That Was Then, Is This Too? 08.04.09: The Magic of the ECW Arena
Posted by Jasper Gerretsen on 08.04.2009
With Dragon Gate USA being the last in a long line of wrestling promotions seeking its fortune in the arena formerly known as The ECW Arena, That Was Then, Is This Too? takes a look back at the magic of the little bingo hall that could and the fans that filled it, as well as some other promotions that tried to make it in front of the most demanding wrestling audience in the US.
Welcome back to another installation of That Was Then, Is This Too?, the column that looks for parallel lines in all the right places. To start us off this week, we have comments!
I have to agree that the Punk/Hardy fued has been excellent, i didnt want Punk to lose the title because hes on a hot streak but im sure he will get it back sooner rather then later & hopefully get a good 3 month run with it.
Posted By: jbardo (Guest) on July 28, 2009 at 03:09 PM
I was really surprised that Punk lost the title, but it hasn't made me want to watch SmackDown! any less, which is generally a good sign.
Raven has Hardy beat hands down on the mic. But i'll take Jeff in a ring over him any day of the week.
Posted By: Jake Fury (Guest) on July 28, 2009 at 03:50 PM
While I don't deny that Hardy has been vastly outperforming Raven in the ring for at least five years now, I still think Raven has a stronger grasp of psychology, both inside and outside the ring.
Those rednecks will forever haunt my nightmares....
Posted By: Guest#9647 (Guest) on July 28, 2009 at 07:51 PM
How do you think I feel? Lately I've been hearing "This is bull-sheet" in my head whenever I so much as spill some milk.
I am with Jasper on this one, this feud has exceeded my expectations, but I definitely do not thing it will surpass the previous Punk/Raven feud. I am very excited to tune in this Friday Night to see where this feud escalates to next. smithy84 you sound like you're onto something there, that would be a pretty interesting situation if that really happened! I just have one question about full-fledged hell C.M. Punk.. where does he go in a month? No WWE druggie to target, so how will he heel character progress without a Jeff Hardy on SmackDown!?
Posted By: Isaiah (Guest) on July 29, 2009 at 09:44 AM
"I just have one question about full-fledged hell C.M. Punk.. where does he go in a month? No WWE druggie to target, so how will he heel character progress without a Jeff Hardy on SmackDown!?
Posted By: Isaiah (Guest) on July 29, 2009 at 09:44 AM"
I think this is not just a problem of Jeff Hardy being a natural counterpoint to Punk's straight-edge beliefs. SmackDown! is just too lean on the babyface side of things as it is. However, I think he can easily feud with Morrison over the corruptive influences of the artists Morrison worships. After that I honestly have no idea though.
With that out of the way, we move on to this week's edition of That Was Then, Is This Too?. Banner!
That Was Then, Is This Too? - The Magic of the ECW Arena
On Saturday July 25th, Dragon Gate USA taped their debut PPV at what is often called the Madison Square Garden of independent wrestling: The Arena in south Philadelphia. With all the drama between Ring of Honor and Dragon Gate, mainly centered around disagreements involving payment for plane tickets after the 2008 tour ROH did in Japan, many speculated that the choice of venue was a direct attempt to compete with ROH. With former ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky assigned as vice president and several of Ring of Honor's top stars signed on for the first show, it looked like the choice of venue was nothing short of a declaration of war.
However, by choosing The Arena as the venue for their first show, and the venue where their first champion will be crowned in November, is significant not just because ROH regularly holds shows at the venue. It is, after all, the center of one of the most rabid populations of wrestling fans in America. This tradition goes back all the way to 1993, when the warehouse turned bingo hall became known as the ECW arena.
The ECW Arena and its regular fans are the stuff of independent wrestling legend. Some of the most famous chants heard in American Legion halls and high school gymnasiums all over the country originated in ECW. The promotion brought all sorts of match types to the main stream, as well as a host of different weapons and spots. The fans themselves formed an internet wrestling community before there was an internet to speak of, trading tapes and newsletters among themselves. As Chris Jericho pointed out on The Rise and Fall of ECW, the fans of ECW were extremely knowledgeable, being familiar with his style and persona despite the fact that he had mainly appeared in Canada and Japan during his short career.
With such a legacy and reputation, it's understandable that many promoters sought to recapture the magic of ECW and its fans. Dragon Gate USA is hardly the first promotion to try to get a piece of the Philadelphia wrestling action in the legendary venue, and it certainly won't be the last. The question is whether it will manage to succeed where so many others have failed. After all, catching and holding the attention and appreciation of the Philadelphia fans can make and break any wrestling promotion.
That Was Then...
The ECW Arena gained its name when Eastern Championship Wrestling made its home there in 1993. It was still very much a local promotion, but it would soon gain an incredible amount of infamy. On August 27th, 1994, a new NWA World Heavyweight Champion was to be crowned after Jim Crockett's non-compete agreement with Ted Turner ran out. What followed was one of the most infamous promos in wrestling history, as Shane Douglas threw down the belt and turned his back (and with him all of Eastern Championship Wrestling) on the NWA.
Even today the motivations behind this change depending on who you ask about this. Paul Heyman claims it was merely a way to break away from the NWA name, which he felt was out of style and would hold back the growth of Eastern Championship Wrestling. Former ECW president Tod Gordon claims he planned the throwing down of the belt because of the actions of NWA president Dennis Coralluzzo, who tried to take over the tournament out of fear that Crockett and Gordon would try to monopolize the title. Shane Douglas himself didn't agree to go through with it until the day of the show, with Coralluzzo's appearance on a radio show, in which he called for promoters not to book Douglas following a no-show caused by a disagreement over travel arrangements, being the straw that broke the camel's back.
Regardless of who you choose to believe, the line was crossed on August 27th, 1994, and Extreme Championship Wrestling was born. From the very start the promotion seemed to be fueled by the sheer passion of its fans, which were desperate for an alternative to WCW and the then WWF. The former had made very little real progression from the style they worked in the late eighties, and the latter seemed to be content to cater exclusively to five year olds. To paraphrase Paul Heyman: ECW was supposed to be the Nirvana to WCW and WWF's hair metal. The philosophy worked, and the ECW fans would be endlessly devoted to 'their' promotion until the very end.
There are so many anecdotes that prove the rabidness of the ECW fans that I could fill a month's worth of columns with them, and most of them are already familiar to most wrestling fans. There are a few however, that are too good not to discuss. For example, ECW's 'fans bring the weapons' matches that were promoted early in the promotion's history, singlehandedly kept a dollar store running alongside of the arena afloat, with fans buying everything from a cactus to a two person kayak for the wrestlers to abuse each other with. These matches were discontinued when Cactus Jack, thinking he had been given a cheap aluminum pan by a fan, put The Sandman out of action for two weeks by hitting him over the head with a cast-iron skillet.
And then there were the chairs. This incident took place in the aftermath of a match between Terry Funk and Cactus Jack, which ended in a no-contest after a run-in by Public Enemy. Cactus and Funk quickly gained the upper hand however, leaving Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock helpless in the middle of the ring. This wouldn't be ECW if the victors didn't add a hardcore exclamation point, so they called for chairs. And they got them. Pretty much every chair in the arena went flying into the ring, with Public Enemy getting buried and Cactus and Funk unable to do anything but hang back and try not to get hit. It instantly became one of the most replayed fragments in ECW history, and it took a team of trained dogs two days to extract Public Enemy from the debris.
...Is This Too?
Since the demise of Extreme Championship Wrestling in 2001, more than a few independent wrestling promotions have tried to recapture the magic, but none of them have succeeded. The ECW fans rejected all attempts at emulating the hardcore style. It's hard to say exactly why none of the attempts worked, but it seemed that without Paul Heyman, both as a public face and a creative genius, it simply didn't work.
The most infamous promotion to try and follow in ECW's hardcore footsteps is of course Xtreme Pro Wrestling, ran by pornographer Rob Black and his wife Lizzie Borden. The promotion originally started out on the west coast, working mainly out of Los Angeles, where they had their first run-in with ECW, which ran the 1999 edition of its Heat Wave PPV in the city. During the main event of the show six members of XPW's 'talent' roster, sitting on the front row, donned XPW shirts. When they were evicted by security a bloody brawl broke out on the parking lot between the ECW locker room and the XPW ring crew, in which the XPW ring crew was literally left laying in a pool of their own blood.
When ECW folded in 2001, Rob Black was quick to act. He announced his departure from the west coast by pretty much shitting all over his fanbase and setting up shop on the other side of the country, securing an exclusive lease with the New Alhambra Arena which meant that no other wrestling promotion could run in the arena. Luckily XPW would last less than a year, folding under the pressure of obscenity charges brought against Black's parent company, Extreme Associates. To understand how heavily the porn industry was involved with XPW, simply follow Arnold Furious' example of doing a Google image search on the name of the valets used and counting the number of results before you find her with her tits out.
Even without the obscenity charges XPW would have folded sooner rather than later, if only for the sheer mind-boggling awfulness of the shows. The XPW shows that have been graded on this site average out at a score of 1.1, and former reviewer Scott Keith would forgo the traditional star rating in favour of the "HPUTA" rating system, which he explained as follows: "See, while normally I rate positively (starting at zero and working up to five), sometimes a promotion produces a show so putrid, so insulting to the general intelligence of the viewer, that the only way I can properly express the pain caused by watching is to inflict equal (hypothetical) damage on the person causing it. So, in this case, for every segment that sucks, I will shove an appropriate number of oven-fired, red hot pokers up Rob Black's ass. Easy enough, no?"
After XPW folded, the next 'hardcore' promotion to step in was 3PW, which had run several shows there before being forced to find a new home venue due to XPW's exclusive lease. Like XPW, Pro-Pain Pro Wrestling sought to fill the void left by ECW by running hardcore matches and filling its roster with numerous ECW alumni. The promotion was probably the closest anyone ever came to being a 'legitimate' successor to ECW, with former ECW president Tod Gordon acting as booker. He would leave in December of 2004 following a dispute over the fact that the company was unable to pay any of the talent or staff working on the show. The promotion would run its last show in June of 2005, after which it was put up on Ebay for 24 hours, with bidding starting at $180.000. The promotion was not sold.
There are of course several promotions that did successfully run in The Arena. CZW is probably the most successful hardcore promotion to regularly run there, but they only started running in Philadelphia after having established its own fan base in New Jersey and Delaware. Ring of Honor started out in Philadelphia, but never tried to claim the legacy of either ECW or the ECW Arena. CHIKARA has run several major shows in The Arena, and uses the building as the location for their school, the CHIKARA Wrestle Factory.
There is an obvious pattern here. The failed promotions all tried to fill a void too large for them to fill. It all boils down to one simple difference: those that failed tried in vain to recapture a magic that simply wasn't there, offering some ingredients but failing to bring it all together, with the ECW faithful rejecting all substitutes. Those that succeeded did so by focusing on forming their own identity and fan base in stead of trying to position themselves as the next ECW.
With its own distinct style and a talent roster featuring a strong combination of Japanese talent that American wrestling fans have already seen in other promotions and some of the biggest names of the American independent scene. It certainly doesn't seem to be falling into the trap of claiming to be the next ECW, and that alone seems to be a huge towards ensuring its survival. Of course this is hardly the only factor that will determine the promotion's success, especially with the current economical situation, but it seems that Dragon Gate USA is ready to follow its own path to success, and with the backing of a strong parent company and a style and talent that will appeal to its target audience, its prospects certainly look a lot better than that of most upstart promotions.
good article i gotta agree that those who tried to claim they're betta or tryna recapture those old ECW fans failed cuz they tried to create something that was already done and failed people can say CZW is a rip off ECW i'd say no cuz they established they're own identity hell it was formed when ECW was in buisness they didn't say they're the new ECW no they just let the action the wrestlers put on a show tell the story XPW was a cheap knock off and failed mesrabily tryna bring in old ECW wrestlers to get peopel to watched it failed CZW is the most successful hardcore wrestling company in the us since ECW went out for all u people that say Vince ruined ECW yea but hey at least it has its own identy as a high level devolopment show which u see the future of WWE sur emaybe most of them won't be wwe or world champions but Isn't that wat the Old ECW was once the guys got too big for that smalled pond they left to go to the big ponds such as wwe or wcw so all in all promotions need to stop saying the show is being held in the former ECW arean seems like cheap plug to get sales if u have faith in ur product u should be able to get people to see ur show by just being the company they want it to be not because a dead organization used to have shows there
Posted By: jamille 5150 (Guest) on August 04, 2009 at 06:04 PM
Sadly nothing will ever be ECW of old. Its impossible. But man do I love ROH shows in the ecw arena....
Posted By: Tom Z (Guest) on August 04, 2009 at 06:25 PM
The key to the old ECW was that it created a real connection between the fans and the wrestlers. I once saw ECW in the Camden County CYO. each and every wrestler interacted with the crowd and stayed after the event to talk with us. Thus, you felt like you were rooting for your guys out there. This' why when Public Enemey, et alia, defected people got righteously angry.
Posted By: Iron Knee (Guest) on August 04, 2009 at 08:05 PM
Its a bingo hall.
Posted By: JBL (Guest) on August 04, 2009 at 08:54 PM
awesome article again
Posted By: hack&slash (Guest) on August 04, 2009 at 11:42 PM
ecw ecw ecw! loved ecw when it was frist around, this article really reminds me of, thefun feelings i use to get from watching it.
Posted By: thelemonmonkey (Guest) on August 05, 2009 at 06:15 AM
Just a note, but it was Heat Wave 2000 that saw a few members of the XPW roster cause a ruckus, not '99. '99 was in Dayton, OH at the Hara Arena again, just like the year before. And was a better show, overall.
I'd say CZW is a more direct continuation of the ECW spirit, at least when it comes to the hardcore stuff, because Zandig formed the company based on the Japanese deathmatch circuit, and not once really wanted to compete with ECW or take its place. XPW did. This is why XPW failed miserably. That, and awful, awful shows.
Posted By: AndrewCrow (Guest) on August 05, 2009 at 08:08 AM
I went their for a CHIKARA show, it's a good sized house, great atmosphere.
Posted By: Ant-LOX (Guest) on August 05, 2009 at 11:50 AM
3PW should not be classified as a hardcore promotion. They used Joey Matthews, Matt Striker (who was very funny there)Curt Hennig, Kid Kash & Low-Ki, not exactly what I could call "hardcore" Plus the matches between AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels were amazing. Sure they used some old ECW talent, Sabu, Public Enemy, Raven, Sandman, Gary Wolfe... ect. Jasper (and everyone else) should watch some 3PW shows & you will see 3PW was not a hardcore promotion. CZW is a hardcore promotion (that every now & then has good wrestling matches) There is no way you could combine 3PW & CZW under the same heading of hardcore. I would compare 3PW to TNA, not in booking, they are just more similar in terms of style to TNA than 3PW.
Also PWU (Pro Wrestling Unplugged) had moderate success in that building.
Posted By: HomicideTheCat (Guest) on August 05, 2009 at 04:10 PM
i always thought CZW was in the ECW arena before XPW was.
Posted By: Guest#3439 (Guest) on August 05, 2009 at 11:20 PM
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There are so many anecdotes that prove the rabidness of the ECW fans that I could fill a month's worth of columns with them, and most of them are already familiar to most wrestling fans. There are a few however, that are too good not to discuss. For example, ECW's 'fans bring the weapons' matches that were promoted early in the promotion's history, singlehandedly kept a dollar store running alongside of the arena afloat, with fans buying everything from a cactus to a two person kayak for the wrestlers to abuse each other with. These matches were discontinued when Cactus Jack, thinking he had been given a cheap aluminum pan by a fan, put The Sandman out of action for two weeks by hitting him over the head with a cast-iron skillet.
The most infamous promotion to try and follow in ECW's hardcore footsteps is of course Xtreme Pro Wrestling, ran by pornographer Rob Black and his wife Lizzie Borden. The promotion originally started out on the west coast, working mainly out of Los Angeles, where they had their first run-in with ECW, which ran the 1999 edition of its Heat Wave PPV in the city. During the main event of the show six members of XPW's 'talent' roster, sitting on the front row, donned XPW shirts. When they were evicted by security a bloody brawl broke out on the parking lot between the ECW locker room and the XPW ring crew, in which the XPW ring crew was literally left laying in a pool of their own blood.
After XPW folded, the next 'hardcore' promotion to step in was 3PW, which had run several shows there before being forced to find a new home venue due to XPW's exclusive lease. Like XPW, Pro-Pain Pro Wrestling sought to fill the void left by ECW by running hardcore matches and filling its roster with numerous ECW alumni. The promotion was probably the closest anyone ever came to being a 'legitimate' successor to ECW, with former ECW president Tod Gordon acting as booker. He would leave in December of 2004 following a dispute over the fact that the company was unable to pay any of the talent or staff working on the show. The promotion would run its last show in June of 2005, after which it was put up on Ebay for 24 hours, with bidding starting at $180.000. The promotion was not sold.
