History Wrestling / ECW

This, as it turned out, backfired massively for the NWA. As soon as the belt found itself in Douglas' hands, he immediately threw the title down onto the mat. and raised the ECW Heavyweight Championship in the air. Decrying – not unfairly – the NWA as an organisation that effectively died the moment Crockett sold his promotion to Ted Turner to create WCW, he declared himself the ECW ''World'' Heavyweight Champion. August 27, 1994 would forever be known as the day Eastern Championship Wrestling died; the NWA expelled ECW and stripped Douglas of its world title, and the company itself would change a single word in its name just days later: it was now officially '''''Extreme''' Championship Wrestling''.

For the next seven years, ECW would drastically change the landscape of the national pro wrestling scene. Taking a cue from {{Garbage Wrestler}}s of the past (like Terry Funk -- himself an ECW alumni -- and Wrestling/AbdullahTheButcher, who also appeared), as well as Japanese "deathmatch" promotions like Wrestling/{{FMW}}, ECW popularized "hardcore" wrestling in the United States; practically every match was fought under what's now known as "Extreme Rules", where pretty much anything except hitting a referee was legal. Several other wrestling styles were also highlighted and popularized thanks to ECW, including ''lucha libre''. ECW was such a hit that both WCW and [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} WWF]] would periodically raid ECW for talent; indeed, many prominent talent of the late 90s wrestling bloom got their start in Philadelphia.

After its closing, ECW's popularization of "hardcore" wrestling resulted in countless independent federations, such as XPW, poorly mimicking that style. {{Backyard|Wrestling}} Wrestling/{{CZW}} would take over ECW's territory, projecting itself as a successor, but [[NotSoSimilar proved to be a very different – and arguably more violent – promotion]]. Wrestling/ProWrestlingGuerilla opened in a different territory and is typically seen as a more "proper" successor to ECW, though with less of the blood and more of the workrate. ECW also brought back old-school technical wrestling and high-flying spot-wrestlers, and thus served as a big influence on Wrestling/RingOfHonor.[[note]]Ring of Honor was specifically created to fill the void left by ECW by wrestling video vendor Rob Feinstein (the "RF" in RF Video), who with his biggest source of content gone had to start up his own promotion so he'd have something to put on video and sell[[/note]]

In June 2005, the ECW name was revived by WWE for ''ECW One Night Stand'', a one-night pay-per-view reunion of ECW alumni (that same weekend, there was another ECW tribute show -- ''Hardcore Homecoming'' -- which was spearheaded by Shane Douglas and featured several ECW wrestlers who didn't appear at ''One Night Stand''). The event proved so successful that a second ''ECW One Night Stand'' was held a year later; this time, ECW and WWE talent was mixed together, since this event would be the starting point for ECW becoming WWE's third brand (alongside ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]''). WWE's ECW brand, which had an weekly hour-long show on [=SyFy=], would last until February 16, 2010; the next week, it was replaced with ''Wrestling/{{WWE NXT}}'', the wrestlers on the ECW brand were split up and placed on the ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'' rosters (or released outright), and the brand was laid to rest by WWE for good. While the initial ''One Night Stand'' was quite authentic to the original ECW and the second edition was also well-regarded, the ensuing "[[FanNickname WWECW]]" brand was generally regarded as ECW InNameOnly. In the summer of 2010, Wrestling/{{TNA}} would put on ''[=HardCORE=] Justice'' as a "tribute" to the ECW Originals, and brought several of them in as members of the roster after the PPV under the group name "EV 2.0" (with "EV" standing for "Extreme Violence").

* AudienceParticipation: Taken [[{{Pun}} to the extreme]] with the infamous chair-throwing incident at the end of ''Hardcore Heaven 94''. Also, Cactus Jack hitting the Sandman with a [[FryingPanOfDoom cast-iron skillet]] at ''Double Tables'' ended the "Fans Bring the Weapons" concept. However, matches would sometimes feature fans holding up chairs so wrestlers could run their opponents into them.

The little wrestling promotion that could - and did - change ''everything''.

In 1994, the company was part of an [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/nwa/world/nwa-h.html NWA World Heavyweight Championship]] tournament that would crown a new champion. The NWA president was worried that ECW was going to monopolize the title much like Jim Crockett Promotions did in the '80s, so he took control of the tournament. In retaliation, Tod Gordon and Paul Heyman devised a plan with the man booked to win the tournament - Wrestling/ShaneDouglas - that went into effect after Shane won the title. The start of ECW as we know it comes from Shane's post-match speech after defeating [[Wrestling/TooColdScorpio 2 Cold Scorpio]] for the title, at the top of Douglas' page; Douglas ended up tossing down the NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt, raised up the NWA ECW Heavyweight Championship belt, and declared himself the "new ECW Heavyweight Champion of the World". August 27, 1994 would forever be known as the day Eastern Championship Wrestling died; the NWA dissolved its association with the company and stripped Douglas of its world title, while the company itself would change a single word in its name just days later - it was now officially ''Extreme Championship Wrestling''.

For the next seven years, ECW would drastically change the landscape of the national pro wrestling scene. Taking a cue from {{Garbage Wrestler}}s of the past (like Terry Funk - himself an ECW alumni - and Wrestling/AbdullahTheButcher, who also appeared), as well as Japanese "deathmatch" promotions like Wrestling/{{FMW}}, ECW popularized "hardcore" wrestling in the United States; practically every match was fought under what's now known as "Extreme Rules" (where pretty much anything except hitting a ref was legal). Several other wrestling styles were also highlighted and popularized thanks to ECW, including ''lucha libre'' (which led WCW to raid ECW's talent roster for the best ''luchadores'' they had to create their famous Cruiserweight division).

ECW presented a product for a more mature wrestling fan, giving them flawed heroes, deeper storylines, dramatic matches, and - oh, yeah, how could we forget - plenty of sex and violence. Their product was a stark contrast to the family-friendly comic-book superheroes of [[Wrestling/{{WWE}} the WWF]] and WCW, as well as the highly-{{kayfabe}}d style of the NWA. ECW also invented and/or popularized many things that the modern wrestling fan takes for granted these days: having an arsenal of weapons under the ring, the presence of an Evil Authority Figure (in the form of Bill Alphonso from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, and later [[Wrestling/DonCallis Cyrus]] from "The Network"), many of the most daring maneuvers that are now seen on TV on a regular basis (mostly in GimmickMatches), and angles with "shades of grey". ECW also turned a whole bunch of wrestlers who were rejects from the big promotions (because they were too short, or not muscular enough, or too ethnic, or anything not having to do with actual skill) and turned them into hot commodities, leading to many of them having long and successful careers with the bigger promotions. (Amongst the ECW alumni that left the company to go on and have memorable careers were Wrestling/ChrisBenoit, Wrestling/EddieGuerrero, Wrestling/MickFoley, Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr, Wrestling/{{Lita}},[[note]]known there as Miss Congeniality[[/note]] Wrestling/ChrisJericho, Wrestling/{{Raven}}, Wrestling/RobVanDam, and - arguably the most famous of them all - Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin.)

Even the ECW crowds had a big influence on other wrestling fans. The "WOO!" when one wrestler chops another (a {{homage}} to Wrestling/RicFlair), the "This is awesome!" chant for a great match, the "Holy shit!" chant for a particularly impressive move, and the "You fucked up!" chant when a wrestler misses a spot were born in ECW, and almost all of these chants remain ingrained in wrestling crowds to this day. The fans were also allowed to bring their own weapons to the show in its early days, and wrestlers would use them during matches (infamous weapons included a cactus, a ladder, an NES, a VCR, a ''two-man kayak,'' and a [[FryingPanOfDoom cast-iron skillet]], whose use by Mick Foley against The Sandman brought "Bring Your Own Weapons" nights to an end).

The promotion was not without its share of controversy, either - in 1996, two incidents marred the company almost to the point of ruination. At High Incident on October 26, [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/us/ecw/ecw-h.html ECW World Heavyweight Champion]] the Sandman defeated his former tag team partner 2 Cold Scorpio. After the match, [=Raven=] and members of his Nest, Stevie Richards, the Blue Meanie and [[Wrestling/MikeBucci Super Nova]], crucified the Sandman, with a crown of barbed-wire instead of thorns. This incident caused many fans to go silent as it happened, marking the first time even the ECW Mutants (as the fans came to be known) were left speechless. Fearing possible backlash, Raven was ordered to apologize for the act to the crowd. The incident would not be seen until nearly a decade later thanks to Wrestling/KurtAngle - he had attended the show where the "crucifixion" happened and even appeared in the ring to set up an angle between himself and Taz, but threatened to sue Heyman and ECW should footage of him at that show ever be aired; the footage of both Angle ''and'' the crucifixion wouldn't be seen by the general public until ''The Rise and Fall of ECW'' was released.

On top of that, there was also the "Wrestling/MassTransitIncident". In late 1996, a young man by the name of Eric Kulas managed to get into a match when another wrestler no-showed due to travel issues; going by the ring name "Mass Transit", Kulas competed in a tag team match and was cut open pretty deep by infamous hardcore wrestler/psychopath Wrestling/NewJack. This wouldn't normally be a problem, but in Kulas' case, he was underage and had no wrestling experience of any kind - he had lied to Heyman and other ECW bookers to get a spot on the card. The incident caused ECW to come under major scrutiny and almost cost them their first big pay-per-view spot until Kulas' lying to the booking team came to light. You can read more about this at [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Transit_incident_%28professional_wrestling%29 That Other Wiki.]]

Once the colorful supermen the WWF had built their company on started to fail and they found themselves chasing WCW's lead, its rise back to dominance came through mimicking the ECW style. Both the WWF and WCW raided ECW's talent rosters with varying levels of success (the biggest success being "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, whose firing from WCW led him to go to ECW for a brief period before entering the WWF and becoming the most famous pro wrestler since Wrestling/HulkHogan).

Sadly, ECW was not long for this world: combined with a TV deal with cable network TNN (the precursor to Creator/SpikeTV) that went horribly awry thanks to the WWF, Paul Heyman's notoriously bad business sense (something even Heyman owns up to) sent the promotion into bankruptcy even as the wrestling styles and writing style they popularized took the wrestling world by storm. Wrestlers were lucky to get paid in the final year or two. In the end, the company went out on pay-per-view - its last event was their ''Guilty as Charged'' PPV in January of 2001, and the main event saw Wrestling/JerryLynn face a returning Rob Van Dam (who had taken a hiatus from the company because of contract disagreements) in the last great match of the promotion. (Incidentally, the show was held at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, the same building where the two ''ECW One Night Stand'' pay-per-views were held.) Once the company officially declared bankruptcy, the WWF bought the promotion, getting all of its trademarks and its video library in the deal. This buyout, coupled with the eventual buyout of WCW just a couple of months later, left the WWF as the biggest wrestling promotion on the planet.

After its closing, ECW's popularization of "hardcore" wrestling resulted in countless independent federations, such as XPW, poorly mimicking that style. {{Backyard|Wrestling}} Wrestling/{{CZW}} would take over ECW's territory, projecting itself as a successor, but [[NotSoSimilar proved to be a very different promotion;]] Wrestling/ProWrestlingGuerilla opened in a different territory and is typically seen as a more "proper" successor to ECW, though it's still not quite the same. ECW also brought back old-school technical wrestling and high-flying spot-wrestlers, and thus served as a big influence on Wrestling/RingOfHonor[[note]]Ring of Honor was specifically created to fill the void left by ECW by wrestling video vendor Rob Feinstein (the "RF" in RF Video), who with his biggest source of content gone had to start up his own promotion so he'd have something to put on video and sell[[/note]].

In June 2005, the ECW name was revived by WWE for ''ECW One Night Stand'', a one-night pay-per-view reunion of ECW alumni (that same weekend, there was another ECW tribute show - ''Hardcore Homecoming'' - which was spearheaded by Shane Douglas and featured several ECW wrestlers who didn't appear at ''One Night Stand''). The event proved so successful that a second ''ECW One Night Stand'' was held a year later - this time, ECW and WWE talent was mixed together, since this event would be the starting point for ECW becoming WWE's third brand (alongside ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]''). WWE's ECW brand, which had an weekly hour-long show on [=SyFy=], would last until February 16, 2010; the next week, it was replaced with ''Wrestling/{{WWE NXT}}'', the wrestlers on the ECW brand were split up and placed on the ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'' rosters (or released outright), and the brand was laid to rest by WWE for good. While the initial ''One Night Stand'' was quite authentic to the original ECW and the second edition was also well-regarded, the ensuing "[[FanNickname WWECW]]" brand was generally regarded as ECW InNameOnly. In the summer of 2010, Wrestling/{{TNA}} would put on ''[=HardCORE=] Justice'' as a "tribute" to the ECW Originals, and brought several of them in as members of the roster after the PPV under the group name "EV 2.0" (with "EV" standing for "Extreme Violence").

* ReallySeventeenYearsOld: The infamous "Mass Transit incident". See the trope page for details.

* GoldenAge: ECW Alumni such as Wrestling/RobVanDam and [[Wrestling/JimFullington The Sandman]] describe ECW as their favorite career period, as they had some creative control over their characters, with the logic that they know how to get themselves over best. That, combined with Paul Heyman's perfect understanding of wrestling, all came together to form an excellent work environment that allowed wrestlers to thrive without dealing with the Executive Meddling that the WCW and WWF were (and in [[HereWeGoAgain WWE]]'s case, still are), known for.

** Nova impersonated the Hulkster (or rather his evil "Hollywood" persona) as part of the bWo. Apart from flashing the same poses Hogan does, he also boasted about how "his movie(s) are bigger than Series/StarTrek".

In June 2005, the ECW name was revived by WWE for ''ECW One Night Stand'', a one-night pay-per-view reunion of ECW alumni (that same weekend, there was another ECW tribute show - ''Hardcore Homecoming'' - which was spearheaded by Shane Douglas and featured several ECW wrestlers who didn't appear at ''One Night Stand''). The event proved so successful that a second ''ECW One Night Stand'' was held a year later - this time, ECW and WWE talent was mixed together, since this event would be the starting point for ECW becoming WWE's third brand (alongside ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]''). WWE's ECW brand, which had an weekly hour-long show on [=SyFy=], would last until February 16, 2010; the next week, it was replaced with ''WWE NXT'', the wrestlers on the ECW brand were split up and placed on the ''Raw'' and ''[=SmackDown=]'' rosters (or released outright), and the brand was laid to rest by WWE for good. While the initial ''One Night Stand'' was quite authentic to the original ECW and the second edition was also well-regarded, the ensuing "[[FanNickname WWECW]]" brand was generally regarded as ECW InNameOnly. In the summer of 2010, Wrestling/{{TNA}} would put on ''[=HardCORE=] Justice'' as a "tribute" to the ECW Originals, and brought several of them in as members of the roster after the PPV under the group name "EV 2.0" (with "EV" standing for "Extreme Violence").

* JerkJock: Leader of the New Breed Elijah Burke, aided by him being a former amateur boxer, which was an integral part of his character.

** After Lashley left, Wrestling/CMPunk was this to the vast majority of the WWECW roster, to the point that both the ECW Originals and the New Breed tried to recruit him knowing that whichever stable did would eventually win the feud. Unlike Lashley, Punk ''did'' lose the title -- in a No DQ match, after being speared by then-World Heavyweight Champion Wrestling/{{Edge|Wrestler}}. Punk would later have the last laugh after he cashed in his MITB briefcase on Edge later that year to win his first world title.

* HoaxHogan: Nova impersonated the Hulkster (or rather his evil "Hollywood" persona) as part of the bWo. Apart from flashing the same poses Hogan does, he also boasted about how "his movie(s) are bigger than Series/StarTrek".

** After Lashley left, Wrestling/CMPunk was this to the vast majority of the WWECW roster, to the point that both the ECW Originals and the New Breed tried to recruit him knowing that whichever stable did would eventually win the feud. Unlike Lashley, Punk ''did'' lose the title -- in a No DQ match, after being speared by then-World Heavyweight Champion Wrestling/{{Edge}}. Punk would later have the last laugh after he cashed in his MITB briefcase on Edge later that year to win his first world title.

** After Lashley left, Wrestling/CMPunk had the spotlight. Punk was the sole ECW competitor at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania 23'''s Money in the Bank ladder match (a match he almost won). Afterwards, ECW's most important storyline in 2007, the ECW Originals vs the New Breed, eventually centered around both factions trying to get Punk to join them. By that point, not only was it obvious that the storyline was really about getting Punk over, but also that Punk was the only person involved who had any real future with the company. Once that storyline was over, Punk's ECW Title chase dominated the show for the rest of the year. He would lose the title to Wrestling/{{Chavo Guerrero|Jr}} (thanks to interference from Wrestling/{{Edge}}) at the beginning of 2008, win his first Money in the Bank ladder match at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania 24'' that year, and would be drafted to RAW in the summer (and would win his first world title the following week).

* BastardBoyfriend: Mike Knox to Wrestling/KellyKelly, abandoning her to her fate in mixed tag team matches they were in and even at one point hitting his finisher on her.

* LastOfHisKind: By 2009, Wrestling/TommyDreamer was the last of the ECW Originals on WWE ECW (and the company, if you discount Wrestling/ChrisJericho and Wrestling/{{Rey Mysterio|Jr}}).

After its closing, ECW's popularization of "hardcore" wrestling resulted in countless independent federations, such as XPW, poorly mimicking that style. {{Backyard|Wrestling}} Wrestling/{{CZW}} would take over ECW's territory, projecting itself as a successor, but [[NotSoSimilar proved to be a very different promotion;]] Wrestling/ProWrestlingGuerilla opened in a different territory and is typically seen as a more "proper" successor to ECW, though it's still not quite the same. ECW also brought back old-school technical wrestling and high-flying spot-wrestlers, and thus served as a big influence on Wrestling/RingOfHonor.

* CoverAlbum: Both OST albums released by ECW, 1998's ''Extreme Music'' and 2001's ''Anarchy Rocks, Extreme Music Vol. 2'' were {{cover version}}s of wrestlers' themes. Although they weren't the original tunes, the cover artists were [[{{Pun}} awesome]], including "[[Music/{{Metallica}} Enter Sandman]]" made by [[Music/{{Motorhead}} Lemmy Kilmister]] and "[[Music/{{Scorpions}} The Zoo]]" by Music/BruceDickinson.

* ScaryBlackMan: '''''New Jack.''''' Full stop.

* YouHaveToHaveJews: Tod Gordon, Paul E., Joel Gertner, and Raven. This ruffled some feathers when Paul colluded in Sandman's crucifixion, and it was suggested by some that they nail Sandman to a Jewish Star and see how ''that'' goes over with Raven's friends. Tod and Paul quickly got cold feet and told Raven to apologize for the shoot, which he grudgingly did. Raven, who is not religious, still insists it was a good angle and had the desired impact (and jokingly pointed out that the Jewish Star idea wouldn’t work because Sandman could roll away). As Terry Funk said in ''Forever Hardcore'':
-->'''Funk:''' Leave God out of our business. ''[laughter]'' Doesn't he have ''enough'' to do? We don't want to drag him into ''our'' business, do we?