RetroBuzz: Luchadores

One of the things ECW doesn't get enough credit for is its role introducing American audiences to lucha libre. To be sure, they weren't alone in bringing the Mexican style of pro wrestling north of the border. WCW also helped, running a co-promoted pay-per-view, called When Worlds Collide with Mexico's AAA in 1994. 

That said, ECW was the first American promotion to import a stable of high quality luchadores to the US and allow them to ply their trade on a weekly basis. Almost every Mexican wrestler – or in the case of Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero, American-born, Mexican-trained wrestler – who would go on to find fame in the WWE and WCW in the late '90s and early '00s made their American debut with ECW.