In eight years, Extreme Championship Wrestling created a cult-like following based not so much on great in-ring action as on presenting captivating entertainers who engendered love and respect from pro wrestling fans worldwide. The key to ECW winning over its fanbase was in perpetuating an atmosphere wherein wins and losses maybe didn't matter as much as creating a "love-in" environment for violence, mayhem and aggression. The promotion itself was always the winner, and its best loved combatants could be wrestlers who didn't look like wrestlers, almost never won matches, legitimately damaged themselves (or one another) or did things in a wrestling ring that in any other (non-wrestling) situation could easily be deemed as punishable by imprisonment. For as much as wrestlers like "Full Blooded Italian" JT Smith, Terry Funk or The Public Enemy could be on this list, they're not. This list prides itself on having a group of wrestlers with significant longevity in the promotion. As well, for as much as wrestlers like Raven could be on this list too, he was a heel (and a damned fine heel at that), so he wasn't exactly beloved. This is a list largely comprised of wrestlers who were either babyfaces, cheered by the crowd (with one obvious exception) or fondly remembered overall. Thus, by stated criteria, here are the 10 most beloved ECW wrestlers of all time.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
