This day in wrestling history is our first foray into ECW and “The Franchise” Shane Douglas winning the ECW Championship from Monaca, Pennsylvania on November 30, 1997.
ECW was a different animal that really shook up the wrestling establishment at the time and had a hand in WWE’s Attitude Era and their fanbase was an awesome collection of people.
Shane Douglas was in fact their franchise as after his match with Bam Bam Bigelow, he went on to hold the title for a record 406 days.
Respect is given
While Douglas would go on to make ECW history, he’s shown a huge amount of respect for Bigelow and others, and he talked about this and their match in an interview in 2017.
Special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the transcript.
“Bam Bam had slimmed down probably 160 lbs and I was 253 lbs and for about the first 15-20 minutes of the match, he throws me around like a rag doll. And at that point, he presses me over his head and throws me out to security in the aisle way like ten or fifteen feet out. He then walks back to face the hard camera and puts his elbows on the top rope and looks dead set into the hard-cam.
“Watch that the next time when he does that, how he’s barely breathing, he’s barely even sweating and to me that just stuck out and always has, every time I watch that match. It just grabs me that this big bastard throwing me around in that thick and hot sweaty air and he’s breathing like that? He looks like he got up from watching a TV show.
“Just another testament to Scott’s in-ring ability and that he was able to keep himself at that size that well winded and keep himself under control. In that kind of a match, you let the nerves start to get to you. ‘Am I doing the right thing? What else could we do?’ Your brain is going a million miles an hour and you add all the physical aspects of the heat, the crowd. How do you make this match get to the point you need it to? He is totally calm, cool, collect, the absolute definition of professional.” – Shane Douglas, Triple Threat podcast November 7, 2017.
What makes this extra special for us is this day in history took place at ECW’s November To Remember, which was their WrestleMania and the biggest stage for the company.
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