WWE Network... It's Here

[sek69]

Not sure why it included my comment in the quote, but editing won't let me fix it so whatevs.

[khawk20]

Hopefully those film reels have full shows form the stadiums on them with stuff that didn\t air.

Any ideas how far back that library was supposed to go? 70's?

[sek69]

3 hours ago, khawk20 said:

Hopefully those film reels have full shows form the stadiums on them with stuff that didn\t air.

Any ideas how far back that library was supposed to go? 70's?

I would think at least 70s, they would show classic matches on the Sunday WWC shows up until the storm hit and would regularly have matches from stadium shows from the late 70s/early 80s.

[khawk20]

Good...haven't seen a lot of 70's stuff from them, but there are some classic early 80s bouts that are out there which are fun.

[sek69]

For those who care about such things, the remaining episodes of WCW Thunder are set to drop on Monday.

[C.S.]

Post's Golden Crisp and and Honey Comb cereals have an offer to get WWE Network free for 3 months if you aren't a current subscriber. Look for Becky Lynch or Big Show on the boxes. My grocery store had these BOGO, so I bought four for the price of two, uploaded the receipt to https://wwexpost.com/, and got the offer after a few days. Worked like a charm! I now have the Network free through WrestleMania. (Well, really $7 or $8 for three months, but the cereal is good!)

Since this is some weird cereal site you'll never use again, I recommend getting the cereals on a separate receipt and paying cash, as well using a secondary e-mail address and fake name/info for the cereal site. Won't affect your WWE site login/info. 

BTW, if anyone cares, I think Golden Crisp is much better than Honey Comb, but both are good.

 

[CarpetCrawler]

Going through 1998 with my brother because that's the era he's most into, and we got to Summer 1998 and it looks like the Network not only dubs in different music for The Oddities instead of the Insane Clown Posse, but on the show where Sable introduces them and they turn babyface for the first time (and Golga wrestles Marc Mero), the entire segment is cut from the Network's broadcast entirely.  A completely baffling edit when you could have always just dubbed in new music for them rather than remove the entire segment entirely.  It confused the hell out of us because they just introduced The Oddities as babyfaces like nothing happened and Ross and Lawler don't really explain anything.  Any idea why the Network just removes the entire segment entirely?

[sek69]

They would often do that when dubbing the music would be too much work/not possible due to how the show is constructed. It was pretty common on the old WWE 24/7 VOD service, it's possible it's something they overlooked when a lot of that got restored for the  network. 

[CarpetCrawler]

20 hours ago, sek69 said:

They would often do that when dubbing the music would be too much work/not possible due to how the show is constructed. It was pretty common on the old WWE 24/7 VOD service, it's possible it's something they overlooked when a lot of that got restored for the  network. 

But even they, why scrub the entire match when they could have just started with everyone in the ring?  Just seems like a super sloppy edit.  Which I mean, I know.  But still.

[sek69]

Finally getting a new content drop, Prime Time Wrestling from 1989 coming on January 20.

[JRH]

It's starting to feel like they dont really care about the Network anymore. Forget the smaller content drops, even the original content isnt that promoted as much. It's almost as if the FOX deal caused them to forget about it.

[Migs]

21 hours ago, JRH said:

It's starting to feel like they dont really care about the Network anymore. Forget the smaller content drops, even the original content isnt that promoted as much. It's almost as if the FOX deal caused them to forget about it.

I think it's also an issue where they know they have a baseline for the Network (people who want to see the current big shows) and the marginal benefit they can get from adding more/better content just isn't there. Even if something got them 100k more subscribers, that's 12M a year, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the Fox deal.

[SteveJRogers]

On 1/23/2020 at 6:06 PM, JRH said:

It's starting to feel like they dont really care about the Network anymore. Forget the smaller content drops, even the original content isnt that promoted as much. It's almost as if the FOX deal caused them to forget about it.

Austin’s retooled “podcast” (because podcast is audio), focusing on guest’s career, has been getting promotion.  

[Blehschmidt]

I'm still plugging along watching the weekly episodes of World Class on the Network, and today I got to the 12/1/84 episode which contains the Terry Gordy/Killer Khan Texas Death Match, and before the show a TV-MA warning on a black screen with bright red letters came up warning me about the explicit nature of the program I was about to watch. There was also stern sounding audio reading the warning to me as well. I don't know if this is new, but I have certainly never seen it before. Just thought it was kind of interesting, that such a stern warning now apparently has to accompany a bloody match.

[Blehschmidt]

Look's like they are dropping 10 classic ECW show's on the Network tomorrow.

Super Summer Sizzler '93, Ultra Clash '93, Heatwave '94, Tag Wars '94, Double Tables '95, Return of the Funker, Hostile City Showdown '95, Enter the Sandman, Barbed Wire, Hoodies, and Chokeslams, and Heatwave '95

Pretty excited for Barbed Wire, Hoodies, and Chokeslams. That show has the angle where 911 destroys "Jungle" Jim Steele with chokeslam after chokeslam as the crowd gleefully chants "Five More Times", "Four More Times" and on and on, as Paul E. dedicates each choke slam to Vince, and Bischoff, and I forget who else. I don't know if it still holds up, but I remember loving that shit in the 90's!

[Al]

I remember as an 11 year old sneaking peeks at ECW on tv and seeing advertisements for Ultraclash. This is something I can legitimately say I’ve been waiting 27 years to see.

[hammerva]

So in terms of all time legendary revisionist history bullshit by the WWE,  is there anything better than the claim in the 1st episode of the Ruthless Aggression show that they changed the name of the company to the WWE because they need a boost in the product.  I mean you would thought "Get the F Out" was like when they brought in the Attitude Era or The New Generation. 

If you like the Monday Night Wars series they did probably 7 or 8 years ago then it seems like you should like this series about the WWE after the War. 

[Big Pete]

I loved how they had Hogan on there going 'WWE? That will never work, brother' like Vince was on the cutting edge of innovation. It wasn't like they needed to twist it around to suit the story either, the name change was just another in the long line of losses that led to this new era.

I also enjoyed the WWE's version of the Invasion era. Forget about turning Austin heel, the real reason for the decline is that Shawn Stasiak and Buff Bagwell weren't believable superstars. Nevermind the fact they could have signed all the WCW stars if they wanted to, or they completely squandered the few stars they did have. Guys like Diamond Dallas Page and Booker T didn't stand a chance and there was no reason why they had to rush it.

The documentary also went soft on Austin. I'm not surprised they didn't touch the Debra incident since it doesn't fit the vibe of the documentary, but the way they positioned the documentary, it was like they went to great lengths to justify Austin's position. I guess Austin has apologised for it that many times they're happy to accept some of the blame, but in a documentary that treated their name change as a milestone instead of what it was, was fascinating.

So far the star of this documentary for me is Gerwitz. It's nice to see him back in the WWE family and I think he's doing a really good job of telling the story. If you haven't listened to it, I'd highly recommend his episode of the Edge & Christian podcast. His stories about the type of writing kicks Vince would have them go on were hysterical, especially with how it all panned out in one instance with Flair/Batista.

But yeah I was genuinely curious to see how the WWE would treat this period. I see it as a really bittersweet moment for the company where they made stars out of John Cena, Randy Orton and Batista but it was really trying time for the company all the same.

[BigBadMick]

I enjoyed the second episode on Cena. Nothing jumped out as wildly inaccurate, although I got the impression his make or break moments were heightened for dramatic purposes (he got a lot of chances to succeed on Smackdown in 2002-04).

 

Does anyone have a list of titles on future episodes? I'm curious if there's a Lesnar one in the pipeline, although I can't imagine Brock sitting down to spew revisionist history. 

[Cowboy Hats 4.0]

(iii) Evolution, (iv) Lesnar and (v) the brand split

[C.S.]

I've watched both episodes of Ruthless Aggression. It seems...fine. But yeah, definitely some weird revisionist history bullshit going on, as others have already pointed out.

Episode 1: Portraying the WWE name change as a brilliant creative decision instead of what it actually was...yeah, no.

Episode 2: Was Cena really hated by everyone in the locker room and no one wanted to work with him? I've never heard that. I also really doubt he was every truly on a cut list. Vince/Stephanie can't be that stupid? Surely they saw that he brought more to the table than, say, Mark Jindrak.

Brian Gerwertz looks looks like he's ready to cry at any moment. I realize he was an important part of the puzzle, but he's not exactly charismatic or camera-ready. Still, it's nice to see someone they haven't used a million times before. Bruce Pritchard always seems like he's full of BS, even when he's being honest. 

[hammerva]

I don't know about the hate that Cena got.  Maybe some jealously and yes I do remember a large number of wrestlers thinking the spinner belt was stupid as hell.

But I can totally believe the idea of Cena on the cut list around December 2002.  He made his debut in late June and the Halloween party stuff that brought out the Word Life Cena.   He had a great debut and then really didn't do anything except for an average PPV match against Jericho I believe.  Other than that he was pretty much a Velocity or house show guy with a really bland look.   

I also buy the idea that they "discovered" Cena while looking to see what the progress what of Rico Constantino.   In hindsight it is hard to believe but in 2001 there was very high expectations for Rico as a heel.  

[sek69]

IIRC the feeling was Cena was on the fast track in OVW as the Prototype, and it probably ruffled some feathers.  He absolutely was going to be on the "cut because creative has nothing for you" train until Steph famously heard him rapping and decided they could do a gimmick about it. It's funny how they always frame his debut confrontation with Angle as a birth-of-a-new-star moment when it was a one and done type deal and they  very clearly didn't have anything further planned beyond that.

[Big Pete]

It's just difficult to accept that the WWE would give up on Cena entirely when it's clear from his OVW tapes that the guy had a ton of personality and they had barely scratched the surface with him. I could see him being relegated to OVW, but fired altogether? I just think it makes for a better story in hindsight.

[sek69]

There were a lot of people in OVW who showed tons of charisma and ended up getting cut. It seems inconceivable in hindsight that John Goddamn Cena almost got cut, but it definitely was reported as such at the time.