KenTheKiller

I was watching a youtuber mention how ECW impacted the wrestling industry so I have to ask, where would the wrestling business be today if it weren't for the influences of ECW (which was directly influenced from FMW)?

To take a look back... before ECW went "extreme" to say wrestling was in a lull is an understatement. The WWF was "family friendly" to an extent that would make WWE haters today worship the current product. They gave numerous "real life job" gimmicks. WCW was pretty terrible at times as well. Then ECW came along and began getting hot so WCW/WWF used a lot of the ideas/made the ideas even better to create the attitude era. Without ECW/FMW, would there be an attitude era?

The entire landscape of the industry could be different, to be honest.

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King Steventon

Also, ECW gave a bunch of Mexican and Japanese wrestlers like Mysterio, Psicosis, Guerrero, Taka, etc their first US exposure. Alot of guys would never got a big break had it not been for ECW giving them the spotlight.

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horrorfan_1986

Let's not forget that Memphis was hardcore before there even was an ECW. >_>

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King Steventon

They didn't innovate it, but they sure as hell popularized it.

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Jay M. Punkster

Its hard to say because ECW did revolutionize the wrestling world. not just the style of matches but the aspect of an underground rebel promotion fighting against bigger brands has really helped Indy promotions in there quest to become big.

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horrorfan_1986

I know ECW fans and the WWE loves the idea that this tiny company impacted so much, but I just have a hard time seeing it.

When all of wrestling started changing (Let's say 1996), ECW was still a mostly Eastern based company. Philadelphia and New York seemingly it's hot beds. I can remember seeing ECW signs as far back as 1994 at WCW shows. However, those shows were in Philly. Most of the ECW invading WWE occurred in New York. What I'm getting at is was there any ECW impact felt elsewhere in the country? The midwest, the southern states, or the west coast. Even though the WWE is based in the New England area, certainly by 1996, they were spreading out far more. With money dwindling in the states, the WWE started taking more overseas tours. If you have a company that is world wide, would you really listen to such a small area of fans such as Philly and in NYC?

I'm not saying ECW didn't have any impact. But keep in mind that they weren't on PPV until 1997, weren't on a national cable network (Besides appearing on Raw) until 1999 and up until then were on small local networks. How the hell can such a small and rather insignificant company influence so much?

The answer is that they didn't.

With the WWE owning ECW, it'll make sense for them to try and make them seem as important as possible. Unlike with WCW, no matter what they say about ECW, WWE was always bigger. The real answer for the change in style is the same reason why the WWE were forced to go to Europe more often. The US market for wrestling was drying up. With the whole steroids issue putting a black eye on wrestling, fans started leaving. Once fans started leaving, Vince started panicking. Through that panicking, many top wrestlers left. While his former money makers (Hogan, Savage, ect) were now in Turnerland, Vince's new top guys weren't drawing. You can say a lot about the quality of Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart, but draws wouldn't be my first pick. (It should be mentioned that Bret was a fairly large draw in Europe, which I can only assume is another reason why they went there more.) So if you're Vince McMahon, what are you going to do? You no longer have your old guys and your new guys aren't working out so well.

The answer is do exactly what you did in the 80's. The WWE became something totally different from the NWA/AWA territories by becoming more contempory. Wrestling was no longer your grandparent's sport. Instead, Vince added more of a Rock n Roll element to his show with celebs and of course a close working relationship with MTV. Those deals brought the WWE big time money. Without it succeeding, the WWE could of very easily crashed and burned from spending all of it's money. Now, the question is, what did the 90's generation of youth enjoy? It obviously wasn't ECW since it was so unknown outside of a few cities. Besides Baywatch, what was perhaps the most popular show on television for young people in the mid-nineties? The Jerry Springer Show.

After several years on the air, The Jerry Springer Show found a way to carve out their own niche of followers by being different from typically talk shows like Oprah. Instead of being heartwarming, they became crude, sexual and controversy. It didn't matter whether people were turned off by the show or not, the show's reputation got people talking. That talking led to more and more people tuning in to see what this show was all about. Compare the show to any Attitude Era Raw and you will see a lot of similarities. Violence, profanity, sex, and a sense of unpredictability. While ECW was hot in small portions of the country, the Jerry Springer Show became a nation wide sensation.

Pardon me for not believing in that a small popular indy company could change the face of wrestling, I'll much rather go with something that appears to be so much more plausible. In the 1980's, Vince saw himself as the Walt Disney of professional wrestling. In the 90's, he modeled himself after Jerry Springer...not Paul Heyman.

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Sam

You bring up a lot of good points, but without ECW, Vince McMahon and the WWF would never have experimented with a crash tv--style presentation for wrestling; nor see the value in shaping and pushing an anti-hero that's more like your dad, than a superhero you really couldn't relate to. True, ECW didn't have national exposure, until about '99 but they had the smart marks, who were telling their friends and showing them tapes.

ECW also had syndication on the lesser channels, which surprisingly enough, enabled them in some markets to reach people more easily and affordably whereas WWF and WCW could not--myself being one of them. That was to say they weren't as boxed in with their influence as others would make you believe.

WWF and WCW sprinkled their roster with ECW wrestlers, knowing how passionate about the product. They put them in situations to make that were "ECW-like"--ie Raven's Rules, Hardcore Rules--so that they could steal away that passion, and transform it into passion for their brand. If ECW and Paul Heyman who could take anybody and make them sparkle like a diamond, didn't have that much impact, curiserweights wouldn't have been able to enjoy success in a world traditionally dominated by bigger men. Cactus Jack would still be wandering around with amnesia, and perhaps more importantly, the WWF would still be wondering how to use Steve Austin.

With his storylines and types of characters, Paul Heyman showed both organizations that the fans who were kids in the 80's were now college ready fans with hormones pumping and that if you cater to them at that level they will pledge their allegiance to you. His storylines and angles matured along with those fans, something WWF and WCW hadn't done. The fan interaction was off the page, something again that WWF and WCW was not willing to do.

As far as Jerry Springer having more influence on the WWF than ECW? I'd have to disagree. While they may have shared the same target demographic, WWF fans were chanting "E-C-W! E-C-W! E-C-W!" not "Jer-ry!, Jer-ry!, Jer-ry!"

Heyman Deciple

This is true, I have an old best of Memphis tape and there's a match with the Rock and Roll Express against Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo and at the end of the match Savage piledrives Ricky Morton through the announce table and this was way before Savage's WWF run.

As to ECW's influence, as my user name would suggest I'm a massive Heyman fan even though the second part of my name is misspelled. >_>

But I do believe ECW did have an influence. Just look at the rosters that made up the WWF and WCW rosters towards 99 and 2000 and you'll see a large amount of ECW talent in each promotion. Now maybe those guys would have gotten those opportunities without ECW but being in ECW certainly helped.

And I do believe Vince McMahon took elements of ECW programming and applied to his own product and made his own and there's nothing wrong with that. That's good business. Plus Ed Ferrara who was at one time helping to write the WWF programming along with Vince Russo has said he was a big ECW fan and ECW did have an influence on the stuff he helped book.

And I read an interview with Jim Cornette once where he said Russo would take things from ECW because he knew the smarks would love it. Like the Blue Meanie being brought in and doing his whole Blue Dust character which is something he did in ECW.