Since around mid-1997, many of ECW's hardcore followers have contended that the fed, once known for it's cutting edge storylines and hardcore violent matches, had lost it's edge and didn't have the appeal that it once had. They contended that it had gotten stale and the loss of it's top stars to the WWF and WCW, had made the successful independent fed boring. They said that it relied too much on the same wrestlers and the same types of matches and angles. They said that ECW needed new blood and needed new storylines to be able to refresh itself and to catch up with the newly hardcore WWF.
So that's exactly what ECW did. They imported great talent from Japan such as the hugely popular Masato Tanaka and the great big man high flyer Mike Awesome. They also gave their older talent a bit of a break and put them into new storylines and new fueds. ECW once again became "cool" again.
And now with the fans giving good reviews on their latest ECW PPV, it now seems that 1999 will be the year that ECW comes back on top and gets back into the race again. The WWF and WCW better beware. Because no matter how many wrestlers they maybe able to "steal" away from ECW, there are always twice as many soon-to-be young stars on the independent circuit, just waiting for their big break.
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