9 Worst Botches In ECW History

Poor management and a lack of proper booking oversight can create an environment where a botched move or a botched promo is actually more likely to happen: we’ve touched on a few of those in another article on the erstwhile World Championship Wrestling.

In WWF/WWF, one person was, and still is, in complete control of the company. That level of micromanagement allows for its own screw-ups, of course (and we’ve gone through a fair few of those here and here). So what about a company also run by a single charismatic workaholic control freak, Paul Heyman: a company which, however, was also a byword for chaos, mayhem and flying by the seat of its pants?

What about Extreme Championship Wrestling?

Well, that’s a can of worms. Botched moves were pretty much de riguer on ECW shows, for a variety of reasons. Don’t forget, it was ECW fans who innovated the ‘you f*cked up’ chant. And in a lot of cases, botching wasn’t any big deal… it added to the verisimilitude of some matches to see some spots horribly wrecked, and it doesn’t make sense to hold The Sandman to the same high standard as Eddie Guerrero.

With that in mind, we’ve rooted around to pick out the most cringeworthy botches we can find on ECW shows and tried to give a little background to each example. Some are horrendous, some are hilarious – others, maybe a little of both. Whichever it is, the only appropriate response is OUCH.

A 6’6” powerhouse and a high flyer? Incredible but true… actually, make that Awesome but true. Sadly, these days the late Mike Awesome is best remembered for his controversial decision to jump ship from ECW to WCW (in a dispute with Heyman over pay) while holding the ECW world title.

Unlike Vince McMahon in a similar position, Heyman managed to intimidate the competition into keeping the ECW championship belt off television (possibly due to the influence of his father, a heavyweight lawyer). Awesome would eventually drop the title to Tazz, in a match famous for its historical significance: a WCW wrestler losing the ECW title to a WWF wrestler.

This moment, however, is from six years earlier. In a short, one-sided match against sad sack J T Smith at The Night The Line Was Crossed on February 5th 1994, Mike proved why he was so Awesome and made a significant impact with ECW fans… but lost via sudden inside cradle. Smith would roll out of the ring, leaving Awesome to take it out on the referee with two Awesome Bombs, followed by a frog splash which, as you can see, never actually took place.

That’s an Awesome faceplant, right there... but fortunately, the big man shook it off, dumped the broken turnbuckle on the luckless referee and stalked off.