In the late ‘90’s, professional wrestling had gotten a bit stale. Sure I watched WWE Monday Night Raw as well as WCW Monday Nitro but they just weren’t keeping me engaged like back in the day. Even as a wrestling fan I was starting to lose interest since wrestling wasn’t really the coolest thing to talk about in high school. So a few of my friends and I kept our love of wrestling on the low. Nobody needed to know that I painted my face at a WWF taping years back or still played with wrestling action figured here and there. But then around 1996 I started hearing about a 3rd professional wrestling league called Extreme Championship Wrestling. I have no idea how I heard about ECW because there wasn’t YouTube at the time. ECW was mostly heard by word of mouth through hardcore wrestling fans. To get my hands on ECW matches I had to hit the internet message boards and buy VHS tapes off of strangers all over the US. And that’s exactly what I did.
I fell in love with ECW back then and stopped even caring about WWF and WCW. ECW’s first pay per view was my first chance to see all the stars I had heard about live on TV. “Barely Legal” was that first PPV and I was more hyped for it than any sporting event. I called up the few homies I had into ECW and we chipped in the $30 needed and got hyped. ECW to me was just different. Wrestlers doing crazy sh*t with amazing promos and hot chicks wearing nothing with a slutty type of vibe. As a high school kid?? Cmon…. I was all in. I was thirsty for managers like Francine and Sunny….
ECW surprisingly got syndication in San Diego around 1997 but here was the problem. Because of its content, it had to play in the middle of the night. So in high school, I set my alarm for 2am and would wake up and sneak out to the TV and watch at very low volume levels so my parents wouldn’t hear. I would also record each week’s show to watch key matches over and over again. ECW played on a weird channel only at 2am so I had to make sacrifices to catch those episodes right when they ran. Then I would just stay up for the day at that point because how can I go back to sleep after watching dudes crash through tables taking ridiculous bumps from super high up? These guys seemed crazy AF and the vibe from the fans in the stands at ECW Arena in South Philly was so dope. The arena only held 1,400 people but those fans would do anything for ECW. There was a dollar store next to the arena so it was no surprise when fans brought baking pans, spatulas, and other random cookware for the wrestlers to use in their matches. It was comical to see for somebody like myself who was only accustomed to WWF and WCW. Remember when Spike Dudley crowd surfed after Bam Bam Bigelow threw him from the ring all the way to the floor???
There were a lot of characters in ECW that I loved. The Eliminators had what I feel still holds up as a top 5 finishing move of all time. Hearing Joey Styles yell, “TOTAL ELIMINATION!!!” always got me so hyped because I knew the match was over.
2 Cold Scorpio had the skill set to be a prominent fixture in the bigs but Vince gave him the Flash Funk character which doomed him. Stevie Richards to me was always the poor man’s Shawn Michaels who has the full reigns of creativity to be himself in ECW. Little Guido was a great character and wrestler. Those early Rey Mysterio matches with Juventud Guerrerra we’re next level. Benoit, Jericho, and Dean Malenko had some amazing technical matches. I could honestly go on and on. The talent at ECW in the 90’s was amazing. But nothing could beat the allure of Sabu. I watched weekly syndication in hopes to see Sabu highlights or possibly even a full match from him. Sabu took crazy bumps and constantly looked like he broke bones in the process. Dude crazy glued his a huge gash in his arm in the middle of a match just to keep things going. Yup… legendary!
And then there was the man, the myth, the legend… ROB VAN DAM. I don’t watch my schedule wrestling anymore outside of AEW every once in awhile but RVD to me was the best wrestler of all time. He wasn’t the strongest grappler but the athleticism was off the charts and the frog splash from the top rope couldn’t be beat. And the Jean-Claude Van Damme splits he’d to in the middle of the ring? The acrobatics were phenomenal.
Rob Van Dam and Sabu were the main reasons I sacrificed sleep to catch them on syndication back in the 90’s. When they teamed up as a tag team I knew right then and there that they would be my favorite tag team of all time. Their combined skills were just nasty and Bill Alfonso as their managing was the icing on the cake.
RVD’s entrance to the ring got me into Pantera and also got me fired the f*ck up to see them come down to the ring and demolish whoever was in their way. As single wrestlers, Sabu and RVD were 2 of my favorites of all time. But when they joined forces as a tag team it was always must watch TV.
And when they faced each other you just knew some crazy sh*t was going to go down.
Sabu and RVD are my 2 favorite wrestlers of all time. And I didn’t even see any of their careers after the late 90’s ECW run because I faded away from wrestling as I started college. I know I missed a lot of good highlights from these two so if you’re reading this and have post-2000 matches, highlights, or recommendations you can throw me, please hit the comment section and let me know!