WWE Network... It's Here

[RingoPlaysDrums]

I'm not sure where to start with the home videos. I've seen the Battle Royal in the Albert Hall years ago but aside from that not sure I've seen any of them. Any recommendations?

[Grimmas]

I'm not sure where to start with the home videos. I've seen the Battle Royal in the Albert Hall years ago but aside from that not sure I've seen any of them. Any recommendations?

Smack'em Whack'em is always hyped as a great tape.

[PhilTLL]

Smack Em Whack Em IS a great place to start. Some common and/or off-my-head match recommendations from the Coliseums they upped include...

 

Rockers/Powers of Pain and Piper/Rude cage match (SuperTape 2)

Hart/Flair 11/91 and Flair/Michaels (Invasion 92)

Hart/Flair 10/92 and Hart/Michaels 1st WWF ladder match (Smack Em Whack Em)

DiBiase/Michaels and Santana/Martel (Hottest Matches)

Piper/Savage (WrestleFest 90)

Perfect/Garvin (SuperTape 1)

Rockers/Rougeaus (World Tour 90)

Savage/Warrior cage match (Mega Matches)

Santana/Koko (SuperTape 4)

Rockers/Orient Express 2 and Perfect/Michaels (World Tour 91)

LOD/Hart Foundation (WrestleFest 91)

Savage/Michaels (World Tour 92)

Hart/Michaels (Rampage 92)

 

Temper your expectations; Coliseums were best enjoyed with pass/fail grading, not letters.

 

Novelty honorable mention: Tugboat/Earthquake and Ultimate+LOD/All 3 Demolition (SuperTape 3)

 

You can find discussions for a lot of these in the MDA. I'll have to think harder about which interstitial bits go with which tapes--Smack Em has Yoko at the Benihana and the Bushwhackers demoing a house, one of the SuperTapes has Hayes/Mooney getting lost on a road trip, Invasion 92 has a really cheap Star Trek routine, etc.

[iamthedoctor]

I'm not sure where to start with the home videos. I've seen the Battle Royal in the Albert Hall years ago but aside from that not sure I've seen any of them. Any recommendations?

 

Id pick Supertape 1 first just for the main event and the Jake/Dibiase match, I do feel wrestlefest and supertapes should get watched first.

[Ricky Jackson]

I'm not sure where to start with the home videos. I've seen the Battle Royal in the Albert Hall years ago but aside from that not sure I've seen any of them. Any recommendations?

It begins and ends with the masterpiece that is the Biggest, the Smallest, the Strangest, the Strongest

[sek69]

The Alexa Bliss collection is up now, and it's amazing how her "sparkle princess" era in NXT already seems like Hunter's blue blood phase in terms of something that seemingly was a million years ago in a different timeline.

[zep81]

Smack Em Whack Em IS a great place to start. Some common and/or off-my-head match recommendations from the Coliseums they upped include...

 

Rockers/Powers of Pain and Piper/Rude cage match (SuperTape 2)

Hart/Flair 11/91 and Flair/Michaels (Invasion 92)

Hart/Flair 10/92 and Hart/Michaels 1st WWF ladder match (Smack Em Whack Em)

DiBiase/Michaels and Santana/Martel (Hottest Matches)

Piper/Savage (WrestleFest 90)

Perfect/Garvin (SuperTape 1)

Rockers/Rougeaus (World Tour 90)

Savage/Warrior cage match (Mega Matches)

Santana/Koko (SuperTape 4)

Rockers/Orient Express 2 and Perfect/Michaels (World Tour 91)

LOD/Hart Foundation (WrestleFest 91)

Savage/Michaels (World Tour 92)

Hart/Michaels (Rampage 92)

 

Temper your expectations; Coliseums were best enjoyed with pass/fail grading, not letters.

 

Novelty honorable mention: Tugboat/Earthquake and Ultimate+LOD/All 3 Demolition (SuperTape 3)

 

You can find discussions for a lot of these in the MDA. I'll have to think harder about which interstitial bits go with which tapes--Smack Em has Yoko at the Benihana and the Bushwhackers demoing a house, one of the SuperTapes has Hayes/Mooney getting lost on a road trip, Invasion 92 has a really cheap Star Trek routine, etc.

 

Think Flair/Perfect from Invasion of the bodyslammers was p.good too.

[RingoPlaysDrums]

Fantastic guys, thanks.

[cowboy hats]

Wrestlefest ‘91 is hosted by the Macho Man, poolside, until he ventures inside the house to play some billiards, then throws it to a never ending segment of Brutus Barber’s Grooming Tips where Bruti rubs mud on the face of a man named Bob, massages an egg into Bob’s hair and then attacks Bob with a leaf blower.

[C.S.]

Has anyone watched the new Photo Shoot show? It's not bad. The premise is that they show a series of photos and the wrestler tells a story about what's happening in them. I watched the Eric Bischoff and Miz episodes. Bischoff wasn't bad, but compared to Miz, you could tell he had kinda moved on a little bit. Miz seemed a lot more talkative, enthusiastic, and prepared. Nothing new here, but it's a fun time-waster. I didn't watch the Cesaro episode because I'm not really in the mood to listen to his accent for 20 minutes. He doesn't have the "it-factor." Maybe it's because he's Swiss? I don't know. (Yes, I'm kidding. )

[flyonthewall2983]

Most Unusual Matches features a really compelling voice-over from Jesse Ventura explaining the types of matches featured. It also annoyingly edits a few of the matches.

[The Chief]

Love the Coliseum Video stuff so far. It's surreal hearing Jim Ross retroactively calling 1992 WWF matches.

 

There's a Battle Royal on one of these, Bashed in the USA I think, where Kerry Von Erich is a participant. They recorded it in Spring/Summer 1992 but the tape didn't come out until after Kerry's suicide. After Kerry gets eliminated, they make mention of him being a great competitor and Randy Savage sounds a little emotional when he adds "and a really, really good guy." That's as close as you'll get to 1993 WWF acknowledging something like that, but it was a nice touch.

[flyonthewall2983]

Bobby Heenan even goes a little out of character about it.

[Kronos]

Some random comments I made while watching BLOOPERS, BLEEPS, AND BODYSLAMS throughout the week.

 

I am kind of surprised that they left in the Blassie "love advice" segment. Blassie talks about how women need to be hit and kicked around sometimes. And also, Freddie and Vince have a hard time not cracking up as Blassie reaches for ever more double entendre.

TNT is like watching another universe. Iron Sheik has trouble staying in character a few times in the camel segment.

I know we generally prefer full matches. But the truth is, with some notable exceptions, a lot of 70s and 80s WWWF/WWF works just fine as clips. (though I would hope they continue uploading "Old School" shows from time to time)

As I got further into the video, I experienced the Samoan food segment - super racist. And the Hogan protein shake bit is a bit of a 'roids injoke, surely.

This stuff is wrestlecrap of the highest order. Not gonna lie - it's frequently cringe-tastic. But I kind of love it.

In the Sal Ballomo cooking segment on BLOOPERS, BLEEPS, AND BODYSLAMS -- where they're dusting the table with flour to make pizza dough -- Vince comments that Hayes has some white powder on his nose. "I'm pretty sure it's not the first time."

[TheDuke]

Is most of Bloopers, Bleeps, & Bodyslams just clips from Tuesday Night Titans? Because they already have Tuesday Night Titans on the network, so have that VHS seems kind of redundant.

[MikeCampbell]

Of the one listed as being shown in the "most complete form possible" has anyone noticed any glaring omissions from the original CHV release? The only one I've come across so far is on the "Grand Slams" tape, they don't include the clip of Terry Funk smacking around Mel Philips. Honestly, I only even noticed it because of Gene's voiceover for the following segment, a clip of the Funks vs. JYD/Tito WrestleMania 2 match, where he continued talking about Funk.

[iamthedoctor]

Most Unusual Matches features a really compelling voice-over from Jesse Ventura explaining the types of matches featured. It also annoyingly edits a few of the matches.

 

Why are they editing the matches?

[sek69]

Of the one listed as being shown in the "most complete form possible" has anyone noticed any glaring omissions from the original CHV release? The only one I've come across so far is on the "Grand Slams" tape, they don't include the clip of Terry Funk smacking around Mel Philips. Honestly, I only even noticed it because of Gene's voiceover for the following segment, a clip of the Funks vs. JYD/Tito WrestleMania 2 match, where he continued talking about Funk.

 

 

Seems like they just dumped the On Demand versions to the Network, because there was an edict that came down that Mel Phillips would not be shown. Funny thing about it is that whole segment appeared uncut on another video before that change was made and it is still intact.

[Kronos]

Who is Mel Phillips, and what is the story there?

[sek69]

He was the black guy who was the ring announcer mostly in Philadelphia and was found to be one of the key figures of the sex scandal WWF was involved in the early 90s. Namely he was found to have been molesting and abusing ring boys for years.

[Kronos]

Yeah. I think distancing themselves from him was a good idea.

[flyonthewall2983]

 

Most Unusual Matches features a really compelling voice-over from Jesse Ventura explaining the types of matches featured. It also annoyingly edits a few of the matches.

 

Why are they editing the matches?

 

 

I suspect for reasons related to the limitations of the VHS format. They aren't substantial cuts, but still annoying.

[The Chief]

Editing Rick Rude's music makes no sense when it's intact everywhere else. And it's a TERRIBLE dub job.

[iamthedoctor]

Editing Rick Rude's music makes no sense when it's intact everywhere else. And it's a TERRIBLE dub job.

 

Im sure Hillbilly Jim theme is in some matches but they edit it in Godwinn matches.

[MikeCampbell]

 

Of the one listed as being shown in the "most complete form possible" has anyone noticed any glaring omissions from the original CHV release? The only one I've come across so far is on the "Grand Slams" tape, they don't include the clip of Terry Funk smacking around Mel Philips. Honestly, I only even noticed it because of Gene's voiceover for the following segment, a clip of the Funks vs. JYD/Tito WrestleMania 2 match, where he continued talking about Funk.

 

 

Seems like they just dumped the On Demand versions to the Network, because there was an edict that came down that Mel Phillips would not be shown. Funny thing about it is that whole segment appeared uncut on another video before that change was made and it is still intact.

 

 

 

The Mel Phillips angle is included on the Network's Upload of the "Most Embarrassing Moments" video. But it's joined in progress, so it doesn't where Phillips put on Terry's hat and caused Terry to smack him around.