Floor play

No spilling guts no glory in the ECW

by Chris Kanaracus

To be a professional-wrestling fan is to invite certain ridicule from friends. It's scorned like Dungeons & Dragons, prog-rock, and Renaissance faires. These days, though, the social glacier has started to melt -- just a little. The industry-leading World Wrestling Federation's (WWF) Monday Night Raw (broadcast on USA) draws the most viewers for the time slot. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin and the Rock dot the covers of TV Guide, Rolling Stone, and Newsweek. And merchandise sales top out at nearly $500 million per year. Top WWF star Mick Foley's autobiography Have a Nice Day (Regan) hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. A new documentary, Beyond the Mat, hits screens this weekend. Wrestlers, too, have emerged as cultural icons, appearing on daily TV and radio to espouse the finer points of, er, anything. (The 6'8", 320-pound Justin Bradshaw, for example, recently appeared on CNBC to discuss his success in the stock market!) And live events? These days, wrestling tickets are hotter than those for Phish or for Limp Bizkit.

It's with a smaller league, though, that wrestling's new, bruising popularity lies: an upstart, Philadelphia-based promotion named Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) that should be described as the chair-swinging, breast-baring, back-flipping, blood-drenched WWF, cranked up to 11 -- the anti-Wrestlemania, if you will -- crossing the line from camp to cringe. This Friday, at the Palladium, bring an umbrella cuz the building may explode after the ECW boys are done.

Formed in 1994, and initially called the Tri-State Wrestling Federation (TWA), ECW went "extreme" in 1995, after baby-face (good-guy) star Shane Douglas inexplicably spat on his just-won title belt, grabbed the microphone, and, in a now-famed, heated harangue, laid down the law: TWA was now "extreme."

Indeed. There are no limits in ECW. Wrestlers use a host of weapons, which fans eagerly donate before show time, including lead pipes, flaming chairs, banquet tables, trash cans, forks, and, occasionally, a STOP sign. And blood, streaming from wrestlers' foreheads after a flick of a razor blade, is plentiful. The ECW may not have the gloss of the WWF, but it makes up for it with sheer insanity.

It's a given that you'll see sick stuff at an ECW show. Take the July 1998 event at the Palladium: perennial league favorite Tommy Dreamer stood atop the balcony, raised a Budweiser high in each hand, and then sprayed beer maniacally in all directions. Later, during the show's main event, a psychotic wrestler named New Jack leapt off a different ledge and plunged more than 20 feet onto his opponent, Jack Victory, driving him through a table. Needless to say, Victory's choice of nickname was unfortunate that night.

Even the actual wrestling is cranked up. Way up. In ECW, wrestlers aren't happy with simple punches, kicks, grapples, and slams. No, you've got the crushing Awesome Bomb, tombstone piledrivers, the Evenflow DDT.

But, as conventional wisdom goes, wrestling is fake. Right? Not exactly, says ECW stalwart Spike Dudley, reached at home as he recuperated from a grueling weekend tour. "What you see happening is actually happening, -- in a way," says Dudley, 29, and a former third-grade teacher, as he sits on his couch, icing a sore knee while waiting for the UPS guy.

Dudley discusses, by way of example, the common finishing move, the piledriver. A wrestler holds his opponent upside down and facing out, then drops down on his seat, securing the poor-soul's head between his legs seconds before he crashes into the canvas. Sure, the victim's noggin actually lands a couple of inches above ground, but what about the tailbone of the guy performing the move? The wrestler always acts unfazed, even when it's done on a concrete floor.

"Well, it really hurts. It's one of the most painful things in the world. But it's part of the performance, so you just do it." The same goes for maneuvers like ECW star Rob Van Dam's trademark "5-star Frog Splash," in which a wrestler leaps from the corner post and lands in a heap on top of his opponent. "He doesn't put his knees and elbows down to block it, like most people think. He might get hurt [as did WWF wrestler Eddie Guerrero, who suffered a dislocated elbow after performing the same move in February]. He just lands on you . . . it's hell on the ribs."

Dudley says, at least as far as he's concerned, "most of the in-ring stuff is relatively safe. It's when you're outside the ring that it's a different story." And, as much of the ECW action takes place outside the squared circle. One recent match that the 180-pound, 5'10" Dudley had with ECW World Champion Mike Awesome (6'6", 300) ended when Awesome raised Dudley overhead, then drove him through a banquet table placed ringside. A relatively common move, except for one thing. Awesome was not outside, standing next to the table. He was 10 feet up and away, in the ring. "That was the end of that match. There's no faking going through a table," says Dudley, who sounds surprisingly healthy.

Yet even this example of real violence and pain results in a bit of a Catch-22. "If you tell someone it's all fake, they'll say, `Well, what about that stuff with the tables?' If you say it's real, they'll say, `What about the stuff in the ring?' You can't win; besides, all that talk takes away from what's really going on . . . something that's supposed to be fun."

It's a bit of a revelation when Dudley reveals that wrestling bouts aren't meticulously planned out. "It's not choreographed. It's like a very physical, improvisational dance. No one talks about the match beforehand, unless you're planning to do something really crazy. Besides, you can't plan out a whole match in advance, because you don't know what the crowd's going to be like. What if they're bored with what you're doing? You'll have to change things up. What if I have a match with someone like Little Guido [an ECW heel, or bad guy] in Brooklyn? Obviously, it's him who's going to be the `face.' So the match would have to go a certain way."

The finish, or ending sequence to a match, says Dudley, is usually the only thing scripted. And often, it's more important than the actual moves and sequences performed during it. For it's here that a wrestler's reputation and standing in the league is decided. A disqualifying loss for a top-tier wrestler can further a storyline without weakening their status. Surprise pins can have the same effect. But if you're laid out like a "sack of yesterday's news," chances are it's the start of your downfall.

Dudley has seen his share of both losses and victories over the course of his six-year tenure in ECW. Right now, though, he's without a "feud," or ongoing conflict with another wrestler. "I'm sort of the utility guy. I come to work without knowing who I'm wrestling that day. I'm proud of the fact, though, that I can have a good match with anyone, from a top guy to someone really green [inexperienced]. I'm there to put on a show."

Dudley, in fact, says he's living his dream. "I'm making way more money now than I did as a teacher, I'm doing what I love. I'm very happy."

No doubt ECW's founder, Paul Heyman, is happy these days as well. Heyman, a veteran of the wrestling wars, both as promoter, booker (storyline writer), and on-air personality, has seen his once-struggling league blossom. A weekly, Friday-night television program is the Nashville Network's (TNN) highest-rated program. Syndicated ECW shows air nationwide. There's even a video game for the Playstation console.

Chances are, ECW's success will reach a ceiling. It's just too far afield of even WWF's racy antics.

That's not to say business isn't good. Currently, weekend shows (the promotion sticks to three events weekly to allow a few days' healing time for wrestlers) draw an average of 2000 fans. Dudley, for one, would like to see things top out fairly soon. "If you get too big, you're going to lose the intimacy of the ECW experience."

It's an experience, says Dudley, that extends all the way back to the locker room. "You have your pranksters, mentors, and enforcers. We're like a family."

Extreme Championship Wrestling returns at 8 p.m. on March 17 to the Palladium. Tickets are $15 to $35. Call (617) 931-2000.