What If ECW Never Died?
The famed ECW.
Extreme Championship Wrestling.
The land of hardcore wrestling.
ECW pushed the boundaries of what wrestling can be. I remember being a small boy and watching these people do some of the most intense things I’ve ever seen.
They’d jump to the crowd.
The crowd participation was out of this world. They’d hold weapons that they brought from home or even the chair they were sitting on, in hopes that one of the wrestlers would use it.
I wish I was able to go to one of their shows.
Sadly, the wrestling promotion did come to an abrupt end. Paul Heyman, who was the owner, had no financial income to keep the product alive. Sure, he was getting some sort of help from WWE, but it wasn’t enough.
Paul Heyman didn’t have real contracts with his wrestlers. They were only verbal contracts. Which is suprising that all the wrestlers actually just kept the ball going with Paul. Most people today wouldn’t take a verbal contract.
That verbal contract started to affect the employers because their checks kept bouncing.
So, here lies the question. Let’s say that ECW was able to stay afloat. Paul Heyman was able to actually pay his wrestlers, and they were to continue their mayhem of destruction.
Would ECW have survived till today?
I honestly think it wouldn’t. I think it would slowly burn down right before our eyes.
The promotion just got to the point where the wrestlers really had to do even more extreme shit to make the crowd go crazy. That would’ve meant way more punishment for their bodies. I wouldn’t have want them to put themselves in more pain.
This wasn’t easy wrestling. This was legit. The weapons were real. They couldn’t afford to built “rigged” weapons.
The only thing that kept them going was the fanbase they had. They were truly one of a kind and completely loyal to the product.
The one thingI envy about ECW was there ability to tell legit real-life storylines that didn’t feel fake at all. The stories were always grounded. They didn’t need pyro or crazy camera angles to get the point through. All they needed was for the wrestlers to speak their minds and keep the story going.
Would the storylines continued to be extreme?
Yes, of course.
Would they have continued to bring in famous pornstars to the arena?
Sure, why not. It was a thirst trap for the fans.
WWE’s version of ECW was just the worst. I was in the latter that actually thought this could be good and we will see it on a weekly basis. But, that backfired quickly.
They shouldn’t have even called it ECW. The “extreme” element was far gone. They didn’t do the things they did, or maybe they weren’t allowed to do the things they did.
It was just another cookie-cutter product WWE developed in hopes of raking in more money.
Even worse, the ECW originals barely came back. They had to fill in the void with their active Raw and Smackdown superstars. Seeing Kurt Angle in ECW was just weird to me. Seeing Big Show in ECW was strange. It just didn’t fit.
The only light at the end of the tunnel was that we got CM Punk.
ECW still has its fanbase today. I still watch it on Peacock. It’s such a joy to watch.
Us wrestling fans are DYING for some extreme action. We want to see blood being spilled. We want to see the wrestlers getting thrown to the crowd. We want to see the crazy balcony jumps.
We want to chant “ECW”.
