Eastern Championship Wrestling started in 1990 under the banner of the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance owned by Joel Goodhart. Eastern Championship Wrestling would be an affiliate to the NWA and would struggle to find an identity of its own before Paul Heyman came in and made the company extreme.
ECW’s Humble Beginnings
Eastern Championship Wrestling would start as a standard regional wrestling promotion, far away from the image many imagine when they hear the letters E-C-W. The first Eastern Championship Wrestling show happened in the Original Sports Bar in Philadelphia in front of around 100 fans. The first official ECW match does feature an ECW original however as Stevie Richards faced Jimmy Janetty (not to be confused with Marty Janetty) to a 20-minute draw. In the following weeks and months ECW brought in big names of the time with the likes of Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, Tito Santana, and Don Muraco wrestling for the company. Eastern Championship Wrestling would crown its first Champion on April 25, 1992, when Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka defeated Salvatore Bellomo in a tournament final to become the inaugural champion.
The ECW World Championship would be traded around other big names of the time, Tito Santana, Don Muraco, and Johnny Hotbody would all get reigns along with future Extreme legends like The Sandman, Terry Funk, Sabu, and Shane Douglas. The company was still far from extreme though, one of ECW’s first featured feuds focused on Jimmy Snuka and Don Muraco continuing an old WWF feud.
Eastern Championship Wrestling did have some good stuff going on. The Sandman was a surfer in those days, Stevie Wonderful was a great heel commentator, playing off very well against white meat babyface commentator, Jay Sulli. There were great heels in Rockin’ Rebel, The King of Philadelphia Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert (A total Jerry Lawler rip-off, but still very entertaining), The Sexiest Man on Earth Jason, Shane Douglas, The Suicidal Blondes and Woman were all entertaining to watch. With the babyface roster being headed up by Terry Funk. Funk was outstanding. His promos were ridiculously good and just made the whole show feel real. His feud with Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert in 1993 is a particular highlight.
Tommy Dreamer would get his start in ECW as Eastern Championship Wrestling, and it was not the Tommy Dreamer many know and love. Back then Dreamer was a pure white meat babyface with Hollywood good looks (it was a long time ago). Despite being booked as a babyface, Dreamer was hated by the crowd, Cena style, and he would not truly get over with the fans until his feud with the Sandman once ECW had gone extreme. Taz as the Tazmaniac would get his start in Eastern Championship Wrestling, he was a hell of a wrestler to watch back in those days, those suplexes were a thing of beauty. Their roster was pretty good for the time, but ECW was struggling to find any relevance among the big boys of WWF and WCW/NWA, though they would get help in that area upon the hiring of one Paul Heyman.
Paul Heyman Joins Eastern Championship Wrestling
By April 1993 Eastern Championship Wrestling had a TV deal with SportsChannel Philadelphia and upon a falling out among bookers Tod Gordon and Eddie Hilbert, a 28-year-old Paul Heyman was brought in to be the head booker. Heyman had just been fired from WCW and was looking for a new challenge.
Upon Heyman’s hiring, Eastern Championship Wrestling started adopting the style that many ECW fans know and love. Paul Heyman’s second PPV in charge of ECW was NWA Bloodfest, which was described as a "more darkly violent direction" for ECW. With this new direction, Heyman and ECW head Todd Gordon felt the affiliation with the NWA was no longer necessary and would decide to secede from the NWA in one of the most explosive ways possible. ECW planned a controversial and public event that would attract attention to ECW and at the same time insult the NWA organization.
At a live supercard event held in Philadelphia, ECW hosted an NWA World Heavyweight Championship Tournament. The tournament was won by Shane Douglas and his victory speech would become one of wrestling’s most legendary moments. Douglas would disgrace the NWA by throwing down the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and declaring that this was a new era. “Because I am not the man who accepts a torch to be handed down to me from an organization that died - RIP - seven years ago. The Franchise, Shane Douglas, is the man who ignites the new flame of the sport of professional wrestling.
We have set out to change the face of professional wrestling. So tonight, let the new era begin: the era of the sport of professional wrestling; the era of the Franchise; the era of the ECW.”
And thus, Extreme Championship Wrestling was born.