pantherwagner

That's a very good one. Also 20 years ago the guy that many thought would be the new tecnico young star of the promotion was Mascara Magica but he was eventually surpassed by Mr. Niebla and even more by Shocker. During many years EMLL/CMLL was on a constant search for "the next Lizmark". They found Atlantis but after him there were several flops like Mogur (possibly the biggest flop ever in the history of EMLL) and Angel Azteca, who was a great performer but didn't have a lot of charisma and was caught in a transition period to a new era where the old formula was pretty much thrown away and Konnan, Octagon and Vampiro showed up almost at the same time.

Pro Wrestling This Week needs to be revived. I'm pretty sure Joe Pedicino would be glad to work for chump change and free pizza.

Don't get me wrong - I agree too. A dump of 100 MSG shows from the 70s and early 80s doesn't really do all that much unless you are a big Strongbow fan. But they don't have the right approach or are using the right content (Raw from 1995? Really?). If they took five 80s shows (take any, really) and four 90s/00's shows (Raw, Nitro, ECW and Smackdown) and uploaded 2-3 episodes a week EVERY WEEK (key point there) they'd shut up 90% of the people that are complaining about content.

It's hilarious to consider if the network had all the content available that was on 24/7 at one point or another it would eliminate nearly all the complaints people have. It's also kind of odd that they still think that trickling down Raws from 1995 and some from 2000 will keep people glued in month after month, and how still some people defend that "you can't give everybody everything at once or they'll lose interest". Let's see. Unless I am missing something here's the overview of the stuff that was shown on 24/7 but not on the Network: - A couple dozen AWA TV shows and about a dozen 80s PPV/Supershows/Okerlund PPV's. - The Best of WWF Coliseum Videos and 50+ more Coliseum video releases from the 90s and 80s. - Another couple dozen Florida TV shows. - About 100 "Hall of Fame" Best Of compilation shows. - All ECW TV up to 1998 - RAW up to mid 1999 - Mid Atlantic 1981 and 1982 (not complete) - Nitro up to 1998 - Close to 150 episodes of NWA World Championship Wrestling 85-88 - The complete(?) Tuesday Night Titans run - 150+ episodes of Primetime Wrestling - 50+ World Class TV episodes and Supershows - A couple hundred "Old School" WWF House Shows from the 70s and 80s - Some Stampede Wrestling and Georgia episodes and a few odds and ends (WCW's NJPW/AAA PPVs, a few scattered WCW B shows, Solie Film Room, custom specials, compilations, 00's commercial tapes, WWWF 70s TV, etc.) That's probably more wrestling than most people would want to watch during their lifetime AND still leaves them with enough "prime" content (Raw, Nitro, Thunder, ECW TV) so you don't blow your load in one go.

About time! Hope this is a universal upgrade across all apps and platforms. By the way... this doesn't seem to be a PLAYLIST where I can add episodes or segments and save it or whatever (nevermind share it with other people!!!). Just a way to flag stuff that you want to watch so it shows up in your front page. But... hey it's a start.

It's a tricky question that can be read several different ways. When I was younger I thought Bam Bam was awesome. It's only when I was older that I started realising his limitations. I assume it's something similar for a lot of people here. In that respect my biggest disappointment ever as a kid was finally getting to see Jerry Lawler. I had read all this great stuff about him in the magazines and had seen crazy brawl pictures vs Terry Funk (Goodheart) then when I finally got to watch some early 90s USWA in Sportschannel Europe (I think?) there was this non-fighter looking guy with a belly that was fighting in a little studio in front of 100 people and in half of his matches he was seemingly doing this dated "hiding the gimmick in my trunks" crap. Then he joined the WWF and he was booked to have a semi-competitive match with Jim Powers of all people. Back then deep down I knew it wasn't real but I still was trying to fool myself into thinking it was... and then there was this creepy looking fucker on my TV making my dad go "why do you watch that shit? it's fake". Back then I was also way into AAA with Psicosis and Rey Misterio Jr. doing crazy shit, Liger and Pegasus Kid doing their thing in New Japan, Vader beating people up, the Steiners suplexing motherfuckers left and right... so this made me think this was stone age wrestling. Of course, years later, I became older (and wiser?) and I can appreciate Lawler for who he is and what he does. It took me a while but a decade ago (Smarkschoice board days) I started to appreciate his style.

As well as thew new content the Apple TV interface now has got a watchlist (I can add single episodes to a watchlist and they appear on the main page but when I add a "series" it doesn't seem to do anything) and watched episode checks.

May be my pick on the show if I can justify picking him over a few others... I can see why Bam Bam would be a top choice but the guy had solid runs everywhere (even if they were not sustained runs) and he actually headlined Wrestlemania. He's an underachiever the same way Sid is an underachiever.

That's a great choice. Brian Adams would be a good choice too: New Japan dojo training and was around Portland at the tail end where, if anything, he should have learned how to work and easy basic match from old pros like Rose, Grappler, Borne and whoever else was still around. The Natural Born Thrillers would be another good choice.

This is my favourite wrestling animated GIF of all time. Nothing comes close.

From today's update on WON: Also, our most talked about issue of the year, the 2014 Hall of Fame double issue of the Observer will be out in less than two weeks.

That would be gold. Something must have gone wrong last minute because the geoblocker was down and you could watch the network w/o a VPN for a while.

I laughed out loud at "caca" when Alberto used that last year, came off hilariously over the top being unusual to hear on WWE tv. I don't remember Alberto using it but Santino using it was one of those moments that made you go "and this is why ad rates for WWE programming are never going to be good".

Yeah, I thought that as MAB he got good pretty fast. He was terrible by the end of WCW but a lot of people were. The American Males was a gimmick that was a decade too old when it was done. I loved the (short) Vicious and Delicious run and at that time I was sure that Bagwell had put all the pieces together to become a world champ. Kung Fu (the Mexican one not the British one) was decent enough when he was young not to be in the discussion but his bad years were among the worst I have ever seen in Mexico. Definite candidate for the most annoying wrestler ever as well.

Has anybody seen El Solitario vs Killer Tim Brooks from WCCW Star Wars 1981?

That's a cool story. Random as fuck as well. A few years ago I worked in Amman for three months and there were a couple of channels with UFC and WWE on every night. In the city there are MMA shows almost every month.

Meltzer mentioned once that Total Divas costs 400,000 USD an episode and that they don't make a lot of money from it but it's still worth it because they are appealing to a completely different audience and it looks good on their show portfolio.

Any idea about the date or the wrestlers? The translated page doesn't seem to say the date or the opponent, but the clean-shaven guy is Adnan al-Kaissie. I'm about 98% sure the opponent is Scottish worker Ian Campbell. Funny - I didn't notice it was Kaissie (I can normally recognise a clean shaven Adnan) as I didn't pay a lot of attention, but one thing I noticed is that the style looked quite similar to the old European heavyweight style. I've always been curious about wrestling in the Middle East. French and Spanish wrestlers used to go to Syria and Lebanon all the time, and you have to always take wrestler folklore with a pinch of salt, but they would all rave about filling up large stadiums on every trip.

I suspect it's something where the VP of whatever ordered it to be done this way and with all the budget cuts and layoffs, people are now just doing it without questioning it because that was the original direction. Pure guesswork on my part that may be way off, but this is how corporate environments tend to work. What it looks like to me is that they laid out a 2014 plan sometime before the launch and by the looks of it they are sticking to it without changing course. They have been true to word so far on the "coming soon" section of the Network FAQ and haven't uploaded anything not on that list. It's odd when you think about WWE executing a long term plan without budging.

Two questions: 1) Can't they do like other services do and upload stuff first and CC it later? 2) Didn't WWE Classics on Demand already feature CC's?

I like this post, but like Shoe, I don't even think a territory dump is needed. Just use whatever's already available. Uploading the whole Nitro and Thunder, and SD/Raw up to WCW's death, would pacify a portion of people complaining about that footage not being there. Upload a decent portion of MSG shows. Pick up the pace with ECW and WCCW. Improve communication. If show X is missing send an announcement on twitter saying that the tape is missing or damaged, you may even crowdsource a mint copy of some of those shows. If you even want to go the extra mile upload some AWA PPV's/Supershows. I am saying AWA because they have had that footage forever. I'm sure the shelf life of the Mid South DVD is done and that's as ready to go as anything they have. That should be enough to get some people back and stop some people from quitting. The rest you nailed it: put on a great SS, upload a new documentary or two, and hook in some of the new fans trying it out. Oh yeah and put a stop on account sharing. Sometimes your most hardcore fans are the cheapest.

So here's a 50+ minute match from Iraq. I imagine if anybody is going to watch that it may be somebody on this forum. Easy to find the other parts if you look at related videos.

They pretty much reached that conclusion a few months ago when they saw that nobody was watching old MSG shows from the mid 80s that were cold dropped there with no promotion.... and that's their own product. I expect A LOT of panic moves but I don't expect a push on pre-1996 footage to be one of them. They should have followed the UFC model of underpromising and overdelivering. Funny how the UFC is shopping around for old libraries like Shooto, while the WWE library has got tons of footage they are doing nothing with after an initial DVD release.

Are there any full matches available from the Rock and Roll Express vs Midnight Rockers AWA title feud in Memphis? I have only seen clips and interviews.

I had come back from a 5 year hiatus as a fan (I'd watch maybe 15 or 20 hours of wrestling a year) and I was optimistic (perhaps also foolishly) because I knew 24/7 had shown a decent variety of footage. They would constantly show new ECW, Primetime, TNT, NWA TV, MACW, MSG shows and other stuff I'm surely forgetting. Mixed in with old PPV's, SNME/COTC, 80s and early 90s Coliseum Tapes and from time to time some Stampede or CWF or World Class. We even got some cool shit like Race vs Graham in a WWWF vs NWA match, Zbyszko vs Bruno in a cage (with Michael Cole and Foley commentating). I imagined that formula + a bigger focus on current programming and original series was a winner that would make everybody happy: old fans, new fans, attitude era fans... but I guess not.