Blood, Guts & Staple Guns

The WWF and WCW are getting bitch-slapped at their own game. The hottest thing in the ring right now is Extreme Championship Wrestling, the scrappy third-place federation that's reinvented professional wrestling--for grown-ups. Gone are the cartoonish characters invented to become kids' action figures at Toys R Us. In their place is the most realistic fake mayhem in the squared circle. You want violence? ECW goes for the old ultraviolence--with the likes of staple guns, barbed wire, forks, pizza slicers, flaming tables and exploding land mines (yes, land mines--thankfully, Princess Di didn't live to see this). You want blood? ECW wrestlers hit more gushers than Texaco. You want antiheroes? The foulmouthed good guy was invented by the ECW, only to be copied by the other federations. The loyal ECW fans chant ''Holy shit'' at good moves and ''you fucked up'' at bad ones. They've also been heard to yell ''Simon Diamond sucks dick'' to make a point with one ECW star. It's no surprise that ECW has a hard-core fan base--it emphasizes mayhem over soap opera story lines. If the rumors about a WWF partnership with CBS are true, ECW is ready to take over WWF's prized slots on USA Network, leaving behind its weekly show on the Nashville Network. If not, look for the WWF and WCW to continue to poach ECW's best talent and gimmicks.