The Collapse And Final Days Of ECW

The city of Pine Bluff, Arkansas is home to a population of over 40,000, as well as Bayou Bartholomew, the longest bayou on the planet, and the state's first-ever purpose-built casino. It may not be the most diametrically-opposed location on Earth to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but at more than 1100 miles southwest of the heart of the City of Brotherly Love, it is very far from the home of Extreme Championship Wrestling. 

Yet on January 13, 2001, Pine Bluff hosted the final-ever event from ECW in front of 1300 fans. The events leading up to that fateful day was the culmination of a sad and torturous decline for the promotion that once defined pro wrestling's rebellious spirit.

Permanent Financial Struggles

While ECW was incredibly influential on the history of professional wrestling, the promotion suffered from a major shortcoming in that the company’s revenue continually left ECW stuck in a precarious no-man’s land. Never a major money-earner on their best day, Paul Heyman's organisation experienced financial difficulties throughout their lifetime. 

While ECW grew respectively enough from their roots into a company that ran decently-sized civic centres and auditoriums, there was a clear ceiling above their heads, perhaps due in part to the un-advertiser-friendly product that ECW produced. Additionally, with their limited resources, Heyman also had to shell money out to compete with the "big boys" like WWE and WCW, monetarily placating quality talents that might be inclined to find better deals for themselves elsewhere. Popular as they were, ECW was a small fish in a big pond.

As Heyman himself summarised in a quote from the promotion's dying days, ECW was: "Too big to be small-time, but...too small to be big-time."

Even while they were finalising a deal to bring ECW onto national cable channel TNN in the summer of 1999, Extreme Championship Wrestling were believed to be in serious financial peril. Despite gaining a major TV foothold, ECW apparently still had to foot the bill for production costs for the program, worth an estimated $25,000 per week, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

To make matters more difficult, their relationship with TNN was a highly-contentious one. The onset of the TNN era already saw ECW lose three cornerstones in Taz and The Dudley Boyz to WWE, but other valuable stars left one by one at the turn of the millenium.

Sabu quit the promotion in March, leading to some contentious legal issues over the validity of his contract. A month later, reigning champion Mike Awesome jumped to WCW in yet another messy situation that required legal intervention, with Lance Storm following in May of 2000. Meanwhile, Raven's second stint in ECW ended that July, cordially finishing up before a move to WWE.

Having lost so much starpower, ECW’s only fightback was bringing back The Sandman and building up a young Rhino. 

ECW Lose Their TNN TV Deal 

Losing so many talents was only the beginning, however, as ECW soon lost their national TV deal after just over 13 months on the air. 

In the year-plus that the show aired, there always seemed to be issues between the two sides, whether it was TNN wanting to tone down the "extremeness" of the product, or Heyman feeling that TNN (and parent company Viacom) were doing the bare minimum to promote the one-hour Friday night show.

There was also Heyman’s anti-TNN rant during a June 2000 episode, which the network aired with the verbiage bleeped out, and TNN ran a crawl that spoke condescendingly of Heyman and his mental state too. 

If anything, Viacom seemed to be a little more starstruck by WWE and their main property, Raw is War and in June of 2000, Viacom won the broadcast rights to Raw and WWE’s other USA Network programs, to begin airing on TNN in the autumn.

Friday, September 22 looked set to be the final episode of ECW on TNN, but the program lingered on life support a little while longer after Vince McMahon, who often helped Paul Heyman and ECW, waived the exclusivity clause in the WWE-Viacom deal. In theory, this would have allowed ECW to continue shopping around for a new cable TV home without losing their means of broadcasting before the end of 2000. 

Despite WWE's allowance, TNN wasn't as openly willing to keep ECW on the air for three extra months. The network merely agreed to keep ECW on the air for two more broadcasts through October 6, pending further discussion about the future. Ultimately, ECW and TNN ended their relationship on Wednesday, October 11 and, despite hopes that Heyman could quickly broker a deal with another cable outlet, nothing materialised. 

Through the years, rumours have persisted that Heyman no-showed a spate of events around this time due to being in Los Angeles, reportedly trying to get a new TV deal, with there being claims that Heyman met with representatives from USA Network and FX. Outspoken talents in New Jack and CW Anderson, meanwhile, claimed Heyman was actually in LA filming scenes for the remake of Rollerball, something which Heyman denied in 2017. 

With the death of their TV deal, ECW were left with their monthly pay-per-views, the lesser-distributed syndicated show Hardcore TV, and a relationship with the music-centric USA Network show farmclub.com, which failed to help land ECW anything further on the channel. The only other option appeared to be Fox Sports Net, but it wasn't a financially-viable alternative either. 

ECW Can’t Cover Payroll & Shows Are Cancelled

At this point, ECW could ill afford to involve themselves with guaranteed money losers. They were already losing plenty.

Video game publisher Acclaim - the driving force behind two poorly-received ECW titles - sunk $350,000 into the company earlier in 2000 to help cover payroll, but it was quickly becoming a fire that available means couldn't put out. By September, reports indicated that wrestlers were four weeks behind in pay. 

After a TV taping that month in Ontario, the wrestlers weren't paid, and were instead informed that their cheques would be FedExed to them later in the week after the currency was converted. As Dave Meltzer wrote, that promise was not followed up on. To make matters even worse, live events in Nebraska and Iowa scheduled for mid-September were cancelled.

October was spent trying to play catch-up on pay, as by the middle of the month, ECW had gotten down to just two weeks behind on cheques. Heyman even supposedly baulked at hiring recent free agent Juventud Guerrera, partially because bringing in an expensive name while others were still owed money probably wouldn't be good for morale.

One name who did show up for an unexpected cup of coffee was a pretty big star in his own right in Scott Hall, who worked a pair of events in New York state in November, but never officially appeared on ECW's syndicated television, despite the company incessantly plugging the news of his arrival throughout the hour-long show.

Hall allegedly agreed to work the shows for free, which the locker room apparently didn't believe. Some viewed it as Heyman bringing in an outsider during a period where the regulars weren't being consistently paid, while trying to assure those talents that he was being sympathetic to their lack of income.

While those New York shows went on as planned, cancellations elsewhere only continued as events in Camden, New Jersey and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania at the end of October were pulled from the schedule.

Then another issue arose as Rob Van Dam, by this point ECW’s top star, headed to Thailand in the first week of October to film Black Mask 2, and he missed shows in Michigan, including in his long-stated hometown of Battle Creek. There was more than just filming keeping RVD out of the ring, however, as he was also owed a lot of money. Rumours emerged that Van Dam had quit ECW due to the money troubles, which he publicly denied. 

Still, he and ECW were both keeping mostly quiet on the subject while they worked to settle the issue. His future with the company was uncertain enough that his name was never mentioned once during the November to Remember pay-per-view in Chicago.

As December dawned, the situation only grew bleaker. Live events in Dallas and Houston for that month were cancelled, and wrestlers fell behind a reported six weeks on pay. Dave Meltzer reported that Heyman initially was hesitant to promote the Massacre on 34th Street pay-per-view for December 3, because he wasn't even sure who would be appearing.

Van Dam took to his website to discuss his prolonged absence, saying in part: "As of today, I am definitely an employee with ECW and I haven't spoken with anybody else. The outlook from right now is somewhat questionable. Whenever I'm working for somebody, I'm there 110%, so, as of now, I'm still with ECW and I definitely hope to see it take off."

However, by mid-December, Van Dam had reportedly asked to be let out of his contract, as did longtime on-screen rival Jerry Lynn, who had been ECW World Heavyweight Champion as recently as November 5. Heyman allegedly went so far as to try and help Lynn get hired by WWE around this time, reportedly speaking with Bruce Prichard at the November 28 SmackDown tapings in Lynn's native Minneapolis.

One veteran ECW star that did leave was New Jack, an ECW mainstay since 1995. He last wrestled in a dark match at the December pay-per-view, before parting with Heyman at an event in Queens, New York two weeks later.

That Queens show on December 15 at the Elks Lodge proved to be a historic one. Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley were on loan from WWE for one night to team with Tommy Dreamer in a six-man tag. Meanwhile, fellow WWF star Taz briefly re-emerged to share the ring with two of his pupils in reigning ECW World Tag Team Champions Danny Doring and Roadkill. In yet another ominous sign, though, while the venue did sell out to its seating capacity of 800 patrons, there was none of the "standing room" overflow of years past. Tickets being priced up at $40 to $60 may have played a part.

Eight nights later on December 23, the company ran a show for the final time at the ECW Arena in Philadelphia. Just like in Queens, the seats were filled, but there was none of the standing room excess of a promotion running hot. This was the final card before the Guilty as Charged pay-per-view on January 7, and very little about that pay-per-view card was known, even coming out of the ECW Arena show.

Paul Heyman Fails To Secure Investors In ECW

Around this time, Paul Heyman reached out to Smashing Pumpkins frontman and future-NWA owner Billy Corgan about a 10 per cent stake in ECW for $1 million. Corgan, however, knew many of the ECW’s wrestlers on a personal level and knew they were owed substantial sums due to missed payroll.  

Corgan told Ariel Helwani in 2022 (H/T Fightful): “The backstory is, I was friendly with a lot of the wrestlers, so I knew how much money Heyman owed the wrestlers. Somebody who was my go-between for Heyman and I said, ‘He wants to have dinner with you.’ He took me out to a deli in New York. I got the whole vintage Paul Heyman cutting promos to little ol’ Billy Corgan at the deli counter, basically saying, ‘How would you like to be an investor in ECW?’ I said, ‘How much?’ ‘A million dollars.’ ‘What do I get for my million dollars?’ ‘10%.’ ‘Paul, I can do math, and I know ECW is not worth $10 million.’ Of course, I didn’t tell him I knew how much debt ECW was in. The only thing I look back on that story on is, it wasn’t too long after that where ECW went out of business and the McMahons took it over. It would have been funny if I had actually bought 10% because I would have been in a position to negotiate with the McMahons at that point.”

The Final ECW PPV

As the calendar flipped to 2001, Heyman entertained the idea of selling. He said that in order for him to part with ECW, the buyer would have to assure major cable TV, and pay off all debts. As Heyman contemplated a likely end, the television situation went completely limp. The New York-based MSG Network stopped carrying ECW Hardcore TV, while the Philadelphia syndicate began running the same December episode on a weekly loop, having not received any new tapes from the company.

By the time of the January 7 pay-per-view in New York, even the most optimistic fans and wrestlers were losing faith. While talents did receive a portion of their owed money at the event, many were still seven weeks behind on pay. The loss of their New York TV outlet only fragmented the already-dwindling morale. 

Jerry Lynn didn't even bring his wrestling gear to Guilty as Charged due to being in almost no mood to wrestle. He only did perform when he coerced Heyman into paying him up front for that night, and he ended up wrestling in generic black trunks provided by another wrestler, which he had to hold up with electrical tape due to a difference in waist size.

Lynn’s opponent was Rob Van Dam, who was flown in as the payoff to a promised surprise. That surprise had been advertised as something truly monumental, leading hopeful fans to believe it would be the announcement of a new TV deal or the sale of the company to somebody with deeper pockets. This ultimately meant the reveal of Van Dam was underwhelming for those in attendance. 

In a sign of the issues in ECW, when ECW World Television Champion Rhino issued an impromptu challenge to new ECW World Heavyweight Champion The Sandman, Rhino disavowed the title by shouting, “This f*ckin’ poor-ass company don't even have TV.”

By the time ECW rolled into their final ever two shows, there was no TV champion, nor was there a physical belt as somebody reportedly stole it at the Queens card in December, and it hadn't been seen since.

The Death Knell of ECW

Although television was functionally a dead issue for ECW, they still taped TV in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, one day before another planned event in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Many notable talents did not attend, including Rob Van Dam, Jerry Lynn, Kid Kash, Mikey Whipwreck, Balls Mahoney, Dawn Marie, and tag team champion Roadkill.

Also absent was recent world champion Steve Corino, reportedly due to a dispute with Heyman between the pay-per-view and then. Reportedly, some of the heat stemmed from Corino refusing to blade during the Guilty as Charged main event after discovering what he was going to be paid for the event. 

In all, only 15 of the 28 wrestlers who worked the Sunday pay-per-view were at these two events. Not even Heyman was in attendance.

Super Crazy and Yoshihiro Tajiri were also going to miss the shows but were talked into appearing by promoter Victor Quinones. He reasoned that things were tough for Heyman, and they should show their support for him because Heyman was the one who made them stars in the United States. Tommy Dreamer ended up filling in for Roadkill as Doring's tag team championship partner on the Saturday show, while Nova (the future Simon Dean) did so on that Friday.

The 8500-seat Pine Bluff Convention Center played host to just 1300 fans on that fateful Saturday night. With no more shows on the horizon, it was dawning upon everyone present that, barring a genuine miracle, this was likely the end.

The event was ECW enough: Super Crazy beat Tajiri. Tommy Dreamer and Danny Doring retained the tag team belts over The FBI. In what some might consider the last real ECW World Heavyweight Title match, Rhino retained over Spike Dudley.

In a two-match main event, Justin Credible defeated The Sandman in a brief bout via cheating. Sandman then challenged him to an immediate rematch, and then fetched a dumpster full of weapons. Sandman won the more ECW-centric brawl with a piledriver.

After the match, Tommy Dreamer brought trash cans full of beers to the ring, and the roster came out to share a lengthy, legitimately-tearful toast.

Though Dreamer had apparently been saying backstage that the Living Dangerously pay-per-view was still tentatively planned for March 11, many saw this for what it was in the series finale. The final, scarcely-seen images of ECW were of a roster saying goodbye with near certainty, while some Arkansas fans chanted, "Please come back."

Living Dangerously never came to be. The weekend prior to its scheduled occurrence, the show was officially cancelled, replaced by an encore presentation of Guilty as Charged.

As for Heyman, he showed up unexpectedly on the March 5 episode of WWE Raw as the new replacement for Jerry Lawler, who had quit the prior week. For even the most hopeful ECW hangers-on, Heyman's place at the Raw commentary desk was all the writing on the wall they needed.

A month later, ECW parent company HHG Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a net of $7.5 million in debt. Just some of the debts included $1 million to Acclaim and $150,000 to pay-per-view distributor In Demand. Of all the wrestlers and other talent, Van Dam appeared to be owed the most at $150,000. Rhino himself was reportedly owed $50,000. Some, like Jerry Lynn, Sandman, and New Jack, had "unknown" listed for their amounts.

By the time bankruptcy proceedings began, it had seemed like forever since ECW was a functioning wrestling company, and yet it had only been three months. An entity like that with such a truly hardcore fanbase came to quickly notice the void left by their promotion of choice.

Others have tried to co-opt the ECW flavour, whether it was WWE and TNA utilising lost concepts and cult superstars, or daring indies trying to assume the unclaimed mantle. But it was never the same thing. ECW was a lightning-in-a-bottle concept, one that you had to be there in its time to truly understand, if not appreciate.

Over 20 years have passed since the authentic ECW experience died, the final scenes occurring just about as far away from its home as an overgrown indy promotion could be.

ECW lived dangerously, loudly, and caustically. But on January 13, 2001, they went out not with a fiery wreck befitting their image, but with a tearful, borderline-muted fade to black.