I was browsing youtube i found a clip from 90's which was named raven vs tommy dreamer it was like a 20 minute match and i never thought it would blow me away like it did ..
i was 17-years-old, I was blown away.
Growing up i was always a wrestling fan or should i say WWE fan i never saw something extreme, never got a chance but that day i found out what is extreme although when i found out ecw it was too late and it was closed but still it was new for me.
This wasn’t traditional, time-honored professional wrestling. This was insanity, broadcast in poor quality, from a dingy former bingo hall.
It was fascinating.
The line wrapped around the building and fans were bringing their own weapons.
Staff members were going down the line collecting everything from keyboards to cheese graters and later that night, New Jack would use just about all of them on his unlucky opposition.
ECW was my introduction to hardcore wrestling.
Guys like New Jack and his partner Mustafa, 911, The Sandman, Balls Mahoney, Axl and Ian Rotten, and of course, Tommy Dreamer were never going to be master technicians in the ring.
The fans didn’t care though, these guys went out there and put on a show and obviously took great pride in what they did.
While the hardcore exploits of those guys was what initially caught my eye and drew me into the land of extreme, I soon realized that ECW was really about a lot more than foreign objects and brawling.
Some of the best wrestling of the ‘90s went down inside of ECW rings.
Names like Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko, 2 Cold Scorpio, Rey Mysterio and Psychosis all wowed crowds with their incredible athleticism and technical skill.
Most of these wrestlers only stayed for a short time, but their legacy in ECW was not one of barbed-wire and broken glass. They made their mark with wrestling ability.
The ECW fans may have been bloodthirsty, but they also knew how to appreciate a good wrestling match.
Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn turned in classic after classic throughout 1999. Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka brought their rivalry into ECW and churned out some epic matches.
There were broken tables and bodies, this was ECW after all, but the wrestling was also damn good.
"The Franchise" Shane Douglas may never be considered one of the greatest wrestlers of all-time but he certainly should be ranked near the top of list when it comes to the all-time greatest heels.
His reign as ECW Television Champion saw him attack "Pitbull" Gary Wolfe, who at the time wore a surgically-implanted halo to help heal his broken neck. Wolfe had broken his neck earlier that year during a match with Douglas.
That is just one example of why “The Franchise” was truly the most hated man in all of ECW, and maybe even all of pro wrestling, for much of the ‘90s.
Douglas could also lay claim to ushering in the extreme area of ECW, which at one time went by the name of Eastern Championship Wrestling.
After winning the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, Douglas cut his now infamous promo where he threw the legendary belt down and declared himself the ECW Champion.
“The Night the Line Was Crossed” will go down in history as one of the most shocking moments in wrestling history.
Douglas was the type of guy that you loved to hate, and nothing made the ECW fans pop louder than the moment Taz wrapped his arms around the neck of “The Franchise” and choked him out to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship at “Guilty As Charged” in 1999.
Taz and Douglas feuded for the better part of two years and produced some of the most memorable moments in all of ECW.
“The Human Suplex Machine” tazz exuded intensity and his lack of size was more than made up for by his toughness and heart. His matches against the likes of Douglas, Bam Bam Bigelow and Sabu stand out in my mind as classics from that era of pro wrestling.
And of course, there was Sabu.
Suicidal, homicidal, genocidal.
In many ways, Sabu was the epitome of ECW. He wrestled like a caged animal who had finally broken free from his chains, throwing all caution to the wind and risking life and limb to pull off his insane stunts.
Sabu will probably never be called a great wrestler, but his reckless attitude and unpredictability made him one of the most popular performers on the ECW roster.
The TNA “Hardcore Justice” event has proven that the spirit of the original ECW still lives on after all these years.
While things have certainly toned down greatly since the ‘90s, there was a time when the hardcore antics and edgy storylines of ECW served as inspiration for the “Attitude Era” that WWE fans still talk fondly about.
It wasn’t for everyone. If the WWE and WCW were the top 40, ECW was the punk rock of pro wrestling. At it’s best, it was underground and it was unlike anything wrestling fans had seen.
The downfall of ECW came once Paul Heyman tried to shine too large of a spotlight on his promotion.
ECW on TNN never felt right. ECW was the kind of thing you had to find at 2 a.m. on some random channel, that is when it felt right.
As influential and groundbreaking as ECW was, in the end it was still simply a niche wrestling promotion that was best aimed at a niche wrestling audience.
It’s nice to see the company continue to get recognition after all these years
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