Justin Credible Believes ECW Would Be Alive With The Streaming Options Today

Though Extreme Championship Wrestling carries a massive legacy for the influence of its product, it's also notorious for the financial implosion that brought about its end. Arguably the biggest factor in ECW's downfall was expenses associated with its TV shows: Paying for TV time to get its syndicated show, "Hardcore TV," on numerous stations across the country, and increased production expenses necessitated by the terms of its contract with TNN for its nationally-broadcast cable show, which ECW was not paid a rights fee for. That was the reality of a wrestling promotion trying to survive 20-plus years ago. Former ECW World Champion Justin Credible told the "Hitting The Turnbuckle Podcast," ECW would be a lot more viable with today's technology.

"That's the thing that was killing ECW: Paul was trying to keep guys like myself, guys like Sabu, guys like Rob Van Dam, so [the wrestlers] were making a lot of money for a small promotion," Credible explained after agreeing with host Adam Cousins that ECW would be better off in a 2023-style setting. "We had to buy our [only] TV time after we lost our TV show with ... TNN, that turned into Spike. And then it just became that we were paying out of pockets to run in these markets. Just a lot of money going out and it wasn't coming in fast enough."

When ECW folded in 2001, it owed $240,000 to New York's MSG Network alone. Based on the cost of at least $4,000 per week reported in the January 8, 2001 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, ECW had not paid for its time slot in about a year.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Hitting The Turnbuckle Podcast" with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.