>>11000774You had to be there.
In-Ring, it was a mess but you had a couple of stalwarts and the "garbage" matches helped the shittier wrestlers. Music was unlicensed because most of those guys were never going to sue some shitty wrestling company, so it felt contemporary. Characters were obviously more adult and Heyman basically had his women act as valets for most part and wear short skirts and thongs (pretty based). Stories is where it peaked, but I would say 95-97 is the "story" peak for the company, while 98-99 is when they actually made some money. It depends on what you enjoy. The matches get better that later it goes, but it's just not the same and the production is trying to be WWE and WCW but it fails. The 95-97 stuff has shitty production, but it actually fits that period better so it doesn't look as bad.
Overall, it was a great company and regardless of what E-Drones say, Vince (Russo or McMahon) took a lot of inspiration from them. It's not just, "Austin drinks like Sandman did" but in general presentation and edge that WWE was desperately missing from the time.
WCW fucked up with most of the guys they stole from them, but let's be real, Heyman was only mad at WCW because Bischoff didn't put him on Gibs like Vince did.
As for Heyman himself, while I love ECW, I actually think his SD run is his booking peak. He had a lot of shitters in ECW and had to work around their weaknesses. In 2002, he had an all-star roster and got them all over and let them interchange endlessly.
