Much of wrestling history reflects on how WCW wasWWE’sbiggest competitor of the 90s, butECWcan’t be left out of that conversation. While ECW wasn’t on course to beat WWE in the ratings for83 weeks like Eric Bischoff,Extreme Championship Wrestling did largely inspire many of the sensibilities of modern wrestling.
Before WWE quickly introduced inappropriate moments into the Attitude Era that theycouldn’t get away with today, Paul Heyman was booking even more extreme angles for ECW. Before WCW had a hardcore division,ECWwashardcore. Even to this day, ECW leaves a mark on current wrestling, asWWE’s NXT brand headed to the classic 2300 ECW arena in Philadelphia, showing that the legacy of Extreme is still alive in WWE. When looking at some of ECW’s most extreme moments, it’s easy to see why wrestling fans find the promotion so unforgettable.
10The Dudley Boyz Powerbomb Spike Dudley Through Two Flaming Tables
ECW Hardcore TV, July 27, 2025
Before Bubba Ray Dudley and his onscreen brother D-Von became two-time Hall of Famers (in WWE and TNA), they were causing havoc on Hardcore TV. The frequent target in their sights who’d get the brunt of their punishment was the runt of the Dudley Boyz, Spike Dudley. While Spike getting punished by everyone every week was getting old at this point, as was the Dudleys using a flaming table,this was particularly brutal as Bubba decided to powerbomb his little brother through not one, but two flaming tables.
9Sandman Reveals He Faked Being Blind
ECW November to Remember 1994
One of the wildest storylines to take place in ECW revolved around The Sandman’s feud with Tommy Dreamer. During the January 10th, 1994 edition of Hardcore TV, the two had an I Quit match, where Dreamer would torch a lit cigarette into The Sandman’s eye, blinding the man. It was a kayfabe injury, but one presented as real to the point thatSandman announced his retirement from professional wrestling.Dreamer would dedicate the rest of his career to the fallen Sandman out of guilt.
This included mercilessly beating Sandman’s former tag team partner, Tommy Cairo, for mocking Sandman’s injury. Sandman’s retirement ceremony would be interrupted by a scornful Woman threatening to attack Sandman. When Dreamer came to his aide,Sandman would remove his eye bandagesto the shock of the crowd and hit Dreamer with his signature cane. Sandman would admit that he lied about his injury just to get Dreamer to do his dirty work in violently fighting Cairo. It’s worth noting that to keep kayfabe alive,Sandman would go everywhere in real life wearing his eye bandages, even answering the door of his home selling the injury.
8Fans Won’t Stop Throwing Chairs
ECW Hardcore Heaven 1994
There was never a rowdier audience in wrestling history quite like the ECW faithful. There’s a reason why WWE was on high alert at the Hammerstein Ballroom for John Cena’s match against Rob Van Dam at One Night Stand. If an ECW crowd says, “If Cena Wins, We Riot,” then it’s wise to believe that they will.
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After all, this is the same crowd who flung every single one of their chairs into the ring upon the request of Terry Funk. The late Funker asked for one chair from one fan, prompting the dedicated fanbase to throw every chair in attendance. The crowd even got too rowdy for ECW to handle, as the plea “Stop the chairs!” can be heard echoing on the microphone as Joey Styles signs off.
7Raven Crucifies Sandman
ECW High Incident 1996
The Sandman vs. Raven feud was filled with unbelievable moments and eerie visuals, including Raven adopting Sandman’s young son as his own. None may be as impressive, however, than the moment that Raven crucified The Sandman, pre-dating all The Undertaker’s more famous crucifixion on WWE TV. Beyond the shocking visual of The Sandman on a barbed wire cross,the moment is memorable for the controversy it spurred, particularly from Kurt Angle, who was in attendance fresh off his gold medal win. He nearly signed with ECW, but didn’t approve of the imagery he deemed sacrilegious. Had Angle not been offended, he may not have been swayed to go to WWE instead.
6Tommy Dreamer Pushes Brian Lee Off a Scaffold
ECW High Incident 1994
ECW’s High Incident event was quite the eventful one, clearly. Besides a live crucifixion, the crowd was treated to a Scaffold match that inspired the show’s name. The main event pit Tommy Dreamer against former Undertaker impersonator, Brian Lee, suspended several feet into the air on a shaky scaffold with the objective being to knock the opponent off. Dreamer was declared the winner after punching Lee off the scaffolding, sending him through stacks of tables in the ring.
This is still remembered as one of the most terrifying bumps in wrestling history. Even knowing that the tables might have broken his fall, it still makes for a horrifying fall, and there’s no safe way to fall from that height. Brian Lee could have easily missed the ring entirely, and likely died in the process or suffered permanent injuries. Stil, this type of spot is what put ECW on the map, and inspired a generation of hardcore wrestlers.
5Spike Dudley Gets Military Press Slammed Into the Crowd
ECW As Good as It Gets 1997
Speaking of the crowd getting their money’s worth, wrestlers in ECW frequently wrestled near, around, or straight into the crowd. Those in the front row certainly earned the price of admission, especially whenever Spike Dudley competed. As said earlier, his getting punished and tossed around was classic ECW, which endeared him to the crowd.
The audience’s love for Spike was none more apparent than in a match with Bam Bam Bigelow, where Bigelow tossed Spike from the other side of the ring into the crowd. The crowd, though, refused to let Spike hit the ground. Instead,they allowed Spike to crowd-surf like it was a concertuntil he found himself back in the ring.
4New Jack’s Mass Transit Incident
June 21, 2025
Unlike the rest of the entries, this happened at a house show rather than a live show or Pay-Per-View, but it’s nonetheless a scary moment that lives on in infamy. New Jack and the Mass Transit incident was covered at length in one of the bestepisodes of Dark Side of the Ring. New Jack’s intense assault on untrained, 17-year-old Erich “Mass Transit” Kulas during a tag team match severed his arteries.
This one incident nearly canceled ECW’s first PPV Barely Legal, and put a public spotlight on the violent nature of both ECW and wrestling as a whole. According to New Jack and Paul Heyman, the fault lies with Kulas, who lied about his training to get a chance to step in the ring, but regardless of the truth this still remains one of the most controversial moments in modern pro wrestling history.
3Tazz and Bam Bam Bigelow Fall Through the Ring
ECW Living Dangerously 1998
For a lot of people, the first moment that springs to mind when someone says ECW is the night of Living Dangerously 1999. With Tazz defending the ECW Television Championship, these two behemoths of men bulldozed each other to the point they crashed through the ring. Anyone hoping to see what it looks likewhen a crowd in disbelief all rise to their feet in unison, watch the conclusion of this match.
A rematch at Heat Wave 1998 for the FTW Championship tried to recapture the same magic when both men crashed through the ramp, but magic like that is hard to pull off twice.
2Tommy Dreamer Takes 10 Cane Lashes from Sandman
Tommy Dreamer is rightfully celebrated as the heart and soul of ECW today, but back in the day, he was as polarizing of a figure as John Cena. Initially presented as a cookie-cutter babyface, the crowd would not get behind Dreamer until his Singapore Cane match with The Sandman, one which Sandman won by DQ under questionable circumstances. The stipulation was thatthe loser would get ten cane lashes to the back. Despite insistence from both the fans and ECW Commissioner Tod Gordon to restart the match, Dreamer declared he’d be a man of his word, regardless of how he lost.
The pro-violence crowd cheered it at first, butas the welts, bruises, and blood became visible on his back, the crowd went speechless in horror. From that moment forward, the previously perceived golden boy gained the unwavering respect of ECW fans everywhere. It proved to be a surefire way to get any babyface over, becoming a trope that AEW would try to emulate in 2020 by havingfuture WWE Champion Cody Rhodesreceive ten belt lashings from MJF.
1Shane Douglas Throws Away the NWA Championship In Favor of the ECW Championship
ECW, July 30, 2025
Arguably, the most hardcore, definitive moment in ECW history isn’t a violent moment, butan immortal mission statement for the promotion into a new era. Back when the then-Eastern Championship Wrestling was a part of the National Wrestling Alliance, ECW held a tournament to fill the vacant NWA World Championship, the same belt worn by legends like Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes. The tournament would be won by Shane Douglas, but he wasn’t happy to hold the NWA Title.
He publicly lambasted the title, refusing to accept the scraps from “an organization that died.“In the same breath that he called himself The Franchise for the first time, he promised to “ignite the new flame of the sport of professional wrestling.” With that said, he unveiled the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. ECW would subsequently separate from the NWA and become Extreme Championship Wrestling. There would be no Extreme Championship Wrestling without this moment, and withoutECW, the landscape of pro wrestlingwould look a lot different from how it does today.
