In April of 2001, amid financial difficulties and a lack of a TV deal, Extreme Championship Wrestling closed its doors, and an era came to an end. A couple years later, WWE would end up buying ECW’s video library and assets. In the years surrounding these events, seemingly every major ECW talent -- Rob Van Dam, The Dudley Boyz, Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman Sabu, and Taz -- made their way to WWE, either independently or as part of the company’s lackluster Invasion storyline.

RELATED: 10 ECW Wrestlers Who Got Booked Poorly During The Invasion

Even though it seems like everyone eventually signed to WWE, not every great ECW talent ended up joining the company. The wrestlers who didn’t who are actually kind of surprising.

10 Masato Tanaka

For many fans, Masato Tanaka was the ideal ECW star, despite only spending a few years with the company. A legend of Japan’s deathmatch promotion Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, Tanaka had the unique gift of being a great pro wrestler as well as taking part in some of the most ridiculously violent displays you could imagine. His neverending feud with Mike Awesome is beloved, including their match at the WWE revival show ECW One Night Stand 2005. Tanaka’s only other WWE appearance was at the following year’s One Night Stand, where he had a cool-down match with Balls Mahoney.

9 Simon Diamond

In addition to all the big name ECW stars mentioned earlier, there were lots of midcarders who skewed more towards being regular wrestlers than guys in jorts and hockey jerseys. Take, for example, Simon Diamond, a pretty charismatic and underrated midcard heel who was normally aligned with Johnny Swinger and C.W. Anderson. You’d think he’d have eventually surfaced in WWE under a different name, Simon Dean style, but all he did were dark matches and jobber squashes on minor shows. He did end up signing to TNA, where he eventually became a road agent.

8 Ricky Banderas

Ricky Banderas is best known to English-speaking fans as Mil Muertes on Lucha Underground or as himself on Wrestling Society X, though there’s always a chance somebody really got into Judas Mesias. He’s kind of been everywhere over the years, including an appearance in ECW, losing a match to Super Crazy on an episode of Hardcore TV in 2000.

RELATED: Wrestling Society X: 10 Stars You Forgot Were On MTV’s Wrestling Show

Believe it or not, aside from a tryout match and some co-promoted shows in Puerto Rico, Banderas never spent any significant time with WWE.

7 P.N. News

Known for a brief stint in early 1990s WCW, P.N. News is often considered the first wrestler in history to have a rapper-themed gimmick. In 1999, News showed up in ECW, joining Da Baldies, a stable you don’t remember entirely made up of men with no hair. This run was short-lived, as Da Baldies would end up beaten by Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney in a Loser Leaves ECW match in November and P.N. News would wrestle all over the indie circuit all the way to the 2010s.

6 Super Calo

Super Calo vs Rey Mysterio, Jr.

Another wrestler with a hip hop gimmick, the luchador Super Calo is best remembered as WCW’s finest cruiserweight despite never winning the title. After his WCW opportunities dried up, Calo spent December of 1999 with ECW, wrestling matches with Super Crazy, Yoshihiro Tajiri, and Little Guido throughout the month. After that, Super Calo would eventually make his way back to Mexico’s AAA. Chances are that WWE would have just made him the fourth Mexicool.

5 Norman Smiley

Norman Smiley is somewhat unfairly remembered as WCW’s absurdist midcard comedy jobber, as a look at Screamin’ Norman’s pre-Big Wiggle days in Mexico and Japan reveal an extremely capable technical wrestler. He even spent a little time in ECW, where he teamed with Mikey Whipreck in matches against fellow technical wizards Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko. Smiley would miss The Invasion but go on to wrestle a bunch of dark matches for WWE in 2003, but not much would come of it and he’d eventually be employed by the company as a trainer in their developmental promotions, but never as a wrestler.

4 John Kronus

The Eliminators weren’t necessarily the top tag team in ECW in terms of popularity, they were probably, wrestling-wise, the best tag team. But the three-time ECW Tag Team Champions would only last a couple of years, as Perry Saturn would sustain a torn ACL and eventually jump ship to WCW.

RELATED: 10 ECW Stars Who Would've Fit Right In With AEW

John Kronus would be left behind, departing in 1999 and making his way to the ECW-but-scuzzier SoCal promotion Xtreme Pro Wrestling in 2000 before dying of heart failure in 2007.

3 New Jack

New Jack

To call New Jack a controversial figure in wrestling is a bit of an understatement, as many fans fondly look back on his ECW matches and many dislike him. He’s not regarded as much of a wrestler in a technical sense, but that’s never stopped WWE before. Despite being an ECW icon, New Jack notably has never wrestled for WWE -- not even for the One Night Stand revival shows.

2 Steve Corino

Steve Corino with the ECW World Championship

Best known for his time in Ring of Honor, Steve Corino was actually an ECW guy in the late 1990s, taking his anti-hardcore gimmick as far as winning the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. In 2001 he actually signed with WCW, but never actually got to debut for the company before WWE bought WCW and released him from his contract. Despite a few tryout matches and some jobber squashes on Shotgun Saturday Night back in his younger days, he never signed to WWE as a wrestler, but did get hired as a trainer at their Performance Center.

1 Mikey Whipwreck

Mikey Whipwreck

A perennial underdog, Mikey Whipwreck was a fan favorite to many ECW fans and ended up becoming the company’s first ever Triple Crown Champion in 1995. Aside from a brief but unspectacular stint in WCW, Whipwreck had always been an ECW guy, and briefly retired in the early 2000s after the company folded. Paul Heyman actually reached out to him when WWE was looking to relaunch ECW, but Whipwreck declined, as he felt his body couldn’t keep up with the schedule required.

NEXT: 10 Most Insane ECW Matches That We Totally Forgot About