10 Things We Learned From Bruce Prichard's WWF & ECW Podcast
9. WWF Financially Compensated ECW Up Until The End
Months before Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon made their debuts on WWF television, the agreement between ECW and the WWF expanded to include financial compensation. Another way of putting this would be to state that Paul Heyman's group received money from Vince McMahon's organisation, cash which could feasibly keep ECW ticking over.
In 1997, these cheques included a bumper payment to cover ECW's payroll. Bruce Prichard claims that McMahon didn't believe he'd ever see that money again (rumoured to be in the region of $400,000, although Prichard himself neither confirms or denies that figure). It was instead an investment; it was in Vince's interests to keep ECW afloat.
Many fans likely believe that the WWF/ECW relationship ended following the Barely Legal pay-per-view both sides were keen to promote. Interestingly, that's apparently not the case. During the podcast, Prichard outright confirms that ECW received weekly cheques from the WWF right up until the extreme group went out of business.
That's intriguing, especially when taking into account ECW operated as a separate entity. For McMahon, Heyman's promotion was handy to have around.