The Reason Why Ezekiel Jackson Was The Last ECW Champion Ever

Hamish Woodward

Ezekiel Jackson curiously defeated Christian on the 16 February 2010 episode of ECW to become the final ever ECW Champion.

Christian was one of the rebooted Extreme Championship Wrestling’s best champions and was hoping to keep the title beyond the closure of the company. However, WWE decided to give Ezekiel Jackson, a lower-midcarder throughout his career, the chance to hold the belt before they cancelled ECW for good.

After interference from William Regal, Jackson hit a Rock Bottom onto Christian through a table.

This match was an extreme rules match, paying tribute to the extreme past of the much loved ECW brand of days gone by. He pinned Christian to become the new ECW Champion just minutes before the title belt was dissolved for good.

According to a report by Bleacher Report, Ezekiel Jackson was chosen by Vince McMahon to be the last ECW Champion.

Jackson was made the last ECW Champion instead of Christian because McMahon thought he needed momentum going into his move to Smackdown after ECW folded and was replaced by NXT.

Ezekiel Jackson defeated Christian to win the ECW title for the first time, on the final episode of ECW.

The program was cancelled after the final episode and replaced by the NXT Game show the following week. As soon as the show went off the air, the ECW Championship became defunct and Jackson was stripped of the title.

This made him the shortest reigning ECW Champion of all time. Ezekiel Jackson’s ECW Championship reign lasted only 2 minutes and 59 seconds, from the bell ringing to end his match with Christian to the screen fading to black to end a mixed run of ECW.

This was over half as long as the previous shortest reigning ECW Champion. At Guilty as Charged 2001, Rhino defeated The Sandman to become the ECW Champion.

Sandman only held the title for 6 and half minutes before losing the belt, and remained the shortest reigning champion for almost a decade afterwards.

The final ECW episode was not one fans were overly thrilled with. Many thought that it should be a tribute to the years of ECW.

While the show had long abandoned the hardcore aspect that made Paul Heyman’s promotion famous, they still featured former stars like Rob Van Dam, Sabu and Sandman when it was first rebooted. None of these appeared on the show and it was used to promote the upcoming NXT show the following week.

The spirit of ECW has been kept alive by many throughout the years. TNA put on an ECW-inspired tribute show and the promotion House of Hardcore is run by former ECW Champion Tommy Dreamer.

It is directly influenced by his time in Extreme Championship Wrestling. Many current stars like Jon Moxley were inspired by the promotion and keep the spirit alive to this day.

The last man to win an ECW Championship was actually in 2022.

Matt Cardona defeated Rhyno in an independent show to win the ECW Television Champion, the title belt which Rhino held past the final episode of the original ECW and never mentioned by WWE.

This is likely to be the final ECW title change unless WWE attempt another reboot of the failed faux-hardcore promotion one day.

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