PWTorch.com - RADICAN'S "Timeline: The History of ECW As Told By RVD" - Heyman keeping the belief strong, ECW gets cable deal, Bubba and Taz backstage, more

RADICAN'S TAKE
RADICAN'S "Timeline: The History of ECW As Told By RVD" - Heyman keeping the belief strong, ECW gets cable deal, Bubba and Taz backstage, more

Jun 28, 2015 - 4:25:56 PM

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By Sean Radican, Torch columnist

RADICAN’S KAYFABE COMMENTARIES REVIEW SERIES
“TIMELINE: THE HISTORY OF ECW 1999 AS TOLD BY ROB VAN DAM”
RELEASED IN 2015 BY KAYFABE COMMENTARIES
BY SEAN RADICAN, TORCH COLUMNIST

The latest edition of Kayfabe Commentaries’s Timeline: The History of ECW As Told By Rob Van Dam” is compelling due to his discussion of working with Paul Heyman during this period of expansion for ECW. In 1999, ECW experienced what appeared to be tremendous growth on the surface with magazines, action figures, video games, and cable TV coming into play, but the problem was none of those deals were giving the company the visibility or financial stability it needed to stay in business.

The biggest strength of this release is RVD being able to look back at this period and discuss his mindset of the events as they unfolded back then and look back at them with perspective now. Almost everyone that has dug in their heels and watched the various shoot interviews and documentaries about ECW likely won’t be surprised with what RVD has to say about ECW in 1999, but he does shed some valuable light on the controversial topics that wrestlers and wrestling fans can learn from today.

RVD talks in-depth about the culture of ECW backstage throughout the interview. Host Sean Oliver brings up Rick Rude’s death in 1999 and RVD talks about how he began taking pills to cope with his injures. He said he hyper extended his knee one night he couldn’t walk without limping and he found out he could take pain pills and wrestle. RVD said almost all the OD’s of wrestlers after that had somas involved in them except for Test’s death. RVD said when you hear of OD’s in wrestling it’s a mixture of several things. It’s scary to hear RVD talk about what he was doing to cope with pain. RVD says the somas shut you down and that’s what was fun about them, but he decided to stop after Louie Spicolli died.

RVD also discusses how Paul Heyman kept the locker room believing in his vision, despite the warning signs that things weren’t going well. Although it appeared ECW was growing with all of the marketing deals in place and the TV deal with TNN, the company was being held together by Heyman’s ability to keep the roster believing that ECW could grow into something big.

The discussion of the cable deal with TNN is very interesting because it gives a first-hand view of how RVD looked at things during that period. He didn’t know that it was a very one-sided deal and talked about how Heyman kept the wrestlers believing at that time. “We really wanted this to work. We wanted more than anything because we didn’t want to go anywhere else,” said RVD. Even though many wrestlers have said similar things to RVD about Heyman and their belief that the cable deal was another huge step towards their goal, it’s scary to see how dedicated RVD was to ECW at the time.

At the same time the cable deal is announced, RVD mentions that checks were still bouncing, but it was a normal occurrence. He tells a hilarious story about Heyman taking a long time to pay wrestlers after shows to the point that some of the wrestlers would just leave because they got frustrated waiting for him and they wouldn’t get paid. At this time, RVD admits that he had no idea how one-sided the deal with TNN was, but mentions that looking back, the exposure he thought would come with the licensing deals and cable deal never lead to growth, which is the key to the end of ECW.

The end of the interview should serve as a cautionary tale to promotions that are trying to grow now and in the future. . RVD says the wrestlers believed in the product. He said they believed there was enough of a minority audience out there to find and be able to support the product. Looking back, it’s clear that ECW overextended themselves because the money and the audience simply wasn’t there for a niche product to go national. RVD closes the interview by discussing how when you’re targeting just a few people, just because those people like what you’re doing, it’s not what the mainstream wrestling fan is going to look for in a wrestling product.

Overall thoughts: (8.0) – This was a very good edition of “Timeline: The History of ECW.” Although a lot of the topics RVD discussed have been talked about before, he did a good job of bringing the discussion of ECW full-circle by taking a hard look at his mindset as the events unfolded in 1999.

In addition to discussing the expansion of ECW in 1999 and his perspective on dealing with Paul Heyman during that time, RVD gave a lot of insight into his dealings with big personalities like Taz, Bubba Ray Dudley, and New Jack. He doesn’t pull any punches and is very candid when discussing his thoughts on them during their ECW days.

Kayfabe Commentaries does a really great job of putting these releases together, as Oliver and RVD march through 1999 month by month with graphics that talk about a specific event or occurrence that lead into a discussion. As I’ve said before, one of the biggest benefits these releases have is the use of the ECW library via R.F. Video. When RVD and Oliver are discussing a certain in-ring moment, the footage is shown and it enhances the discussion.

This DVD gets a big recommendation from me. The entire “Timeline: The History of ECW” series has done a tremendous job of documenting the entire history of ECW from multiple perspectives. You won’t find a more in-depth look at ECW than in this series. Big thumbs up.

You can purchase “Timeline: The History of ECW As Told By Rob Van Dam” by clicking HERE or by visiting KayfabeCommentaries.com. You can also purchase this title and many other titles from KayfabeCommentaries.com at WWNLive.com.

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