Extreme Championship Wrestling

style, frequently incorporating weapons into matches. Sabu (putting Rhino through a table in this picture) especially was connected with this practice. 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. 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. 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. 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. Gaining access to pay-per-view broadcasting appears with ECW security guard Ronnie Lang in 1998 After approximately 18 months of negotiating with pay-per-view providers, ECW broadcast their first pay-per-view (PPV) wrestling card, Barely Legal, on April 13, 1997, highlighted by Terry Funk defeating Raven to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. In June 1997, the company's Wrestlepalooza '97 event featured Raven's final ECW match before leaving for WCW. In this match, Tommy Dreamer finally beat Raven, his longtime nemesis. However, within weeks of debuting on TNN ECW was raided by the WWF, who hired away reigning ECW World Champion Taz as well reigning ECW Tag-team Champions the Dudley Boyz. Furthermore, in April 2000 reigning ECW World Heavyweight Champion Mike Awesome jumped ship to WCW in a move completely unforeseen by ECW. It has been suggested that Awesome refused to sign a new contract with ECW until Paul Heyman paid him overdue wages. There were rumors that WCW Executive Vice-President Eric Bischoff wanted Awesome to drop the ECW World Championship belt in the trash can on television, as had been done previously with the WWF Women's title by Madusa when she jumped from the WWF to WCW. After Paul Heyman filed an injunction, WCW refrained from having Awesome appear on Nitro with the belt, but did acknowledge him as the champion. Eventually, a compromise was reached. Awesome (a WCW employee and the reigning ECW World Heavyweight champion) appeared at an April 13, 2000, ECW event in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he lost the title to Taz (who was working for the World Wrestling Federation). Taz would then lose the title to Tommy Dreamer at CyberSlam 2000 to return the title to ECW's possession, ending what is considered to have been one of the more peculiar arrangements in professional wrestling history. 2000–2001: Cancellation of ECW on TNN and collapse By October 2000, ECW on TNN was cancelled (with the final episode airing on October 6, 2000) in favor of WWF Raw is War moving to TNN. Paul Heyman stated he believed that the inability to land another national television deal was the cause of ECW's demise. ECW struggled for months after the cancellation, trying to secure a new national television deal. On December 30, 2000, ECW Hardcore TV aired for the last time and the January 7, 2001, broadcast of Guilty as Charged was ECW's last PPV. ECW's January 13, 2001 show in Pine Bluff, Arkansas would prove to be its final event of any kind. Living Dangerously was scheduled to air on March 11, 2001, but because of financial trouble it was canceled in February. Heyman could not get out of financial trouble; the PPV distributors would not pay the money that was owed to ECW due to Heyman still not being able to sign with a TV network. Consequently, ECW closed on April 4, 2001. ECW was listed as having assets totalling $1,385,500. Included in that number was $860,000 in accounts receivable owed to ECW by In Demand Network (PPV), Acclaim (video games) and Original San Francisco Toy Company (action figures). The balance of the assets were the video tape library ($500,000), a 1998 Ford truck ($19,500) and the remaining inventory of merchandise ($4). The liabilities of ECW totalled $8,881,435.17. Wrestlers and talent were listed, with amounts owed ranging from $2 for Sabu and Steve Corino to hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of dollars. The highest amounts owed to talents were Rob Van Dam ($150,000), Tommy Dreamer ($100,000), World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. purchased ECW's assets from HHG Corporation in court, acquiring the rights to ECW's video library. HHG would nominally remain active until it became defunct on January 31, 2007. ==Reunions and revivals==

2004 Rise and Fall of ECW documentary Following World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.'s purchase of ECW's assets in January 2003, they used the video library to put together a two-disc DVD titled The Rise and Fall of ECW, which was released in November 2004. The main feature of the DVD set was a nearly three-hour documentary on the company's history, with the other disc featuring 7 matches from the promotion. The documentary proved to be one of the most popular pieces of media ever produced by WWE, with DVDs of the documentary selling in the 100,000s. In June 2005 an unauthorized DVD called Forever Hardcore was written, directed and produced by Jeremy Borash in response to The Rise and Fall of ECW. The DVD featured interviews with ECW alumni who were not employed by WWE telling their side of ECW's history. The success of Rise and Fall of ECW and Forever Hardcore led to WWE reassessing the value of the ECW brand and directly resulted in WWE hosting ECW One Night Stand 2005 to further test how much strength remained in the ECW fandom. With heightened and rejuvenated interest in the ECW franchise, WWE organized ECW One Night Stand on June 12, a reunion event that featured ECW alumni. Due to the financial and critical success of the production, WWE produced the second ECW One Night Stand on June 11, 2006, which served as the premiere show of the relaunch of the ECW franchise as a WWE brand, complementary to Raw and SmackDown. On June 13, Heyman, the brand's former owner and newly appointed figurehead for the ECW brand, recommissioned the ECW World Heavyweight Championship to be the brand's world title and awarded it to Rob Van Dam as a result of winning the WWE Championship at ECW One Night Stand 2006. During the first few months of ECW on Sci Fi, the show operated under the creative direction of Paul Heyman and was supervised by Vince McMahon. The ECW brand initially retained many elements of the wild and ruckus original ECW promotion, but gradually over the following months these were scaled back at the behest of McMahon and the show was brought in line with other WWE productions. This caused considerable discontent with Heyman, who walked off the project and left WWE entirely in December 2006, beginning a six-year hiatus from professional wrestling. WWE's ECW brand would continue to operate until February 16, 2010, when it became defunct and replaced with NXT. Today, there are a handful of WWE-produced events that followed the legacy of the original ECW – Extreme Rules and Heatwave. Other reunions Hardcore Homecoming On the same weekend as the ECW One Night Stand 2005 event another reunion show was held at the ECW Arena. Booked and promoted by Shane Douglas, Cody Michaels and Jeremy Borash, Hardcore Homecoming was held on June 10, 2005. The show featured former ECW performers who were not contracted to work the WWE produced event. Because of the success of the initial event, three additional shows were held in Autumn 2005 and later the DVD documentary Forever Hardcore was released by the same production crew as a counterpart to WWE's Rise and Fall of ECW. Hardcore Justice in TNA in TNA after his debut in 2010. He subsequently founded the House of Hardcore promotion in 2012. Following Tommy Dreamer's June 2010 debut in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), a new stable was formed called EV2.0 consisting of former ECW alumni. TNA President Dixie Carter agreed to give the stable their own reunion show at TNA's annual Hard Justice pay-per-view. Billed as the last ECW reunion show, Hardcore Justice aired on August 8, 2010. EV2.0 remained on the active roster for the remainder of the year. Extreme Rising In 2012 Shane Douglas led a project called Extreme Reunion, later renamed Extreme Rising. The concept of the promotion was to produce shows in the style of ECW and feature new and upcoming talent, rather than strictly only feature ECW alumni. The promotion ran several shows in 2012 but folded soon thereafter. House of Hardcore In 2012, Dreamer founded House of Hardcore (HOH), a wrestling promotion named after the ECW wrestling school and inspired by the hardcore style of wrestling. Since then, HOH has held numerous wrestling events mainly in areas where ECW was held such as the ECW Arena. ==Controversies==

. Throughout its existence, ECW cultivated an image of a rebellious organization that lived on the edge and "pushed the envelope". Not only did ECW engage in a wrestling style considered more dangerous than its larger competitors, but it also performed riskier and more controversial angles (storylines) as well. This culture within the company sometimes led to major controversies within the professional wrestling industry. One such instance was the "Sandman crucifixion angle" at ECW High Incident. As part of a long-running storyline between Raven and The Sandman, Sandman was attacked by Raven's Nest, which included The Sandman's real-life wife Lori Fullington and their young son Tyler, who in the storyline had become devotees of Raven. As part of the attack, a wooden cross was brought from under the ring and the members of Raven's Nest proceeded to "crucify" Sandman with it, and enforced the use of religious iconography by placing a "crown" made out of barbed wire on his head in a direct allusion to the Crucifixion of Jesus. ECW's normally rowdy crowd was shocked into silence and the angle was immediately considered to have backfired. That same night, Raven was forced to make an out-of-character apology to the live audience. The footage of the "crucifixion" was never aired on ECW television. Olympian wrestler Kurt Angle, who was in attendance for the show and who had been considering wrestling for ECW in the future, immediately left the ECW Arena in disgust due to the incident. Another instance of a high controversy that occurred in ECW was the Mass Transit incident. The Mass Transit incident took place during an ECW house show on November 23, 1996, at the Wonderland Ballroom in Revere, Massachusetts. 17-year-old Erich Kulas, an aspiring professional wrestler who used the ring name "Mass Transit," was seriously injured in a tag-team match against The Gangstas; the most severe injury occurred when Kulas was bladed too deeply by New Jack (Jerome Young), severing two of his arteries. Further controversy arose when it came to light that Kulas had lied to ECW owner and booker Paul Heyman about his age and professional wrestling training. The incident led to the temporary cancellation of the inaugural ECW pay-per-view Barely Legal, and legal action against New Jack. Due to Kulas's deception, however, Barely Legal was reinstated and the legal action ended in Young's favor. In July 2000, ECW made its West Coast debut, holding its annual summer pay-per-view Heat Wave in Los Angeles, California. At the time Los Angeles was home to Xtreme Pro Wrestling (XPW), a recently established promotion which imitated the style and presentation of ECW. Six members of the XPW roster purchased front-row tickets to the PPV and attended the show. Prior to the start of the main event, a legitimate out-of-character brawl broke out between the XPW contingent and members of the ECW roster, which spilled out into the parking lot of the venue. Although ECW and XPW as organizations were considered to have great dislike for each other, several ECW talent would perform for XPW following the folding of ECW in 2001. ==Legacy==

banners commemorating The Public Enemy hang at the 2300 Arena. ECW was very influential within professional wrestling in the 1990s and several elements innovated and introduced by ECW would continue to be used in professional wrestling decades after its closure. In the immediate aftermath of ECW collapse, a significant portion of ECW's active roster was brought into the WWF. These former ECW talents would be used as part of a storyline that ran in the WWF throughout 2001 that pitted the WWF against the "invading" WCW and ECW. The storyline began proper at the WWF Invasion pay-per-view, which received 775,000 buys and became one of the highest-grossing wrestling pay-per-views of all time. The storyline ran until November's Survivor Series, and thereafter former ECW talent were integrated into the WWF without being directly tied to the ECW branding. Former ECW talent such as Rob Van Dam would be prominent parts of WWF/WWE programming thereafter. Outside of the WWF, former ECW talent were integral in helping new promotions find their feet. Alumni such as Raven were important figures during the startup phase of NWA: Total Nonstop Action and Ring of Honor. Many promotions, such as Combat Zone Wrestling and Xtreme Pro Wrestling, attempted to directly imitate ECW and capture its audience once it folded, to the point that these companies directly competed for control of the ECW Arena. Throughout the 2000s, ECW's home base of Philadelphia was considered a highly potent source of fans for Independent wrestling promotions. This laid the groundwork for NXT, which would evolve into WWE’s primary developmental brand and gain critical acclaim for its experimental nature and emphasis on emerging talent. After the ECW brand was dissolved, its legacy remains through NXT’s focus on new talent and its appeal to a dedicated fanbase reminiscent of ECW’s innovative and rebellious spirit. The former ECW Arena, now known as the 2300 Arena, is host to the Hardcore Hall of Fame, which recognizes its history with hardcore wrestling. ==Championships and programming==

Championships Programming ==See also==