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WWE NETWORK GENERAL DISCUSSION THREAD


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The livestream on my Xbox 360 was pretty much unwatchable it lagged and skipped so much.  Ever since I got a Roku 3 and hardwired it, I haven't had a single issue.  Seems to run even better than it does on my laptop.

 

I bingewatched Swerved the other day and I enjoyed most of it.  Seemed like each episode had one worthy bit and a bunch of filler.  But "Lunch with the Ascension" should absolutely be a weekly network special.

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I might be overrating this episode, but the first RAW of '97 is great. Three very good matches in Mankind/Owen, Furnas and LaFon/Razor and Diesel, and Vader/Bret.

These interference finishes that they are running are genuinely awesome. Sid comes out during the last match, which has HBK getting all salty on commentary, and grabs the cameraman. As he drags the cameraman to the back, Austin flashes past, stuns Bret in the aisle, and leads to Vader getting a pin via Vaderbomb. Vader has beaten Bret and HBK in the last two months.

Meanwhile, in the back, Sid has the cameraman carch him powerbomb Jose Lothario's son on an unforgiving table, and Shawn has to cut off his gloating to run to the back. Each week, we get chaos, but it never feels cheap, tiresome, or overbooked. This 1/6/97 RAW is now a favorite.

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Thoughts on WrestleMania XI

 

Lex Luger and Davey Boy Smith got some momentum from their win over Jacob & Eli Blu, but in typical Luger fashion, it wasn't enough to eventually result in a title reign. I used to announce for a group called the Allied Powers Wrestling Federation, which was named after this team and was supposed to feature them on occasion. I don't think that ever happened. Later, the group changed its named to APWF 2000 and kept that name after 2000 had ended, which I'm sure some luchadors would appreciate.

 

King Kong Bundy is an also-ran when people discuss Undertaker's streak, but he does have some serious WrestleMania credentials: setting the quickest-pin record at WM 1, main eventing WM 2, and squashing poor Little Beaver at WM 3.

 

The fans reacted to everything Yokozuna did, simply based on his size, even though he had been around for 2 1/2 years. It was like an arena full of Art Donovans.

 

Sid's screaming backstage promo startled Jenny McCarthy, who then started laughing at Sid's over-the-top intensity.

 

Like Bret Hart's SummerSlam cage match, the psychology of his I Quit match against Bob Backlund was all wrong. Since Piper has been through the wars, including with Bret at WM 8, he should have only stuck the mic in the wrestlers' faces when they were really on the verge of quitting. Of course, Piper never met a mic he didn't like.

 

Some people say Shawn Michaels tried to steal Diesel's spotlight, but anyone trying to make this show better gets my approval.

 

Bam Bam Bigelow is the MVP of the show. He put over a non-wrestler in the main event of the biggest show and carried him to a passable match.  He even got into it with Salt & Pepa on the way to the ring. Even in defeat, this was the peak of Bam Bam's career.

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Thoughts on In Your House

 

Bret Hart is the MVP of this show, carrying it with multiple matches as he has done in the past. I love how he faked an injury at the end of the Hakushi match in order to get Lawler to drop his guard. Of course, Lawler did a great job of trying to get his match with Bret going to capitalize on the "injury."

 

Poor Aldo Montoya was unable to save Razor Ramon from a double-team attack by Jeff Jarrett and The Roadie, but some guy out of the crowd handled the job with no problem (the debuting Savio Vega).

 

Mabel squished Adam Bomb in under two minutes. Despite Adam's impressive look and kid-friendly gimmick, he didn't get very far as a heel or a babyface.

 

I don't get why Jerry Lawler had a woman in her 20s posing as his mother on Mother's Day.

 

A disqualification in the Diesel-Sid main event welcomed us to the monthly-PPV era. Don't expect everything to be wrapped up...tune in next month!

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Thoughts on King of the Ring 95

 

This may not be the worst-booked show in WWE history, but it's certainly near the top when it comes to not giving the fans what they want. We could have had the first Shawn-Undertaker singles match in the semifinals. We also could have had Shawn vs. 1-2-3 Kid in the finals.

 

Instead, we got FOUR Savio Vega matches and no championships on the line at all. We were only introduced to the Savio Vega character one month earlier, and Vince was literally pushing him as a Rocky Balboa story, even showing the statue outside the arena. Think about it: would you have ordered a pay-per-view a few months earlier with four Kwang matches?

 

Bob Holly had some good fired-up babyface moves, but his race-car driver gimmick would have been more at home in WCW.

 

Shawn Michaels was not happy after wrestling for 15 minutes and drawing with Kama. This was one show that he did not "stop."

 

Undertaker's loss to Mabel was good evidence that he was no longer invincible without the urn. Vince mentioned it on commentary, but it could have been a much bigger deal that Taker would have to deal with being somewhat "mortal."

 

Mabel gets the MVP award, simply because he wrestled twice and went almost 20 minutes total. He and Mo also made a good transition into heel-dom, as Mo was drawing out the coronation speech and getting good heat from the crowd.

 

I totally forgot about Bam Bam Bigelow's flame-throwin' babyface fire suit. I'm sure Ricky Steamboat, watching at home, said, "Yeah, that'll get over."

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we got FOUR Savio Vega matches and no championships on the line at all. We were only introduced to the Savio Vega character one month earlier, and Vince was literally pushing him as a Rocky Balboa story, even showing the statue outside the arena. Think about it: would you have ordered a pay-per-view a few months earlier with four Kwang matches?

 

i was always a fan of Savio Vega. not really sure why. i'm not Puerto Rican nor from the Bronx. He's not the greatest wrestler (although he's certainly capable of good matches). He's not that great on the mic.

doesn't matter. if he showed up in the Rumble this year, i'd still root for him.

 

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So, now that they've pretty much abandoned the "netflix of wrestling" concept as they have decided not to upload the territory stuff, are they just going to sit on the libraries to keep other people from getting them? It seems like a shame to own them and not use them.

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So, now that they've pretty much abandoned the "netflix of wrestling" concept as they have decided not to upload the territory stuff, are they just going to sit on the libraries to keep other people from getting them? It seems like a shame to own them and not use them.

 

Yeah, without a lot more territorial stuff, I don't watch the Network enough to bother with, even though I'd probably still get my money's worth.  Still a lot of stuff I'd watch on the Network, but I prefer to deal with my usual sources to get that stuff on DVD.

 

Hilariously, I kinda hate to buy a PPV these days.  It doesn't really make economic sense since, if you're going to buy 2 or 3 PPV's a year, you might as well subscribe just for that.  But, since they spent months basically calling fans who bought PPV's idiots, I kinda hate to prove them right and reward them for idiocy. 

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So, now that they've pretty much abandoned the "netflix of wrestling" concept as they have decided not to upload the territory stuff, are they just going to sit on the libraries to keep other people from getting them? It seems like a shame to own them and not use them.

I think thats what i expected to happen all along. And why i never got it. :)

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When I posted about the buffering issues, I tweeted to the Network support team and got a quick response.  They gathered some basic information and said they'd work on it.  The next day Alvarez gets tons of tweets saying it's not buffering anymore.  I don't know if they saw his tweets and acted on it or something else they saw.  But it is smooth as can be now.  Have no issues now watching any of the old stuff.

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I'm thinking about starting a thread focused on the key players from Bret's return in '96 through the Montreal screwjob. Mostly going in-depth on anything involving Bret, Austin and Michaels.

 

I was rewatching a couple segments from late '96 and there's some really interesting details especially in the commentary. I stumbled upon this one random little RAW segment where Vince is at the commentary table and he's looking all serious. He proceeds to lecture us on why Shawn Michaels is a man's man. There's also a noticeable shift in how they react to Austin's antics on commentary and it started earlier than I remembered.

 

Looking for suggestions on a thread title and if there's anyone else I should be focused on?

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The first seed that was planted that I remember was on the 7/22/96 RAW when Austin on commentary said he had an open challenge to anyone including Bret Hart.  And Vince made him repeat it just to make sure the fans caught it.

 

That also features one of Austin's first great off-the-cuff remarks:

 

"Wildman Marc Mero.  That's one of the stupidest names I've ever heard.  Y'all do a lot of stupid things around here.  A long time ago you painted a school bus red, white and blue and drove someone around to shake hands and kiss babies.  Why don't you paint me up a school bus and let me go around the country and anytime someone shows up, I whip their ASS!  How 'bout we do that, huh?  THAT wouldn't be stupid."

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I've managed to get through around 40 episodes of 1997 RAW in the last month or two, and it's been a wild ride.  I've got two more episodes of the year and I'm already put off by DX for most of what they do.  I get that their gimmick was to be guys who fucked around and didn't take much seriously but they go a little too far in just getting themselves over.  Screw everyone else.  I get it, they're known for that kind of shit but it's just very irritating.  I used to love them, as a kid/teen, but looking back they were terrible for business.  I've still got 3 or so months of these idiots left.

 

Also, I find Chyna oddly attractive.

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I rewatched Buried Alive over the weekend and HBK is absolutely wasted while he's doing commentary for Sid/Vader. He's just spouting off random lines that make no sense while Vince and Lawler try to commentate around him. It's like Art Donavan levels of bad. I was surprised he didn't start asking how much did those guys weigh.

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I rewatched Buried Alive over the weekend and HBK is absolutely wasted while he's doing commentary for Sid/Vader. He's just spouting off random lines that make no sense while Vince and Lawler try to commentate around him. It's like Art Donavan levels of bad. I was surprised he didn't start asking how much did those guys weigh.

Was his dark match title defense pre or post ppv? Also, what was the idea of having your champion do a dark match?

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I rewatched Buried Alive over the weekend and HBK is absolutely wasted while he's doing commentary for Sid/Vader. He's just spouting off random lines that make no sense while Vince and Lawler try to commentate around him. It's like Art Donavan levels of bad. I was surprised he didn't start asking how much did those guys weigh.

Was his dark match title defense pre or post ppv? Also, what was the idea of having your champion do a dark match?

 

 

According to wikipedia it was a match with Goldust after that ppv. That had to be a clusterfuck b/c he was noticeably drunk and/or pilled up.

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Watched the Bulldog vs HBK match from One Night Only 97 on the Kliq influential matches/moments show.   Knowing the story behind it and how Michaels got the title, it has to be the ultimate in scumbag D-X Michaels moments and there were plenty.   Given how much people hated him during this time I can only imagine the backlash

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Thoughts on In Your House 2

 

The Roadie beat the 1-2-3 Kid with a botched piledriver off the second rope, but still it was a piledriver off the second rope. Then he casually went back to his "regular job" of being Jeff Jarrett's roadie. I'm surprised we didn't see more of that after matches: Duke Droese riding away on a garbage truck or TL Hopper trudging off to the bathroom to plunge a toilet. Add Roadie's dancing, bragging on the WWF Hotline, and positioning to feud with Jarrett, and he's your MVP.

 

Sir Mo is wearing a crown and royal robe just like King Mabel. I guess everyone forgot that knights don't wear crowns. Being Mabel's Mini-Me makes him look like Sleazy, Queasy & Cheesy.

 

The fans were more into Henry Godwinn as a heel than they were into Bam Bam Bigelow as a babyface, so that experiment failed quickly. 

 

Jeff Jarrett's musical performance was a rare occasion when a heel is set up to be humiliated, but then it just doesn't happen. Vince and some of the fans had to admit that he did a pretty good job. It was obvious that Jarrett was lip-synching, but the idea was that it was Jarrett's own voice.

 

After Jarrett lost the IC title to Michaels, Dok Hendrix cut a babbling promo about how Jarrett and Roadie got into a fight after the match. They were both in the building, and this was a pro wrestling show, so why didn't we actually see them fight?

 

Triple H made his WWF pay-per-view debut as one of the lumberjacks in the Diesel-Sid main event, joining such luminaries as Jean-Pierre LaFitte, Man Mountain Rock, Rad Radford and Techno Team 2000.

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I've managed to get through around 40 episodes of 1997 RAW in the last month or two, and it's been a wild ride.  I've got two more episodes of the year and I'm already put off by DX for most of what they do.  I get that their gimmick was to be guys who fucked around and didn't take much seriously but they go a little too far in just getting themselves over.  Screw everyone else.  I get it, they're known for that kind of shit but it's just very irritating.  I used to love them, as a kid/teen, but looking back they were terrible for business.  I've still got 3 or so months of these idiots left.

 

Also, I find Chyna oddly attractive.

 

In his book, Bret said he went backstage to a WWF event in 98 or 99 to visit some old friends and he saw Chyna. He described her as "beautiful in a ghastly sort of way". I think that's the best description of how she looked around that time.

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