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ECW - FAQ
What was ECW?
ECW was started in 1992 as Eastern Championship Wrestling as part of the NWA. On August 27th, 1994 during the N.W.A Heavyweight Title tournament after Shane Douglas won he threw down the NWA title and held up the ECW title instead. That same day ECW broke away from the NWA and changed it's name to Extreme Championship Wrestling. ECW was owned by Todd Gordon until 1996 when he sold it to Paul Heyman, who had been very involved in the organization since it's start. ECW ran shows mostly in Philadelphia and was syndicated on television by various stations before it was brought to TNN in 1999. ECW also ran bi-monthly pay per views from 1997 to it's close in 2001.
Who was Eric Kulas?
On November 23rd, 1996 ECW was scheduled to run a house show in Revere, Massachusetts. Axl Rotten who was suppose to fight New Jack was unable to wrestle so local wrestler Eric Kulas asked to take his place. Kulas had just turned 18 but told Paul Heyman that he was 19 and was trained to wrestle which he was not. Before the match Kulas asked New Jack to blade him since he never had done it himself and New Jack agreed. But during the match when New Jack bladed Kulas with a exacto knife, New Jack accidently cut too deep and severed two arteries in Kulas' forehead. Kulas immediately passed out as the blood was spraying out of his head. EMS technicians rushed to the ring and stopped the bleeding before any permanent damage occurred. Eric Kulas had not wrestled since then and his family sued ECW for the incident but it was thrown out of the court.
Who were those fans in the front row?
The two fans that were always in the front row that ECW shows were known as
Sign Guy, Hat Guy, and Faith No More Guy. Their nicknames come are because
Sign Guy always had signs with him, Hat Guy always wore a Hawaiian hat, and
Faith No More Guy looked alot like the guitarist from Faith No More.
Did ECW sue WCW?
No. Paul Heyman was in the process of suing WCW for the breach of contract
of Raven who had joined WCW, but Heyman didn't have the legal power and
finances so he dropped the case for a while and it was never picked up
again. Raven did join ECW again though in 2000 before joining WWF.
What happened between ECW and XPW?
In 2000 when ECW decided to promote a pay per view in Lose Angeles, CA for
the first time the indy group XPW started making statements that ECW was on
their "turf" and that they would disrupt ECW's upcoming PPV. ECW was taking
big financial risks by promoting the show in California and felt that XPW
was just a small indy fed who was trying to get themselves over at ECW's
expense. So when XPW wrestlers showed up at the PPV, ECW was ready for them.
As the PPV was starting, XPW wrestlers made their way to the front row where
they managed to to get tickets for. During the PPV they wore XPW shirts and
shouted at the wrestlers but things got too serious when one of XPW's valets
pushed ECW's Francine. After this all hell broke loose and a bunch of ECW
wrestlers ran down to ringside and started fighting with the XPW wrestlers.
The fight was continued in the parking lot where the ECW guys beat the XPW
guys easily. The whole confrontation didn't help XPW though since most of
the fans didn't know what was going on and not all of the fight was shown on
the cameras.
A week after the fight took place XPW owner Rob Black started making
statements on how ECW guys double-teamed XPW guys and even beat up a woman
and child. These claims are thought to be false though since the woman and
child never came out to confirm the claim. Most fans also think that ECW did
what they had to do and XPW was way out of line to begin with and shouldn't
have been there.
Who was the first ECW Heavyweight Champion?
The first official ECW Champion was "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka. The federation at this point was Eastern Championship Wrestling, later renamed EXTREME Championship Wrestling.
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