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Over the course of four years, the Hardcore Championship changed hands 240 different times. That should tell you everything you need to know about the quality of this division.

To be fair, there were some legitimately terrific hardcore matches, and a few guys carried the title like pros. But for the most part, it was just a haphazard, silly little distraction from the real competition happening in the WWE. Maybe if they’d kept guys like Mick Foley involved (he was the first one to be awarded the belt, but only held it once before quickly ascending to main event status), the division would have stood a chance at legitimacy.

As it happened, the division was sometimes fun to watch in a “Why are they still allowing this ridiculousness to be televised?” sort of way, but that was about the extent of it. Most diehard fans viewed it as a gimmick title,...

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Most pro wrestling fans know Taz/Tazz now as little more than a bumbling announcer, one who has an incredible penchant for likening large wrestlers to “small foreign cars”. Bizarre comparisons aside, there was a time when he was one of the hottest performers going in the industry, one expected to hit the big leagues of the then-wwf hard at the turn of the millennium.

Carving a rather brilliant reputation for himself in the original Ecw, Taz (as he was then known, sans the extra ‘z’), was one of the promotion’s resident hard men, a wrestler fans could count on for a stellar match, and someone who was likely to suplex his opponent relentlessly, sending them flying all over the ring.

There’s now a generation of wrestling fans who don’t remember Tazz as a wrestler, let alone a main event bad ass, but this list...

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The 2002 Royal Rumble took place at a time when WWE had a really big roster due to all of the talent they acquired when they bought WWE in 2001. While they didn’t choose to bring in all of their talent and a number of big names came in down the road, there were still several WCW stars that were playing major roles in WWE.

With the Invasion storyline finished after settling things at Survivor Series 2001, WWE had to move forward with a new direction. That led to the WWE return of Ric Flair, who left the company for WCW eight years old. He was put in the role of an owner that was battling with Vince McMahon. It got so heated that they ended up having a match at this show.

A few months after this show, the company changed their name from the World Wrestling Federation to...

The 2001 WWE Invasion PPV was held on July 22, 2001 in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the only time that WWE used the Invasion title for a PPV because it was the only occasion where it would have fit. That’s because the main story at the time was about the WCW brand led by Shane McMahon and the Ecw brand led by Stephanie McMahon & Paul Heyman were trying to take over Vince McMahon’s WWE. It was a dream storyline that fans had wanted to see for years.

While it wasn’t perfect for a lot of reasons, they did a fantastic job of building up the event, which did great business for WWE with a reported 775,000 PPV buys. From a financial standpoint it was one of the most successful WWE PPVs ever.

This show was unique because there wasn’t a WWE Title match in the main event slot. That’s...

WWE.com

A lot of successful WWE performers can trace their lineage through Paul Heyman’s Extreme Championship Wrestling. Rob Van Dam became WWE Champion (and Ecw Champion) in 2006. Tazz parlayed his wrestling character into a successful announcing career starting in 2002. The homicidal, genocidal, maniac that was Sabu played an important role in the re-launch of the Ecw brand beginning with 2006′s One Night Stand PPV (facing Rey Mysterio for his World Championship). To varying degrees, the Ecw experience helped shape the careers of many former WWE World Champions such as Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Mick Foley, Eddie Guerrero and Steve Austin.

However, there’s the other group. Those are the many Ecw performers whose experience in the WWE was far less thrilling. While these wrestlers have mostly been relegated more to footnotes of WWE history we’ll take a moment to recall their time as superstars in the world’s biggest pro-wrestling company.

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Alexander Rusev, the Bulgarian Brute. WWE’s latest Nxt call-up made a big impression at the Royal Rumble, and since then he has been biding his time, appearing in vignettes on Raw and Smackdown before he makes his television debut. The time for plotting is now for the creative department, as they have basically a blank slate heel to build in this new year. And I am so excited for this!!

In 2014, the WWE is somewhat lacking in sizable, fearsome monsters. The likes of Kane and Brock Lesnar have had their time in the past and are fully established as such, so there’s no point in placing them in midcard feuds. Batista is ridiculously out of shape, Roman Reigns seems destined for a face turn, so there is a niche that needs to be filled, which Alexander Rusev can easily do.

Granted, he’s not the tallest in the world at only 6 foot,...

In a year where the WWE’s other spiritual home, Madison Square Garden has learned that it will be soon be moving locations, I’ve been thinking a lot about the arenas that have housed the biggest moments in wrestling history. Since Madison Square Garden is getting its own WWE DVD, I decided to take a closer look at the WWE’s official home for the biggest party of the summer, the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Opened in 1999, the Staples Center has always been a hotbed of WWE activity, despite also being the home of the La Lakers, La Clippers and the La Kings.

15. Raw: April 3rd 2000 - The Beginning of a Beautiful Relationship

The first big WWE event in the Staples Center was an episode of Raw broadcast the night after Wrestlemania 2000, which according to Jr sold out in 11 minutes. This Raw would host the fallout from the night before,...

Following the success of the first volume of Ecw Unreleased, the WWE delves even deeper into the Ecw archives, delivering even more hardcore action once again hosted by the voice of Ecw, Joey Styles, who returns to call the action on over 7 hours of previously unreleased matches with a little help from Ecw Original Tommy Dreamer.

Featuring Ecw stalwarts to WWE Legends’ stints on the hardcore circuit, this brand-new compilation contains matches such as the first Ecw battle between Extreme Originals Tommy Dreamer and Tazz; WWE Hall of Famers Cactus Jack (Mick Foley) & Terry Funk squaring off; aerial warfare between Chris Jericho and Sabu; matches for the Ecw Championship, Japanese death matches and Mexican lucha libre – all in the Ecw’s inimitable style…

I get that the WWE want to release all their archival material to the fans eager to snap it up on DVD and/or Blu-ray but what I don’t get,...

In the pantheon of great movie heroes there's one thing that is guaranteed to make them shine, to drive them to push themselves to be the best they can be, to get the crowd on their side, screaming and shouting for them to beat the odds and win the day. That one thing is a great villain. A nemesis.

John McClane would have still been great kicking ass up and down the stairwells of Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard, but with Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber to contend with, we cheered that little bit louder. Likewise Rocky Balboa. Whether facing off against Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang or the supremely nefarious Ivan Drago it was the chemistry between the forces of good and evil that ignited the passion in our hearts, that made us care about what we were watching.

Alfred Hitchcock was right on the money when he said “The more successful the villain,...

It has been some time since the WWE produced an impressive debut for a new superstar. The likes of Ryback and Brodus Clay have hardly projected future champions and both have had to work their way up from the bottom.

Remember the days when debutants had inventive and exciting vignettes to promote their impending arrival. There have been numerous captivating moments and superb matches which have helped propel a new wrestler to the top.

Here are 10 great WWE debuts.

10. Tazz – 2000

Tazz had been one of the top Ecw stars since their rebrand but with the lure of the Monday Night powerhouse Raw is War, the Tazmaniac was brought to the WWF.

Kurt Angle had remained undefeated since his arrival but for weeks the logo ‘13’ had shown up on the titantron at various times. At Royal Rumble ’00 Madison Square Garden waited in anticipation to discover the identity of the debutant. To...

Tna Impact! February 9th 2012!

The UK “Invasion” continues, with a cross promotional opening video package with Star Wars. Because Garrett vs. Eric is just like Luke vs. Vader. Never does a week go past that Tna doesn’t surprise me. Last weeks crowd in the UK made the show seem ten times more important, so lets hope for more of the same on Tna Star Wars Night in association with Episode One in 3D.

First out is Jabba the Hutt. Or Bully Ray as hes known. Bully doesn’t want to talk to Anyone but his “Close, personal friend” Bobby Roode and he’s clearly pissed with him. Roode obliges and Ray meets him in the ramp to shout at him. “Where the hell have you been for Me!?” Crowd are all over both of them as Bully wants to know why he doesn’t have his back. “You’ve...

We arrived at the O2 Arena after a labyrinthine voyage through the London underground, pumped with adrenaline and ready to cheer on some gruelling, fearsome - but apparently family-friendly - chaos. And the first thing that struck me about the modern world of wrestling entertainment is just how much friendlier to families it has become.

It seems that gone are the days of Stone Cold Steve Austin smashing a steel chair over his boss’ head, downing 10 beers in quick succession and then promptly waving his middle finger at roughly 15,000 people. For the record, imagine doing that at work and getting away with it? This was the norm when I was a young, wrestling fanatic; but, looking back on it, the suitability of this being watched by children is questionable at the best of times.

Cue the new generation of stars; including the likes of John Cena, who appeared to be...

Tna Bound For Glory 2011

October 16th, Live from Philadelphia

Obligatory shot of the Liberty Bell and of course Rocky before we move into the Bound For Glory hype video. Then we are listening to Stain’d (for the first time since 2001 if you’re anything like me) as we go Live into the arena. You’d think for their biggest show of the year they’d have some pyro.

X Division Title

Brian Kendrick vs. Austin Aries

Lockup, the crowd strongly behind Austin Aries for some reason. We are in Philly tonight, the crowd could be interesting. Kendrick hip toss and a side head lock take over or three. Austin gets out of each one with an easy head scissors. Kendrick dropkicks him outside, where Aries decides he needs a time out. Of course Kendrick cant resist a vaulting cross body block. I can understand them cheering who they want.