbed Wire Match
 * Flaming Tables Match
 * Singapore Cane Match
 * Stairway to Hell Match
 * Three-Way Dance

ECW was also infamous for regularly holding Bring Your Own Weapon Nights at the ECW Arena in the early days of the promotion. Fans were encouraged to bring their own weapons to give to wrestlers, as fighting in the crowd was a staple of ECW matches. A dollar store located next to the ECW Arena often supplied the bulk of the weapons, with fans purchasing them while they waited in line for each show. Memorable weapons included crutches, a large piece of cardboard with the words "Use Me!" handwritten on it but actually concealing a full-sized Stop sign, a two-man kayak, a Leonard Cohen vinyl record, a VCR (with remote), and a Nintendo Entertainment System. An accident actually helped put an end to Bring Your Own Weapon Night when wrestler Cactus Jack, believing the weapon he was holding to be an inexpensive aluminum pan, swung the object full force into The Sandman's head. When he heard the resulting "clang" noise, he realized the object was in fact a cast-iron skillet, and The Sandman's resulting injury put him out of action for two weeks.

Championships

 * ECW World Heavyweight Championship (1992-present)
 * ECW Tag Team Championship (1992-2001)
 * ECW World Television Championship (1992-2001)
 * ECW FTW Heavyweight Championship (1998-1999)
 * ECW Maryland Championship (1993)
 * ECW Pennsylvania Championship (1993)

Books

 * Hardcore History: The Extremely Unauthorized Story of the ECW (ISBN 1-59670-021-1) - Scott Williams
 * Rise And Fall of ECW (ISBN 1-4165-1058-3) - Thom Loverro for World Wrestling Entertainment
 * Turning the Tables (ISBN 1-905363-78-8) - John Lister
 * Sex, Drugs, and Wrestling - The Truth, The Lies, and the Extreme - Tod Gordon (scheduled to be released in December 2006)