When I was seventeen years old, Extreme Championship Wrestling was the greatest thing to ever happen in my lackluster teenage life. I would eschew the fresh spring air and social trysts with girls to hold myself up in my friend Benny's room crowded around a UHF television set tuned to America One for my weekly dose of ECW Hardcore TV. I couldn't get enough; to me, it was like being a part of a secret club. The ritual behaviors & general chaos at the live shows was nothing like I had ever experienced. I wore my orange Taz "Path of Rage"T-shirt like a badge of wrestling dork honor, as I gleefully educated my friends that all of their favorite WCW wrestlers (Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, & Chris Benoit) were all by-products of ECW. It was unique, largely repulsive, & unrelenting -- everything that a confused adolescent could want out of a pro wrestling program.
Time passed, and by the turn of the new millennium, I was barely aware of the day-to-day operations of the extreme kingdom. I still followed wrestling, but it was hard to deny that the WWE at this time was on fire, placing ECW even further back in my consciousness. Nonetheless, I managed to attend to November to Remember 1999 on a whim, and even bought the Nintendo 64 game because I was curious, not so much about the game, but how ECW would be represented on the WWE Attitude game engine. My interest waned, and apparently, so did Paul E. Dangerously's...so much to the point that he abandoned the company without even telling his own crew of workers. In my mind, Extreme Championship Wrestling died in 2001. Rest in peace, sayonara, and farewell -- we'll drink a beer in your honor every year if we remember to do so. Now, if only it were that simple...
Just like Jason Voorhees in every Friday the 13th, the ECW corpse won't stay dead. Some mad scientist every couple of years gets a hankering for some extreme wrestling action, summons a lightening bolt to awaken the monster, and rounds up all the surviving ECW wrestlers to smash each other with plunder -- all for a semi-decent payday. Now don't get me wrong, having a reunion every five years and only ever five years is all good. I guess the warm, squishy feeling fans get from bathing in the nostalgia lather at these shows is enough to fill the gaping wound inflicted on their souls by Vince McMahon's capitalist shotgun. It's cathartic. I'm sure ECW One Night Stand in 2005 was Vince's version of a suicide hotline, lest an old, bitter ECW is tempted to take their life because someone isn't hitting some with a trash can on every wrestling program.
Let's face it. ECW is now nothing more than a failed WWE corporate strategy in same breath as the WBF & XFL. They tried to revive it for financial gain, and it failed. There's no need to bring it back ever again. I'm not saying to get rid of the extreme style; that would be ludicrous. CZW, XPW, IWA Mid-South -- all viable outlets for guys like The Sandman & Tommy Dreamer to pound each other into primordial dust to entertain bloodthirsty fans. Wrestlers get paid, promoters have a successful show, fans are happy, and we all win. What we don't need are a million and one reunion shows every other year to remind me of the spirit of the old ECW. I watched it during its heyday, and guess what, I have tapes! I have tapes of glorious ECW television to keep me amused for all eternity. That's all I need.
So yeah, I can give two sh*ts about this supposed ECW revival in TNA. I mean, TNA engages in some significant skullf*ckery on a daily basis with their inept booking, but this whole angle is off the charts. With the upcoming Hard Justice PPV being refashioned as One Night Stand Part XXVII, the ECW stalwarts will have a bunch of matches that will, quite frankly, not be very good and have no long-lasting impact on the company. The last thing that TNA needs right now is to have a throwaway Pay-Per-View, wasting thousands of dollars all for the sake of placating a few grizzled veterans & some delusional fans that can't seem to let go of the past. TNA's target audience, which doesn't seem to be geared toward the younger crowd, might be more apt to enjoy this sort of approach. Nonetheless, this is a masturbatory gesture, where a few people get their jollies and then never speak of this event again. Just because TNA can do it doesn't mean they have to.
Clearly, it is no surprise why Paul Heyman is going out of his way to not take the TNA burden on his shoulders, and I can't blame the man. Why would you incur an ungodly amount of stress for little or no reward? If the mastermind behind ECW doesn't think he can save TNA, then maybe it's time to put some barbed-wire roses on the ECW grave, and go back to the drawing board. They would have wanted it that way.
Thanks for reading folks, and for more Angry Hero musings, check out the official blog over at www.FutureEndeavored.tumblr.com. I also encourage you to check out my short film SMARK over at www.SmarkMovie.tumblr.com. Enjoy your summer, and remember: Above all things -- be a man!
