All language subtitles for EP-10 - ECW Birth Of Hardcore

[crowd cheers]

- You are looking live
at the Lincoln Financial Field

in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

- Of course, ECW gained
prominence only a few miles

from this very stadium.

- What's really cool is that
they are really celebrating

the Philadelphia experience.

As you see right here,
ECW,

everyone knows that was started
right here

in Philadelphia.

- It's Philly.

You took us in.

They made us their own.

They gave us a home.

They gave us a town
to burn down.

[fireworks]

So here we are in 2024.

It's WrestleMania XL,

and we're in of all places,
Philadelphia.

The birthplace of ECW.

And all the merchandise is
"Wrestle F'N Mania."

What an interesting
"F'N" concept.

This revolution did take place
and we did change the industry.

- Shattered the table.

- It just took a while for
it all to settle in.

- Through the table.

- And this WrestleMania is truly
the validation

of everything we all worked
so very hard for-

[crowd chants "ECW"]

- The story of Extreme
Championship Wrestling is that

it was so real, real to a degree
that this industry

has never seen before.

- EC [bleep] W.

- ECW was a place to put the
misfits.

And in the '90s, we needed that.

- It was us against the entire
wrestling business.

- Those are hard guys.

Authentic, hard individuals.

And that's the bottom line.

- There were branding irons,
barbed wire,

someone set on fire.

- This is ECW,
this is hardcore.

- Unless you've been
to an ECW show,

you have not seen it all.

- We were born to crash and burn
as a company.

But ECW changed the wrestling
business forever.

- This is the ECW.

I love your shoes, babe,
gotta go, okay.

Hey, I was out here before,
and before-before we started

production today, and they said,
"Paul E., what is your

definition of professional
wrestling?

Is it the technique, the NCAA,
the Olympic-style wrestlers?"

I said, "No, that's not it."

I said, "Excitement."

That's my game, excitement.

Paul E. Dangerously stands for
excitement.

- In the mid-80s, Paul Heyman
was known as Paul E. Dangerously

and was making a
name for himself as an

incredible wrestling manager.

- The greatest professional
wrestling manager

in the world today.

- Just this brash,
smarter-than-you guy that would

walk to the ring in a suit that
was too loud with a mullet and

that giant brick cell phone.

- With the million-dollar suits,
with a telephone,

and I got a whole lot of
surprises in store for you.

- Paul and I had bonded
tremendously in WCW,

as he was my manager.

- Steve, you're the man.

- Paul E. was one of the
people in my life

who was paramount as far as my
success in this business.

- Fans like us saw Paul Heyman
as this amazing manager, but he

also had this kind of rebellious
wrestling brain that was

constantly trying to take the
product that we saw

in a different direction.

- I don't like what wrestling is
all about anymore.

I don't like the shape that
wrestling is in.

At the time,
both WWE and WCW

were really behind
the times.

Everybody was a wrestling
character stuck in the Hulk

Hogan era, and that era
was ending.

- Doink and Dink.

[laughs]

Whoa.

Look out, a kick of the shins.

- Unbelievable.

- Dink's having a laugh.

- Paul had been around
and-and-and had worked in

different promotions around the
country, so he had a little bit

of this and a little bit of
that.

And Paul wasn't afraid to look
outside the box.

- You can't change the system
from the outside bitching.

You can only change the system
from the inside, implementing a

new vision, so I started
building my reputation

behind the scenes.

- And it wasn't long before
people started to take notice

of Paul Heyman's creativity.

- I started running the creative
in the mid-1990s for a small

promotion that got a TV
clearance called Eastern

Championship Wrestling, ECW.

- And it was just a natural fit
at that particular time.

It was all Paul.

He was really running to take
the ball and ran

with it completely.

- Tod was the owner.

Paul Heyman was the creative
mind behind ECW.

- I was so ready to do something
new and different

and innovative.

Almost 20 years after the movie
Network

and Peter Finch was right.

I'm mad as hell and I'm not
gonna take it anymore.

Professional wrestling needed to
be taken to the extreme.

This ain't no freaking circus.

This is ECW.

[crowd cheers]

- The timing of ECW really
coincided with this cultural

awakening that we saw
in the early 90s.

We had the birth of grunge and a
lot more attitude, and people

just kinda seemed to come
out of their shell

collectively as a culture.

- This is extreme.

- Extreme was one of those words
that was-was being--

Everything was extreme.

The X sports had just started
getting, uh, a lot of exposure.

It was being thrown around a lot
in-in the advertising world,

and everybody was calling
everything they wanted

to get noticed extreme.

- We pull the trigger.

We go from Eastern to Extreme.

- Hello, everyone, and welcome

to Extreme Championship
Wrestling.

This is Joey Styles in the
eagle's nest,

high above the ECW arena.

And you are watching the
wrestling promotion that's

changing the face of the
sport today.

This is as extreme as it gets.

- ECW were the renegades.

They were the misfits.

- ECW.

- They were the group of
wrestlers that

just did everything
their own way.

- Well, ECW understood with Paul
Heyman at the helm that you

could not out WWE WWE, and you
could not out WCW WCW,

so they did not even try.

- These two have used everything
in an attempt to destroy one

another, including, yes,
the kitchen sink.

- Instead of having pyro and the
glitz and the glamor,

we had Fight Club.

It's a guilty pleasure.

I'm not really supposed to watch
this, but I'm gonna.

- Professional wrestling was
more aimed at children

in the early 90s.

With ECW, that's one thing that
really made it different.

- Hey, I'm Jenna Jameson and,
you know, I've seen some really,

really extreme things in my
lifetime, but nothing, nothing,

nothing compares to ECW.

- They were for sure aiming at
adults.

- This is hardcore.

You wanna be a clown?

Take 95 back to Connecticut.

Up and down goes Doink the
Clown.

- To the extreme, baby,
right here.

- There was nobody that the 18
to 34 male demographic could

look at and say, "Oh, yeah, you
know what, that's the new thing

that's out there.

Yeah, that's hip.

That's contemporary.

That's hot.

That's today.

That's even progressive.

That's tomorrow."

- ECW was such a small upstart
that there was no national

television coverage.

When I finally found it, it was
on MSG Network at one o'clock in

the morning, and you had to hope
that you didn't fall asleep

before the show came on.

- When ECW was coming up,
it was still in the era where

the internet wasn't as
prevalent.

And there was tape trading going
on, a lot of it had to be really

grassroots and word of mouth.

- This is a movement.

Like you felt like, "Hey, I'm a
part of something from the

ground up."

It was everything that WCW and
WWE wasn't at that time.

- EC [bleep] W.

[crowd cheers]

- They just sat about putting
out a completely alternative

product than most anyone
had ever seen.

- It's gonna be a hot time in
ECW.

[crowd cheers]

- He's branding Cactus with a
flaming branding iron.

- There were, uh, branding
irons, barbed wire.

There were lots of cool ways
to cause physical harm.

- I think that was a VCR.

- I'd probably been in ECW a
couple of months at that point,

and I'm sitting there going,

"What the hell am I doing for
a living?

I mean, this is nuts."

[crowd cheers]

- But the crowd was just so
engrossed by it.

- This had become a society
enthralled with violence.

The whole mindset of ECW was to
be a cult, the cult of extreme.

The tribe of hardcore.

We as one would revolutionize
professional wrestling.

- What in God's name are they
doing?

They've got Balls Mahoney up.

Powerbomb through the thumbtacks
and the fire.

The matchup is over.

Thank God.

- WCW was doing their thing,
we were doing ours,

and then you've
got this rogue outfit,

ECW, that's on the
periphery there

kinda doing their own thing.

- Joey looks flustered and he
sweats a little bit.

- Let's do it.

- You're talking about big
blockbuster movies versus a

low-budget student film.

- These guys were literally
working out

of the post production editor's
parent's house.

- We didn't have production, we
had Paul and two cameramen.

Paul didn't have an office.

Backstage was a table in the
middle of the locker room.

I handled advertising for ECW.

I booked the buildings for ECW.

I handled everything that went
on in that company that didn't

deal with the actual show.

- I used to say
that ECW survived

on balls, [bleep]
and bravado.

We didn't have the lighting,
we didn't have the pyro.

Our bragging rights came from
the fact that no one could do

what we were doing.

- Oh, no.

Oh, my God.

- If I'm gonna go somewhere and
try to make it, this might be

the place I can start and try to
make a name for myself here and

then possibly pursue somewhere
else down the line.

- Paul Heyman likes to take
chances on diamonds in the rough

and doesn't look at your outside
as a limitation.

- Dude, you have no idea how
many times I've been arrested in

a barroom brawl from the ages
of, let's say, like,

18 to, like, 22.

Paul E. goes, "Just go be you."

- The Sandman is not a good
wrestler.

He will sit here and tell you he
is not a good wrestler.

I don't know who trained him.

I don't know if anyone
trained him.

Sandman is a legit barroom
brawler.

- Not someone you would think
would be a typical role model,

but there at ECW, the fans loved
him because

he represented one of them.

- ECW politically incorrect and
damn proud of it.

- You want wholesome family
entertainment?

You're watching the wrong
promotion.

- The Sandman, pre-Stone Cold,
was smashing beers

on his forehead.

- I said, "What, are you crazy?

You can't send a guy drinking
and smoking into the ring."

Well, apparently you can.

- The Sandman was me.

I want to play a game of pool.

When I lose, I want to hit you
over the head with a cane, take

the money, get in my car,
and roll.

- We all loved ECW so much
because we all got to be us.

- You're Steve Austin.

- You know, that's where you're
wrong, Mean Joey.

Because Steve Austin doesn't
have what it takes to get it

done in the ECW, brother.

I was out of a job, and the
phone rings, it's Paul E.

Paul calls me, and he goes,
"Kid," he goes, "I want you to

come over and start working for
me, cutting promos."

And I said, "Man, what do you
want me to talk about?"

And he goes, "Just talk about
how you feel."

You people get up every morning,
you throw a ham and cheese

sandwich in a metal lunch box,
you punch a time clock, you let

some [bleep] yell at you for
nine hours, then you punch out

and go back home to some hag.

I'll never do that, man.

That was the genesis of what
Stone Cold would-

would come from.

- ECW was a beautiful place to
grow because you were given

such freedom.

Without those moments, I don't
think we see "Stone Cold" Steve

Austin explode on the scene.

- And that's the bottom line.

That God dang ECW arena which
was a complete [bleep],

and I'm happy to be there, but
to classify it other than what

it was, a [bleep], would be
inaccurate.

This place is a bigger
[bleep]

than Middletown, New York, was.

- It was a bingo hall, but it
was also the Vikings clubhouse.

The Vikings were a string band.

I walked in there the first
time, and I said,

"Oh, my God. What?

Look at this place.

It's-- You can't do a show
here."

- It was a ring, guardrails
and fans.

- You got it, baby.

- Nothing fancy, no big
titantron.

Nothing.

It was just, "This is what you
need to focus on, what happens

in the ring."

- I love the grunginess of it.

I love that it wasn't pristine,
that it wasn't polished, that

anything could happen, anything
was possible.

- Because it was rooted in
Philly, people from New York

were coming down,
people from D.C.

They kind of were in a nice spot
where it was a go-to place.

- They wanna see the referee
chokeslammed.

Only in Philadelphia.

- You wanted that badge of honor
to say that you had seen these

stars live, and you wanted to
say that you could see them at

the ECW arena, the bingo hall.

- Oh, my God.

- ECW Superstars were known for
doing the most insane things

you'd ever seen in a Sports
Entertainment program,

but ultimately, the same risks
that they took that made them

stand out in the first place
would be what held them back.

- The early 90's,

I think things
needed to change.

And right here in Philadelphia
was the perfect place.

- Where it all started, baby.

I love being right here,
right in this spot.

Wow, the memories.

[crowd cheers]

You can almost hear the crowd.

[crowd chants "ECW"]

- I knew they were doing a lot
of different things,

and they were really cutting
edge with-with the things

that they were doing
and their fan base.

If there was ever a definition
of fanatical, their fans,

they were-- they were
all of that.

They were part of the show.

[crowd chants "ECW"]

- The fans would sometimes
hold a chair up.

I remember fans holding a chair,
and 2 Cold Scorpio

smashing my head

[chuckles]

into the chair while the fan
was holding it.

- Yeah, baby.

[laughs]

- The audience is as much part
of the show as the show itself.

We're the cool ones.

We're extreme.

- This is ECW at its best.

The stands emptying.

- Public Enemy, they were
dancing and they were

celebrating and they were
inviting the crowd to join them

in this celebration.

These aren't WWE rings.

These are rings that some guy
set up right before the show.

- Oh, my God.

They broke the ring.

- ECW just had this aura of fan
inclusion, where fans were just

as much a part of the show as
the superstars were.

- He's got Spike up.

Oh, my God.

- Oh, God bless the throw.

We're at the arena, people are
right on top of you, and he

chucked me, and I landed in the
third or fourth row, and they

caught me, and they surfed me
around.

- We've got body surfing at the
ECW arena.

- When you see the audience care
about somebody, when you're

watching at home you're going to
care more about them too.

ECW was the best at that.

Like, the crowd was a star of
its own.

- Terry Funk versus Cactus Jack
for the first time in history.

This one ought to be a classic.

- Terry and I had a match, and
it was fairly short, ended with,

uh, a disqualification when the
Public Enemy came running in,

and I said to the audience, give
me a chair.

First there was one and
there was two.

- Oh, my God.

- I'm not exaggerating when I
say it was raining chairs.

- I turned around and catch one
over there, and all of a sudden,

wham, one of them hit me right
right in the back

and knocked me out.

Oh, just some crazy stuff in
ECW.

That was a-- it was a good time.

- It's one of the most iconic
moments in ECW history,

and it's one of the most
dangerous things I've ever seen.

We encouraged audience
participation, and we may have

encouraged it a little too much.

- Everybody in ECW played hurt.

There was no such thing
as time off.

We were warriors to a degree
that most wrestlers could never

say they were.

- They were custom-made for
Extreme Championship Wrestling.

It's hard to imagine them
wrestling anywhere else.

- We had a passion to be ECW
Superstars.

We were gonna change
the whole world.

So what do we care
if we broke a finger?

What do we care if our
necks hurt?

If our backs hurt?

It didn't matter because
you know what?

We were making a difference.

- No way.

That balcony is way too
high up in the air.

Oh, my God.

- Everybody that wasn't a part
of ECW hated ECW.

They all had something to say
about ECW.

- ECW, extremely crappy
wrestling for those of you

who don't know.

The guys who were fans of that
ECW hybrid, [bleep] garbage

wrestling, they cheered
everybody.

They just wanted the car wreck
and the carnage.

- I think there was a bit of
arrogance, I think, on people's

view of-of ECW, but in that
arrogance, there's probably a

certain amount of jealousy
because they are getting to do

things that we didn't get to do.

- Now, we're setting an
impossible physical standard

that the human body can't
keep up to.

All that stuff that they were
doing was ridiculous and was

gonna lead to the downfall of
the business, and basically,

we hated the whole bunch
of them.

- It's very popular to paint
this picture.

That's fine, and I accept that
criticism, but I-I could feel

the culture shift that was going
on, and I wanted to bring

that to television.

- At a point, it kind of became
clear that that extreme attitude

that brought them so much praise
would also be what brought them

criticism, and that created some
issues for the company.

- We ran into some really rough
spells in ECW.

Of course, we did.

In 1995, we were desperate to
get on pay-per-view

and couldn't get in.

There was a huge backlash
against the UFC, and we got

lumped in with extreme fighting.

There was no way to convince
anybody to let us on

pay-per-view.

If the goal was to be big, if
the goal was to compete with WWE

and WCW, going to pay-per-view
was the holy grail.

It was time for me to do
something big, so I took over

ownership of the company.

[crowd cheers]

[crowd chants "ECW"]

- The demand for this
product was so great,

but if you don't take advantage
of that opportunity,

then you're not gonna get
the end result,

which is all that
money coming in

and the expansion
of your product.

- There's this amazing show on
at one o'clock in the morning.

Unfortunately, sponsors and
corporations that maybe would've

worked with them thought that
they were too risky.

- Every single day was
a battle for survival,

and every single day that we
survived was a miracle,

and it just zapped out
Tod's budget.

Tod couldn't afford to keep up,

so I took over ownership of the
company.

- Welcome to Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.

- In 1996, ECW and WWE started
doing a cross-branded story.

The idea of ECW wrestlers now
appearing on WWE Television.

- If we have an opportunity
we're going to--

- Oh.

- Oh, my.

Hey, wait just a moment.

A local wrestling group here in
Philadelphia, and obviously

trying to make a name for
themselves at the expense of the

World Wrestling --.

- I think the WWE
recognized that

"Boy, we're getting ECW chants
at our shows.

"What is this company?

Let's see.

Let's find out.

Let's bring them in."

- The local Philadelphia
wrestling outfit, uh,

they're here.

- I've had about-- just about
all I wanna see of this

crap right here.

Do you understand that?

- Oh, yeah.

- Do you think for one minute
that anybody knows anything

about these idiots, ECW?

- Well, there was no greater
supporter of ECW

than Vince McMahon.

Vince thought we were good for
the industry, if for nothing

else, but because we were a shop
that could create new talent.

- I'll tell you what I'll do.

If you so good, if you're so
tough, I'll make a personal

invitation to you.

Come right here on Raw
next week.

Come on down here, and let's
show-show us what you got.

- We're outside the Manhattan
Center live,

we're coming to you,
ladies and gentlemen, yes,

it's Monday Night Raw.

What is this?

Wait a minute.

Oh.

- Your challenge has been
accepted.

ECW is in the house.

- ECW invasion, it helped WWE
and it helped ECW.

It was the first time ECW had
mainstream exposure and WWE

desperately needed an edge.

- Has this show sucked
without ECW or what, huh?

[crowd cheers]

- Hopefully things aren't going
to get out of hand here.

- Well, hopefully, they are.

That's what ECW is all about.

[crowd chants "ECW"]

- It's freaking huge for us.

You know what I mean?

You're getting recognized by a
whole different world.

- The Sandman is in the
Manhattan Center.

- To cross-promote there and
have those guys come in, it was

kind of a shake up.

- Go ahead, come on.

- The walls come crumbling down
with ECW.

- Because of your cards and your
letters and your phone calls,

that show on April 13th will be
carried live on pay-per-view.

The very first pay-per-view from
ECW, Barely Legal.

- ECW finally reached their
goal, and Paul Heyman gave the

credit to the fans.

- I wanted an audience that was
going to be proud to be ECW

fans, and [bleep], I had that.

Tonight we have a chance to say,
"Yeah, you're right.

We're too extreme.

We're too full of our own
[bleep],"

or we have a chance to
say, "Hey, [bleep] you.

You're wrong.

[bleep] you, we're right,

because you have all made
it to the dance.

'cause, believe me, this is the
dance.

Start the show.

- That was the dance.

It was us against the world.

It was ECW versus the entire
wrestling business.

We were ready to go into battle
because we were a part of

something special and we knew
it.

[crowd chants "ECW"]

[crowd cheers]

- Being an advocate for ECW,
once we got on pay-per-view, we

thought everything was going to
change and

so we were really excited.

I was like, "Mmm, let's go."

- Air Van Dam.

- It felt like a real milestone
that had been that thing that

they'd been chasing forever.

It was a really big
accomplishment.

- This extreme not for
everybody,

little engine that could had

accomplished the impossible.

- Inside cradle, small package.

[bell rings]

- It's over.

We've got a new champion.

We've got a new champion.

The emotion in this area is
overwhelming.

- I'm happy.

- There were two pay-per-view
carriers at the time, and we

were only carried on one, and
despite that, we did 100,000

buys for Barely Legal.

And I have no doubt that a big
part of that was the exposure we

got on WWE television.

- Things are moving along for
ECW and then

they catch a huge break.

They got themselves a national
weekly TV show.

- ECW wished for national TV and
national TV killed ECW.

- Hello again, everyone, and
welcome to WWE Raw

and we are live.

- In the late 90s, pro wrestling
as an industry,

got super, super hot again.

WWE was doing
unprecedented numbers.

It went from family-friendly
cartoons come to life to edgy,

shocking stuff.

A lot of that was due to the
influence that

they took from ECW.

- All hell is breaking loose in
Madison Square Garden.

- Good God.

- And in 1999, ECW catches an
incredible break by signing

their first major national cable
television deal

with a network called TNN.

- Hello, everyone, I'm Joey
Styles and we are getting set to

broadcast some of the most
extreme wrestling matches

you have ever seen.

Moonsault over the bleacher.

Here it comes.

Awesome Bomb.

- TNN was a channel
that wasn't popular.

I thought, well, automatically
we're going to be the number one

rated to show on there, and I
believed that this was going to

be our big break.

- Rob Van Dam here on the
outside.

Oh, my God.

- I was a WWE guy, but I think
I liked ECW better.

So I was like, "Oh, man, these
guys are doing something

way different."

- Rhyno, this is not where he
wants to be.

Oh, my God.

- What in the hell could
possibly happen next on TNN?

- ECW wished for national TV and
they got national TV and

national TV killed ECW.

- We signed a deal with TNN,
which was very

favorable to them.

We didn't get paid any money.

To my knowledge, we were just
getting exposure.

- The ECW never made money.

We paid to be everywhere.

We were paying to be on all
those channels.

Those channels weren't
paying us.

- TNN fought us every step of
the way.

They did not like the way we did
television, they wanted it to be

more polished like WWE.

- It was a startup company

whose entire presentation
was counterculture.

That was a necessary,
necessary component.

So, you're not going to get
mainstream advertisers.

You're not going to get
big name sponsorship.

It was just another battle

we were gonna have to pull
a bunch of miracles for.

- You're sort of
conflicted about it.

You're happy that you're finally
getting some sort of national

exposure, um
but at what cost?

- I don't know if Paul could
have ever compromised himself

or the product enough.

Paul was too much of a rebel.

We all were.

- This was just another battle.

Because we were in such dire
straits with the network,

the pay-per-view companies
are holding back

our money they're just letting
the money drift.

Our deal with TNN was falling
apart horrifically.

- Paul Heyman isn't a guy known
for holding his tongue.

Paul being unhappy with how the
network was treating ECW decided

to air out TNN on TNN.

- We hate this stinking network.

We hate their guts for
abandoning us,

we hate their guts for not
supporting us,

we hate their
guts for not advertising us.

- They never got behind us ever.

The only commercial that they
ever showed for ECW ran during

the hour that we were on.

Meanwhile, TNN was planning on
working out a different deal

with WWE to bring them in.

- You see, in just a few weeks,
the network is going to give

$100 million to Vince McMahon
like he needs it to replace us.

[WWE Raw's music plays]

- This is our inaugural
broadcast for WWE Raw on TNN.

- Monday Night Raw starts to air
on TNN, and a week later,

ECW is canceled.

- It's common knowledge
how dire our situation is

so I have a meeting with Vince,

and he can relate to all of
these problems

'cause he's been through it
himself before.

He said "What can I do to help
you?"

I said "Well, you can give me
$500,000 right now so I can put

on my show in LA and get to my
next pay-per-view."

And without blinking, five
minutes later we were wired

$500,000 dollars as a loan

to shop around our TV
show to more networks,

and keep on putting on
pay-per-view's and hopefully

get our money out of the
pay-per-view distributors.

That bought us some time.

- There were so many financial
problems in ECW

that it just became
unsustainable for him.

- When the ECW wrestlers were
leaving for greener pastures,

I'd probably try to talk every
one of them out of it.

It hurt.

- Wait a minute.

- What's this?

[bell rings]

- King, oh man.

King, The Dudley Boys.

The Dudley Boys.

Former ECW Tag Team Champions.

- I worked so close with Paul,
Tazz worked so close with Paul.

- Man, what an impact for Tazz.

His first night in the WWE.

- The rest of the guys knew,
if these guys are leaving,

something must be wrong.

[crowd chants "ECW"]

- Hello, everyone,

and welcome to
Guilty as Charged.

- I wrestled that last
pay-per-view

and-and under special
conditions,

you know, I told Paul that I
needed get paid in cash up

front, couldn't take a chance
of not getting paid.

- He was owed a lot of money,
like we all were,

but Rob Van Dam
stayed till the end.

- Of course, when I was there
and I was like,

"This is a check."

He was like, "You mean cash,
cash?"

[chuckles]

But that's just Paul,
but everything worked out.

- The Van Terminator.

- Everything was just like so
good then and it was just the

last time that it would be.

- In every aspect, we were born,
bred, raised to crash and burn

as a company.

We were a shooting star.

- The pay-per-view distributors
offered to give us some money

if we put on the
next pay-per-view,

but they wouldn't
give us the money

until we put on the
next pay-per-view,

but we couldn't put on
the next pay-per-view

unless we got their money.

We were finished.

We were filing for bankruptcy.

It was over.

Had we landed on television,
you'd be interviewing me today

as the genius that took ECW all
the way and I'd be sitting here

with a billion-dollar stock
option.

And the fact that we couldn't
find television makes me the

schmuck that couldn't carry ECW
any further.

WWE finally acquired all the
assets of ECW after a long

bankruptcy proceeding.

- There were a lot of athletes
I liked in ECW, and they had

a huge fan base.

And that's why I wasn't
surprised when Vince McMahon

bought the company in 2001.

- My God, somebody tell me what
this means.

I thought ECW was dead and
buried.

- Even though it hurt to lose
ECW, the fact that it went to

WWE also gave you a feeling of
I'm not saying goodbye to all of

this, it's just going to be
different than it was before.

- It was really great to see the
transition that some people were

able to make from ECW and then
see such a wider audience have

appreciation for them.

- Oh, we got new tag team
champions.

Rob Van Dam is the
Intercontinental Champion.

[crowd chants "Thank you"]

- ECW was special because they
were extreme.

It's what led the audience to
the product, but it was also one

of the things that led to ECW's
downfall.

A lot of companies and sponsors
didn't want to work with ECW

because of the nature of the
programming.

- I always compare ECW
to Napster.

Napster went bankrupt
and out of business,

but Napster changed the way
we listened to music forever.

ECW went bankrupt
and out of business,

but ECW changed the wrestling
business forever.

[crowd cheering]

- Bubba Ray Dudley
says it best.

"ECW wasn't meant to last.

We were meant to go out
in a blaze of glory.

We were Napster.

We were here to change
the business.

We were here to disrupt
the industry."

And it's exactly what we did.

For those of you,
who will say,

that ECW lives no more,

I respectfully disagree
with your assessment,

and for those of you who
don't realize it,

ECW is alive today
in the matches

that are performed
in front of you,

that in the concepts

that have been adopted
by the entire industry,

and the passion of the fan base
that still comes today

to WWE and any other
wrestling promotion

on the face of this planet.

If you think that the spirit of
ECW died

in a bankruptcy court in 2001,

you can suck my [bleep].

[crowd cheers]

- What a bathroom here.

How apropos.

The ECW wall.

You got D-Von Dudley, testify,
Hall of Fame right there.

You got Tod Gordon.

I just saw an RVD somewhere.

Oh, wait, where
the freak is my-

I must have signed
this somewhere.

- We still talk about it because
ECW was a phenomenon.

Just like we talk about the
Chicago Bulls dynasty

to this day in basketball, we
will always talk about ECW.

[crowd chants "ECW"]

- Unless you've been to an ECW
show and seen them at their

peak, then you have not seen
or done it all.

- You wear those ECW shirts like
a badge of honor because you

were at the bingo hall, or you
at least want people

to think that you were.

- To this day when I see
original ECW fans

with ECW tattoos and everything
else, I am just shocked

and I am just moved.

- I wish people could understand
how deep the relationship ran

between the wrestlers
and those fans.

This company was like a family,
and that's what made

it so special.

- The fact that we can
incorporate stuff that happened

in ECW in WWE now, that just
shows a little bit of the legacy

that ECW still has.

- Paul with the Frog Splash.

- When anyone shows up, whether
it be Paul Heyman, Rob Van Dam,

you hear that chant, "ECW, ECW."

You're gonna hear the chant
every single time.

[crowd chants "ECW"]

- I lived it in my sleep, and
it was all encompassing.

It was exhilarating.

It was extreme.

[crowd chants "ECW"]