The Extreme era of ECW began today in 1994.
20 years ago today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Shane Douglas defeats 2 Cold Scorpio in the finals of a one-night tournament to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The story wasn't what went down with the match or the tournament (which featured the ECW debuts of Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and Osamu Nishimura). Post-match, Douglas, at the time the Eastern Championship Wrestling heavyweight champion, ran down the NWA and threw down its world title belt, and declared himself the ECW World Heavyweight Champion. NWA's Dennis Coraluzzo was in attendance at the show and was left in a state of confusion as ECW, which would change its name to Extreme Championship Wrestling in the days following the shocking actions, officially broke away from the NWA. In interviews since then, Paul Heyman admitted that he was one of only three men who knew what would go down that fateful day: himself, Douglas, and ECW commissioner Tod Gordon). In a side note, on the same show, Cactus Jack and Mikey Whipwreck defeated Public Enemy to win the ECW World Tag Team Championship.