9 Worst Botches In ECW History

The Heatwave event on 13th July 1996 saw one of ECW’s most thrilling matches take place – a Four Corners Elimination bout for the ECW television title, ‘The Franchise’ Shane Douglas, ECW’s premier heel, versus Pitbull #2 (Anthony Durante), 2 Cold Scorpio and champion Chris Jericho.

This match was legitimately awesome, the perennially underrated Douglas continuing to do some of the finest work of his career. All four men had traded the title over the previous three months or so, so the electrified crowd knew it could be anyone’s win – and after Jericho’s elimination, a new champion was a certainty. 2 Cold Scorpio was next, leaving Durante and Douglas. The Pitbulls’ valet Francine swerved on them to reveal that she was in cahoots with ‘The Franchise’ the whole time, leading Pitbull #1 (Gary Wolfe) to come to ringside and viciously superbomb her through a table. In retaliation, Douglas DDTed Wolfe onto the TV title belt, before hitting Durante with it. Three more foreign objects to Durante’s face, and a belly to belly suplex wrote the ending to the match for them: Douglas was ECW television champion once again.

What no one realised – including Wolfe himself – was that the DDT to the title belt had broken his neck. Opinions varied afterwards as to how it had happened. Douglas claimed that he’d instructed Wolfe how to take the move to protect himself, and Wolfe had failed to follow his advice: Wolfe claimed that Douglas simply landed the DDT poorly, placing him incorrectly. Backstage, Wolfe was complaining that something in his neck felt off, and trying to jerk his neck around to clear it up. When he visited the emergency room, doctors told him the truth: he’d have to wear a halo brace attached to screws in his skull over the next few weeks.

Wolfe legitimately blamed Douglas for the screw-up: ‘evil genius’ Heyman managed to turn the whole thing into an angle, generating nuclear levels of heat against Douglas, who was already over like clover. Weeks later, when Douglas attacked a (kayfabe) almost-recovered Wolfe, ripping at the brace, the crowd nearly rioted.