sek69

Weird, now when I try to play anything on demand, the rating video plays but the actual show won't. The live stuff seems to be working though. Maybe they disabled it so it won't crash for people signing up during RAW?

I completely logged out of my account on WWE.com and logged back in, and now it recognized my subscription on my PC.

Watching the "This is NXT" deal on the live stream, it's a pretty good intro to what they do and the people there. I wonder if the Network is a hit if it will make it easier for them to introduce new faces now.

Decided to watch Wrestlemania XX first and I can't help at chuckling over seeing white rapper Cena in the opening match.

I can't log in on my PC, but everything seems to be working fine on my iPhone and on my Android tablet.

I guess it was because I chose the free trial option, but I was finally able to enter my payment info only for it to go to a Not Found page. It still lets me log in and watch everything though.

Probably nothing, since Wrestlemania is not until April.

It seems like people in the UK can sign up now with a fake/real US address as long as the form of payment is legit.

They have a landing page up when you try to order so they can have people queued up instead of having them smash the order page all at once, so there's some improvement.

Yeah, I was able to create a WWE.com account but trying to sign up to the network just loads a blank page for me.

Not even going into the whole Bryan backlash, I'm just saying all these constant "lets screw over the guy the fans really want to see" finishes in a row is really going to bite WWE in the ass at some point. At least we won't have to pay $70 to watch Orton and Big Dave get laughed out of the Superdome thanks to the Network.

Now I can't not notice that Ambrose has the Christian Bale Batman voice.

I'm starting to think Loss is on the writing team.

WWE seems to be increasingly good at convincing themselves of things they want to be true.

I think Emma is an example of the company convincing itself a gimmick can get over in the big leagues because it got over with the 400 or so college kids who go to NXT tapings every week. What sucks is from what I've seen she's actually pretty good in the ring, but saddling her with that gimmick is just instant death. At least they could have shown some video of the NXT crowd popping for her wacky dance instead of just having her be some random chick Santino pulls out of the crowd.

What's your source that Del Rio might be leaving? I haven't seen or heard anything, and couldn't find anything on the Torch. If true, I'm not complaining. There have to be at least 8 guys on the roster with the potential to be more useful than Del Rio in his respective spot. Imo, his charisma is weak, and he might very well be one of the most overpushed acts I've ever seen. He reminds me of Jeff Jarrett of the Double J era but worse: good but not excellent worker, lackluster charisma, mediocre mic work. And I'll qualify this further by claiming Jarrett was a significantly better talker, a better but less exciting worker (Del Rio has excellent periods but they're nauseatingly repetitious), and Jarrett competed in a roster that I feel is less competitive than today, and Jarrett had a weaker spot on the card than Del Rio. Just don't think he's that good. Del Rio himself has said in interviews he's considering leaving when his contract is up, and WWE seems to be booking him like a guy they can't count on sticking around much longer. From a speculation standpoint, everyone seems to feel AAA is going to make a full court press to get any Mexican stars signed up for the new US show as well.

The F4W board is usually not too bad, since the overt trolls tend to stay to the main wrestling folder. I did chuckle when the new TOS rolled out and apparently Bryan just recently realized there was a whole forum of hardcore porn on his board.

I think the deal with Apple TV is if you set up an account via the app there it gives Apple a cut of the sub fees. If you sign up via other means and just put your login info in to the Apple TV app it won't.

Yeah it seems odd that anyone would think WWE would release him, he can't work anywhere else while still under contract (not that he would), and I believe since he walked out they don't have to pay him. It's a win-win for them.

I love how Zeb looks like he's going to go Super Saiyan whenever one of his guys loses a match.

The peak of the Tanahasi love on that show was Mike already declaring him WOTY for 2014 and even Dave had to slow him down and say, "It's February" As far as Bryan's merch goes, I've bought one wrestling t-shirt in my entire life (Jerichoholic).....but I hear Dave and Alvarez harping on how terrible his merch is and I don't really see what's so terrible about it. I wouldn't buy any of it, but I wouldn't buy any of the shirts WWE makes. I think the maroon colour scheme works for Bryan, and those simple YES YES YES or NO NO NO shirts appear to have been big sellers based on how many of them you'd see in the crowd. And whoever said that talk about merchandise started because of CM Punk.....you can't be serious. Merchandise has been a talking point since the 80's. I'm sure if somebody wanted to bother going back through the Observer archives you would find lots of talk of guys who move merch. God, just in the attitude era, you don't think Dave was talking about DX and Austin moving merch? Or the nWo shirts? Or ECW shirts? The idea that nobody was aware of merch moving until CM Punk in 2011 is absolutely absurd I think what they were referring to is Punk was the first guy other than Cena to sell a ton of different shirts. As far as Bryan's merch goes, consider that Vince is seriously basing whether or not to give him the full main event push -not on him getting the best and biggest reactions on every show for months- but on shit like this selling: It's the same shit that went down when Vince had to be convinced to put the belt on Rey. As soon as they did it, he would look for reasons to get it off him. It sounds like internet conspiracy theory nonsense, but I could totally see them only making shit merch for Bryan and then Vince/HHH can say "well we can't make him a main eventer, the guy just doesn't move any of the metrics we look at".

The lineup is a legit concern until we see what's actually going to be available, but I wouldn't be too concerned about technical issues. MLB.tv has a couple million subscribers with access to all 162 games of every MLB team (minus blackout nonsense) and their service is one of the best available. One thing that WWE is going to have to really overcome is the perception among wrestling fans that the WWE Network is running off the same tin cans and string setup indy groups use for iPPVs.

The impression I get is that once WWE feels someone is injury prone they are less likely to push them in a position of prominence, with Orton being the exception that proves the rule.

"RAW (or SMACKDOWN) ROLLS ON" before every mid match commercial break is quickly becoming my #1 hated WWE verbal tic.

It's really amazing how much more tolerable Sheamus has been since he's back, I guess that's what happens when you don't have him be Irish Cena like he was before.