The Rise & Fall of ECW (35 page)

Chris Jericho: “Paul is the master Machiavellian manipulator, and I say that with the utmost love in my heart for him. It is impossible to be mad at this guy. He is such a great motivator and such a positive guy. Behind the scenes at shows, he would have meetings and pump the guys up. There were guys in that locker room who would have killed for Paul, I’m sure. They almost killed themselves for him. He was also 100 percent full of shit, and if you knew that about him, it was easy to get along with him. As a booker and a story-line master, he could be one of the best I ever worked for. As far as organization for a promotion, I think he was in over his head.

“One time I got my ticket, and I was going with another Calgary wrestler named Johnny Smith. I called to change my seat, and the airline said, ‘We got your seat, and we are very sorry about your brother-in-law.’ I said, ‘Excuse me?’ They said, ‘We’re very sorry about your brother-in-law passing away.’ I said, ‘My brother-in-law, what are you talking about?’ They said, ‘Your bereavement fare. We’re sorry your brother-in-law, Chris Benoit, passed away.’ I said, ‘Oh, my brother-in-law. I’m sorry, I’ve been so distraught over this whole thing, and I apologize.’ This jackass waited so long to do this he bought a bereavement fare for me. So me and Johnny Smith were trying to figure out how we were related, if he was both of our brother-in-law. When I got to the arena, I told Paul E., ‘Look, if you are going to book me on these kinds of fares, let me know about it first.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and he pulls out this big pad of hospital papers. He writes down, ‘Thank you for allowing this fare to go,’ and blah, blah, blah, and signed it Paul Heyman, M.D. Sometimes the airlines want to see a doctor’s note for bereavement fares. So I had my signed Paul E. doctor’s note just in case.

“But then you would show up for the match, and it would be the best time ever, and it was all worthwhile.

“The thing is, on the independent scene, which we all were at the time, if another promoter tried to pull that crap, you would say, ‘Forget it, I’m not going, I don’t need that hassle.’ But with Paul E., it was just part of the deal. It gave you the right to work in ECW. That is how important it was to be there. That is how addictive and fun…That is how to describe ECW in one word—fun.”

Spike Dudley: “It was a family. We weren’t making the most money. Things were tight. When we traveled, we would have four or five guys in a rental car, and in a hotel room. We partied together, hung together. There was no office or headquarters. The office was Paulie. Most people would say it was the happiest time they had in wrestling, even when checks were bouncing. As long as we had a show, man, we were happy. It was a very special time and place.”

Lance Storm: “I think a lot of people misunderstand what ECW was. They think it was just the blood and guts. What the difference was in ECW…I always looked at wrestling as art, and in ECW you were allowed to paint whatever picture you wanted, and if it would sell, you would succeed. In WCW and WWE, you were an artist for hire and you had to paint the pictures they were telling you to. That is why everyone loved ECW so much. As an artist, you were allowed to paint whatever picture you wanted. The fans appreciated it because they got to see everything. You had the Chris Benoits in there, and he just wrestled, that was what he did. You got to see the best wrestlers wrestle. Then you had the guys who wanted to throw a stick and land in barbed wire and bleed, and since that was what they wanted to do and were passionate about it, fans got to see that. They got to see an art gallery that had the best painters painting the pictures they wanted, instead of seeing artists for hire painting the pictures they were told to.”

Al Snow: “Professional wrestling is an art form. It is not a science. The reason that
Mona Lisa
is in the Louvre is because it was painted with passion, an artistic expression. Paint-by-number pictures are not. In a lot of cases, nowadays, people are trying to control performances, but it has to be an expression. Paul E. would come to you and say, ‘This is what I want.’ Then it was up to you to do it, however you felt you needed to do it to get what you wanted, or to get yourself over. The other thing about ECW was the true, absolute comradery that we all had. It was amazing. At that point WWE was cutthroat. Morale was down. Business was bad. To go to ECW and watch everyone support each other and cheer on the other guy was great. You would do something good or get over really good, and then go back to the dressing room behind the curtain, and they would all be clapping. Everybody would appreciate what you just did. That was like night and day. This is the way it should be. Everybody there was trying to get everyone over, to put on a show that we all cared about. The guys were trying to put on the best show we could, from top to bottom. We wanted those people leaving saying, ‘Damn, what a great show.’”

Joey Styles: “The one thing that we had in ECW was the us-against-them attitude. We always felt that WCW and WWE were constantly trying to put us out of business. So it was us against them, so you saw a lot less of the backbiting and the political maneuvering and the every-man-for-himself attitude that you see elsewhere in the sports entertainment industry. It was us against them, and we all put the company first.”

Tazz: “ECW was built on an ethic. The word ‘hardcore’ is just a gimmick word. Hardcore wrestling wasn’t violence and tables and blood. Hardcore wrestling was a work ethic. No matter if there were a hundred people in the seats or a thousand, you busted your ass. You worked hard, and that is what hardcore meant. To me, hardcore was a work ethic, our attitude. We were the little engine that could, and we did.”

Paul Heyman: “In the 1980s there were thirty-seven full-time wrestling territories, and they all got wiped out by the McMahon expansion. The Memphis territory survived because they could always find someone to put up a few hundred grand, and then pay their wrestlers $25 a night. They would run shows with thirty people and make money because they wouldn’t pay anybody and bilk investors. The Von Erichs went out of business, and that was a huge company. Bill Watts sold out to Jim Crockett. Jim Crockett sold out to Ted Turner. Verne Gagne went out of business. Stu Hart went out of business. All these territories went out of business. All that was left was Vince and Turner. The only way to compete with these giant companies was to be a giant company, and we weren’t. We were a company that was strictly based on Paul Heyman’s bookings. There was no budget, no advertising, no big pay scale, comparatively. The fan interaction was the story, and to this day still is. It was the most interactive form of sports entertainment that has ever happened.

“My two greatest inspirations for ECW can be boiled down to two instances in my life. I saw a lot of concerts when I was a kid. I saw a Led Zeppelin concert, and the audience would sing all the songs with them. Once I saw them when Jimmy Page was so high, I think he gave Keith Richards a run for his money. I don’t think Jim Morrison was ever this high. He would do a guitar solo intro before every song. He took you on this mystical journey and no one would know what song they were doing until they were about two minutes into it. It was really crazy. There came a moment when they took down all the lights and put the spotlight right on Page. He looked out at the audience, and he never really spoke much to the audience—Plant usually did all the talking—he came up to the microphone and stood right next to Plant and said, ‘Let me feel the room, man.’ He put his hand up in the air. It was very staged, but you couldn’t tell watching it. He takes his hand, puts it on the guitar, and right before he hits the first chord, he smiles at the audience and says, ‘I feel it.’ Then he perfectly hit the first few chords of ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ The place exploded. It was this magical moment. And he stopped playing, and smiled, and he soaked it in. And he kept doing this. The wave of the emotion was amazing.

“I thought, ‘This is control, like nothing I have ever seen. He owns these people.’ It was a religious experience.

“He got the moment. I wanted the whole ECW show to be that way. That whole thing with the Sandman’s entrance, that is the Jimmy Page moment.

“The other inspiration is
The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The way the audience interacted with the film creating its own good time.

“You take those two things and put them into wrestling, and you’ve got a hell of a show, even if your show sucks. I’m going to put on a show, and even if it sucks, people are going to think they had a great time. How could I go wrong? Not a lot of our shows sucked, but even if they did, no one ever walked away saying they had a horrible time.”