10 Things Paul Heyman Wants You To Forget About ECW

7. His War With TNN

When ECW originally burst onto the scene in the Northeast, their television was not a traditional show. It was more of an infomercial that featured only commercials for ECW merchandise and events. It was clear ECW had paid for this time on television and it aired on an inconsistent basis. Sometimes it would be on Friday night at 11:00, other weeks it would be Saturday at 2:00 am, so that made it difficult for a fan to locate their show. Tape traders were swamped with requests for ECW shows in the mid-1990s. That all changed, seemingly for the better, in the late-1990s when ECW finally landed a national television deal with TNN, The Nashville Network (currently Spike). TNN was trying to move away from their country music roots and embrace a male-centered programming schedule. What was seen as ECW's saving grace was ultimately their demise and that's thanks to Paul Heyman. For the debut of the show, TNN requested that an hour of original programming be aired. Instead, Heyman chose to show a Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn match from the previous week's pay-per-view instead. It was not a good start to the relationship. Tensions increased to the point where Paul Heyman went on a tirade against TNN on ECW's show. He claimed TNN was using ECW to test the waters to see if wrestling would work on their channel and then TNN would cancel them in favor of WWF programming (he was proven correct in this regard). Heyman even went so far as to create a heel stable called The Network with Cyrus as their cowardly leader. While Heyman may have had a legitimate beef with TNN, his manner of handling the situation only made things worse and hastened ECW's demise.