This day in wrestling - Rise of ECW

“We have set out to change the face of professional wrestling” – Shane Douglas

As Shane Douglas stood inside the ECW ring with the prestigious NWA World Heavyweight championship in his hands, he looked up to the heavens and remembered his father. As the packed crowd in the arena witnessed the crowning of the new NWA World Heavyweight champion, Paul Heyman and Tod Gordon had other ideas.

They wanted to get out of the NWA’s shadow and create something different. With Shane Douglas as the leader of the revolution, Heyman and Gordon wanted to revolutionize professional wrestling, and show NWA and the traditional wrestling fans that they didn’t respect the legacy of what they had done.

Paul Heyman

Shane Douglas then proceeded to throw down the NWA World title, and proclaimed himself the new ECW World Heavyweight champion. On that night, professional wrestling changed forever, and it was the birth of Extreme Championship Wrestling.

The background of the story gives us the importance of the events which unfolded. The NWA President wanted to crown the new NWA World Heavyweight champion by holding a tournament, but his distaste for Douglas and lack of faith in Gordon insulted Gordon, the then president of “Eastern Championship Wrestling”, and he wanted to do something to show the members of the NWA that he didn’t care about them anymore.

Paul Heyman came up with a plan to get mainstream attention while tarnishing the legacy of the NWA, by asking Shane Douglas to throw the NWA World title after winning it, and unveil the new ECW World Championship. It was an act of defiance and a slap to the legends who wrestled for NWA, and those who held the NWA world title – legends such as Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes. That one rebellious act paved way to the formation of the land of extreme, the new ECW!

“The National Wrestling Alliance was old-school when old-school wasn’t hip anymore. We wanted to set our mark, we wanted to break away from the pack, we wanted to let the world know that we weren’t just some independent promotion” – Paul Heyman

Paul Heyman’s plan worked to perfection, and ECW garnered attention from the wrestling industry not just in North America, but around the world! ECW became the new “it”.

ECW set a benchmark as the hottest wrestling product in the world, and the fans who were tired of WCW and WWF’s product now had an alternative. The more passionate wrestling fans found their “home” in ECW, and that was exactly what Heyman wanted. That one night of breaking the rules saw ECW gaining a cult following, and was the new “cool” thing in professional wrestling. Extreme Championship Wrestling was here to stay, and direct competition to giants such as the WWF and WCW!

The whole saga unfolded on 27^th August in ’94, exactly 19 years ago! On that night, few would’ve imagined it would lead to the rise of a phenomenon in professional wrestling, and would ultimately be the success story of an evil genius by the name of Paul Heyman. 19 years later, Heyman is still a genius at work, but his one decision of going against the authority set the tone for the new organization that he created, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and the rest is history.