ecwrestling

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Rest in Peace #FullBloodedItalian #TracySmothers. Gone but never forgotten.

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Spike Dudley and the Flag of Extreme

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New Jack, Tommy Dreamer and Spike Dudley Stand Tall!

"The Original Gangsta" New Jack, "Innovator of Violence" Tommy Dreamer and Little Spike Dudley standing tall one violent night at the World's Most Famous Bingo Hall - the ECW Arena!!

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Full Blooded Italian Tracy Smothers Currently Hospitalized

Former ECW star and member of The Full Blooded Italians Tracy Smothers has been hospitalized. He was diagnosed with lymphoma last year, among other health issues.

The former ECW star and Blue World Order member The Blue Meanie commented on Smothers health scare saying:

“My mind and heart are with Tracy Smothers tonight as I’m hearing of his battle with cancer and other complications have him hospitalized. This hurts my heart. I am who I am in wrestling because he helped mold me and countless others. I love you man! Keep fighting!”

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Paul Heyman Allegedly Lied to ECW Roster to Film "Rollerball"

Paul Heyman became famous for running ECW and many fans remember him as the leader of that band of upstarts in pro wrestling. They were looking to take down the massive competition all around them, but New Jack claims that Heyman didn’t “give a f*ck” in reality.

New Jack has a podcast called Safe Space, and he used that platform to rip into Paul Heyman a bit. He said that Paul Heyman’s booking for ECW got to the point where it didn’t make any sense. Then Heyman allegedly lied to the ECW crew when he told them that he was going out to Los Angeles get a new TV deal. In reality, Heyman was filming the 2002 film “Rollerball.”

“Basically, the writing was on the wall. Paul E started booking shows that didn’t make no God damn sense. The angles he was booking, they didn’t make no sense. He was just in a corner with a pad, ‘Him versus him, he wins. Next match,’ and everybody was like, ‘What the f*ck!?’”

“Paul E came out one night and he said, ‘We got a new TV deal out in LA.’ He said, ‘And I’m going to L.A. and I’m not coming back until I got the deal signed.’ Do you remember that movie they did called Rollerball? That’s what he was going out to L.A. for, to do Rollerball. He wasn’t giving a f*ck about us, and I was the first one to jump ship. I was like I see this sh*t coming. I don’t need this bullsh*t no more, I’m done. So I left and I went to XPW.”

Paul Heyman is now the Special Advisor to the Tribal Chief Roman Reigns. He left those ECW days behind him. New Jack hasn’t forgotten about those times and he might remember them a bit differently from the way WWE likes to tell the story in their official documentaries.

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All Elite Wrestling Airing Special Dynamite Dedicated to Chris Jericho's 30-Year Career!

All Elite Wrestling has announced plans for the October 7th Dynamite episode, which will be a 30th Anniversary Celebration for Le Champion - Chris Jericho!

The show is October 7th LIVE on TNT - from Daily's Place in Jacksonville, Florida. No matches or segments have been announced thus far.

Jericho's professional wrestling career began on October 2nd, 1990 against fellow ECW alumnist Lance Storm. In 1996 he made his debut for ECW and eventually held the ECW Television Championship before being noticed by WCW and being signed where he went on to win their Television Title and Crusierweight Title before jumping ship to WWF in August 1999.

He debuted in August 1999 to a huge debut where he interrupted The Rock and just two years later became the first WWF/WWE Undisputed Champion when he defeated both The Rock and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin in the same night to win the WWF and WCW World Heavyweight Championships - an impressive feat that probably no one else can hold claim too!

During his tenure in WWF/WWE he also held their Intercontinental Championship, European Championship, United States Championship and several reigns with the Tag Team Championship. In 2018 he made his return to New Japan Pro Wrestling after nearly 20 years to face fellow Winnipeggar Kenny Omega at the huge Wrestle Kingdom 12 show. A year later in 2019 he debuted for AEW and became the fledgeling promotions first World Champion.

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BREAKING: Rob Van Dam Has Left IMPACT WRESTLING!

Rob Van Dam recently revealed that he has some WWE projects in the pipeline and will have more time to work on those activities as he's now officially departed Impact Wrestling (along with Katie Forbes). He hadn't been under an Impact Wrestling contract for "some time" and was working on "a series of short-term agreements." The most recent feud he was involved in was with Sami Callihan.

The former two-time ECW Tag Team Champion spoke about how he hadn't gotten too emotionally invested in Impact Wrestling as of late but he didn't mind sitting back and not having to wrestle every show. Impact left the door open for his return to the promotion if "the constellations properly allign."

Van Dam is also a former one-time ECW Television Champion (holding the longest reign in company history from April 4th, 1998 til an injury forced him to vacate it March 4th, 2000 - after a record 700 day reign!)

His recent run in Impact Wrestling was a huge joke among the hardcore wrestling fans as it really takes someone who has no mind for the wrestling business to have RVD signed and not know what to do with him and how to use him (as seen with his recent storyline with Katie Forbes).

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Wrestling Observer Rewind - February 22nd, 1999

Lots of questions this week about the financial situation of ECW. Several recent checks to ECW wrestlers bounced, along with checks to security people and to cover advertising costs. Heyman is now claiming that every check that bounced has since been made good. Regardless, several wrestlers claim to still be owed money and there's rumors that some are owed a large amount. Backstage morale is at an all-time low and a lot of the lower card guys are paranoid and jealous because they believe top guys like Taz, Tommy Dreamer and Bubba Ray Dudley aren't having their checks bounce (ECW's bankruptcy filing 2 years later would prove otherwise). Apparently there have been issues with checks bouncing for the last several months, although wrestlers were originally told that those cases were mistakes due to ECW switching banks. Heyman held a meeting with the locker room a few weeks ago assuring everyone that he was close to making a major deal for ECW and to bear with him, but admitted some checks may bounce while he's finalizing the deal. Heyman claimed ECW is bringing in an investor who will buy 10% share of the company and would result in stronger marketing for them. But in order to complete the deal, ECW has to be debt free, so some checks might be affected in the meantime. There's also some other deal that Dave Meltzer goes into regarding a loan against PPV profits or something. It gets all confusing and number-y.

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Wrestling Observer Rewind - January 18th, 1999 - Taz Breaks Sabu's Neck

The angle where Taz suplexed Sabu through a table a few weeks ago injuring his neck was supposed to be a work, but Sabu was legitimately injured on the spot. He's pretty banged up in general and reportedly isn't happy in ECW. He recieved an offer from WCW and at 35 years old, and with as many injuries as he's had, it would make sense for him to take the big money offer and go work for a company that will pay him if he's injured. But Sabu's uncle The Sheik advised him to turn down the offer, saying he would only be a mid-carder in WCW while in ECW he is one of their top stars. Sabu reportedly values his uncle's advice more than basically anyone, which is why he is staying with ECW even though he's talked about quitting several times in recent months.

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Wrestling Observer Rewind from February 27th, 1994: Eddie Gilbert passed away from a heart attack at age 33 last week in his apartment in Puerto Rico, where he was working as booker for Carlos Calon's WWC promotion. Dave Meltzer launches into a lengthy obituary, about how Gilbert dreamed of being a wrestler like his father and even no-showed his own high school graduation so he could wrestle on an indy show. Gilbert later built a reputation of burning bridges everywhere he went, most recently walking out on Smoky Mountain Wrestling to go book for World Wrestling Council in Puerto Rico. His reputation for leaving promotions on bad terms was so well-established that the only reason they kept bringing him back was because he was such a creative booker and great worker. Jerry Lawler took Gilbert back so many times people lost count but recently even USWA had finally had enough and wouldn't bring him back. Within the last year, Gilbert had been trying to find work elsewhere and most promoters refused to hire him until Jim Cornette took a chance on him, only for Gilbert to immediately burn him as well.

After a car accident in 1983, Gilbert became a frequent user of painkillers and due to his small size, he was always paranoid about not being big enough and used steroids constantly. He was married to Missy Hyatt for awhile but their marriage fell apart largely due to the stresses of the business and Gilbert trying to hide steroid use from her. Hyatt talks about how Gilbert's natural weight was 175 lbs but he would use steroids and would freak out if his weight ever dropped below 200 lbs. He was obsessed with trying to be the next Jerry Lawler and could never quite reach that headlining status and it ate him up. Despite leaving both promotions on somewhat bad terms, ECW and USWA are both expected to air tributes to Gilbert on their television shows this week.

The obituary includes quotes from ECW's Tod Gordon and Paul Heyman, Lance Russell, Jim Cornette from SMW, Missy Hyatt and others. In general, they talk about how close Gilbert's family was and how crushed they must be but Heyman talks about how he isn't surprised and always figured he'd get this call because Gilbert had a lot of demons and compares him to Kerry Von Erich as a tragic figure in the business. Gordon talks about how Gilbert grew up in the business and because of that, he was paranoid and didn't trust anyone: "He was raised in an enviroment (the pro-wrestling world) where he learned never to believe anyone. So he lived his life paranoid of everyone and everything. He used to read the Observer and look for hidden meaning in every sentence and point it out to me. I would say to him, 'you don't really believe that,' but he did."