Hello SquaredCircle! Welcome to our Weekly Discussion Thread!
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(Reminder, this thread can and will contain spoilers for possibly any show. Spoiler tags are not required in here, but if the show just happened try and keep spoiler talk it to its respective discussion thread for the first day).
unpopular opinion but why is nostalgia for ecw so valued? the company did massive damage to wrestling (and the wrestlers health themselves) and heyman was a horrible boss who screwed so many people out of their livlihoods. don’t get me started with ecw’s embrace of the absolute worst toxic fanbase.
ECW (the post ‘Eastern’ years) was basically the foundation for what would become the Attitude Era, so without it pro wrestling may have taken much longer to leave the cartooney character world.
Deeper/edgier/mature storylines became more common place due to ECW’s influence, both of which Bishoff and McMahon began copying, but which a lot of people wanted as an alternative to the storylines of the big guys.
Heyman was a sack of shit who was an abysmal businessman but creatively (especially for the time) the man was a damned genius. He knew how to get every last drop out of the product they had (“accentuate the positives, hide the negatives!”) and put on a product nowhere near the production of WCW/ECW but was still good enough to get a tv deal (for a short time).
Heyman had a focus on shifting Eastern Championship Wrestling into an extreme niche to draw a fanbase WCW/WWF-E weren’t taking advantage of, but also didn’t let go of what got them there: great wrestling. As such ECW became the first US promotion (or first big name US one at least) that would book people like Rey Mysterio, Psicosis, Eddie Guerrero, etc. Which of course lead to so many people being poached by WWF/WCW.
Compounding on that, ECW was similar to ROH/PWG in how you look now-a-days and so many people in WWE/AEW came up through them, a lotta big wrestlers came up through ECW or helped them with giving them a place to form their characters (like Stone Cold, the basis of which was formed in ECW before he went to WWF as the ‘ringmaster’).
ECW’s fanbase was as toxic as WCW’s, WWE’s, and AEW’s. Some loud mouth jackasses, and a whole fuckload of normal people who just didn’t like WWE/WCW and wanted to see harder wrestling. Now-a-days most of these same people would be fans of GCW and GCW fans are some of the most accepting, least judgemental motherfuckers I’ve ever seen (especially given the huge POC and LGBTQ+ wrestlers/shows they book) and when someone starts shit they usually get knocked the fuck out.
This is a great explanation.
My take was going to be WCW was trying to treat it as real sport like the '80s, WWF was treating it like a comic with Superheroes and along comes ECW who were like fuck that and fuck you if you don’t like what we’re doing, it was just crazy different. I think the industry is better off for ECW having existed.
Although… here we are a thousand years after ECW closed, WWE did the best send off ever with One Night Stand, then ruined it with follow ups and a WWE brand using those initials. TNA decided to get in on it with Hardcore Justice and diluted it even more, I think Shane Douglas ran some shows too as reunions… quite frankly ECW has been done to death, it was cool and edgy, but it does get a little old doing this reunion every few years with older and older and older ECW originals. Rumor is they want to make it a yearly NXT special now.
Oh sweet gods no lol.
I do agree with ya. In 2024 it’s best to leave ECW in the coffin. We’ll always appreciate it, and every time we see an ECW legend we’ll get those chants, and be reminded of them via AEW and GCW’s chants which are similar, but let it go with big specials and reunions and shit.
There’s a handful of ECW wrestlers who can still show up and go and that’s pretty much Bully, RVD, Rhino and Tommy and that’s all we ever get. Everyone else who could show up are retired, goddamned dead, working for companies in positions that preclude them from taking part in an ECW reunion wrestling show, or have so much CTE they are on record as literally not knowing what day of the week it is let alone prepared to bump.
Bring one of em in periodically if they’re in town and you want a pop but end it there lol.
I did appreciate WWE bringing in Little Guido/Nunzio to do some stuff with Tony D’Angelo, just two wise guys showing each other respect…
Yes! That was my shining diamond of the night tbh, I was a big FBI mark back in the day so I’ll always pop for em. Plus the lil social media vid they did after sharing pizza was perfect lol.