10 Greatest Things About ECW’s Final Year

While he may have impressed with his commentary work for New Japan Pro-Wrestling and IMPACT Wrestling - with him also spending time serving as an EVP for the Anthem promotion - it's his on-screen alliance with Kenny Omega in recent years that's seen Don Callis fully in the mainstream spotlight.

Serving as a classic prick heel - as Omega's special commentator and pseudo manager - Callis has been able to showcase his ability to truly get under the skin of wrestling audiences. But for those who watched the final few years of ECW, they'll have already been well aware of how effective of an annoying presence the Canadian could be.

From mid-1999 through until the company's final PPV, Callis served as Cyrus the Virus. Pulling his name directly from John Malkovich's murderous mastermind character in 1997's Con Air, Cyrus quickly became the most despised act in ECW.

The reason why Cyrus became so hated? Why, that's because Paul Heyman had the smarts to use Callis in a role that played on the very real frustration ECW had with the TNN network.

At this point in time, TNN was legitimately pushing back on the violence and content of ECW programming, plus the network would often give the Land of Extreme extremely minimal advertising. As such, Cyrus was used as an on-screen kayfabe representative of TNN who would be tasked with shutting down the antics of the ECW faithful's favourite wrestlers.

Forming his own Network faction, Cyrus and his underhand ways would also see him assist both Steve Corino and Rhino - plus technically Justin Credible, too - to runs as the ECW World Champion, whilst the Virus would likewise be kayfabe responsible for cancelling ECW on TNN once it became clear that the network was about to axe the show in favour of WWF Raw.