Man, how Brian rattles this timeline off from memory or maybe small notes is so incredible, as a wrestling geek like me. I just learned a few weeks back that Crockett, jr & Paul Heyman were talking business in late 1993, that's such great wrestling trivia.

Mike Mills,the R.E.M guitar guy? Wow this guy is well rounded 😊

Good to hear this story a bit more from the Dennis Coralluzzo side. I think ECW's version of this has been told so many times it's good to hear the other side of this.

Dennis and Paul were both con artists, Paul was just smarter and had more experience and better connections. Let's not forget Dennis and Gino Moore were jsut marks until they were drivers for Cornette and the Midnight Express in the JCP era.

Jim Crockett in ECW?!! Damn, I never knew about that!! You learn something new every day!!

That book has been written and it's absolutely amazing if you like this era of independent wrestling. It's Howard Brody's Swimming with Piranhas and I highly recommend it.

@17:40 by concession Brian means "guy in the corner pumping a keg into red cups"

Chris Benoit vs jerry Lawler! I would love to get that on tape.

We got ECW on small cable station in NJ and first thing I taped was the Cactus/Sabu match..Also the Eddie Gilbert firing was because of his drug issues and Todd Gordon said Eddie couldn't perform properly...

I want to hear more about history on indies

Great show!

Brian, I have to remmeber you from NWA Pine Hill shows? I refereed for Deniis a year before he dies when Kehner went to ECW.

The Hi-Def taping was at the Manhattan Center in NYC....Jim Crockett did go to Dallas and The Sportatorium with the NWA name and the RnR Express and Greg Valentine was the North American champion and if I'm correct that's the establishment of the same NA title that Dennis and Howard T. Brody presented to Jeff Jarrett on Monday Night RAW. Anyhow...Paul E. began booking for ECW as something to do until Crockett's WWN or World Wrestling Network got fully operational....which never happened obviously. I think Crockett went to Dallas in 1994 and stayed for 6 mos or so and you can find some of their TV on youtube and the Crockett left the business for good. BTW, Jim Crockett Jr's HD taping from the Manhattan Center IS on youtube these days...though Brian Last WAS correct in that for damn near 30 years it never saw the light of day annnnnd I suppose officially it still hasn't because what footage is available on youtube is handheld footage from a fan in the balcony. But by the time the tournament happened Paul E. was in ECW full time and Crockett was or was about to be headed to Dallas...and another cog is the eventual disintegration of Dennis and Howard Brody's relationship. Brody promoted ECW's first Florida tour and helped syndicate ECW TV for quite a while knowing the heat between his NWA cronie Dennis and Paul E. and Tod Gordon. Ok...Brian is mentioning the Manahattan Center taping now from Crockett's WWN. I know Brian and Marc were close and hey, Dennis's right hand man Uncle Fred, Evil Fred Richards Rubinstein is a good friend of mine, but Dennis was his own worst enemy. He was carny to the core and WORKED MEMPHIS for goodness sake. And for the record I think '94-'96 ECW was the best years for the promotion creative wise and talent wise...but Dennis was his own worst enemy. He screwed his relationship with Brody and even Dennis Coraluzzo's right hand, Uncle Fred, will tell you "ONLY BRODY can go to Japan" and Howard is the one who put together the Dan Severn deal through his manager...her name escapes me but she was an older Georgianne Markropolous type. I think the NWA 50th was the final straw with Howard Brody...and having passed over the presidency and guys like Bill Behrens and Tony Rumble joining the NWA and maybe Alvin Minnick for the first time and Ernie Todd and eventually Jim Miller and Dave Republic and Slim Baucom and David Marquez and all the pop up indys that came with the WWF RAW exposure the NWA and Howard had the stroke to oust Dennis and he ultimately did. Howard's memoirs, Swimming with Piranhas, is super interesting in regards to post-WCW NWA, the early days of ECW's expansion and even Herbie Abrams UWF Fury Hour Florida tapings and the little known or talked about Ring Warriors that was Howard and Hiro Matsuda's European syndication of New Japan Pro Wrestling that they attempted to bring to the States but sadly failed and I do believe Howard felt bad about overseeing Dennis's ousting from the NWA. Brian knows his stuff though...for the most part. I think Corney and Dennis went to Mortons Steakhouse for dinner BTW and aside from the cigars and limousine Paul E. gave James E. an envelope with $1,000 in hundred dollar bills. The Cherry Hill thing was famous for a ballooned Real Man's Man wrestling Dan The Beast Severn with his boots on the opposite feet. Final Dennis Coraluzzo note....#1 dropping Abby's number live at a show was classic Dennis and #2 the Mrs Spencer tapes are PURE GOLD.

Brian sounds like Matt Striker.

People forget Crockett was not the booker of his promotion. Dusty was in the hottest period. Crockett was just the money behind it, like he NWA his time had passed.

I wonder if Joel Goodhart is still alive today...

15:46

I am shocked that ECW was being shown in the Louisiana in 95. I know in the Carolinas, Virginia Georgia etc. we didn’t get ECW until they got on TNN. I tried watching it because I it heard so much but ECW in 1999 was horrible. I swear it seem like every time I tried to watch that show it was just in ECW highlight show of stuff that happened 4 years before. I know that there are a lot of people that don’t want to hear this but the truth is with the best days of the ECW is when they were a territory in the Northeast. I think if they would’ve just stuck to the northeast they would have lasted longer because going national wasn’t a good fit for them. That into yet and TNN kind of screwed them over to where they can really be themselves but also at that point Paul Heyman was handing out a lot of bounce checks and this is in the middle of the Monday night wars so if you’re a star in ECW who can’t even afford gas money to get to the show that you’re booked on and WCW or WWF want to sign you to a six-figure guaranteed deal for two years of course you’re going to leave. I think another thing that people don’t want to hear is that ECW fans really need to think Vince McMahon and the WWF. The ‘Rise and Fall of ECW’ DVD and the original One Night Stand PPV Made ECW look a lot better than it really was. I think a lot of fans that had never seen ECW before saw that in assumed that that’s out ECW was all the time. I mean honestly to this day I think the ONS PPV Was better than any Paul Heyman ECW show.

Honestly now that we have 20 years or 25 years to look back on everything and now that we’ve heard shoot interviews from multiple different people wrestlers, agents, promoters, commentators, etc. Shane was one of the main people saying the reason he couldn’t get over in the WWF was because of the clique. But when you listen to other peoples shoot interviews that don’t have a dog in the fight it sounds like that’s pretty much what everyone in the WWF thought from Vince McMahon to Bruce Prichard to yokozuna to the undertaker is that Shane wasn’t pulling his weight. If you notice Shane has an excuse why he was never a main event guy for everywhere he went where he blames people unfairly holding him down. Even Jim Cornett has stories of Shane being difficult to get along with and early in his WCW career refusing to do certain angles when he was still pretty much a nobody. I think it’s funny that Shane would always show back up and ECW with one of these shoot promos where he can drop a lot of F bombs and talk shit about all these other companies but the only reason he was in ECW was because he couldn’t get a job at one of the other companies. But as soon as an opportunity came back up with WWF or WCW Shane was out the back door before anyone knew what happened and he was right back there working at one of those two until he got either pissed off because he wasn’t given a world title or they got tired of him complaining and then he got let go again and then he showed back up in ECW talking about how he ECw the only place for him. For a guy that complains about not being pushed why the hell did he throw one of the most important championships in the world down? Did he not realize right then that even companies like WWF and WCW are watching? Why would you ever trust that guy with the number one spot?

It's amazing how so many people think this was any kind of big deal. 🤣🤣🤣

Thank you Brian at 29:00 this is why I don’t believe anything Shane Douglas says when it comes to how companies treat him. Do I believe the Kliq Had an issue with him in WWF? Yes but I think all the top guys did. If you listen to shoot interviews I have heard people say that yokozuna and the undertaker also got up and Shane’s face but she doesn’t tell those stories and shoot interviews because he knows if he just piles on to the Kliq guys that people will take his side but if he says it was undertaker and yokozuna yelling at him then that hurts. Shane cried and bitched about every place he worked and the reason he kept going back to ECW was because he had burned bridges everywhere else. If you just look at his career the guy was a malcontent everywhere you went. What do you mean they’re bugging you to sign a contract? You’ve been killing five years up to that point that you would never of been treated fairly and they’re going to put the most prestigious world title in the history of the wrestling business on you Think that that gives you the right to start telling people the guy was bugging you? Let’s not get the story twisted. Shane Douglas is the one that screwed the NWA over. The NWA did nothing wrong here except for choosing someone that didn’t deserve to be their champion. I always thought it was hilarious that ECW thought they were so much bigger than they were that they had to call their championship belt the ECW world heavyweight championship even though you were really just a north east territory that played Florida .

It was awesome. What a way to start a revolution. Shane, I love you..but THEY ARE PUTTING THE STRAP ON YOU!! ..AND YOU'RE "Bugged" ?..but whatever, it worked out. TRIPLE THREAT🔱

Who should I believe: two nobodies speaking for a ghost or Shane Douglas? Hmmmm, I think I'll go with The Franchise. Coralluzzo seemed like a total loser. Douglas throwing down that belt (and the promo!) was probably the best moment of the 90s!

ECW Killed them selves. As Lance Storm once said “ we broke all the rules and then realized why there were rules” that and all that stupid chanting shit Is one of the most annoying things about today’s WWE fan.