Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was an American professional wrestling promotion that was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and operated by its parent company HHG Corporation. The promotion was founded in 1992 by Tod Gordon as National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) affiliate Eastern Championship Wrestling. The following year, businessman and wrestling manager Paul Heyman took over the creative end of the promotion from Eddie Gilbert. Under Heyman, the promotion was rechristened as Extreme Championship Wrestling.
The promotion was known for highlighting a "hardcore wrestling" style, with matches regularly featuring weapons (including the frequent use of chairs, tables, and fire) and revolving around adult-themed storylines. Though the hardcore style was the main focus, ECW also showcased various international styles of professional wrestling not usually seen in the U.S., ranging from Mexican lucha libre to Japanese puroresu. Heyman's creative direction created new stars, and established ECW as the third major national wrestling promotion in the United States in the second half of the 1990s, competing with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The promotion debuted on national television in 1999 with the weekly show ECW on TNN.Hoping to Put a Hold on Viewers, TNN to Air Friday Night Wrestling, Daily News (New York), July 1, 1999, p. 110
ECW held its final events in January 2001, shortly before its parent company folded when it was unable to secure a new national TV contract. The World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) purchased the assets of the company from bankruptcy in January 2003. Following the success of the One Night Stand tribute show in 2005, WWE relaunched ECW as a third brand in 2006 alongside their existing Raw and SmackDown brands, producing ECW on Sci-Fi for close to four years until it aired its final episode in 2010, on the rebranded Syfy.
Style and presentation
Following the lead of the World Wrestling Federation, the majority of American professional wrestling promotions in the 1980s and early 1990s orientated their style and presentation towards catering to mainstream audiences, families and casual fans. However, under the creative direction of Paul Heyman, ECW rebranded itself as "Extreme Championship Wrestling" in 1994 and orientated its entire style and presentation towards a gritty, counter-cultural, underground-style presentation directly inspired by the emerging cultural forces of grunge music, hip-hop and extreme sports. In contrast to clean-cut wrestling shows centred around "superhero" archetypes, ECW pioneered the use of adult-orientated shows featuring high levels of violence, vulgarity, and sexuality centred around anti-hero characters to develop a niche separate to that of its peers. ECW further accentuated the raucous atmosphere of its shows through the use of contemporary chart music instead of using stock music; the performers in ECW would make their entrances accompanied by the music of artists such as Metallica, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube.
Although the concept of "hardcore wrestling" (a style of professional wrestling associated with the use of objects as weapons) did not originate with ECW, they were widely credited with popularizing the style in the United States and were intimately associated with it. Although hardcore wrestling became the calling card of the promotion, ECW has also been credited with helping to introduce other professional wrestling styles such as lucha libre and puroresu to the American audience.
History 1989–1994: Origins, founding, and NWA membership
Based in the working-class city of Philadelphia, ECW had its origins in 1989 under the banner Tri-State Wrestling Alliance (TWA) owned by Joel Goodhart. In 1992, Goodhart sold his share of the company to his partner, Tod Gordon, who created his own promotion from TWA's remnants, Eastern Championship Wrestling (ECW). When Eastern Championship Wrestling was founded, it was not a member of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), though it joined the alliance on September 3 1993 at the behest of its lead booker "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert. Gilbert, through his position as lead booker of ECW, managed to secure television time on SportsChannel Philadelphia starting in April 1993. Gilbert, after a falling out with Tod Gordon, was replaced in September 1993 by then-28-year-old businessman Paul Heyman. Heyman, known in professional wrestling as Paul E. Dangerously, had just been fired by World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and was looking for a new challenge.
Heyman's creative influence had an immediate impact on ECW, and throughout 1993 and into 1994 the terms "Hardcore" and "Extreme" were increasingly used to characterize both the in-ring style and the general presentation of the promotion. Instead of relying on former WWF stars such as Jimmy Snuka, Heyman pivoted the promotion to centering around local up-and-coming talents such as Shane Douglas, Sabu, The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer.
1994: Secession from the NWA
By 1994 ECW was proving to be the strongest member of what remained of the National Wrestling Alliance. It was therefore decided by consensus between ECW and the rest of the NWA that ECW's main star, Shane Douglas, would win a tournament to win the vacant NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship. However, unbeknownst to the NWA, ECW operators Tod Gordon and Paul Heyman secretly planned to use the occasion to publicly break from the NWA and relaunch ECW as its own standalone entity. Gordon and Heyman had lost faith in the NWA to provide any value to them as wrestling promoters. Additionally, instead of offering cooperation and mutual support, other member promotions of the NWA were undermining ECW's business with underhanded tactics, something Gordon and Heyman wanted revenge for.
At the NWA World Title Tournament held on August 27, 1994, Douglas threw down the NWA World Heavyweight Championship title upon winning it, stating that he did not want to be champion of a "dead promotion" that "died seven years ago." He then raised the Eastern Championship Wrestling title belt and declared it to be a World Heavyweight Championship – calling it the only real world title left in professional wrestling. When recalling this event years later, Paul Heyman stated the following in a 1998 chat:
NWA representative Dennis Coralluzzo was interviewed after the event and declared that Douglas would be the world champion of the NWA "whether he likes it or not", calling Douglas' actions a "disgrace" and said he would move to have Douglas stripped of both the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and the Eastern Championship Wrestling Heavyweight Championship, as he was "undeserving" of both titles. Gordon made the following announcement on the next edition of ECW programming:
Douglas' metaphorical and literal casting down of the NWA and Gordon's subsequent renaming of the promotion were later considered the definitive beginning of Extreme Championship Wrestling as not just an independent promotion, but a prominent player in American professional wrestling.
1995–1999: Rapid growth and launch of pay-per-view events ECW Arena shows and television syndication expansion
ECW's primary venue was the ECW Arena, a former warehouse secluded under a section of Interstate 95. Seating comprised simple folding chairs and four sets of portable bleachers, with the unconventional scene reflective of the gritty style of the promotion itself. It was from this venue that ECW's TV show ECW Hardcore TV was filmed for broadcast on a Philadelphia local cable sports station (SportsChannel America's local affiliate, SportsChannel 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, and at 1:00a.m. or at 2:00a.m. Shows were also aired on the MSG Network in New York on Friday nights (early Saturday morning) at 2:00a.m. Due to the obscurity of the stations and ECW itself, as well as the lack of oversight from the Federal Communications Commission at that late hour, many times expletives and violence were not edited out of these showings, along with extensive use of copyrighted music and music videos.
In 1995, Tod Gordon sold Extreme Championship Wrestling, to his head booker, Paul Heyman, trading as HHG Corporation. Afterward, Gordon remained in ECW as a figurehead commissioner. Years after being the ECW "Commissioner", Gordon left ECW in May 1997; his absence was explained on-air that he retired from wrestling due to family. Rumors circulated, however, that Gordon was fired by Heyman after he was suspected as a "locker room mole" for a rival wrestling promotion, helping to lure talent to World Championship Wrestling.
Expansion outside of Philadelphia Prior to 1994, ECW had been a regional promotion with the first event to take place outside of the Northeast being a house show on September 23 at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa, Florida. On January 14, 1995, ECW held its first television taping outside the Northeast when they taped an episode of Hardcore TV in Davie, Florida followed by a second Florida taping in Orlando two days later. On December 29, 1995, ECW made its debut in New York City with the first Holiday Hell supercard event taking place at the Lost Battalion Hall in Queens. New York became one of the largest markets for the promotion's live events outside of Philadelphia, drawing capacity crowds to the Lost Battalion Hall, the Elks Lodge, and the Hammerstein Ballroom.
On August 10 and August 11, 1996, ECW held its first events outside the United States when they teamed up with IWA Japan to present ECW vs. IWA vs. True FMW: Total War at the Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan and Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan respectively.
On August 2, 1998, ECW made its Midwestern United States debut when they presented the Heat Wave pay-per-view from Dayton, Ohio. ECW later made regular touring stops in Midwestern cities like Cleveland, Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Kansas City, Missouri, Toledo, Ohio, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Battle Creek, Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois either in the city or within the metropolitan area.
On May 12, 2000, ECW made its west coast debut when they presented a live house show during the Electronic Entertainment Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California as part of a marketing campaign for the ECW Hardcore Revolution video game which was being demoed at the convention. Two months later on July 16, 2000, ECW prsented its first live west cast pay-per-view when they held the 2000 edition of Heat Wave at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, California.
Cross-promotion with the WWF and USWA