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Has Extreme Championship Wrestling turned into the Lawler cliche’ “extremely crappy wrestling”?

When the Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion was touring in the early to mid 1990′s, the promotion (under the direction of Paul Heyman) became thee most exciting wrestling broadcast to watch. While many theories exist on why ECW got so popular so quickly, one thing is for sure. The ECW brand under World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is but a shadow of it’s former self. While acknowledging the fact that WWE television has the best produced wrestling entertainment broadcasts available, poor story-lines, lack of creative direction,  and a small roster has decimated an organization that once showcased some of the newest and toughest wrestling stunts ever performed on live television.

Great artists such as Sabu, Rob Van Dam, Jerry Lynn, Team 3D, Tommy Dreamer, Rhino, and Taz, to name a few, worked in an organization that had very little income, terrible story lines and plots, and even worse photography. Yet, when the bell rang, the role reversed and you were enthralled by the violence and sheer realism of the matches. I remember Rob Van Dam diving out into the audience 3 rows into the crowd to land a move on his opponent. I watched Sabu perform some of the most innovative moves with chairs and tables as weapons, Jerry Lynn astounded audiences with his wrestling excellence, the innovator of violence was born in 90′s ECW, Bubba Ray and Devon Dudley were born, Taz was an unstoppable submission machine, and Rhino violently gored his way through the roster. I remember Mike Awesome, regularly, power-bombing the competition through tables and  Chris Candido talking some of the best trash in the business. Mick Foley had some of the most brutal matches he’s been involved in, while New Jack was defining the word “violence”. These are just a small fraction of the memories of what made me religiously tune in to EC-F’N-W.

The World Wrestling Federation (WWF) had historically catered to children and young adults, but, we all grow up and old wrestling tricks become increasingly apparent. I surmise that the WWF tried to capture this moment with the “Attitude Era”, but failed to maintain it’s attitude due to life long fans bringing their children to live shows. Another problem was that RAW IS WAR was the only televised WWF event that saw any viewer response. During this time, ‘The King’ Lawler used to refer to Extreme Championship Wrestling as “extremely crappy wrestling”, but the truth was, the WWF could not televise the ferocious intensity of an ECW wrestling match without a constant barrage of backlash.

Currently, Extreme Championship Wrestling is in complete disarray in comparison to RAW and Smackdown. So, what to do? I’m not sure, with Linda McMahon’s political ambitions, that anything can be done. If wrestling becomes more violent or chauvinistic then her campaign will surely suffer. While there are great performers on the ECW roster, the lack of known talent is plaguing the ranks of the entire organization. Due to the stance WWE has taken on PG ratings has made it extremely difficult for the company to grow with it’s audience and it finds itself in familiar territory as rival promotion Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling offers a brand that markets to the young adults and older crowds.

Opinionated as I am, I would love to see WWE lose the PG rating for ECW only and open up to both the TNA and ROH promotions, allowing top talents in all three brands to showcase extreme wrestling matches inter-promotionally. The exposure for the younger brands would be invaluable and the WWE could gain that ever elusive “grown-up crowd” without a lot of the hassles involved in signing someone full-time. Imagine, if you will,  TNA and ROH promos on ECW and vice versa, and the matches with pay-per-view possibilities are endless for all three parties.

“Vince”… “Dixie”… maybe it’s time to shake hands and realize the competitive roles your respective companies play could, very well, benefit you both.

This concludes the Extreme Championship Wrestling Report for October 8th, 2009.

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