If ECW never existed, how different would wrestling have been in the 90's, and now?

Question

If ECW never existed, how different would wrestling have been in the 90's, and now?

Answer 1

it would be VERY different. GREAT question.

Answer 2

It would have been very different.In fact,I think so called "high flyers" may have never had the chance to do what they do.If Sabu hadn't paved the way for THe Hardys,Rey Mysterio,Paul London,Wang Yang,Shannon Moore,etc,then those guys virtually wouldn't exist.There would also be no hardcore matches,WWE would never think to put someone through a table or have barbed-wire.They wouldv'e probably never had an ECW brand,which means they woundn't have picked up many future stars as Elijah Burke and CM punk.Just a thought.

Answer 3

Wrestling would have been the same....WcW was there

Now there wouldnt be an EcW show

Answer 4

There would have been no Attitude Era.  WCW would have had to find their talent from Japan, Mexico, and Canada instead of ECW.  I think WCW would have beat the WWE.  While WCW stole most of their talent from ECW, they had more original ideas than WWE.  WWE got most of their Attitude Era concepts from ECW, so they wouldn't have had that available to them.  I don't think we would have had the "hardcore" wrestling in mainstream wrestler to the extent that we did without ECW.  Steve Austin probably would have been stuck as "The Ringmaster" without spending that time in ECW that allowed him to come out of his shell and laid the groundwork for the Stone Cold gimmick.

I think in some ways, wrestling might be better off if ECW never existed.  The mainstream promotions would have been forced to focus more on wrestling and less on hardcore brawls because the fans wouldn't demand it because they wouldn't see it in the US.  We also wouldn't have people complaining about how bad WWE is now because I think today's WWE is what it would have been like in the 90s had there been no ECW.  It's not all good though.  The bad thing about ECW not existing would be all the wrestlers they introduced and the way that Heyman got those wrestlers to shine where other promotions couldn't.  Sure, some, if not all, of those wrestlers would have eventually been discovered by WWE or WCW, but they probably wouldn't have been nearly as successful.  Someone like Scott Levy would have never amounted to anything without ECW and the Raven character.  Also, ECW had some of the most creative and original angles ever, many of which have been imitated numerous times.

I think if ECW never existed, wrestling could be better because the Attitude Era would have never happened and people would be more interested in the wrestling and less interested in seeing brawls.  However, I think the cons of there being no ECW greatly outweigh the pros.  ECW was great and overall, wrestling is much better because of it.

Answer 5

i dont think there would be anything diffrent just MN RAW would be more traditional cause they wouldnt be competing against ECW to see which company could draw in ratings from extreme matches/segments

Answer 6

not very.  the 90s ended with vince owning it all.

Answer 7

Great question!

I think the Monday Night War would of been way different, in fact Eric Bischoff did plunder ECW's locker room. Now Eric would of still came up with the whole NWO angle no doubt.

I believe it was many of the ECW talents such as Jericho, Guerrero, Benoit, Malenko, Mysterio, Juvi, and many others that gave WCW a different edge that made Vince wake up and understand that his cartoon product was not resonating with the "smart" fans anymore.