Eastern Championship Wrestling/Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) is a defunct professional wrestling promotion based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that operated from 1992 to 2001. Over the course of its existence, ECW staged regular supercards and, beginning in 1997, pay-per-view events. From February 1992 to August 1994, events were promoted under the Eastern Championship Wrestling banner; from August 1994 to January 2001, the Extreme Championship Wrestling name was used.
In 2003, World Wrestling Entertainment (now known as WWE) purchased the assets of ECW, including the video libraries of all previous ECW pay-per-views, and the ownership rights of the names of these events. To date, as of 2024, WWE has only promoted one event using the name of a former ECW PPV, Heat Wave since 2022 for the NXT brand and has since rotated between an television special and an live-streaming event as WWE ceased airing NXT pay-per-views from 2022 and has aired solely on the WWE Network and Peacock.
Beginning in 2014, nearly almost all of ECW pay-per-view events were made available on the WWE Network and Peacock.
Date | Event | Type | Venue | Location | Final match |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Eastern Championship Wrestling | |||||
February 25, 1992 | Market Street Mayhem | Live event | Original Sports Bar | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States | D. C. Drake and J. T. Smith vs. Johnny Hotbody and Larry Winters |
Date | Event | Type | Venue | Location | Final match |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Extreme Championship Wrestling | |||||
January 7, 2001 | Guilty as Charged | Pay-per-view | Hammerstein Ballroom | New York City, New York, United States | Jerry Lynn vs. Rob Van Dam |
January 13, 2001 | ECW's Final Show | Live event | Pine Bluff Convention Center | Pine Bluff, Arkansas, United States | Justin Credible vs. The Sandman |
Halloween Havoc is a professional wrestling event currently produced by WWE. Since 2020, it has been held annually for the company's developmental brand, NXT. As the name implies, it is a Halloween-themed show held in October.
The brand extension, also referred to as the brand split, is the separation of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE's roster of wrestlers into distinct divisions, or "brands". The promotion's wrestlers are assigned to a brand via the annual WWE Draft and exclusively perform on that brand's weekly television show, with some exceptions. Throughout its history, WWE has utilized the brand extension twice. The first brand split occurred from 2002 to 2011, while the ongoing second began in 2016.
Heat Wave, also stylized as Heatwave, is a professional wrestling event currently produced by WWE for its developmental brand, NXT. It was originally a pay-per-view event produced by Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) that took place annually from 1994 to 2000. ECW folded in 2001 and WWE acquired its assets in 2003. In 2022, WWE revived the Heat Wave name for NXT, but stylized as Heatwave, and it has since been held annually, first as a television special of NXT in 2022 and 2023, then as a livestreaming event in 2024 as WWE ceased airing NXT pay-per-views from 2022. The event's name is a reference to it being held in the summer as all events have been held in either July or August.
The history of American professional wrestling promotion WWE dates back to the early 1950s when it was founded on January 7, 1953 as the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC). The public branding of the company has undergone several name changes throughout the years, from the CWC to the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in 1963, then the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979, and to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2002. Since 2011, it has branded itself solely as WWE. On September 12, 2023, Endeavor, the parent company of mixed martial arts promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship, and WWE merged the two companies into a new parent company, TKO Group Holdings. WWE and UFC continue to operate as separate divisions of the company with WWE focusing on professional wrestling and UFC focusing on mixed martial arts. In 2023, WWE's legal name was changed to World Wrestling Entertainment, LLC, though the branded name remained WWE.
WWE Libraries Inc., branded as the WWE Legacy Department, is an American media company that consists of the largest collection of professional wrestling videos and copyrights in the world. The Legacy Department is a subsidiary of WWE, the professional wrestling subsidiary of TKO Group Holdings. It comprises not only past and current works by WWE but also the works of now defunct professional wrestling promotions dating back to the 1930s. As of 2014, the library stands at 150,000 hours of content including weekly television shows, pay-per-views, and recorded house shows. The collection represents a very significant portion of the visual history of modern professional wrestling in the United States and Canada. WWE has made their classic holdings available through numerous home video releases, the Vintage television program, and on the WWE Network and WWE Classics on Demand services.
Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was an American professional wrestling promotion that was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and operated by its parent company HHG Corporation. The promotion was founded in 1992 by Tod Gordon as National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) affiliate Eastern Championship Wrestling. The following year, businessman and wrestling manager Paul Heyman took over the creative end of the promotion from Eddie Gilbert. Under Heyman, the promotion was rechristened as Extreme Championship Wrestling.
WWE Network is a subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and digital television network owned by the American professional wrestling promotion WWE, a division of TKO Group Holdings.
WWE Vengeance, known as NXT Vengeance Day since 2021, is an American professional wrestling event produced by WWE, a professional wrestling promotion based in Connecticut. The event was originally created in 2001 as a pay-per-view (PPV), when the promotion was still called the World Wrestling Federation. Since 2021, the event has been held annually in February for WWE's developmental brand, NXT, under the title NXT Vengeance Day, which is a reference to the event taking place on or around Valentine's Day. The 2021 event aired on both traditional PPV and via livestreaming. The 2022 event was then held as a television special on the USA Network, but since 2023, it has aired exclusively via WWE's livestreaming platforms.
The 1994 Slamboree: A Legends Reunion was the second Slamboree professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Championship Wrestling (WCW). It took place on May 22, 1994, at the Philadelphia Civic Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2014, the event was made available for streaming on the WWE Network.
The American professional wrestling promotion WWE has maintained several men's world championships since Capitol Wrestling Corporation seceded from the National Wrestling Alliance in 1963 to become the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), which was later subjected to various name changes, including World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)—in April 2011, the company ceased using its full name and has since just been referred to as WWE. The company's first world championship was the WWE Championship, which was established along with the promotion's creation in 1963 as the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship; it is still active today and is WWE's oldest active title. Whenever the WWE brand extension has been implemented, separate world championships have been created or allocated for each brand.
NXT WarGames was a professional wrestling event produced annually by WWE, a Connecticut-based professional wrestling promotion. Held exclusively for wrestlers from the promotion's developmental territory NXT, it was broadcast live and available only through pay-per-view (PPV) and the livestreaming services Peacock and the WWE Network. The event was originally established in 2017 and held under the NXT TakeOver series. In September 2021, WWE discontinued the TakeOver series with the 2021 WarGames being NXT's first major event held following TakeOver's discontinuation.
NXT Stand & Deliver is a professional wrestling event produced by WWE, a Connecticut-based professional wrestling promotion. Established in 2021, it is held for the promotion's developmental brand NXT and takes place annually during WrestleMania week. The inaugural two-night event was broadcast through multiple outlets, with the first night airing as a television special on the USA Network and the second night on pay-per-view with both nights also airing through WWE's livestreaming services. Beginning with the 2022 event, it has been held as a one-day livestreaming event.