[5] Their name was taken from a black and white gangster film, and prior to becoming a team, Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge had a long-standing feud on the independent circuit.

In addition, the two wrestled each other under their former ring names the Cheetah Kid and Johnny Rotten in a dark match at the first TV tapings for WWF Monday Night Raw on January 11, 1993, eight months before they would debut as a tag team in ECW.

The Public Enemy made their ECW debut in September 1993 at UltraClash, as booker Paul Heyman gave them the gimmick of white guys who embraced and loved the growing hip hop culture of America.

As The Public Enemy was embraced by the majority of fans, Heyman was inspired to bring in The Gangstas (New Jack and Mustafa Saed, from Smoky Mountain Wrestling) at Barbed Wire, Hoodies & Chokeslams to feud with TPE.

On one occasion, during a singles match between Cactus Jack and Terry Funk at Hardcore Heaven 1994, the Public Enemy interfered and attacked both wrestlers.

In another incident in Tampa, Florida, towards the end of their run with ECW, during the Sunshine State Slaughter event in 1995, The Public Enemy asked the fans to come into the ring to dance with them one last time.

During their three-year stint, they won their only WCW World Tag Team Championship with a victory over Harlem Heat in September 1996, though their reign lasted only eight days.

[9] The team wrestled through September 1998 and was mostly victorious in their final year with the company, concluding their run with a win over Villanos IV and V on a Worldwide episode.

Following the showdown, Johnny Grunge grabbed the microphone and claimed that the past three years had been a "rollercoaster ride" for the team, and that "if you opened up our chest and looked at our hearts, there's only one thing stamped on it, and that's ECW!"

Grunge further thanked the Dudleys for house-sitting "the house that the Public Enemy built" while they were gone, and then invited everyone in attendance to join them in the ring for a post-show celebration.

In 2013, John "Bradshaw" Layfield elaborated that much of the animosity was due to them being brought into the company by Terry Taylor, who had his own backstage issues with many of the wrestlers, including the Acolytes.

[13][14] Public Enemy would wrestle a final time on March 30, 1999, in a match taped for Shotgun Saturday Night, losing to the Hardy Boys via disqualification.

[16] Durham's death was caused by heart disease and obesity, with the medical examiner also citing "acute toxicity of carisoprodol and hydrocodone" in the autopsy report.