What was ECW? If somebody who didn't know any better were to ask me, I would tell them it was a pro wrestling show I was obsessed with when I was a teenager, it had bad ass music like Pantera and Prodigy, always tits and ass all the time, and it was violent, bloody, and it felt so unscripted and unpredictable. I loved it very much even though it didn't come on TV here where I lived, I found out about it and followed it mostly through the magazines(which were always about 3 months behind with their coverage?). I finally spent some money I got on a few videos and was so hooked, Rob Van Dam, Taz, Sabu, Al Snow with the mannequin head, the way the characters talked, they cussed so freely, they talked differently than anything I grew up hearing in Texas, like a mafia movie or something. It was just it's own world and the coolest thing to me there by the end of the 1990's going into 2000.

Right at the peak of my fandom they finally got a TV deal on the TNN Network about the Summer of 1999. By then I had lost interest in both WWF and WCW big time, so it became a Friday night ritual to watch ECW on TNN there up until finally they got cancelled sometime in 2000 and went out of business. After that I really stopped watching or caring about wrestling.

Back in 2011 after watching The Rise And Fall Of ECW and reading a few History Of ECW books I got inspired to get my hands on all of those amazing video tapes that I always salivated over in that merch catalog back in the day. I scored a pretty huge collection of shows on DVD and kinda made a diary of sorts on a few forums as I watched through them. The thread was called American Hardcore Theatre: The Real History Of ECW. The purpose really was to cover a lot of history that the WWF documentary and even some of the books never really covered or glossed over. It was a fun ride, I covered ECW pretty thoroughly from the beginning up until I lost interest in the project sometime around Wrestlepallooza 97(actually think that was the final review). Along the way I made a lot of really interesting discoveries about the business of the company and how it all played out with them going out of business in the end. To me looking back at it then and now a decade later it's amazing really what potential that whole brand really had. 

I cringe the hardest at the thought of reading those reviews now a decade plus later. I know they are out there still on a few boards that are hanging around. To me though the beauty of that project was the crowd of people it attracted to the old PW boards. From Kilgore and Baker, to several others, probably close to 20 or so posters coming and going at times sharing stories of actually going to live ECW shows, posting pics of memorabilia, that was the absolute beauty of that thread that I hate is gone with the old PW. 

So lets start a new better one. Let this be the new PW ECW hub. In my dream world I'm able to review through every ECW show from the Tri States shows that are on Youtube(one of the books I have says that none of those shows were ever taped). 

Tri States Wrestling Alliance was the proto-ECW, really ECW's lineage traces directly back to this promotion that ran from April of 1989 until December of 1991 in the same cities that were regular ECW cities later on, mostly in Philadelphia. The promoter Joel Goodhart would end up running out of money by the end of 1991. Todd Gordon was the ring announcer for Tri States and had invested some money into it there at the end. When it went out of business Gordon bought the ring and all the stuff needed to launch his own Eastern Championship Wrestling. Todd used the same ring, the same referees, running most of the same buildings with most of the same wrestlers so pretty much he kept Tri States going repacked under a new name(because Goodhardt scammed a bunch of people on his way out) but with a much smaller budget vibe(until Heyman came along in the end of 93). 

I read a lot of crazy stories about Tri States Wrestling shows. In one of the books I have, Hardcore History, it says that none of those shows were ever filmed. I was surprised to find out that somebody started uploading ALL of the major Tri States show to Youtube probably about 6-7 years ago, there was some great stuff. This was where the Cactus vs Eddie Gilbert feud happened that was hot shit in wrestling magazines in the early 90's.

We brought up Owen Hart's lone match there in Tri States in another thread recently so I looked it up and that show is on youtube, it was Autumn Armageddon 1991, so cool to see, I time stamped Owen's match against Iizuka:



So cool to see Owen in this early proto-ECW environment in the ECW ring with ECW refs working this style at this stage of his career. I think we brought this up in the other thread but imagining a Bret vs Owen match at this stage of their careers in 1991 is kinda mind blowing to think about.

The Tri States shows were way better than the early days of Todd Gordon's ECW 1992-93, the promoter Joel Goodhart was a mark that would just go all out spending money for big names so the cards have a ton of interesting matchups. When Todd picked up with Eastern he didn't have the money to do that and it was just all of the local undercard guys from the Tri States shows, guys like Larry Winters and Tony Stetson, etc. Eddie Gilbert had worked a lot for Tri States so when Gordon brought him back in to work Eastern Gilbert brought in Shane Douglas and Paul Heyman and it was on from there. I really need to make my way through Tri States shows these sometime and watch them in chronological order. 

Really that whole Autumn Armageddon II card looks worth checking out:

Sandman won a "last blood battle royal" (13:10). Also in the match were: Mr. Anthony, Ernesto Benefica, Michael Bruno, Cry Baby Waldo, Ghetto Blaster, Jimmy Jannetty, Johnny O, Glenn Osbourne, Rick Perez, Rockin' Rebel, Sabu, and Tony Stetson.

TWA Champ JT Smith pinned DC Drake (12:48).

Tony Stetson pinned Sandman (7:04).

The Blackhearts beat Johnny Hotbody & DC Drake (sub for Larry Winters) (16:03) to win the TWA Tag Title when Drake was pinned.

Owen Hart pinned Takayuki Iizuka (21:40).

Terry Funk DDQ Kevin Sullivan (11:02).

Eddie Gilbert & Madusa Micelli beat Cactus Jack & Luna Vachon (12:22) when Micelli pinned Vachon.

Abdullah the Butcher beat The Sheik (5:17) in a "steel cage" match.

I've always wanted to see this "Last Blood Battle Royal" I read about it in one of the books I have, supposedly the only way to eliminate someone was to make them bleed. Fucking gnarly.

Everybody gets a razor blade

Yo, that Owen match is good! It takes a while to find its pace, but once it gets going, it's a lot of fun. Had this been on television in 1991, it would have a cult following (there's a broken rope, so it would have been memorable even as a lesser match, but it's genuinely good by 1991 American standards). So many moves done that most of us would had never seen before. Iizuka hits a T-bone suplex into a pin, which post-Taz, seems to strictly be a release suplex ever since. Japan and UK/Canada/Mexico wrestling really was light years ahead of America, at this point in time.

It's kinda crazy how much of a finished product Owen was by, like, 1988/1989 (maybe even sooner, need some Stampede heads to weigh in), and he doesn't get a real shot in America until 1994! And only because his brother happened to be ace in that company. You needed to be as good as Owen with a connection as strong as Bret to get a shot if you were not a giant or roid body. Insane. Really was almost impossible to be taken serious as a "smaller" wrestler before ECW 1994/1995 WCW (I put quotations on smaller because Owen is huge compared to smaller wrestlers of today). 

Another thing I noticed is I really liked that venue! And as far as I could tell, don't ever remember ECW being there. Well, very fast research tells me the venue was called the Original Sports Bar and ECW ran 7 shows there February 1992-July 1992, the dark age for them, and then never put on another event there again. I wonder why. I'm sure it's a very simple reason (like maybe it stopped existing), but one thing that's kinda funny about Tri-State is their venues consistently seemed higher quality than ECW. 

I had that Autumn Armageddon show running in the background at the house yesterday, I noticed a lot of screwy double DQ finishes. Love being able to hear everything everybody in the crowd says, some of the cat calls during the Owen match were so funny, "BREAK HIS CANADIAN NECK!". It really is a hidden gem of a match, I love it more and more every time I watch it to the point where it would probably crack a "My top favorite matches of all time" list down low, at heart it really is like an ECW match with the lineage there with TSWA(also love how the jacked version of 1992 Bulldog popped up in ECW there for a couple shows). 

Also cool seeing Nancy in full devil worshiper character and I'm pretty sure this is the same Terry Funk that was in Quantum Leap around this same time doing jobs to Scott Bakula, he looks like this show could have possibly taken place within weeks/days of filming that episode.

Feels like a glimpse into what a real mid-00s ECW would have been like.

Found a really deep and interesting writeup about Tri States in one of the 1991 or early 1992 Observers where Dave broke the news about them going out of business. They were really doing big money shows, actually some of the biggest drawing indy shows at the time with a few gates of over $30,000 for their bigger shows. It would take Heyman's ECW a few years to start drawing that kind of money, in fact I'm sure their debut New York shows at the end of 1995-early 96 were the first to start doing that kind of money.

Speaking of, I went through my old videos on my laptop and found a bunch of ECW stuff I forgot I had. I loaded up one of the shows from the era I am in in my fan fic, one of the few 1996 ECW shows that I didn't review in AHT back in the daym Big Apple Blizzard Blast from February 4th 1996. This was ECW's return to New York the same building I think that they made their debut in Queens in December 1995.

Stevie Richards with the cut off air brushed t-shirt that has a pic of himself doing the chop pose that he would do= Dead

Beaulah's abs= deader

We get a Taz match against Shark Attack Kid, a smaller jobber looking guy. I wasn't happy with how much offense this dude got in, this wasn't really a squash like it should have been. Taz takes the dude out he's still in the early days of his UFC-Extreme Wrestling hybrid warrior vibe. This sets up some Bill Alphonso vs Todd Gordon fighting, which leads to Bam Bam Bigelow running in to make his ECW debut, planting the seeds for the feud that they wouldn't be able to pull off for another 2 years.

Seeing the Headhunters with Damien Kane and Lady Alexander brings you down to earth just how much of an indy territory ECW really was. I believe Heyman was only using Kane for his promoters license since his was suspended after the Funk/Cactus fire incident.

Seeing Tommy Dreamer and Shane Douglas team together just doesn't work for me. Tommy being this baby face with the hot babe, extreme ladies man, is super cringe looking back now.

Kimona= deadest

Rey Mysterio vs Juvy is truly spectacular. Joel Gertner doing the ring intros is just amazing the way he goes back and forth between spanish and english just phenomenal intro for this match, what a underrated talent he was, should have been HUGE. Rey wins this 3 star 9 minute match by countering the superbomb off the top with a rana for the pin. Extreme Lucha Libre on full display here in February 1996, this is so much cooler than so much of what WWF and WCW had going at this point in time in February 1996.

After the match we get a segment that I don't remember ever seeing. Taz and Bill Alphonso come back out and Fonzie is ripping into New York how much he hates it, then Rey Jr. comes out to confront them in a great moment that is just really well shot. The major thing to me that took ECW to another level than just being another indy territory fed was the way scenes were shot, the producers that were in charge of shooting and editing the show I forget their names but they were really good at subtle things as far as shooting the television, it was beyond just holding a camera like what I seen in the early ROH tapes or other stuff from ECW's time like Smoky Mountain, etc.

Rey takes the microphone and stands up to Taz and Fonzie in a great scene then he takes out Fonzie with a kick. Rey and Taz go at it in a really excellent fight, Rey lands some great stuff before Taz just starts throwing him around with suplexes.

One of the signs in the crowd: "Taz is the 13th Monkey"--- supreme death

The boys come out to check on Ray and this sets up a random JT Smith vs Hack Myers brawl, yes I'm loving this show.

Somewhere in here we get a pretty great scene where Woman gets carried out of ECW by 2 Cold Scorpio for good, which leads to Sandman fighting Raven/Stevie/Blue Meanie. This leads to Stevie revealing to Joey Styles that hes filed sexual harassment charges on Missy Hyatt, which brings her out for a Jerry Springer style showdown where she calls Raven's girl Kimona a whore. Raven goes after her only for Sandman to come out and make the save. They end up together smoking and drinking beer to metallica to end the segment. Beautiful 90's ECW right here. 

The last 30 minutes of this show was a mess with some JT Smith vs Dudleys hijinks and then Gangstas vs Sandman and Scorpio in a trash can brawl. Overall though I really enjoyed this, it was the AVI version of the full 2.5 hour home video release of this show in full VHS quality with original music, from a great time. 

Mar 13, 2023 16:01:34 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Tommy being this baby face with the hot babe, extreme ladies man, is super cringe looking back now.

Always was. 

So much good stuff. ECW was in their 14th straight month of being the best American Promotion from a quality standpoint. So far ahead of everything WWF and WCW was doing. Insane.

Any lies detected?

Mar 20, 2023 11:22:10 GMT Big Pete said:

Any lies detected?

Seems on point, the WWF and WCW shirts were pretty dorky in the mid 90’s.

THIS IS MY SHIT! THIS IS EXTREME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ECW=fucking lit son

Going back through some more WWECW and the premise of the show is that Rob Van Dam is this third wheel who happens to be the WWE Champion. You know that trope in movies where two guys are fighting over a macguffin, it slips away and somehow ends up in the hands of some unlikely character, so they have to track them down in some seedy night-club setting and take it back? That's WWECW, it's just an extension of RAW and John Cena & Edge are more integral to the show than RVD.

That's the main thrust of these early episodes with the rest of the show providing the back-drop. Going back to the seedy part of down comparison, I like to think of the show like you're trying to track down RVD but on the way you see all these other misfits. On the left there's Sabu throwing chairs with reckless abandon and crashing through tables, there's Sandman beating up goofy reject WWE gimmicks, there's Tommy Dreamer with his weird gimmick where he gets off getting beaten up. Then there's even familiar characters like Kurt Angle & The Big Show being more tweaked out than usual, as well as newcomers like Kelly Kelly having sleazier night-life gimmicks like being an exhibitionist (which is easy for Taz to say...).

Now trying to watch these shows in the modern streaming age is impossible. Largely because they reference so much that happens on RAW, PPV and SNME you can't just let the app auto-play the next episode and expect to follow what's going on. So it's difficult to review it as a WWE show, but as an RVD fan these haven't been bad. RVD/Angle vs. Rated RKO and then RVD vs. Angle were both enjoyable matches with the tag team match surprisingly being my preference of the two. RVD takes some pretty sick bumps on the outside in the tag match and it's clear he's the most motivated he'd been since 2002. It's such a shame he just blew it all away, I wonder just how long they would have dragged the storyline out for?

The Angle/RVD match had implications for the upcoming SNME special. If RVD won, it would remain a triple threat. However if Kurt won the title, it would remain a fatal four-way, so that was already planned ahead of time. I wonder if they planned on doing the switch there regardless with The Big Show or somebody of that nature costing Rob the title and setting up a match for SummerSlam. Do you remember any plans Baker?

The one thing that kills the show dead is the crowd. I kid you not during RVD/Angle there's a 'We Want Cena' chant that goes on for minutes. The fans at Virginia just weren't having it with ECW and so much of the appeal is just lost.

I had to check for myself so I loaded up a few TNN episodes. As much as I sandbag the WWE ECW stuff, this early TNN era was a mixed bag as well, summed up perfectly with the Dudley Boyz/Balls Mahoney & Spike Dudley segment. If you were completely new to the show, already you're watching one of the top acts big league the show and outclass this Spike Dudley character they were pushing as a giant killer in the pilot. The company comes off as bush league until Raven appears and it creates this awesome cliffhanger.

Except they don't follow up on it. Instead the next show opens with another one of Steve Corino's lackeys, Rhino, losing to Super Crazy (aka a smaller opponent), tease a break-up with Corino only to turn on Crazy. Then we leave the Hammerstein Ballroom entirely and we're shown an Awesome/Tanaka match in lieu of Anarchy Rulz. A wrestling show just loses something when you're jumping around different eras at different nights. If the purpose was to showcase Taz' next opponents, ideally you'd have a promo package and have Awesome or whoever talk over it as these clips play in the background. I guess Awesome was either in Japan or they just didn't have the confidence in him to cut the promo and thought this was the best way to promote the match.

The biggest issue though is the Impact Players on the second proper episode doing an nWo style run-in on RVD/Lynn causing a double DQ. Two shows in and you're already doing something that hurt the WCW product? Worst of all, the Impact Players are really lame. That's not a critique, that's their character with Cyrus being completely disrespected by the cameraman, Justin and his silly 'that's not just...' catchphrase and Lance taking the piss out of being from Calgary. So between them and Corino's mob, I can see why Kilgore didn't really rate any of Taz' challenges. The heels sucked and if I was a fan, I'd be pissed that not only did we not get any follow-up from Raven (who should have been the biggest focus on the show) but then the RVD/Lynn match ends up being a big pile of nothing.

Aug 2, 2023 12:31:37 GMT Big Pete said:

Going back through some more WWECW and the premise of the show is that Rob Van Dam is this third wheel who happens to be the WWE Champion. You know that trope in movies where two guys are fighting over a macguffin, it slips away and somehow ends up in the hands of some unlikely character, so they have to track them down in some seedy night-club setting and take it back? That's WWECW, it's just an extension of RAW and John Cena & Edge are more integral to the show than RVD.

That's the main thrust of these early episodes with the rest of the show providing the back-drop. Going back to the seedy part of down comparison, I like to think of the show like you're trying to track down RVD but on the way you see all these other misfits. On the left there's Sabu throwing chairs with reckless abandon and crashing through tables, there's Sandman beating up goofy reject WWE gimmicks, there's Tommy Dreamer with his weird gimmick where he gets off getting beaten up. Then there's even familiar characters like Kurt Angle & The Big Show being more tweaked out than usual, as well as newcomers like Kelly Kelly having sleazier night-life gimmicks like being an exhibitionist (which is easy for Taz to say...).

Now trying to watch these shows in the modern streaming age is impossible. Largely because they reference so much that happens on RAW, PPV and SNME you can't just let the app auto-play the next episode and expect to follow what's going on. So it's difficult to review it as a WWE show, but as an RVD fan these haven't been bad. RVD/Angle vs. Rated RKO and then RVD vs. Angle were both enjoyable matches with the tag team match surprisingly being my preference of the two. RVD takes some pretty sick bumps on the outside in the tag match and it's clear he's the most motivated he'd been since 2002. It's such a shame he just blew it all away, I wonder just how long they would have dragged the storyline out for?

The Angle/RVD match had implications for the upcoming SNME special. If RVD won, it would remain a triple threat. However if Kurt won the title, it would remain a fatal four-way, so that was already planned ahead of time. I wonder if they planned on doing the switch there regardless with The Big Show or somebody of that nature costing Rob the title and setting up a match for SummerSlam. Do you remember any plans Baker ?

The one thing that kills the show dead is the crowd. I kid you not during RVD/Angle there's a 'We Want Cena' chant that goes on for minutes. The fans at Virginia just weren't having it with ECW and so much of the appeal is just lost.

I had to check for myself so I loaded up a few TNN episodes. As much as I sandbag the WWE ECW stuff, this early TNN era was a mixed bag as well, summed up perfectly with the Dudley Boyz/Balls Mahoney & Spike Dudley segment. If you were completely new to the show, already you're watching one of the top acts big league the show and outclass this Spike Dudley character they were pushing as a giant killer in the pilot. The company comes off as bush league until Raven appears and it creates this awesome cliffhanger.

Except they don't follow up on it. Instead the next show opens with another one of Steve Corino's lackeys, Rhino, losing to Super Crazy (aka a smaller opponent), tease a break-up with Corino only to turn on Crazy. Then we leave the Hammerstein Ballroom entirely and we're shown an Awesome/Tanaka match in lieu of Anarchy Rulz. A wrestling show just loses something when you're jumping around different eras at different nights. If the purpose was to showcase Taz' next opponents, ideally you'd have a promo package and have Awesome or whoever talk over it as these clips play in the background. I guess Awesome was either in Japan or they just didn't have the confidence in him to cut the promo and thought this was the best way to promote the match.

The biggest issue though is the Impact Players on the second proper episode doing an nWo style run-in on RVD/Lynn causing a double DQ. Two shows in and you're already doing something that hurt the WCW product? Worst of all, the Impact Players are really lame. That's not a critique, that's their character with Cyrus being completely disrespected by the cameraman, Justin and his silly 'that's not just...' catchphrase and Lance taking the piss out of being from Calgary. So between them and Corino's mob, I can see why Kilgore didn't really rate any of Taz' challenges. The heels sucked and if I was a fan, I'd be pissed that not only did we not get any follow-up from Raven (who should have been the biggest focus on the show) but then the RVD/Lynn match ends up being a big pile of nothing.

All valid gripes about ECW on TNN but man in real time it was the best. The show was good enough to steal at least 1 WWF kid away. I really stopped caring about WWF and WCW once I finally got ECW in the house. 

Been thinking how cool it would be to have micro-versions of the classic ECW t-shirts for babies. My 2 year old would look so cool in an EC F'N W shirt or that one Sandman Budweiser shirt. 

Aug 2, 2023 12:31:37 GMT Big Pete said:

The Angle/RVD match had implications for the upcoming SNME special. If RVD won, it would remain a triple threat. However if Kurt won the title, it would remain a fatal four-way, so that was already planned ahead of time. I wonder if they planned on doing the switch there regardless with The Big Show or somebody of that nature costing Rob the title and setting up a match for SummerSlam. Do you remember any plans Baker ?

The one thing that kills the show dead is the crowd. I kid you not during RVD/Angle there's a 'We Want Cena' chant that goes on for minutes. The fans at Virginia just weren't having it with ECW 

Don't remember any specific plans. Assuming the idea was to run RVD/Angle as their top feud for a few months since they were two biggest names on the brand. Maybe throwing Show in as a third wheel from time to time to break up the monotony. 

Fans chanting "We Want Cena" during an RVD/Angle match in 2006 is wild. Crowds everywhere else had already turned on Johnny boy. Step aside, Toronto. You've been dethroned. Virginia is the real Bizarro World. 

Aug 2, 2023 18:58:44 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Been thinking how cool it would be to have micro-versions of the classic ECW t-shirts for babies. My 2 year old would look so cool in an EC F'N W shirt or that one Sandman Budweiser shirt. 

lol Love this.

I'm with Pete on the TNN show though. I've told the story before of how I was beyond hyped for ECW on TNN. It was going to revolutionize the business, grow the brand exponentially, and before long ECW would overtake WCW in the ratings. In reality I stopped caring about ECW on TNN by December. It was so meh I spent the next 13 years thinking ECW was best appreciated in small doses...as an underground cult thing one only got furtive glimpses of...because watching it every week sure did kill the magic....at least for late 1999 me. 

Flicked on the go-home show for Anarchy Rulz and was really beginning to question your taste when that ambulance appeared. The whole disruptors storyline with the Impact Players is dragging these shows down. By the time Johnny Smith appeared out of nowhere and started laying into RVD to set-up their match at Anarchy Rulz I was about ready to declare the start of WWE ECW being the better show. Smith had never appeared on the program before and now he's facing one of the biggest stars in the promotion? I wasn't having it and while Joey tried his best to justify it (an alumni of the Hart Dungeon, Lance calling favours) it just came out of nowhere.

However they salvage it and RVD/Lynn proceed to have a great television match. I thought it sent the right message too and they hammered home how WCW usually pulls these bait and switch tactics, but in ECW they're going to have their cake and eat it as well. It's a slower paced match because both guys sold the earlier attack but it just made it more engrossing and the fans were awesome. Dave's rating of a 4 1/4 quarters is in the right ball-park, but this is one of those matches where it would be an easy 5* with the way he throws those ratings around.

It's just one of those series that really elevated both guys and made Lynn come across like a star.

What I got out of the Raven promo is that only did he come back to mess with Tommy, but he also decided to attack the Dudleys out of a sense of vengeance for Beulah. It's difficult to really get invested in what they're doing at the PPV because we were simply informed by Styles that Corino has organised a mysterious tag team to take them on. That just ends up being Corino/Rhino after ICP pulled out of the show.

The build for Anarchy Rulz kind of sucks and the only match I'd actually be looking forward to is Credible/Sabu. Credible snitching on Sabu's medical condition forcing him to stay home until he was cleared is at least something you can sink your teeth into. The rest of the show is just sort of there, this has to be right up there as one of the best 'miracle' PPVs of all-time, right? A show that looks mediocre but ends up over-delivering.

I also flicked on the Hardcore TV go-home show to see if they filled in any of the gaps. It was largely just promo packages for the show and then they replayed the Storm/RVD & RVD/Lynn segments from TNN.

I'll end my revisit there. I just wanted a brief comparison to see what ECW would do with their own network show and it's such a mixed experience. RVD-Lynn being the core of the show early on is cool and is better than Angle/RVD taking a back-seat to Cena/Edge but the forced push of the Impact Players brings it all down. Taz is barely on these shows and the whole build up to him and Tanaka feels like an after-thought. It really felt like they blew their load early with the RVD-Lynn stuff and outside of Credible/Sabu there was really nothing to be excited about for Anarchy Rulz.

Big Pete


The TNN show mostly sucked. It was such a bummer. Paul E. just had no juice left, the signs of burnout had been going on for at least 18 months, then ECW loses the Dudleys and Taz just as the network deal begins, and it really never had a shot. My memory, and I have not revisited it, so it might be very wrong, is that the December 24 and December 31 were two of the better TNN shows of 1999, so maybe that's worth checking out as a better comparison to WWECW? I remember being hopeful that they finally found their footing again, but then 2000 became all about The Network angle, which just felt like poor man's WWF, and was mostly not good. At some point in 2000, Hardcore TV once again became the flagship show, which is very funny Paul E. did that while still airing shows on TNN.

Anarchy Rulz is such a miracle. You're right, the build sucked, expectations were pretty low for it, but then it ended up being a Top 3 ECW PPV. 

The bingo hall promotion from south Philly still making a mark all these years later.

That is fucking awesome.

Back to ECW on TNN I feel like I need to defend it. Anarchy Rulz did not need much build up at all when you had the greatest single commercial ever made for a wrestling event:



That PPV cost $20, fuck the WWF. 

I guess I was in denial and didn't want to believe that ECW was slipping but I loved all of the TNN stuff. I think the Tammy Sytch shoot episode may be the cringiest thing ECW ever did and that took place roughly around Anarchy Rulz soon after. I also remember the episode after Anarchy Rulz was just all replays of matches from Anarchy Rulz, I thought that was pretty lame in real time. Also just really did not like Rhino for some reason, I thought he was really lame too and wanted to see less of him. Also they kinda shifted their music away from 90's stuff into Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit wasn't a fan of that direction.

But man it was so much cooler than any other wrestling show on TV even in it's sagging state. I don't know what it was about WWF that I suddenly felt like it wasn't for me anymore, didn't like Undertaker's character, Bret was gone, Vince and his family smeared all over the show, Austin had changed into a weird character, a lot of pop culture fluff it felt like while ECW was playing Pantera. I didn't like The Rock, I liked New Jack. The show definitely was bad ass with everything going with Tajiri/Super Crazy with nice guest appearances through 2000 from Jado/Gedo, Ikuto Hidaka, some of my favorite matches in ECW's history were on TNN; the Super Crazy vs Tajiri Mexican Death Match, the GOAT Sabu vs Taz match(their final), Mike Awesome fucking killing people as the Champ, New Jack in general the most awesome wrestler of 2000(should have put the belt on him and made him the face of the company, so what he was a sociopath the company was dying anyways fuck it), Sandman's return to Metallica music in October shit all over anything WWF or WCW did all year, when a wrestling show could make you want to jump up and ram your head through a wall for being so excited I just got to the point where WCW and WWF didn't have that effect on me by that point.

I must have missed Johnny Smith being on TNN, I bought Anarchy Rulz and watched it live that night was the first time I had ever seen or heard about him he was walking out for the main event. Through the whole show I don't think they ever mentioned what the main event was so him walking out about to wrestle Rob Van Dam was like the ultimate Connor Mcgregor "Who the fook is that guy" moment haha.

Aug 3, 2023 9:46:46 GMT Big Pete said:

The bingo hall promotion from south Philly still making a mark all these years later.

Wow listen to that crowd, goosebumps big time. Fucking amazing. If there was ever something that really made me want to start watching AEW it is this. 

Aug 3, 2023 12:15:16 GMT Neo Zeed said:

That is fucking awesome.

Back to ECW on TNN I feel like I need to defend it. Anarchy Rulz did not need much build up at all when you had the greatest single commercial ever made for a wrestling event:



I guess I was in denial and didn't want to believe that ECW was slipping but I loved all of the TNN stuff. I think the Tammy Sytch shoot episode may be the cringiest thing ECW ever did and that took place roughly around Anarchy Rulz soon after. I also remember the episode after Anarchy Rulz was just all replays of matches from Anarchy Rulz, I thought that was pretty lame in real time. Also just really did not like Rhino for some reason, I thought he was really lame too and wanted to see less of him. Also they kinda shifted their music away from 90's stuff into Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit wasn't a fan of that direction.

But man it was so much cooler than any other wrestling show on TV even in it's sagging state. I don't know what it was about WWF that I suddenly felt like it wasn't for me anymore, didn't like Undertaker's character, Bret was gone, Vince and his family smeared all over the show, Austin had changed into a weird character, a lot of pop culture fluff it felt like while ECW was playing Pantera. I didn't like The Rock, I liked New Jack. The show definitely was bad ass with everything going with Tajiri/Super Crazy with nice guest appearances through 2000 from Jado/Gedo, Ikuto Hidaka, some of my favorite matches in ECW's history were on TNN; the Super Crazy vs Tajiri Mexican Death Match, the GOAT Sabu vs Taz match(their final), Mike Awesome fucking killing people as the Champ, New Jack in general the most awesome wrestler of 2000(should have put the belt on him and made him the face of the company, so what he was a sociopath the company was dying anyways fuck it), Sandman's return to Metallica music in October shit all over anything WWF or WCW did all year, when a wrestling show could make you want to jump up and ram your head through a wall for being so excited I just got to the point where WCW and WWF didn't have that effect on me by that point.

When I went back to watch these shows, that's the ECW I expected to see. I was going into those TNN shows expecting it to hold up better and for the WWE ECW shows to look like total ass by comparison. Except ECW is being sold like it's not just the coolest, it's just incredible. Sorry man, but they're inescapable and they bring the show down massively. Somebody should have sued Paul E for false advertisement with that Anarchy Rulz video - where are the Impact Players? They're the backbone of the entire PPV. That's why he's a genius because the entire ad is about the Dudleys who left the promotion behind.

It's not all bad and I take the point that the whole industry was on the downslope but they didn't exactly hit the ground running.

What's the story about TNN rejecting the first set of tapings? Was that the Hammerstein show where they only got four matches out of or was there another taping they had to skip over entirely?

Aug 3, 2023 12:18:58 GMT Neo Zeed said:

I must have missed Johnny Smith being on TNN, I bought Anarchy Rulz and watched it live that night was the first time I had ever seen or heard about him he was walking out for the main event. Through the whole show I don't think they ever mentioned what the main event was so him walking out about to wrestle Rob Van Dam was like the ultimate Connor Mcgregor "Who the fook is that guy" moment haha.

I must have Mandella'd myself, because I completely forgot that Balls lays him out before the match. Anyone know the story behind that? Was Smith injured? Or did Paul E realise that the match kind of blew and just wanted to make the show as chaotic as possible? It seemed like Paul E made it a challenge to make a bait and switch a good thing for the audience and succeeded.

The whole RVD/Smith build was that one beatdown on RVD before the RVD/Lynn match and they quickly mentioned that he beat Guido without showing the match.

I hate when stupid work cuts into my posting time. Have so much to add. Coach Tony K should book JJ/RVD to draw those PW old man dimes.

Aug 3, 2023 12:46:26 GMT Big Pete said:

What's the story about TNN rejecting the first set of tapings? Was that the Hammerstein show where they only got four matches out of or was there another taping they had to skip over entirely?

Very fuzzy memories about this.

I'm almost positive there was taping before the Elk's Lodge that never aired. I remembered it as Paul E. not liking the first taping, not TNN, but would not swear to this memory. No matter who kiboshed the first taping, it was definitely Paul E. who called an audible and decided to do a recap show as the first TNN Episode, which TNN understandably hated, and I was so disappointed watching it live.

The second TNN taping at the Elk's Lodge aka The Madhouse of Extreme (the last ECW show I would ever attend) where Raven returns then became the first TNN taping to air, and the second episode.

Truth be told I think I actually missed that 1st recap episode of ECW on TNN, I always thought that Raven's return was the first episode.

Aug 3, 2023 12:15:16 GMT Neo Zeed said:

I guess I was in denial and didn't want to believe that ECW was slipping but I loved all of the TNN stuff. I think the Tammy Sytch shoot episode may be the cringiest thing ECW ever did and that took place roughly around Anarchy Rulz soon after. I also remember the episode after Anarchy Rulz was just all replays of matches from Anarchy Rulz, I thought that was pretty lame in real time. Also just really did not like Rhino for some reason, I thought he was really lame too and wanted to see less of him. Also they kinda shifted their music away from 90's stuff into Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit wasn't a fan of that direction.

But man it was so much cooler than any other wrestling show on TV even in it's sagging state. I don't know what it was about WWF that I suddenly felt like it wasn't for me anymore, didn't like Undertaker's character, Bret was gone, Vince and his family smeared all over the show, Austin had changed into a weird character, a lot of pop culture fluff it felt like while ECW was playing Pantera. I didn't like The Rock, I liked New Jack. The show definitely was bad ass with everything going with Tajiri/Super Crazy with nice guest appearances through 2000 from Jado/Gedo, Ikuto Hidaka, some of my favorite matches in ECW's history were on TNN; the Super Crazy vs Tajiri Mexican Death Match, the GOAT Sabu vs Taz match(their final), Mike Awesome fucking killing people as the Champ, New Jack in general the most awesome wrestler of 2000(should have put the belt on him and made him the face of the company, so what he was a sociopath the company was dying anyways fuck it), Sandman's return to Metallica music in October shit all over anything WWF or WCW did all year, when a wrestling show could make you want to jump up and ram your head through a wall for being so excited I just got to the point where WCW and WWF didn't have that effect on me by that point.

The Tammy Sytch shoot episodes was such a low point. Goddamn. I hated Rhino. He seemed so not-ECW, like a relic of a past wrestling, and such a stupid name, a real credit to him that he made it work (and even transitioned to WWF better than most!). But the only enjoyable part of his ECW run was Steve Corino working the mic. And yes, ECW's cutting edge tradition of being the first to transition from '90s aesthetic to Y2K was such a downgrade in quality that you can't even blame them for, just a reflection of a better pop culture in the early/mid-90s than the latter part of the decade going into the new millennium. Kid Rock montages weren't quite as cool as a Raven/Tommy Dreamer feud recap set to Smells Like Teen Spirit.

There were still glimpses of past great ECW like you mentioned, but there was so much more bad stuff to sit through to get to it.

I loved more than yall did I thought Cyrus was great and Gertner ripping TNN/redneck culture on their own network may have been the thing that has aged the best about the whole deal. Rob Van Dam on friday nights in 2000 man that was the fucking time dude. It was on, get real. Maybe we will get a New Jack dive. And some tits. C'mon where is your professional wrestling loving heart? ECW is like what the devil said at the end of Crossroads movie, nothing ever turns out as good as we want it to be. What I had ECW built up as in my imagination the real thing could never live up to, I read about those characters and matches in the magazines for a little while first. Whenever there was a PPV I'd read those results in the magazines(remember the WOW writeups for Living Dangerously, Cyberslam, and Hardcore Heaven 99 being really juicy). The real thing could never live up to those expectations. I was pretty let down with Anarchy Rulz and ECW in general in real time because of that, where was all the exploding barbed wire thumbtack tables? Where was the fire? New Jack didn't even jump off of any balconies! And who the fook is Johnny Smith?! But I grew to love it all for what it really was and even moreso when we did AHT(finally getting to see all of those tapes after all those years, of course none of it ever lived up to what I had it built up to be, but still a lovely time nonetheless). ECW on TNN was fucking bad ass dude. Shame on all of you for not watching it, those ratings should have been way higher. Fuck Rollerjam AND Rock N Bowl!

Just look at how cool the show looked in that setting in the Madhouse the Elks Lodge, such an AWESOME little vibe there with that whole episode where Raven comes back. Kilgore being there in person puts it over the top. Greatest Of All Time