Migs

I don't buy that they had any chance of doing any better doing an afternoon strip on Fox than they did on TNN. Even if they had the money to shoot it, the content was not suitable to an afternoon slot and would have had to be very toned down. For whatever reason, no one wanted to offer ECW a national cable slot in late night where they could have actually done the actual ECW show. And if they didn't have that, they didn't have the distribution they needed to be successful. ECW was about 5-7 years too early in that regard - in 2000, it was a successful niche product that needed national cable distribution to make the money to keep any of their talent. It needed to act like a mainstream product, but it was really a niche one. In 2005 or so, the ability to distribute video content via the internet may have mitigated the need to have that national cable distribution and may have allowed them to make the profits needed to keep at least some of their top guys. And really, an internet TV show, with no censor issues, was abolsutely the right venue for ECW.

Just glad they're getting back on the train with the ECW timelines. It's a bit hard with those in terms of guests, though, because a lot of the ECW guys have done so many shoots. Raven would be the obvious 1996 guy, but how many stories does Raven have to tell that we haven't heard in prior shoots? Can TNA guys do shoots? The Dudleys would seem like a great choice for 1998 since they were so involved with the business end and haven't done too many shoots.

Very interesting explanation on Heyman's end of ECW folding in part 2. Although - while I understand the squeeze with distribution, I am befuddled that there was an offer for them to do an afternoon show. ECW trying to do an afternoon show sounds patently absurd. Heyman claims that the issue with doing the 5 day a week, 30 minute afternoon show was the cost; I'd argue there was no way that was going to go any better than TNN did for them. They needed a network that would give them a late primetime (10pm? Heck, 11pm...) and promote the company's ethos. Also interesting to think about all the many random promotions that did end up on PPV in the year following ECW and WCW folding; if he's honest that In Demand paying them could have kept them in business a while longer, In Demand is probably better off (ECW PPVs > random PPVs) and ECW ends up in a much stronger position after WCW folds. Also: "I had some very big years in the stock market, I never took a dime from my own company."

To be honest, that's what I thought when watching the trailer. It definitely felt like more than that. Hard to tell what, and I don't want to speculate.

That and Primetime from 86-89.

A great match to put your laundry away to. Brisk and entertaining although not exactly a deep story. And yes, Jason Hervey blows.

The two Warrior eps up on the Network so far (Wrestlemania VI, and a match compilations with an intro/outro from Warrior and wrestler comments between the matches) are quite good.

For years, this has been one of those "secret matches I loved that everyone else missed". Then I got the network and rematched it. I was disappointed. This would have been the match I'd list for "matches you thought were good but rediscovery disappointed you." I don't think we have that thread yet. I think it's a really thrilling in the moment match; once you know the conclusion and are divorced from the drama, it's pretty terrible. But in the moment, it's this big moment for Snow (and yet, would they make him the champ with that gimmick? And how long before he went back to the WWF?) and also for Douglas (how can they possibly keep the belt on him when he has to take time off?). And the build, focusing on those aspects, was pretty great. But the work evidences Snow's limits and Douglas' injuries.

They're not gone, just hidden for some reason. Use this list that Jon Lister posted earlier in the thread for links - http://www.reddit.com/r/wwenetwork/wiki/wwe_network_shows

Video for Wrestlemania was great when streaming on an LTE phone.

They just dropped a bunch of ECW TV, through the end of '94. I believe this is all (or close to it) of what aired on 24/7.

How did they stay afloat as long as they did? As early as 96-97, they were bringing in huge amounts of expensive talent and only selling tickets in 1000 seat venues and selling tapes and t-shirts.

They've added several Boston Garden shows and a Houston show from October '86, but they have mostly been one hour versions. Still no clue what the purpose of those cut downs are.

I think, although I'm not positive, that they got to ECW 1995 sometime in 2005 or 2006 on Classics on Demand - well before the Benoit murder. I don't think it's the end of the world to just skip those, though, and start with the episodes after Benoit leaves.

Jericho's books have not been WWE books, but they've been released at times when he was not under active contract.

This was the first Clash I watched live, so excited y'all have gotten to it. Not exactly a classic show, but has a place in my heart.

I feel like the writing at the time didn't help him much. There was a cool character there, but they were doing something like 1 TV Taping a month by the time he became a prominent player.

When they aired ECW on 24/7, they did not show all of the early episodes - assume it had something to do with a poorly kept library of the initial episodes. But now showing all they have in the order they aired is inexcusable and really lessens the value that the Network can have.

Jumped into Disc 13. I think if you were trying to rank the 150, none of the four matches from 2000 on this disc would be anywhere close to the top. In particular, I couldn't take the false feeling intensity of the Dreamer-CW Anderson match. If I recall right, Anderson hadn't done anything particularly vile to turn up the heat on that feud, and it felt very much like Dreamer trying to recapture the glory of feuds from 5 years earlier. I'd never seen much of the Funk/Gilbert stuff... Eddie as King of Philadelphia was pretty entertaining. The Public Enemy section is great. The music videos, the funny yet intense promos, and the violent but sloppy matches... they are like a perfect avatar of what made early ECW so great.

He's good in that match, but it was very slow and plodding. Cut that match down about 7 minutes and you probably have an excellent underdog story. The belly to belly worked fine early in his run, but it did get a bit odd as you got into 97-98 and the other ECW finishers had a much stronger look.

I fucking love Shane Douglas. What got me into ECW as a kid was stumbling onto an episode, late night - it was the 4 Way Dance for the TV Title. In the span of 40 minutes, Douglas successfully outsmarts the Pitbulls, steals the girl, breaks a dude's neck, and wins the title. Just mesmerizing and amazing for a 13 year old. His promo work and his in-ring work from 1994-1997 are a really terrific run. 1996 in particular has a lot of really great stuff. The injuries after 1997 really slowed him down in the ring, but I think the character was effective through the end of his ECW run. The angles in 1998 worked fairly well, especially week to week, although I think everyone recognizes that Taz's chase ended up being far too drawn out. But that's not Shane's fault. In some ways, I think he really suffered after his injuries from being in an era where there weren't managers being used regularly. He could have easily had a second career in the 00s as a manager who could take a bump, but that wasn't in vogue (and there was no way Vince was taking him anyway).

I have been dying to tackle this as well... I keep changing my mind on the best way to do it. Matches first? Going back and forth between Matches and Extras to try to keep the context for the matches fresh in my mind? It's hard.

Removal might be an error? The most recent ECW eps they showed are gone, not the older ones.

I can't imagine that playlist functionality should be that difficult to add.