Source: The Daily Texan
Rebellious, rough ECW promotion performs tonight
By Richard Whittaker
Professional wrestling is American entertainment’s dirty little secret. Love it or hate it, it’s a billion-dollar industry, with the WWE’s “Raw” and “Smackdown” regularly drawing big ratings. This week, for the first time ever, Extreme Championship Wrestling comes to Austin. In the mid ’90s ECW was wrestling’s grunge to the WWE’s corporate rock: rough, raw and underground. Now, the underdog is back and swinging.
“A big part of ECW’s appeal was that they were rebels,” said Scott Williamson, author of ECW book “Hardcore History.” In 1996, wrestling was run by two billionaires, Ted Turner (WCW) and Vince MacMahon (WWF, WWE). No one knew Eastern Championship Wrestling, a minor Philadelphia-based independent promotion. Then, company mastermind Paul Heyman changed the “E” to “Extreme,” and made wrestling history.
ECW wrestlers were the anti-Hulk Hogan. They fought in jeans and T-shirts. They hit harder, flew higher and risked more. ECW had Mexican luchadores, Japanese martial artists and hardcore weapon matches. It made stars of Mick Foley, the late, great Eddie Guerrero and Stone Cold Steve Austin. And, in 2001, pinned under debt, it submitted to bankruptcy.
According to Williamson, what made ECW different was its fanatical fan base.
“They were into everything about those wrestlers and that company,” Williamson said. They kept the name alive through tape swapping and Web sites.
Christopher Brosnahan, ring announcer for U.K.-based Frontier Wrestling Alliance who has worked with ECW veterans, called it “a badge of honor.” Even after the company folded, wrestlers would hear its name, “E-C-Dub!” chanted during their matches. “Usually,” he added, “when something happened to warrant it,” like the match bursting out of the ring and into the crowd.
While the myth of ECW lived on, so did the commercial rights. The name ECW went to the one opponent its wrestlers could never bring to the mat – big, bad, corporate WWE. It hired former ECW wrestlers, made ECW owner Heyman a writer and sold some T-shirts. Then, in fall 2004, a retrospective DVD, “The Rise and Fall of ECW,” was released. It was supposed to be the final count-out, but it sold 100,000 copies.
“Nobody was prepared for how well that DVD was going to do and it gave Heyman the opportunity to go to management and say, ‘We can really make some money off this,'” Williamson said.
Now ECW is back, with a mixture of older talent like Tommy Dreamer and the cane-swinging, beer-chugging Sandman, WWE names like 7-foot, 500-pound The Big Show and rising talent like CM Punk. The televised matches on the Sci-Fi Channel have become a massive ratings draw. But for some, the wresting rebellion had become a corporate counterfeit.
In the opening weeks, it was rumored that Sci-Fi execs were forcing the show to carry elements more in-keeping with the channel’s regular horror and aliens programing. This lead to matches including a zombie and an evil priest. The following week, the writer who came up with these plots had to dress as a male stripper and was pummelled in the ring by the Sandman. That, for many, felt a lot like the old ECW.
But not everyone was won over. Terry Gerin (a.k.a. Rhyno), ‘old’ ECW’s last champion, turned down a lucrative ‘new’ ECW contract because it was the WWE signing the checks. Many old fans refused to watch. They, Williamson said, will never come back.
“Part of ECW’s appeal was they were rebels,” he said. “They know the WWE is pulling the strings.”
There have been some unexpected blows. Two major stars of ECW have been temporarily forced out: Olympic gold medallist Kurt Angle was suspended on medical grounds, while champion Rob Van Dam was forced to drop the belt when he was arrested in Ohio on July 3 for drugs. Yet 2.5 million people tuned in for the opening show of the new ECW on June 13. This tour may let the old ECW spirit slam to success, letting new talent win the crowd over. More importantly, the writers for the new ECW may have to throw out their tightly-scripted plans and go for something more like the rough-and-ready shows of the old days.
“This could force ECW to change things up,” Brosnahan said. “Angle and Van Dam taking time off could prove to be a blessing in disguise.”
A non-televised “house” event, like tonight’s, is usually a little rawer than the TV shows, yet Williamson remains sanguine.
“If you’re expecting the same thing you would have seen a decade ago, you won’t get that.” he said. “But if you’re expecting a good wrestling show, you might get that, you might not, but you’re a lot less likely to be disappointed.”
Extreme Championship Wrestling performs at the Palmer Events Center, on Barton Spring Road tonight at 7 p.m.
