One of the most notorious moments in ECW history was the Mass Transit incident. The controversial incident involving Erich “Mass Transit” Kulas not only put the violent nature of ECW in the spotlight, but it caused the temporary cancellation of a company pay per view. An interview in the following days by Kulas on the show Inside Edition only added to the controversy.
Kulas lied about his age to score a tryout match for ECW, in addition to lying about him being trained by the legendary Killer Kowalksi. During the match, New Jack helped Kulas blade but accidentally cut too deeply and severed arteries in his forehead, causing him to pass out. The incident became part of the lore of ECW, but it could have been avoided according to The Blue Meanie.
The topic of the Mass Transit incident was brought up on the That Was Extreme podcast on AdFreeShows, where Meanie, Joel Gertner, and Josh Shernoff talked about it, where Meanie revealed Kowalski was a regular at ECW shows in the Boston/New England area. He was not in attendance that night, and had he been, he would have caught the young man in a lie.
“The whole irony about Mass Transit was every New England show, Boston area show, Killer Kowalski would come to those shows and bring his students. One time there was a young China who was a student there watching the pre-show workouts. So this kid, Mass Transit shows up and says he’s a student of Killer Kowalski and he trained with Killer Kowalski. This is the one show Killer did not show up at. So the one time Killer Kowalski doesn’t show up, this kid shows up and says he was trained by Killer Kowalski. If Killer Kowalski had been there, he could have said this is bull s**t and things could have been averted.”
The incident set the company back several months. ECW had been scheduled to hold their first ever pay per view on Christmas Eve 1996, but the provider had cancelled the event until Paul Heyman convinced the Request TV that ECW had been misled about Kulas’ background. The pay per view eventually happened April 13, 1997. While some may say this incident was a moment that showed how “extreme” the company actually was, there will always be questions about whether or not this was good for the company’s image.
Check out our official store at PRO WRESTLING TEES, show us your support and buy a shirt. You can visit our store by clicking here.
Make sure to follow us on Twitter @BodySlamNet and on Instagram @BodySlamDotNet
Also check us out on Facebook and give us a like and share by clicking HERE.
