Were you an anti-ECW fan?

[CM Steel]

The WWE "ECW Greatest Matches Vol.1" DVD is released right now as we speak.

Extreme Championship Wrestling from that bingo hall in south Philly, PA was epic, revolutionary, different, innovative in the mid-to late 90's ti'l it's death in 2001. ECW had the most bloody, violent, and crazy matches on any pro wrestling promotion card.

Tommy Dreamer was the heart & soul of ECW.
Paul Heyman was the brain's behind of ECW.
And Taz(z) & the Dudley Boyz were the backbones to ECW before heading to the then-WWF.

Does anybody remember that legit beef between Jerry "the King" Lawler & ECW? Jerry Lawler really couldn't stand ECW nor was trying to understand it's ways and culture. To the point were Jerry Lawler made a showing at a ECW show bashing it's name. "Extremely Crappy Wrestling" is what he called it.

Jerry Lawler and Tommy Dreamer had a story book match at a ECW event that was one of a kind (no RVD pun intended). But who else felt the same way that Jerry Lawler did about ECW? Was it really as he tried to call it?

 

[Y2JBL]

No I wasn't anti-ECW. I enjoyed watching it on TV whenever I could and my parents weren't around, haha. I'm sure in many ways their programming was crappy in general, and some of that has been forgotten about now that it's become a legend or whatever you want to call it. I think most just hated it for being "garbage wrestling" but honestly I never felt they went too far into that realm. I think a lot of the main guys who I tuned in to watch were fairly talented. RVD, Raven, Taz, etc.

But I will say, with what the so-called "garbage wrestling" has evolved into these days, I am definitely not into that. I have no interest in watching CZW or anything of the like. I don't want to watch people taking deep flesh wounds from a pair of scissors or a huge gash on their back from crashing through a light board. Partially because I really think I've developed some sort of respect for the business after growing up watching it, and you see these guys who make it their life, work hard in the gym and actually look like athletes. You watch some of these "extreme" feds and it's a bunch of 160lb guys who know they have nothing to offer except for their willingness to take a pair of scissors to the forehead. They can't wrestle, they can't tell a story, and it truly earns the name "garbage" wrestling. And it's not just a distaste for the over the top hardcore stuff. Just the fact that they barely know the mechanics of a hip toss. Just for their wrestling quality alone, it sucks.

I don't think ECW really ever crossed that line too much. Aside from a few barbed wire matches and stuff like that. But even still, contained within those matches, was still some decent wrestling. And the main point being, the guys were still wrestlers, they could still put on a match, as a matter of fact most of their regular programming was just great technical wrestling matches, and then they'd break out the extreme stuff because they know that's what people came to see.

 

[asiatic7]

I would'nt say I was anti-ECW, but I always viewed it as the "special ed" of wrestling. Those guys were nuts. I don't mean that as disrespect for special ed kids but, they were kinda off a little compared to the rest of the school. That's what ECW was to me, they were wild and some of the violence was unecessary (cheese graters, barbed wire etc). But to give credit where it's due, they revolutionized wrestling in so many ways. If it was'nt for ECW, I don't think WWE or WCW would have found their edge and their talent pool would'nt have been as deep. Eddie Guererro, Benoit, Jericho, Rey Mysterio,Malenko, Dudleys and so many others cut their teeth in ECW, and became huge stars in WWE and WCW because of their time in EC-DUB. So in that regard, I thought it was cool. We got Introduced to some great talent, but I was not a particular huge fan of ECW...sorry.

In New York, it came on the MSG channel at 1am, sometimes 2am, this is like around 1995-96. If it would have come on at a decent time, I probably would have watched it a bit more. By the time they were on TNN, I had no real interest in it.

But no, I was not Anti-ECW, just a little over the top for me sometimes.

 

[Workrate]

You can't be an "anti-ECW fan," but you can not be a fan of ECW.

Anyway, I was always an ECW fan. The thing with Lawler was hypocritical, if you really think about it. Lawler's beef with ECW was based almost entirely on misconception. He thought ECW was killing traditional wrestling, every match was over-the-top violent, and the guys had no skills aside from bashing each other with chairs. Of course, some of that is true, but by and large they had a roster full of dynamic performers and skilled wrestlers that could have competed with anyone (Jericho, Malenko, Saturn, Raven, Taz, RVD, Sabu, Bam Bam, Tanaka, Jerry Lynn, Dreamer, Guerrero, Candido, Storm... honestly, the list is far too long to recite). So he was really just bitter at a small sliver of what the company was about and ignored the whole picture.

The reason it's hypocritical is because, well, look at the shit Lawler shovels now. This is the same guy who practically built a career off of shouting "puppies!," a guy who just last night basked in the glory of a grown man in his underwear being slathered with barbeque sauce. I'm not sure how most of what Lawler sits at ringside and endorses -- not just recently, but for years -- helps traditional wrestling, which is what he was more or less defending from the start, but alright.

 

[neildittmar]

Jerry Lawlers opinion of ECW was and still is a very true representation of how most fans dismissed (and continue to dismiss) the company as a garbage promotion whose "one trick pony" was barbed wire and thumbtacks.

Any fan of ECW knows that the promotion was more... so, so much more. The over-the-top violent matches were only one aspect of a company that embraced so many new ideals in its time. The edgy, mature storylines hit areas that neither WWF nor WCW dared to go in the mid-90's. Wrestling clinics by the likes of Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, and other future WCW and WWF superstars were showcased on a near nightly basis. Matches between smaller, lighter guys were not only featured regularly in ECW, but would find their way into the main event if the program was strong enough. That said, guys who had no chance in securing a WWF/WCW contract were given a chance and with Paul Heyman's help, an opportunity to shine. Do you really think Vince or Eric would have signed the Dudley's that originally debuted in ECW?

Folks can love or hate the promotion all they want, but actively being an anti-ECW fan is tantamount to being an anti-wrestling fan in my opinion. That little, so-called nothing promotion that folks enjoy downplaying and running down to this day most certainly had its hand in reviving the rotting corpse that profesional wrestling had mostly become in the early 90's. The formula in general had grown incredibly stale, yet WWF and WCW persisted in giving the fans heaping helpings of exactly what they didn't want.

ECW showed that you could take a chance and be successful, at least with a certain demographic of the audience. That demographic must have been pretty strong in the long run, as the "Attitude Era" is what successfully turned the tide for WWF in the war with WCW. Only a blind person couldn't see the parallels between what Heyman was doing in ECW and many things Vince and company "adopted" for the WWF.

 

[ECW Sandman]

As my screen name says I was a big ECW fan once I saw the first show on TV late night one Friday or Saturday Night I was hooked, It was different then WWF and WCW it was great to see these guys and girls who no one knew doing stuff you never seen before on TV If it wasn't for ECW WCW and WWF would never have there '' Hardcore '' Division.

ECW made pro wrestling cool to watch and If you watched One Night Stand in 2005 there were A LOT of old School ECW Fans at the event and who bought the PPV.

 

[BiGEViL]

ECW debuted just as I started my, if you will, pro-wrestling "career". Although people have known for decades that pro-wrestling was scripted/talked out, I came in during a time where the old schoolers still didn't like to break kayfabe and we still tried to protect the biz. I used to watch ECW, whenever I could catch it on. It was usually 1am-2am. At first, I liked it. It reminded me of the old NWA/WCCW/USWA/UWF days with its smaller arenas, dedicated fans, smaller roster of wrestlers, etc. As it became more and more extreme and the storylines became more and more absurd, I lost interest. Partially, because as I trained to be a wrestler, I became more aware that ECW was damaging the business. Even though 99% of the fans KNEW it was scripted and the outcome usually predetermined, ECW made other wrestlers and promotions look bad. It didn't make sense, to see a guy like Mikey Whipwreck (spelling?) go out, get thrown off a building, hit by a car, set ablaze and power bombed in to a pool of blood filled with starving piranhas while being electrocuted...and then come to see me and whatever promotion I was wrestling for, pin or get pinned with a piledriver. I believed then, and I believe now, that hardcore wrestling is detrimental to the business as a whole. Sure, you can get slammed on thumbtacks, cut with razor wire, beat with kendo sticks, etc...but for those of us, at the time, that had normal jobs the next day, it wasn't feasible. If you remember ECW, like I do, the REAL wrestlers like Benoit, Jericho, Malenko, etc...didn't involve themselves in the super hardcore stuff. They went out, put on a wrestling clinic and got the biggest pop(s) of the night. But, at the time, a small amount of fans wanted it, and they got it. The guys that gave it to them (Raven, Sandman, Whipwreck, Mahoney, etc) will always be legends, and maybe that is what they wanted. But overall, in hindsight, it didn't work. I was friends with a LOT of the guys that went to ECW (Chillywilly, CW Anderson, Joey Matthews, Christian York, Kid Kash) and from what they passed along to me, there were always payroll problems, booking problems, HUGE egos (even in such a small promotion) and the like. I have always liked Paul Heyman, and respect his wrestling mind. But even if ECW had survived, how far could they push the envelope until ECW was banned in most states? That was initially one of the problems the UFC faced, it was brutal and dangerous and banned in most states in the US until it was bought out and new, stricter rules were established. So how far could ECW have gone with it's hardcore style? Not very far in my opinion, and then, in order to survive, ECW would have had to change its format, and the wrestlers that relied on blood and gore to draw would have been replaced with what we have today, and essentially you would have had a smaller promotion trying to compete with WWE/F. The fans that only wanted the carnage ECW provided, would have grown board and moved on, and ECW would have sank anyway. Just my two cents.

 

[The Brain]

First of all, I'm sure anything Lawler said about ECW was a work.

I wasn't anti ECW but I think it was very overrated. When I was a teenager reading the highlights of ECW in the PWI family of magazines it sounded awesome. My imagination ran wild about the events that took place on a weekly basis in the rundown old arena in Philadelphia. When I actually got to see ECW a few years later it didn't live up to my expectations. If you watch the ECW dvd that WWE put out several years ago you would think ECW was the most awesome promotion ever. Of course that dvd showed the highlights. In between the highlights was a bunch of garbage. When ECW finally made it to ppv I saw how unorganized the promotion really was. Many times the storylines didn't make any sense and things just seemed thrown together without any rhyme or reason. It was kind of a combination of the WWF attitude era and the dying days of WCW. The good stuff was really good but it was greatly outnumbered by really bad stuff that didn't make sense.

 

[Headman]

I liked it at the time. But now I can't stand it. I used to follow Big Japan and other garbage wrestling promotions and I can't watch that stuff anymore either. Actually the same goes for the attitude era aswell. Everybody was jumping on trends and trying to out shock the next guy and everything just got stupid.

 

[robinkom]

I live near Pittsburgh where Heyman frequently sent out TV tapings for syndication on one of our local stations. In the 1990s, WPTT-22 typically ran ECW Hardcore TV in a 1 or 2 AM timeslot on Saturday or Sunday and my best friend and I would feverishly wait with anticipation every week to watch. We were among the ECW faithful.

I think people that are Anti-ECW didn't understand it or didn't want to for any variety of reasons and I understand why for the most part. Hindsight is 20-20. It was a lot hot-shotting, a lot of spot fests, ultra-violence, etc. But for every hardcore match, you had some pure wrestling from some of the best up and coming talent at the time.

I can only look back at the good times I had and now, being much older, understanding the lasting repercussions it had on the industry and how many careers it shortened. All I can say is "it is what it is."

 

[sTyLnK]

I hated ECW. To me, hardcore shit was not wrestling. I would cringe at some of the crap they would do. No thanks. I was glad when it ended.

 

[The Ghost of Benoit]

When someone like Sandman is your top champion its hard to take your promotion seriously. ECW is just glorified backyard wrestling.

 

[Headman]

I live near Pittsburgh where Heyman frequently sent out TV tapings for syndication on one of our local stations. In the 1990s, WPTT-22 typically ran ECW Hardcore TV in a 1 or 2 AM timeslot on Saturday or Sunday and my best friend and I would feverishly wait with anticipation every week to watch. We were among the ECW faithful.

I think people that are Anti-ECW didn't understand it or didn't want to for any variety of reasons and I understand why for the most part. Hindsight is 20-20. It was a lot hot-shotting, a lot of spot fests, ultra-violence, etc. But for every hardcore match, you had some pure wrestling from some of the best up and coming talent at the time.

I can only look back at the good times I had and now, being much older, understanding the lasting repercussions it had on the industry and how many careers it shortened. All I can say is "it is what it is."

For every spotfest or hardcore match you had a sloppy RVD/Jerry Lynn match being passed off as a classic. I'm not going to say ECW never had good wrestling matches, but they weren't common and they weren't the selling point at the time. I went to several ECW shows between 1996 and 2000. I had a good time at every single show. But when I dust off those VHS tapes I am bored to death. It's like listening to Nirvana. I kinda wonder what all the hype was about and how I got caught up in it.

 

[GrandSword]

The only real coverage we got of ECW over here in Australia, were the ppvs. And some of them were at the time a lot of fun. Without shows to watch to build up any of the feuds on the ppv matches that I'd watched, they did a pretty good job most of the time.

Especially when it was wrestling turned up to an 11 with the no dq environment. Just like every other promotion, they had their good spots and their bad. The Attitude Era had their great main event type segments with Austin/McMahon, but with everyone one of those, we got four DOA vs. The Headbangers vs the Oddities type scenarios that were terrible. ECW had the same with the "big fight feel" tittle matches Taz brought to the table, RVD's TV title reign, Shane Douglas' Franchise character which Vince Russo adopted into the Game for Triple H.

There was some high spots and low spots, but it was for the 90's entertaining for the time in my book.

 

[MattBrady425]

It's sad, but true. Only a cult following with federations like ECW and XPW. Not really hardcore smart marks.

 

[XXJJ]

ECW was trash. It became the "cool" wrestling promotion to support for some fans at the time. It wasn't good for wrestling IMO. It reached a point where some fans wanted blood and tables in every match. It wasn't an original idea either, they just copied a lot of FMW ideas.

Most of the ECW originals had no talent. Guys like NewJack, Sandman etc were a disgrace to wrestling.

 

[SinCityBlitz]

ECW was great. Those that say it was just hardcore or backyard shit wrestling never really watched it. Yes it had its hardcore stuff and some stuff was way over the top but there was a reason why people like Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero and Malenko loved wrestling there.

At that time ECW was putting on some of the best WRESTLING matches around.
It changed the landscape of pro wrestling at the time. Which is why WCW tried to buy up all the ECW guys. People say the attitude era wouldn't be possible without WCW, but ECW was the real reason why the attitude era came around.

 

[closet_fan]

When someone like Sandman is your top champion its hard to take your promotion seriously. ECW is just glorified backyard wrestling.

It really was when you think back on it and watch old videos. Most of the guys on the roster had almost no wrestling experience nor did they look like wrestlers. Sandman is a good example. If it wasn't for ECW, he wouldn't have been anything more than an Indy wrestler and not a very good one since he looked like your drunk neighbor.

I am sure being at an event was an entirely different story. I've heard people say that it was "magical." Nowhere else could you have 2 wrestlers fight each other in the crowd and a fan would offer his prosthetic leg to one of the guys to hit the other one with.

I am sure Lawler's hatred was mostly a work that a previous poster said, but I am also sure a lot of it was real.

I do have to say, however, that ECW had one of the greatest works ever when they had Dreamer injure Sandman's eyes. The both of them and the locker room broke kayfabe and they even went so far as to have Sandman sell the injury outside in the real world.

That's hard to do in today's wrestling.

 

[kdk5680]

As others have stated, the "hardcore"elements have been greatly exagerated over the years and even during the originaly run. Early ECW was fairly traditional matches with a few Hardcore things thrown in. But, being as they were the only ones in the US doing those things at the time, they became know for it. Unfortunately, as time progressed they became a victim of their own success. People started going to ECW excpecting to see flaming tables, drops off 2oft high scaffolding, people bleeding from chair shots and kendo sticks. And to be honest, many of the things that were considered "hardcore" then are everyday now i.e. the multiple chair shots exchanged between Kane, D. Bryan, and C. M. Punk recently, 3 WWE PPVs dedicated to "hardcore.
Oh, and yes, the Lawler "invasion" and comments were a complete work.

 

[HBsam31]

ECW was great. Those that say it was just hardcore or backyard shit wrestling never really watched it. Yes it had its hardcore stuff and some stuff was way over the top but there was a reason why people like Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero and Malenko loved wrestling there.

At that time ECW was putting on some of the best WRESTLING matches around.
It changed the landscape of pro wrestling at the time. Which is why WCW tried to buy up all the ECW guys. People say the attitude era wouldn't be possible without WCW, but ECW was the real reason why the attitude era came around.

You know as I was reading down the posts everyone was starting to make me believe it really was horrible, and then I read your post and i want to say thank you for snapping me out of it. Granted i was 16 to 18 at the height of ECW popularity so I loved the violence, but damn they were putting on some good wrestling at that time to. It definitely changed wrestling then, and I know some people will say it was for the worse, but WWE and WCW took notice. WCW signed half their roster at one point. I am not going to say it was the best thing ever, but I think ECW got a bad rep in this thread, and I encourage people to take a look at some old stuff. There really was some good things going on.

 

[HBKperfect23]

ECW had some gems from time to time with Eddie, Benoit, Malenko, Jericho, Storm, and a handful of others. I also liked the crowds. But when I think of ECW I think of a bunch of guys who cant wrestle, that hit each other for real for dog shit pay. I hated the hardcore style. To me, ECW had a real negative effect on pro wrestling.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I wouldn't say I was anti-ECW, I just personally wasn't a fan of it.

Technically, now that I think on it, I was a fan for a brief period of time until I saw that ECW was basically a one trick pony. At first, I thought that it was extremely entertaining. It was different, which is one thing that you always have to give ECW credit for whether you like it or not. However, I quickly saw that the hardcore stuff was really all that they had to offer.

Yes, yes I've heard all the same crippled arguments about there being more to ECW than that but I don't buy into them. The hardcore stuff, the extreme violence & over the top antics are ALWAYS what most ECW marks hype about the promotion, yet are surprised & angry when that's the image the people have about it. People have the image of ECW as "garbage wrestling" because that's what ECW themselves promoted. For instance, the commercial for the new WCW DVD is exactly like the commercials Paul Heyman himself produced. Whenever a commercial was on advertising ECW or an upcoming ppv, you'd have Heyman talking while footage of all the violence & hardcore stuff plays.

Once you take away all the hardcore stuff, in my opinion, there just wasn't anything there. To me, it doesn't take any particular skill to be a hardcore wrestler. You don't have to really have any storytelling abilities, you don't have to be in good shape, you don't have to have any real technical abilities to speak of. You just have to be willing to bleed and take lots of big, scary bumps.

Looking back at ECW with what we know now in regards to the kind of trauma that hardcore wrestling inflicts, particularly when it comes to head trauma via the use of steel chairs, I don't see ECW's legacy as something to be proud of. Like everyone else, they didn't know the consequences of things back then, but that doesn't negate the fact that I can't look back on an old ECW match now the way I would have 10 years ago.

 

[ShinobiMusashi]

I got to say that this is by far the most anti ECW forums on the web. Not necessarily a bad thing. I find it interesting.

I missed everything from late 2000 til earlier this year. I started going back and watching old tapes of Ring Of Honor, and TNA, and they were REALLY good. As far as the actual wrestling matches, ROH, and TNA blew ECW out of the water. ECW put on great matches, but not on the consistent basis of ROH, and TNA.

ROH and TNA will never come close to having the legacy that ECW has, and I think that just makes a lot of fans bitter. Some little shithole bingo hall promotion that ran in the red through it's entire lifetime(all 8 years of it) will forever be remembered, while people steadily shit on TNA, and nobody ever talks about ROH like they do ECW. That just wouldn't sit well with me either if I grew up on ROH/TNA, and was too young to live through ECW. I would bash it every chance I got.

ECW will always have more of a legacy than ROH and TNA because they HELPED save the WWE during the monday night wars. Watch ECW tapes from 1995/1996, and watch what WCW/WWE was doing. Then in early 97 Vinnie and Heyman start working together. Next thing you know WWE launches Shotgun Saturday Night in February of 97.

[youtube]DP6PLp55-C8[/youtube]

Gradually through 1997 WWE turned into a big budget ECW, until this:

[youtube]C_HU2YgC3jo[/youtube]

WWE wouldn't be where they are today without ECW.

You can criticize all of the violent hardcore stuff, and blame them for ruining the industry, but remember that ECW didn't invent hardcore wrestling. The chair shot brawls and bloody violence all came from the Mid South/UWF/Florida Territories that Eddie Gilbert and Kevin Sullivan came up through. What about the WWE hardcore matches before ECW? What about the ladder match at Wrestlemania X?

Stiff dangerous wrestling wasn't ECW's fault. They just repackaged something that had already been done, and made it look better than the WWE/WCW did. They were not even half as extreme as FMW/CZW. Not even half.

People who say ECW never had any good matches just haven't seen it. Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko wrestled each other in 9 matches in ECW, how many of them have you actually even seen? Thats just the point. There is so much people have never seen. Chris Candido put on a shitload of great matches. Lance Storm, Tajiri, Super Crazy, Jerry Lynn the list goes on, but it really wasn't about the matches in ECW. It was about the journey. The storylines, the fueds, and the way they progressed. It was about the promos(Foley, Austin anyone?), it was about how fresh it was compared to WWE/WCW in 1995-1996.