The Rise & Fall of ECW (10 page)

“Terry and I started to fight them off together,” Foley recalls. “And Terry asked a fan for a chair. Before we knew it, one chair was followed by another, and another, and another until it was literally raining chairs in the ECW arena. Terry bailed out after about a hundred chairs, and I stood there. Looking back, it should have crossed my mind how potentially dangerous the situation was. Once I got clipped in the head, I left the ring. Meanwhile, The Public Enemy was buried beneath the chairs. They were down there for a good five minutes. That’s something that can never be repeated, it was so spontaneous.”

Chris Benoit taking ECW wrestling to another level.

It was repeated, though, over and over again, as part of the taped introduction for ECW throughout its existence. So now, in addition to the NWA Heavyweight title tournament, a grudge match between Terry Funk & Cactus Jack and The Public Enemy was set up for the August 27 show.

If that wasn’t enough, the August 27 show would feature the ECW debut of two of a group of wrestlers that created a whole new segment in the promotion—no barbed wire, tables, ladders, or chairs, but remarkable technical wrestling skills that would appeal to the fan base. Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit would make their first ECW appearance, part of a group that would also include Eddie Guerrero.

“Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko all came in, and you have some great wrestlers there,” Tommy Dreamer recalls. “It was just the place to watch good wrestling.”

Chris Benoit was part of that stable of wrestlers. He was born in Montreal on May 21, 1967, raised in Edmonton, and trained by the legendary Stu Hart, along with Bret and Owen Hart and future ECW wrestlers Lance Storm and Chris Jericho. He began wrestling in 1986 with Hart’s promotion, Stampede Wrestling, and then went to Japan to wrestle with New Japan Pro Wrestling, going under the name of Wild Pegasus. He would be known in ECW as The Crippler.

Dean Malenko descended from wrestling royalty. He was born on August 4, 1960, in Tampa, Florida, the son of a rough-and-tumble wrestler named Boris Malenko. His early career consisted of wrestling in independent promotions and in Mexico and Japan before coming to ECW.

Eddie Guerrero also came from a wrestling background. He was born October 9, 1967, to one of the greatest wrestling families in Mexico. Eddie’s father, “Gory” Guerrero, was heralded as one of the greatest wrestlers in Mexican history. His older brother, Chavo, was a great wrestler, and Chavo’s son and Eddie’s nephew, Chavo, Jr., is carrying on the wrestling tradition. Eddie Guerrero’s brother Hector was also in the business.

Eddie Guerrero was raised in El Paso, Texas, and went to college at the University of New Mexico on a wrestling scholarship. He would get into professional wrestling in Mexico in 1987. He went to Japan to wrestle with New Japan Pro Wrestling and then returned to Mexico to tag team with Art Barr, becoming a huge star in Mexico. The style of wrestling popular in Mexico is
lucha libre,
featuring spectacular, high-flying moves. Guerrero was supposed to come to ECW with his partner, but Barr died unexpectedly.

Benoit recognized they were offering something different for ECW fans. “The guys there were slamming people through tables and hitting them with chairs and kendo sticks, and I was going out there and just wrestling,” he said. “You had me and Dean at the time and Eddie, and we were like straight wrestlers. We were very different, and that was appealing to the fans.”

Guerrero welcomed the chance to show his skills to an appreciative, passionate audience. “The fans loved it,” he says. “It was great because there were hardcore fans who wanted to see blood and guts and pans, but Paul gave us the time to go out there and wrestle. Paul Heyman gave me the opportunity.”

Heyman saw it as another part of the ECW foundation. “They brought a style that was different then, from the taped fists and barbed wire and baseball bats and brawls all over the arena,” he explains. “They brought a pure wrestling ethic to ECW, that again helped us expand our audience, because we didn’t just have the violence and the tables and the chaos. We also had the best wrestling that you couldn’t find anywhere else. And that was a necessary component in building the ECW audience.”

Wrestling is an unpredictable, volatile business. Something usually goes wrong, as it did the day before the August event. Funk decided the day before the show that he wouldn’t show up, which left the ECW brain trust in a difficult position, with the show less than twenty-four hours away.

“The next day, Tommy Dreamer and I leave for Philadelphia,” Heyman recalls. “We leave early and get into town. I get Tod Gordon and Shane Douglas, Mick Foley, and The Public Enemy all in a hotel room, and I tell them what happened and asked, ‘Who do we call?’ But we are thinking the wrong way. We are thinking of a big name we could call. What do we tell the audience? It’s noon now, and Foley says, ‘I don’t know who we are going to get.’ It’s eight hours before the show. We’ve got to get a guy on a plane, negotiate a price…we need somebody from within. And then there was one of those moments where everyone was on the same page at the same time. It was almost a scene out of a movie, and we all looked at each other and said, ‘Mikey Whipwreck. The Lovable Loser. Holy shit!’ We can do this with Mikey, if Mick Foley—Cactus Jack—teams with Mikey. We will have Cactus come out to the ring and say, ‘There is only one man who I would face The Public Enemy with, and he is the toughest man alive. That is Mikey Whipwreck.’ The place will go crazy.”

In a packed ECW arena, with about a hundred Japanese fans who flew in for the show, Benoit lost to Too Cold Scorpio; 911 beat Matt Borne; Dean Malenko defeated Osamu Nishimura; Shane Douglas beat Tazz; Too Cold Scorpio defeated 911 in a disqualification; and Shane Douglas defeated Malenko, setting up the final match of the tournament for the title—Douglas vs. Too Cold Scorpio.

What happened next, when Douglas was awarded the NWA belt, only Heyman, Gordon, and Douglas knew about. With the belt draped over his shoulder, Shane took the microphone and addressed the fans: “To the Harley Races. To the Barry Windhams. The Ric Flairs. I accept this heavyweight title. Wait a second. Wait a second…to the fat man himself, Dusty Rhodes. This is it tonight, Dad…” He took the belt in his hand. “God, that’s beautiful…and Rick Steamboat…and they can all kiss my ass.” And he threw the belt on the mat.

“What in the hell is he doing?” a bewildered Styles asked the TV crowd.

Douglas continued, “Because I am not the man who accepts the torch to be handed down to me from an organization that died, RIP, seven years ago. The Franchise, Shane Douglas, is the man who ignites the new flame of the sport of professional wrestling.”

Douglas walked over, picked up the ECW belt, and said, “Tonight, before God and my father [his father had died the year before] as witness, I declare myself, The Franchise, as the new Extreme Championship Wrestling Heavyweight Champion of the world. We have set out to change the face of professional wrestling. So tonight, let the new era begin—the era of the sport of professional wrestling, the era of The Franchise, the era of the ECW.”

As Douglas dropped the microphone and stood in the ring, fans began chanting, “ECW! ECW!” at a near deafening roar.

“When Shane Douglas took the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, with its lineage dating back to 1905 with George Hackenschmidt and Jim Londos and threw it down, and proclaimed the Eastern Championship Wrestling title as the Extreme Championship Wrestling World Heavyweight Championship, it ushered in the era that we were looking to create,” Heyman says.

It caught everyone by surprise—fans and other wrestlers alike.

The Franchise with
the
title.

“When Shane grabbed that belt and threw it down, it was crazy. I couldn’t believe what was going on,” Dreamer recalls. “Nobody knew what was going on. Paul and Shane were the only people that knew.”

Stevie Richards remembers it as a defining moment for ECW: “That is probably one of the most historic moments I have ever witnessed in my career. It was unbelievable to see that happen and to see the fallout between Dennis Coraluzzo and the NWA board and Paul Heyman and the ECW, which basically made the ECW even stronger afterwards.”

In an interview that night, Coraluzzo showed he had clearly been caught off guard by the move. “What happened tonight was a disgrace,” he said. “I’m disappointed at it. Shane Douglas is the NWA Champion. He threw the belt down. He had no right to do that.”

Even that interview was a setup of Coraluzzo, according to Heyman. “Now here comes Coraluzzo to the back, and I’m not done with him yet. I’m going to show him how to play people. I walk up to him and say, ‘Now, wasn’t that great? Think how great you are going to draw at your show.’ He says, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Don’t you see, you are the NWA representative. I want you on my TV show right now. We’re going to do a press conference, and you are going to say what Shane Douglas did is a disgrace. It is typical of the ECW to condone this type of action. I’ve never liked those people to begin with. And furthermore, Shane Douglas, whether he throws down the title or not, is the NWA Champion, the World Heavyweight Champion in our eyes, and there is no getting around that, and he will defend the title whether he likes it or not.’

“I had him do the promo three times. I said, ‘That was good, Dennis, let’s do another one.’ When he was done, I said, ‘With the great angle we have, I want you to call me Tuesday night after the TV show and we will arrange dates for Shane Douglas to come and defend the title. You know what? It would be great if he drops it to one of your guys, and you bring that guy here to the arena and defend the title here against another one of my guys.’ He said, ‘Oh that would be great.’ But by the time he had gotten home, someone had smartened him up that he had just gotten double-crossed in a big-time way. And we did. We sent a message about fighting back and playing dirty with us. It was one of the most famous double crosses in wrestling in the 1990s.”

Not everyone thinks it was handled the right way. “To this day, I don’t like it,” Styles says. “I didn’t think it was right. The NWA was not in on it. They did not know they were being taken advantage of. But once WCW broke away, there really was no NWA to speak of. It didn’t mean that much. But I didn’t like the idea of lying to Dennis Coraluzzo. I thought it was in poor taste. I was not a fan of the way it happened.”

Soon after, in another interview, Tod Gordon made the historic announcement that officially gave birth to Extreme Championship Wrestling. “As of noon today, I have folded NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling,” Gordon said. “In its place will be ECW—Extreme Championship Wrestling. And we recognize The Franchise, Shane Douglas, as our World Heavyweight Champion.”

Heyman said the word
extreme
seemed a perfect fit. “A word that was being used more and coming into popularity back in 1994 was the word
extreme.
It hasn’t reached the point that it would eventually. In 1995, the word exploded, but as soon as I heard the beginnings of it, I knew, this was something to tap into.” Douglas would, on and off, hold the title four different times over his ECW tenure and probably be the most identified with the heavyweight championship. But it would never be enough for him, as Douglas maintained throughout his career that he never got the recognition that he deserved.

“Shane Douglas was very serious, and sometimes I think he took himself too seriously,” Al Snow maintains. “He was a terrific guy and a great worker, but very frustrated and very bitter about the business. I remember when he first broke in as Terry Orndorff, and he had all this potential and promise, and so many people touting him as the next big thing. It was within his grasp, but he just kept missing the brass ring, and I think that drove him even more in ECW, to prove, as he called himself, The Franchise. He was very intelligent.”

His drive often made him misunderstood, Tazz claims: “Shane Douglas has been misunderstood by a lot of people. The character, The Franchise, I was a fan of. He was this cocky, brash attitude, smart, and a cool character with a lot of layers there. I thought Shane Douglas made The Franchise that way, with Paul Heyman giving him the platform. But I think he is misunderstood behind the scenes at times, because he is an outspoken guy, a passionate man. He is a very blunt guy, and doesn’t sugarcoat things. I respect him a lot. I wrestled him a lot and learned from him and liked being in the ring with him.”