Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has been a longtime wrestling fan who currently owns and operates the National Wresting Alliance.
In the 90s, Corgan was present at ECW shows and ended up appearing on ECW TV in 2000.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani, Corgan recalled a meeting with Paul Heyman where Heyman offered him part ownership of the company.
"The backstory is, I was friendly with a lot of the wrestlers, so I knew how much money Heyman owed the wrestlers. Somebody who was my go-between for Heyman and I said 'he wants to have dinner with you.' He took me out to a deli in New York. I got the whole vintage Paul Heyman cutting promos to little ol' Billy Corgan at the deli counter, basically saying, 'how would you like to be an investor in ECW?' I said, 'How much?' 'A million dollars.' 'What do I get for my million dollars?' '10%.' 'Paul, I can do math, and I know ECW is not worth $10 million.' Of course, I didn't tell him I knew how much debt ECW was in. The only thing I look back on that story on is, it wasn't too long after that where ECW went out of business and the McMahons took it over. It would have been funny if I had actually bought 10% because I would have been in a position to negotiate with the McMahons at that point," he said.
ECW closed in April 2001 and WWE officially purchased assets in 2003.
When asked if he was approached to buy ECW when it was closing down, Corgan said, "It was never approached to me like that. At the end of the day, it became a forgone conclusion that the most money he was going to get was from WWE. I do look back and wish I had gotten a little more involved in the WCW sale. I think the McMahons bought it for something like $4 million. I would have lost any bidding war against the McMahons, but I would have been very interested in that if it was for sale for that cheap, I just didn't realize it was that cheap for sale. I heard about it and I had a lot of inside knowledge at that point and people were telling me, but I wouldn't have known who to call, 'Hey, I want to buy WCW.' I do think it's a bit of a crime, and I say this gently, that WCW has never been revived. Obviously, Vince McMahon didn't want it to happen or it would have happened. It's a shame for people who were WCW fans that they never got to have that other moment. I do regret that because I was a fan of that product."
WWE purchased WCW trademarks and tape library for a total of $4.2 million in 2001.
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