Extreme Championship Wrestling

ECW Arena shows and television syndication expansion

ECW's primary venue was the ECW Arena, a former warehouse secluded under a section of Interstate 95. Seating comprised simple folding chairs and four sets of portable bleachers, with the unconventional scene reflective of the gritty style of the promotion itself. It was from this venue that ECW's TV show ECW Hardcore TV was filmed for broadcast on a Philadelphia local cable sports station (SportsChannel America's local affiliate, SportsChannel Philadelphia) on Tuesday evenings. After Sports Channel Philadelphia went off the air in 1997, the show moved to WPPX-TV 61. It later moved to a former independent broadcast station (WGTW 48) in Philadelphia on either Friday or Saturday night, and at 1:00 a.m. or at 2:00 a.m. Shows were also aired on the MSG Network in New York on Friday nights (early Saturday morning) at 2:00 a.m. Due to the obscurity of the stations and ECW itself, as well as the lack of oversight from the Federal Communications Commission at that late hour, many times expletives and violence were not edited out of these showings, along with extensive use of copyrighted music and music videos.

In 1995, Tod Gordon sold Extreme Championship Wrestling, to his head booker, Paul Heyman, trading as HHG Corporation. Afterward, Gordon remained in ECW as a figurehead commissioner. Years after being the ECW "Commissioner", Gordon left ECW in May 1997; his absence was explained on-air that he retired from wrestling due to family. Rumors circulated, however, that Gordon was fired by Heyman after he was suspected as a "locker room mole" for a rival wrestling promotion, helping to lure talent to World Championship Wrestling.

Expansion outside of Philadelphia

Prior to 1994, ECW had been a regional promotion with the first event to take place outside of the Northeast being a house show on September 23 at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa, Florida. On January 14, 1995, ECW held its first television taping outside the Northeast when they taped an episode of Hardcore TV in Davie, Florida followed by a second Florida taping in Orlando two days later. On December 29, 1995, ECW made its debut in New York City with the first Holiday Hell supercard event taking place at the Lost Battalion Hall in Queens. New York became one of the largest markets for the promotion's live events outside of Philadelphia, drawing capacity crowds to the Lost Battalion Hall, the Elks Lodge, and the Hammerstein Ballroom.

On August 10 and August 11, 1996, ECW held its first events outside the United States when they teamed up with IWA Japan to present ECW vs. IWA vs. True FMW: Total War at the Yokohama Bunka Gymnasium in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan and Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan respectively.

On August 2, 1998, ECW made its Midwestern United States debut when they presented the Heat Wave pay-per-view from Dayton, Ohio. ECW later made regular touring stops in Midwestern cities like Cleveland, Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Kansas City, Missouri, Toledo, Ohio, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Battle Creek, Michigan, Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois either in the city or within the metropolitan area.

On May 12, 2000, ECW made its west coast debut when they presented a live house show during the Electronic Entertainment Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, California as part of a marketing campaign for the ECW Hardcore Revolution video game which was being demoed at the convention. Two months later on July 16, 2000, ECW prsented its first live West coast pay-per-view when they held the 2000 edition of Heat Wave at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, California.

Cross-promotion with the WWF and USWA

Storyline-wise, Vince McMahon first became "aware" of ECW while at the 1995 King of the Ring event in ECW's home base of Philadelphia. During the match between Mabel and Savio Vega, the crowd suddenly started to chant, "ECW! ECW! ECW!". On September 22, 1996, at the In Your House: Mind Games event in Philadelphia, ECW stars The Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, Paul Heyman, and Taz were in the front row with Sandman even interfering in one match (when he threw beer on Savio Vega during his strap match with Bradshaw). McMahon acknowledged ECW's status as a local, up-and-coming promotion on the air. The following night on WWF Monday Night RAW, broadcast on September 23, 1996, at the onset of a match between The Bodydonnas vs. The British Bulldog and Owen Hart, Bill Alfonso, and Taz could be seen invading the program. Both Taz and Alfonso were able to successfully jump the security rails, and Taz was able to prominently display a bright orange sign with black lettering that read "Sabu Fears Taz-ECW". On February 24, 1997, ECW "invaded" Raw from the Manhattan Center. They advanced a storyline, plugged their first ever pay-per-view and worked three matches in front of the WWF audience while McMahon called the action with both Jerry "The King" Lawler and Paul Heyman. The Manhattan Center in New York was peppered with a large number of ECW fans, who gave the WWF wrestlers "Boring!" chants when they felt it was warranted. Likewise, when the ECW performers arrived, they popped and introduced the WWF Monday night audience to some trademark ECW group chants. This invasion sparked an inter-promotional feud between ECW and Lawler's United States Wrestling Association. Lawler disparaged ECW on-camera and convinced wrestlers such as Rob Van Dam and Sabu to join him in an anti-ECW crusade. Throughout 1997, ECW wrestlers appeared on USWA television programs, and vice versa. As part of the working relationship between ECW and the WWF, a number of WWF-contracted wrestlers were sent to ECW for seasoning in 1997, including Droz and Brakkus.

Gaining access to pay-per-view broadcasting

After approximately 18 months of negotiating with pay-per-view providers, ECW broadcast their first pay-per-view (PPV) wrestling card, Barely Legal, on April 13, 1997, highlighted by Terry Funk defeating Raven to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. Gaining access to PPV was seen both internally and externally as a major milestone for ECW as it added a major revenue stream to the company in addition to greatly expanding the size of the company's audience. Although Barely Legal was broadcast from the ECW arena, ECW's transition to PPV would see ECW gaining access to much larger venues. For example, ECW's November to Remember 1997 PPV just months later saw the company perform before 4,634 fans at the Golden Dome in Monaca, Pennsylvania.

In June 1997, the company's Wrestlepalooza '97 event featured Raven's final ECW match before leaving for WCW. In this match, Tommy Dreamer finally beat Raven, his longtime nemesis. Dreamer's celebration was short-lived, though, as Jerry Lawler, along with Sabu and Rob Van Dam showed up to attack Dreamer. This set up a match between Dreamer and Lawler at the pay-per-view, 1997 Hardcore Heaven, on August 17, which was won by Dreamer. ECW continued through 1998 and early 1999 with a string of successful pay-per-views.

1999–2000: National television and talent departures

In August 1999, ECW began to broadcast nationally on TNN (for what was initially a three-year contract) as ECW on TNN. Despite very limited advertising, a minimal budget, and disputes with TNN (reflected in The Network stable), ECW became TNN's highest rated show and bolstered TNN's Friday night slot, both in ratings and line-up. However, within weeks of debuting on TNN ECW was raided by the WWF, who hired away reigning ECW World Champion Taz as well reigning ECW Tag-team Champions the Dudley Boyz. Furthermore, in April 2000 reigning ECW World Heavyweight Champion Mike Awesome jumped ship to WCW in a move completely unforeseen by ECW.

It has been suggested that Awesome refused to sign a new contract with ECW until Paul Heyman paid him overdue wages. There were rumors that WCW Executive Vice-President Eric Bischoff wanted Awesome to drop the ECW World Championship belt in the trash can on television, as had been done previously with the WWF Women's title by Madusa when she jumped from the WWF to WCW. After Paul Heyman filed an injunction, WCW refrained from having Awesome appear on Nitro with the belt, but did acknowledge him as the champion. Eventually, a compromise was reached. Awesome (a WCW employee and the reigning ECW World Heavyweight champion) appeared at an April 13, 2000, ECW event in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he lost the title to Taz (who was working for the World Wrestling Federation). Taz would then lose the title to Tommy Dreamer at CyberSlam 2000 to return the title to ECW's possession, ending what is considered to have been one of the more peculiar arrangements in professional wrestling history.

2000–2001: Cancellation of ECW on TNN and collapse

By October 2000, ECW on TNN was cancelled (with the final episode airing on October 6, 2000) in favor of WWF Raw is War moving to TNN. Paul Heyman stated he believed that the inability to land another national television deal was the cause of ECW's demise.

ECW struggled for months after the cancellation, trying to secure a new national television deal. On December 30, 2000, ECW Hardcore TV aired for the last time and the January 7, 2001, broadcast of Guilty as Charged was ECW's last PPV. ECW's January 13, 2001 show in Pine Bluff, Arkansas would prove to be its final event of any kind. Living Dangerously was scheduled to air on March 11, 2001, but because of financial trouble it was canceled in February. Heyman could not get out of financial trouble; the PPV distributors would not pay the money that was owed to ECW due to Heyman still not being able to sign with a TV network. Consequently, ECW closed on April 4, 2001. Heyman, who became color commentator for Raw is War that February (replacing Jerry Lawler, who quit the WWF in protest after his then-wife, Stacy Carter, had been fired by McMahon), had supposedly never told his wrestlers that ECW was on its last legs and was unable to pay them for a while. Heyman also noted in later years that he had made an effort to put ECW on the USA Network (then the former home of Raw is War) unsuccessfully, despite McMahon having sent an email encouraging USA Network executive Steven Chau to add ECW to their programming.

ECW was listed as having assets totalling $1,385,500. Included in that number was $860,000 in accounts receivable owed to ECW by In Demand Network (PPV), Acclaim (video games) and Original San Francisco Toy Company (action figures). The balance of the assets were the video tape library ($500,000), a 1998 Ford truck ($19,500) and the remaining inventory of merchandise ($4). The liabilities of ECW totalled $8,881,435.17. Wrestlers and talent were listed, with amounts owed ranging from $2 for Sabu and Steve Corino to hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of dollars. The highest amounts owed to talents were Rob Van Dam ($150,000), Shane Douglas ($145,000), Tommy Dreamer ($100,000), Joey Styles ($50,480), Rhyno ($50,000), and Francine Fournier ($47,275).

Many ECW wrestlers moved to the World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA), Xtreme Pro Wrestling (XPW), Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW), IWA Mid-South, XWF, Ring of Honor, and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) which were all formed after the end of ECW and WCW apart from CZW and XPW which were formed in 1999 and IWA Mid-South which was formed in 1996.

2001–2007: The Invasion and acquisition by WWE

A few months after ECW's 2001 demise, ECW resurfaced as a stable as part of the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF, later WWE) Invasion storyline. On the July 9, 2001, edition of Raw is War, Heyman, who had been hired by the WWF as Raw color commentator while ECW was still in bankruptcy proceedings, joined several former ECW alumni on the WWF roster (including the debuting Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer) and claimed that he was bringing ECW back to participate in the Invasion by themselves (at the time, however, the ownership of ECW, including the use of its name on-air, was disputed despite Heyman still technically owning ECW when he jumped ship to the WWF. In addition, WWF faced legal action by Harry Slash & The Slashtones for the use of the song "This Is Extreme!" which was eventually settled). Before Raw is War was over that evening, Heyman and Shane McMahon, who had (kayfabe) purchased World Championship Wrestling (WCW), revealed that they were in cahoots with each other and that Heyman had (also kayfabe) sold ECW to Stephanie McMahon, forming The Alliance to try and wrestle power from Vince McMahon. At that time, the original inter-promotional feud devolved into another internal power struggle among the McMahon family. The defection of WWF superstars to The Alliance continued the shift as less focus was placed on WCW and ECW performers – in fact, with rare exceptions such as Van Dam, the ECW alumni in The Alliance were given even less focus than WCW's performers, with WCW's logo even representing the entire stable. The feud lasted six months and concluded with WWF defeating The Alliance at the 2001 Survivor Series when Kurt Angle attacked Stone Cold Steve Austin, allowing The Rock, who had himself gotten attacked by Chris Jericho during the match (trying to help The Alliance in the process), to get the winning pinfall. The WWF's victory also marked the end of the Invasion storyline and WCW and ECW wrestlers were reintegrated into the WWF.

On January 28, 2003, World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. purchased ECW's assets from HHG Corporation in court, acquiring the rights to ECW's video library. HHG would nominally remain active until it became defunct on January 31, 2007.

2004 Rise and Fall of ECW documentary

Following World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.'s purchase of ECW's assets in January 2003, they used the video library to put together a two-disc DVD titled The Rise and Fall of ECW, which was released in November 2004. The main feature of the DVD set was a nearly three-hour documentary on the company's history, with the other disc featuring 7 matches from the promotion. The documentary proved to be one of the most popular pieces of media ever produced by WWE, with DVDs of the documentary selling in the 100,000s.

In June 2005 an unauthorized DVD called Forever Hardcore was written, directed and produced by Jeremy Borash in response to The Rise and Fall of ECW. The DVD featured interviews with ECW alumni who were not employed by WWE telling their side of ECW's history.

The success of Rise and Fall of ECW and Forever Hardcore led to WWE reassessing the value of the ECW brand and directly resulted in WWE hosting ECW One Night Stand 2005 to further test how much strength remained in the ECW fandom.