The Rise & Fall of ECW (26 page)

A
s traffic went by on Interstate 95 and people went about their everyday lives, just a short distance away, in an industrial section of south Philadelphia, something was about to happen in the lives of a group of people that was hardly everyday.

On April 13, 1997, in a bingo hall that also served as a warehouse for Mummers Day floats and uniforms, lives were about to change, and the tension that surrounded the arena reflected the anxieties about the uncertainties of the day.

Paul Heyman had no time for such uncertainties. He had to keep everyone focused on the task at hand, and put out all the fires that would flare up before and during the company’s first Pay-Per-View.

“I knew walking into this day that everybody had to be on the same page,” Heyman says. “Everybody got to the arena early.”

The ECW Arena has been painted. Additional lighting had been brought in. The big TV production truck was outside, setting up shop. The generator and backup generators are running, and everything is being tested. The Pay-Per-View company supervisors are on the scene, trying to ride herd. The state athletic commission is represented to make sure that
Barely Legal
doesn’t somehow become
Very Illegal
and violate state laws.

While all this is going on, a Hollywood filmmaker named Barry Blaustein is there with his camera crew, filming the event and the behind-the-scenes intrigue for a wrestling documentary he is making, called
Beyond the Mat.
Fans have been lining up for hours outside the arena, partying and waiting to get in, going nearly crazy with anticipation of this long-awaited event that they themselves lobbied for with letters and phone calls to the Pay-Per-View company. Backstage is even more crowded than it normally is before the show, with family members on hand to witness the historic occasion.

“We are doing this live, national Pay-Per-View out of a bingo hall on the wrong side of the tracks in south Philadelphia,” Heyman says.

Adding to the tension was a rumor circulating that a group of WCW wrestlers, who were in town because Bischoff had changed his
Monday Night Nitro
show to be in Philadelphia the following night to take attention away from the ECW Pay-Per-View, were going to show up and disrupt the show.

That rumor appeared to be one more problem for Heyman, but at the time, it turned out to be just what he needed. “It brought everybody together,” he points out. “These motherfuckers are going to try to take down what we built? Fuck them. You saw it sweep the locker room, this group that had been so tight and has become so fragmented and frazzled in the past week, started bonding again. It was tangible.”

Heyman went over what was going to happen in everyone’s matches. People checked camera angles, lighting, sound. There was a list a mile long of tasks to do. “In some ways, the day seems like a blur, like it happened in five seconds,” Heyman says. “In other ways it was like a five-hundred-hour day.”

As the hour got closer, the energy from the crowd and the wrestlers was reaching fever pitch. Then, about a half hour before the 9
P.M
. live telecast was about to start, the rumor became reality—there were a group of WCW wrestlers at the back gate trying to get into the arena.

“The whole locker room goes back there, like a pack of rabid dogs,” Heyman recalls.

But it turned out to be a group of wrestlers who weren’t there to create trouble. In fact, they were sympathetic to the ECW style. Still, their presence in the arena would have been a distraction at best, a disaster at worst, particularly with such a volatile fan base that had such a deep hatred for WCW. Heyman had to keep them out. He asked them to leave.

“Guys, this isn’t the night to show up,” Heyman said to them. “We have to keep this in house. Please be respectful to our needs and our situation. We can’t even let friends in tonight from another organization, because we can’t trust anybody.” The wrestlers left without incident, and everyone went back to the locker room to gather just before the show was about to begin. It was then that Heyman—a legendary motivator—gave a legendary speech that was captured on Blaustein’s film.

“I had pulled back on the speeches for a while because I thought they were becoming too commonplace. As much as the reputation was there of being a motivator, I also knew if the speeches became commonplace, you lose the ability to motivate people because it just becomes tonight’s pump-up speech: ‘Let’s go out there and win one for the Gipper.’ It has to be something special to talk about.”

This was something special to talk about.

Standing on a set of steps, Heyman spoke to his loyal troops: “There are 17 million homes that have availability for this show tonight that will pay $20, hopefully”—Heyman knocks on the wooden bannister—“for the privilege to see you guys do what you have done for three and a half years. Thank Terry Funk for all that he has done for this company, for helping to put us on the map, for being unselfish in selfish times, for taking the young guys and showing them a better way. Tonight we have a chance to say, ‘Yeah, you’re right, we’re too extreme. We’re too wild. We’re too out of control. We’re too full of our own shit.’ Or we have a chance to say, ‘Hey, fuck you, you’re wrong. Fuck you, we’re right.’ Because you have all made it to the dance. Believe me, this is the dance. Start the show.”

The wrestlers applauded, and then everyone hugged each other before stepping out into the lights, cameras, and live action.

Just before, an incident occurred that illustrates many things about that night and ECW—a technical glitch that shows the chaos of the event and the power that Heyman had over his minions.

Bob Artese was the ring announcer at the ECW Arena. Because this was a live event, he would have to be able to take commands from Heyman and others behind the scenes while he was in the ring—something he had never dealt with before. So he was fitted for an earpiece and told by Heyman to put it in his right ear.

About twenty minutes before the start of the show, Heyman, wearing a headset, started running checks to make sure everyone could communicate with him.

“Everyone can hear me, right? Can the truck hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Hard camera, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Producer, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Bob Artese, can you hear me? Bob, go ahead and announce the dark match. Go, Bob, go.”

Artese is standing in the middle of the ring, looking at Heyman and not saying a word.

“Okay, Bob, go. Okay, Bob, go.”

Artese is still staring at Heyman, silent.

“Truck, can you hear me? Cameramen, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Timekeeper, can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, Go Bob, go. Dark match. We’re a minute behind now. Please Bob, go.”

Finally, Heyman takes off the headset and screams at the top of his lungs.

“Godfuckingdammit, Bob, go.”

Artese starts. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.”

Perplexed, Heyman spent the rest of the night communicating with Artese through the timekeeper. “Tell Bob to announce the winner.” Or “Tell Bob to announce the next match.”

After the show, Heyman pulled Artese aside in a little room under the stairs.

“Bob, can I have your earpiece?”

Artese gives it to Heyman, who puts it in his ear, presses on his headset button, and says, “Hello.” It was so loud his ears were ringing.

“Bob, did you have this in your ear?”

“Yeah, like you told me.”

“Did it fit okay?”

“Yeah, it fit perfectly.”

“Bob, we fit you for this thing, you put it in your ear, you go out to the ring. It works. I tell you to go, and you don’t go. Why?”

“I’m deaf in that ear.”

“What?”

“I have no hearing in my right ear. I can only hear in my left ear.”

“So, Bob, why did you put the earpiece in your right ear?”

“You told me to. Who am I to question you?”

“I understand the logic, but next time maybe it would behoove you to tell me that you are deaf.”

Years later, Heyman still laughs at the exchange. “How could you get mad at him?” he says. “He respected me so much he put the earpiece in his deaf ear. I didn’t know how to argue with that logic.”

The action began in the ring, with The Eliminators facing the Dudley Boyz for the ECW Tag Team titles. “We got our asses handed to us by The Eliminators, but it was a special night because it was our first Pay-Per-View,” D-Von Dudley recalls. “Everything was on the line. Like
WrestleMania,
when Vince put everything into it, and if it had failed, who knows what would have happened? It was like that for
Barely Legal.
You had to get over, no matter what. There couldn’t be anybody who had an off night, from the opening match to the last match, it had to be a home run, because the company’s future and our future was at stake. I remember how intense the locker room was. You could just feel it. People were scared to death. They didn’t know what to do. They knew that you couldn’t mess up. You had to be on top of your game, no matter what. We made it so good that those people at the arena were on their feet from the time it started until the end. It was unreal.”