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WWE Network... It's Here


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I didn't watch the Monday Night Wars preview earlier this week - did they make it clear how that will work? Are they just going to throw up episodes of Raw/Nitro every week, or will they produce kind of like a post-show discussing each week's episodes and show that at ~11 pm? Not that I'm looking for the latter. I'm not sure what's left to say after the dvd documentaries and legends of wrestling episodes, etc.

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About the B shows, I think it would be interesting if they just made compilations out of those. Just put the best matches and segments together and put them in chronological packages that go up in order.

 

I don't see that ever happening. That requires more work on their end. If they upload B shows, they'll just upload them. No way they'll edit them to cut the fat out of them for us.

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Full shows should be the way to go. Otherwise they'd end up editing anything with the Fantastics or WCW B show gems like Los Villanos vs Disorderly Conduct while leaving every Jim Duggan match ever.

 

An interesting bit from the Observer:

 

"The company sent out an e-mail blast to Canadian fans regarding the WWE network, asking them what is the level of interest they would have in seeing a variety of different Canadian promotions. What was listed was Stampede Wrestling from 1948 to 1989, Grand Prix Wrestling in Montreal from 1971 to 1975, Border City Wrestling from 1993 to the present, All Star Wrestling in Montreal from 1967 to 1975, Northern Championship Wrestling in Montreal (1986 to present), Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling (1960s to 1986), All-Star Wrestling out of Vancouver (1960s to 1989), ECCW from Vancouver (1996 to present) and Maximum Pro (an Ontario indie). [...] don’t believe they own any of the other libraries but obviously they wouldn’t have listed them if they didn’t believe they could get them. Grand Prix and All-Star Wrestling from Montreal were very much major league promotions in their day, and the war between the two groups is generally considered the hottest period ever for pro wrestling in Quebec. But my impression is very little footage still exists from that period. Atlantic Grand Prix is Emile Dupree’s promotion that ran Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, a season group that paid really well for its time. It was pretty much major league for its time with some good talent, as a lot of the Stampede regulars would work there during the summer because it paid so much better. They were always as I recall a seasonal promotion. All-Star Wrestling in Vancouver in the 60s was very successful with a strong circuit and a very impressive talent roster for the era, but the names like Gene Kiniski, Don Leo Jonathan, John Tolos or Dutch Savage really don’t mean anything today. It weakened greatly as the 70s wore on. I’ve never heard that any old footage of that promotion’s heyday still exists."

 

Anybody knows anything about the supposed existence of these libraries?

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There is minimal Grand Prix around...maybe 6 shows worth. A few others were lost. Good footage (Andre vs. Mad Dog, Mad Dog vs. Carpentier, that stuff).

 

Stampede footage from 1961 appeared on Classics on Demand. I suspect they have a show or two they could use, and probably some older individual matches. The Classics Stampede video run began IIRC in late 78. They titled the shows monthly as opposed to the week they aired, but they didn't appear or feel cobbled together from a whole month's worth of footage.

 

Not too sure about the other ones, but outside of Grand Prix I have serious doubts that there is footage around from the other older Montreal promotions listed. The 1986 one maybe (not sure who was even in that version of it as International was still going strong at that time), but the others, probably not.

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I ordered the Network just for the on-demand content. I do enjoy watching the first-run programming and live PPVs, especially since I don't have to find a decent stream every month or hunt clips down on YouTube before WWE deletes them.

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I really wasn't expecting the B shows at all, anyhow. Just Raw and Nitro were what I figured we'd get.

 

If they're not uploading everything, especially the B shows and other territories, then I don't think the people behind the Network know what they're doing.

I wouldn't go that far. It's time consuming for something with next to zero impact on the bottom line of the Network.

 

Sometimes I wonder if the Network is a social experiment by WWE to determine if wrestling fans will, in fact, bitch about everything.

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I wouldn't go that far. It's time consuming for something with next to zero impact on the bottom line of the Network.

 

Sometimes I wonder if the Network is a social experiment by WWE to determine if wrestling fans will, in fact, bitch about everything.

 

I think there are valid reasons for wrestling fans to complain about The Network. If the most important thing to you is watching current WWE, then no you probably don't have much to bitch about outside of maybe the fact that they don't do immediate replays of Raw & Smackdown. But if you really just want to see old wrestling they have in their library like Mid-South, AWA, Florida, St. Louis, you can certainly complain that it looks rather unlikely any of that stuff will be seen in the near future.

 

I'm already spending money on stuff that I am actually seeking out to watch so I don't want to also spend money on something that I barely remember i have and when I do bother to watch end up getting annoyed at the fact that the player stops working once you skip around so many times. Which is only made worse by the fact that very little of the stuff has bookmarks, or bookmarks that work on my PC.

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I wouldn't go that far. It's time consuming for something with next to zero impact on the bottom line of the Network.

Sometimes I wonder if the Network is a social experiment by WWE to determine if wrestling fans will, in fact, bitch about everything.

 

I think there are valid reasons for wrestling fans to complain about The Network. If the most important thing to you is watching current WWE, then no you probably don't have much to bitch about outside of maybe the fact that they don't do immediate replays of Raw & Smackdown. But if you really just want to see old wrestling they have in their library like Mid-South, AWA, Florida, St. Louis, you can certainly complain that it looks rather unlikely any of that stuff will be seen in the near future.

 

I'm already spending money on stuff that I am actually seeking out to watch so I don't want to also spend money on something that I barely remember i have and when I do bother to watch end up getting annoyed at the fact that the player stops working once you skip around so many times. Which is only made worse by the fact that very little of the stuff has bookmarks, or bookmarks that work on my PC.

Oh, absolutely, but it's also still in it's infancy. It's quite unrealistic to expect all of that stuff to be available already, if ever. I'd love to see weekly AWA and Mid-South, but they never told me that I'd get that when they started the Network, either. Unless I missed something. And those of us who do care about that stuff are a niche of a niche, so I understand their lack of action on it.

 

I like current WWE and feel like I more than get my money's worth even if all I watch in a month is the PPV, so I doubt I'll ever cancel when it's so cheap. The technical bugginess and whatnot does suck, but again, this is still early in something that is a long-term thing. It's not like the Network is going anywhere.

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Which is only made worse by the fact that very little of the stuff has bookmarks, or bookmarks that work on my PC.

 

 

Definitely one of my biggest frustrations with the network. Would be nice to go directly to a match instead of having to blindly fast forward through a PPV. Even just time stamps like many podcasts (podcasts!) provide would be helpful.

 

Unrelated, and we're a long ways away from this being an issue - but they're not going to put up the Owen tribute show, right?

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I didn't watch the Monday Night Wars preview earlier this week - did they make it clear how that will work? Are they just going to throw up episodes of Raw/Nitro every week, or will they produce kind of like a post-show discussing each week's episodes and show that at ~11 pm? Not that I'm looking for the latter. I'm not sure what's left to say after the dvd documentaries and legends of wrestling episodes, etc.

 

Monday Night Wars is a 20 part documentary series covering the whole "war". It's a completely separate thing to the upload of old full episodes, though will likely start around the same time.

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Which is only made worse by the fact that very little of the stuff has bookmarks, or bookmarks that work on my PC.

 

Definitely one of my biggest frustrations with the network. Would be nice to go directly to a match instead of having to blindly fast forward through a PPV. Even just time stamps like many podcasts (podcasts!) provide would be helpful.

 

Unrelated, and we're a long ways away from this being an issue - but they're not going to put up the Owen tribute show, right?

I actually think they will put up the Owen tribute show. The Benoit tribute one not so much

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I really wasn't expecting the B shows at all, anyhow. Just Raw and Nitro were what I figured we'd get.

If they're not uploading everything, especially the B shows and other territories, then I don't think the people behind the Network know what they're doing.

I wouldn't go that far. It's time consuming for something with next to zero impact on the bottom line of the Network.

 

Sometimes I wonder if the Network is a social experiment by WWE to determine if wrestling fans will, in fact, bitch about everything.

 

 

It provides diversified content, which is key to the success of the Network. If they don't add stuff like the B shows, other territories, etc. then there's less incentive for people to stick with the Network long term because the amount of available content will eventually dry up. It's the same reason Netflix and Hulu are constantly trying to acquire new content, they need the diversity to make a wider range of customers happy.

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Cue the rumors! A week after the WrestleMania Rewind stuff, Tuesday night at 9:00 they have scheduled the Network debut of CM Punk: Best in the World documentary.

Well, Rewind was due the week earlier, but was preempted by the Vicki Guerrero special.

 

FYI, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but they did Eddie-Angle as a Rewind a while back, and while Kurt MAY return when his TNA deal runs out in the Fall, I'd doubt that was a sign!

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