10 Wrestlers Who Saved Other Wrestlers From Getting Fired

9. Beulah McGillicutty Saves Bill Alfonso

Dave Trips
WWE.com

According to Paul Heyman - and that caveat is necessary, because it's Paul Heyman - he neglected to pay himself nor ECW founder Tod Gordon following Barely Legal under the belief that it wasn't fair to the locker room. Only when the promotion was profitable would he reap the rewards.

This allegedly incensed Gordon to such an extent that he secretly liaised with WCW to leak contractual information pertaining to certain talents. Again, allegedly, Bill Alfonso was part of this shadowy "mole" operation. Gordon left the company in May 1997, but Alfonso was spared - and that is because he, and this is all alleged, bled buckets for the company cause and re-established his worth.

His match against Beulah McGillicutty was so improbably fantastic that it practically distilled the core essence of the promotion.

Seriously: if ECW was all about blood and guts and telling super-creative stories around limited performers as a profound challenge to a fading mainstream, that claret-drenched war is the most defining match in the promotion's history.

Absurdly dramatic and heated, Alfonso was a skinny rat of a performer who on that night had the crowd baying for his blood, and they sure as sh*t got it: and, brilliantly, he motioned at one point that he was going to perform a moonsault.

Funny, cathartic, it had almost no right to be as good as it was.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!