10 Promotions That Have Rivalled WWE

5. ECW

Active: 1992-2001

Paul Heyman’s renegade group may have been in bed with WWE from 1996 onwards but the promotion was still a viable alternative to the promotion for both the fans and the wrestlers.

ECW was a trailblazer, possessing a unique ability to polish coal into diamonds. Performers with limited skill sets were turned into superstars thanks to genius booking from Heyman which always followed the same principle: hide the negatives, accentuate the positives.

Although McMahon signed several ECW stars over the years he never attempted to kill off the group by taking too many at once and he would often send talent he was not utilising the opposite direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLwYoniyhX4

McMahon was impressed with ECW’s edgy product and booking methods and saw them not as competition but as a cost-free feeder promotion for WWE. Thus he did not try to wipe them out as he had with some many other territories over the years.

Vince liked what he saw to such an extent that WWE adopted ECW’s principles for the Attitude Era, bringing hardcore wrestling and a sexually charged product to a much larger audience than ECW could ever dream of.

Financial mismanagement from Heyman and a disastrous relationship with TV broadcaster TNN led to ECW going under in 2001 and becoming swallowed up into the WWE system shortly afterwards. Had it been able to continue a few more months, the hole in the industry left by the demise of WCW could have breathed new life into the promotion. Alas, it was not to be.

• lists
• WCW
• All Elite Wrestling
• AEW

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