6 Wrestlers That Visibly Hated Working For ECW
In ECW, Paul Heyman was a master manipulator. Most of the time, anyway…
A lot of wrestlers had the time of their lives working for ECW.
Many were considered too limited or out of shape to get a gig in WWE or WCW - until ECW became an underground sensation, at which point the bingo hall endured monthly raids. Many of the wrestlers were worshipped as Gods by the bloodthirsty Philadelphia hardcores - and since the fans were very quick to take a gigantic sh*t on those they did not rate, the guys who did get over felt invincible. Afforded creative freedom, strutting into the ECW Arena knowing damn well they were embarrassing the richer, snootier competition, the roster was amongst the coolest and most futuristic ever assembled. Even in 2026, Tommy Dreamer remains so moved by the good old days that he can’t talk about them without bursting into tears.
Dreamer isn’t just blinded by nostalgia; at the time, Paul Heyman was such an effective glorified cult leader that he was able to convince his guys to run through brick walls - or, at least, the brutal wrestling spot equivalent. An unbelievable motivational speaker, Heyman wasn’t paying these guys particularly well, nor on time, and yet he still possessed the ability to make his wrestlers go above and beyond almost all of the time. The wrestlers who did end up leaving grappled with their conscience for the cardinal sin of accepting better, guaranteed money in what is a very short and dangerous career. Taz could only go through with his WWE debut at Royal Rumble 2000 after he had received Heyman’s blessing - which only happened the day of, in a car phone conversation, when he was en route to Madison Square Garden. It’s therefore difficult to arrive at the few names who were not brainwashed by Heyman’s incredible rhetoric.
Some people, however, could not abide Heyman’s bullsh*t after a while - visibly…
6. Rob Van Dam
Virtually everybody agrees that Barely Legal, the inaugural ECW pay-per-view, arrived at least a year too late.
By April 1997, the WWF had already started to push Stone Cold Steve Austin as an antihero. Bret Hart had sworn on television. The commentary table was getting wrecked frequently. WCW, meanwhile, had raided ECW’s main event and midcard scenes several times. Barely Legal, purportedly the dawn of a new era, was in fact the beginning of the end. The smarter, more prescient wrestlers had grasped this. Raven was months away from leaving; Rob Van Dam reportedly wished to join him.
Prior to his match against Lance Storm, which wasn’t originally scheduled for the card, fans pelted RVD with chants of “You sold out!” The ECW fans were in-the-know. They knew Van Dam had been negotiating with WCW; it was widely believed that this was essentially a done deal.
The resulting match was a vapid and often-botched procession of moves. It was pretty crap. A decent effort to begin with, it went off the rails towards the finish. Storm was never comfortable wielding a chair, and was heavily jeered for obviously holding back. Van Dam, meanwhile, was hardly at his most motivated. He shot to fame as the most cocksure dude in the entire industry. He was beyond smug. He radiated little of that energy at Barely Legal.
After the match, he cut a promo, acknowledging that he was a substitute who did not want to appear on the show, but had swallowed his pride. In ECW’s defence, they thought he was done, and wanted to provide a platform - the biggest in its history - to somebody who was ready to contribute.
This was miserable business all round - an ominous glimpse into ECW’s doomed, untenable future.