With all the announcers there are in this day and age. We should pay hommage to the ones who paved the way. WIth that said, here is my blog on the one, the only Good Ol' J.R. Jim Ross.

Jim Ross started out doing commentating on college radio. He was then given an opportunity to be a sideline reporter in a small wrestling territory when an announcer was not able to appear one night. Ross would then go on to work in Mid-South to start his professional career. He would become their primary play by play man in 1986. He would call his first World Championship match pitting Ric Flair against Ted DiBiase. When Mid-South which was renamed the Universal Wrestling Federation merged with Jim Crockett Promotions. Ross would join this new merger eventually overtaking Gordon Solie and Tony Schiavone as the lead play by play announcer for the NWA. He would continue with the promotion as it turned into World Championship Wrestling. Ross and Eric Bischoff had a very rocky relationship in WCW and when Bischoff was promoted to Executive Producer of WCW in 1993, Ross asked for and received his release. He took a buyout with fears that he would not get work elsewhere if he was taken off television for a long period of time.

Ross would sign with the WWF making his debut at Wrestlemania IX and taking over WWF Wrestling Challenge the following weekend from Gorilla Monsoon. He would call pay per views until Summerslam 1993 when Vince McMahon took over those duties. Ross then became host of WWF Radio before being fired on February 11, 1994. He then became an announcer for Smoky Mountain Wrestling and the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League. Ross was rehired during Vince McMahon's indictment by the US Federal Government. He was fired when McMahon was acquitted but, rehired again by Wrestlemania XI doing syndicated television for the next couple years before coming back to the announce table.

Ross would make a heel turn in 1996 after the departure of Razor Ramon and Diesel. He then brought in the new Razor & Diesel and claimed that he was the one who orchestrated so many departures for revenge on the WWF for being mistreated. After this angle Ross hosted various television shows for the WWF and was the main voice of the WWF from Survivor Series 1997 onwards. He would take time off in 1998 due to the death of his mother and the worsening condition of his Bell's Palsy. He returned as part of another storyline where he claimed to be fired from the WWF due to his condition and had Steve Williams as his enforcer even going so far as to set up his own announce table in front of the original one with the words, "JR is Raw". He would take back his normal spot at the main announce table for the main event of Wrestlemania XV. Unfortunately, JR's condition brought on a parody by Ed Ferrara in WCW.

Ross became the head announcer on Raw during the Attitude Era and remained there for many years. He also served in Talent Relations until 2005. He was fired for storyline purposes in the same year to deal with a serious issue with his colon. It was during this time where WWE produced a tasteless parody of his colon surgery pulling out various objecta which was not well-received. Ross would return in May of 2006 full time at the Raw announce table. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007 by "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. In the 2008 WWE Draft, JR was drafted to the Smackdown announce team thus ending a nearly 12 year stint on Raw.

Jim Ross has called some of the greatest matches in history and has seen everything there is to see in this industry. He is a Hall of Famer for good reason and should be the ideal person to study for any announcer trying to make it in this business. There is nobody better.

Dean A.

In my last blog, we learned about ECW's demise. In this blog, we'll learn how ECW resurfaced from within WWE to live on. So, here it is.

In mid-2001 ECW would return in the form of a member of The Alliance with WCW in the InVasion storyline. It was owned by Paul Heyman at first with no loyalty to the WWF or WCW but, by the end of that same night. Stephanie McMahon was revealed to be the new storyline owner of ECW. This would only last until November 2001 when Team WWF defeated Team Alliance at Survivor Series to conclude the storyline.

WWE would purchase the assets of ECW in bankruptcy court in 2003 acquiring the rights to the ECW video library in the process. They would create a dvd compilation entitled "The Rise & Fall of ECW" from this video library. It would go on to be one of the best-selling WWE dvds and history and would prompt the WWE to hold a one night only ECW reunion called "ECW One Night Stand" in 2005 which had every match feature former ECW performers. Shane Douglas would also hold an ECW reunion in the form of "Hardcore Homecoming" with 4 shows from June to November however these shows did not feature any talent that were under contract to WWE at that time.

A second One Night Stand event was planned for 2006 this time featuring some matches with non-ECW Originals. This pay per view served to be the catalyst for the revival of ECW as a third brand complimentary to Raw and Smackdown. Before this though, WWE held an event on broadcast television called WWE vs. ECW: Head to Head which pitted WWE performers against ECW performers. At ECW One Night Stand 2006, Rob Van Dam would defeat John Cena for the WWE Championship. The next night it was determined that the title would be renamed the ECW World Heavyeight Title before RVD declared that he would keep the WWE Title in addition to the ECW Title.

The brand now had a main title and it had a network appearing on Sci-Fi every Tuesday at 10 PM. It originally was made out to be a brand seperate from WWE. It did many things to make this possible such as putting the cameras in slightly different places, replacing the "WWE" turnbuckle covers with blanks and referring to ECW Superstars as wrestlers and later Extremists and Divas as Vixens. The rules were also changed from the original ECW having weapons allowed in all matches and rarely count-outs or disqualifications. These were now referred to as "Extreme Rules" matches and were only held on occasion. Paul Heyman served as the original ECW Representative which was the equivalent to the General Manager positions on Raw and Smackdown. Later in ECW's run it would have a GM in the form of Armando Estrada and currently Teddy Long. Joey Styles and Tazz orignally served as commentators with Mike Adamle replacing Styles before finally settling on Todd Grisham and Matt Striker after Tazz moed to Smackdown and Adamle became the GM of Raw.

ECW started out touring on it's own with it's own house shows and television tapings. It would start to tour with Smackdown due to low ticket demand for ECW shows and has continued on that way to this day. The brand has had one pay per view in it's history which was in December of 2006 entitled "December to Dismember". This pay per view turned out to be the final straw for Paul Heyman in the WWE as he was sent home that week never to return as of this day. This in my opinion was the day ECW died, the ratings have dropped off considerably since late 2006 and it hasn't been near the same product. Most of the ECW Originals are gone and the logo has even been changed removing the barbed wire. ECW now has a talent excahange with Raw and Smackdown leaving it with only a shred of identity. It is now used mostly for a breeding ground of yournger wrestlers before they make the big shows with a few veterans sprinkled in.

The ECW everyone knew and loved is gone, it is now a shell of it's former self and is ECW only by name. It reminds me of the old saying "If it's too good to be true, it probably is" and that was truly the case for the resurrection of ECW. We enjoyed a brief glimpse of what ECW used to be in 2006 but, that was gone by 2007. ECW will live on in the memories of everyone who ever saw the original promotion, but that is all. I hope you enjoyed my look back on ECW through the years.

Dean A.

In my last blog we learned how ECW started up and how it got through the early to mid-90s. Now you'll get to find out how ECW survived the rest of the 90s. So, here's part 2!

We left off in 1996 with ECW's first pay per view being cancelled. There was also one more angle that caused quite a stir in ECW in that year. It was a pregnancy/lesbian angle which had never been done in wrestling before. It involved Raven and his then valet, Beulah McGillicutty. He proceeded to call her an idiot for not taking birth control, she then informed him that the baby was not his but was Tommy Dreamer's. Later on, "The Franchise" Shane Douglas told Tommy that Beulah was in fact not pregnant and had been cheating on him. It was then revealed that Beulah had been cheating on Tommy with none other than Raven's new valet, Kimona Wanalaya. Tommy then said, "I'll take em' both, I'm hardcore". This angle got ECW thrown off nearly every television station they were shown at the time.

With all of the controversial things that happened in 1996, something pretty good happened in the form of cross promotion with the WWF. This came about because fans in Philadelphia became to angrily chant "ECW, ECW, ECW" at King of the Ring 1995 during the Savio Vega vs. Mabel match. Vince McMahon started to see the potential in the company. At WWF In Your House: Mind Games, The Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, Paul Heyman, and Tazz were seated in the front row. Sandman interfered in a match throwing beer on Savio Vega. ECW would then "invade" Raw in February of 1997. Paul Heyman would do commentary along with McMahon and Jerry Lawler. The crowd was a very pro-ECW crowd giving the ECW wrestlers some trademark ECW chants while giving WWF stars "Boring!" chants. This would also lead to more cross promotion, this time between Jerry Lawler's USWA with ECW wrestlers, Rob Van Dam and Sabu aiding Lawler in the feud.

In April of 1997, ECW would finally hold it's first ever pay per view, Barely Legal with Terry Funk winning the ECW World Heavyweight Title from Raven. Joey Styles became the first and only to this day professional wrestling play by play announcer to call an event on his own without a colour commentator (although Tommy & Beulah did guest commentary for the main event). A power transformer blew right after the show went off the air putting the arena in darkness. If the pay per view had gone on for 10 seconds longer, the pay per view feed would have been lost. ECW's pay per view events were notable because they would be forced to start at 9 PM instead of the standard 8 PM because ECW was said to be too vulgar from it's pay per view provider. They would continue on pay per view until January 2001.

In August of 1999, ECW debuted on TNN in it's "Friday Night Thrill Zone" lineup. While this was supposed to be a great thing with the company It was a toned down version of what ECW fans were used to seeing. They were instructed to move expletives and references to hate. The them song was even attempted to be deemed as too demonic. Several top stars left at this time including The Dudley Boyz and Tazz forcing ECW to go with new champions. TNN wanted unreasonable production values that were to be on par with the WWF and WCW which Heyman disliked feeling it would take away from ECW's charm. Heyman didn't even air original programming for the first show on TNN instead throwing together a compilation of old ECW footage as an introduction to ECW for fans who were new to ECW. The "TNN Representative" character, Cyrus came out of Heyman's disatisfaction with TNN interrupting things he deemed inappropriate. ECW would only last until October 2000 on TNN due to the WWF securing an agreement to air programming on TNN debuting in September. They were essentially held hostage on the network being unable to negotiate a ew deal while their one with TNN was still in effect but, knowing that they were about to be replaced with WWF programming which was a really big blow to ECW.

In April 2000, controversy struck ECW again as Mike Awesome (who was the reigning ECW Champion at the time) appeared on WCW Monday Nitro. He never appeared on WCW television with the belt. This led to one of the weirdest situations ever as Mike Awesome who was a WCW employee dropped the ECW Title to Tazz who was a WWF employee. Tazz held the title for a week before dropping it to Tommy Dreamer who quicly dropped it to Justin Credible the same night at ECW CyberSlam. Also in 2000, ECW debuted on the West Coast with its Heat Wave pay per view. Los Angeles was the home of Xtreme Pro Wrestling. The owner of XPW bought 6 front row tickets for the ECW event and gave them to various XPW talent. They were out to show ECW that they were not welcome. Once ECW officials realized they were in the crowd, they were thrown out of the building. A brawl ensued in the parking lot between the ECW wrestlers and the XPW ring crew with ECW getting the upper hand.

ECW tried to secure a new television deal in late 2000 but, it was apparent as the new year rolled in that it was not going to happen. On December 30, 2000, ECW Hardcore TV aired for the final time and on January 7, 2001, ECW Guilty as Charged 2001 became their final pay per view. ECW Living Dangerously was to air on March 11th but, was cancelled due to financial difficulty. Even with financial help from the WWF, Heyman had to file for bankruptcy on April 4, 2001. Their total assets were $1,385,500.00 with their liabilities totalling $8,881,435.17.

The dream was over but, ECW lived on. Check out my next blog to see how the ECW name stayed in tact well beyond its years.

Dean A.

After reading Rob's blog on 'The 22 Minute Death of ECW', I thought about how much history ECW has, good and bad. So, with that said here is the history of ECW from the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance to WWE's ECW.

ECW started out as the Tris State Wrestling Alliance in 1991 by partners Joel Goodhart and Tod Gordon. In 1992, Tod Gordon acquired his partner's share of the company and renamed it Eastern Championship Wrestling becoming a member of the National Wrestling Alliance. Paul Heyman would enter the picture in 1993 after Gordon and his booker Eddie Gilbert had a falling out. ECW started to get a big fan following for doing things different than the bigger companies around this time. At a time where the WWF and WCW was hesitant to show any blood or violence towards women, ECW would not hesitate to show blood or show women getting beaten up.

In 1994, ECW held a tournament at the ECW Arena (A converted Bingo Hall in Philadelphia, PA) for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship after Jim Crockett's no-compete clause expired with Ted Turner. This would Crockett give him the means to start promoting with the NWA again. NWA President, Dennis Coralluzzo had fears that Gordon and Crockett would attempt to monopolize the NWA Heavyweight Title so, he took control of the tournament. This infuriated Gordon who planned to have Shane Douglas (who was scheduled to win the tournament in the final against 2 Cold Scorpio) throw down the NWA Title after winning it and claiming the ECW Title as his own. The next day, Eastern Championship Wrestling was folded by Tod Gordon and Extreme Championship Wrestling was born.

Unlike WCW or the WWF, ECW didn't have a major cable deal or pay per views at this time. Their television shows appeared on Sports Channel Philadelphia in the early days until the channel went off air in 1997. Shows were also shown on the MSG Network early Saturday mornings at 1 or 2 am. This would give ECW part of it's edge because at such a late hour, the FCC was more lenient and ECW was able to air unedited. It was around 1995 and 1996 when WCW began to acquire talent from ECW. Many wrestlers jumped ship during this time including, Eddie Guerrero, Raven, Chris Benoit, and Chris Jericho among others. While this was a huge blow to ECW (especially because they received no compensation from WCW), they would continue on.

1996 was a rocky year for ECW with some controversial angles and mishaps happening along the way. One of which was the crucifixion angle. Raven had begun a feud with Raven which saw Raven brainwash The Sandman's son. After one of their matches, The Sandman and his son embraced in the middle of the ring which turned out to be a setup as Raven came out and caned The Sadman in the back of the head with a Singapore Cane. Stevie Richards and The Blue Meanie came out after this and got a wooden cros from beneath the ring. They proceeded to tie The Sandman to the cross "crucifying" him. Raven was then forced to apologize later on in the show. This incident was also notable because Kurt Angle was backstage at the time but left after he saw the "crucifixion". He also threatened legal action if he was featured on the same episode. The angle was never seen until it was featured on "The Rise & Fall of ECW".

The next thing that caused a stir in ECW was the Mass Transit incident. The match was originally supposed to be D-Von Dudley & Axl Rotten vs. The Gangstas however, Rotten had a family emergency and could not make the show. Paul Heyman allowed a man named Eric Kulas who wrestled as "Mass Transit" take his place under the assumption that he was 19 years old when he was only 17 years old. New Jack bladed Kulas and proceeded to attack him with more weapons before winning the match by pinfall. As Kulas was lying there bleeding. New Jack cut a promo saying that "he can bleed to death for all I care". This led to ECW's pay per view provider, Request TV cancelling their Barely Legal pay per view for early 1997.

1996 also marked the year that Tod Gordon sold ECW to Paul Heyman. He would continue to act as the on air Commissioner for ECW for awhile before leaving ECW altogether. It was explained to the audience that he retired to spend more time with his family but, the more popular opinion is that Gordon had become a mole for WCW to acquire talent from ECW. This has never been confirmed and Gordon himself stated in an interview that the theory was a work.

That does it for this part of my history of ECW. Check out my next blog to see how ECW soared to new heights through cross-promotion.

On to the next blog in my Hart Family set. Today, it's the British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith.

First off it's very interesting to note that Smith's middle name was an accident as his parents mistook the name field on his birth certificate for the gender field. He was trained by Ted Betley in England competing on ITV's World of Sport at the age of 16. He would then undergo further training by Stu Hart and Roy Wood in the dungeon after being brought over to Canada by Bruce Hart who was doing some scoutng for Stampede. He would start wrestling for Stampede winning his first title in July of 1982 from The Dynamite Kid which was the Stampede Brtish Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Title. He would begin wrestling for New Japan Pro Wrestling in 1983. It was there in 1984 where he would form the famous tag team with his partner and cousin, The Dynamite Kid called 'The British Bulldogs' They would jump to All Japan Pro Wrestling in 1984 participating in their annual tag team tournament.

Th Bulldogs would join the World Wrestling Federation in 1985 after the WWF's acquisition of Stampede Wrestling. They would go on to quickly win the WWF Tag Team Titles at Wrestlemania 2 from The Dream Team. They would lose the titles to The Hart Foundation in January 1987 because of a severe back injury sustained by The Dynamite Kid. It was around this time that they got a mascot in the form of a real bulldog named Matilda. She was subsequently stolen by The Islanders in a storyline. They would leave the WWF in 1988 after backstage problems between The Dynamite Kid and The Rougeau Brothers after a prank that was pulled by Curt Hennig was blamed on The Bulldogs. It culminated in Jacques Rougeau knocking some of Dynamite's teeth out with a punch from a fist full of quarters.

They would return to Stampede and AJPW in 1989 after leaving the WWF being broken up into singles wrestlers once again. Smith would be involved in a serious car accident in July of 1989. He was thrown 25 feet through the windshield head first ended up on the pavement as he was not wearing a seatbelt. He would recover and team up once again with Dynamite in AJPW before personal problems came to the surface and Smith left the promotion.

He would return to the WWF in 1990. He would have sporadice feuds until Summeslam 1992 when he won he defeated Bret Hart for the WWF Intercontinental Title at Wembley Stadium in front of more than 80,000 fans. He would drop the belt to Shawn Michaels at Saturday Night's Main Event before being released from the WWF due to testing positive for steroids.

After being released from the WWF he would sign with WCW in 1993. He went on to challenge Big Van Vader for the WCW Heavyweight Title at Slamboree 1993. He was released from WCW for conflicting reasons and would return to the WWF at Summerslam 1994 becoming involved in the Owen/Bret feud. He would go on to form a short lived tag team with Lex Luger called 'The Allied Powers' with little success. He would challenge Diesel for the WWF Title at In Your House 4 winning by DQ from Bret Hart with Diesel retaining the title. In December 1995, he would receive another WWF Title shot at In Your House 5 against Bret Hart in which he came up short. He would again challenge for the WWF Title at In Your House 8: Beware of Dog which ended in a draw between Bulldog and Shawn Michaels which led to a rematch between the two at King of the Ring 1996 in which Smith was unsuccessful at winning the title.

He would form a team with his brother in law, Owen Hart in late 1996. They would win the WWF Tag Team Titles from The Smokin' Gunns in September 1996 at In Your House: Mind Games. The WWF European Title was created in 1997 and Smith would be the first title holder winning a tournament culminating in a final match against his tag partner Owen. He would drop the title to Shawn Michaels at One Night Only in September of 1997 making it the only time he ever lost on a WWF card in the UK. Smith would leave the WWF after the Montreal Screwjob.

Smith would go back to WCW in 1998. He would be featured in a tag team with Jim 'The Anvil' Neidhart. They would challenge for the WCW Tag Titles many times unsuccessfully. He would injure his knee in April of 1998 being sidelined for a month. He would be injured again in September of 1998 when he landed on a trap door in the ring for Warrior. He acquired a spinal infection and was nearly paralyzed. He was in the hospital for 6 months being released by WCW during that time.

He would return to the WWF in September of 1999 winning the WWF Hardcore Title from The Big Bossman. He would then forfeit the title to Al Snow because Bossman originally kidnapped Al's dog Pepper to win the title. He would be involved in a 6-Pack Challenge at Unforgiven 1999 for the WWF Title which was won by Triple H. He would defeat D'Lo Brown for the WWF European Title on Smackdown in October of 1999. He would lose the title 2 months later to Val Venis at Armageddon 1999. He would be divorced by his wife Diana in early 2000. In May 2000, he would defeat Crash Holly for the WWF Hardcore Title losing it less than a week later back to Holly. He would be entered into a rehabilitation program at the request and expense of Vince McMahon. He was then released from the WWF. Smith would suffer a heart attack on May 18, 2002 during a vacation with his girlfriend in British Columbia. He had been wrestling in tag matches with his son Harry the weekend prior.

It's sad that Davey had to pass on before his time. Steroids were said to have most likely played a part in his death. I believe he could have made another comeback to the WWF. I guess we'll never know.

Dean A.