If there was no ECW

[Atrue1onewo1f]

I was sitting at home for new years, and was slamming some jello shots.... Popped in some old ECW....(Heatwave '98 to be exact) I'm glassy eyed and I decided to come up with this "If there was no ECW..." I thought this out for few days so here me out and bare with me.

First, Watch this video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vswZ73WETpc

Now...My Thread is based on 7:06-8:08.

We all Know that ECW was the first casualty of the monday night wars (By Paul Heyman's own admission)

Since there is no Heyman no ideas can be stolen, Stone cold would still be frozen on his couch, and the "LionHeart" would still be growling In Genichiro Tenryu's Wrestling and Romance (later known as Wrestle Association "R") (WAR)

We all ready know that the Monday Night Wars was unarguably the most popular time to be a fan, and the most financially successful time to be In the "Sports Entertainment" Industry. So I got some questions and I need some answers.

1) Who would win the war WCW or WWF/E?

2) Who would be the Star that leads the winning company to victory?

3) Who would be the First undisputed Champion? (considering Lionheart Chris Jericho was originally founded By Heyman)

All answers are welcomed, please remember that this is a "Thinking Man's" thread. In other words, Please think before you answer. Be original!

 

[ShinobiMusashi]

WCW would have won the war. ECW opened up Vince, and Eric's eyes to a bunch of talent. Some of that talent ended up saving Vince's ass, where as the talent that Eric got from them was limited to mid card status(albiet, his entire mid card).

One would be quick to say that Goldberg would have been the star that led the company, but if you look a little closer at some ECW stuff you realize that Goldberg may not have been GOLDBERG had the ECW never existed. Here is a quote from Joey Styles during his introduction of Taz's new gimmick(as opposed to his old "Tasmaniac" gimmick of 93-95) at House Party 96(Jan 96):

"Taz is one of these new unstoppable hybrid wrestlers, like these guys you see on the Ultimate Fighting Championship pay per views."

Taz started to throw the phrase "Tap Out" around a lot, before anybody else was really. There were even Taz Tap Out t shirts iirc. He partnered up with the Stiener Brothers a lot in 1995, and really started to use a lot of their ligitimate amatuer wrestling style of moves, like all of the suplexes(He was even tagged as the human suplex machine). Taz went undefeated in the ECW throughout 1996, and the first half of 1997. He even fought a few "Real MMA Shoot Fights" against Chris Jericho, and UFC 7 tournament runner up, Paul Varelans in the ECW in 96.

I think the Taz character in the ECW played a huge role in Vince's signing of Ken Shamrock, and the way he was marketed. Shamrock was signed to the WWF in early 1997, which was the peak of the Taz character in the ECW, and we all know that this was a time when Vince had his eyes on what the ECW was doing. We all know Goldberg was a direct rip off of Shamrocks WWF character(Bischoff even admited it). I think the Goldberg character was a direct rip off of not only Shamrock, but also Taz. The way Taz was worked up through the jobbers, and then the mid card, and finished guys off in 30 seconds was very, very similar to how Goldberg was built up in the ECW. Then comes the clincher, just watch the old Taz promos from 1997. Very, very similar to how Goldberg would handle himself in a promo. Very similar.

Oh, and Al Snow would probobly be homeless, or dead.

 

[Brewski]

I think it's really hard to tell what would happen with the actual wrestlers since you would never know who could sign where or stay independent. What i'm interested in though is how a lack of ECW would change the IWC and wrestling culture. For hardcore wrestling fans in the US, ECW was access to pure wrestling. Mic work and story lines were often pushed to the side in favor of booking great match ups. No gimmicks needed was exactly what ECW was. Fans didn't have to download poor quality videos from japan on their dial-up networks to see some of the best alternative wrestling on the planet anymore. WWE/F and WCW wouldn't ever had such immediate access to the talent they sucked off from ECW but the fans here would have been stuck watching the product with really no alternative on television. I do believe the attitude era would have and could have existed just because of the rebellious culture of the late 90s, but no way would it have been as edgy.

 

[RVC]

its real tough to imagine to be honest, the influence the company has had was and is huge, the most significant difference in my opinion wasnt only the blood n stunts (although i loved most of em), but more so the creative freedom the wrestlers had with there matches.
politics govern who gets over n so on but in ecw 2 relatively unknown guys seemed to have the freedom to run a great match n tear the house down.
i personally grew a little bored of wwf/wcw in the mid 90's and really needed an alternative to be entertained, i loved ecw and still feel even with wwe's watered down effort that an ecw product could still work in the future,
for me i think monday night wars would've battled a little longer but the crucial difference would have been which company would've given paul heyman a job n how much creative freedom he would've had..

 

[satanklaw]

I agree with everyone ahead of me, I just don't think you would have wrestling anywhere near what it is today. Where would WCW and WWF/E get the talent from. the list is too long to of WCW and WWF/E champions that came out of ECW. it is just mind blowing to think about. but I think a lot of those guys might have died a lot sooner without ECW to keep them active. Most would end up like Trent Acid running around on the indys killing themselves both in and out of the ring, but without an ECW there wouldnt have been a Trent Acid either, or CZW, or maybe no ROH either. Wrestling as a whole would look completely different, in my opinion.

 

[BarryHorowitzfanclub]

I think WCW would probably still be around. WCW probably wouldn't have paid so much to gather the "best" talent. Most think it was to keep them from WWe, but I believe it was to also keep them from ECW. To WCW it was better to keep it a two man race than have a better third option. I don't recall if anyone thought of going to ECW or WCW, but I'd assume that along with coaxing talent from WWF with 7 figure deals, they also thought of ************ ECW a litte.

 

[Rowdy Robby Piper]

Who would win the war WCW or WWF/E?
WCW. While ECW (along with NJPW and AAA/whatever federation the luchadores came from) did provide a lot of the talent that was seen in the undercard matches WCW was going for a little bit more "grown-up" product/presentation and going after the 18-34 demographic - the fans who grew up watching in the 80s that were now in their teenage years - whereas WWF was still somewhat stuck in a cartoon-ish phase. Plus with the whole nWo/invasion storyline that had never been done on such a grand scale/in the US along with the fact that the internet was still in a somewhat/mostly infantile stage, you didn't know what to expect.


Who would be the Star that leads the winning company to victory?
Sting. He should have defeated "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan cleanly at Starrcade 1997 and brought an end to the whole nWo storyline and been the final nail in the WWF's coffin. WCW should have played it as the nWo (read: WWF) came in to try to destroy WCW from within, but when it was all said and done Sting - as I believe to be one of the few....maybe only one(?)...homegrown WCW talent who never jumped ship/was ever with WWF - saving the day.


Who would be the First undisputed Champion? (considering Lionheart Chris Jericho was originally founded By Heyman)
This is an interesting question, especially given the cutthroat nature of the business at the time. If WCW won the war would they have acknowledged the title lineage of the WWF, or would it have just been thrown to the wayside/trashed/discarded in the fact that someone finally killed the WWF? But given the situation/nature of the question being posed as there being a title unification, I would have had Bill Goldberg as the first Undisputed Champion and leader of the next generation to lead WCW into the new millenium.




Good/thought provoking topic....well done.

 

[justtxyank]

I think WCW would probably still be around. WCW probably wouldn't have paid so much to gather the "best" talent. Most think it was to keep them from WWe, but I believe it was to also keep them from ECW. To WCW it was better to keep it a two man race than have a better third option. I don't recall if anyone thought of going to ECW or WCW, but I'd assume that along with coaxing talent from WWF with 7 figure deals, they also thought of ************ ECW a litte.

ECW couldn't afford to poach any talent at serious money. They couldn't afford to pay the talent they had. WCW was never worried about guys jumping to ECW. The reality was that with the hardcore style Heyman was booking, ECW was never a real threat to the other two, just a promotion that could shake things up. ECW was never going to end up on national television in an uncensored format.

To answer the questions posed, WCW would still have died and the WWF would still have won the war.

WCW would have died: When TimeWarner and AOL merged a new direction was taken with the television channels. They had ZERO interest in wrestling existing at all on their networks. It wasn't just wrestling either, horror movies and sci-fi which had played a big role in TNT were cut as well as TNT tried to become the "We know drama" station.

WWF would have won: Whether or not their ratings would have ever gone where they did, once Vince made the decision to take his company public he got the influx of cash needed to save the WWF forever. Eventually WCW would have been dead with the TNT issue and fans would have gone back to the marquee brand name in wrestling, like it or not (and I don't) the WWF. The WWF has always been synonymous with wrestling in the United States, and once Vince secured the financing it was never in any jeopardy again.

 

[Xumer]

It would have all played out exactly how it did whether ECW ever existed or not. I love ECW and I wish to god both TNA AND WWE would employ more of that ECW attitude these days but I don't see any lasting effects on the business as a whole. Whatever legacy ECW could have had was utterly destroyed by Vince. Only the old school hardcore fans remember ECW for what is WAS, not for what Vince turned it into and as you can tell from the average wrestling fan today, we are in the minority.

 

[sdaniel1977]

WCW would still be dead because they died due to poor management by Bischoff and his loyalty to the nWo angle over all else, but WWE would not have the global power it does either, why? Because through ECW Vince saw that people wanted emotions, they wanted real, they wanted attitude. So there entered the Attitude Era brought on by ECW graduate Stone Cold Steve Austin and the rest as they say is history. Had it not been for Austin wrestling would've never reached the popularity it did in the 90's. Mr. McMahon needs to remember that and get Laurinaitis aka Bischoff Jr. off tv before he kills the show entirely.

 

[justtxyank]

WCW would still be dead because they died due to poor management by Bischoff and his loyalty to the nWo angle over all else

This is bad revisionist history. As each year passes since the death of WCW it becomes more and more the "truth" unfortunately.

History is written by the victors.

Money killed WCW, not the nWo. Running a wrestling promotion under the ownership of a television company ultimately doomed WCW. WCW never was run by anyone who had a profit motive. The motive was always good television ratings, because good tv ratings helped mother ship Turner make money. They never had anyone directing their promotional agenda to try to make money. They never worried about capitalizing on venue attendance revenue or ppv buyrate revenue, etc. Heck, they didn't even do most of their promotional pictures in color, or use new photos for ppv adverts.

All that said, the loyalty to the nWo and the old stars did play a huge role in running the ratings of WCW down, but what people never consider is that perhaps the levels WCW went to under the nWo were artificial and couldn't be sustained without it. Once interest in the nWo and Hogan and whatnot waned, perhaps there was nothing anyone could do to stop it from falling to its level. The WWF has been THE dominant name in the industry worldwide since the 1980s. People like to pretend that a good company if it is managed well could knock them off, but the only time that has ever come close to happening is when outside forces (steroids, congress) caused serious financial trouble for the WWF and Vince's stars were on another network for another promotion.

The WWF has thrived for years in spite of Vince's arrogance and his horrible ideas being run out on television. For all the "WCW died because of this stupid idea" posts, you could make a list of the gobbledy gookers, goons, garbage men wrestlers, battle kat, saba simba, katie vick, etc. etc. etc. that haven't done damage to the WWF.

Once Vince and the WWF won the 1980s with Hulkamania and Rock & Wrestling and killed the territory system, it was over. The only way the WWF would have ever lost a war is if Vince just said to hell with it and let his company die instead of taking it public.

 

[MondayNight90s]

If there was no ECW, there would have been no Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars as we know them would have been completely different. WWF borrowed heavily from ECW - more edgy storylines and wrestlers that were more reality based than the cartoon characters of the 80's and early 90's. There is no way to see how everything would have turned out for WWF and WCW in the Monday Night Wars, but Stone Cold wouldn't have been the same without that ECW stay and neither would Mick Foley. Those were 2 of the biggest stars of the AE.