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The Rise & Fall of ECW: Extreme Championship Wrestling (WWE) | 
 enlarge | Author: Thom Loverro
Publisher: World Wrestling Entertainment
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $3.99
You Save: $11.01 (73%)
New (28) Used (6) from $1.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 374787
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 1416513124
Dewey Decimal Number: 796
EAN: 9781416513124
ASIN: 1416513124
Publication Date: May 22, 2007
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Condition: this book is newMSY HAVE A REMAINDER MARKa remaindermark .thanks for looking at bookscorner1.
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Product Description
Independent wrestling promotions were once the norm all across the country. But as the nineties began, independents were looking for creative ways to survive. Several banded together to share cost and talent; they were known as Eastern Championship Wrestling. Based out of a warehouse in Philadelphia, this promotion seemed doomed to be just one more ninety-day wonder. They hired Paul Heyman, who told the company he would come in, shake things up, and leave. But Heyman stayedand redefined professional wrestling in the nineties. He crafted a promotion that dared to push the boundaries of sports entertainment. What he created became Extreme Championship Wrestling.Heyman dared to break with tradition. Rather than relying on local talent and down-and-out veterans, he created new characters and story lines that would appeal to hardcore wrestling fans. Paul knew you had to offer the fans more than the match. Heyman encouraged wrestlers to speak from their hearts. ECW became known for the interview, the shoot. As for the matches: tables, ladders, chairs, barbed wire, and even frying pans were used with abandon. Wrestlers not wanting to be topped put their bodies on the line, taking ever greater risks, daring to jump, leap, and fall from places never tried before. ECW matches became the stuff of legend. For nearly a decade, ECW redefined professional wrestling with a reckless, brutal, death-defying, and often bloody style that became synonymous with hardcore. Through extensive interviews with Paul Heyman, Mick Foley, Tazz, Tommy Dreamer, Rob Van Dam, and many more, The Rise & Fall of ECW reveals what made this upstart company from Philadelphia great.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Very Readable Book September 11, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
 Good, not great May 14, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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 Rise and Fall never rises above mediocre August 26, 2006
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
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.
A blatant copy paste job August 13, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
It's like the DVD...but a tree died to make it August 7, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
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