8. Majority Of Pre-Tape Promos Were Shot In A Basement
Ron Buffone was a producer for ECW, and someone Paul Heyman considered valuable to his promotion. Buffone was the kind of guy who would happily stay awake for days on end, forgoing sleep in favour of producing pro wrestling shows - much like many under the ECW umbrella, the man performed everything from video editing to camera work, doing it all with glee. Unbelievably, many of the pre-tape promos and voiceovers found on ECW programming were all recorded at the one place, a dingy basement in the home of Buffone's parents in New York. Hanging up an ECW banner to hide the fact that they were recording in the location they were, Heyman, Buffone, Joey Styles and Tommy Dreamer quite often sat down for dinner with Ron's mother, before retreating downstairs to work on their dreams. According to Buffone, TNN offered ECW a criminally-low budget, yet tasked the promotion with producing a show on par with the likes of Monday Night Raw and Monday Nitro, something which was impossible given the modest amount of money they had at their disposal. Some of those promos from The Sandman or Mick Foley you remember? Yes, they were recorded in someone's mother's basement!
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.
