Why Shane Douglas Will Always Be ECW's Franchise

(Are YOU going to tell him he's not?)

Welp, I knocked off a little early today, hooked up with my buddy Steve, hooked up with BatBong, and now we're watching ECW's first-ever PPV, Barely Legal on WWE Network. I don't know how many times I've seen it & it's still great. I loved that ECW got nationwide exposure with TNN (Yeah, I know...) & were able to sell out bigger venues, but the feel of the PPVs were much different on the road than they were in ECW country. Road fans gave it their best, but nothing was better than the quickness & spontaneity of the (pun probably intended) hardcore ECW fans.

Real quick, if you don't watch wrestling stoned, I really have to shake my head, bro. You really don't know what you're missing. Taz v. Sabu is on right now & the first "ECW!" chant went up & when I'm high, it takes on such a weird vibe. It's like deja vu mixed with Saturday morning cartoons. I dunno. I'm high.

Anyway, just finished watching Shane Douglas take on Pitbull Anthony (Rassle In Peace) after breaking Pitbull Gary's neck, and there was a swerve with Rick Rude & Brian Lee & Douglas got his comeuppance. It was a solid match. Not his best, but far from his worst. Everything's unfolding & the crowd is rooting against Douglas passionately, as they have subliminally been instructed to, and I'm thinking of what "The Franchise" really means.

Any promo Douglas ever cut as an ECW wrestler was fucking brilliant. I'm not saying that as a kiss-ass mark (well, a little, I guess), I'm saying that as someone who has a lot of public speaking experience & has worked as a broadcaster/journalist for 30 years & understands people and the psychology of crowds. Douglas reached into these people & pulled something out, something substantial. The night he threw down the NWA belt (something even I heard about while living in Spain & not having watched wrestling in three years; it was a big fucking deal), he cut a promo that still gives me chills, especially now having heard him provide the backstory about his dad.

The crowd lapped it up like dehydrated puppies.

"Face Shane" has always been over for the same reason ECW still has rabid fans: because first & foremost, he respected the fans & didn't treat them like idiots. He didn't talk down to the fans like they were six & still sleeping with their Hulk Hogan pillows; he talked to them the way they talked to others. Bluntly. Directly. Honestly.

And that's why "Heel Shane" is even more over. He built that equity on the fact the fans knew he was a real shooter. So when Douglas went rogue, his promos fucking KILLED. Every time. And no matter if he left for Monday nights, he was still given the respect he had earned as the first ECW champion.

Because he's The Franchise.

(And behind every Franchise is a Head Cheerleader. Oof. #IHaveToTakeCareOfSomething)

Paul E. was the brains, and Tommy Dreamer was the soul, and that's a fact. Those two went down with the ship and are the two most recognized figures. In my opinion. And what do I know, I'm just a fan. And a stoned one at that. Watching a 21-year-old PPV with my stuffed bear, Steve. My opinion is suspect. But my point is that with Sandman being the spirit of ECW; the Dudleys as its sense of extreme violence; and Raven, its dark side; Shane is The Franchise and that means something.

Shane was the ECW wrestler with the mainstream look. The fact WWF & WCW couldn't do anything with him shows how ridiculous they were (and based on what they're trying to do with Becky Lynch, still are). Fuck, if Shane had been in WWF instead of Austin & they let Shane be Shane the way they let Austin be Austin? Fucking PLEASE. He'd be a goddamned legend. I mean, MORE of a goddamned legend. You know what I mean.

It was that mainstream look that gave his words weight. This guy had been around. He'd been tabbed for NWA gold. He'd been a WWF champ. But he was a shooter, and the newly-evolving internet message boards proved that out.

(I'm sorry, we're doing the intros for the Barely Legal Three-Way Dance to see who will fight Raven & I always get a little wet-eyed when Terry Funk comes to the ring. Sorry again.)

More importantly, he went toe-to-toe with the best & usually whipped their asses. He could go hardcore, he could bleed, he could be athletic, he could & fucking DID carry that company on his back during those first couple years, the years that laid the foundation for the most influential wrestling company since WWF put the belt on Hogan. That's still a factual statement. You show me a wrestling federation out there right now that isn't basing their foundation on what ECW did. I'll wait.

So when Douglas is dismissed as a guy who, yes, was a key figure in ECW's history & success, but other wrestlers deserve more recognition, I ask who? Taz? I think we all knew Taz would leave, and that's no disrespect to him. People have families. I get it. Not Tommy either. Tommy had a different role to play within the company.

Douglas is like Batman in The Dark Knight. Maybe Shane Douglas wasn't the wrestler fans felt they deserved. But he was the one they needed.

Because he's The fucking Franchise.

(Yeah, even this one. He's the fucking Franchise, too, by God.)

How ECW Created Its Slavishly Loyal Fanbase

Like I said I would, I'm gloriously baked, I'm watching ECW on the WWE Network, and I'm writing about it. Today's viewing is Hardcore Heaven 1995. This particular bit of internet literature is my shout out to both the ECW for creating a fanbase that was an active participant in every event and to the fans themselves for understanding they were part of a bigger whole.

I'm watching Shane Douglas do the whole "will he, won't he" thing about heading to WWE and the audience is giving him the business. Shane is baiting them and they respond with "Get Ric Flair!" It's kind of effective. Flair has been a foil for Douglas since he returned from the WCW. Standard fare for a wrestling show.

Then, as Shane starts to talk again, we hear, "Shut The Fuck Up!" And it wasn't done in the sing-songy way of "Shut the fuck up!" (Clap-clap, clap-clap-clap), it was just the crowd yelling at him in unison. It's not the vulgarity, it's not the fact the crowd is all ganging up on him, and it's not his response.

It's their timing.

The audience had impeccable timing, almost always. Now, let me restate, I'm no insider by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not even an active wrestling fan anymore. Every couple years, I dig my ECW DVDs out of storage & binge watch them for a couple weeks. YouTube's OK, but there aren't many full shows out there because WWE, strangely, doesn't want all their content floating out there for free. 

My point being, I'm a pretty green mark. I don't read any of the gossip sites, haven't in a very long time, and don't keep up with the wrestlers, other than Twitter. I don't know who the audience where. I know some of them did documentaries and have been interviewed and whatnot and I know they could be pains in the ass because they thought (knew) they were a huge part of the show. I also know this because I've done event public relations before and as a rule, the audience tends to suck. I know, you pay the bills and that's an absolute fact and in general, huge crowds actually tend to be awesome, but it's the nine or ten shitheads that ruin it because they feel entitled to get free shit. "Hey, man, you give me a hat, I'll wear that hat around town, and, I mean, that's free advertising for you!"

You'd be stunned how often I've heard that as a legit excuse to get free shit.

(Hey, guys, you can't just rush in and--you know what? Fuck it. #NotMyTable)

Anyway, got off track there (Bubba Kush is what we're doing today & I have to tell you, it's fucking incredible. I can't feel my teeth). I'm sure there was a ring general of some kind, giving instructions on what to chant. There had to be. Because the chants never started slow & ragged; they always started loud. There are times, obviously, when you get the spontaneous "ECW" chants (Or "What?!" with Stone Cold, one that I love to this day & it's a promised divorce if I do it to the wife again), but the others were pretty specific and I find it hard to believe that many people were thinking the same thing at the same time. So if you have any insight on that, head over to my Twitter account @MyECWMemories. I'd love to hear about the real stories.

By the way, the Taipei Death Match is on. Holy shit, I love this. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of the blood, but I respect the hell out of the wrestlers who do it. 

Like I said before, the ECW audience was a real entity that interacted with the wrestlers. If Paul E. was ECW's brain, Joey was the voice, Tommy was the heart, and Sandman was the spirit, the audience was its conscience. That was a damned savvy crowd and it's because Paul & Joey & the wrestlers treated them like intelligent consumers instead of a bunch of 80s-era Hogan-worshiping marks (I love calling people "marks," I do it all the time even/especially if they're not wrestling fans). Paul knew the fans were on the internet. He knew they read the gossip sites and knew what was going on, so he talked to them like equals. As a result, he had a guaranteed audience of people who were going to make his shows pop like Wrestlemania every time.

(ECW! ECW! ECW!)

Man, good stuff.

Oh. I've never been to an ECW show. Ever. I've had a couple chances & either sometime came up or I just didn't feel like leaving the house. I'm weird like that. Just a huge fan. I'm literally that 45-year-old stoner mark blogging about wrestling that doesn't exist anymore. Holy God. Strangely, I think the 15-year-old me would be cool with it.

PS Just did a massive hot bong rip. I can smell colors. Tommy Dreamer just literally threw Raven and Stevey through a wall. They're beating the shit out of Luna.

"You can't super bomb a woman!"

Oh, yes you can, Joey Styles.