Scott E. Williams - Hardcore History: The Extremely Unauthorized Story of the ECW

SCOTT E. WILLIAMS

with photos by GEORGE TAHINOS

Foreword by The Franchise Shane Douglas

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2011 by Scott E. Williams Foreword copyright 2006, 2007, 2011 by Shane Douglas Photos copyright 2006, 2007, 2011 by George Tahinos

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sports Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Sports Publishing books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sports Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or sportspubbooks@skyhorsepublishing.com.

Sports Publishing is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

Visit our website at www.sportspubbooks.com

10 987654321

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-61321-041-3

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to my parents, Charles and Donna Williams.

My dad, for all the times he took my young self to wrestling matches when he would rather have been watching gravy congeal.

My mom, for getting me my first typewriter and a subscription to
Writers Digest, and for reading every goofy piece
of writing I ever came up with.

They have both supported me through every problem I created for
myself and with every crazy aspiration I chased. They were the only
two people who never doubted when, as early as age eight, I said I
would write a book, so this ones for them.

Dedicating a book to the two of them is not nearly thanks enough.

MUCH HAS BEEN WHITEN about the wrestling revolution that began in Philadelphia in the early 1990s. Much of it has been covered with the sands of time, but even today whenever an action looks remotely legit, legions of fans worldwide chant with raised chests, E-C-Dub! E-C-Dub! E-C-Dub!a fact that has bedeviled the princely Vinnie Mac.

Only a handful of those legions, though, were first-round players in that revolution. Today, the path that wrestling has taken since ECWs inception seems to be almost universally known. The shelves of DVD distributors are littered with volumes that repute to tell the story of ECW, even its rise and fall. However, the complete story has gone largely untolduntil now.

Scott Williams, the co-author of the Terry Funk and Bill Watts autobiographies, has painstakingly researched the revolution that changed wrestling and even continues to hold sway over the loyal legions who call themselves wrestling fans. Williams has approached the retelling of the revolution with the zeal of a prosecutor preparing to indict a mob kingpin. Much of the story was news to me, the central figure of what was this new organization of extremeits Franchise.

As a 23-year veteran of our great sport, I am proud to say that the crowning achievement of my career was spent as the main evil antagonist of this revolution. Professional wrestling has been, since its inception, the male version of a soap opera. Loved by generations, its following has grown larger with each successive generation that has watched it. That was until the early 1990s.

Following the titanic success of wrestling in the 1980s with its larger-than-life superstar, Hulk Hogan, it seemed as though wrestling could grow no larger. The personification of Train, say your prayers, take your vitamins! had run out of evildoers to combat. Or had he? The genius behind the then-World Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon, believed he could use his Midas touch to create an even more menacing set of villains for his superstar Hulkster to face and vanquish. Sort of a wrestling meets Star Wars. On paper it sounded fine. In practice it was dreadful. Suddenly those of us who grew up loving wrestling were being inundated with grown men in turkey costumes who were calledand Im not joking herethe Gobbledygooker. Garbage men, mad plumbers, and every sort of inane character were being introduced to endanger Hulksters rule. There was only one tiny problem with this business plan.

At this time reality TV was in its infancy and growing fast. Shows like Cops were just beginning to peak the interest of the same target audience as professional wrestling, the 18- to 49-year-old male demographic. Reality was all the rage, and grown men dressed as chickens were not even close to reality!!!

Enter the era of extreme!!! Using the blue-collar feel of shows like Cops, a band of largely unknown wrestlers was setting the stage to wrest the reins of wrestling away from the WWFs Vince McMahon and place them solely in the hands of a man who even those of us who worked for him would call insaneMr. Paul Heyman.

On my first trip to Philadelphia for then-Eastern Championship Wrestling, I was picked up at the airport with the true legend of our sport, Terry Funk.

Terry, I asked on our way to the arena, how long do you think well ride this train before it runs off the tracks?

Hopefully, he responded, well get a couple of weekends of pay out of it.

In actuality my career would reside at ECW for more than seven glorious years. Seven years that would transform wrestling from the corniness of the WWFs Gobbledygooker to the New Attitude, which would literally save the federation.

ECW took a violent Japanese style of wrestling and built it upon a core of largely unproven or untested wrestlers. Few of us had ever been on U.S. television, let alone main-event players. But what we lacked in resum, we more than made up for it with attitude, and loads of it.

I once coined the phrase, the island of misfit toys in referring to the band of brothers who would become the foot soldiers who brought the revolution to life and carried it to its ignominious end. We were the boys who didnt fit in the WWF or WCW. No, we were just the names that would ignite the flame of the sport of professional wrestling in that little bingo hall at the corners of Swanson and Ritner streets in Philly.

This is the book of the story of that revolution. This is as complete a retelling of that story as you will find. Read on and engage the revolution that was ECW, ECW, ECW! Long live the revolution!!!

THE FRANCHISE SHANE DOUGLAS

OBVIOUSLY there are more people who deserve thanks than there is room to list them. Luckily, most of them are people whose names are connected to a quote or two. Certain folks bear specific mention, however.

Thanks to Sports Publishing for giving me the opportunity to tell this story. Many thanks also to my editor on this book, Elisa Bock Laird. Without her steering this ship, it would be lost at sea. The really clever subheadings in each chapter were hers.

I would also like to thank each of the many ECW performers and crew members who took the time to help me understand the unique time and place in wrestling that ECW represented. Special thanks to Shane Douglas, for his time, insights, and a wonderful foreword. Raven, in addition to being one of the funniest pro wrestlers ever, was also very generous with his time.

Also, many thanks to Jim Sukman for sharing his vast ECW collection. Jim, along with Jason Hess, Michael Mensik, and John D. Williams also deserve credit for listening to me babble incessantly about this book.