Customer Reviews

The Rise & Fall of ECW: Extreme Championship Wrestling (Wwe)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This books seems rushed. Rushed probably to coincide with WWE's rebirth of ECW. It reads like a transcript of last years DVD of the same name, thrown in are full results from all the supercards from 1993 til closing. That's all. There's really nothing new written for the book. The "Hardcore History" book that came out a few months ago reads so much better. It really captures the "outlaw" history of the organization, with lots of stories I hadn't heard before. There were a few errors in the book, (probably edited by a non-wrestling fan) and even captions of pictures are mis labled... "Sabu" looks a lot like Eddie Gilbert!?!
If you've seen the DVD, don't waste your time with this re-hash. If you really want to know about the product ECW, get the other book. Really dissapointing because WWE has really put out some great autobiographys and "legends" DVD's. Compared to their prior products, this really sucks.

I loved ECW. So everytime a dvd or book comes out about ECW, I do a double take. I could write a really long review on this book, but I'll condense it really quickly to save you the time:

1. Thom Loverro may be a respected and longtime journalist, but he obviously knows nothing about ECW. He can't even decide if the name is Mike "Nova" Bucci or Mike Nova. The writing style is drab and reads like someone took a pile of notes and threw them on a page, then made barely-conscious transitions.

2. It's a dvd rehash. That was obvious from the beginning but I was hoping it would provide something interesting. I was wrong. If you have the dvd there's no point in reading this.

3. The innacuracies are frustrating. One would think at least one fact-checking session could have been devoted to this. Taz is even labeled as Mikey Whipwreck. Small children, after watching one show featuring the two, could have noticed there's a difference.

I would have given my eyeteeth to recommend this book and I rarely consider reading even the silliest books to be a waste of time, but this really was a waste. It's sloppy, badly put-together, many times inaccurate and totally devoid of any real passion. If you really want to read it try to check it out at a library.

What can I say. I had some pretty high hopes for this book, perhaps show some more than what the DVD did. Delve into other aspects of ECW...

I'm quite disappointed in the fact the book is nearly verbtium from the DVD. Entire chapters are transcribed from the DVD.

They did however go into some things that the DVD didn't cover. Mostly how Paul E. got into the buisness and some info on the 'Mass Transit Incident'. But beyond that it falls very flat.

If you are a completist, buy the book and enjoy it. If you have the DVD and aren't a completist, save your money.

I was so happy when this book came out. I thought that it would contain detailed behind the scenes stories about the little promotion that could. I wanted dirt and sleeze. Instead on page 64, "Sabu and Tazz defeated the Pitbulls; Tommy Dreamer beat Stevie Richards..." This goes on for awhile, and is repeated over and over again. Here's the form of the book. In 1997 these matches took place at ECW shows. In June of that year Cactus Jack had a good match. Mick Foley puts it this way, "yeah that was great". Thank you Mick.
Oh but it gets worse! On page 77 the writer copy and pastes the whole page out of Have a Nice Day! Mick Foley's first book. I would be amazed if this guy took more than an hour to write this book. He copies match results which can be found dozens of places online or directly copies someone's quotes from previous books (like Foley) or from the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD (which was an amazing piece of work). It's hack writing to the EXTREME!
No matter how much time Loverro had on this project it was squandered. Give me the same amount of time and I'll write a five star book on ECW. Only recommended for a completist.

This book is very broad, and it caters mostly to the years when WWE wrestlers were at their peak in ECW. While that may have been ECW's "golden era," very little is covered about classic ECW matches in 1999 and 2000, with no mention of Tajiri and Whipwreck as a team, the classic 3 way matches, or any of the later additions that helped keep ECW afloat. It also caters to a very small percentage of former ECW wrestlers, using just people under WWE contract, and the producer of ECW TV. In addition, there are glaring errors with spelling and grammar, and pictures with incorrect captions. It appears no one bothered to proofread this book. The book has some good stuff and somewhat captures what ECW was about, but it suffers from a lack of depth, especially with ECW after 1996.

The book is labeled a Media Tie-In, hence it coincides with the DVD that has the same title.

Simply, ECW was too small to become a national power and became too big to not meet its financial ruin. It was always one big financial deal from taking that giant step into the big leagues of WWE and WCW, but every turn was greeted with a brick wall.

That doesn't diminish the impact the group had on professional wrestling, but author Thom Loverro doesn't present the financial angle to the reader until the closing pages.

Throughout the chapters there is criticism of WCW for "stealing" talent while WWE had a reciprocal agreement to loan/share wrestlers, in particular during the years that Paul Heyman assumed full control of ECW.

I question this, as it seems that ECW talent was basically buried by both organizations, with wrestlers returning simply because their characters were nothing but jobbers with the "big two." It made the wrestlers appear to be damaged goods and certainly hurt ECW in expanding its audience.

For example, is there any difference with Shane Douglas becoming an obnoxious teacher of rasslin' and Justin Credible being squashed in WWE or Mike Awesome portraying a dopey 1960s beach bum and the fabulous Lucha Libre flyers losing their masks and high spots in WCW? These performers were all champions or those who had unbelievable main events in ECW before moving on (and, for some, returning to ECW).

For those who were fans of ECW, though, the book is a great read.

For the fans who are watching the "new" ECW for the first time, you will learn what made the product so exciting and controversial. And why it can never recapture that magic.

First, all I knew about ECW was from the TV shows on Spike TV and gleaming some information from the wrestling websites.

So from my perspective, I enjoyed reading the book, which contains far more detail information than any DVD. I liked the way the book was written, very readable.

From the other reviews, the hardcore ECW fans are finding faults with this book. And these individuals will not like my additional comments.

The ECW on Spike TV didn't work. They started with an audience of over a million on Friday night cable, a pretty decent rating. However, by the end, half of their audience drifted away.

What I didn't like is that I heard a lot about the extreme woman of ECW, but they never wrestled. Female wrestling may not put fannies in seats, but they do help the TV ratings. Secondly, there wasn't any humor, just mean spirited trash talking, which gets old in a hurry. Thirdly, some of the wrestling looked too choregraphed, like 2 wrestlers falling over the ropes at the exact same time. Was it wrestling or dancing? And lastly, what idiot thought that showing all video re-plays in a postage stamp size window on the TV screen was cool?

This book never touched on loss of ECW's cable TV audience over the length of their contract. If ECW had grew the cable audience, or at least maintained it, then the fault would not have been the product. ECW failed for all of the reasons stated in the book, plus 1 reason not stated in the book. Namely, the TV product was not good enough to attract fans outside of the ECW loyalists.

Regardless, of the problems, ECW's fall was nothing like the crash and burn fall of the once powerhouse WCW. ECW's internal problems were nothing like the dumbness of WCW.

"The Rise and Fall of ECW" pops onto shelves and will be picked up by countless fans and will make money. I went for it and enjoyed reading it, getting some history of the renegade organization but simply put, this book is out to help push the 'rebirth' of Vince McMahon's ECW. We get a pretty good rundown of the wrestling shows and most of the major storylines with lots of comments by former ECW stars. However, (you knew this was coming) the reasons for the fall of this company are a little too convenient, largely blaming talent raids by WCW & WWE and lack of network exposure. Barely touched upon is the vast financial drains, seriously bad cash flow, heinous lyuing to/not paying of employees (the wrestlers), and poor business decisions by the owner. Passing mention that McMahon was 'helping' Heyman financially and no mention of the fact Heyman was an all-out employee of the WWE in the last few weeks of ECW existance (talent raiding his own self).

There are editting errors/facts and some of the pictures misidentify who is in the photos. I would have like to seen a few pages of 'headshot' pictures of all the major longer-term players in ECW but that's just me.

Overall, for fan interest and remembrance reasons, this book is great. For the more factual story of reasons why it collapsed, you may want to try "Hardcore History". Either way, worth the price but stays with surface material, doesn't look into the dirty business dealings.

sidenote... is it odd that no-one ever mentions Lita was in ECW as Miss Congeniality... often seen on-camera biting her toenails in stripper heels?

I pretty much missed watching ECW on tv, since they never broadcasted in Europe. All of my accounts were through wrestling magazines. So most of the stuff described in the book passed me by.
This book gave me a nice way to relive the history and learn more about wrestling and the changes that took place in that world.

I loved ECW. LOVED ECW! Went to events at the ECW Arena, went to two Living Dangerously PPVs in Asbury Park, saw house shows throughout the Northeast. LOVED it. Yes, I'm one of "those" people (except, you know, educated). After watching the fantastic Rise & Fall of ECW DVD, I figured the book would be just as good, right? Very, VERY wrong. You know what the Hat Guy, and the rest of the ECW crowd would chant upon reading it?

"THIS BOOK SUCKS! THIS BOOK SUCKS! THIS BOOK SUCKS!"
(They also might chant "YOU F***ED UP" at it too)

You see, the books starts off great, it's basically a biography of Paul Heyman, and I learned a lot I didn't know. He was a real hustler in his day (though having access to his father's vast amount of lawyer cash didn't hurt) and was able to get into the industry he loved. We then learned how ECW started, how Joey Style got involved, how Ron Buffone deserves a TON of credit, etc.

The bad? Oh, let's see:

1) Author gets the names screwed up
2) Author gets match results screwed up
3) Author gets titles screwed up
4) Not a single interview with few if any non-then-WWE contracted talents, so nothing with Shane Douglas (COME ON!), Jerry Lynn, Raven, Sabu, Beulah, Axl Rotten, Mikey Whipwreck, TERRY FUNK, Too Cold Scorpio, New Jack, Joel Gertner, Balls Mahoney, Psicosis, Konnan, Justin Credible, Brian Lee, Bam Bam Bigelow, Perry Saturn, Juventud Guerrerra, Tajiri, the list goes on and on...
5) A great deal of time was spent talking about the rise, but the fall was rushed in its explanation. The departures after Raven are all but ignored, as is everything that was happening story wise afterwards.
6) 2 pages to Al Snow and Head. Possibly the most over act in the HISTORY of ECW... and it gets two pages. That's disgraceful.

It only gets two stars because of the Heyman info, most of which I honestly didn't know. But overall?

THIS BOOK SUCKS! THIS BOOK SUCKS! THIS BOOK SUCKS!