Extreme Championship Wrestling was formed back in 1994, and has produced some of the greatest wrestlers ever. Austin, Mankind, Saturn, Raven, Chris Jerhicho, Sid, and the Sandman just to name a few. All of these names should ring a bell in almost any wrestling fan's head. These men have formed into some of the best wrestlers around. But ECW has never been known too much by the wrestling viewers. About a third of the people that watch wrestling have never heard of ECW. That's pretty sad. Without ECW, there probably would be no hardcore division in wrestling. Is it good or bad that ECW doesn't get that much publicity? Lets look over this issue and what will happen to ECW this Fall.

If you've ever watched an ECW match, you've witnessed that most hardcore wrestling that can be found today. If you think that some WWF wrestler took a good bump one match, it'll blow your mind when you see ECW. This is what many fans thrive for. The big falls that wrestlers take in matches. Getting "bladed". Going through a table. Getting hit with a chair. It's pure, it's real. But due to the viewing times that ECW is put at, many people don't get to see the show. I have to stay up till 3:00 AM on Saturdays in order to get my weekly dosage of ECW. Some people don't want to do that. If you can't do that, then get one of their PPVs. These always are good.

A while back at Wrestlemania, I had a ton people over to see the event. I also told them that they could see some ECW I had recorded from a PPV event. There was still about 2 hours till Wrestlemania, but I refused to show them the tape. They didn't understand why. If I would have showed them the tape, they would have looked at Wrestlemania in a different way. In other words, Wrestlemania would have sucked after watching ECW. Their matches are uncut, unedited, raw material. Swearing constantly and getting bones broken during the match, this stuff isn't for the average kid. After Wrestlemania, I showed them "Living Dangerously", a PPV that was shown a week earlier. Just as I had expected, they were shocked. Most of the people had heard of ECW, but had never seen it. Instantly, every one of them was in love with ECW. It's that easy to get hooked.

Come this fall, ECW will be put on TNN and will be shown to America on a weekly basis. Many more people will now see it, but I think that this is going to kill their show. Because of the fact that they are going on national cable, they have been forced to tone down their product. This means no more swearing, and maybe not as many dangerous stunts. I guess you can say that ECW "sold out". The ECW that you will see, will not be their best stuff. They have had the most brutal, exciting, matches ever. Yet very little people have seen them. If there's an ECW PPV coming up, get it or go somewhere that has it. Witness that most exciting event in the world before it is gone. Before it is toned down by an exaggerated, ignorant, lawsuit-plagued public.