ECW was thriving with its cult-like popularity among the hardcore fans
Despite increased PPVs over the previous two years (four to six-seven by 1999), ECW needed a network television show to help overcome financial hardships. The syndicated ECW Hardcore TV was super popular since the beginnings of ECW but that and PPVs alone could help ECW survive without a legitimate network TV deal.
What was originally The Nashville Network (before it became Spike TV as it is currently known) as it eventually became The National Network or simply "TNN" in 2000 and the owners Westinghouse-CBS decided to put ECW on their station to give ECW their network TV deal they so desperately needed.
TNN replaced their country music and southeast based programming with more exciting youth-oriented to target the 18-49 demographic so the exciting ECW was just what the company needed. They put ECW on their Friday night time slot as part of their "Friday Night Thrill Zone" block along with the roller derby "RollerJam" show. More of ECW on TNN later.
Shane Douglas began 1999 the way 1997 ended and how 1998 began and ended by being the ECW World Heavyweight Champion. He had been the ECW Champion since November 1997 when he was forced to finally defend the title against Taz as January 10th's Guilty as Charged PPV.
Taz made him tap out to the Tazmission to finally win the ECW World Heavyweight Champion and end Douglas' record reign at 406 days. Douglas also had the second-longest reign as ECW World Champion at 385 days from March 1994 to April 1995. For Taz being on top was a long time coming as he had been with the company for six long years and is now finally their world champion.
Taz defended his ECW World Title against old enemy Sabu at March's Living Dangerously PPV where Sabu also defended his FTW Heavyweight Championship in a unification match. After nearly 30 minutes, Taz made Sabu tap out to the Tazzmission to win back his FTW belt and unify the two titles. Taz and Sabu shook hands after the match.
Taz next dealt with the "King of Old School" Steve Corino and his ally Chris Candido and his old school manager Jack Victory. Corino's gimmick was that of a wrestler who detested the hardcore style of ECW and wanted things to go back to the good old days of wrestling and life in general, which was what ECW and the fans were against. This was a way to get the fans to hate Corino. Corino was legitimately a fan of the old school over the hardcore style.
Corino even once interrupted a Limp Bizkit concert to tell singer Fred Durst and the fans this is what is wrong with America as Corino was Canadian. He preferred old school bands to that of that day. Balls Mahoney, Axl Rotten, and New Jack were there and attacked Corino.
After Taz dispatched Candido, Corino brought in someone new to try and take out Taz and that was the 6 ft 300 lb. monster known as Rhino. Rhino was a rookie in ECW and made an impact immediately as joined forces with Corino and Victory. However, Rhino could stop the mighty Human Suplex Machine Taz.
Taz defended his ECW World Title against Mike Awesome and Japanese star Masato Tanaka in a Three-Way Dance at the Anarchy Rulz PPV on September 19, 1999. Before the PPV, however, Taz was involved in a bitter contract dispute with ECW management and Paul Heyman. As it turned out, Taz would leave ECW and join the WWF for a really big contract that ECW could not come close to matching.
Word got out that Taz was leaving ECW to go to the WWF as he was still the ECW World Champion. Taz was the first one eliminated in the 3-Way Dance as he slowly walked back to the dressing room as fans knew this was one of the last times they would see Taz in ECW. Awesome pinned Tanaka to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship.
After losing the ECW World Title, Shane Douglas was set to name the next "Franchise." He had been working with Justin Credible and Lance Storm, who formed the tag team "The Impact Players", and was set to name one of them as the next Franchise of ECW.
Douglas instead named Tommy Dreamer as the next Franchise which incensed both Credible and Storm as both were feuding with Dreamer. They attacked Douglas as Douglas joined forces with Dreamer to take out the Impact Players. Douglas and Dreamer defeated the Impact Players at Living Dangerously in March. Storm has nearly as awesome of an entrance theme as Credible.
Douglas was set to take on Credible at Hardcore Heaven, but his ECW contract expired two weeks before the PPV. After a dispute over money, Douglas left the company that he was the Franchise for and took a really lucrative offer with WCW, where he wrestled in the early 1990s.
Douglas would reunite with former ECW alum Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Raven, and Perry Saturn. It was frustration during his two stints in WCW along with his stint in the WWF as Dean Douglas that helped create his legendary Franchise character in ECW.
Rob Van Dam remained ECW Television Champion throughout all 1999 as he was in the midst of his record 700-day reign as TV Champion. He took on all comers and turned away all comers to remain TV champion. His greatest matches in 1999 were with fellow high flyer Jerry Lynn as the RVD-Lynn matches were some of the best in ECW history.
RVD defended the title against Lynn at the Living Dangerously PPV in March. The match ended in a 20-minute time limit and the referee awarded the title to Lynn based on a referee's decision. Lynn, however, demanded a five-minute extension and lost to RVD after being hit with the Five Star Frog Splash to retain the title.
They faced off again two months later at the Hardcore Heaven PPV in a no time limit match as RVD again retained the title with the Five Star Frog Splash. Despite RVD winning the bulk of the matches, Lynn came out a winner as well for his efforts and work in the ring with one of the best in the company.
Paul Heyman signed a three-year contract with TNN with the thought that this would save ECW but it was not to be. The debut of ECW of TNN was on August 27, 1999; the five-year anniversary of Shane Douglas winning the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and throwing it on the ground and denouncing the NWA and "Extreme" Championship Wrestling was officially born that night. ECW on TNN was always on Friday nights.
Even though this was to give ECW the shot in the arm to continue to survive, ECW on TNN was a disaster for the company. It was a disaster from the get go as TNN wanted a much more toned down ECW than the hardcore product they've delivered which would reemphasize ECW's violent matches and sexual and graphic nature as this is now on network TV.
The first episode of ECW on TNN was on Friday night August 27 but the actual show itself was nothing more than a clip of show of the highlights of ECW as Heyman scrapped the original shooting of the pilot show due to the lack of attendance and crowd reaction and the overall look of the show.
Instead, Heyman aired the RVD-Jerry Lynn match from Hardcore Heaven along with a quick Taz squash match over the monster Rhino and Spike Dudley's win over Big Sal Graziano. The first show also featured interviews and highlights of the past ECW World and TV Champions including highlights of Douglas throwing down the NWA belt. Heyman and ECW waged war against TNN and their network.
The next week's show aired on September 3 was the actual first show featuring wrestling matches. The Dudley Boyz announced that they too were leaving ECW to go to the WWF. They announced it on the show and to add insult to injury, they defeated Spike Dudley and Balls Mahoney to win their record eighth and final ECW World Tag Team Championship.
The Dudleys threatened to take the tag titles with them to the WWF and bash ECW. Buh Buh Ray Dudley challenges Tommy Dreamer to come out and fight them and defend ECW and take the belts away from them. Buh Buh then mentions how they broke Beulah's neck and some derogatory comments about visiting Beulah in the hospital.
Tommy could not take it anymore and ran into the ring only to be double-teamed by the Dudleys. They try to give Dreamer the 3D, but Dreamer counters it by giving D-Von a DDT instead. Then out of nowhere, Raven unexpectedly ran into the ring and hit Buh Buh with the Even Flow DDT and pinned him to win the ECW World Tag Team Championship and sent the Dudleys to the WWF without any titles.
Dreamer then shockingly sees Raven holding the tag titles and giving one to Dreamer as Raven helped his old mortal enemy. Raven returned to ECW after a lousy two years in WCW and he left WCW after Eric Bischoff told him if he didn't like the way it was being run there's the door and Raven left. One of the conditions of Raven leaving WCW was that he could not go to the WWF for one year, but he was able to return to ECW.
Raven was not the only ECW star to return to the company. The Sandman left WCW after a brief disappointing stint and returned at the November to Remember PPV on November 7 from my hometown ECC Burt Flickinger Center in Buffalo also what was my 18th birthday. Sandman teamed with his former enemy Raven and Raven's surprisingly ally Tommy Dreamer to take on Rhino and the Impact Players in the main event.
There was an awesome catfight during the match between my two all-time favorite ECW hotties and hunnies Francine and Dawn Marie. Raven tried to hit Justin Credible with the Singapore Cane, but Credible missed and Raven hit Sandman "accidentally" allowing Rhino and the Impact Players to win.
Also that night, Taz, who had been acting more ruthless since losing his belt and even threatened Joey Styles and choked out Joel Gernter earlier in the night, took on Rob Van Dam for his ECW World TV Title. RVD defeats Taz to retain the title. This was Taz's last match in ECW or so we thought. Also, Mike Awesome retained the ECW World Title in an "awesome" match with Masato Tanaka as these two had some incredible matches in ECW.
Paul Heyman had his problems with TNN over the production of their ECW show and for TNN not giving them much money to produce the show yet wanted it to be like WWF Raw or WCW Nitro. TNN also did very little advertising and promoting the ECW show despite ECW being the highest rated weekly program on TNN during its tenure. There was even commercials for WCW programming during the ECW show.
Heyman hired Don Callis (who was "The Jackyl" in the WWF) as Cyrus the Virus and simply just Cyrus. Cyrus was an announcer as well as a "representative" for TNN or simply "The Network" as Cyrus would criticize ECW for their violent and graphic nature. Cyrus was the mouthpiece of Heyman's issues with the Network.
Cyrus also threatened to cancel ECW and replace it with "RollerJam", which was also on Friday night with ECW as part of the "Friday Night Thrill Zone" on Friday nights. ECW fans hated the show that got so much more preferential treatment over ECW despite its lower ratings while ECW got the top ratings. Cyrus mostly had problems with commentator Joel Gernter for all of his sexual overtones and innuendos while commentating and ring announcing.
The issues with ECW and TNN would continue well into the start of the 21st century and new millennium. It's sad to think 2000 would be the beginning of the end of ECW as hardcore fans would be disappointed in the new millennium.
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