Nice revisionist history.
Let's look at the early ECW roster (1993, 1994, 1995).
Shane Douglas - good technical wrestler
Tommy Dreamer - known for a hardcore style, but also a good wrestler
mike Awesome - Excellent wrestler
Taz - good wrestler
Terry Funk - aging, but a good wrestler also
Jimmy Snuka - legend, known for ariel wrestling, not garbage
Stevie Richards - good wrestler
1995's roster for ECW is simply brilliant
Despite being cool to trash ECW these days, it was a good promotion that always had GOOD wrestling, despite what many people may want to claim these days.
I was not trashing ECW at all. In fact, if you'd actually read my post you would know that I'm a huge fan. I still watch the old videos a lot, and it was my favorite promotion ever. I quite enjoyed the hardcore style. At the time, it was fresh and different, was the right product for the "edgy" 90's.
As far as my "revisionist history" as you put it, let's look at that 1993 - 94 ECW roster again shall we?
Shane Douglas - I'm with you on this one, good wrestler.
Tommy Dreamer - Decent wrestler, but the crowd hated him.
Mike Awesome - One of my all time favorites, but during this period he only made an occassional one-off appearance for ECW. He could hardly be considered a member of the official roster in 1993-1994.
Taz - Good wrestler, I'm with you there.
Terry Funk - By this time he was broken down and had to start getting hardcore because he could no longer put on a technical classic.
Jimmy Snuka - At this point he too was starting to look like a broken down old man.
Stevie Richards - He was there sure, but he was barely on tv before Raven showed up in 1995.
What you forget is that for every Shane Douglas there were three Rockin' Rebels, Hack Meyers and Super Detroyers.
If anyone is using revisionist history it's you. ECW started to incorporate great wrestling later on, and I agree that the 1995 roster was awesome, but to act like there was always a great collection of mat technicians there is a joke.
ECW was without a doubt born of necessity. Without going hardcore, it would have simply been another indy fed. Seriously, go watch 1993 ECW. It sucked. What it became was something wonderful with a legacy that will always exist in wrestling, but there's no denying that they started putting people through tabes and hitting each other with chairs to get noticed.
And I'm glad they did, or I probably wouldn't be a wrestling fan today.
My argument was that TNA does not need to resort to this. They have a phenomenal roster that can put on classic match after classic match without having to dig up the past.