“It’s very hard. When ECW ended I literally flew home and was like…now what…but shit works out…it does…but you do need patience at the same time keeping yourself out there, trying new things, etc…â€
In 2001 the last time I had said “NOW WHAT?†without an answer was in 1995 when I graduated from college…but at least at that moment during some mid-summer day outside Philadelphia I had ECW (the original deal…obviously) on my mind…I had some sick passion for wrestling…ECW was like a real-life flashback to the stuff that I grew up watching…but really…I loved the NWA in the 80’s…I mean Worldwide was the best TV of its time…the shows at the Philadelphia Civic Center were ridiculous (notice I didn’t say sick again) and talk about storylines…there was nothing like it…that is until ECW heated up…and I was right there…literally…a ringside photographer and super happy just doing that…but…it’s the wrestling business YOU NEVER KNOW what is next…and before long (like 3 months after the first what now what moment) I was disheveled from being a ringside photographer and assembled into a family of brothers…with the same last name…you know the deal…and then when they left I decided to rip off my boss (he was the stolen gimmick victim) – NEVER SAY NEVER…pro wrestling
The funny part about the span of 1995 – 2001 was that I really didn’t grasp it all…I had no idea what would happen or the legacy we were creating…?…it was like this really long dream that you keep waiting to twitch out of and you never do and before you know it you just lived it…you lived a dream…but then you are in the “Now what?†stage…funny stuff…top of the mountain…drifting down the river type stuff…crazy…
Pine Bluff, Arkansas was never on the map to me as a hotbed of professional wrestling…but man…that’s where we really crashed and really burned…talk about an odd night…or an odd weekend…
I have this like crazy image of standing by the back door of the Convention Center in Pine Bluff and seeing these guys, some I spent the better part of 7 years with…some that I put my life in the hands of…some that did the same for me (my phone was stiff)…and it was like this assembly of ghosts…because it’s the wrestling business…it literally can just stop for you in a moment…no phase out…no goodbye…just done…and Pine Bluff wasn’t just a stop….it was a complete decimation…11 years ago this month…happy anniversary…nuts
11 years after I walked out of the building that night I harbor ZERO hostility toward the way ECW ended…if I harbored hostility it would impede my dream that I lived…look…it was ECW for Christ’s sakes! It was the grunge movement of professional wrestling! In January 2001 it was just over…in January 2011 it’s like wow, I was part of that…and I was lucky…so how can one be bitter? Would you rather have 7 years and a lifetime of memories? Or ZERO years? Right…
So really, that weekend was ultra odd…that last loop started in Poplar Bluff, MO…if you want show results search it…the one continual image that pops in my mind when I think about that night in Poplar Bluff was after the show back at the hotel…the parking lot was like a scene from “Dazed and Confused†with the boys and random fans just enjoying the beginning of the end…I can’t really put words to it…but it was cool as hell…it wasn’t like a typical night hanging out after the show….it was way different….
Pine Bluff (it wasn’t a typical ECW town so we should have the last show there #sarcasim…) was a show with a beer bash in the ring after the last match…I skipped the beer bash…I just kind of hung out in the aisle…not in denial but not in reality either…but whatever…I didn’t need to be in a ring after the show to say I was part of ECW…or self justify it…and nobody else did either…
So on the long drive back from Pine Bluff to St. Louis (hotel, airport, that deal…) it was super silent in the car…we stopped at a Waffle House…Dreamer popped me…we arrived at the Marriott…fell asleep…woke up…went to the airport…flew home…and it was over…sans like some glimmer of a potential PPV a few months later but come on…dunzo
Now what?
ZERO hostility…
Do I miss it? Of course…
Was it life changing? In ways I never dreamed possible…In ways I never dreamed possible with people I never dreamed possible to coexist with…. in those extreme moments or outside of that….learning lessons that reached far and above wrestling but landed somewhere around and about life…
It’s really simple…when you get worked up about it not going out the right way…being imitated poorly…not having the last show in Philadelphia…being this or being that….it’s really simple….
ECW…
ECW would have never ended if it didn’t begin…and that’s all you need to know…
PWI
In 2001 the last time I had said “NOW WHAT?†without an answer was in 1995 when I graduated from college…but at least at that moment during some mid-summer day outside Philadelphia I had ECW (the original deal…obviously) on my mind…I had some sick passion for wrestling…ECW was like a real-life flashback to the stuff that I grew up watching…but really…I loved the NWA in the 80’s…I mean Worldwide was the best TV of its time…the shows at the Philadelphia Civic Center were ridiculous (notice I didn’t say sick again) and talk about storylines…there was nothing like it…that is until ECW heated up…and I was right there…literally…a ringside photographer and super happy just doing that…but…it’s the wrestling business YOU NEVER KNOW what is next…and before long (like 3 months after the first what now what moment) I was disheveled from being a ringside photographer and assembled into a family of brothers…with the same last name…you know the deal…and then when they left I decided to rip off my boss (he was the stolen gimmick victim) – NEVER SAY NEVER…pro wrestling
The funny part about the span of 1995 – 2001 was that I really didn’t grasp it all…I had no idea what would happen or the legacy we were creating…?…it was like this really long dream that you keep waiting to twitch out of and you never do and before you know it you just lived it…you lived a dream…but then you are in the “Now what?†stage…funny stuff…top of the mountain…drifting down the river type stuff…crazy…
Pine Bluff, Arkansas was never on the map to me as a hotbed of professional wrestling…but man…that’s where we really crashed and really burned…talk about an odd night…or an odd weekend…
I have this like crazy image of standing by the back door of the Convention Center in Pine Bluff and seeing these guys, some I spent the better part of 7 years with…some that I put my life in the hands of…some that did the same for me (my phone was stiff)…and it was like this assembly of ghosts…because it’s the wrestling business…it literally can just stop for you in a moment…no phase out…no goodbye…just done…and Pine Bluff wasn’t just a stop….it was a complete decimation…11 years ago this month…happy anniversary…nuts
11 years after I walked out of the building that night I harbor ZERO hostility toward the way ECW ended…if I harbored hostility it would impede my dream that I lived…look…it was ECW for Christ’s sakes! It was the grunge movement of professional wrestling! In January 2001 it was just over…in January 2011 it’s like wow, I was part of that…and I was lucky…so how can one be bitter? Would you rather have 7 years and a lifetime of memories? Or ZERO years? Right…
So really, that weekend was ultra odd…that last loop started in Poplar Bluff, MO…if you want show results search it…the one continual image that pops in my mind when I think about that night in Poplar Bluff was after the show back at the hotel…the parking lot was like a scene from “Dazed and Confused†with the boys and random fans just enjoying the beginning of the end…I can’t really put words to it…but it was cool as hell…it wasn’t like a typical night hanging out after the show….it was way different….
Pine Bluff (it wasn’t a typical ECW town so we should have the last show there #sarcasim…) was a show with a beer bash in the ring after the last match…I skipped the beer bash…I just kind of hung out in the aisle…not in denial but not in reality either…but whatever…I didn’t need to be in a ring after the show to say I was part of ECW…or self justify it…and nobody else did either…
So on the long drive back from Pine Bluff to St. Louis (hotel, airport, that deal…) it was super silent in the car…we stopped at a Waffle House…Dreamer popped me…we arrived at the Marriott…fell asleep…woke up…went to the airport…flew home…and it was over…sans like some glimmer of a potential PPV a few months later but come on…dunzo
Now what?
ZERO hostility…
Do I miss it? Of course…
Was it life changing? In ways I never dreamed possible…In ways I never dreamed possible with people I never dreamed possible to coexist with…. in those extreme moments or outside of that….learning lessons that reached far and above wrestling but landed somewhere around and about life…
It’s really simple…when you get worked up about it not going out the right way…being imitated poorly…not having the last show in Philadelphia…being this or being that….it’s really simple….
ECW…
ECW would have never ended if it didn’t begin…and that’s all you need to know…
PWI