Since there’s nothing else to do, I’ve been getting the itch to binge watch some good old ECW. Of course I’ve seen the famous matches, moments, docs, and shows but I’d like to get a feel of the shows week to week. I’d like to start watching when the shows start getting good. I know the general opinion is that 1993 ECW isn’t that great. What time period does ECW start to be presented as we all know it? I know it’s sometime in 1994 but does anyone have a good starting point?

Also, please feel free to reference any great matches, moments, shows along the way. I know our resident ECW historian Shin isn’t here to help but I know there’s still plenty of you guys out there with great knowledge of ECW.

I'll leave it to Kilgore but I'd say August 30th 1994 which is the show right after Shane Douglas won the ECW Title and the promotion went from Eastern Championship Wrestling to Extreme Championship Wrestling. I haven't seen all the shows, but by that point they're starting to stray away from all the Tommy Cairo, Rockin' Rebel, Jimmy Snuka etc. era and you've got a lot of the best independant talent like Cactus Jack, Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko flocking towards the show. You can always skip straight ahead to 1995 and watch how Raven becomes THE guy in ECW and the arrival of Eddie and Austin but that was the real turning point for the company.

As far as PPVs, Heatwave 1998 and Anarchy Rulz 1999 are really strong cards from top to bottom with a little bit of everything for everyone.

Shin was a big fan of Big Ass Extreme Bash, November to Remember 95 and Hostile City Showdown 95. All of his reviews are still live on WrestleZone, I'm going to copy and paste them in the event that the website gets shut down.

Hey, don't rail against Tommy Cairo, he was a pioneer of the kendo stick after all .  That surrounding feud with the Sandman was pretty heavy stuff back in the day involving Sandman's wife. An archetype for the feud with Raven later on.

The Night The Line was crossed (60 minute 3 way dance), and NWA Bloodfest parts 1 and 2 (Sabu's debut!) if you want to go deep into the roots of ECW. Great pics from Big Pete as well, Tommy Cairo stuff aside .

There was only room for one Tommy in the ECW arena.

I've got nothing against Cairo or Bellemo and the like but those acts are generally associated with early ECW which is the period The Show is actively trying to avoid.

FYI I copied and pasted Shin's AHT into a Word File.

It came in at 602 pages and over 298,311 words. Some of that would include message board information like usernames, signatures and such but he poured so much effort into that.

Apr 8, 2020 14:21:29 GMT Big Pete said:

FYI I copied and pasted Shin's AHT into a Word File.

It came in at 602 pages and over 298,311 words. Some of that would include message board information like usernames, signatures and such but he poured so much effort into that.

Did he ever talk about turning it into a book?

Apr 8, 2020 5:38:42 GMT Big Pete said:

I'll leave it to Kilgore but I'd say August 30th 1994 which is the show right after Shane Douglas won the ECW Title and the promotion went from Eastern Championship Wrestling to Extreme Championship Wrestling.

This is a fine starting point. My only hesitation is 1994 ECW is a bit for the most diehard of ECW fans who might have interest to see how it evolved. For someone who just wants to have a good time watching rasslin, or see if it's anything they want to invest time in, I think skipping to the already full realized 1995 is the way to go. Raven debuts in the very first episode of 1995 and then its off to the races for what is probably ECW's most creative year.

Apr 8, 2020 18:36:38 GMT Strobe said:

Apr 8, 2020 14:21:29 GMT Big Pete said:

FYI I copied and pasted Shin's AHT into a Word File.

It came in at 602 pages and over 298,311 words. Some of that would include message board information like usernames, signatures and such but he poured so much effort into that.

Did he ever talk about turning it into a book?

I would definitely buy it.

And now I'm really sad that he's still gone...

Apr 8, 2020 18:36:38 GMT Strobe said:

Apr 8, 2020 14:21:29 GMT Big Pete said:

FYI I copied and pasted Shin's AHT into a Word File.

It came in at 602 pages and over 298,311 words. Some of that would include message board information like usernames, signatures and such but he poured so much effort into that.

Did he ever talk about turning it into a book?

Shin talked both sides on that. He definitely wanted to produce a source of "the real history of ECW," as he didn't think it was ever done properly, but he also sometimes wasn't as high on Hardcore Theater as a finished thing as we all were, it was just something he was doing for fun thinking not a lot of people would read it and he was always sheepish about the earliest stuff as he didn't he think it was well written yet because he was learning to do it as he went. Also that it was most definitely formatted for message board posts with liberal use of smileys and things like that and that he didn't think it worked as well as anything else. Even when I was convincing him to archive it as a blog he'd be like, "I gotta rewrite so much of it one day." Would that be a book? Shit, I hope so, but he seemed pretty done with it, most of his interest into the intersection of pro wrestling and mixed martial arts, also never explored properly. He put a lot of work into that, though, and I was always blown away that he was doing it with no audience for a long time, like he was just compelled to do it. I'm so easily to deterred from everything, I would have done like two posts, assumed no one would ever care and then stopped. Shin kept going.

For what it's worth, I archived every post he did up to Natural Born Killaz (August of '96) a few years back (just found out it was 2013 so 7 years back!). One of the many blackouts of the old PW got me paranoid that it would one day vanish for good, so I threw it up as is just so it would continue to exist. It continues to exist!

hardcoretheater.blogspot.com/p/timeline.html

Fuck sakes I wish Shin would come back. And write that book. I’d pre-order that shit.

There’s a guy on wreddit who does The Wrestling Observer Rewind and it’s one of the best things about that site. I think he quit when he reached the early 2000’s but I know he got a lot of attention and I’m pretty sure he got something published.

Anyway the ECW stuff has already been covered as for a good starting point, so I have nothing to add. Enjoy the show man. There’s some awesome shit in there.

Thanks for the suggestion guys. I think I will start with the August 30th 1994 episode and if I enjoy it, I will continue from there. That way, I’ll get a little bit of early era ECW and see how they develop into what they become.

I agree with everyone else that misses Shin. Does anyone know if his ECW fed can be found anywhere online? I loved reading his work.