Extreme Championship Wrestling
Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was a groundbreaking and influential professional wrestling promotion. It was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1992 by Tod Gordon, who was its first owner.
History
When it was founded in 1992, ECW was called Eastern Championship Wrestling, and upon its foundation, it was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance. That all changed in 1994, when after a tournament held in the ECW Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the vacant NWA World Heavyweight Title, tournament winner Shane Douglas threw down the belt and proclaimed ECW Extreme Championship Wrestling, thus starting the hardcore revolution.
With the backing of owner Tod Gordon and booker Paul Heyman, ECW withdrew from the NWA and 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 would also be a stop for many popular wrestlers seen today.
At a time when the World Wrestling Federation (the WWF is now known as WWE - World Wrestling Entertainment) were having wrestling clowns and pig pen matches, ECW was having barbed wire matches and creating new stars (Steve Austin drank his first on-screen beer on ECW TV years before the "Stone Cold" era in WWF). After noticing that ECW was the future of the business the "Big Two" (World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and WWF) started stealing their talent and ideas. While the WWF had somewhat of a working relationship with ECW (going as far as allowing cross-promotional angles), WCW refused to even mention ECW by name, calling it "barbed wire city" and "a major independent promotion".
In April 1997, ECW had its first wrestling card broadcasted on pay-per-view, highlighted by 53-year-old legend Terry Funk winning the ECW World Heavyweight Title. Soon after the PPV, Gordon sold ECW to Heyman. They would then broadcast bi-monthly on PPV.
In August 1999, ECW began to broadcast nationally on The Nashville Network; however, this signalled the beginning of the end. Despite poor advertising and promotion, ECW became TNN's highest rated show, but was cancelled in October 2000 in favor of the World Wrestling Federation jumping over to the network.
ECW stuggled for months after the cancellation, trying to secure a new national TV deal, but to no avail. Despite help from the WWF, Heyman could not get out of financial trouble and filed for bankruptcy in March 2001.
Soon after ECW closed, Heyman was hired by the WWF as an on-air character and writer. During the "WCW Invasion" into the WWF, the former ECW wrestlers "rejoined" ECW with Paul Heyman as the owner.
In summer 2003, WWE purchased ECW's assets in bankruptcy court, getting the rights to ECW's video library.
The New ECW?
On March 22, WWE conducted a "lottery" on RAW to modestly shake up the rosters of the two brands. In storyline, Heyman was drafted to go to RAW, but chose to quit. Not long before this, someone purchased the Internet domain , which currently redirects to . It was rumored that WWE would start a "new ECW" as a third brand, in addition to RAW and Smackdown!, to be led by Paul Heyman.
These rumors were very uncertain. It was also rumored that the new ECW show would take the place of the not so successful "Confidential" show, but WWE eventually replaced Confidential with "The WWE Experience", a show summarizing the main shows of the week. All trademarking on the names "ECW" and "Extreme Championship Wrestling" have been halted.
As of this writing (Jun 21, 2004), Heyman has returned to WWE television in an on-camera role and appears unlikely that the ECW angle will fly.
See also
