In 1994, Paul Heyman conspired with Tod Gordon and Shane Douglas to break away from the NWA after Douglas won the NWA world title. On that night, Extreme Championship Wrestling was born.
However, before ECW was Extreme, it was Eastern Championship Wrestling, a Philadelphia-based territory under the NWA banner. It was there that Heyman served as an assistant to the company's booker, a man who helped push Heyman to greatness, Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert.
Eddie Gilbert's Road To ECW
The story for Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert started in 1977 when he entered the business as a second-generation star, teaming with his father, Tommy Gilbert, in the Memphis-based Continental Wrestling Association. Despite being undersized for that era, at 5 ft. 10, Gilbert worked the mid-card in WWE from 1982 to 1984. He returned to Continental after that before heading to Mid-South Wrestling, where he created Hot Stuff International and worked with young talents Ultimate Warrior, Sting, and Rick Steiner before they were stars. This was also where Gilbert began working as a booker, and he had his first connection with Shane Douglas.
In an interview about his time in the UWF, Douglas credited Eddie Gilbert with his rise. "I was in the dressing room and the agent came into the dressing room and told me to get out there. They threw me out there, and a few minutes later, Eddie Gilbert is there putting me over for the TV championship," Douglas said. "It wasn’t planned and was a spur-of-the-moment thing that worked, and it showed how much confidence that Eddie Gilbert had in me. You come in this business, and it is very intimidating. You get that confidence and I always considered myself blessed to get my break at that time." Douglas also mentioned that if Eddie was 6 ft. 5, he would have been The Man in wrestling.
WCW ended up buying out the UWF and didn't see as much promise in Gilbert. Hot Stuff left and headed to the USWA, where he remained a huge star thanks to a major feud with Jerry "The King" Lawler. The two wrestlers did things that were unheard of in that era, including an angle where Gilbert ran over Lawler in the parking lot with his car. It was so realistic that fans watching at home called the police, and Lawler had to come on TV and show that he was okay. After leaving there, Gilbert showed up in Eastern Championship Wrestling.
Paul Heyman And Eddie Gilbert's Connection
Eddie had worked with Paul Heyman before. In between his work in the UWF, where he was working as a booker, and his attempts to rise in the ranks at WCW, he went back to Continental for a short time in 1988. It was here that he met a young man named Paul Heyman. Gilbert became the booker of the CWF, and he made Heyman his assistant. In the documentary, Ladies and Gentlemen, My Name Is Paul Heyman, Heyman said when he left the AWA, he became Eddie's right-hand man in Alabama, while also running an indie in Chicago called Windy City Wrestling. It gave him a chance to work under one of the brightest minds in wrestling while implementing his own ideas in another promotion. They split up for a short time when Heyman went to WCW and brought in the Original Midnight Express to feud with Jim Cornette's Midnight Express.
Heyman had a huge run in WCW, first with the Midnight Express and then the Samoan Swat Team. Ric Flair fired him, and he eventually returned to work as a commentator with Jim Ross before getting to return to the ring to form the Dangerous Alliance. Once that stable ran its course, WCW fired Heyman, and he ended up winning a lawsuit against the company. However, when he left, he was a bigger star than he ever was before and that is what Heyman said led him to his opportunities in ECW. It was at Eastern Championship Wrestling that he reunited with Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert, who was working as the booker under owner Tod Gordon. He went there when Eddie invited him to come in and teach the young wrestlers how to cut promos.
Tod Gordon remembered the moment that Heyman arrived. He said that Paul would take a wrestler backstage and work with them one-on-one on their promos. He would also do some manager work, but Gordon said he mostly stayed off to the side because Eddie was his friend and this was his show. In a shoot interview, Shane Douglas said that Eddie Gilbert was the one who convinced him to leave teaching and come to ECW to work, and it was Shane that became the company's top star when they broke away. However, Gordon said Eddie succumbed to his demons, and he ended up firing him and announced that Heyman was the new head booker of ECW. Heyman took what he learned over his career, included Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert, and wanted to make something new, bringing in young stars and the right veterans, and with Shane Douglas, took the company to another level.