WWE Network... It's Here

[MikeCampbell]

9 hours ago, MichaelZ said:

Either this is very recent or it just slipped by me, mid-south and mid-Atlantic episodes have been added to Peacock. It gives me hope that JCP and hidden gems will follow. I didn’t notice them when I was browsing tonight. 
 

I agree with all the comments that the “season” stuff is horrendous but I did find it interesting that the earliest available mid-Atlantic shows on Peacock from 1981 were referred to as “season 9.”

Mid South was added on Thursday, and Mid Atlantic was added on Friday. I'm hoping that the recent additions of Thunder and Mid Atlantic are a sign that the uploads of NWA World Championship Wrestling, and the Clash of Champions specials are being added sooner rather than later.....

 

For anyone who may be in the know. On the original WWE Network, the last match on Clash VI was Flair/Steamboat, was there a reason that the Road Warriors/Varsity Club title change was cut off?

[sek69]

On 7/18/2021 at 7:39 AM, MikeCampbell said:

For anyone who may be in the know. On the original WWE Network, the last match on Clash VI was Flair/Steamboat, was there a reason that the Road Warriors/Varsity Club title change was cut off?

Not sure if it's the case here, but a lot of that era was the Turner Home Video versions that often had things cut to fit on a VHS release. 

Also the handful of AWA episodes that were on the Network were re added. I often wonder of the other AWA episodes and the Florida stuff that was on the old 24/7 service and never made it to the Network will ever show up again. 

[sek69]

Also it looks like the UK is about to get 'Cocked, as Peacock is set to roll out to Sky TV. 

[Zoo Enthusiast]

So, it's Summerslam.  Has everything been added to Peacock?  How has the whole experience been with it?

[C.S.]

The Roku and iOS Peacock apps now allow you to pause and rewind live shows.

[strobogo]

8 hours ago, Zoo Enthusiast said:

So, it's Summerslam.  Has everything been added to Peacock?  How has the whole experience been with it?

I think everything except the Hidden Gems and early Best of WWF volumes from Coliseum Home Video. Navigating through Peacock fucking sucks, but it's fine if you can just use the Xfinity voice remote to find something without directly having to open up Peacock first. Not really sure why the Best Of tapes aren't up as all the other CHV tapes up through 1993 are up. Maybe it's because they have their own best of WWE section up or something who knows.

[JRH]

The Best of the WWF vhs series never made it to the Network proper.

[strobogo]

Oh weird I thought they did because they're easy to find on Archive/DailyMotion in what appears to be higher quality than what you'd get dubbing a tape and posting it online. Then I guess everything made it except the stuff in the Hidden Gems section, which sucks because there was a lot of dope stuff in there but it's probably a nightmare with Peacock's organizational system. 

[C.S.]

The Broken Skull Sessions with Seth Rollins was pretty good. He talks about that debacle of a Fiend match, almost being fired from NXT, The Shield, Brock, and his various character tweaks over the years. 

[sek69]

So they just dropped some 1984 MSG shows, and the 3/25 show they have Akira Maeda (!!) winning the final of what I'm sure is a fictitious tournament for the WWF International Heavyweight Championship, the thing is the belt clearly has UWF in the center which surprised me since I was under the impression that wasn't a thing that existed until later. 

[SteveJRogers]

14 hours ago, sek69 said:

So they just dropped some 1984 MSG shows, and the 3/25 show they have Akira Maeda (!!) winning the final of what I'm sure is a fictitious tournament for the WWF International Heavyweight Championship, the thing is the belt clearly has UWF in the center which surprised me since I was under the impression that wasn't a thing that existed until later. 

Yup

https://www.solie.org/titlehistories/ituwa.html

Maeda defeated Pierre Lefebvre to win the title, but was generally used as a jobber during his U.S. tour.  
Promotion of this title began in Japan on 04/11/94.  
The title was abandoned on 07/23/84 when the UWF and WWF ties were broken due to Hisashi Shinma joining All Japan.

Unless I’m looking at the wrong one, that belt actually came after the one you are thinking of, even though it got abandoned after.

https://www.solie.org/titlehistories/inhtwwf.html

Tatsumi Fujinami (2)
08/04/83-Tokyo, JAPAN
Tatsumi Fujinami won the match against Riki Choshu by count out but refused the belt. Choshu couldn1t get into CANADA for the scheduled rematch in Calgary, Alberta on August 12, 1983 and Fujinami was given recognition as champion. Fujinami gave up the title after a double disqualification against Super Strong Machine on July 19, 1985 in Sapporo, JAPAN. The title was abandoned on October 31, 1985 when New Japan and WWF split.

 

[sek69]

Yeah but I thought "UWF" wasn't a thing at that time and Shinma was president due to New Japan and WWF working together. I never heard of there being a UWF until Maeda and pals broke off from New Japan. 

In fact Hisa's site has the belt on this show as the same lineage as the second one you linked. 

[Ricky Jackson]

The original Japanese UWF was formed in early 84 based around Satoru Sayama (Tiger Mask) and included Maeda.

From Wikipedia:

"In early 1984, UWF President Hisashi Shinma brokered a deal with the World Wrestling Federation which resulted in a UWF/WWF working relationship. Through this working relationship, one of UWF's top stars Akira Maeda toured the United States with the WWF[1] and even won the promotion's International Heavyweight Championship.[2] The relationship ended on July 23, 1984 after President Shinma jumped from UWF to All Japan Pro Wrestling."

[sek69]

That's interesting, I always thought UWF was a breakaway from New Japan. I wonder why Vince would make a deal like that when presumably his main focus was national expansion. 

[Reel]

On 10/19/2021 at 3:35 PM, sek69 said:

That's interesting, I always thought UWF was a breakaway from New Japan. I wonder why Vince would make a deal like that when presumably his main focus was national expansion. 

Those Japan deals basically paid for the entire national expansion, when New Japan comes back in 1985, the money they paid, mostly to have guys be able to work the Garden, bankrolled WrestleMania. 

[sek69]

Having basically zero info on anything Japan pre like, 1993 or so, this is all fascinating to know. I wonder who initiated the deal, Vince seems like he always is more aware of Japan than he lets on and the Japanese wrestling scene has always seen working at MSG as a Holy Grail. 

[MoS]

Dave has said that Vince relied heavily on the New Japan checks until all the revenue from the first Wrestlemania came in and he could finance the expansion on his own. Those TV bills were coming up around Wrestlemania and he had a lot of debts due to the expansion; a New Japan check shortly thereafter was crucial in giving him some breathing space to execute his grand vision. It's a pity very few of those 80s Observers survive; there would be so much info there. 

[Ricky Jackson]

There are "lost" Observers from the 80s? I was unaware of that 

[khawk20]

10 minutes ago, Ricky Jackson said:

There are "lost" Observers from the 80s? I was unaware of that 

Well the "common" online collection for 1984 has newsletters from January, March, April, May, June, and September in it. Dave may have been on a Dave-like publishing schedule, or there are gaps.

 

At least with what I have, my collection could be outdated as I've had it for better than a decade.

[conker8]

@khawk20 there are 7 observers from 1983 and 15 observers from 1984 in this link

https://archive.org/details/WON1984

[MoS]

Wasn't Dave writing in 1981 and 1982 too? There are Observer awards for those years. I don't know how frequently he would publish in the early 80s, but IIRC he switches from a magazine style to a newsletter style sometime in 1985(?)

[Ricky Jackson]

I believe the original awards were done before there was an official WON. I think the first issue of the WON was a 1982 yearbook/retrospective but I'm not 100% sure 

[sek69]

Pre 1985 WONs were an interesting process in Dave finding what style and frequency of publishing worked for him. 

Also apparently he's kind of sensitive about those years since that was one of the reasons Todd Martin fell out with the crew over there. Him and Alvarez were doing a bit where Todd would revisit 80s Observers and (allegedly) Dave put the kibosh on that. 

[ohtani's jacket]

 

On 10/20/2021 at 4:00 AM, sek69 said:

Yeah but I thought "UWF" wasn't a thing at that time and Shinma was president due to New Japan and WWF working together. I never heard of there being a UWF until Maeda and pals broke off from New Japan. 

In fact Hisa's site has the belt on this show as the same lineage as the second one you linked. 

In 1983, there was an attempted coup within New Japan to oust Inoki from the company. Inoki had been syphoning New Japan's profits into a business venture in Brazil (an alternative energy source that was meant to solve the global food crisis), and was forced to resign after Tiger Mask's shock resignation. Sakaguchi also resigned, and Shinma was pushed out of the company under the guise of a three month suspension. No-one is sure how the UWF originated, but the most common theory is that Shinma created it as a promotion for Inoki to jump to after the coup. However, TV Asahi intervened and put an end to the coup. Inoki wound up staying in New Japan and Shinma couldn't get him to transfer. The original concept for UWF was basically New Japan under a new name, and the initial advertising promised stars like Inoki, Backlund and Andre. Shinma couldn't deliver the WWF guys because they were under contract with New Japan. He was able to use his ties with New York to send Maeda there, and his hope was to get Vince to supply foreign talent after the WWF's contract with New Japan expired, but he resigned from the UWF once it became obvious that Inoki wasn't going to jump. 

[sek69]

Funny, after learning about the history of all this I went to NJPW World and watched some matches there of WWF guys in Japan from like 83-85 and stumbled upon an Inoki/Sakaguchi vs The Machines match. It was hilarious to me how the announcers were like "Yeah that's Andre and the Masked Superstar there" when the whole angle in the WWF was supposed to be all wink-and-nod "who could this giant in a mask who's built and moves exactly like Andre be". I remember there being a WWF Machines match where either Gorilla or Bruno supposed it could be Giant Baba under the mask so maybe this was New Japan giving them a receipt.