The Secret History Of ECW | Wrestling Timelines
April 22, 2000 - All But Over
The TNN deal is floundering, there are few stars left, and injuries have thrown ECW into disarray.
CyberSlam is a show both dire and bleak. Heyman uses his informal relationship with the WWF to crown Taz as transitional World champion, who had dethroned Mike Awesome, who was still champ when he signed with WCW. Taz drops it here to Tommy Dreamer, who drops it minutes later to Justin Credible. Francine, Dreamer’s latest valet, turns on him in the process. Yes, it’s confusing.
This scramble of swerves and twists is inelegant and desperate. It’s not unlike the madness that unfolds on a weekly basis in the doomed, laughable WCW - and, since ECW was always defiant about how awful WCW was, this is a less-than-ideal self-own.
Credible, who got over in ‘98, is still a midcard act masquerading as a headliner. His subsequent run is not great. There are no negatives to hide, but there are no real positives, either. Credible is a bland pet project manufactured by Heyman, and he registers as something of a betrayal. In ECW, wrestlers earn the spot. Credible doesn’t. It’s one of many problems.
The same can be written of Steve Corino, who gets the big push ahead of his World title reign, which begins on November 5. Corino, who beats the legendary Dusty Rhodes at CyberSlam, embodies every cynical critique of Paul Heyman’s promotion - underscoring that the self-parody era is upon us.
His face is constantly drenched in blood and his mouth, when he’s programmed with Tajiri, is always spouting slurs. A great blow-off match there aside, Corino is a cheap heat merchant, a walking shortcut, and ECW fans can sense how try-hard and shallow his work is.
It’s not all bad, but something changes in 2000. Super Crazy and Tajiri continue to delight fans with their cracking touring match in the midcard, which elsewhere has lost its creative, resourceful charm. There’s one wrestler who totally rules, during the twilight era of ECW: Rhino.
Rhino is undisputedly awesome: a stocky, explosive meathead with a frightening intensity and fouler mouth. He is an elusive star in the increasingly dim fictional universe. As great as he is, in a very raw way, the character says something grim about where Heyman is at as a creative force.
Rhino is Goldberg with more swearing, hair, and misogyny, to be reductive about it. His signature ‘Gore’ finish is Goldberg’s Spear, done almost as well to his credit, but it’s difficult to imagine the character existing first. It’s here where the legacy of Extreme Championship Wrestling is subverted. After six years of pioneering brilliance, Heyman is now doing the borrowing.