Season 5 • Episode 7
LatestAnother historic chapter in the legacy of sports-entertainment comes to an end with the final episode of ECW. While the WWE Universe watches in anticipation over what comes next for several ECW Superstars, Christian puts the ECW Championship on the line for the last time against Ezekiel Jackson. All this and more on ECW's last stand in WWE.
ECW was a professional wrestling television program for WWE, based on the independent Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion that lasted from 1992 to 2001. The show's name also referred to the ECW brand, in which WWE employees were assigned to work and perform, complementary to WWE's other brands, Raw and SmackDown. It debuted on June 13, 2006 on Sci Fi in the United States and ran for close to four years until it aired its final episode on February 16, 2010 on the rebranded Syfy. It was replaced the following week with WWE NXT.
Practical Effects
Hardcore spots that WWE promptly sanitized
Production
Intimate ECW Arena set vs. sterile WWE polish
Acting
Paul Heyman's desperate promos selling a dead dream
Creators
Vince McMahon, Paul Heyman
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Sci Fi executives initially rejected the show for being 'too violent'—then demanded science fiction elements, leading to infamous gimmicks like the Zombie and the vampire Kevin Thorn.
The original ECW's 1999 pay-per-view 'Heat Wave' drew more legitimate heat from fans than this entire series managed in four years of trying to recapture it.
US
