Extreme Championship Wrestling

ECW is a defunct wrestling promotion that was founded in 1992 by Paul Heyman and ended in 1998.

The promotion showcased various international styles of professional wrestling, ranging from lucha libre to puroresu and hardcore wrestling. Heyman's creative direction created new stars, and established the "third" big brand in the United States, competing with the billionaire-backed World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling promotions.

Starting in 1995, ECW left NWA and the name was changed from "eastern championship wrestling" to "extreme championship wrestling"

## Company History

### Cross Promotion with WWF(1995-1996)

ECW's weekly show began on the week after Shane Douglas won the NWA Heaviweight championship and declared it dead, Heyman introduced Douglas as the ECW Heaviweight champion

ECW was nothing like people had ever seen before with their mix of different styles and managing to make every character in their roster show off their strenghts with people like Shane Douglas, Sabu, Taz, Tommy Dreamer, Raven, The Sandman.

Many big stars of the future got their start here such as Dean Malenko, Rey Misterio Jr., Konnan, Cactus Jack and Superstar Austin also managed to develop more here than when they were in WCW.

ECW was clearly capturing eyes of the fans as at WWF's In Your House 16, the crowd started chanting ECW during multiple matches, Jim Neidhart and Bam Bam Bigelow would soon debut for ECW and also their biggest aquisitions to date Meng and Tama, the Samoan Killers.

In December 1995, Neidhart returned to WWF and talked to Vince about how great Heyman was and that they could make money with him, Vince and Heyman signed a deal in early january, a working relationship but Vince only wanted to use ECW guys if he was getting his ass handed against WCW.

At Royal Rumble 1996, The Sandman, Sabu and Tommy Dreamer were shown to be in the crowd as Vince said that they are from a rival company apparently scouting the show, ECW's Bam Bam made a surprise appearance in the royal rumble match but no one from ECW showed up for a while.

At Wrestlepalooza 1996, Taz defeated Sabu and then said that ECW was coming for revenge against WWF as they had been stealing wrestlers from them for a while, the revenge came at Summerslam 1996 as Taz, Shane Douglas, BWO, Raven, Tommy Dreamer and Bam Bam Bigelow beat up New Age Outlaws, Papa Shango and Mark Henry, Vader and Taz had a staredown during this, the ECW invasion started. Throught the next few weeks, ECW would show up frequently on WWF shows and shockingly Brian Pillman, Vader, Rocky Maivia, Mankind and DX also showed up on Hardcore TV #92 to beat up ECW.

The big cross promotion show happened on october 6th, ECW vs WWF and ECW would beat WWF in every match except for 2 as Vince didn't feel like ECW was big leagues and so gave them free promotion for their first ever upcoming PPV: Barely Legal. Vader would become ECW Heaviweight champion on ECW vs WWF and face Meng on the first ever ECW PPV and it was branded: WWF vs WCW in an ECW ring.

At Barely Legal, everything that could've gone wrong happened, Mustafa Saed vs New Jack was the most extreme match of ECW ever and it led to the cancellation of ECW on PPV just 1 PPV in, in the main event Vader vs Meng was so brutal that they both came out of it needing 40 stitches, Vince was pissed that Heyman treated his WWF Champion like that and cancelled the working relationship deal with Heyman as well, ECW had now lost a lot of money but they had more eyes on them than ever

### Last Years(1997-1998)

1997 was a great year for ECW with the 2 top champions, Meng with the ECW Heaviweight Championship and Taz with the ECW TV Championship holding the titles for all of the year, Raven feuded with Meng throught the year as Raven desperatly wanted the championship and always sent Raven's Cult to do the job for him, this also led to the most shocking ECW moment as Raven tried to crucify Meng but Tama saved him, this was never mentioned again but it drew out sponsors yet again.

Meng would hold the ECW Heaviweight Championship for all of 1997 until he was finally defeated by Raven as Meng had yet again signed an exclusive contract to WCW

Starting in 1998, everyone in the roster was over and they were starting to build up the next breed of stars: Jerry Lynn, Rob Van Dam, Mike Awesome, Masato Tanaka, Steve Corino, Justin Credible. But ECW's money problems quickly caught up with them, after Heatwave, Heyman was forced to make Hardcore TV 30 minutes long to delay the inevitable bankrupcy, multiple ECW talent were pissed at Heyman's management in the last month as he cut their pays by almost half and he barely used anyone on shows so they weren't getting paid.

ECW had its last show ever on august 30th 1998 with Heyman making a promo kicking off the show announcing that this could be the last show, the show was critically aclaimed and called the best show ever for ECW which ended with Tommy Dreamer winning the ECW Heaviweight Championship from Raven, Raven vs Tommy Dreamer was THE feud that defined ECW from 1995 to 1998, it went from them being pure rivals to Dreamer realizing that he couldnt beat Raven and getting pissed at that, so much so that he ended up being forced to join Raven's Cult, and then Dreamer finally saw an opportunity to turn on Raven and beat him and win the title that he never won but he lost his career instead, but he came back with vengeance and wanted 1 more shot and after all the things that he learned about Raven, he finally managed to be better than him and win the ECW heaviweight title for the first time on ECW's last match ever.

ECW officially closed down on September 1st 1998.