10 Times ECW Was The Most Insane Wrestling Company In The World

4. Breaking Broken Necks

Shane Douglas Gary Wolfe
WWE Network

Since the beginning of time, the central idea of professional wrestling has hinged on convincing an audience that what they are seeing is in fact real. That the fight going on in front of their eyes is genuine. If they can’t convince the fans that the fight is real, the next best thing is to convince them that the beef between the performers is genuine. ‘Heat’ is a magic word. In its early days, ECW was better than most at pulling the rug over the eyes of the audience.

The feud between Shane Douglas and Pitbull #1 (real name Gary Wolfe) may have been the best example of this. Douglas hit Wolfe with a DDT onto the ECW Television Championship belt in early 1996, breaking the latter’s neck in the process. The response to the neck-breaking is another story for another time, one that involves attempts to crank necks and more. But, long story short, Pitbull #1 was put in a halo for six weeks.

Douglas began cutting promos about the neck-breaking, joking at Pitbull’s family and more, to the point where the ECW fans were desperate to see the fallen hero get his hands on the dastardly villain. What they weren’t expecting, was for Douglas to get his hands on the man with a broken neck.

Douglas was doing battle against Pitbull #2 on an episode of ECW TV in October 1996, breaking the rules as he went. Wolfe could take no more and jumped onto the apron to apprehend Douglas, only for the reigning TV Champion to grab Wolfe by the halo. The fans could take no more, with some jumping the apron in an attempt to bring Douglas to vigilante justice. The broken neck was real but the whole story was a work, designed to whip the fans into a frenzy. But to get them to riot? Insane.

Advertisement
Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.