10 ECW Stars Who Died Too Young

4. The Public Enemy

Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge were butting heads with each other long before they teamed up in an ECW ring. The two had a long feud on the independents and, in a nifty piece of useless trivia, the two wrestled each other (as Cheetah Kid and Johnny Rotten) in a dark match at the first set of Monday Night Raw tapings.

Eight months later, the two would form a team in ECW. The duo became wildly popular due to their weapons-filled arena-wide brawls and their penchant for smashing opponents (and themselves) through tables.

The team grew so popular and their gimmick was so on-the-pulse of contemporary American youth culture that they came to the attention of WCW, who were in the process of stacking their roster in order to fight in the Monday Night Wars.

Their WCW run was mixed at best, and the gimmick seemed watered down and out of place in the more mainstream setting. They had two years there, during which time they won the Tag Team Titles (for a measly eight days), before leaving and trying their luck in the WWF.

It was not a happy stay, since both men had heat with members of the locker room for one reason or another. A notable instigator of the heat was that stickler for backstage etiquette, Bradshaw. The big Texan, along with his Acolyte tag team partner Farooq, once beat the hell out of PE on an episode of Sunday Night Heat after the Enemy tried to get the change of a match finished so that they wouldn't have to be put through a table.

They were gone from the company soon after and returned to life on the independents. Ted 'Rocco Rock' Petty died aged 49 on September 1, 2003 of a heart attack while travelling to an indie show, while Michael 'Johnny Grunge' Durham died on September 16, 2006 as a result of sleep apnea complications. He was 39 years-old.