From ECW to WrestleMania, the Blue Meanie is still ‘Brian from South Philly.’ That’s how he likes it.

Brian Heffron had long been established in professional wrestling when he first came to McCusker’s Tavern, a corner bar in South Philadelphia with wood paneling, a pair of seats from Veterans Stadium, and a Ms. Pac-Man machine. Heffron’s buddy introduced him to the bartender, thinking Doug McCusker may be familiar with the Blue Meanie.

“He was like, ‘Hey, man. I’ve never seen you before, but nice to meet you,’” said Heffron, a 50-year-old who was born in South Philly and raised in South Jersey. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

The Blue Meanie was a star in Extreme Championship Wrestling, the outfit that revolutionized professional wrestling in the 1990s from a bingo hall on Ritner Street. He had a run with WWE, the industry’s top company, and appeared at WrestleMania — pro wrestling’s Super Bowl — in 1999 when it was held in Philadelphia.

He dyed his hair blue, wrestled in short shorts and a crop top with his belly hanging out, and was known more for his dance moves than his piledriver.

Heffron said his character, which was inspired by the villain from the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine cartoon, is “the Phillie Phanatic of professional wrestling.” And it worked. He wasn’t a world champion, but the Blue Meanie was a star. Just not at McCusker’s.

“When I come here, I’m just Brian,” Heffron said. “In the wrestling world, people sometimes find themselves getting so absorbed into their character that they are that 24 hours a day. I think I’ve been fortunate enough to find the balance between the character and Brian.”

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Heffron comes to McCusker’s — “If this was Cheers, I would be their Norm,” he said — for everything from the Super Bowl to just sipping a Pabst on a Saturday night. When Osama bin Laden was killed, Heffron went to McCusker’s to talk about it. When Harry Kalas died, he lit candles at the bar in the broadcaster’s honor. The bar at 17th and Shunk Streets is a gathering place where the Blue Meanie is just Brian from the neighborhood.

“Brian is like family to me,” said Doug McCusker, whose father, John, opened the bar in 1968.

Professional wrestling is one of the most-watched TV programs every week. The WWE’s social-media reach rivals the NFL. And WrestleMania — which returns to Philadelphia on Saturday and Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field — draws so many fans that the WWE now runs it over two nights at 70,000-seat stadiums.

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The WWE is a big — and publicly traded — business. But for the performers, life can often be challenging after the final bell rings. That’s why Heffron keeps coming back to McCusker’s, a place that helps him separate himself from the Meanie.

“For a lot of people in this wrestling business, leaving the wrestling business is kind of like The Shawshank Redemption,” said Heffron, who still occasionally gets in the ring and hosts a wrestling podcast. “They don’t know how to interact with civilian life, as I call it. They’re still waiting for that next call from WWE. ‘Man, I just need that one big booking.’ It’s like someone pulling a slot machine.”

Heffron fell in love with wrestling in the spring of 1982 after he asked his friend to come over to watch the Phillies. No thanks, his buddy said. He was watching wrestling.

“I said, ‘What’s wrestling?’” Heffron said. “I went over to his house and we watched wrestling. From that point on, I was hooked. I literally watched every week from that point on. That was the bug that bit me.

“The only other thing you can compare it to is when a kid reads his first comic book. Pro wrestling is just a live-action comic book with the wrestlers being the heroes.”

Heffron watched Spectrum Wrestling on Prism, read magazines, collected action figures, sat ringside at the Civic Center, met the stars, and dreamed about one day stepping into the ring. He suffered from severe asthma and spent his recess at school breathing into a nebulizer.

“Pro wrestling was the ultimate in escapism,” Heffron said. “I battled depression, I dealt with a lot of bullying, kids would pick on me and beat me up. Growing up with a single parent and my grandparents raising me, they would pick on me for that. They’d pick on me for asthma. They’d pick on me for being fat. Pro wrestling gave me an escape to fall in love with.

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“Every weekend, I would channel surf, looking for pro wrestling, and that became my obsession. I would just watch it from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed.”

He graduated from Atlantic City High School in 1993 and started working the overnight shift as a security guard at Trump Plaza. Half of his paycheck went to his grandparents while the other half was stashed in a sock drawer for a wrestling school he found in Ohio. The kid who couldn’t play high school football because he was allergic to grass was determined to be a wrestler.

“I might as well have said I wanted to be an astronaut,” Heffron said. “I wanted to follow the thing that I always envisioned myself doing. I always saw myself doing it.”

Waiting for the Jitney bus one night, Heffron turned to his mother and told her that he was giving the casino his two-weeks notice. The casino job felt stable, he had a retirement plan, and could envision a career in security at Trump Plaza. But wrestling was his dream and he finally saved enough money in his sock drawer for that school in Lima, Ohio. His family threw a going-away party in March 1994 and Heffron left town in a 1977 Dodge Aspen.

“A 13-hour drive and that was a story to itself,” Heffron said. “My windshield wiper flew off and then my alternator died in Columbus, Ohio. I got that fixed and stayed in a hotel where I stayed up all night making sure my car was still there. I got to school on Tuesday.”

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Doug McCusker didn’t know who the Blue Meanie was 20 years ago, but he has become enough of a fan of “Brian” that he placed a Meanie action figure atop the entrance to the tavern’s men’s room.

“People will come in, see him at the bar, and say, ‘Hey, send a beer for Meanie,’” McCusker said. “I like to break his chops a little bit. I’ll say, ‘Hey, man, these people apparently heard of you.’ Because I just know him as Brian.”

John McCusker bought the bar when he was 28 after his father, Joe, learned that Gannon’s Bar was looking to sell. Joe McCusker delivered ice and Gannon’s — an Irish pub — was one of his clients. A handshake sealed the deal a few weeks later and a “McCusker’s Tavern” sign was hung outside in December 1968.

Doug and Ryan McCusker grew up on Ritner Street, but they were raised in the taproom, which feels like an old South Philly rowhouse. They finished their homework on the tables near the window and were bartending as teenagers. Some of the customers are pro wrestlers. Some are new to the neighborhood. Others are regulars who grew up with their father.

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“It’s a nice bar,” Doug McCusker said. “Brian just adds to it.”

For Heffron, the cash-only spot is perfect. Now, he wants to show it to the wrestling world. He was talking to McCusker one night about how WrestleMania was coming to town and they brainstormed ideas. Each time he visits, Heffron tweets a picture of his beer on the bar and writes, “Hold my calls.”

“Every time I do that, fans who follow me on social media say, ‘One day, I have to come to this bar and have a beer with the Blue Meanie,’” Heffron said.

Now they’ll have a chance to hold their calls with him as Heffron will host “MeanieMania” at his favorite bar — the place that helps him separate Brian from the Meanie — on Thursday night.

“There’s no place I’d rather be,” Heffron said. “I get invited out all the time by my friends. ‘Let’s go see so and so.’ ‘Nah. You can come to my bar. You know where I’ll be.’”

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Heffron was at wrestling school in Ohio for two months when his grandmother called. His grandfather, Jim Reardon, was dying from cancer. But Ann Reardon told her grandson not to come home. His grandfather wanted Heffron to keep his dream alive.

“That hit me like a ton of bricks,” Heffron said.

He wrestled his first professional match in June 1994 as Brian Estevez — Heffron said a girl in high school once said he looked like Emilio Estevez — and sent home a tape so his grandfather could watch him in the ring. The Estevez name — “Horrible,” Heffron said with a groan — lasted just one match.

He studied under Al Snow, who owned Body Slammers and helped Heffron get matches at the events Snow was already working. Finally, Snow told Heffron it was time to head home and find his own path.

“That was my version of going to college,” Heffron said. “Other people went to school to be a doctor or a lawyer. I went away to college for professional wrestling.”

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He moved to South Philly with his grandmother, who decided to leave Atlantic City after Heffron’s grandfather died. He wrestled three shows — including one in a West Virginia horse barn — when he found his break. Raven and Stevie Richards, two wrestlers from ECW, noticed Heffron and thought he could fit into their group. Raven, who was born in Montgomery County, told Heffron that he would be the lackey for Richards, a Frankford High grad, and go by the Blue Meanie. Sounds good, Heffron said.

The Blue Meanie debuted for ECW at a pay-per-view in November 1995, coming out of the crowd as a “fan” to join Raven and Richards. It was a fitting start as Heffron had been a fan in the same South Philly arena just months earlier. Now he was part of the show. He soon helped form the Blue World Order, a faction that became one of the company’s most popular gimmicks. Heffron made it.

“ECW came around at the right place at the right time with the atmosphere of professional wrestling being more geared to kids,” Heffron said. “It was considered to be too cartoony. So ECW comes along and what do they do? They see the landscape of where professional wrestling is and make a hard right to the more hard-core side of blood, guts, and brawls. ECW was like the Broad Street Bullies of professional wrestling.”

Snow called Heffron in November 1998 and wanted to know if his old pupil was under contract with ECW. He wasn’t. Snow asked if he would be open to joining him in the World Wrestling Federation, the previous name of WWE. Of course, Heffron said. A phone call soon came to Heffron’s apartment at 13th and Shunk from WWE’s office. He had to be at the Wells Fargo Center that Sunday afternoon for his debut.

“I walked about 20 feet from my bedroom to my living room,” Heffron said. “I look at my mom and my grandmom and I say, ‘Hey.’ They look at me. I say, ‘Put all the bills in my name.’ They’re like, ‘What?’ ‘Because I just signed with the WWF.’ My grandmom’s knees almost buckled and she grabbed the chair next to her. My mom went, ‘Wooo.’

“That was a huge thing for me. At that point, my grandmom was supporting my wrestling habit. A lot of wrestlers will say, ‘I paid my dues.’ But a lot of times, the families pay the dues as well. I left a good-paying job to chase this dream and they were behind me 100 percent. I made money in ECW, but not that much money. When WWE came along, I made sure my mom and grandmom didn’t have to raise a finger.”

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The Blue Meanie was a character, like the larger-than-life ones Heffron fell in love with as a kid. He could work in the ring — the Meanie’s finishing move was a moonsault off the ropes — but also made funny faces inspired by stand-up comics like George Carlin.

“I was just a natural class clown growing up and comedy was my deflection, my way of dealing with being different,” Heffron said. “I did whatever it took to help people have that escapism. I wanted to give them a laugh. I wanted to give them a moment of cheer. I can look out into that crowd and see someone who was like me before I got into the business, and I know what those fans want because that’s what I wanted. I grew up a diehard fan.”

Heffron had a place at WrestleMania when the marquee event arrived in South Philly in March 1999. He saw Boyz II Men backstage, bumped into security guards he knew from the neighborhood, and pinched himself. Heffron made it. His job that night was to manage Goldust, meaning he would lead him to the ring and stand in his corner. Heffron was ecstatic. He was performing at WrestleMania in his hometown.

“There was just this energy in the air,” Heffron said. “I was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m here. I’m in the WWF and I’m at WrestleMania.’ ”

Goldust’s music played and Heffron blitzed through the curtain, sprinting halfway down the entrance aisle before realizing he ran too far.

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“Like I was shot out of a cannon,” Heffron said. “I had to stand there and let Goldust catch up to me.”

He grew up a fan, used wrestling to escape a challenging childhood, and was at WrestleMania just a few blocks from where he was born. It was hard to blame the Meanie for being overly excited when it was his time to go through the curtain. After all, it wasn’t the Meanie sprinting down the aisle. It was just Brian from South Philly.

“It’s hard to find your way in professional wrestling,” Heffron said. “There’s thousands of wrestlers and so many wrestlers that are better than me but never got the chances that I got. I look back at my career and I’m very fortunate that this small, asthmatic kid from South Philly and New Jersey got to chase his dream and become a professional wrestler.

“If this was a movie, you’d say, ‘Ah, this is a little too corny. I think you’re asking for too much.’ It’s very storybook. I’m very fortunate to have the chips fall where they did for me.”