Wrestling Forum banner

What was the main reason for the death of Extreme Championship Wrestling(ECW)?

11K views 41 replies 32 participants last post by  Al Borland 
#1 ·
Some say Paul Heyman had no business sense.Some say WWE killed them as they did not want any competition.But what was the main reason(s) which forced ECW to end?
 
#2 ·
I don't think wwe killed them. Nobody does.

they were spending more money than they were making. Simple as that. Paul wasn't a great business man, he needed to get smaller, stop using expensive talent and do less shows. But he didn't so ECW went under.

Maybe it was a pride thing, but you gotta check that stuff at the door. Sometimes you say, business isn't as good as it was, let's go back until we can go forward.

Paul says if they got a new tv deal they would have been fine. I'm gonna take his word for it. But as a business man, you can't assume anything but the worst. Pro wrestling is not a business with a great deal of overhead, you don't even need an office. He should have been able to run that promotion under the assumption that no TV deal was in the works.

Great booker, but not the best business man. To his credit though, he was very over worked. He did almost everything including editing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BOOTS 2 ASSES
#4 ·
Great post!

So as per you it was Paul Heyman's business sense or rather the lack of it that caused demise of ECdub!


That tells you that even if you're an intelligent person,that doesn't really makes you a good business man.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RoosterSmith
#3 ·
Paul Heyman was a creative genius who also happened to be an extraordinarily incompetent and irresponsible businessman. Sure, they were bound to lose talent to WWF and WCW regardless, but ECW had no excuse to die. Heyman just ran them into the ground, pure and simple. Paul E. is far better served to be a booker with no financial responsibilities. When he gets to do that he really shines (see: SmackDown in 2003).
 
#8 ·
Essentially this. The guy has probably one of the best wrestling minds in the industry but he is a pretty bad businessman and essentially ran the company into the ground. He was able to make legendary stars out of guys like Sabu and the Dudleys. Guys who honestly probably wouldn't have made it so far in other organisations at the time. But he just try to expand way to fast and well beyond his means and eventually it came to bite him on the ass.
 
#7 ·
I gotta believe its finances.

During the height of ECW he was seriously overpaying his top talent. I remember Sandman and Douglas? Saying in '95 they both made over 100,000.

I also heard that Paul had to pay to be on syndicated television when he ran hardcore tv in the PA area, and that he was losing money there.

As someone already mentioned, it has also been said had he really gone to California to work out a TV deal the product would be alive today, but again I've heard he lied about what he was doing in CA and didn't actually try to set up for a TV deal.

If it was finances, I don't think I could really blame Paul as it seemed he always tried to do the right thing, it just ended up biting him in the ass.
 
#9 ·
Most people say it's because of Heyman's poor business sense, and it probably is, but the conspiracy theorist in me thinks that maybe, just maybe, Paul simply got tired of all the work involved with running ECW. Maybe he was burned out and he knew he'd have a relatively cushy job in WWE so he just folded the whole thing up and went to work for Vince?
 
#12 ·
He just bit off more than he could chew between his payroll, tv deals, and video games. It was beautiful while it lasted, though. Something about staying up late to watch it on Telemundo made it feel even more special.
 
#13 ·
Kinda like what others have said, but he expanded too quickly. I guess he really wanted that "World title status" from PWI magazine and the National TV deal, but if you're not making the money to do so, you can't do it, it's simple as that. ECW wanted to be at the level of WWF and WCW, with the ECW Magazine, action figures, and video games, but I don't think any of those investments were successful. Paul took too many financial risks, and even in the end he thought USA Network or someone else would bail him out. It's not a good way to do business. However, I think ECW ended at the right time because hardcore wrestling was starting to die out anyway. ECW could've adapted with the times, maybe, but it just wasn't meant to be.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Kinda like what others have said, but he expanded too quickly. I guess he really wanted that "World title status" from PWI magazine and the National TV deal, but if you're not making the money to do so, you can't do it, it's simple as that. ECW wanted to be at the level of WWF and WCW, with the ECW Magazine, action figures, and video games, but I don't think any of those investments were successful. Paul took too many financial risks, and even in the end he thought USA Network or someone else would bail him out. It's not a good way to do business. However, I think ECW ended at the right time because hardcore wrestling was starting to die out anyway. ECW could've adapted with the times, maybe, but it just wasn't meant to be.
Ok, this is just retarded. At the time when ECW died hardcore wrestling was at it's very white hot and was only going go get bigger. It was on it's biggest peak since the days of Funk/Onita/Abdullah in the 80's Japan.
 
#14 ·
Heyman tried to expand too fast, spent more than he made, sometimes went weeks, months without being able to pay the talent. He shouldn't have been in charge of the business side of things, he wasn't good at it
 
#18 ·
A few reasons:-

* Product was too violent in general to really capture a mainstream audience, it was also going to be a niche.

* They expanded too fast in too short of a period of time, they pretty much created a bubble for themselves that eventually had to burst.

* Heyman was a terrible businessman.
 
#22 ·
A few reasons:-

* Product was too violent in general to really capture a mainstream audience, it was also going to be a niche.

* They expanded too fast in too short of a period of time, they pretty much created a bubble for themselves that eventually had to burst.

* Heyman was a terrible businessman.
Very good point raised.To be successful,you also need to be mainstream.And this is where WWF flourished with Hogan,Austin,Rock whilst ECW failed.

However,RVD was really popular,I heard about him even before he came to WWF in 2001.
 
#21 · (Edited)
WWF & WCW lured all the top tier talent away. Even if they had stayed on television, Paul Heyman would have had to find new talent in an environment where anybody TVworthy wanted to go to the big two anyway.
This. Everything else is bullshit reasoning and could be mitigated. But they lost Raven, Taz, Public Enemy, Mike Awesome, Sandman i.e. pretty much all of their top acts. You can't run a carny show without carnys.
 
#23 ·
I don't know why anyone would say it was too smarky. WWE audiences chanted ECW on a weekly basis during the Attitude era, they were looking for reasons to chant for it. It was the hip, underground alternative to WWE/WCW. And it was a true alternative in every way, the content was much different until WWE adopted a good portion of it.

It's not so much that it was "killed", it was never going to be a long-term thing. I think the nail was hit on the head about how WWE/WCW lured away most of their top talents. And ECW was working tiny venues with loud drunken audiences with no real advertising for PPV or anything. Their revenue couldn't of been great, so it's not surprising Paul had the financial troubles that he did.

It never grew, but it was better because it never grew.
 
#26 ·
No financial backing. You need money to expand a business, Heyman's EcW was expanding but no money behind it. It went under.
 
#29 · (Edited)
every single show they ran in the ecw arena (and nearly all were sold out) lost money, that gives you an idea what they were working against

there is no way of running a successful wrestling business (at least last 25 years) without tv revenue/exposure

its a credit to heyman and others that ecw lasted as long as it did
 
#32 ·
ECW was a glorified training ground for WCW and WWF. Guys like Eddie, Jericho, Foley (to an extent), Mysterio, Malenko, and so many others wrestled in Japan/Mexico and when they came to America, they couldn't get a break anywhere else. But Heyman gave them a chance and they started to make a name for themselves. And once they did, the bigger companies started to notice them and basically poached them from ECW with big money contracts that ECW couldn't afford to give. How long could you expect ECW to keep up with this? Sure towards the end they had RVD, Rhyno, etc but it was only a matter of time before they jumped over to the big leagues which would then cause ECW to start looking for new talent again.
 
#34 ·
Unfortunately, Heyman's financial decisions. He owed so many people money, it was borderline criminal. It's like a small-market professional sports franchise with a good, but still far smaller than normal budget spending lots of money on B-tier Free Agents and overpaying them. ECW was essentially the Triple A of professional wrestling, but damn is it missed.
 
#36 ·
Money.

Prior to 1997, they were paying to air in syndication.

Once PPV started, they wouldn't get paid for that until a month or 2 later. And when they did, it was to cover previous debts.


And more importantly, Heyman overworking himself and forcing out Tod Gordon, who was the majority of their financial backing.

From all accounts, ECW shouldn't have lasted as long as it did.

Sent from Verticalsports.com Free App
 
#39 · (Edited)
Money.

Prior to 1997, they were paying to air in syndication.

Once PPV started, they wouldn't get paid for that until a month or 2 later. And when they did, it was to cover previous debts.


And more importantly, Heyman overworking himself and forcing out Tod Gordon, who was the majority of their financial backing.

From all accounts, ECW shouldn't have lasted as long as it did.

Sent from Verticalsports.com Free App

Didn't Vince bail Heyman out financially too on occasion?
 
#37 ·
:clap


Superb replies.Thank you all guys.This is why wrestlingforum rocks:D


Anyway,so many viewpoints to tackle this subject,simply amazing.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top