The Rise & Fall of ECW (33 page)

The fans were indeed a big part of the ECW experience, almost like interactive wrestling.

Sandman: “The people made the building, the building didn’t make the people. Those people were part of the show. I get goose bumps thinking about it.”

Tazz: “The fans love ECW. This passion they have for the product and the talent is remarkable. It is like a cult. Those who are narrow-minded think it is limited to Philadelphia and New York. I’ve done a show in Wichita, Kansas, and gotten out of a rent-a-car about six months ago, at an arena for
SmackDown!,
and there were people chanting for ECW. I’ve heard it in Canada, London, everywhere. Sure, New York and Philly were probably our strongest fan base, and, hey, if that is true, that’s not bad, because they are two of the strongest markets in the country. The fans are so wicked passionate. There is a bond. They are the twelfth man. They are a huge part of the event, and if you don’t want them to be, they will make sure that they are. You don’t have a choice. They have to be part of it. And it really motivates the wrestlers. When you wrestled at ECW, the pressure was on, because the fans were so tough, especially in Philly and New York.

“But you could not let the crowd control the match. As much as I respected the fans, I think the fans respected the Tazz character, also. Heck, they respected all the guys. Respect was a big thing. The fans wanted you to earn it. We gave them great shows and great moments, but the fans were tough on guys sometimes.”

Ron Buffone: “We had a very loyal fan base. Fans loved the product, loved the fact that our wrestlers worked very hard, loved the fact that we never duped them. When a spot got messed up, the fans would chant, ‘You fucked up, you fucked up.’ We never lied to the fans. Let’s say if a guy broke his neck or hurt himself, we would come out and say so. Paul would walk out to the fans and talk to them. When Sabu didn’t make a show, Paul came out and told the fans, Sabu chose instead an event in Japan. So fuck Sabu. And that is where the ‘Fuck Sabu’ chant started. We always dealt with our fans straight, and they respected us for it.

“The fans were as much a part of ECW as anything else. Being at a live ECW event was amazing, to be part of that crowd, with the chants and all that. No fans ever chanted in wrestling before ECW fans did. When we counted down before a show, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and the fans then knew right on 2, they started chanting ECW in such a loud, unified voice. You can still hear fans chanting at matches: ‘ECW! ECW!’”

Lance Storm: “Your first time in, fans are pretty hard on you. They felt like it was their show, and that you didn’t belong, and you really had to earn your stripes, so to speak. But they appreciated and loved the wrestling, as long as you were willing to work hard, they were willing to accept you. It didn’t take long for that to happen there, and it was great, a real intimate relationship. They loved the sport as much as we did, and it was fun.”

Mike Nova: “I remember full-blown riots, whether it was the Dudleyz with the fans or something happened at the end of the show, and it was audience-interactive, so to speak. The cops would get called in. I remember Tracy Smothers coming out of the shower with soap in his hair and a towel on, with no shoes, and there are cops everywhere, and he nearly started throwing punches at a German shepherd that a cop had on a leash. Tracy was going to fight it.

“I remember the cops in Staten Island came one night because Big Dick Dudley, God rest his soul, supposedly hit someone in the front row of the audience. It was always one of those things where you never knew who hit who first or who did what first. Sometimes a powder keg only needs a small spark, and it was on.

“The single most important part of ECW was the fan base. Without the fans, we would have been a movie with no one to watch. The fans made the impossible possible. If you were never in the ECW Arena for a show, then it is like you were never in the Colosseum in Rome. You’ll never know what it was like. That is probably the closest thing to it. You would do anything for that cheer—dive out of the sky, land on the concrete, get beat to death. You thought you were invincible. The chants, ‘Where’s my pizza,’ or, ‘You fucked up,’ they knew what was going on. These people were outside that arena at two in the afternoon, barbecuing or freezing or whatever. If you could get over in front of those guys, you accomplished something. And they let you know if they liked you or didn’t like you. If you worked hard, you won them over.”

Blue Meanie: “At the time ECW came along, a lot of wrestling fans were frustrated. WWE was gearing itself more toward children and becoming cartoonish. The characters became so unbelievable, it was hard to take seriously and be proud of something. It was the time of the unknown wrestling fans, when they wanted to put bags on their heads. They watched it, but they wouldn’t talk about it in public. Then ECW came along and changed everything. It wasn’t just the blood and guts. It was the attitude. Philadelphia had an attitude anyway, throwing snowballs at Santa Claus and all that. Philly fans have that edge, and if something sucks, they’ll let you know about it. Fans were looking for an alternative at the time. ECW had an edginess that they could latch on it, and Philly fans took it as their promotion in their town. In many ways it was like fans who went to see
The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Fans were smart to the business, but they were willing to put some of that aside, to enjoy the story lines and suspend their own disbeliefs.”

Al Snow: “One night we had a riot in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, with about twenty-five cop cars, police dogs, fans fighting with the wrestlers. The Dudleyz had incited it. Bubba would get on the microphone and cuss them out for a half hour, and get the fans so hot that they finally just snapped. There were several times when the fans would go after the Dudleyz, and the Dudleyz would go after them, and the fans would jump in and the wrestlers would come out of the locker room.

“I remember one night at the ECW Arena. Bam Bam Bigelow took Spike Dudley, pressed him over his head, and threw him into the crowd. At a normal wrestling event, the crowd would have just spread out and let him hit the concrete. They caught him and then bodysurfed him around the building.”

Spike Dudley: “I had beaten Bam Bam the week before on TV. At this point I was on my own. Bubba had turned on me, and he and D-Von were doing their tag-tag thing. I was the guy who was getting the crap beat out of him. I wasn’t getting any wins. I wasn’t involved in any angles. Bam Bam Bigelow comes in, and he joins with Shane Douglas and Chris Candido, as the Triple Threat, and without a doubt they are the most powerful force in ECW. So here he comes for your basic TV squash match, and out of the blue Spike Dudley beats Bam Bam Bigelow. The crowd went ballistic. The next week was a Pay-Per-View, and Bam Bam demanded his revenge, and his revenge was that he beat the shit out of me and tossed me into the crowd. Everyone remembers the toss in the crowd, but the story behind it was what made it so great. I wish people would remember the angle as much as they remember the spot. But it was a cool moment. When they surfed me around, that was a pretty cool moment. They were really into it. The fans were such a big part of the show.”

Francine: “When Shane Douglas and I were at our peak, during our heel run, the fans would attack us—literally. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have been punched, or my dress was torn. It was bad. There would be times going up the aisle where a hand would sneak through. People would grab at my breasts. I got punched in the head one time. I was called names. We were heels. You are supposed to hate us. But when you touch us, that is going over the line. We were there to entertain you. It was disrespectful. We were putting our bodies on the line for them. We were attacked a lot. There were a few times where we had to have people escort us to our cars. It was crazy. There were quite a few times where I was scared to go from the dressing room to the car. Sometimes we would just sprint for our cars and hope that no one would come after us.”

Tommy Dreamer: “In the early days of ECW, we used to have Bring Your Own Weapons matches, where fans would bring their own weapons, and no matter what they brought in, we would use it. We used to do this thing where the fans would hold on to their chairs, and I would take the guy’s head and keep ramming it and the fans would hold it, and I would be knocking down fans. They were part of the show.”

Chris Benoit: “Every show that we did at the arena, you would see just about the same people in the same seats.”

Rob Van Dam: “The energy that two thousand people had would fill the arena like twenty thousand people. You looked at the crowd, and almost everybody was wearing a black T-shirt. They looked more like the crowd that would be at a rock ’n’ roll concert screaming their heads off. They would be waiting for a wrestler to slip up, so they could yell, ‘You f-ed up, you f-ed up.’ The fans actually had their own fans. Fans that sat in the front row at the Philly ECW Arena dressed the same way every time. You would always see Hat Guy, the guy with the straw hat.”

There were some fans, like Sign Guy, Hawaiian Shirt Guy, Hat Guy, and Faith No More Guy, who became celebrities themselves. But most of the fans were just young, testosterone-filled men who passionately loved ECW, and took away memories from the promotion that will last a lifetime.

John Pollock: “I’m from Philadelphia, and saw some ECW shows here and there until 1994, and always liked it. Around early 1995 they introduced some new characters and it was going in a different direction, and around January 1995 I started watching every week. I was about 14 then. From 1994 to 1996 I went to a handful of shows, and when I was old enough to drive, from late 1996 until the end of the company, I probably missed only a handful of shows. I was at most every one at that point.

“When I went to my first show live, it was not like anything I had ever seen before. I had grown up a WCW and WWE fan, and it was the smiling babyface guy and the generic heel. It was more of the same. Then you had this new company that was completely changing everything about wrestling. I never knew wrestling could be like that. They had more realistic characters, more realistic story lines, current events used in those stories, and great music. It was so cutting edge and different than anything that was going on.

“I would show ECW to my friends and they would say, ‘Oh my God.’ It was incredible. As far as wrestling, going to ECW Arena was the best time of my life. I never had as much fun in wrestling than I did at the arena. I’ll probably remember those times when I’m 80 years old, if I am still alive.

“The Sabu-Tazz faceoff in
November to Remember 1996
was amazing. They were doing this angle where Tazz was calling out Sabu, and Sabu wasn’t answering. This went on for a while. Every match Tazz would get on the mike and call Sabu out, but Tazz and Sabu would never meet each other. In
November to Remember
they did an angle where Tazz beat up Tod Gordon, and Tazz grabbed the mike and was running down Sabu. Then the lights went out. Then they came back on, and Sabu was standing in the ring. The place went nuts. It was unreal.

“The return of the Sandman was a great moment. He had been gone for a year, going to WCW, and came back in a surprise at the end of a show. They turned the lights out, and then turned them back on, and Sandman was up in the rafters. There were people crying at that angle. They were so happy he was back. And this is an arena full of guys you would find in a biker bar. You saw guys with beards and tattoos crying because the Sandman was back.

“I never left an arena show thinking that I didn’t get my money’s worth. If anything, I felt that I paid too little for a ticket. I would have paid triple what I was paying.

“The wrestlers just seemed more real in ECW, not movie characters. Guys would come out and sign things, hang out with fans before the show. Now the fans were very demanding at times. But it was like a family atmosphere. Every fan there knew they were part of something special, wrestling-wise. There will never be another company like that again. They caught lightning in the bottle for seven years or so. It was the right place, the right city, the right wrestlers, and the right time for it. I don’t know if it will ever be duplicated in my lifetime again.