Petey

I think it'd be a hard sell. I'm almost 28 and checked out of WWE from like 06-13, checking in every once in a while during the Nexus angle and Punk's pipebomb. WWE's presentation is so different than it was when I first started watching (early 90's... I started young) that it took me a while to just kinda accept that WWE's 'style' had changed and wasn't gonna present itself the way it was in 2000. There's still guys going out and wrestling in a wrestling ring but the commentary, the backstage promos, so much of it feels like reality TV as opposed to pro wrestling. For a lot of people, I'm not sure they'd be able to get past that unless they've always remained a big wrestling fan in one way or another.

Why?

This is why they can't get better subscriber numbers!

Yeah, I assumed it would be something more like COD but with a permanent library + the current product. Silly me. I think if they didn't have to make so many budget cuts, many related to The Network, in order to not lose as much money, the library would be far more expanded. I remember either Bix or Mike Johnson wrote about how much of a pain it is to digitize everything AND add closed captioning for everything. They probably don't have the man power to do it. Sucks.

Well, today's news only adds to that. Did Meltz know something??

That would be pathetic, yet hilarious. Imagine Cole and JBL trying to sell that shit on commentary, complete with Heyman throwing ceremonial salt meant for Bryan in Brock's eyes?! That's arguably the greatest thing ever. Anyway, I don't know if I'd be so quick to say Cena turning heel wouldn't be as shocking as Brock beating Taker. I'm not saying it would be, but I wouldn't rule it out either.

I was 9 years old. I watched Nitro almost exclusively, thanks to Hulk Hogan. I started watching wrestling really young and Hulk was my favorite. I distinctly remember Elizabit's high heel OF DOOM. I only followed the WWF through the recap shows. I didn't have the internet yet or anything, so I was a total mark. The high point was the early Outsiders stuff. The episode of Nitro where Hall and Nash bought tickets to the show but jumped the rails and then Team WCW ran out and they had a small army of police officers separate the two stuff was just incredible (I had actually forgotten about that specific angle until I rewatched it a couple of years ago... it also might have taken place in July but I think it was June). I was pretty stoked about Ultimate Warrior returning to the WWF as I was a huge Warrior fan. I don't have a ton of WWF memories from that time since I was pretty locked into WCW. I can't really give you a low point. I've been rewatching 96 WCW on The Network and I'm finally into June. I guess the super cage match at Uncensored was just awful, and it really was, but none of that overly cartoony Hogan stuff bothered me at the time. If I were 20 years old, it probably would've been different, but 9 year old me was fine with all that stuff.

They also had Sabu for a cup of coffee. Too bad he didn't get a longer run. I've been re-watching the early Nitros and dude was seriously awesome. *EDIT* I don't know if Sabu was fired, quit or if it were a "mutual parting of the ways".

Or they're sticking with their original plans for WM 30 and just bumping them a year.

I loved RVD talking about how he didn't understand or agree with Rip Rogers' philosophy of rather than using kicks the whole match, saving it for the finish. Kinda explains RVD and a lot of the indy style that propped up post-ECW.

I'm not sure what else they can do to greatly expand the subscriber base. Myself, like a lot of others, clamor for more territorial footage and the like, but we're already subscribers. I'm not sure how many people they'd gain if they added Mid-South and Crockett. They're not going to get lapsed 80's fans to buy The Network just because it has a ton of WCCW footage. The two big draws are free PPV's and a bunch of archival footage, so they target current fans and the hardcores. Fringe fans aren't going to buy The Network just for a nostalgia kick. The only way to get more eyeballs is if WWE somehow gets hot and they greatly increase their current fanbase. Yeah, they market it poorly and there are little ways to make it better, but I don't think any of it would make a big difference unless WWE as a whole manages to grow.

I actually think Bruce Mitchell is great, if you can get past the "everything was better in Crockett" stuff. He did a podcast with Keller this week that dissected every issue with WWE and TNA programming like a serial killer. Wait, everything wasn't better in Crockett??

Why not Shawn?

I could be remembering incorrectly, but I don't think the Mongo turn involved Savage at all. He was the football players' coach and he ate the beatdown along with Greene afterwards. Haha, so I was in fact, remembering incorrectly.

I could be remembering incorrectly, but I don't think the Mongo turn involved Savage at all.

I don't think it matters if people believe PWO has a hive mentality. It doesn't. I don't care if people think that because ultimately it's a pro wrestling message board. If people assume I like X wrestler because I post at PWO and I actually don't like X wrestler, it doesn't bother me and doesn't affect me. Maybe I look at it different because I don't operate a wrestling board and don't have a bunch of Twitter followers strictly for my wrestling opinions.

Sting vs. Hogan/nWo and Austin vs. Bret. I'm 27, so my first hand experienced is pretty much limited to the WWF/E and WCW. I was all in with Sting vs. Hogan/nWo. The fact that both lead guys weren't on every Nitro made their appearances all the more special. Yeah, it started to drag, especially as WCW was spinning its wheels in the Fall of '97 (granted, I didn't feel that it was dragging when I was a kid, just when I rewatched the stuff on Classics on Demand a few years ago), but I was so amped for the inevitable match. And yeah, the payoff sucked, but the build was tremendous. I wasn't watching a ton of 96/97 WWF but Bret vs. Austin was the feud I made sure I followed. It felt so real and had so much hate, it was a throwback to an era I had yet to know existed. It's a shame they never got that second WrestleMania match to really give the feud a proper blowoff, but the matches were great just like the storyline. Honorable mention for 2000 Rock vs. HHH. They had feuded multiple times before but never as the main act. Rock was my favorite wrestler at the time and I just hated HHH (in a good way). I really enjoyed their feud in early-mid 2000. They didn't really get a traditional blowoff (HHH won the big singles match but the end of the feud netted Rock the title), but they had unbelievable chemistry in and out of the ring and it just made for a great time.

I also posted on WG! And WWFWG/GamingRing. I feel like there was another one from that 2000/2001 time period that I'm forgetting. I think like Rovert and others have said, social media has done a good job exposing multiple viewpoints on things and that's been largely for the best. I'm relatively young to the IWC (I'm 27, didn't start really posting on message boards until I was 12 or 13, never knew about RSPW until way after the fact), but I think that while there are still a lot of places where they just use the same internet tropes about Cena and the guys they like not being pushed enough, there's a lot more critical discussion of wrestlers/matches/companies/whatever and also a wider variety which has led to less singular "IWC bubble" opinions.

Didn't Bill Simmons do a journal during a WrestleMania a few years ago which had overwhelming notes about Striker's awfulness? I think JR and Tenay would be a good combination. JR and Cornette would be too southern...

Pretty sure they were not. In fact, they filled in some gaps in late 94 and early 95 that had never aired on 24/7. Thanks for the info. Wonder if it's a situation where WWE doesn't have the tapes.

Not complaining but more curious, are they gonna fill in the gaps in the 93 and 94 Hardcore TV? By the time I got WWE 24/7-Classics on Demand, they were into 1995, so I don't know if the missing eps ever aired on that channel.

It was a Smackdown taping at the Nassau Coliseum.

Or they'd just write, "JBL Sucks". I understand WWE can't/doesn't do what they used to and I have absolutely no problems with a toned down product, but there are ways to go about that without coming across so lame.

Does ECW Taz count? Obviously Goldberg had it on a far grander scale, but Taz's aura at the smaller level was very comparable. I think where Goldberg benefited over Lesnar and Vader is that while Goldberg was a big dude, he looked more like "big dude you see at the gym" and less Viking Space Lord like Lesnar or fat tough guy like Vader.

I think they'd be a lot further along with the content had they not laid so many people off due to the budget cuts. I don't have a ton of time to watch The Network so even with its limited variety, it still covers enough ground for me. That said, I was really hopeful I'd be able to watch some stuff that hadn't already aired on Classics on Demand, specifically the entire home library. I think the best thing we can hope for is that they get a miracle number of subscribers and it allows them to invest more resources into the project.