In 1997, the WWF was losing the war to WCW. As wrestlers and fans left for McMahon's competition, he started to become a little desperate. Before the WWF jumped fully into the Attitude Era, they experimented with a more extreme company for a night when Jerry Lawler invited ECW wrestlers to come to Raw. It was a strange experiment that didn't last long, but it was definitely a memorable one. On Feb. 24, 1997 various ECW talent showed up on Raw mainly to promote their first ever pay-per-view Barely Legal. It was bizarre, and all these years later it still doesn't make any sense why it happened. Even Vince McMahon didn't seem sure why he made that decision on the Rise and Fall of ECW documentary. But before McMahon bought out both of his competitors, he gave ECW some free air time on Raw. The show started out with a dud as The New Blackjacks took on The Godwins. However, this match perfectly captured what was wrong with the company at the time. The cartoonish gimmicks of cowboys and pig farmers left the WWF hopelessly outdated. After that, the stars of the much smaller Philadelphia based company jumped in. We had Little Guido vs. Stevie Richards, which wasn't an amazing match by any means, but it was mind blowing that it was happening on Raw at all. In the days before the Internet was widely available, most fans were probably downright confused by who they were seeing. For those who had heard of ECW, or seen any of it, they were probably shocked. After the ECW guys wrestled, Goldust and Savio Vega took over. It was another plodding WWF match. The two companies traded off matches, as we saw some of ECW's top talent on a national stgge like Raven, Tazz and Tommy Dreamer. To make McMahon appear even crazier, he had Paul Heyman on commentary at points. Now Heyman being Heyman, he just ragged on the WWF product, but his words were spot on. McMahon's crew gave us some terrible matches that night, and an overall uninspired product. On the other hand, ECW was giving us a glimpse of the future. And over the next few months, WWF programming started to more closely mimic ECW shows than its own.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
