For those of you who may not be aware I have been doing a lot of research over the last few years into different parts of the wrestling world. Though I have found a lot of information about the core subject I am researching I have also found a lot of information about the end of ECW that might be known. This article has actually been sitting in my computer since last June and I forgot it was there until recently. Now it's time to share some facts about the end of ECW:
In the Summer of 2000 the wrestling world was shocked to find that the WWF would be leaving USA Network when their contract expired and would find a new home for Monday Night Raw. In the latter portion of the summer Viacom made a 28 million dollar investment into the WWF to bring Raw to TNN for the next five years. At the time TNN was home to another wrestling company that being ECW who had been brought onto the network in late 1999. Over the years a lot has been said regarding the relationship between TNN and ECW including a number of shoot interviews done by Paul Heyman on live TV. However, the final blow really came in September 2000 when the decision was made that TNN would be airing Raw every week instead of ECW which meant the company was without a TV provider.
Even after how the run on TNN finished Paul knew the only way ECW would survive was finding new distribution for the show and so he went to the WWF’s old TV home that being the USA Network. According to Paul himself the USA Network was clamoring for ECW and was looking forward to making a deal, at the time Paul had been talking with USA Network President Stephen Chao about bringing ECW to USA Network. But then USA Network Owner Barry Diller stepped in and said that basically if his station couldn’t have the number one company then he would revamp the station and wasn’t interested in helping number two.
In the Summer of 2000 the wrestling world was shocked to find that the WWF would be leaving USA Network when their contract expired and would find a new home for Monday Night Raw. In the latter portion of the summer Viacom made a 28 million dollar investment into the WWF to bring Raw to TNN for the next five years. At the time TNN was home to another wrestling company that being ECW who had been brought onto the network in late 1999. Over the years a lot has been said regarding the relationship between TNN and ECW including a number of shoot interviews done by Paul Heyman on live TV. However, the final blow really came in September 2000 when the decision was made that TNN would be airing Raw every week instead of ECW which meant the company was without a TV provider.
Even after how the run on TNN finished Paul knew the only way ECW would survive was finding new distribution for the show and so he went to the WWF’s old TV home that being the USA Network. According to Paul himself the USA Network was clamoring for ECW and was looking forward to making a deal, at the time Paul had been talking with USA Network President Stephen Chao about bringing ECW to USA Network. But then USA Network Owner Barry Diller stepped in and said that basically if his station couldn’t have the number one company then he would revamp the station and wasn’t interested in helping number two.