Forever Heel: Greatest ECW Heels Part 2

Columns, Top Story

Just some housecleaning first. I am getting so bored with WWE’s cookie cutter heels. I’m still waiting on seeing the diamond Randy Orton has become. Damien Sandow is now another heel to go from cool gimmick to serious badass heel with gold on his mind. Remember when we had heels that wrestled for the money, or were great even though they never held a WWE title? I also miss grudge matches. Grudge matches would be cool because the US and IC titles are meaningless. I also hate how it seems Ziggler is the only guy that showboats on his way to the ring, and connect with the crowd. Everyone else acts like they’re in an empty arena. I’m throwing money at my computer as soon as The WWE Network begins though.

I’m enjoying all the IWC’s great ideas on how to fix TNA. Most think it should just die. I don’t know why the Fb marks think TNA has to compete with WWE to stay in business? TNA is making money by the way. I doubt we’ll ever see another wrestling fed that will reach WWE levels. There probably won’t even be a wrestling alternative to WWE if TNA folds. Tv executives pretty much feel pro-wrestling was just a 10-year-old fad. I also can’t believe how little people know about running a wrestling business. You can’t just hire Goldberg and 20 other guys and have great storylines. All that shit has to stay in budget. So if you run a fed its much cheaper to make Rockstar Spud a star, than it is to keep AJ Styles. It’s also shown that wrestling fans will watch anything with “wrestling” in the title, and then bitch about then watch it again next week. Rinse and repeat.

Lets get to ECW’s top 5  heel list of top heels to heel up in there…yo.

5) Steve Corino- Corino’s anti-hardcore gimmick and later he become “The King of Old School”, the gimmick he used for most of his Indy run. Steve Corino began in ECW as a manger with a stable full of challengers to face ECW Champ Taz. He managed Tajiri, Chris Candido, Jack Victory, and paid Bubba Ray Dudley to beat Taz. No one could beat Taz, so Corino brought in Rhyno. Problem was Taz left for WWE before a match with Rhyno could take place. Mike Awesome became the new heel ECW Champ, and that left Corino with a stable full of heels that had nothing to do.  Corino began wrestling himself. During a match with Tommy Dreamer Corino grabbed the chair out of Tommy’s hands, and then handed to the ref. He refused to use chairs, kendo sticks, and tables in the Land of Extreme. When Balls Mahoney was taking on Rhyno. Balls unfolded a table outside the ring. Before Mahoney could put Rhyno through the table, Steve Corino came out and folded up the table then nicely slid it under the ring. Corino was beginning to be cheered for his anti-extreme gimmick, so he resorted to cheating again. Later he would have a feud with Dusty Rhodes, and begin his “King of Old School” gimmick. This would fare better for the heel Corino since it allowed hijinks that would garner boos from the crowd. Corino would later turn face just long enough to gain the ECW World Title, and then promptly turn and resort to shenanigans. He lost the belt to Sandman in the final days of ECW. Corino was thought of as too small for WWE, and TNA has never shown much interest in him. He had began negotiations with WCW, but those broke down when WCW broke down. He is the best wrestler to never work in the WWE.

4) Jimmy Snuka – Jimmy Snuka isn’t really thought about in ECW history. That’s because Snuka’s tenure was when ECW stood for. “Eastern Championship Wrestling”, before the company left the NWA, and became Extreme. Snuka was actually the first ECW Champion after winning the 1992 tournament for the belt. Here ECW fans saw Snuka as a stale cartoon and turned on him. He took Hunter Q. Robinson as his manager, and made a full heel turn. Snuka would begin going out to hurt other wrestlers, not have a friendly competition. He was injuring guys, and antagonizing ECW fans by doing it. By 1994 ECW fans were getting very loyal and very smarkish. They knew wrestlers were killing themselves to put on a good show. Having a has been like Snuka come down the ring and just injure and cripple their heroes disgusted them. Snuka would also win the ECW Tv Title, and win his matches in a brutal fashion. He often cheated to win. He also would draw blood in almost all his matches. Snuka had gone from being a washed up wrestling legend to a out of control heel. Snuka would turn faded face later and go on into obscurity as Eastern Championship Wrestling became Extreme Championship Wrestling.

3)Cactus Jack- Cactus joined ECW while he was a WCW Tag Team Champion. Technically he was still under contract with WCW, but wrestled between both companies. In ECW his feud with Sabu so intense that Foley would spit on his WCW Belt in disgust. He would leave WCW completely and make sporadic ECW appearances. Cactus returned to ECW as the IWA “King of the Death Match” Tournament. Fans could not wait for Cactus to unleash the violence all over ECW. ECW was created for a hardcore legend like Cactus Jack. It was only a matter of time before he took the ECW World Championship. Cactus could not win the belt. He had put his health and livelihood on the line for ECW. He loved the cheers from the fans, but fans won’t pay his bills if he gets seriously hurt. Cactus began wrestling safely and methodical matches. His tag partner Tommy Dreamer began to question Jack’s lack of work put into each match. Cactus worried if he made the wrong decision by leaving WCW? Cactus decided to save Tommy Dreamer by turning on him. Raven wanted Dreamer out of ECW. Cactus thought he could help Raven by luring Dreamer to WCW, thereby also saving Dreamer from ECW fans that would only push Tommy to injury. (Heel Mick Foley is still a nice guy. He helps guys like Raven and Mr McMahon without question.) Cactus had two infamous heel moments in ECW. His match with Tommy Dreamer where he debuted his Dungeon of Doom t-shirt, and his “Forgive me, Uncle Eric” t-shirt. Cactus pro-WCW stance was hated by ECW fans. ECW fans also hated WWE equally, but that was diluted as Paul Heyman needed WWE for a series of lones and later a job. In winter of 1995, Mikey Whipwreck would win the ECW Tag Belts by himself. After Mikey won both belts, Cactus ran down to the ring and declared himself Mikey’s tag partner and fellow ECW Tag Champ. Cactus’ last feud was with his partner Mikey Whipwreck. There last match was advertised on the ECW TV show every time there was commercial time. So take a time machine to 1997 and order it from RF Video. Its good stuff.

2) Raven- I’m not going to spend too much on Raven because I already have a huge profile coming up for him in a few months. Raven was interesting in ECW. At first fans hated that he was just some drug addicted WWE reject. He was just Jonny Polo in flannel and cutoff shorts. He never paid a due in his life. That all changed when he began to attack Tommy Dreamer and we discovered Raven and Dreamer had a past. It turned-out that Raven and Dreamer were friends as kids, and that Raven felt Dreamer had abandoned him. In between WWE and ECW Raven decide Dreamer was to blame for his problems. This was the best thing to come out of ECW. The Raven/Dreamer feud was like when WCW created the NWO. Fans also began to like Raven. If you were the kid that made C’s in school and stayed quiet during class but still ended up in detention, Raven was your hero. Raven would go on to win the ECW World Title twice, and the ECW Tag Belts, four times. I also feel part of the reason he is ECW’s biggest heel has a lot to do with how he was booked in WCW. His WCW run really showcased the Raven character. Raven also is the only wrestler to have a ECW, WCW, WWE, and TNA action figure made of him. Playing with action figures is the only way you’ll ever see a decent Raven vs. Undertaker match.

1) Shane Douglas- I put Shane as number 1 because he was just the biggest ECW star and most hated. Douglas was a pompous windbag when he was in his early thirties. Douglas was the face of ECW for most of the promotion’s life. He usually held the title, and was the guy Heyman could introduce to the investors, and television station managers. Could you imagine bring someone like Sandman or Sabu to do this? That’s why Shane was The Franchise. He is also the guy who put his career on the line by throwing down his newly won NWA World Championship and declaring himself The Extreme Championship Wrestling Champion. Basically he was an extreme and warped Ric Flair. He had his Triple Threat which members included Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Chris Candido. Triple Threat would serve as Douglas’s principle faction. The most known version was Douglas, Candido, and Bigelow. This combination would later reunite in WCW. Douglas was also the king of pissing off fans in a way most of us never knew was on purpose, he would deliberately use nonsensical moves. He would be getting a beat down and then throw a punch toward the air, and basically have a match by himself. It’s hard to hear if ECW fans really hated this, but it seems like Cacus Jack’s long boring stretches and holds that totally pissed off the fans. They were both trained by the same guy. Shane Douglas was good for ECW. He was a good wrestler that held his own with guys like Malenko, and even Flair in WCW. Douglas’ last match was where he joined Tommy Dreamer in a tag match against the Impact Players (Lance Storm and Justin Credible), they picked up the win.

 

CH Punk comes from Beverly Hills, California; but considers himself a citizen of the World. Punk also turned heel at age 5, after receiving a LJN Iron Sheik figure for Christmas. On that day he vowed he would stuff his Sheik figure up Hulk Hogan's nose, to ruin Hulkamania. By 1995 Hogan had already ruined it without CH's help.