GreenGrass
All Star
if only netflix existed back then. imagine that netflix deal..
for you historians out there, what was ECW's downfall?
- Thread starter GreenGrass
- Start date
Vinny Lupton
Superstar
Yeah, can't believe I forgot this part. Once WWE and WCW are putting people thru tables, chairs, beating up skanks, etc, why does anyone need ECW? It made more sense to "need" ECW when WCW had the fukking Yeti and WWF had the Godwinns
Tide Run This
Veteran
ECW kept my hope in wrestling alive back in 94-96 business with the big 2 was the drizzling shyts especially with Hoegan bringing in his cronies to WCW I ain't trying to see no Hoegan vs the Butcher main eventing the biggest show of the year. ECW started losing me when cats like PJ Walker were getting title runs in early 2000 it's amazing RVD never got a run with the main belt in the original ECW
Vinny Lupton
Superstar
yeah that 2000-2001 roster was a bag of ass besides RVD. Justin Credible, Rhyno, CW Anderson, Danny Doring and Steve Corino don't even come close to the period when the top guys were Raven, Sandman, Taz, Sabu and Douglas
CBoz
We Are NXT!
Paul summed it up with one word: Financing.
Here he is with Stone Cold explaining it.
Here he is with Stone Cold explaining it.
Speaking of Sabu, can someone point me to some of his good matches? I'd like to think that he's more than just a botch machine.
Tide Run This
Veteran
Yeah they got gutted bad toward the middle/end of 99 never cared for Credible,Corino and even Rhyno. ECW to me was RVD,Raven,The Franchise,Taz,Sabu,Sandman and Scorpio.
Paul Heyman just didn't have the financial backing to pull off comp against the big boys. As many have already stated, his money problems sealed his company's demise. WWF was positioning itself to takeover completely as the Attitude era with WCW's internal failings made the writings on the wall quite clear to Paul at the cost of his people.
Tide Run This
Veteran
How did all that Awesome/Tazz shyt go down you had a WCW guy vs WWF guy for ECW title in impromptu match at a house show?
SteelCitySoldier
TSC Fantasy Football Champion 2016
I never thought that them copying really played that big of a role. People were still tuning in and watching ECW. They would lose wrestlers and people still watched, I always thought those were the two things that Heyman hitched about to kinda cover up his own misfortunes.
SteelCitySoldier
TSC Fantasy Football Champion 2016
It was an agreement between Heyman and Vince (which started to show how they were working together) because Heyman wanted to shyt on WCW because they "stole" Awesome. Heyman thought it would make Awesome look weak and do the same to WCW because he was losing to a WWF guy and in Tazz. That's when everyone started believing that ECW was going to be sold to WWF
Vinny Lupton
Superstar
good info here. they were selling their highest amount of tickets in 2000 when the wheels fell off
Arrogance.
King Novak of Melbourne, the First of His Name
You could find a PDF of "The Death of WCW" and be straight as far as finding out just how fukked WCW was before it died. I'm not trying to take money out of Meltzer's pockets by saying that but it's true.
SteelCitySoldier
TSC Fantasy Football Champion 2016
I wish there was a way to look up archives of dirtsheets so we could see how much of it came true. shyt would be a GOAT thread if we could see them from the WCW WWF wars all the way up to the selling.
TrueEpic08
Dum Shiny
Everybody that said "money" really summed it up. It's pretty insanse that a lack of funds killed them, because ECW was still growing when they folded. Given that Paul wasn't the greatest with money and they weren't getting paid by InDemand (not to mention the talent raids), it's amazing that they were still on an upswing when they went down.
Also, a note on the payment issue: If you watch Paul Heyman's DVD, Joey Styles explains why they weren't getting paid (basically, if he would have paid them within 90 days of filing bankruptcy, the creditors could have recalled the checks. So it was either pay them and take that risk, or don't and piss people off).
Another historical note re: talent. If ECW would have lasted another year or two, this batch of talent would have been available to them: Low Ki, Christopher Daniels (I know he blew an ECW tryout a couple of years before this, humor me), Bryan Danielson, Eddie Guerrero (remember, Eddie got fired from the WWF in 2001 for drug use), Brian Kendrick, The Amazing Red, The Briscoe Brothers, Paul London, AJ Styles, Doug Williams, Homicide, Samoa Joe, CM Punk, and Colt Cabana.
Remember that 1. Quite a few of those guys got released when the WWF had to absorb wrestlers from WCW and ECW, and there's no reason to think that, say, Danielson and Kendrick wouldn't have still been released if ECW never folded, and 2. ROH would have never been created, since ROH was only created to fill the void ECW's death created in RF Video's sales. Rob Feinstein and Gabe Sapolsky would have just continued working for ECW.
ECW's death really changed the landscape of wrestling, and might be seen as one of the most significant events in wrestling history, if only for the fact that, if they still existed, THEY would have gotten first crack at one of the greatest generations of talent of the last 25 years or so, and since they were already fairly big (bigger than ROH has ever really been), a lot of those guys would have been stars much sooner than they were, which could have changed the landscape of the early-mid 2000's drastically.
But alas, money issues killed that. So it goes...
Also, a note on the payment issue: If you watch Paul Heyman's DVD, Joey Styles explains why they weren't getting paid (basically, if he would have paid them within 90 days of filing bankruptcy, the creditors could have recalled the checks. So it was either pay them and take that risk, or don't and piss people off).
Another historical note re: talent. If ECW would have lasted another year or two, this batch of talent would have been available to them: Low Ki, Christopher Daniels (I know he blew an ECW tryout a couple of years before this, humor me), Bryan Danielson, Eddie Guerrero (remember, Eddie got fired from the WWF in 2001 for drug use), Brian Kendrick, The Amazing Red, The Briscoe Brothers, Paul London, AJ Styles, Doug Williams, Homicide, Samoa Joe, CM Punk, and Colt Cabana.
Remember that 1. Quite a few of those guys got released when the WWF had to absorb wrestlers from WCW and ECW, and there's no reason to think that, say, Danielson and Kendrick wouldn't have still been released if ECW never folded, and 2. ROH would have never been created, since ROH was only created to fill the void ECW's death created in RF Video's sales. Rob Feinstein and Gabe Sapolsky would have just continued working for ECW.
ECW's death really changed the landscape of wrestling, and might be seen as one of the most significant events in wrestling history, if only for the fact that, if they still existed, THEY would have gotten first crack at one of the greatest generations of talent of the last 25 years or so, and since they were already fairly big (bigger than ROH has ever really been), a lot of those guys would have been stars much sooner than they were, which could have changed the landscape of the early-mid 2000's drastically.
But alas, money issues killed that. So it goes...