The rise & fall of ECW by Thom Loverro

If I was to write a book about ECW, the first person I'd want to talk to is Paul Heyman. This is the only ECW book on the market that Paul was involved in. It is fascinating to see what went on behind the scenes to make his dreams a reality. Just like the DVD of the same name, the book portrays the WWE as saviors of the promotion and the WCW as the only rival for ECW.

Just like the promotion the book is written about, people will find this book to be controversial. The best part of the book is the analysis of ECW and the events that happened by Paul Heyman. If only the whole book was like this.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of revision about the role the WWE and WCW played in the collapse of the company. The worst example of this was the discussion of the wrestlers lost to WCW in 1995 (Benoit, Malenko, & Guerrero). At no point during that tirade against WCW was it mentioned that Shane Douglas was in the WWF. When the Douglas return from the WWF is mentioned, it made it seem that the WWF only took ECW wrestlers when ECW didn't need them anymore. All I know is that the first ECW show I went to was supposed to have Steve Austin in the main event. Before the show started, Paul Heyman addressed the crowd about Austin not being there because he was signed by the WWF and he even offered the crowd a refund.

Outside of this, the book was really fascinating to read. There were many details exposed in this book that none of the other books about ECW mentioned. The editing that I really enjoyed was in regards to the analysis of the matches and booking. All the storylines that are mentioned in the book are the important ones.

Overall Recommendation: Buy this book