This is a great forum, but the only thing missing in my opinion is an EW section.  They had legends like Terry Funk, Sabu, Eddie Gilbert, Don Muraco, Mick Foley, Woman, Steve Austin, Dean Malenko, Eddy Guerrero, Shane Douglas, Raven, Tommy Dreamer, Taz, and still current greats like Chris Jericho  and Rob Van Dam.
 
To me, they were like a progression of CWF or Bill Watts' UWF with the way they pushed the boundaries of how extreme wrestling could get, and they were a huge influence on WWE and WCW who both copied many of ECWs ideas.  They changed the course of wrestling history and much like in the territory days, they presented a product that was presented as an actual sport (as opposed to sports entertainment) where the main criteria was work ethic.  Some people think ECW was all blood and guts but it was so much more than that.  They had technical guys, luchadors, legends, as well as the guys who specialized in extremely violent matches.  Even their home grown wrestlers such as Taz (The Human Suplex Machine) were often excellent, very realistic, shoot style wrestlers who rarely or never were in gorefests.  The Franchise Shane Douglas was a very traditional style wrestler and was often their Heavyweight Champion.  The guys who could only do hardcore like New Jack were actually in the minority.