SKIRMISHER

Many wrestling fans are in agreement that professional wrestling mogul Vince McMahon has made huge mistakes in the past. But those mistakes, whether they’re kayfabe or not, proved to be very controversial which eventually earned for Vince and his wrestling company fame and fortune.

This time, however, firing the messiah of extreme matches from ECW will not only “rebury” the land of hardcore into oblivion — it will take away from WWE a substantial bulk of hardcore wrestling fans, thus creating a gaping hole in Vince’s pockets in the process. Not to mention a looming stale era in sports entertainment.

Simply put, ECW without Paul Heyman is like Hulk Hogan never wrestled but was engaged in poetry reading instead.

Just recently, wwe.com reported that World Wrestling Entertainment Chairman and CEO Mr. McMahon “decided to send Heyman home” hours before an ECW live event in South Carolina. The website claims that Heyman was “distraught by the results” of the resurrected ECW pay-per-view, the vicious and gory December to Dismember.

It is not clear here if that depression was due to the loss of his pet wrestler The Big Show’s ECW World Heavyweight Championship to newcomer Bobby Lashley in the said pay-per-view. Or if it was really caused by “slumping television ratings and a disgruntled talent roster,” which I believe is very unlikely — as of this writing, ECW on the Sci Fi Channel is the highest rated show on cable in its time slot (but now that Heyman’s out – FOR HOW LONG?).

There are speculations within the smark community that Heyman’s “dismissal” that night was for good, i.e., it wasn’t scripted: he was fired for real. If that’s the case, then Vince has just sounded the death knell for his hardcore wrestling brand that he bought in 2003 and revived in the middle of this year (13 June 2006; the original ECW closed shop in 2001 due to bankruptcy).

My suspicion is that maybe –just maybe– Vince’s daughter Stephanie McMahon, who is due to return from maternity leave, will take over from where Heyman has left. Or perhaps Heyman’s dismissal is a result of a McMahon nepotism; the elder McMahon just wanted his daughter Stephanie to lord it over the land of hardcore.

Hardcore? Shucks, it’s almost not hardcore anymore. During ECW’s original run, when it was not yet owned by Vince, all matches were under extreme rules, meaning it had no rules — anything goes (no count outs, no disqualifications, all weapons are legal)! Unfortunately, they have now toned down ECW’s hardcore image, only making occasional hardcore matches to the chagrin, frustration, and disappointment of original ECW stars together with its loyal hardcore fanbase.

ECW is supposed to be different from Raw and SmackDown!, WWE’s two other TV brand programs. During the preparations of reviving ECW, WWE writers even went to the extreme (no pun intended) when they made it appear to wrestling fans that ECW is a completely different entity from WWE. Such a concept provided more excitement, anticipation, and even imagination for both mainstream and hardcore wrestling fans and smarks.

Of all people, it should be Vince who should be in the forefront of RESPECTING wrestling’s history and legacy.

In 1993, a young promoter named Paul Heyman had recently been handed the reins of Eastern Championship Wrestling. Seeing that the world of sports-entertainment was in need of change, Heyman decided to take the fledging company and kick it into overdrive. Bringing in a collection of fearless wrestlers like Tommy Dreamer, the Sandman and Sabu, he began staging events that offered fans a breathtaking mix of brutal action and cutting-edge wrestling. The result was Extreme Championship Wrestling, a hardcore promotion whose fearlessness and innovation caused a tremor that is still being felt today. With its take-no-prisoners mindset, ECW quickly won a loyal following whose fevered chants of “ECW! ECW! ECW!” rang to the rafters of the bingo hall the company called home. By the beginning of the millennium, ECW had grown from local sensation to national phenomenon. ECW stars had been seen on Monday Night RAW and had brought the company to The Nashville Network (now Spike TV). However, mounting financial pressures would prove to be the company’s undoing. In 2001, Heyman was left with no choice but to file for bankruptcy.Although it seemed ECW was dead, the company refused to stay buried. The war cries of “ECW!” were still heard in arenas everywhere and in 2004, The Rise and Fall of ECW went on to become one of the highest-selling DVDs in WWE history. The success of last year’s pay-per-view event ECW: One Night Stand at last set the stage for one of the most dramatic and unprecedented returns ever seen.

Now that ECW is back, all bets are off and sports-entertainment will never be the same again. Brace yourselves; things are about to get Extreme!

I think Sci Fi should now rewrite this last part into something like this: But now that Heyman is gone, all bets are TRULY off; sports entertainment will revert back to its boring state ever since Stone Cold, The Rock, the original group of D-Generation X, and the WWE Attitude Era (a mere image of ECW’s hardcore attitude) were written off from the storylines. Brace yourselves: things are about to get creamed.

It’s true that ECW has never been a big rival to WWE several years ago (as opposed to the now classic Monday Night Wars waged between WWE and World Championship Wrestling) but it definitely found a niche in the hearts of many wrestling fans in the eastern United States. Also, it not only created a raucous but loyal fanbase — it also served as a “training ground” of sorts for future superstars of the wrestling business: hardcore legend Mick Foley, Chris Benoit, “The Lionheart” Chris Jericho, The Sandman, Rey Mysterio, Stone Cold Steve Austin, the late Eddie Guerrero… the list goes on and on. And more importantly, it pioneered unique matches never seen before in traditional professional wrestling: barbed wire matches, flaming tables matches, stairway to hell matches, etc.

And during the time when WWE (then known as the World Wrestling Federation) was catering its programs to a much younger audience (the era of Hulkamania –”take your vitamins and say your prayers!”–, followed by Bret Hart’s reign), ECW was already flowing with blood and booze and trash talkin’ and hot vixens and barbed wires and tables and ladders and chairs and battered bodies hitting the floor! (Let the bodies hit the floor! Let the bodies hit the floor! Let the bodies hit the floor!)

I was never a fan of ECW especially since it was only based in the eastern US. Before, it was totally unknown to me and to the majority of Filipino wrestling fans. But last year, when I got to see WWE’s The Rise and Fall of ECW documentary DVD –which is said to be one of the best-selling wrestling DVDs of all time– I was hooked on its history… it’s like I’ve known, and has been a fan of, ECW since its inception in 1993! And when it was resurrected by WWE in June of this year, I loved it even more than Raw and SmackDown!. And I was truly aching for more of ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW! ECW!During manic-depressive fits, the immortal chants of “ECW! ECW! ECW!” can be heard even in my house and in my place of work.

It’s really stupid why those bigwigs in WWE took away full control of ECW from Heyman (Heyman’s job was somehow relegated to playing a mere kayfabe general manager of ECW). Paul knows ECW like the back of his hand. He should have been given free rein to it.

Or at the very least, if WWE really had its fans in mind, ECW should still have retained its hardcore image. I bet Tommy Dreamer’s Diary of Violence would be filled with more happy scribbles when this happens.

Listen, Vince: respect your wrestling fans. It’s not you who made WWE, or pro wrestling for that matter… it’s us wrestling fans. The smark community already knows that you’re a revisionist of wrestling history (Ric Flair is not a 16-time world wrestling champion — HE IS A 22-TIME WORLD WRESTLING CHAMPION, DAMN IT!). Firing Heyman is tantamount to killing ECW once more. And it only goes to show how you really suck to the core.

To all Pinoy wrestling fans: without Heyman in tow, not even Batista can save ECW from its impending second demise.

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