WCW on WWE Network

[pennywisealfie]

Yeah, WCW was on channel 9 on Saturday afternoons in the early 90s. I vividly remember Ric Flair, Sting and Johnny B Badd on the shows. Never really got into it until I got cable in 98. My first episode was a week after Halloween Havoc. Watched it every weekend until the end.

 

[Manurewa_Marlins]

For us in NZ, when I started watching, Channel 4 had WWF Superstars on a Saturday at 8.30pm and Orange (which became Sky1) had WCW Worldwide maybe a little later. Later TV2 got WCW Pro Wrestling International and that was run really late.

WWF moved to Friday nights and was a condensed version of Raw and TV2 began running a condensed Nitro. Both channels ran PPVs for free but We were a few months behind so most of us had already seen em on vhs or read the results in PWI or Powerslam.

Eventually when Sky launched satellite TV, TNT broadcasted Nitro which was in the New logo era and I remember it being long and boring. WCW ppvs were available to purchase for 20bucks and WWF ppvs followed soon after in the early 2000s. They weren't live though which was weird looking back.

Finally, when free to air companies sacked wrestling all together, WWF Smackdown debuted on Sky 1, and they eventually got Raw too which I believe is still the case now.

For a while Impact was on the tele too but cant remember who was showing it.

 

[Valheru]

Pretty sure the WCW on channel 9 on a Sat arvo was pre-Nitro days but could be wrong.

On a side note, does anyone remember WWF PPVs being free on Foxsports in the late 90s, I vividly remember Summerslam 1998 being on there but not sure if any others were.

 

[The Vaulting Violinist]

Pretty sure the WCW on channel 9 on a Sat arvo was pre-Nitro days but could be wrong.

On a side note, does anyone remember WWF PPVs being free on Foxsports in the late 90s, I vividly remember Summerslam 1998 being on there but not sure if any others were.

mmmm possibly for a brief period of time. I had fox from august 96 and yeh, it rings a bell

 

[The Vaulting Violinist]

TNT showed Nitro on Sat Night at 4-5am. Well that's the one I remember taping every week religiously from August 1996. First PPV I remember was Road Wild '96. NWO was just starting to pick up steam, f**k it was great. Was not smart to the business back then so wondered if it was real....

I also watched WCW Worldwide on Fox Sports on Tuesday afternoons (maybe 4 or 5pm?) after school. That wasn't a bad show, usually had recaps of the nitro from the week before. Although occasionally they buggered it up, and you'd see clips from a Nitro that hadn't aired in Australia yet. Actually...I think Nitro was at least a week behind in the early days....maybe two?

PPVs were $30-$40, I remember begging my parents to order them. Although in the very early days I think they were shown free on fox sports (seem to remember watching road wild on fox sports free in 1996). Pretty sure up until souled out in maybe 97 they were on fox sports.

WWE I don't remember as much about. Was always a big WCW fan. They eventually got raw on fox in 97-98, but didn't really watch it.

I would also get ECW tapes from the local video store. Very random but they had quite a few of them, as well as Japanese wrestling PPVs.

 

[The Vaulting Violinist]

Do you one better
Favourite WCW stars? Limit of 5.

jaysus that is tough. OK

Sting (Crow version - f**k the Wolfpack version)
Raven
DDP
Benoit
Scott Hall

Really hard to do this. If I could increase to 10

Booker T
Scott Steiner
Saturn
Jericho
Nash

HM to AA, Malenko, Guerrero, Macho and 100 others

 

[Valheru]

WWE I don't remember as much about. Was always a big WCW fan. They eventually got raw on fox in 97-98, but didn't really watch it.

I would also get ECW tapes from the local video store. Very random but they had quite a few of them, as well as Japanese wrestling PPVs.

They definitely had RAW on fox sports by 1997 at the latest although it was a good month behind, which is bizarre since obviously the PPVs were live.

I know this because I distinctly remember watching the RAW from 1997 where they replayed the Royal Rumble match in the 2nd hour.

RE: Tapes - WWF always released tapes out here ever since I remember. The original wrestlemania which predates my birth was in the video stores.

I would be interested if anyone knows or remembers the history of WCW tapes out here. I am quite positive that nothing prior to Bash at the Beach 1998 was available here and nothing post Fall Brawl 2000 as well but in the back of my mind I do remember a 1994 (I think) show being available. It was one of the original bash at the beaches (perhaps it was called beach blast) which was actually held on a beach so perhaps they had a distributor for PAL for a brief period in 1994 and then nothing until 1998?

 

[The Vaulting Violinist]

They definitely had RAW on fox sports by 1997 at the latest although it was a good month behind, which is bizarre since obviously the PPVs were live.

I know this because I distinctly remember watching the RAW from 1997 where they replayed the Royal Rumble match in the 2nd hour.

RE: Tapes - WWF always released tapes out here ever since I remember. The original wrestlemania which predates my birth was in the video stores.

I would be interested if anyone knows or remembers the history of WCW tapes out here. I am quite positive that nothing prior to Bash at the Beach 1998 was available here and nothing post Fall Brawl 2000 as well but in the back of my mind I do remember a 1994 (I think) show being available. It was one of the original bash at the beaches (perhaps it was called beach blast) which was actually held on a beach so perhaps they had a distributor for PAL for a brief period in 1994 and then nothing until 1998?

mmmm good question. yeh the original bash at the beaches were called beach blast. 94 was hogan vs Vader in a cage on Long Beach from memory.

I can't remember seeing wcw tapes. there was a lot of pirating going on off fox sports, but yeh, on official tape....can't say I remember it.

 

[Shaun Hewitt]

Ahh the old video store.

I have vivid memories of every school holidays, going to the local Video Ezy store.
They'd have a deal of something like 6 weekly videos for 10$ or something similar.

I'd stock up on WCW and WWF PPVS (typically wCw, and older Survivor Series/Rumbles or WM)

This would be around 1999 - early 2000s

Good times, good times

 

[Shaun Hewitt]

For us in NZ, when I started watching, Channel 4 had WWF Superstars on a Saturday at 8.30pm and Orange (which became Sky1) had WCW Worldwide maybe a little later. Later TV2 got WCW Pro Wrestling International and that was run really late.

WWF moved to Friday nights and was a condensed version of Raw and TV2 began running a condensed Nitro. Both channels ran PPVs for free but We were a few months behind so most of us had already seen em on vhs or read the results in PWI or Powerslam.

Eventually when Sky launched satellite TV, TNT broadcasted Nitro which was in the New logo era and I remember it being long and boring. WCW ppvs were available to purchase for 20bucks and WWF ppvs followed soon after in the early 2000s. They weren't live though which was weird looking back.

Finally, when free to air companies sacked wrestling all together, WWF Smackdown debuted on Sky 1, and they eventually got Raw too which I believe is still the case now.

For a while Impact was on the tele too but cant remember who was showing it.

That's right!!

I remember all of this!

I remember being like 8 years old watching World War 3. If I remember correctly, it was on Channel 2, possibly 4 could be wrong.

The memories are all flooding back

 

[Iafeta]

Sure it was channel 2... I lived on the West Coast back then and we had the wonderful choice of TV one, channel 2, and TV3. Quite creative with the names.

Iirc Nitro was on a Friday night. I remember being hot AF going into our dorm room to report to the lads that Sting was in the nWo. This was because the shows were months behind and very few of us really used the internet so having access on my brothers computer gave me a heads up.

 

[The Vaulting Violinist]

I remember using Internet forums since maybe 97-98....always wrestling in the early days. probably the first time I came across and thought about being a troll. good times

 

[Iafeta]

I remember search engines like Altavista and Lycos. Every man and their dog had a geocities site. The climatic anticipation of finding the Playboy photo of Kimberly Page and it downloading over a number of seconds after having done the dial up cocophany of sound. I remember the very very basic wcwwrestling.com site.

Indeed good times.

 

[The Vaulting Violinist]

I remember search engines like Altavista and Lycos. Every man and their dog had a geocities site. The climatic anticipation of finding the Playboy photo of Kimberly Page and it downloading over a number of seconds after having done the dial up cocophany of sound. I remember the very very basic wcwwrestling.com site.

Indeed good times.

haha classic. so true. god, I remember those anonymous poll websites that were around in the early days. one was created at school and people started asking questions like who was the biggest whore in our year. they didn't let long when the teachers found out haha

 

[Iafeta]

I’m sure before we got Nitro we had WCW Pro. You might as well have called it the Public Enemy memorial tribute show. They were on every episode and boogied with the crowd every time.

 

[Manurewa_Marlins]

and Scott f**king Norton

 

[The Vaulting Violinist]

haha and prince iaukea

 

[Manurewa_Marlins]

I had a mate who was smart back then and he would tell me how Scott Norton was an absolute killer in japan and a huge star. Then we'd get him tagging with f**king Virgil.

 

[Iafeta]

They’re both quite interesting.

Norton debuted on the first nitro, the night of Lugers surprise. He immediately got into a confrontation with Macho Man. Shortly thereafter however he is in Fire and Ice tagging with Ice Train. They’re basically kept strong to be jobbers to the stars in the tag division. I guess in Japan, Norton was genuinely over as a power foreign heel in Japan where power moves popped the crowd. In WCW I don’t think it got over so much. I wonder whether he’d have been better in the role of Vincent in the nWo, instead not a lackey, but an outside manager who could genuinely influence outcomes to draw heat.

Prince Iuakea got his run because he was a decent worker but more so because he was a top bloke. According to Kevin Sullivan, he booked Prince to win the TV Title to show to the locker room that the good locker room guys could get a run as well. I’ve watched Prince a lot, he is actually a good worker. What he lacked imo is that he didn’t stop from a move, sell it, and get the crowd involved. It was quite smooth, perhaps too smooth. Listening to Sullivan, he said the same of Brad Armstrong. Excellent worker, but couldn’t get crowds popping because he lacked the right facial expressions so it wasn’t being sold right. If either of those guys had Ricky Morton’s ability to sell, I think they could have been good midcard talents.

 

[Valheru]

I thought TAFKA PI was quite a good gimmick and he had some decent matches in early 2000 as well.