Great Ideas That Didn’t Last: ECW on TNN

Posted on February 8, 2019 by bdamage1

Brian Damage

Throughout the history of pro wrestling bookers and promoters have always tried to come up with new, creative and innovative ideas to generate interest in their product. Some ideas have not only succeeded…but flourished. Others were DOA from the get-go. Then there are those ideas which initially were innovative but, for various reasons, faded away. Those are the focus of this latest series of posts titled ‘Great Ideas That Didn’t Last’.

During the late 1990s, it was clear who were the top wrestling promotions in the United States. There was, of course, the WWE and WCW and then there was Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) who was a distant third. The funny thing was, the two bigger promotions stole many ideas and talent from the small Philadelphia, Pennsylvania based ECW. Paul Heyman, who was in charge of ECW, created a buzz about his company that made the big two take notice. The main problem, however, was ECW simply didn’t have the financial resources that WWE and WCW had.

It could not compete on a national level with either company due to the lack of financial flexibility it suffered from. ECW contracted wrestlers were not getting paid on time or not getting paid at all. For the most part, ECW had a string of locally syndicated television deals, but not much else to work with. Word of mouth and tape trading were ways that ECW got the word out about their product.

Despite Heyman’s limited resources, ECW became the talk of the wrestling world. ECW chants rang through both WWE and WCW arenas. While ECW was a red hot brand that created a lot of buzz, Heyman knew he was a big fish in a relatively small pond. He needed to expand to a national television deal if ECW were to survive the long haul.

Enter TNN aka The Nashville Network owned by Viacom who were changing direction of their country music channel into a more well-rounded channel. Like ECW, TNN wanted to compete on a national level with the likes of USA, TBS and TNT stations. To do this, TNN began airing less country music based programming and began adding more original content. TNN started by adding Roller Jam, a modern take on the roller derby.

Roller Jam was pretty much a rating flop for the network and TNN wanted to add professional wrestling to its Friday Night line up to not only help boost Roller Jam’s ratings but create an identity for itself. It seemed like the perfect match with ECW in dire need of a national TV deal and TNN wanting pro wrestling. A deal was struck and Paul Heyman announced a three-year deal for ECW to air on TNN starting in August of 1999.

ECW was paired with Roller Jam on Friday nights as a part of TNN’s ‘Friday Night Thrill Zone’ lineup. With a new stream of revenue coming in, Paul Heyman was able to start paying off his debts and his roster was seemingly a lot happier. On the surface, things seemed perfectly alright with the partnership between ECW and TNN. Looks, however, could be deceiving and there were problems between Paul Heyman and TNN almost from the beginning.

TNN president David Hall apparently wanted Taz to be a big part of the ECW show, but Taz would soon leave ECW in November of 1999, to sign with the WWF. TNN was also expecting at least a 2.0 rating…something Heyman almost guaranteed the network he could easily get, but the inaugural show on the network only generated a 0.9 rating. Heyman, on the other hand, was not pleased with the lack of promotion from the network for ECW. Heyman also complained about the lack of money TNN was willing to invest in ECW, yet demanded that the sets be redone with better lighting, graphics etc.

Heyman argued that TNN wanted all these set changes, but wasn’t willing to budge on the amount of money given to them. TNN also wanted Heyman and company to “tone down” their violence which was the staple of their identity. No more blood and no more violence against women. Basically, forcing ECW to become a lighter version of itself. ECW producer Ron Buffone went on record as calling TNN’s Roller Jam a “stupid roller blading show” saying that TNN was using ECW to essentially build up the audience for Roller Jam than letting ECW stand on its own merit.

Despite ECW not getting to the desired 2.0 rating on subsequent episodes, it was still TNN’s highest rated show on Friday nights. It wasn’t long before Paul Heyman decided to create an angle involving Don Callis as ‘Cyrus’ who was “employed” by TNN. He was, of course, made a heel character and made TNN look like villains to ECW’s fans. That naturally angered TNN management who became even more critical of ECW programming.

TNN wanted to continue the re-branding of their network by renaming itself The National Network and began negotiations to acquire WWF’s Monday Night Raw from the USA network. Eventually, TNN bought the rights to air Raw for 100 million dollars. Seeing the writing on the wall, Heyman kicked up his hatred for TNN by going on television and doing a shoot promo about his relationship with the network.

I’d like to take this moment to thank you for watching ECW. See, you have to be an ECW fan to watch this show because God knows the network has never put out one freaking commercial or one press release to let you know that we’re here, but that’s their scheme of things. You see in just a few weeks the network is going to give one hundred million dollars to Vince McMahon, like he needs it, to replace us if they haven’t thrown us off before then. And the fact of the matter is that we’re not a publicly funded company like Vince McMahon or WCW, we survive or even thrive, on your support and for that we thank you.

Now, in an industry where everybody wants to be real, and everybody wants to do a shoot, this my friends is a shoot. We hate this stinking network, we hate their guts for abandoning us, we hate their guts for not supporting us, we hate their guts for not advertising us and we hate their guts for not having the balls to throw us off the air. And in case you’re watching this, hey network! I dare ya to throw me off the air because I’m going to break every rule you put in front of me until you throw me the Hell off the air.

Now this my friends is a shoot, you better take that one hundred million dollars, that you’re going to give Vince McMahon and you better spend it on attorneys because I promise you network, the war has just begun.’

After just 13 months on the air for TNN, ECW was subsequently cancelled and TNN’s reasoning was the ratings were a disappointment. Paul Heyman threatened legal action because he felt the network didn’t live up to its promises of properly promoting the show. Ultimately, Heyman relented a lawsuit because he simply didn’t have the resources to go head to head with a national entity like Viacom…TNN’s parent company.

Heyman and ECW would last a few more months. In that time, Paul Heyman began negotiations with the USA network. Plans were made to perhaps put ECW programming late at night and make it a sort of pro wrestling meets the Real World type of show. The problem with the negotiations was that Heyman needed USA to not only be a TV outlet for ECW, he wanted a business partner to help pay off the company’s increasing debt.

USA network head Barry Diller was not at all interested in becoming a partner with Paul Heyman and made the announcement that the USA network which had just lost the WWF…was no longer going to be involved in the professional wrestling business and ECW negotiations broke off. Ultimately, Extreme Championship Wrestling folded and was sold to Vince McMahon. What once seemed like the savior to ECW’s money troubles, is what eventually killed them in their dealings with TNN.