A pretty major piece of ECW history is making the rounds again, and apparently WWE decided part of it was a little too much for its version of Guilty as Charged 2001.
A fan took to Twitter and uploaded footage from the original broadcast of ECW Guilty as Charged 2001, pointing out that the ending of the segment was later edited from the version available through WWE.
The clip features Rhyno basically destroying everybody in sight. He starts handing out Gores to people around the ring before eventually turning his attention to Jasmin St. Claire. That’s where things get considerably more brutal.
Rhyno gets St. Claire up on the ropes and delivers a piledriver from the middle rope as the ECW crowd completely loses it. He then gets back up, hits his signature pose and eventually makes his way out. According to the fan who uploaded the original footage, that final portion didn’t survive WWE’s edit.
“Original airing of ECW Guilty as Charged 2001. WWE Network chose to edit this. @Rhyno313 destroys EVERYBODY and piledrives @jasminstclaire from the middle rope. WWE cut the end completely. I guess they don’t like the Jasmin ass shot? How dare they!”
It isn’t clear exactly why WWE removed the ending, so there’s no way to say whether it was because of the piledriver, the way St. Claire was shown afterwards, the overall violence of the segment or something else entirely.
Either way, the original footage makes the difference pretty obvious. ECW viewers in 2001 got the whole thing, right down to Rhyno dropping St. Claire with the piledriver and posing afterwards. WWE’s later version apparently decided viewers could live without that part. More than 25 years later, fans are still finding pieces of the original ECW broadcasts that didn’t make it through WWE’s editing process intact.
What do you make of WWE cutting the end of Rhyno and Jasmin St. Claire’s Guilty as Charged segment? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.
