WWE NETWORK GENERAL DISCUSSION THREAD

[rzombie1988]

7 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

You're crazy if you believe all of this footage would be better off in the hands of random individuals. 

There's not a situation where their own content wouldn't be first priority. It's not WWE spoon feeding anyone their own version of events. WWE has always been the big dog, New York was always the big dog, therefore, their own footage would always be at the top of the list for most people.

Blaming them because it takes time to sift through random reels labeled "Omni stuff" is so damn ridiculous I can't believe it's even a discussion.

Tape traders have done an excellent job of releasing stuff. No edits, no blurs, no music issues, just footage as it aired. There's full seasons for so much stuff that we may get in another 5-10 years on the network.

There's so much WWE stuff that WWE has they haven't released anywhere. Pretty much all non-Primetime WWF 80's stuff and before..and even the Primetime releases are missing tons of episodes.

[Michael Sweetser]

This thread is proving to me once again that pro wrestling fans, by and large, are never happy with anything.

[rzombie1988]

15 minutes ago, Matt D said:

What are the most exciting footage finds of the last 10 years?

Buddy Rose's Portland collection, the USWA Texas stuff, the Houston tapes, the Luce things that showed up on the Chicago archives, everything dataintcash is posting for old CMLL about 20% of which is new to us, the new AJPW matches that Our Friend in Japan was posting. I'm probably missing a few but what do all of these things have in common? Quantity. That 20% of new CMLL we've gotten out out of dataintcash is maybe what? 50 matches? That one source is more than the sum of the new matches we've gotten from the Network from all of their territories. 

Footage gets purchased by WWE to die in the short and medium terms.

We have:

- Memphis from 1982-end. 2 guys basically gave us most of the footage, one from vhs home recordings. We have complete seasons and almost complete seasons for near 20 years of Memphis.

- WWE aired some of early 80's WWF Championship Wrestling on British Networks that no one else had seen

- Tons of various WWF/NWA seasons from people like landy, bottomlessjack and wrestlingclassics. We have pretty much everything minus All American/Spotlight, which were recap shows.

- Ginnetty gave us a ton of rare Puro including the famous Sato/Kandori shoot

- Bottomlessjacks' 100 Disk GWF and WWC collections

- Watts' various UWF/MS releases giving us most of the run

- The WCCW Supersets and the full run of Legends of World Class, which was 100+ disks

- International Superstars of Wrestling from the WWF which had a bunch of rare stuff.

[Matt D]

Hey, I'm really happy with 1979-80 Portland footage (though I wish the Andre tag match vs Buddy Rose had been taped but it's remarkable what we have due to Buddy's blow-away diet sized ego).

[Technico Support]

I think this is a "more casual but still smart fan" vs "damn near Asperger's level smart fan" argument.  I can pay $10 a month for a decent selection of stuff I grew up with and, once in a  while, cool new stuff is uploaded.  That's fine with me.  Then there are fans who will go to tape traders, scour the Internet, etc.  I don't have that level of obsession regarding wrestling.  I like wrestling a whole lot but my life will still be great if I never see some random match from the Padukah Fairgrounds that the kids in the know are touting.  I will never, ever need 100 disks of UWF wrestling and I remember watching it on TV as a kid.

Nobody is going to convince anybody here that the other way is better.

[rzombie1988]

Just now, Technico Support said:

I think this is a "more casual but still smart fan" vs "damn near Asperger's level smart fan" argument.  I can pay $10 a month for a decent selection of stuff I grew up with and, once in a  while, cool new stuff is uploaded.  That's fine with me.  Then there are fans who will go to tape traders, scour the Internet, etc.  I don't have that level of obsession regarding wrestling.  I like wrestling a whole lot but my life will still be great if I never see some random match from the Padukah Fairgrounds that the kids in the know are touting.  Nobody is going to convince anybody here that the other way is better.

It depends on what you want. It's great if you were a WWF or WCW fan. You're screwed if you were a fan of anything else.

[Niners Fan in CT]

The Network has been in existence for 2 years and if people watch the older content then it becomes more of a priority. They've already put up pretty much all of the ECW content, why? Because it's a big hit. Recently, they've started putting up a lot more NWA..

A big difference between tape trading and the network is that WWE is putting out the content where it can be viewed in the highest possible definition.

[Matt D]

1 minute ago, Technico Support said:

perger's level smart fan" argument.  I can pay $10 a month for a decent selection of stuff I grew up with and, once in a  while, cool new stuff is uploaded.  That's fine with me.  Then there are fans who will go to tape traders, scour the Internet, etc.  I don't have that level of obsession regarding wrestling.  I like wrestling a whole lot but my life will still be great if I never see some random match from the Padukah Fairgrounds that the kids in the know are touting.  Nobody is going to convince anybody here that the other way is better.

Nitro era WCW fan at that.

[Technico Support]

1 minute ago, rzombie1988 said:

It depends on what you want. It's great if you were a WWF or WCW fan. You're screwed if you were a fan of anything else.

You're right, but it's not WWE's moral or business responsibility to work that hard to satisfy a subset of a subset of a subset of fans.

[Matt D]

And that is why I would rather the footage be out in the wild, where it has at least a chance of getting out.

[Niners Fan in CT]

What footage does WWE own that isn't going to be put out? If you're super die hard a lot of the footage is already available. The stuff that's not available well we don't know if they have it or not.. they might not know either because again it takes time. 

You know, I read on some other sites, not here but other places where people were being very very critical of The LaSt Battle of Atlanta. Why should WWE if they read spoiled comments like those hurry up and put up more stuff? Instead of just being super stoked to see the footage, which I loved, you have the hardcores trying to shit on how the match was worked. Really?

[rzombie1988]

8 minutes ago, Matt D said:

And that is why I would rather the footage be out in the wild, where it has at least a chance of getting out.

Yep. You will get the footage if it's out there because someone will want to make money. WWE hasn't even released years of 80's Superstars yet which was only second to the Attitude era.

[rzombie1988]

11 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

What footage does WWE own that isn't going to be put out? If you're super die hard a lot of the footage is already available. The stuff that's not available well we don't know if they have it or not.. they might not know either because again it takes time. 

You know, I read on some other sites, not here but other places where people were being very very critical of The LaSt Battle of Atlanta. Why should WWE if they read spoiled comments like those hurry up and put up more stuff? Instead of just being super stoked to see the footage, which I loved, you have the hardcores trying to shit on how the match was worked. Really?

It's hard to see WWE ever putting out anything from a non-A show from WWE or WCW or anything aside from various one-off's from many regional companies or anything pre-1984ish.

Then we also need to consider the stuff that we don't know they have and the stuff they probably don't even know they have.

LBOA had impossible hype to live up to and it didn't live up to it. No one is trashing WWE for it as it's not their fault, but the match was disappointing. People were expecting MOTD level stuff and I'm not even sure if the Ole Anderson vs Ellering match after wasn't better.

[odessasteps]

18 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

You're right, but it's not WWE's moral or business responsibility to work that hard to satisfy a subset of a subset of a subset of fans.

And thats why (among other reasons) i have not been a network subscriber. 

As i always say, everyone's $ has equal value, but there are more people that want attitude era/nitro/ecw stuff and that is where there is more money to be made for a publicy traded company with shareholders to appease. 

[rzombie1988]

On 9/8/2016 at 11:16 AM, Matt D said:

I have a 12-disc Dangerous Alliance comp. Plus, most of the WCW Pro Chicago episodes are online in one place or another (I love the Chicago centric feuds between Larry and Windham and then Larry and the Dangerous Alliance), and I think most of the Power Hours from that era too. 

It's all out there minus the WCW Pro Chicago eps. Have only ever seen those on Dailymotion.

[Niners Fan in CT]

I disagree I thought the whole 28 minutes was awesome but for those who didn't love it, they should have at least been happy to finally see it. 

They will eventually put up Superstars and all that in very high quality but if you can't wait for it most of it is out there or even all of it. WWE is great for the quality and the easiest access and the ability to stream seamlessly with all devices. I can watch 80s NWA in high quality from my phone while I'm at work I mean come on.

[NikoBaltimore]

There's no wrong way to enjoy the wrestling you like.  If you like the network and are cool with what they have, awesome.  If you seek out DVDs of old shows then that's awesome too.  A lot of us are getting too bent out of shape over this.

Also, is it possible there's more to it than them having all this footage that needs to go up?  Part of it is the demand for stuff like LBOA.  The more people watch that the better they can see that they need to start putting more.  I kind of wonder if they put up incremental releases due to not only spacing it out but also to make sure the servers can handle it.  I'd be curious to see what technical considerations they have to consider when they put up a full year/season's worth of a show.

[Raziel]

Outside of demand, it's video quality.  Depending on the quality of the tape they have, after transferring it, it may look like ass when run, considering the Network feed is using the top codec for 1080p30, lesser quality and old analog video looks near unwatchable.

[rzombie1988]

17 minutes ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I disagree I thought the whole 28 minutes was awesome but for those who didn't love it, they should have at least been happy to finally see it. 

They will eventually put up Superstars and all that in very high quality but if you can't wait for it most of it is out there or even all of it. WWE is great for the quality and the easiest access and the ability to stream seamlessly with all devices. I can watch 80s NWA in high quality from my phone while I'm at work I mean come on.

I heard eventually in the mid-2000's with WWE 24/7 when I was in high school. Might it be released by the time I'm in my 40's?

[Niners Fan in CT]

I understand but that's a little different, they've never had the means that they do now and in two years time they have put up a lot of content, I just hope people continue to watch it. 

[Infinit]

I checked the TV/on demand part of the network for the first time in forever. Was excited to see all the NWA ppv shows from 80s up to Starrcade 89 upload from what I can tell. All of the NXT specials have been uploaded too, and most if not all ECW ppvs. But they also deleted all the Raws and SDs that they used to have up. 

[Gorman]

Thoughts on Survivor Series 96

Bart Gunn's team (Holly, Montoya, Roadie) beat Billy Gunn's team (Bradshaw, Sultan, Sincere) on the pre-show, with Bart pinning Billy to emerge as the sole survivor. Nobody cared about this feud, and the Rockabilly repackaging was coming up next.

Doug Furnas & Phil Lafon were unfamiliar to the MSG crowd, but they got a good pop for pinning Leif Cassidy, Owen and Bulldog in succession.

If you thought a Buried Alive match would end the Undertaker-Mankind feud, think again. Executioner saved Paul Bearer from getting killed by Undertaker (well, for now) but Taker dispatched him with ease. 

Barry "The Stalker" Windham's fluffy mustache looked like it belonged in 1896, not 1996.

The New York fans actually rallied behind Rocky Maivia, since he had not yet been pushed down their throats.

Bret Hart wins the MVP for his fantastic match with Steve Austin, the perfect opponent for the "safe, yet realistic" style that he prefers. Hart gets the award for coming back from a long layoff without any noticeable ring rust. 

After that great match, it was hilarious to see some guy (Rick Bognar) dressed up as Razor Ramon, followed by Kane (of all people) dressed up as Diesel. 

The camera zoomed back to show the big pop for surprise guest Jimmy Snuka, but it just didn't happen. But give Snuka credit for bodyslamming Vader (!) and pinning Fake Razor with a Superfly splash.

Shawn Michaels really disliked getting booed by the MSG crowd, and he wasn't shy about showing it. Sid got the edge by doing whatever it took to win, in this case, attacking Jose Lothario. It showed the level HBK would have to reach to regain the belt.

 

[Gorman]

Thoughts on In Your House 12: It's Time

Poor Vader wasn't even on the show that was named for him. The only sign that he still worked for the WWF was the announcement that he would face The Undertaker at Royal Rumble.

For the second straight time, Flash Funk's Funkettes had to dance in a very narrow aisle, leaving them vulnerable to the grasping fans.

I don't have any memory of a feud between Austin and Davey Boy Smith, which distracted the Bulldog before and during his tag team title match with Owen against the Fake Outsiders. I think the WWF should have gone all the way and put the belts on the fakes. Wasn't the whole point of the gimmick that the WWF could turn anyone into a star?

Clarence Mason managed Owen and Bulldog and then materialized in the balcony during the next segment with the Nation of Domination. It seemed like he was managing half the heel roster, yet he didn't say a word all night.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley is the MVP of the show. He raised the prestige of the IC title with this title defense against Marc Mero and the one at the Rumble against Goldust. Little did he know that he was getting fattened up to be served to Rocky Maivia.

Undertaker was in little danger of losing to Executioner despite the liberal interference of Mankind, who got put into a straitjacket. Why was one of those handy?

Shawn Michaels did commentary for the Bret-Sid title match. He totally put Bret over as a wrestler while completely burying him as a person. We also saw the beginning of Bret's (U.S.) heel when he attacked HBK.

[RIPPA]

 

[NikoBaltimore]

I've had it with the live stream on the network.  Since it started they've had that annoying thing where it'd pause then either resume where it left off or go right to live moment.  I'm watching CWC final, pretty much at the end of the match and it pauses.  When it plays it goes right past the pin and the reaction.  Took me completely out of the moment and I became super pissed off.

I'm done with live streaming, sticking with On Demand.  And considering it's hooked up to ethernet with damn fine speeds there's no excuse for this.  But you'd think they would have had this figured out by now.  What a shame.