ECW: The Revolution

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ECW: The Revolution Backstory

What if ECW didn't die in 2001, what if someone else had bought ECW from the iron grip of the WWF.

It was the 2nd of March 2001, when Vincent Kennedy McMahon was discussing buying ECW with owner Paul Heyman, Paul Heyman was sitting at his office talking about the price while Vince McMahon was seated on another chair and he told Heyman that he wouldn't be signing all the wrestlers part of ECW if the deal was a success. Before Heyman was about to sell his product in walked a young man by the name of Court H. Bauer. Court H. Bauer was far more convincing than Vince McMahon and told Paul Heyman that the success of ECW would continue with him as Court H. Bauer had the idea to keep ECW on air. Court H. Bauer ended up buying ECW and he thanked Paul Heyman for giving him a chance. Paul Heyman smiled at Vince McMahon as this was his final gesture as owner of ECW to deny Vincent Kennedy McMahon the satisfaction of burying his brand into the ground and taking away the legitimacy of ECW.

 

Later in the Year: Court H. Bauer had made some big changes and one of those was the change from Hardcore wrestling into a more stiff wrestling style made famous by the Japanese promotions. His first order of business was to sign a deal with UFC to allow UFC talent to be used in ECW in return for ECW promoting UFC pay per views on their new television show. The new television show was signed to the fox network and would be known as Revolution. The product continued and more money was made as Court H. Bauer began to take ECW to locations such as England and Japan. The biggest revenue came from Japan as much Japanese talent were signed to one off contracts for the night. One of the one off signings in Japan was Keiji Mutoh who offered to sign for a long term contract as he wanted to go to America and so as part of his ECW contract, they made a tour of Japan named the Keiji Mutoh Farewell Tour as he gave Japan big matches to end his time at Japan and headed to America. Also a developmental territory was opened after the farewell tour, this developmental territory was known as Revolution Pro Wrestling and talent such as CM Punk, Colt Cabana and many other young American indie talents were signed to the territory.

 

2002: The first talent group placed in RPW were brought up to the main roster where they made an instant impact by forming a stable hereby known as The Revolution, This stable would be the biggest sign of change as they faced old wrestlers in Loser Leaves matches and when this stipulation was on the line, the Revolution would be put over every time. Victims of the stable included The Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, Sabu and many others. The members of this stable are: AJ Styles, CM Punk, Colt Cabana, Christian York, Chris Hero, James Storm and Austin Aries. These outstanding wrestlers made the change official as ECW went further away from hardcore wrestling and focused on Technical and stiff style wrestling.

 

Late 2002: Court H. Bauer made more money and started to hit the time when ECW would spar with the WWE, having reached the status of a global company, Court H. Bauer tried offering contracts to some wrestlers in WWE, many refused the contracts but others accepted, one that accepted knew his history and decided to go back to the company that recognized his talent, this man was Eddie Guerrero. Eddie Guerrero was suprised by the new owner of the company but he saw that ECW would be a contender to the company he left. Nova was one talent who signed with ECW for a while but then headed to another company to train it's wrestlers. Court H. Bauer understood and decided Lance Storm would be a brilliant trainer for ECW, he signed him to a wrestling contract and hired him as the head of the training scheme for ECW. The biggest signing of the year was Eddie Guerrero.

 

2003: Court H. Bauer was leading ECW on a massive rise to being the best company of all time. ECW was becoming one of the biggest success stories as Philadaelphia news outlets and magazines began to report that a hometown promotion was on the rapid rise to dethroning WWF as the top company in the world. Everyone was supposedly reporting on the Revival of ECW, Paul Heyman was also legitimately suprised as he knew that ECW was going bankrupt but he didn't know that Court H. Bauer was very smart financially and so when he was approached by Court H. Bauer about a head creative position, he took it as he revelled in the hard earned fact his company had finally made it to the big stage. He looked at the New ECW and appeared on Off the Record to speak about how ECW had changed and what was the main reason for it's success. Heyman reported that it was the hard work of the locker room and Court H. Bauer that changed the company and most men in the company had great attitudes towards the business and every week Court H. Bauer took to the locker room and told his workers to put on an even better show than last week. Heyman also saw that the crowd was still an integral part of ECW and he noticed that workers were still being challenged to come up with creative ideas for their angles. Paul Heyman reported on that and said that every week he noticed that the mindset and locker room reminded him of his old ECW.

 

Late 2003: Court H. Bauer was becoming a household name with his revival of ECW, he also put on several shows called the Anniversary of ECW, in these shows all workers who made ECW a household name before the New ECW would put on great shows for the fans. Court H. Bauer also began to make a couple of changes that were frowned upon by the public. He released a couple of talents and decided to sign a big name that was fairly old, this was an attempt to gain some more exposure but he didn't realize the mainstream exposure was in front of him in all that time. UFC was fledgling after Shamrock vs Ortiz, ECW having signed a deal with UFC could use talent from the Mixed Martial Arts shoot fighting style. So, ECW then took another big turn with another TV deal being signed and that the show was named Extreme Fight Nights, this show would be a shoot fighting style show and so a huge influx of talent from UFC came to ECW. Ken Shamrock was one of these names and he became the first EFN champion, which was a shoot fight title to be defended on a Revolution show(also the main title for Extreme Fight Nights) every week. Many of the workers trained on UFC shows and became very proficient at shoot fighting and so they knew how to sell it and many workers also became more stiff as a result. ECW was one of the few promotions where stiff wrestling was not frowned upon at this time.

 

2004: ECW continued life and no big changes were made bar the creation of another stable known as the Ultimate Fight League. This stable was formed by Ken Shamrock and he was joined by many of his fellow Lion's Den members and it also included some talent such as Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell. This stable would be fairly dominant as by late 2003 the Revolution Stable had completely split apart.

 

Late 2004: ECW made other attempts to sign WWE superstars, here are some who joined: Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Charlie Haas, Shelton Benjamin and Brock Lesnar.

 

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ECW (The Revival Year)

The beginning of 2001 was a failure for ECW as Paul Heyman had driven it into bankruptancy and many wrestlers voiced their displeasure at not being paid. The champion Steve Corino made statements on talk shows and said, that Paul Heyman was looking for a new network after they had been dropped by TNN, but few networks were open to idea of having ECW on their programming. Hardcore TV was producing great TV and the champions, Rhino and Steve Corino were putting on good quality matches. Steve Corino proposed to Paul Heyman that a different direction be taken by ECW, Heyman was struggling at the time and when he was seen on WWE shows, Corino began to look for a new promoter so that Extreme Championship Wrestling could continue. Steve Corino was a long time friend of Court H. Bauer who nearing Guilty as Charged attended a couple of ECW shows. After the big Television Title match between Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn, Mr. Bauer headed into the locker room and what he saw was a united locker room as ECW wanted to go out with a big bang. Court H. Bauer walked up to Corino and he discussed that taking the promotion was a possibility for him, but he needed to find a television deal that he had signed for an older company that had folded not due to bankruptancy, but rather lack of popularity. The network were able to renew the deal for Court H. Bauer as he revealed to the network that it was a surprise.

 

During this period Steve Corino was cutting promos about the revolution that was coming to ECW, RVD attacked Corino during an episode of Hardcore TV and that started a new feud between the Whole F'n Show and the King of Old School. This feud would be one of few that would continue onto the Era of Revolution. A new face was seen on the final show before the finalized buying of ECW, this man was revealed as the Chicago M""er CM Punk. Court H. Bauer then returned and bought ECW and unveiled a new show, Revolution TV. This new show was scheduled for Wednesday and the very first show featured CM Punk in his debut match against Jerry Lynn and Punk was introduced as The Chicago MotherF***ker, CM Punk showed some talent as he performed impressive moves against Jerry Lynn. Jerry Lynn was one of men who trained Punk in his time at a special training camp opened in Central America. Punk joined Steve Corino to begin forming the famous Revolution stable. Steve Corino was still champion as Court H. Bauer made an announcement that on Revolution TV Steve Corino would face Rhyno for the Heavyweight Championship. Corino was able to win after CM Punk interfered and hit Rhyno with a steel chair leading up to Steve Corino rolling Rhyno up. Rhyno chucked a spasm after the match and beat the hell out of the referee. The Television Champion became Nova who was pushed because of his immense talent in the ring, Tajiri and Psicosis fought in the three way match against Nova. Nova celebrated with Chris Chetti who turned on Nova after his dream was realized. This started their feud for the Television title. An unexpected Tag Team had risen the ranks and achieved a glory. Brock Lesnar and Shelton Benjamin or the Minnesota Wreckers had won the tag tournament after Big Brock had shown his power against Roadkill and Shelton Benjamin showed huge athleticism by leaping three quarters of the ring and hitting Danny Doring who was running to save Roadkill. This show of athleticism was rewarded by Court H. Bauer who saw the talent on display. A couple of performers were released to make way for the new talents.

 

The Japanese Tour was quite important to the influx of talent with 5 independent wrestlers debuting this year and most of these wrestlers were sent to developmental after having a trial run on the main roster with the company. Some Japanese wrestlers won title matches and held the title for a small run. Keiji Mutoh signed with the company and with that introduced the International title. This title would be held by non-american superstars and the rules were that no Americans or Canadians could challenge for this title. Keiji Mutoh was the first champion and he had a small run where Mitsuharu Misawa challenged him and had a good run of great matches. Minnesota Wreckers left Japan without the titles having lost them to The reformed Impact Players as Lance Storm left WWE and returned to ECW along with Justin Credible. Bryan Danielson was on tour in Japan and he had a small midcard match against Super Crazy who put over Danielson. The Television title had a number of changes over the tour including the victory of Jushin Liger over the TV champion Simon Diamond. Steve Corino remained the World Champion and drew a lot of heat by coming off as a racist. That was the general idea and Corino was beaten badly against Atsushi Onita who fought in the first Ultraviolent Death Match in ECW, but Corino managed to retain after CM Punk his lackey pushed Atsushi Onita through a glass table set up in the corner leading to the Old School Expulsion by Steve Corino for the victory.

 

The wrestlers released went to other promotions and they told TV stations that the reason they were released was because ECW was headed into a new direction and a entire stable was released and Da Baldies were that stable. The ECW roster was being shaken up with the introduction of a number of young wrestlers who would work for a lot less than some of the older talent. Rob Van Dam did manage to win a critically acclaimed tag team match while teaming with Jerry Lynn. The Minnesota Wreckers lost this match which was rated very highly by all wrestling magazines and critics. That match was critically acclaimed as it told a brilliant story and the wrestling was above par. This would set the tone for future ECW matches, and talk shows got Brock Lesnar and Shelton Benjamin as guests and they talked about that match. Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn did seperate interviews with talk shows and it seemed that from the big down, ECW was coming back up. This match was worked on a live Revolution TV in December. During this period AJ Styles revealed his alliance with the Revolution stable. Steve Corino was still champion having held it for a long time and he was almost defeated at the end of the year by Rhyno who had aligned with Tazz who appeared for the last show of 2001. That appearance by Tazz had left a couple of questions for fans and one of the those questions would be answered in 2002.

 

 

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ECW: The Rise of the Revolution

The year 2002 was a pure focus on talent, and finding younger wrestlers from the independant scene. The very start of the year saw the official opening of Revolution Pro Wrestling as a developmental territory as in the late 2001's RPW was an unknown brand that seemed to work with low tier ECW stars. CM Punk was known as the first RPW champion and that led to his very early promotion from the brand to the main ECW roster. He planted the seed that would become the world famous stable Revolution. Chris Hero, AJ Styles, Colt Cabana, James Storm and Austin Aries were wrestlers that while also wrestling for brands such as Major League Wrestling, IWA- Mid South and Juggalo Championshit Wrestling, wrestled for Revolution Pro Wrestling. Other young talent had been signed, but many of these talents left as they felt uncomfortable wrestling for a new big brand.

 

Chris Hero was the first 2001 talent to make his debut in 2002, as he during the Barely Legal show saved Steve Corino from being beaten up by a dominant Samoa Joe who was being managed by Tazz. Tazz though was the no 1 contender for the title and fought Corino while Hero brawled with Samoa Joe. Hero managed to save Corino by helping him out of the Tazzmission with a chair shot on Tazz knocking the Human Suplex Machine out and then Chris Hero used a Baseball Bat passed to him by Punk who had ran out during the brawling to help Corino. Corino then hit Old School Expulsion on Tazz and got the win. Corino was also busted up and bloodied from previous spots. Steve Corino then cut a promo as his two allies raised their fists and chanted, "We are the Revolution." The next debut was Austin Aries, who along with AJ Styles who was cutting a promo insulted some of the older wrestlers showing no respect, when out came Tommy Dreamer who was wielding s 2x4 wrapped in barbed wire, he completely busted open AJ Styles who was then saved by Austin Aries, when Aries hit a missile dropkick which allowed Aries to quickly grab the 2x4 and he then called to the entranceway of which CM Punk, Chris Hero came out and they beat up Tommy Dreamer allowing Aries to hit a 450 Splash with the barbed wire smashing into Dreamer's face and Aries body came out badly but he showed that the Revolution would do anything. Colt Cabana made his debut on a talk show in which he was talking to guest The Sandman and started to insult the Sandman saying that he was holding down talent and that his big demands were destroying ECW. The whole set of the show descended into a massive brawl with The Sandman at first coming out on top but then Cabana hopped up while Sandman was posing and smashed him in the back with one of the wooden chairs on the set. Sandman fell down and covered in dust Cabana stood over him. Cabana joined the Revolution after revealing that the promo he cut was an order by Steve Corino who was still World Champion. James Storm was one who debuted as a babyface and he helped Sabu survive multiple attacks by The Revolution, he announced that The Cowboy James Storm was ready to kick some youngster ass. James Storm was one of the reasons Steve Corino lost his title. Steve finally lost it in April when Raven made a return to ECW. Raven won the championship but instantly James Storm turned heel and lost it saying that them old fellows were given title shots when they returned in ignorance to the young guys who work off their damn asses but why do the old guys win because supposedly they make more money, and James Storm yelled out in the face of Raven I'll show you money you damn emo, He pointed to the stage and out came the Revoution supposedly under the orders of Corino, but when they were done with Raven, Punk pointed at Corino and said, "Losers like you don't belong in the Revolution," and all members rushed Corino and beat him brutally making a unexpected face turn for Corino.

 

At this stage the Revolution had captured many of the titles only to lose them to older talents, this made The Revolution angrier and they threatened to beat up Court H. Bauer if he didn't set things right. Bauer ended up being beaten up but before he could be completely injured, the old guys came out and started a massive brawl. Court H. Bauer the next week decided to keep the youngsters in line and so he ordered that the Revolution be placed in a steel cage match with a Giant of Wrestling. This Giant of Wrestling was the debuting Eddie Guerrero and he had handpicked his own men to join him in the steel cage. The friends of Eddie were Sabu, Rob Van Dam, The Japanese sensation Keiji Mutoh, Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman and Raven. The Revolution lost the match but CM Punk made one final statement and demanded that next week the leader of the Revolution CM Punk would challenge Eddie Guerrero and Raven to a Three Way Ultraviolent Deathmatch for the World Championship, AJ Styles then challenged Keiji Mutoh to a massive Ladder match, Tag Team Partners James Storm and Christian York challenged Rob Van Dam and Sabu for the Tag Team Titles in a Last Man Standing Tag Team Elimination Bout. The final match was Colt Cabana who challenged Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman in a kendo stick match just so Colt Cabana could beat up the two men with Sandman's signature weapon. Eddie Guerrero managed to win the Ultraviolent Deathmatch to win the ECW Heavyweight Title, AJ Styles would get his first title against TV champion Keiji Mutoh and he hit the Styles Clash off the ladder and onto 5 tables and he slowly crawled to the ladder and pulled the title down. James Storm and Christian York won the tag Team titles and Colt Cabana was completely destroyed but managed to pull out the victory by randomly playing Revolution theme song to distract them and to hit both men with the Kendo stick and hit a Colt 45, before he hit the Colt 45, he threw Dreamer out of the ring into a table. He pinned Sandman for the victory. The final period of the feud was a legendary 1 hour and 30 minute Iron Man Match between Eddie Guerrero and CM Punk, which resulted in the last second being a submission victory for Punk who had 5 falls while Eddie had 4 pinfalls or submissions. Punk then made a face turn when he showed respect to Eddie by shaking his hand and the two men left to a standing ovation by the crowd.

 

After all of this feuding Nova returned and had some great matches and on the other hand, Lance Storm was back from a small 7 month hiatus from wrestling. Lance Storm undertook the role of head trainer at a new ECW boot camp for younger and less talented superstars. Lance Storm also had some big matches against some of the great new talent of the Revolution stable of which had a new leader, the charismatic James Storm held the post and it was revealed that Lance and James would do a one time team at a tour show in Europe. The Tour of Europe which was a big success led to more talent being signed to RPW and some of the older talent said goodbye and were granted farewell matches as gratitude from the ECW promotion. This was due to how over the young talent in the Revolution had become. Nova left during this period as well as he expressed a desire to train new superstars and Court H. Bauer granted him that chance. The Revolution storyline had brought the popularity of ECW to huge heights and ECW reached the status of being a global company. The last PPV of 2002 truly introduced Samoa Joe as a wrestler and Tazz reundertook the manager role and started to cut promos for the Samoan Submission Machine who used the catchphrase, "Survive If I Let You." This final promotion of a superstar from RPW seemed to sense that ECW was headed in a technical wrestling direction as a five star match had come out this year, the Iron Man Match against Eddie Guerrero and CM Punk in which barely any weapons were used and it was lesson in pro technical wrestling in ECW.

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ECW: The Greatest Shoot Fight of them All

The year 2003 was a beginning of a new deal. ECW had signed big name Jake Roberts, but due to being drunk on appearances, it seemed to be a massive flop. Jake Roberts was never given important matches due to this tendency to not turn up at times for a scheduled appearance. Lance Storm proposed to Court H. Bauer that focus be drawn off the experiment of bringing a big star into ECW, and so by order of Court H. Bauer, the Revolution returned. This time round a couple of things were different, "Chicago Motherf**ker" CM Punk was not a part of the stable, instead James Storm took his position as leader. Storm was rated very highly as leader of the Revolution as it felt very different with him at command, so it didn't feel like a rehash of the same stable. James Storm led the Revolution on a crusade as he simply replaced the youth idea with a racist gimmick. The Crusade of the Revolution was mainly fought against the Mexican workers in ECW. The men who stood up to the young racists were the Yakuza(Keiji Muto as Kokushi Muso, Jinzei Shinzaki as Hakushi and Kensuke Sasaki). The Yakuza battled the youngsters in kickboxing fights organized by an unknown man, also the Yakuza showed form in the Mixed Martial Arts side and regularily challenged the Revolution to many different Martial Arts style fights, Judo matches, Taekwondo bouts and Karate fights became commonplace in this feud, but most of these respected matches ended in a hardcore beating of the Yakuza member in the fight. Until the second Tour of Japan, the Yakuza were outnumbered.

 

The Second Tour of Japan is recognized as the moment when the Revolution stable fell to it's lowest low, with the help of CM Punk who attacked Chris Hero completely distracting him from a tag bout, The Yakuza managed to score a big victory and when the Revolution tried to surround the ring, out came Japanese workers covered in symbols from head to toe, much like the Yakuza stable were. The Japanese workers destroyed the Revolution as Kokushi Muso laughed and spoke into the mic, saying, That Japan would never be dominated by such stupid youngsters. When ECW came home to America, it was revealed that Court H.Bauer had signed a deal with the UFC promotion. UFC would provide shoot fighters to ECW, while ECW promised to advertise matches on UFC payperview. ECW followed the deal with the first show promo having a small reference to UFC main event between Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz. Those two were the first to arrive to ECW, Shamrock and Ortiz continued their feud on ECW basing it on the real life heat between Lion's Den and Tito Ortiz. Frank Shamrock also arrived on the scene teaming with Lion's Den leader and teammate Ken Shamrock against Tito. Tito reacted to that by bringing in a very unexpected name, The Natural Randy Couture made a massive appearance and was given a very big pop his debut night. Many other UFC names were brought into the brand and so the second network deal was worked out, the second deal involved being placed late Saturday Night for the new show Extreme Fight Nights. This show would have a great focus on the UFC side of things as a championship was introduced, The EFN championship, this belt was for primarily Mixed Martial Arts workers and the first championship bout was between Ken Shamrock and Randy Couture. Ken Shamrock was able to win via submission and became the first of many champions. Other notable challengers to the title are Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Yves Edwards, Dan Severn, Don Frye, Australian Elvis Sinosic and Daniel Gracie. Some UFC talent made one time appearances on the show, but many deserving men were given title shots and a new style of match was devised in ECW. The Tag Match would be one person starts in the ring, his partner is outside of the ring and would take his place if he were beaten by any means. This allowed for big 6 man fights where the objective was to knock out your three opponents with your three men. Trainers were allowed to accompany fighters to the ring and in the first minute after all entrances were made, each trainer had a strategy session with his fighter.

 

After all of this a stable called the Ultimate Fight League was formed, This stable featured a wide variety of UFC talent who banded together to try and take over Revolution TV. Revolution TV remained a wrestling show. The main feud of the late 2003 was a battle between UFL and The Revolution who made a face turn. The stable was renamed to The Extreme Wrestling Association and were joined by a couple of well respected older talent who chose to remain in ECW. The feud between the two stables was a highly anticipated battle as each of the ECW workers had to train and learn the shoot fight style so that they could incorporate and fight the style. CM Punk was a surprising master of the shoot fight style and was able to battle against some of the more talented UFC fighters part of the stable. Also Sabu proved to be one of the bigger surprises of the ECW roster, he learned the stiff and shoot fight style so well that he was sent to UFC for 2004, 2005 and 2006. That was the deal Sabu signed after this feud as Dana White was highly impressed by the adaptable style of Sabu. Dana White made a couple of appearances on ECW and he revealed that ECW would be sending specific wrestlers on training regimes to UFC, he had agreed with Court H. Bauer that the deal would be beneficial to both companies. The benefits came from being able to learn different styles, cut better promo's and much more.

 

Ken Shamrock was able to capture the ECW World championship at one stage and he mentioned in a shoot promo that he was one of the only UFC talents who had a past wrestling experience and he headed a training camp initiative for MMA workers to be able to learn skills to transition into proffessional wrestling. This was a ECW supported and funded training camp run by Ken Shamrock who had a tremendous increase to his image in the world of sport. Court H. Bauer appointed himself to deal with the financial side of this project. As of this year, none of the champions were massive in making an impact barring Ken Shamrock and new signee Mando Guerrero capturing the International Championship.

 

ECW would be headed into a different year and it was not expected be as revolutionary as the past years were. The ECW brand had changed as the main supported wrestling style was shoot fighting and high flying/technical wrestling styles, but in specific shows which celebrated milestones in ECW, they would revert back to the old school style of ECW. Also throughout the years WWE talent made one off appearances on ECW but this would stop with the deal from UFC being signed. The WWE talent that made one off appearances also allowed Shelton Benjamin to debut his new gimmick which was The New Gangsta. ECW was preparing for a new year and were ready with another big group of talent preparing to enter Revolution Pro Wrestling.

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ECW: Revolution Pro Wrestling Initiative.

2004 was a uneventful year for ECW bar one little period in which ECW was able to grab Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit and some other former ECW talent from it's beginning. Kurt Angle accepted the deal with ECW as he watched a couple of Revolution TV shows live and was impressed with the focus of technical wrestling. Angle would be put in a feud with a member of the newly reformed Revolution named The New Revolution. The New Revolution featured only 3 members and only had one Revolution original a member of the group. ECW also hired TAKA Minchinoku in this years Japanese World Tour. The second tour of early 2004 was the Australian Tour and it featured relative unknown talent's such as Cletus Blood, Jason Helton and Mad Rock. RPW joined this years tours to Japan and Australia as in past years RPW made it's own tours. The reason for RPW joining ECW on it's world tour was supposedly to scout out talent over the world, so that RPW could groom a wide variety of wrestlers for ECW's next couple of years.

 

Revolution Pro Wrestling signed much talent over this year and the most prominent talent was under 25 years old. One example of some of the talent signed are The Briscoe Brothers who wrestled a tag team match against Team KAOS(Donovan Morgan and Michael Modest), this match impressed ECW's Lance Storm who joined Dean Malenko in searching for talent to sign. 10 of the talent signed were women as Court H. Bauer wanted to have women's wrestling as WWE was beginning to look for models to sign as it's women. Malenko signed a wide variety of women from all over the world and this was reported by newspapers as a unexpected direction taken by ECW. Some American women were signed but to give ECW a global feel, more talent was being signed from Japan, Canada, Europe and Britain. A MMA talent was signed to developmental and he was trained by Ken Shamrock who took some time out of the ring to focus on his training duties. Due to this Frank Shamrock was signed for a year and worked while Ken Shamrock trained talent and opened a second training camp as more MMA talent wanted to have a go at pro wrestling.

 

The final period of 2004 was a building period as the Tag Team division was rebuilt with the Crazy Mexican Bastards forming up due to a feud which involved the Yakuza attacking Super Crazy and Psicosis who eventually teamed up to try and take out the Yakuza. Also an interesting Tag Team also formed between Juventud Guerrera and TAKA Minchinoku called Deal or Suffer. The reason for this name was that TAKA Minchinoku worked for the Yakuza as a drug dealer and if a meeting was called by a customer and if the customer refused to buy TAKA would beat them up. Juventud was his highest paying and most respected customer being a rich Mexican drug lord who would send his respects to the Yakuza in the form of his best drugs. Another Team formed was a MMA group called the Jackson Gym, the Jackson Gym was a supposed training ground for MMA fighters and it had just started up with a young Canadian by the name of Robbie Lawler training at the gym. All this was important for the Tag Team titles were still vacant as all the teams were forming for a big event which would be called on January the 1st by Court H. Bauer. This was the point in time that Paul Heyman actually legitimately was resigned to ECW as a manager as he had been head of creative in ECW while making the occasional appearance at a WWE show. 2004 was a average year but Court H. Bauer hoped that 2005 would be the best year for ECW yet.

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2005 ECW Roster

Main Eventers

Chris Benoit(Heel)

Chris Jericho(Face)

Eddie Guerrero(Face)

Kurt Angle(Heel)

Upper Midcarders

Brock Lesnar(Heel)

Ken Shamrock(Tweener)

Rob Van Dam(Face)

Steve Corino(Tweener)

Midcarders

AJ Styles(Tweener)

Carlos Newton(Face)

Chris Candido(Heel)

CM Punk(Heel)

Donovan Morgan(Heel)

James Storm(Face)

Jinsei Shinzaki(Heel)

Juventud Guerrera(Heel)

Keiji Mutoh(Heel)

Low-Ki(Heel)

Michael Modest(Heel)

Mikey Whipwreck(Face)

Nova(Tweener)

Psicosis I(Face)

Quinton Jackson(Face)

Randy Couture(Face)

Renato Babalu Sobral(Face)

Ricardo Arona(Face)

Shelton Benjamin(Heel)

Super Crazy(Face)

Tajiri(Heel)

TAKA Minchinoku(Heel)

Vampiro(Heel)

Vitor Belfort(Face)

Lower Midcarders

Harry Smith(Heel)

Kensuke Sasaki(Heel)

Robbie Lawler(Face)

Samoa Joe(Face)

Tito Ortiz(Tweener)

Tag Teams and Stables

Tag Teams

Crazy Mexican Bastards(Super Crazy & Psicosis I)

Deal or Suffer!!/The Black Tiger Cartel(Juventud Guerrera & TAKA Minchinoku)

Jackson Gym(Quinton Jackson & Robbie Lawler)

New Revolution(AJ Styles & Low-Ki)

Team KAOS(Michael Modest & Donovan Morgan)

Whipwreck & Tajiri(Mikey Whipwreck & Tajiri)

Stables

Ultimate Fight League(Ken Shamrock(leader), Renato Babalu Sobral, Ricardo Arona, Vitor Belfort)

Yakuza(Keiji Mutoh(leader), Jinsei Shinzaki, Kensuke Sasaki)

Developmental Roster 2005

Main Eventers(45-57 overness)

Austin Aries(Heel)

Chris Hero(Heel)

J.R Ryder(Face)

Kentaro Shiga(Face)

Upper Midcarders(35-44 overness)

Adam Windsor(Heel)

Chance Beckett(Face)

Chris the Bambikiller(Tweener)

Claudio Castagnoli(Heel)

Colt Cabana(Heel)

Derrick King(Heel)

Jay Briscoe(Face)

Mark Briscoe(Face)

Midcarders(25-34 overness)

Eric Gracie(Heel)

KENTA(Heel)

Masahiro Indohara(Tweener)

Patrick G.E.I.L Schulz(Heel)

Rico Barzini(Face)

X-Dream(Face)

Lower Midcarders(15-24 overness)

Michael Iwasa(Face)

Vangelis(Heel)

Will Damon(Heel)

Women's Developmental Roster

Main Eventers(45-57 overness)

Ayako Hamada(Face)

Gail Kim(Heel)

LuFisto(Heel)

Upper Midcarders(35-44 overness)

Desire(Face)

Wesna(Heel)

Midcarders(25-34 overness)

None

Lower Midcarders(15-24 overness)

Caryn Mower(Heel)

Chie Terashita(Face)

Jazzy B(Face)

Kumiko Indohara(Heel)

Sweet Dreams(Face)