10 Wrestlers From ECW’s Final Year You Totally Don’t Remember

9. Michael Shane

The Musketeer ECW
Impact Wrestling

He's Shawn Michaels' cousin.

That's the biggest claim to fame Michael Shane had after graduating from Shawn's TWA school in 1999. It didn't take long before the bigger promotions were sniffing around, including ECW. Most fans likely remember Shane as TNA's Matt Bentley, but he spent some time in the land of extreme first.

In total, Shane worked 15 matches for Paul Heyman's organisation. A fair number of those were on the house show loops, but he did appear on one or two episodes of the syndicated Hardcore TV program too. Maybe Mike would've gone on to bigger and better things had ECW stuck around a little longer.

Post-ECW, Shane worked some job matches for WWE (on Velocity and Sunday Night Heat), then made a minor splash during TNA's early weekly pay-per-view days. He was talented, but emerging from the shadow of Michaels was always going to be a struggle.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.