For those who needed to ask any wrestling historian what was the moment where ECW was truly born, this could be it. August 27, 1994, an evening that was imagined to crown a brand recent NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion became the night where Eastern Championship Wrestling spread its wings and flew from the NWA nest in probably the most dramatic fashion conceivable.
By the summer of 1994, Paul Heyman had turned ECW from an independent promotion that relied on the celebrities of the past to draw a crowd into the renegade member of the National Wrestling Alliance. Younger talent was highlighted, storylines became more dramatic and layered, and the violence level was ramping up each week. Despite all of this, Heyman knew that to ensure that ECW to succeed, it needed to interrupt away from the NWA, because while he respected the contributions of those that got here before him, he also understood that the golden era for the NWA was dead, and so he got here up with a plan.
ECW was going to carry the tournament to crown the brand new NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion, a title that had been vacant since 1993 after WCW also withdrew from the NWA. The ultimate would come right down to the high-flying yet technically savvy Too Cold Scorpio, and “The Franchise” Shane Douglas. For a wrestling match that has a lot on the road, it should be said that it’s not the best on this planet, and for a lot of ECW fans they probably don’t remember anything that happened within the 12 minutes Scorpio and Douglas were within the ring. For what it’s price, the match is high quality, if just a little unspectacular, and while you run a whole tournament in a single night, the matches are at all times going to suffer in the warmth department.
What makes this match historic nonetheless is what got here afterwards. Shane Douglas was the brand new champion and listed off a few of the greats that had held the “Ten Kilos of Gold” before him, but as an alternative of being thrilled to be an element of such a historic group, Douglas told all of them he could kiss his ass and threw the belt right down to the mat. As an alternative, he declared himself because the ECW World Heavyweight Champion, and declared that the brand new era of wrestling had begun, and ECW was on the forefront.
In that moment, ECW had set itself aside from the aging NWA and took its first daring step into the long run. NWA President Dennis Coralluzzo was disgusted and dissatisfied by what happened nevertheless it didn’t matter, and two days after the event, Tod Gordon officially folded Eastern Championship Wrestling and founded Extreme Championship Wrestling as a substitute, with Douglas being recognized because the ECW World Heavyweight Champion. It’s still up for debate as to who knew what when it got here to Douglas throwing the belt down, but for as bland as Douglas vs. Scorpio was, ECW simply would not be the identical without it.