In the interest of fairness, here's some love to a historically earth-shattering moment for a visionary company that in the end bit off a bit more than they could chew:
The Night the Line Was Crossed
Shane Douglas made a career out of this moment.
In 1994, the NWA was in shambles. They had left WCW, they had basically no affiliates left, they were starting from scratch, basically. So the NWA Board of Directors found a hot up-and-coming promotion in Philadelphia by the name of Eastern Championship Wrestling, and decided to begin again from there.
They held a tournament to crown a vacant NWA World Heavyweight Champion. That tournament was won by the reigning Eastern Championship Wrestling heavyweight champion, Shane Douglas. This is the point where, as far as the NWA Board of Directors knew, Shane was going to put over the title and proudly begin the era of NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling.
Needless to say, that didn't happen.
Shane Douglas and head booker Paul Heyman knew that this was bad business, that the NWA model no longer worked in the post-territorial '90s. So they concocted this swerve on the NWA representatives, to not only denounce them, but to build buzz for their own company.
And it worked. It worked more than anyone could have ever imagined.
This is the night Extreme was born.
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Thank you, Eddie Guerrero.
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