WWE Network... It's Here

[CarpetCrawler]

Yeah III isn't well booked persay as it's the first post-George Scott Wrestlemania and the show is *packed* with matches so they had to rush everyone to get their shit in and besides the notable matches like Savage-Steamboat and Hogan-Andre almost everything gets about five minutes.  One thing that always blows my mind while watching III is how briskly paced it is.

[C.S.]

#ForbiddenDoor

 

[SteveJRogers]

22 hours ago, C.S. said:

#ForbiddenDoor

 

Over a year ago on his podcast, Arn Anderson gave a flat “Not interested!” hand wave response, with no followup line of questioning from Conrad when it came to appearing on WWE Network docs and other projects as a talking head or something.  His employment with AEW had yet to be revealed, but it did make Arn sound like a douchebag who was severely hurt by the way a relationship ended.

The fact that this actually is happening with the first ever AEW Le Champión, and a guy still very much under contract and in main event level AEW storylines, kind of makes that response even more like a jilted douchebag. 

Granted past history with promotions not wanting a thing to do with gainfully...emplo...I mean independently contracted performers with other promotions may have affected that response.  

And granted this was probably signed off on due to the extraordinary nature of the project, and things may have been different if say they were doing a doc on WCW post Flair’s release/pre Hogan’s arrival and needed Jake Roberts (yeah I know THAT project is hard to do sans Sting, JR, Bischoff, Tony and to a degree Arn himself) for a quote or two.

But a “not right now, but you never know what the future will bring” comment reflects better on him than the “fuck off” that a “not interested” sounds like.

[El-P]

20 minutes ago, SteveJRogers said:

But a “not right now, but you never know what the future will bring” comment reflects better on him than the “fuck off” that a “not interested” sounds like.

The other way around. Non-politician, not giving a fuck answer reflects better on him (and anyone else, really, but maybe it's because I'm " Fuck off" guy IRL). He doesn't owe anything to anyone. And why would he want to work for the benefit of WWE if the relationship ended up poorly (which is obviously the case) ? I know passing judgment on people we don't actually know is the thing on Internet, but really if Arn isn't interested, why the hell would he answer anything other than "Not interested" ? What's so great about appearing in a revisionist WWE documentary anyway ? Not everyone is thinking politics (Jericho obviously does and it has worked wonders for his career).

[MoS]

From everything we know, Arn felt constantly insulted and humiliated throughout his tenure, to the point that he stopped going to bat for the guys he liked cuz him supporting someone was usually a sureshot sign that the person was going to get de-pushed. I don't blame him at all for handwaving future WWE commitments away. If someone keeps treating you like shit, ultimately you need to get up and tell them to fuck off, no matter how bitter you might sound to others. 

I also just find hilarious that 20 years after his era ended, Steve Austin still remains WWE's biggest draw and they use him whenever they need to pop a number when entering a new territory. Time is truly a flat circle 

[SteveJRogers]

1 hour ago, MoS said:

I also just find hilarious that 20 years after his era ended, Steve Austin still remains WWE's biggest draw and they use him whenever they need to pop a number when entering a new territory. Time is truly a flat circle 

Ditto Hogan when employment situation allows and/problematic optics have seemingly lessened, and that’s an additional 10 years on since his epic championship winning face run ended!

I know in the Attitude Era they tried to shine away a little from “honoring the past,” though they still held spotlight segments in St. Louis, KC, etc, but I wonder how much Bruno would have been leaned on back then if it wasn’t for the rift between him and Vince.

[Coffey]

I don't think they'll talk about AEW hardly if at all. I certainly don't think Jericho is going to get in a plug. If anything, I expect to hear more about Fozzy than AEW. Jericho will probably talk about WCW, ECW, Japan, coming to WWE, his world title reigns, his band & maybe his cruise. I don't think they'll be chatting about The Inner Circle, Le Champion & poppin' the bubbly Wednesday nights on Dynamite on TNT.

"Tell my about debuting in WWE with The Rock, what was that like?" "Tell me about WCW not wanting to use you when you were trying to do the Goldberg thing."

Same stories we've heard. But would love to be wrong.

[SteveJRogers]

2 hours ago, El-P said:

The other way around. Non-politician, not giving a fuck answer reflects better on him (and anyone else, really, but maybe it's because I'm " Fuck off" guy IRL). He doesn't owe anything to anyone. And why would he want to work for the benefit of WWE if the relationship ended up poorly (which is obviously the case) ? I know passing judgment on people we don't actually know is the thing on Internet, but really if Arn isn't interested, why the hell would he answer anything other than "Not interested" ? What's so great about appearing in a revisionist WWE documentary anyway ? Not everyone is thinking politics (Jericho obviously does and it has worked wonders for his career).

Oh, I don’t blame him for having bitter feelings and holding a grudge so soon after everything went down.  

And it was a bit of silly thing for that twitter user to ask at THAT point in time, but there are more diplomatic ways of saying “not interested” without sounding like you don’t care about whomever would enjoy watching him pop up on a random Network productions 

[SteveJRogers]

4 minutes ago, Coffey said:

I don't think they'll talk about AEW hardly if at all. I certainly don't think Jericho is going to get in a plug. If anything, I expect to hear more about Fozzy than AEW. Jericho will probably talk about WCW, ECW, Japan, coming to WWE, his world title reigns, his band & maybe his cruise. I don't think they'll be chatting about The Inner Circle, Le Champion & poppin' the bubbly Wednesday nights on Dynamite on TNT.

"Tell my about debuting in WWE with The Rock, what was that like?" "Tell me about WCW not wanting to use you when you were trying to do the Goldberg thing."

Same stories we've heard. But would love to be wrong.

Consider the series is career encompassing, would shock me if more is brought up beyond how things came to be towards the end of the conversation.

[southofheavy]

Instead of working with a toxic company that treated him like shit for the fans, the fans can mosey on over to his podcast. 

 

[C.S.]

No clue why such a big deal is being made of Arn not popping up as a talking head on future Network specials when he rarely did that while he was in the company.

[SteveJRogers]

6 minutes ago, C.S. said:

No clue why such a big deal is being made of Arn not popping up as a talking head on future Network specials when he rarely did that while he was in the company.

I’m not making that a big deal, it’s the dickish response to a “what did you think he’d say” line of questioning, which at the time I chalked up to “well that means he is signing with AEW soon!”

Tangental to that, that does beg the overall question as to why, beyond big paydays, now is he doing all these kayfabe and 4th wall busting convention panel appearances and podcast hosting when all his time in both WCW and WWF/WCW he was Taker-esque in keeping up the gimmick and old school kayfabe.

But that’s for a different forum here

 

[C.S.]

7 minutes ago, SteveJRogers said:

Tangental to that, that does beg the overall question as to why, beyond big paydays, now is he doing all these kayfabe and 4th wall busting convention panel appearances and podcast hosting when all his time in both WCW and WWF/WCW he was Taker-esque in keeping up the gimmick and old school kayfabe.

But that’s for a different forum here

Even his book was kayfabe. 

As for why now, the answer is obvious: $$$

AEW is still an unproven startup company (albeit a very successful one that is likely to be around for years to come), so Arn probably realizes has to make money in as many different ways as possible to secure a nest egg for himself and his family. If he was anything like Flair, he spent every dime he ever made living in the Horsemen lifestyle in the '80s.

[southofheavy]

Dude, you're reaching here. Hard. 

"Not interested" is about as diplomatic as it gets and he doesn't owe WWE or the fans a damn thing regarding that situation. 

As far as him opening up in regards to kayfabe, things change and so do people. Yeah, he's getting paid, but at the same time, he's got a lot to offer by opening up. Not to mention the fact if he were to do a podcast using his old approach, it'd probably come off a little silly. 

[C.S.]

The way @SteveJRogers is carrying on, he acts like he gave Arn his shield, and Arn gave it up and allowed some big-eared rando to take up the mantle.  

[MoS]

1 hour ago, SteveJRogers said:

Ditto Hogan when employment situation allows and/problematic optics have seemingly lessened, and that’s an additional 10 years on since his epic championship winning face run ended!

I know in the Attitude Era they tried to shine away a little from “honoring the past,” though they still held spotlight segments in St. Louis, KC, etc, but I wonder how much Bruno would have been leaned on back then if it wasn’t for the rift between him and Vince.

Didn't Kevin Dunn hate the idea of legends reunions cuz he thought no one would recognise them? It's amazing how far WWE's philosophy has evolved in respect of using old legends. 

[SteveJRogers]

6 hours ago, southofheavy said:

Dude, you're reaching here. Hard. 

"Not interested" is about as diplomatic as it gets and he doesn't owe WWE or the fans a damn thing regarding that situation. 

As far as him opening up in regards to kayfabe, things change and so do people. Yeah, he's getting paid, but at the same time, he's got a lot to offer by opening up. Not to mention the fact if he were to do a podcast using his old approach, it'd probably come off a little silly. 

Tell you to truth, the frustration with the line is directed completely at Conrad’s lack of following up in some form than Arn being bitter by how shitty he was being treated at the end.

Point of this was that Jericho on Broken Skull Sessions negates the idea that the “no other promotions exist outside of what we do in kayfabe” way of doing things actually exists within AEW.

[JerryvonKramer]

On 4/3/2021 at 9:00 PM, MoS said:

Didn't Kevin Dunn hate the idea of legends reunions cuz he thought no one would recognise them? It's amazing how far WWE's philosophy has evolved in respect of using old legends. 

There is that 1987 Battle Royale ...

[cm funk]

So.....yesterday I signed up for the $9.99 for 4 months of premium deal......

My biggest concern was immediately realized.  I loaded up WCW BattleBowl 93 randomly and it was practically unwatchable with the pausing and buffering.  I figured on that, because that's the way it was with old Network content for me most of the time and one of the biggest reasons I was a sporadic subscriber

Then I load up night 1 of NXT Takeover figuring if anything will play smooth it's that, right?  NOPE.  Couldn't get thru Kushida and Dunne.....

I don't have the fastest internet, but it's definitely not the slowest either.  I have zero issues with Prime or Netflix and I'm able to download large files relatively quickly.  I've always had issues with WWE's "on demand" (HA) offerings...

They don't seem to have any options for video quality, or any auto adjust to your internet speed like other services.....meh.

Is this going to be a constant fucking issue like it was with the Network?  I haven't tested any non-WWE content yet, and I haven't read the last few pages of this thread.....but I have a feeling a random Office ep won't pause and buffer like that

[WingedEagle]

I didn't have any issues watching either night of Takeover live nor have I encountered any problems watching anything on demand on Peacock thus far.  On the Network, any time I ran into a problem it generally arose from my internet at home crapping out momentarily and came back right away.

[sek69]

The only issues I had was some sound drop offs with night one of Takeover, but I think that was due to it being a shared feed with USA Network and it was cutting the sound when they were going to commercial. 

So  far the early Peacock days have been way smoother than the early Network experience was. I remember going to a friend's house to watch Mania that first Network year and it was a disaster. 

[Mad Dog]

It always depended for me. For some reason it never worked right downstairs no matter what system or device I used but was usually fine upstairs. We have like 500 mb internet speed.

[strobogo]

I already had Peacock through having Xfinity so I haven't experienced any issues of buffering or pausing on any content as it is coming through. The Peacock app sucks, though. Super slow to browse, sucks to search for anything, and misses general functionality that has been part of all streaming services for years (like live pausing, rewind, starting a live show from the beginning, skipping by 15-30 seconds instead of fast forwarding and hoping you stop at the right moment) and a couple of WWE Network specific ones (like segment/match chapters to jump to). Playback has been perfectly solid on VOD stuff, WWE or other TV/Movies. The only live stuff I've watched through Peacock is a bit of Fastlane and the Takeover shows and there was very occasional momentary pixelization once or twice during each event and that's it. 

Shitty lay out and browsing can be mitigated by being able to search via the Xfinity remote and go through the X1 interface and find what you want much much faster which will then open in the Peacock app. That goes for all non WWE stuff on Peacock as well. I think the plan is to have all that was up prior to the move to be uploaded to Peacock by Summerslam or something. Not really sure why they didn't do this ahead of time, they made the deal in January and the app went live with like 10% of Network content if that. And then the content they went with like a couple of 2000 WCW PPVs and NEW Saturday Night episodes that weren't even on the Network proper before, and UK indies, before they started filling in WCW/ECW PPVs. 

Commercials haven't bothered me in the few actual wrestling events I've watched as they come at pretty natural times, but they really suck in something like Broken Skull Sessions. My fear is they're going to give up completely on uploading territory era stuff going forward.

[MoS]

I'm about 5 minutes into Austin's interview with Jericho and he has already asked about AEW. I don't think a lot of people were expecting that, so credit to Austin and WWE for that

[El-P]

And you won't tell us what he asked and what Jericho answered ? Damn !