ECW on TNN
| ECW on TNN | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Created by | Paul Heyman |
| Starring | See Extreme Championship Wrestling alumni |
| Opening theme | "This is Extreme!" by Harry Slash & The Slashtones |
| Country of origin | USA |
| No. of episodes | 59 |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | Burt Flickinger Center, Buffalo NY |
| Camera setup | Multicamera setup |
| Running time | 60 minutes (with commercials) |
| Release | |
| Original network | The Nashville Network |
| Original release | August 27, 1999 – October 6, 2000 |
ECW on TNN, also known as ECW Wrestling, was an American professional wrestling television program that aired on The Nashville Network (TNN, now Spike). Created by Paul Heyman, the owner of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), it presented original ECW matches on Friday nights and was the only national television program in ECW's history. It debuted on August 27, 1999 - five years to the date that Shane Douglas threw down the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and rechristened ECW (then known as Eastern Championship Wrestling) as Extreme Championship Wrestling. The final episode aired on October 6, 2000.
In 1999, Heyman signed a three-year contract with TNN in the hopes of expanding national awareness of his company. Prior to ECW on TNN, ECW shows were only televised via syndication. For its part, TNN added ECW to its "Friday Night Thrill Zone" lineup in an attempt to help build on the increase in teenager/young male viewership that RollerJam had brought to the network. Into 2000, the network claimed a vast improvement in the young male demographic on Friday nights due to ECW's addition.
Early signs of a rocky relationship between ECW and TNN came when TNN president David Hall implied that the program would be "toned down" from the usual ECW fare – which emphasized more violent matches and explicit content than that offered by the two leading professional wrestling companies of the day, the WWF and World Championship Wrestling (WCW). On WWE's The Rise and Fall of ECW DVD, Heyman alleged that the requests from TNN to tone down ECW's content were excessive.
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