Andrew Lutzke
This article series is me, a couch, a remote, possibly an adult beverage and some random Wrasslin’ I decide to watch. I won’t bore you with play by play, instead I’ll offer random observations and memories – and an occasional dose of arm chair re-booking.
ECW Barbed Wire City : The Unauthorized History of ECW
Presented by Highspots.com
In 1992 ECW produced an ultra-violent product that would start in sports bars but within a few years ECW found itself as the number three promotion in America and on PPV.
Musician Billy Corgan says things got too out of hand and the fans became numb to the violence, but it was too late to turn back.
Shane Douglas explains how fans don’t realize how much goes into creating a wrestling show – from marketing to logistics to insurances.
ECW founder Tod Gordon explains how little scope he envisioned for ECW.
Sandman says he told Gordon to find a great booker, which led to “Hot Stuff” Eddie Gilbert coming in and booking. Gilbert brought in Terry Funk as a color commentator.
Gordon explains how “Viking Hall” became “ECW Arena” which was just a warehouse with two toilets.
The talking heads all put over the fans for creating the atmosphere that made ECW grow.
Rocco Rock and others put over ECW super fan “Straw hat Guy” who was a staple at the shows for years.
Dave Meltzer explains that the ECW guys hated the fans because they were “smart” and very hard to impress.
Rocco Rock says the ECW Arena was more exciting to work at than the Tokyo Dome or Georgia Dome super cards he was a part of.
Various guys talk about how Paul Heyman was a weasel but beloved by all nonetheless. Heyman learned from Gilbert while working together in the southern indy promotions in the later 80’s.
Gilbert’s booking is derided by some guys – Gilbert was pissed that Tod Gordon wanted to start working for the NWA and he quit/was fired and Heyman replaced him. Gilbert was pissed at Heyman for robbing him of his “spot”.
Gilbert showed up after his release and did an unplanned “shoot” promo in the middle of the ring. It’s mentioned that Heyman and Gordon were unhappy by what he said, however it’s not explained what he said exactly.
In 1993, WCW was a stale corporate-run mess and WWF was reeling from Hulkamania dying and scandals breaking out – this was the opening ECW needed.
Heyman would tell the guys that he was making no money and had no social life outside of ECW – the guys bought into this and agreed to work hard for little pay.
ECW introduced sexual themes that hadn’t been seen in wrestling.
Heyman booked on the fly and kept the guys on edge.
Axl Rotten and others explain the spectacle of blading and how big of a part blood played in ECW.
Tommy Dreamer was the heart and soul of ECW and pushed his body to its limits with ever increasingly brutal bumps to show the fans how tough he was and how far he would go to entertain.
By 1995 ECW’s syndication was growing and the VHS market exploded for them. ECW paid to appear on TV upwards of $2-3,000 a week per station, so VHS tapes kept ECW afloat during rough times.
Johnny Grunge says ECW had such a following that they could draw even without TV because of the cult like following they enjoyed.
They show a clip from mid ’95 of Public Enemy saying they have no reason to leave ECW and the other promotions don’t offer much for them. (They would be gone within 6 months).
The Public Enemy, New Jack and others explain the wild times the boys had after a show – multiple women a night and lots of drinking.
Balls Mahoney says he took chair shots to the head for years despite having a broken neck.
Axl, Chris Chetti, Sandman and others explain their injuries. Others talk about how little talent most of the guys actually had and the only talent they had was taking punishment.
Axl regrets letting Heyman talk him into permanently maiming himself for entertainment purposes.
Rocco Rock says he brought a lucha style to America before any Mexicans did, and he didn’t get over. Once he started garbage wrestling in ECW he got over.
Heyman convinced his crew that Vince McMahon and Eric Bischoff wanted to put ECW out of business.
The “Monday Night Wars” saw ECW raided of Mikey Whipwreck, Public Enemy, Eddy Gurrerro, Dean Malenko, Luchadores, Raven, Sandman and others.
Axl Rotten has interview clips from 2001 and then we get an interview from 2012 and he is a shocking mess of a man in the modern clip. He explains he has Bell’s Palsy and is partially paralyzed – he still wrestles (!).
Heyman convinced his guys that PPV was coming and they should stay in ECW to be stars and make money with them instead of WWF and WCW. He lied frequently to his crew about PPV’s being scheduled.
The “Mass Transit” incident is covered by various guys. Basically a 19 year old lied to Heyman about being a wrestler and got on a spot show against the Gangstas. He had pissed New Jack off in the locker room by being disrespectful and then asked Jack to blade him. Jack warned the kid that this wasn’t a good idea.
Once the match got going, Jack tried to blade him and got no juice – after a few tries he sliced the kid good and blood spurted all over the ring. The kid’s dad was screaming for mercy and later tried to get into the locker room to get at New Jack.
New Jack ended up with a lawsuit against him – but it was thrown out after the kid kept changing his story.
The gory video of the incident was spread by rfvideo and the PPV providers bailed out on any deals due to the bad publicity.
We cut to “modern” day and Shane Douglas is rushing to the hospital as Sabu has been found unconscious in his hotel room only hours before he’s supposed to face Douglas, who is also booking the show. Raven says Sabu took a bunch of prescription drugs.
Sandman, Stevie Richards and others talk about the excitement of the first PPV finally coming through. They even cleaned the arena for the occasion.
The microphone went out at the start of the PPV and their generator blew out right after the PPV finished.
Heyman gave a speech in the ring afterward but since the power was out, no one but the live fans heard it.
Heyman explains why some smaller arenas were used simply because of the fans being super loyal compared to larger arenas.
The Dudley Boys trash talking to fans is highlighted. Security had to legit hold back fans from attacking Bubba Ray. Some criticize Heyman for letting him get away with it. We see clips of Dudley getting into the crowds faces and insulting the fans mothers and so on. Riots even occurred in a few places.
Balls Mahoney recalls his part of a riot that ended with him cracking a fan with a hockey stick.
Mahoney claims to have invented flaming tables. Then he and the Dudleys did the spot nightly.
New Jack says he started driving off of balconies because Heyman was jobbing him and Jack wanted the fans to remember the big bump instead of the loss. New Jack eventually got bonuses for taking dives.
Meltzer thinks ECW took too long to get on PPV and then they got knocked down by a surging WCW and WWF. Heyman was always behind on bills and constantly borrowing money to catch up.
Stevie Richards regrets leaving ECW for WCW for monetary purposes.
With syndication costs mounting – ECW desperately needed to get a national TV deal. TNN answered the call. ECW also had a video game and a toy line released around this point.
Axl and Balls Mahoney put themselves over as great technicians and one of the best teams ever. *eye roll*
ECW had to sign guys to contracts once they made it to TNN. Shane Douglas, The Dudleys and Tazz all left almost as soon as they got the TNN deal.
TNN didn’t offer money for production, ratings were meh and house shows were dwindling.
Heyman was hoping that WCW would go out of business before ECW so TBS or somebody would scoop them up as a replacement. The ECW checks bounced often.
Sandman was signed for 4000 dollars a week.
Heyman possibly landing a WWF gig made guys work for weeks and months without pay in order to stay on Heyman’s good side.
ECW was close to signing with the USA Network at the bitter end.
Heyman missed the last ever ECW show and it took place far away from the ECW Arena.
Paul E.’s debut on RAW was the first time a lot of the guys realized ECW was really dead.
WWF bought the ECW assets and the “Rise and Fall of ECW” DVD was one of their best selling DVDs ever.
Balls Mahoney tried to overdose after ECW went out of business.
The 2012 reunion show was a debacle as the booking had the Gangstas get beat down by “nobodies”, Raven skipped out on working in his match, Justin Credible passed out in the locker room and was kicked out and Sabu was in the hospital O.D.’d and missed the main event. Shane Douglas came out and since he was promoting the show he was engulfed by chants of “refund!!”
We close with warm and fuzzy thoughts and then a rundown of how the ECW guys interviewed are doing now. The answer is not well. Public Enemy are both dead (among others) and most of the other guys are still slicing themselves open for the sake of a pop – ignoring age, injuries and reality.
Final thoughts: This fell short of being a must see venture – partly due to copyright issues that prevented the big moments of ECW from being shown, partly due to some key names (Dreamer, Heyman, Funk etc.) not being interviewed for it, and overall it lacked anything new that we hadn’t heard about the promotion. They also made a poor choice for music during the documentary – instead of some edgy, hard metal sound that would have fit the ECW aura, we get a serene score that sounds like music you’d play during meditation sessions. They also tried to give us a “now and then” perspective by showing footage of the ECW reunion show, but even that was done half assed and we didn’t get the full narrative of the evening. Namely showing Shane Douglas rushing to the hospital to check on Sabu and then never really following up on how Douglas rebooked the show with his main eventer out. Plus we see clips of Shane being booed for putting on a shitty show and then no follow up from Shane on his point of view and plans for improvement or whatever. ECW mutants might get a kick out of the memories discussed but I was under whelmed overall.
