Ten Years Ago Today

[Chris B]

Heyman's ECW had bits of everything. Well, everything for a slightly older audience anyway. There was little in the way of pandering towards kids or giving out family entertainment. The rip-off companies saw that as an excuse to promote spotty, super-violent shit, rather than a solid, all-around product.

Don't agree with this at all. ECW was aimed at a far smaller audience than wrestling had been previously, and the influence of ECW largely helped to drive away any older wrestling fans, and female fans in general.

 

Agreed on the female fans point, but I disagree on the point about older fans. Their open adulation of Terry Funk alone gained them some kudos, I think. Throw in some strong technical wrestling, and I think youre talking about a show that would appeal more to older wrestling fans.

[TheBigBoot]

As far as it appealing to the older fans goes, I apologise if I've told this before but I still remember (and occasionally still talk to him about this whenver ECW comes up in conversation... once every five years or so) coming back from University in 99/2000 and my dad (who I suppose would count as an older fan) met me half way/picked me up and the first thing he said was: "Did your mum tell you I saw some of that really awful, Extreme Wrestling on Bravo last week?"

 

"No. You mean ECW?"

 

"The one on Bravo. >laughing< It was crap!"

 

He then went on to explain how it was (words to the effect of) basically a bunch of guys hitting people with things and how two guys spent ages setting up this intricate spot (my words not his) where they fell over through a table - pretty much the description Gladstone Small gave earlier in this thread in fact.

 

I was a little bit annoyed because like Chris B I always assumed he like it if he saw any... well, not all of it but the technical stuff like Guerrero, Malenko, Tajiri and co. Since in addition to the World of Sport stuff, the guys he always liked in U.S. wrestling were people like Savage and the Bulldogs. As I've said before the last time I remember him getting into any wrestling was when I was in Year 10/11 and he used to occasionally watch NJPW on Eurosport with me. God knows what matches he saw on ECW but it obviously wasn't some of the better wrestling they had on.

 

So I suppose it depends which part of the programme one of those older fans, raised on the style of whichever territory they grew up in, happened to catch. Some of it was great, but some of it was probably embarrassing to anyone over the age of about thirty at the time.

 

The thing that depresses me reading a "ten years ago" thread is that considering WWF/E and their competition, 2001 was an improvement on 1991, but 2011 feels like dogshit remembering 2001.

 

Now there's an interesting debate. For WWF 2001 probably was an improvement on 1991. For wrestling in general? I'm not sure. I actually found '01 to be quite a depressing year considering the deaths of both ECW and WCW - especially the latter because love it or hate it at the time there was a lot of doubt over whether anyone would ever get to that level again in terms of running a national company opposite McMahon.

 

WCW is an interesting one because I actually thought they seemed to be getting things together in the few months they were around in 2001 but them going out of business fans meant the end of wrestling for a bunch of fans who never came back, ECW of 2001 wasn't better than USWA of 1991, Japan didn't seem as hot in 2001 as it had in the early 90s era, I'm not sure Britwres was in a better state either and I'll let someone who has seen more '91 lucha handle that one for me.

 

I was watching their match (from Heatwave 98? I can never remember the events or year) yesterday and it is just awful. Slow-motion, "go on it's your turn to hit a move, I'll stand here and wait for half an hour while you do it" shite. The worst spot is where Awesome stands next to the ring on that ramp and waits for Tanaka to walk all the way to the other end of the ramp so he can do a sprinting, weak-looking chair shot on him. Just terrible.

 

Don't mind the weak-looking chair shots to be honest. Sure they can look kind of cheesy, especially in that "your turn, my turn" way when just taking turns hitting weak shots on each other but it's the full-on, brain-scrambling ones like in Mahoney/Tanaka and Buh Buh Ray/D-Von feuds that bothered me at the time.

 

I'm not saying i disagree on the example of Tanaka/Awesome helping to mold a trend amongst young indy wrestlers doing dangerous spotty matches without psychology, there is an element of that to ECW. But that's precisely the point, ECW had many elements, and Paul Heyman, for all his flaws, was clearly a big advocate of the three ring circus approach to promotion.

 

It would be untrue to claim that this particular element was the only thing ECW had to offer.

 

The introduction of luchadors to a relatively large american audience on a regular basis?

 

The shift in emphasis towards mostly realistic characters. and away from the more cartoon-ish elements of the big two promotions of the time? The move towards the more risque style of angle that would become de rigueur in the Attitude era?

 

Technical clinics between Guerrero and Malenko, and the introduction of Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Lance storm, and many others to a large American audience?

 

The pull apart brawls that later characterized some of the great fueds of the modern era, such Rock-Austin?

 

All ECW introductions.

 

It would be unfair to merely characterize ECW as a spotty hardcore promotion, they were much more. That is why the company is so revered, because much of what they did was groundbreaking for its time.

 

But how true is what you just said? I'm not an expert on such matters but hadn't pull apart brawls, technical matches, realistic characters and violent matches been done before? That's always been my take on it really. Most of the NWA wrestlers were pretty realistic, sure there were exceptions but not a lot. Same with other old school promotions really. Certainly the NWA had technical clinics. Then you had incidents like the spike in the immortal Steel Cage I Quit match and Ric Flair being piledriver through a table. Hell, wasn't there even an angle in Memphis where Jerry Lawler got run over?

 

Yes there was by Eddie Gilbert in 1990. Paul Heyman had been Gilbert's booking assistant in Alabama and Gilbert also later recommended/got Paul E. his job in NWA/WCW. Of course he was also ECW's booker before Heyman took over from him in 1993.

 

Violence, technical wrestling and realistic characters really wern't anything new, that's the main argument that I think can be made when it comes to the idea of Paul Heyman being a genius, he wasn't really innovating, but he made you think he was. I won't claim to be a fan of the time, and I imagine a lot that were probably did think that everythign that was happening in ECW was new, but now that we have You Tube its pretty clear that a lot of it wasn't.

 

Excellent point. Very, very true. I knew that a lot/some of the ideas had been done previously but that's only because I had been reading wrestling magazines since 1989 I'm realistic enough to understand that not everyone is that big a wrestling nerd and I'd imagine to your average fan who stumbled across it on Bravo or whatever or who only started reading wrestling magazines in the mid-90s when they picked up a PowerSlam and saw some photos of crazy ECW stuff it would have all seemed brand new. So in that sense it probably seemed more original than it was. Then when WWF started recycling a lot of their ideas it only enhanced ECW's reputation as being this hub of creative activity that influenced The Big Two.

 

Sure, they might have taken things that little bit further, and Heyman was pretty much on when it came to picking up on culture at the time (music surely) played a massive part in creating the ECW underground image, but a lot of things that are credited to ECW arn't really them.

 

There's an argument to be made I suppose that ECW took on guys that didn't look like your traditional wrestlers, but then Dusty Rhodes commented about how he didn't look like "athletes of the day were supposed to look" and was fighting in world title matches.

 

Thing is I always thought guys like that did look like wrestlers rather than bodybuilders or swimming instructors or lifeguards (

[Checkmate]

my main problem with ECW is that there is alot of brawling though the crowd which to me really takes away from the matches. Also awful wrestlers like new jack and sandman but from what i have seen i have enjoyed and would love for something like it to come out in todays world

[TheBigBoot]

Sandman in his prime I thought was pretty good. Don't remember his early stuff being great but from 1995-1997 his style was perfect for his character and I thought he had plenty of good brawls. His mini-run in 1999 WCW is actually one of my favourite short-runs for any wrestler ever.

 

In general though, yeah I hated that brawl all over the place stuff as well. It's good the first couple of times you see it (especially when you have visuals like a Headhunter crashing through a wall). Maybe even the third. But after that it gets really tiresome. People like The Dudleys improved immensely once they were out of that enviroment and working WWF/E style.

[PowerButchi]

He got pretty over as Hak to boot. Well, at least until face Bischoff slapped him in the face on Nitro for smoking for some reason or another that made him look a fanny.

 

My old man was the other way around when it came to enjoying ECW, as regards Big Boot's earlier post about his old man watching it. The first time he watched it on Bravo with me, there was a long technical Johnny Smith vs Taz match, which my dad thought was amazing and said I should be watching that instead of my WCW and WWF. Then a week or so later he chanced over a Public Enemy or Meanie and Stevie dressed as them vs Gangstas match on there, and decided it was the shittest thing ever and that WCW was far better.

[Reznor]

Yeah, Hardcore Hak was loads of fun in WCW. Had some good plunder matches with Bam Bam, Knobbs, Mikey, Kendall Windham, Hugh Morrus etc, and even managed to make semi squashes v Goldberg and Kevin Nash far more fun than they had any right to be. That Nash match on Thunder was especially entertaining imo. Shame they never done a straight Hak/Raven feud though, they had one singles match but it lasted about 2 minutes before it turned into a wild backstage brawl with Bigelow. Was still a real fun segment though.

 

My first exposure to ECW on TV was Shane Douglas v Louie Spiccoli, followed by Sabu/RVD v Furnas/Kroffat in a time limit draw. There might have been something pretty throwaway and comical in between, possibly the Stevie/Meanie match Butch is talking about, but not sure. Anyways, at the time i thought Douglas/Spiccoli was a bit shit, because it was a bit rough around the edges, was nothing i hadn't seen before and wasn't what i expected from a company calling itself 'extreme'. On the other hand, i was blown away by how spectacular the tag match was. Yet, the funny thing is, the last time i saw them i enjoyed Spiccoli/Douglas, whilst the tag spotfest was a waste of time. All it was was "you hit your shit, i hit mine", back and forth for about 20 minutes. Once the novelty of the moves wore off, as a wrestling match it didn't hold up at all imo.

 

Taking this in a slightly different direction, here's 10 years ago today;

 

From TheHistoryofwwe.com

 

WWF @ Columbus, OH - Gund Arena - January 30, 2001 (11,757; sell out)

Scott Vick pinned Steve Bradley with the Kryptonite Krunch

BJ Payne pinned Chad Collyer

Sunday Night Heat:

Albert pinned K-Kwick with the Baldo Bomb

Hardcore Holly & Steve Blackman defeated the Goodfather & Bull Buchanon in a hardcore match when Holly pinned Goodfather with a dropkick

Chris Benoit defeated Crash Holly (w/ Molly Holly) via submission with the Crippler Crossface

WWF European Champion Test pinned Perry Saturn (w/ Terri) with the boot to the face

Smackdown! Xtreme - added emphasis was given to this show in order to compete with 'Friends' and the series premier of 'Survivor II':

WWF Tag Team Champions the Dudley Boyz defeated Matt & Jeff Hardy in a tables match after Bubba powerbombed Jeff from the stage through two tables

WWF Women

[IANdrewDiceClay]

My old man was the other way around when it came to enjoying ECW, as regards Big Boot's earlier post about his old man watching it. The first time he watched it on Bravo with me, there was a long technical Johnny Smith vs Taz match, which my dad thought was amazing and said I should be watching that instead of my WCW and WWF. Then a week or so later he chanced over a Public Enemy or Meanie and Stevie dressed as them vs Gangstas match on there, and decided it was the shittest thing ever and that WCW was far better.

My Dad shredded the show verbally when he saw it years ago. The first one we ever watched my Dad said "look at Dean Douglas thinking he's Joe Rock*, neen* of the supporters are ever in the building." He hated it. Mind you, I thought it was pretty shite as well. I liked bits and bobs, but can never say I was a mega fan. Didn't hate it, just didn't get as excited as everyone else. Didnt used to turn it over when it was on DSF's Fan Slam, but never tried to get the timing translated off my German teacher like I did for WWF and WCW.

 

 

 

*north east slang for "quite tough".

*north east slang for "none".

[TheBigBoot]

Well its Sunday night again, I've got some time on my hands so thought I'd respond to this from exactly one week ago this time...

 

He got pretty over as Hak to boot. Well, at least until face Bischoff slapped him in the face on Nitro for smoking for some reason or another that made him look a fanny.

 

I agree. Pointless booking and if they really needed to do it to have babyface Bischoff show he was boss or whatever they could have had Bisch do it to someone else. I wish WCW had kept the Hardcore division based around him and also kept him around a bit longer they had something different there with him and as you say he was pretty over.

 

My old man was the other way around when it came to enjoying ECW, as regards Big Boot's earlier post about his old man watching it. The first time he watched it on Bravo with me, there was a long technical Johnny Smith vs Taz match, which my dad thought was amazing and said I should be watching that instead of my WCW and WWF. Then a week or so later he chanced over a Public Enemy or Meanie and Stevie dressed as them vs Gangstas match on there, and decided it was the shittest thing ever and that WCW was far better.

 

Ah cool, see I think my dad would have liked that - the last time he got into any U.S. wrestling (in terms of deliberately watching it with me, rather than just catching a bit here and there) was Regal's first TV Title reign in WCW on ITV. I remember matches with guys like one of the Cole Twins and Mark Starr that made him (my dad not Regal - although he probably did that as well on commentary) mention British holds and wrestlers I had never heard of.

 

Then a couple of years later the last stuff he watched semi-regularly in general was NJPW Ring Warriors where I remember him 'marking out' for a match between Hiroshi Hase and Kensuke Sasaki so I reckon that something with Johnny Smith in it would be more up his alley than whatever he did see. I think he'd like Taz's gimmick if he saw him.

 

TBH, I was just jealous he got to watch what sounded like a whole episode of ECW Hardcore TV. The only stuff I could get to see at that point with any kind of regularity (I'd watch the other shows whenever I could) when I was at uni' was WCW on Channel 5.

 

Yeah, Hardcore Hak was loads of fun in WCW. Had some good plunder matches with Bam Bam, Knobbs, Mikey, Kendall Windham, Hugh Morrus etc, and even managed to make semi squashes v Goldberg and Kevin Nash far more fun than they had any right to be. That Nash match on Thunder was especially entertaining imo. Shame they never done a straight Hak/Raven feud though, they had one singles match but it lasted about 2 minutes before it turned into a wild backstage brawl with Bigelow. Was still a real fun segment though.

 

Don't remember the one against Windham but sure I've seen the others. The Goldberg squash was great and loved the way they made Hak seem like a bit of a threat just because he was so 'out there' and hardcore that it mad him dangerous to Goldberg.

 

Not a big fan of what I've seen of his post-ECW Indie stuff or WWE run (although even there he managed to get more over than a lot of people would have expected) and I'll admit I did laugh when Booker dumped him out of the Royal Rumble in about ten seconds in comedy jobber fashion and JBL made fun of him on commentary... But I stand by his ECW and WCW's run being good and it was a shame to me that the latter wasn't a bit longer.

 

My first exposure to ECW on TV was Shane Douglas v Louie Spiccoli, followed by Sabu/RVD v Furnas/Kroffat in a time limit draw. There might have been something pretty throwaway and comical in between, possibly the Stevie/Meanie match Butch is talking about, but not sure. Anyways, at the time i thought Douglas/Spiccoli was a bit shit, because it was a bit rough around the edges, was nothing i hadn't seen before and wasn't what i expected from a company calling itself 'extreme'. On the other hand, i was blown away by how spectacular the tag match was. Yet, the funny thing is, the last time i saw them i enjoyed Spiccoli/Douglas, whilst the tag spotfest was a waste of time. All it was was "you hit your shit, i hit mine", back and forth for about 20 minutes. Once the novelty of the moves wore off, as a wrestling match it didn't hold up at all imo.

 

I think the amazing thing about that (and ECW in general) is how quickly it aged. A lot of the peak era ECW stuff sounded amazing reading about it in Superstars of Wrestling/PowerSlam back in the mid-90s and watching the odd bits and pieces on trader tapes in that era only furthered the impression. But then when Bravo started showing those ECW episodes from summer/autumn 1996 in late 1998/early 1999 in reality it was only two/two and a bit years later but it seemed like ten.

 

From the outfits/fashions/music to the style of matches it was amazing to think that stuff had happened in the last five years. Of course a big part of that is that WWF had basically started doing a big budget version of the same thing, culture in general had changed (ECW was such a contemporary product that a lot of ECW stuff felt like it was tied to mid-90s Grunge or even mid-90s films) and a lot of the guys there had now gone on to work in WCW/WWF but still the difference was amazing because by '99 1996 just seemed like a different universe. By comparison I don't think wrestling has changed much at all in the past three years and certainly not the way it did 1995 to 1998.

 

By the late 90s ECW felt like old news, already.

 

What always gets me about results from that time though is just how recent the memories still feel. Even going back to the MSG Royal Rumble for instance which is actually 11 years ago, it barely even feels half that.

 

Who was BJ Payne btw?

 

No idea but I agree the last decade went quickly.

 

I think a lot of it is due to having the same company on top for all of it (WWE), complete with the same head writer (since late 2000), some of the same talent (Undertaker, Triple H, Kane) in more or less the same spot as they were back then, ad the same format for TV (two main shows each week, each lasting two hours in length featuring matches between stars with the one on Monday being shown live) and PPVs (normally one a month).

 

Sure you might get an extra PPV here and there, you'll get the returning big names or heel/face turns from top stars to shake things up every now and then, they have to change some stuff slightly due to sponsors or changing the TV rating to PG or whatever, you will get fresh new talent being brought up each year and occasionally you will get a fresh legit megastar (like Cena) but compared to the vast changes in all those areas that happened 1989-2000 then it's basically the exact same product.

 

Didnt used to turn it over when it was on DSF's Fan Slam, but never tried to get the timing translated off my German teacher like I did for WWF and WCW.

 

I knew I shouldn't have done French I feel like I missed out on something there.

[bAzTNM#1]

Who was BJ Payne btw?

According to Obsessed-With-Wrestling, the WWF signed him to a "Developmental Contract" in 2000. After he was released from the WWF, he appeared in NWA:TNA in 2003 and did the job for James Storm and Chris Harris in singles matches. He didn't do much else after that.

 

He retired in 2005 after sustaining a serious back and neck injury.

 

http://www.obsessedwithwrestling.com/profi...b/b-j-payne.php

[TheBigBoot]

Truly a legendary career. I can't wait for him to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

 

Still at least he got to work with the New Age Outlaws:

 

# May 13, 2005--X3 Wrestling: Road Dogg & Billy Gunn defeated B.J. Payne & Scotty Sabre..

 

 

# ~~~The promoter, Tim Shady, disappeared at intermission without paying a lot of the guys..

 

Oh.

[King Pitcos]

What always gets me about results from that time though is just how recent the memories still feel. Even going back to the MSG Royal Rumble for instance which is actually 11 years ago, it barely even feels half that.

It is strange, the way the perception of time has altered. It's why a shitehawk like Shelton Benjamin was still talked about like a rookie with world title potential about seven years into his career -- not his wrestling career, but his on-screen WWE career. It's why whenever WWE does a Cena/Orton match or showdown, it feels like we saw the same thing one week previous, when it was really probably five weeks since the last Cena/Orton match.

 

I think it's just a case of less going on in wrestling now, as TBB discussed. But I find that my perception of time in general has really changed compared to when I was a teenager. I feel like 2005 was about ten minutes ago, the last five years have gone by scarily fast. Every new years eve I feel sick with how quickly the year's gone. That didn't happen to me at the house party on December 31st, 2000. I was too busy crying because my best mate's girlfriend (who I was in love with) said something vaguely cruel or because my other mate wouldn't share his bottle of Jack Daniels.

[Carbomb]

But I find that my perception of time in general has really changed compared to when I was a teenager. I feel like 2005 was about ten minutes ago, the last five years have gone by scarily fast. Every new years eve I feel sick with how quickly the year's gone.

 

Eerily, that's true for me as well. I don't see now as 2011, 19 years on from Royal Rumble '92, I see it as ten years on plus "a bit".

[WWFChilli]

just to join in my first ever ECW match was Scorpio Vs Chris Jericho... this was around when Flash Funk was in WWF and I wondered why the fuck he was so shit compared to being Scorpio in ECW

[Fatty Facesitter]

I went back over the Rise and Fall DVD for the upteenth time recently, great stuff. Forever Hardcore serves as a really good companion piece as you then get accounts from virtually all of the prominent figures from ECW's history.

 

I remember being pretty excited in 2006 when ECW was re-launched. Even after the first terrible show, it actually picked up in the next couple of episodes. It all went downhill when Big Show won the title. In actual fact, I was all for Big Show winning the title because in that setting he made a really good heel champion, the WWE guy inciting rage amongst the traditionalist ECW fanbase was a nice trick. But again, not down to Show directly, but the quality in general took a serious nosedive after that.