The Rise & Fall of ECW: Extreme Championship Wrestling

First, all I knew about ECW was from the TV shows on Spike TV and gleaming some information from the wrestling websites. So from my perspective, I enjoyed reading the book, which contains far more detail information than any DVD. I liked the way the book was written, very readable. From the other reviews, the hardcore ECW fans are finding faults with this book. And these individuals will not like my additional comments. The ECW on Spike TV didn't work. They started with an audience of over a million on Friday night cable, a pretty decent rating. However, by the end, half of their audience drifted away. What I didn't like is that I heard a lot about the extreme woman of ECW, but they never wrestled. Female wrestling may not put fannies in seats, but they do help the TV ratings. Secondly, there wasn't any humor, just mean spirited trash talking, which gets old in a hurry. Thirdly, some of the wrestling looked too choregraphed, like 2 wrestlers falling over the ropes at the exact same time. Was it wrestling or dancing? And lastly, what idiot thought that showing all video re-plays in a postage stamp size window on the TV screen was cool? This book never touched on loss of ECW's cable TV audience over the length of their contract. If ECW had grew the cable audience, or at least maintained it, then the fault would not have been the product. ECW failed for all of the reasons stated in the book, plus 1 reason not stated in the book. Namely, the TV product was not good enough to attract fans outside of the ECW loyalists. Regardless, of the problems, ECW's fall was nothing like the crash and burn fall of the once powerhouse WCW. ECW's internal problems were nothing like the dumbness of WCW.

The book is labeled a Media Tie-In, hence it coincides with the DVD that has the same title. Simply, ECW was too small to become a national power and became too big to not meet its financial ruin. It was always one big financial deal from taking that giant step into the big leagues of WWE and WCW, but every turn was greeted with a brick wall. That doesn't diminish the impact the group had on professional wrestling, but author Thom Loverro doesn't present the financial angle to the reader until the closing pages. Throughout the chapters there is criticism of WCW for "stealing" talent while WWE had a reciprocal agreement to loan/share wrestlers, in particular during the years that Paul Heyman assumed full control of ECW. I question this, as it seems that ECW talent was basically buried by both organizations, with wrestlers returning simply because their characters were nothing but jobbers with the "big two." It made the wrestlers appear to be damaged goods and certainly hurt ECW in expanding its audience. For example, is there any difference with Shane Douglas becoming an obnoxious teacher of rasslin' and Justin Credible being squashed in WWE or Mike Awesome portraying a dopey 1960s beach bum and the fabulous Lucha Libre flyers losing their masks and high spots in WCW? These performers were all champions or those who had unbelievable main events in ECW before moving on (and, for some, returning to ECW). For those who were fans of ECW, though, the book is a great read. For the fans who are watching the "new" ECW for the first time, you will learn what made the product so exciting and controversial. And why it can never recapture that magic.