The Rise & Fall of ECW (11 page)

E
xtreme Championship Wrestling was now a promotion that was garnering tremendous word-of-mouth among wrestling fans. They closed out the 1994 year with two more strong shows—
November to Remember and Holiday Hell.

In
November to Remember,
Tommy Dreamer defeated Tommy Cairo; Too Cold Scorpio beat Mr. Hughes; JT Smith defeated Hack Meyers; The Pitbulls beat Axl & Ian Rotten; Chris Benoit went to a no contest with Sabu in a bout that would be remembered because it was reported that Sabu broke his neck because of an errant move by Benoit, who then wound up getting counted out, along with Too Cold Scorpio, in their bout; Dean Malenko beat Tazz; Shane Douglas successfully defended his ECW Heavyweight title; and in a rematch, Cactus Jack & Mikey Whipwreck lost the ECW Tag Team belts to The Public Enemy.

They followed that up with the
Holiday Hell
show, on December 17 at the ECW Arena, with Mikey Whipwreck beating Don E. Allen; Tommy Dreamer & Cactus Jack defeating the Sandman & Tommy Cairo; Dean Malenko beat Ray Odyssey; Stevie Richards defeated JT Smith; Chris Benoit beat Hack Meyers; 911 defeated The Pitbulls in a Handicap match; The Public Enemy beat Sabu & Tazz for the ECW Tag Team title; and Shane Douglas remained champion with a win over Ron Simmons.

“Sabu, with a broken verterbra, had come back with a collar two weeks after he was hurt and wrestled,” Heyman remembers. “When it comes to work ethic, Sabu was the most passionate performer you would ever see, because nothing could keep him out of the ring, not even a broken neck.”

Heyman began building up Sabu and Tazz as tag team partners. “Starting at the December show, I had The Public Enemy put Sabu through tables,” he says. “Sabu had been putting people through tables, and now he was being put through tables. It would build up to Tazz becoming Sabu’s partner. They do a Double Tables match. You can’t imagine again, inconceivable that The Public Enemy would lose this type of match, a Tables match, to Sabu, even though it is Sabu’s gimmick to put people through tables. We do a match and put the titles on Sabu and Tazz. In runs Chris Benoit, who throws one member of The Public Enemy, Rocco Rock, on a table and then hits Sabu. Malenko puts a table on the top rope. Benoit climbs up on the rope, brings Sabu with him, and hits a power bomb off the table on the top rope and throws Sabu through Rocco Rock, who is on a table in the ring. Now Benoit is a monster because he broke Sabu’s neck before. Fans believed there was this huge grudge with Sabu and Benoit. Now we are creating this scenario where Benoit and Sabu still have this issue going, and now Tazz is involved, and we now have Benoit doing something to The Public Enemy. Now The Public Enemy come out on TV, and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to get our hands on Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko.’ But first Benoit and Malenko are going to go after the titles of Sabu and Tazz, because this is Sabu’s chance at revenge.”

ECW kicked off 1995 with a
Double Tables
show at the arena on February 4, which featured Tommy Dreamer beating Stevie Richards; Mikey Whipwreck beating Paul Lauria; Ian Rotten defeated Axl Rotten; The Pitbulls & Jason the Terrible beating The Young Dragons & Hack Meyers; Shane Douglas defended his ECW Heavyweight Championship successfully against Tully Blanchard; Cactus Jack beat Sandman; and, in a Double Tables match, Sabu & Tazz defeated The Public Enemy.

There was one other match that night that was noteworthy, because it marked the debut of one of the most popular and colorful wrestlers in the business, one who had toiled for years in the independent circuits and had gained a reputation among his cohorts as a wrestler’s wrestler—Al Snow, who lost to Chris Benoit.

Allen R. Sarven—Al Snow—was born on July 18, 1963, in Lima, Ohio. As a young man he was determined to become a pro wrestler, but he had a tough time getting started. “I broke in at a time when the business was still closed and very protective,” Snow says. “At that time, before there was the proliferation of schools, you had to basically find someone to train you and take responsibility for you, which was pretty hard to do. If you were shit, that reflected on the guy who recommended you and trained you, and then he would not get work, because if he put you over as being so great, and you weren’t, then he must not be very good himself.

“I spent two years making calls and trying to get in,” Snow remembers. “I went to Arn Anderson’s tryout camp and basically got tortured and beat up, my nose broken. I encountered Jim Lancaster at the camp and convinced him to train me. I had my first match May 22, 1982.” Thirteen years later, he made his first appearance in ECW.

“I had the nickname ‘The Best Kept Secret in the Wrestling Business,’ which was a great compliment for the first two or three years, but then it gets kind of old,” Snow says. “I kept fairly busy and worked on a regular basis, but three or four years after I started, the independent territories started dying off, and it was hard to get work. I had worked anywhere and everywhere. I worked in Minnesota, Kansas, Michigan, all over.

“I went to Japan, and when I came back, there was a show in Michigan, and everyone was booked on the card. Sabu was on the card, and we had known each other. He was in ECW at the time. Sabu’s opponent didn’t show up, so I worked with him, and we had a great match. It was like everyone’s eyes had opened up and started looking at me different. Sabu suggested that I come to ECW, and I did.”

Soon after, though, Snow also got the attention of Jim Cornette, who offered him a spot in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. At the time this was an area where wrestlers moved up to World Wrestling Federation. Snow says, “I was already working for Paul E., but he had no problem with me working for both companies. Paul E. said great, and then he quit using me. I worked for Smoky Mountain that year, and the week of my birthday, I went down to WCW for a tryout, and up to Stanford for an interview, all in the same week. I chose to go with Vince. That was the first time I was with ECW.”

It would be during his second stint in ECW that Al Snow would have his career-defining moment.

At that February 25 show, at the ECW Arena, which featured the return of Terry Funk to ECW, Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko defeated Sabu & Tazz for the ECW Tag Team titles; Too Cold Scorpio beat Hector Guerrero; Jason Knight & Paul Lauria defeated Hack Meyers & Mikey Whipwreck; Cactus Jack topped D.C. Drake; and The Pitbulls beat Joel Hartgood & Chad Austin.

Meanwhile, to move beyond a small, unique promotion into a force to compete with the big boys, ECW had to spread the word. Everyone knew the way to do that was through television, so ECW moved their production to a studio in Paoli, outside of Philadelphia, and from Ron Buffone’s home in Pelham Manor. Steve Karel began working to pick up new markets. The biggest market was New York, and that is where the biggest battle took place.

“Madison Square Garden Network did not want us on the air,” Heyman recalls. “We were having the toughest time getting them to take our show. I made the statement, ‘Put me on Sunday nights at 1
A.M.
, I don’t give a shit.’ They said no. I did an interview on the Internet and somebody asked me, ‘Are you going to move into New York?’ I said, ‘I am trying to get in on Sunday nights at 1
A.M.
’ Once our fans heard this, they went crazy. They started bombarding MSG with letters and phone calls, tying up the MSG switchboard, asking when ECW was starting.

“They complained to the Dolans, who owned Cablevision and MSG. And Jim Dolan called me and asked, ‘Who are you and why is your audience bombarding my office?’ I said, ‘I’m Paul Heyman, and you guys won’t put me on the air. I’m trying to buy a time slot Sunday nights at 1
A.M
. for $5,000 a week and you won’t sell it to me.’ He said, ‘You’ll give me $5,000 a week for Sunday nights at 1
A.M
? I said, ‘Yes, I will.’ He said, ‘Sold.’ Steve negotiated the rest of the deal, and we got on the air in New York in early 1995.”

This was another turning point for ECW, but it was just the start of the ongoing battles that ECW would have throughout its tenure. At one point during their early days on MSG, programming officials went ballistic and pulled the show after seeing a bloody match in which Sabu went through a table. They agreed to put it back on, but one hour later, at 2
A.M
. on Friday-night. “The only problem was the HUT levels are much higher at that time—houses using televisions,” Heyman says. “Also on Friday nights, MSG is played in all the bars in New York, all the strip clubs. Sunday nights, nobody is out. Friday nights, everybody is out. All of a sudden, people are in bars asking, ‘What the fuck is this stuff?’ I’m putting out videos and insane clips, and people are saying, ‘What is this stuff? I’ve got to get some of it. This is great!’”

Heyman kept the momentum going by introducing new faces and storylines to ECW and building one character after another. The new, raw promotion is showcased in the
Three Way Dance
on April 8.

Mikey Whipwreck won by disqualification over Ron Simmons; Axl Rotten beat Ian Rotten in a Hair vs. Hair bout; The Pitbulls beat Tony Stetson and Johnny Hotbody; Hack Meyers defeated Dino Sendoff; and in the three-way dance for the ECW Tag Team Championship, The Public Enemy won over Dean Malenko & Chris Benoit and Tazz & Rick Steiner. The two new faces were Eddie Guerrero, who finally arrived and won the ECW TV title by beating Too Cold Scorpio, and a dark character that had once wrestled as Scotty the Body, but was now known as Raven.

Scott Levy—Raven—was born on September 8, 1962. He was trained by Larry Sharpe and Jake “The Snake” Roberts, and made his debut in February 1988, as Scotty the Body, in the northwestern United States. He moved on to several other promotions, among them Mid-Southern Wrestling and the Global Wrestling Federation, before making his debut in WCW in 1991 as Scotty Flamingo. Two years later he joined World Wrestling Federation as a manager named Johnny Polo, and did some announcing and other work for the promotion before leaving in 1994. ECW offered him a chance. “They started to move him, because he had a bright mind, into office clerical work,” Heyman explains. “He would be the guy who would call you up and say, ‘Hey, I’m just letting you know they need you to make this show because this guy is hurt, and you can also pick up a booking in the Chicago show as well.’ And Scott was miserable. He wanted to be a wrestler. He grew his hair long, and looked like real disenfranchised. And I was looking for a poet of the macabre. Much like The Public Enemy was cutting edge in 1993 and 1994, now everyone was trying to copy their act. I needed another rebel. I knew I needed somebody who could sit there and honestly discuss how he understands why Kurt Cobain couldn’t handle the pressures of success. Somebody who could honestly discuss the angst of today’s kids. Again, somebody like The Public Enemy,
who could discuss being the first generation of American kids more afraid of living than dying. We needed someone new to tap into that audience. Even with Kurt Cobain having killed himself in the summer of 1994, the anti-establishment—not grunge music, because that died with Cobain—Green Day was taking off, Phish was taking off. It was like revenge of the mud people. The next generation of grunge happened right after Cobain died. They were disillusioned and disenfranchised, and I needed someone to tap into that, but in a very strange way. I knew I wasn’t going to get those kids to come to wrestling. I knew it was not their thing. But because it was so topical, and everyone is so threatened by them and disgusted by these kids, if I could have a guy who could legitimately discuss these issues—you would want to see him get his ass kicked.