WWE Hidden Gems

[sek69]

I suppose this is how WWE is planning to fix their problem of having an older audience, just get rid of anything that appeals to them.

It's a bold strategy Cotton, let's see if it pays off.

[khawk20]

I wonder if this will affect classic content dumps in the form of TV, like Mid South or WCW or WCCW. Does this mean that other territories possibly scheduled for a similar treatment will now not happen?

[Matt D]

Rumor is that they're going to cut back on the classic drops bigtime and focus even more on the modern product (be it WWE main or indy affiliates, etc.). 

NWA should capitalize on the small unrest this announcement has caused and launch a youtube show with the classic footage with Tim Storm and Aaron Stevens hosting or something. It'd cost them next to nothing.

[SirEdger]

All the less reasons for any old school fan to even subscribe.

I don't know why they feel so strongly about forgetting to cater to old school fans.

[sek69]

13 minutes ago, khawk20 said:

I wonder if this will affect classic content dumps in the form of TV, like Mid South or WCW or WCCW. Does this mean that other territories possibly scheduled for a similar treatment will now not happen?

 

I wonder how much of the "classic content will be reduced" is due to most of the territories they focused on being finished up recently.  WCCW was said to be complete (as much as they could at least) and the last Mid-Atlantic dump was said to complete that category as well. Since they don't seem to have any interest in putting up the AWA or Florida stuff, I'd expect them to maybe fill out the Mid South/UWF stuff and that's it.

[Coffey]

Personally, I'm waiting for all of WCW Saturday Night. Including during the Monday Night Wars era, when it was no longer the A-Show. I've seen very few of those shows from that era. I would be down for WCW Worldwide as well. 

 

That's not really "Hidden Gems" related but now I'm worried about all classic content.

[Blehschmidt]

I wonder if this is them prepping to move all of the classic content to a higher priced tier, since they assume we'll just pay for anything.

[JRH]

I'm thinking they may just split it into two, WWE Classics for all the classic content, and the core WWE Network for 2014-present footage.

[sek69]

5 hours ago, Blehschmidt said:

I wonder if this is them prepping to move all of the classic content to a higher priced tier, since they assume we'll just pay for anything.

 

3 hours ago, JRH said:

I'm thinking they may just split it into two, WWE Classics for all the classic content, and the core WWE Network for 2014-present footage.

 

I have a feeling you're both going to end up right. Most likely the $9.95 tier will focus on current shows, PPVs, and those "Network Special" shows like Starrcade, and whatever the higher priced tier ends up being will be that + old stuff. 

[MoS]

At least we will always have Mid-Atlantic; it's been an amazing promotion to watch on the Network. Really wish we had more of face Flair in the Carolinas. 

[JRH]

22 hours ago, Blehschmidt said:

I wonder if this is them prepping to move all of the classic content to a higher priced tier, since they assume we'll just pay for anything.

With most current streaming services focusing more on price (ie, under ten dollars), having a higher priced tier would be a really bad idea (are there any streaming services that put content into a higher priced tier?).

[Bix]

7 hours ago, JRH said:

With most current streaming services focusing more on price (ie, under ten dollars), having a higher priced tier would be a really bad idea (are there any streaming services that put content into a higher priced tier?).

Hulu has tiering, but I think that's only for removing ads.

[Matt D]

A reminder that a year ago at this time we were getting a 12 days of Xmas hidden gem drop. 

[Ricky Jackson]

2019 truly has been the worst year in WWE history 

[SirEdger]

Worst than 1995?

[Ricky Jackson]

There wasn't a Hidden Gems to be canceled in 1995 

[paul sosnowski]

I am still extremely pissed about this 

[Lee]

7 hours ago, Ricky Jackson said:

There wasn't a Hidden Gems to be canceled in 1995 

There was a kind-of Hidden Gems in the UK in 1997. After Raw went to two hours but we still got it on Friday nights, they had to pad out the run time because of how many more commercials the US had compared to the UK, so they would play out a classic match every week in the middle of the show (I *think* this ended because the overruns got long enough that they had enough footage to fill the two-hour window regardless of the extra commercial time). 

The problem was that in 1997, the WWF wasn't really interested in its history, and had these weird parameters in place where they wouldn't feature anyone still on TV (since it made them look "old", presumably, hence no no jarring footage of young lad Bret or happy smiling Shawn, etc), nothing from anyone who was persona-non-grata (i.e. Bruno plus anyone currently in WCW), and I think it *might* have extended to anyone who was dead, since I don't remember seeing any André on there either.

Long story short, you can probably imagine just how thrilled a 13-year old me was when my weekly late-night dose of Steve Austin raising hell and going to war with The Hart Foundation was interrupted with yet another nostalgia-less plodding 1970s WWF snoozer from the back catalogues of Ivan Putski or Stan Stasiak, from an era long before the WWF was even on TV over here. 
 

Of course, nowadays I'd actually prefer it the other way around, two hours of retro content with maybe ten minutes of modern Raw spliced in. Hopefully there ends up being yet another behind-the-scenes change and the archive content comes back stronger. It's really off-putting to me to have such large gapes in all the libraries and single missing episodes dotted throughout. 

[gordi]

18 minutes ago, Lee said:

... two hours of retro content with maybe ten minutes of modern Raw spliced in. 

 

That sounds great. I would absolutely watch that.

[Migs]

6 hours ago, gordi said:

 

That sounds great. I would absolutely watch that.

Would any NWA Power viewer complain if the show rolled straight into an hour of classic Houston matches from the library they own?

[Robert S]

10 hours ago, Lee said:

There was a kind-of Hidden Gems in the UK in 1997. After Raw went to two hours but we still got it on Friday nights, they had to pad out the run time because of how many more commercials the US had compared to the UK, so they would play out a classic match every week in the middle of the show (I *think* this ended because the overruns got long enough that they had enough footage to fill the two-hour window regardless of the extra commercial time). 

The problem was that in 1997, the WWF wasn't really interested in its history, and had these weird parameters in place where they wouldn't feature anyone still on TV (since it made them look "old", presumably, hence no no jarring footage of young lad Bret or happy smiling Shawn, etc), nothing from anyone who was persona-non-grata (i.e. Bruno plus anyone currently in WCW), and I think it *might* have extended to anyone who was dead, since I don't remember seeing any André on there either.

Long story short, you can probably imagine just how thrilled a 13-year old me was when my weekly late-night dose of Steve Austin raising hell and going to war with The Hart Foundation was interrupted with yet another nostalgia-less plodding 1970s WWF snoozer from the back catalogues of Ivan Putski or Stan Stasiak, from an era long before the WWF was even on TV over here. 
 

Of course, nowadays I'd actually prefer it the other way around, two hours of retro content with maybe ten minutes of modern Raw spliced in. Hopefully there ends up being yet another behind-the-scenes change and the archive content comes back stronger. It's really off-putting to me to have such large gapes in all the libraries and single missing episodes dotted throughout. 

Didn't they even have a dedicated TV show around that time containing mostly of late 70ies and early 80ies stuff? Because some of that stuff ended up on German TV as well.

[Stiva]

I want to say it was called WWE Vintage? I remember it showing before PPVs and after Raw.

[SirEdger]

In Canada, we used to have WWE Vintage and NXT on SN360 on Friday nights. Those were the days, man.

[JRH]

In England, they apparently had WWF Classics in the early 2000s which showed eps of Wrestling Challenge from 87-88.

[RingoPlaysDrums]

WWE Vintage/Vintage Collection replaced Heat in 2008 in the UK and was on for years, presented by Mean Gene. Finished in 2014 apparently, with Renee Young taking over from Okerlund at the end of the run.