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unpopular opinion but why is nostalgia for ecw so valued? the company did massive damage to wrestling (and the wrestlers health themselves) and heyman was a horrible boss who screwed so many people out of their livlihoods. don't get me started with ecw's embrace of the absolute worst toxic fanbase.
ECW (the post 'Eastern' years) was basically the foundation for what would become the Attitude Era, so without it pro wrestling may have taken much longer to leave the cartooney character world.
Deeper/edgier/mature storylines became more common place due to ECW's influence, both of which Bishoff and McMahon began copying, but which a lot of people wanted as an alternative to the storylines of the big guys.
Heyman was a sack of shit who was an abysmal businessman but creatively (especially for the time) the man was a damned genius. He knew how to get every last drop out of the product they had ("accentuate the positives, hide the negatives!") and put on a product nowhere near the production of WCW/ECW but was still good enough to get a tv deal (for a short time).
Heyman had a focus on shifting Eastern Championship Wrestling into an extreme niche to draw a fanbase WCW/WWF-E weren't taking advantage of, but also didn't let go of what got them there: great wrestling. As such ECW became the first US promotion (or first big name US one at least) that would book people like Rey Mysterio, Psicosis, Eddie Guerrero, etc. Which of course lead to so many people being poached by WWF/WCW.
Compounding on that, ECW was similar to ROH/PWG in how you look now-a-days and so many people in WWE/AEW came up through them, a lotta big wrestlers came up through ECW or helped them with giving them a place to form their characters (like Stone Cold, the basis of which was formed in ECW before he went to WWF as the 'ringmaster').
ECW's fanbase was as toxic as WCW's, WWE's, and AEW's. Some loud mouth jackasses, and a whole fuckload of normal people who just didn't like WWE/WCW and wanted to see harder wrestling. Now-a-days most of these same people would be fans of GCW and GCW fans are some of the most accepting, least judgemental motherfuckers I've ever seen (especially given the huge POC and LGBTQ+ wrestlers/shows they book) and when someone starts shit they usually get knocked the fuck out.
This is a great explanation.
My take was going to be WCW was trying to treat it as real sport like the '80s, WWF was treating it like a comic with Superheroes and along comes ECW who were like fuck that and fuck you if you don't like what we're doing, it was just crazy different. I think the industry is better off for ECW having existed.
Although... here we are a thousand years after ECW closed, WWE did the best send off ever with One Night Stand, then ruined it with follow ups and a WWE brand using those initials. TNA decided to get in on it with Hardcore Justice and diluted it even more, I think Shane Douglas ran some shows too as reunions... quite frankly ECW has been done to death, it was cool and edgy, but it does get a little old doing this reunion every few years with older and older and older ECW originals. Rumor is they want to make it a yearly NXT special now.
Rumor is they want to make it a yearly NXT special now.
Oh sweet gods no lol.
I do agree with ya. In 2024 it's best to leave ECW in the coffin. We'll always appreciate it, and every time we see an ECW legend we'll get those chants, and be reminded of them via AEW and GCW's chants which are similar, but let it go with big specials and reunions and shit.
There's a handful of ECW wrestlers who can still show up and go and that's pretty much Bully, RVD, Rhino and Tommy and that's all we ever get. Everyone else who could show up are retired, goddamned dead, working for companies in positions that preclude them from taking part in an ECW reunion wrestling show, or have so much CTE they are on record as literally not knowing what day of the week it is let alone prepared to bump.
Bring one of em in periodically if they're in town and you want a pop but end it there lol.
I did appreciate WWE bringing in Little Guido/Nunzio to do some stuff with Tony D'Angelo, just two wise guys showing each other respect...
Yes! That was my shining diamond of the night tbh, I was a big FBI mark back in the day so I'll always pop for em. Plus the lil social media vid they did after sharing pizza was perfect lol.
For months I've been seeing cool create a wrestlers for 2k24 that people say are on Community Creations but I could never find them to download when I looked. I was getting pissed at 2K because I thought it was because I got the standard version instead of the super-ultra-fuck off edition, but it's actually because I forgot 2K24 ever came out and have been playing 2k23. Sometimes I be dum.
lmaoo least you figured it out tho!
I watched a video Cody Rhodes did with SportsBible, where he was comparing UK junk food to US junk food. There was one point where he had a Pizza Hut pizza, and he said about it, "This is America. This is all the presidents, from Washington to Obama."
I see what you did there, Cody. And I appreciate it.
Normally I don't have time to watch rampage or collision, but I caught them this week. The trios match between death riders and conglomeration was PPV quality AND had storyline implications. Crazy that they would stick it on the B (C?) show.
I beg of AEW/ROH to use definitive articles. Beg.
Dark Order? No it's The Dark Order.
Gates of Agony? Fuck is that? It's The Gates of Agony.
Undisputed Kingdom? Fuck outta here, The Undisputed Kingdom.
The little kid in me who was Hooked on Phonics™ dies every week bit by bit by weird sounding team names that could be fixed by TK ~~doing less blow~~ buying a dictionary.
Based on the Paul-Tyson fight happening on Netflix tonight, I hope they learn from it and WWE doesn't suffer this same buffering and freezing, I have no intention of paying for Netflix for RAW, and after seeing this tonight, If I were I'd consider not.
Edit: For what it's worth, I live where the ISP top speeds are at or less than 100mbps and we have several streaming devices going all at once most of the time.
Fingers crossed they look to tonight as a test run and work out the issues.
..also I have not seen the fight yet but it sounded like dog shit so I'll probably skip it.
The women's bout before the main event though was something else, I'd watch that over the main event.
Just saw a pic of the gash over who I assume to be the loser's right eye, fucking ow, will def watch.
I want to say something similar happened with Peacock. I think they tried streaming the Olympics or something and it was shit. Then they got WWE and it was still kind of shit, but they eventually figured everything out.
God NBC's Olympics coverage has been shit since I was a child. Life pro tip for everyone: When the Olympics come around just use CBC. We Canadians don't fuck around, we've constantly had perfect coverage of everything as long as I can remember without 8h of talking heads being interjected by 14 seconds of competition. (VPN is required but it's also 2024 and ya'll should be using em anyway lol)
Yeah, it's likely growing pains as they venture into live sporting events. I remember this happened to Amazon when Thursday Night Football moved to Prime. They had some problems the first few games until their team dialed in how to get it out smoothly to that many viewers.
Netflix may have messed up with the Paul-Tyson fight, but their real test may be coming at Christmas when they air two NFL games. Those NFL fans are going to be way more rabid if that fails.