The Scandal That Rocked The Foundation Of Ring Of Honor

Rob Feinstien's company RF Video was desperate to find a replacement for it's top seller ECW so in 2002 he founded Ring Of Honor. ROH became a huge sucess and Feinstien was on top of the world. Until it all came crashing down on a March day in 2004. Feinstien was caught in a online sting set up by perverted-justice.com to catch sexual predator's. Feinstien was talking online to an agent who he believed was a 14 year boy. Feinstien told the boy he was 22, he was acutally 34, and wrestled for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. He arranged to meet at the boys house for sex. When Feinstien showed up he was met by a news crew. Police never brought any charges against him but the incident had a disastrious effect on ROH, causing a temporary split from TNA Wrestling. Feinstien went on to sell all of his shares in ROH to Carey Silken.

The Sandman Exposed

In 2000, prior to a 8 man tag team match at a ECW event in Florida, Tommy Dreamer cut a promo saying after the match they we're gonna to a bar and watch The Sandman. This prompted Sandman, who was highly intoxicated to pull down his pants down and mooned the crowd before proceding to expose his penis to the shocked ECW fans in attendance. Sandman then began jumping up and down while Tommy Dreamer struggled to put his underwear back on. When Sandman finally stopped jumping around, he bent down to pull his pants up and was pushed over by Dreamer. Raven then brought out a bullrope, gave Dreamer one end then together played jump rope with Sandman. Once the match finally got underway, Sandman brought a table into the ring, climbed up on it, began danceing and mooned Rhino before simulating giving fellatio on his kendo stick. After the match, Steve Corino walked around ringside appologizing to fans. Sandman was met backstage by a pissed off Paul Heyman who asked Sandman "What the fuck were you thinking?". Heyman then took Sandman into the bathroom to talk to him privately. Jack Victory burst into the bathroom and startes argueing with Sandman over still cane shots during the match. Heyman stood between them to try to keep the situation from escalating any further. Victory reached over Heyman and forearmed Sandman causing him to retaliate by jamming his fingers into Victory's eyes. Victory then grabbed Sandman by the ears and headbutted him. "Big" Sal E. Graziano came running in and pinned both men to the wall telling them that the fight was over. Due to the bathroom being so small, Heyman had to jump into a bathroom stall when Graziano came running in.

The Hit on The Messiah

William Welch aka The Messiah debuted in XPW with the gimmick that he was the 2nd coming of Jesus sent back to show the XPW stars the errors of thier hardcore ways. He quickly became a breakout star for XPW working high profile matches with Supreme, Sabu, and New Jack. He even at one time held their Deathmatch title and World title simultaneously. In August 2001, The Messiah was abruptly fired from XPW without explanation but the widely believed rumor is that he was fired for having an affair with XWA Owner Rob Black's wife Janet Romano aka porn star Lizzy Borden. Messiah claimed later in an interview that those rumors were completely false and his departure from XPW was due to him missing some dates and appearances with the company due to some personal issues. He had also stated he was no longer comfortable working for XPW and XPW's parent company Extreme Associates which is an adult film company. On August 1,2002 two attackers entered the Messiah's apartment and brutally attacked him. They knocked at his door, thinking they were friends of his roommate he let them enter. They then locked Messiah's door and when he confronted them they slammed him to the floor. One of them had him in a chokehold and the other grabbed a pair of gardening shears which would be used to cut his thumb off. He fought them off and made his way to the door. They managed to stop him and one of them attempted to cut Messiah's penis off. They finally left and took his thumb as a sort of a souvenir to get proof for a paid hit. The story was featured on the Sept 21, 2002 edition of America's Most Wanted. The focus of the story seemed to point the finger at Rob Black, who may have ordered the attack as some sort of revenge for the alleged relationship of the Messiah with Black's wife Lizzy Borden. Coincidentally just days before the attiack during an indy booking in Califo, Messiah received non stop crowd chants of "You fucked Lizzy" to which he was responded toting crowd "And she loved it!". Another strange occurence was that the office of Rob Black's company Extreme Associates was closed during business hours on the same day that America's Most Wanted had come to interview him for the story. In his first appearance since the attack The Messiah shocked the wrestling world and made his return entering himself in the tournament defeating one of his main rivals Adam Flash (the CZW Iron Man champ at the time) in an impromptu first round matchup. Not even 30 days ago he was attacked and fighting for his life, now he was looking at a second round match in a deathmatch tournament. He would come up short but 2 weeks later he returned to Viking Hall and what resulted became dubbed the "Ultraviolent Freedom of Expression". At the end of the show the entire CZW roster came out. The Messiah grabbed the mic and what followed was no promo, it was a declared his attackers as "cowards" and also made it very clear on his opinion who was behind his attack leading the fans in chants of "Fuck Rob Black". Messiah still makes occasional appearences for CZW but for the most part is retired.

ECW Fans Get Heat

The most shocking moment in the history of Extreme Championship Wrestling occured in 1995 and is unknown to the average fan. During a match between Tommy Dreamer and Cactus Jack, Terry Funk interfered. Cactus grabbed a chair that was wrapped with a burning towel and attempted to hit Funk with it, but things went wrong. The
towel fell flew off the chair and landed on Funk, burning him and causeing him to throw the flameing towel into the audience. ECW officials sprayed fire extinqusher's and the light's went out for a planned angle between Raven and Dreamer, but the crowd broke into complete chaos. When the smoke cleared, multiple fans were burned and
injured from the chotic crowd. Many would bring lawsuit's against ECW, most of which were dismissed.