early 90s

[Brian Elliott]

What channel showed UWFi (Bushido) in the 90s? Was it Sky Sports?

"Bushido wrestling" (UWFi) was originally planned to air on Channel 4 in 1994, as they even went as far as to feature the upcoming series on an episode of The Big Breakfast. For whatever reason, it never made it to Channel 4, and was instead picked up by Sky Sports.

[big mickey]

My first proper exposure to ECW was from Bravo in late 1998. Think the first one they ever aired was a half hour time slot featuring Shane Douglas vs Louie Spicolli from 1996.

[Taylorslade]

Just to add a little more info on WCW on DSF, they had a regular timeslot for airing the WCW PPVs, which was always three weeks after they were broadcast in the States. It was great that they aired in such a regular fashion, although there was at least one widely-available TV magazine (the name escapes me) that had listings for all of the foreign channels available on Sky. The first WCW PPV I recall seeing on DSF was Fall Brawl 1993.

 

DSF were aware of their following in the UK, and during one show (I want to say it was Hallowe'en Havoc '94, but don't hold me to that) one of their announcers spoke in English for about 30 seconds, thanking the UK fans for tuning in.

 

I remember there being a kind of wrap up show (news, results etc), during which there was quite a lot of conversations in English. For some reason, I also remember that the same show regularly used the song "Stayin' Alive" for their intro's, credits etc.

 

Personally, I could never get the DSF WCW PPV schedule correct and I always missed them. As hard as I tried, I could never find a reliable source for listings, no matter where I looked and when I did find a TV guide-mag which had listings, they were never correct, as stupid as that sounds now. I tried to translate the information which I got from the TV ads on DSF itself, and their teletext page which was in German. I can clearly remember that there was at least three separate occasions when I thought I had got it right, and let the VCR running on record during the night, as I did with the WWF events which were on at the same very late hours which I couldn't stay up for. Every time I done so, I got up the next morning for school and went to check the tape whilst I was getting ready, only to find shit like female powerlifting tournaments and other bollocks which were not the WCW PPV's which I was psyched up for. You better believe I went to school seriously pissed off because of that.

 

It wasn't just me, though, because my mate from school who was also a die-hard wrestling fan, he could never catch them either. I'm sure that will probably sound daft to some people, and they might've found them easily, but believe me when I say that if I could've found them, then I would've been one happy teenager at that point, because around that time, I had two major wrestling wishes that I wanted badly, and they were ; 1 - ECW to get a UK TV deal (this was before the Bravo days), and 2 - For me to be able to see WCW PPV's in the same way which we could see their WWF counterparts.

 

Does anyone know why WCW PPV's were not shown in the UK? Was it something to do with TV rights and legal bollocks? Or was it something that was never really pushed? Personally, during those great few years in the late 90's, as great as it was on friday nights for me with Nitro/Thunder/Raw during the same night, I always felt that it was spolied a little on the WCW side of things, because the big events were missing from the timetable, and it prevented me from really being able to get excited about an upcoming match or angle, because I knew I didn't have much chance of seeing the PPV which it was building to.

 

My first proper exposure to ECW was from Bravo in late 1998. Think the first one they ever aired was a half hour time slot featuring Shane Douglas vs Louie Spicolli from 1996.

 

The ECW content on Bravo pretty much consisted of stuff from 1996-1997 when they first started showing on Bravo, and I think it took them a while to catch up. I'm not certain about this, but I seem to remember that in the weeks leading up to the first time they were "up to date", that they showed the stuff from 96/97 quite intensively in some sort of marathon format which lasted a few weeks. Although, I could be completly mistaken there as my memory of the ECW/Bravo deal is a bit shit really. On a side note, I don't seem to remember anything pre-1996 being on Bravo either.

[jonnybgoode82]

I didn't get Sky until 1994 but I remember there being tonnes of wrestling on every week.

 

I would watch or tape the following:

 

WWF

Mania - 12pm on a Saturday (when it was a must-see show because we didn't get RAW)

Superstars - 5pm on a Saturday

Challenge - 12pm on a Sunday

All-American - 5pm on a Sunday

 

Then they changed All-American to Action Zone in October 1994 and Challenge just became even more redundant than it was.

 

RAW began to be shown in September 1995, originally at 5pm on a Thursday I think but they used to mess the timeslot around loads. I always wondered whether the deal to show RAW was agreed because the Monday Night Wars were starting up and when TNT got around to showing WCW in the UK, it was a free-to-air channel that you could view with just a box and no card.

 

RTL2 was a German channel that showed WWF as well. Sometimes you would get an extra bonus match thrown in there that we didn't have.

 

PPVs were on the Tuesday after (WMX, KOTR 94 & SummerSlam 94) before they started showing them live on Sky Sports from Survivor Series 1994 onwards (apart from the IYH events, which always seemed to come out very quickly on VHS over here) until Survivor Series 1996, which was on tape delay on the Thursday I recall. It went back to being live from Mania 13.

 

Then they would throw in one-off specials as well. WWF Christmas Mania in 1996 was IYH: It's Time and highlights from the UK Express tour. Fab 4 was the interviews with Bret, Davey, HBK & Taker.

 

The UK PPVs started with One Night Only before they became a twice annual thing.

 

WCW

Originally on DSF, Friday, Saturday and Monday nights was the time.

 

Every Saturday you would get WCW Saturday Night that was about 2-4 weeks behind. PPVs were also shown on a Saturday night for free.

 

On a Monday they would show Nitro on 2-4 week delay and the Clash of the Champions cards.

 

Friday was WCW Pro and Worldwide and sometimes they would throw in the Main Event, which I think screened on a Sunday in the US.

 

Then in 1997/98 they acquired rights to WWF and ECW and the Monday show turned into just a massive recap of events and was on pretty much all through the night. Friday nights were WWF and Saturdays were WCW at this point.

 

Their New Year's Eve WCW extravaganza was a thing of beauty from what I can recall.

 

TNT picked up Nitro in mid-1996 I recall. Think the first one I saw was the Giant-Ric Flair that wasn't the title change. It used to air at 7pm but then they kept putting it back the longer Cartoon Network ran.

 

Thunder started on Saturdays but then moved to after Nitro on a Friday.

 

AAA/CMLL

They seemed to alternate these from what I can recall. Originally 3-5pm on a Saturday afternoon, that then changed to 2 hours of each on a Sunday afternoon, 1-5pm on Galavision

 

NJPW

This was on Eurosport and was on Thursdays at 8pm. Seemed to run for a while then go off and come back periodically.

 

UWFI

Bushido was on Sky Sports at 10pm on Saturdays but don't recall it lasting long.

 

ECW

Seem to remember Bravo picking this up in 1998 but the shows were quite far behind.

 

Even though the business over here was in the toilet between say 1994 and 1997, it was an excellent time to be a fan of wrestling because there was so much TV coverage of so many different promotions and styles. A good week in the UK back in late-1994 and I could watch the big US 2, Lucha and Puro and then take in some BritWres down the road on a Sunday night.

[DJ Kris]

WWF @ Augusta, GA - Civic Center - March 9, 1993 (8,000; sell out)

Hulk Hogan & Brutus Beefcake (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated the Beverly Brothers when Hogan pinned Beau after hitting him with Hart's megaphone (Grudges, Gripes, & Grunts)

What? Does that mean the match was actually released? I need to get hold of this!!!!

 

WWF @ Lakeland, FL - Civic Center - March 19, 1993 (2,400)

Hulk Hogan & Brutus Beefcake defeated WWF Tag Team Champions Ted Dibiase & IRS in a non-title match when Hogan pinned IRS (Added by me: A bit odd having this match so close to Wrestlemania 9)

It really wasn't unusual for guys to face off on house shows prior to a big PPV, helps with the match. I'm actually more suprised by the poor attendence.

[bobby dazzler]

The best thing about WWF and WCW shown on the German channels was that they rarely commentated over the ring entrance music. So a saddo like me could get a fairly decent audio of most of the ring music's of the time, albeit with a little bit of crowd noise over the top.

[sockospice]

Just to add a little more info on WCW on DSF, they had a regular timeslot for airing the WCW PPVs, which was always three weeks after they were broadcast in the States. It was great that they aired in such a regular fashion, although there was at least one widely-available TV magazine (the name escapes me) that had listings for all of the foreign channels available on Sky. The first WCW PPV I recall seeing on DSF was Fall Brawl 1993.

 

DSF were aware of their following in the UK, and during one show (I want to say it was Hallowe'en Havoc '94, but don't hold me to that) one of their announcers spoke in English for about 30 seconds, thanking the UK fans for tuning in.

 

Was the magazine Satellite TV Europe? I seem to remember Fin Martin did a wrestling column in it as well.

 

I do remember DSF thanking the UK fans for watching, can't remember which show though.

[PowerButchi]

- Check the jumper on Nic Heldt.

[Phil Jones]

"Bushido wrestling" (UWFi) was originally planned to air on Channel 4 in 1994, as they even went as far as to feature the upcoming series on an episode of The Big Breakfast. For whatever reason, it never made it to Channel 4, and was instead picked up by Sky Sports.

 

Yep, I remeber tuning in one morning to see Yoji Anjoh of all people on The Big Breakfast.

[lightningxlock]

Does anybody know when DSF started airing the WCW PPV's? Somebody mentioned as far back as Fall Brawl '93. The first event I caught on there was Starrcade '94 for sure. Being a young kid and so utterly obsessed with wrestling it blew my mind. I've got nobody but my dad to thank for finding WCW on there and thus finding out when each show was on and recording most of it for me. If it wasn't for him, id've probably never known with being so young.

 

It was awesome later on watching Nitro on TNT when they'd be discussing the previous nights PPV and you knew you only had afew weeks to wait before you could see it yourself

[Alan Wrigglesworth]

Like others my family couldn't afford SKY back in the day. I remember my parents returning home from the flee market with a massive dish and sobbing my little heart out after learning that we wouldn't be getting it after all. It wasn't all doom and gloom though. I used to have my tea on Saturday and Sunday evenings at my aunties so I could watch WWF and Super Sunday. My cousin also had a draw full of tapes, magazines and figures. Whenever we went up to visit him I used to steal them and stuff them down my pants.

[Brian Elliott]

Was the magazine Satellite TV Europe?

That rings a bell! (no pun intended)

[Brian Elliott]

Does anybody know when DSF started airing the WCW PPV's? Somebody mentioned as far back as Fall Brawl '93.

That was the first one I saw.

[Big Benny HG]

Does anybody know when DSF started airing the WCW PPV's? Somebody mentioned as far back as Fall Brawl '93. The first event I caught on there was Starrcade '94 for sure. Being a young kid and so utterly obsessed with wrestling it blew my mind. I've got nobody but my dad to thank for finding WCW on there and thus finding out when each show was on and recording most of it for me. If it wasn't for him, id've probably never known with being so young.

 

It was awesome later on watching Nitro on TNT when they'd be discussing the previous nights PPV and you knew you only had afew weeks to wait before you could see it yourself

It was definitely around then - first one I saw on there was Hallowe'en Havoc '93. They were showing the Clash of the Champions specials well before that though.

 

I was always a big WCW fan due to it being the only wrestling on terrestrial TV before we got Sky in the spring of 1992, but Tyne Tees stopped showing it in late 1992/early 1993, so my WCW coverage was limited to WCW Magazine. Then, after spotting an obscure "Wrestling" listing against one of the foreign channel listings in a TV guide, I checked it out and was overjoyed to discover it was up-to-date WCW, right in the middle of the Sting-Bulldog-Vader-Sid stuff.

 

Stumbled across Eurosport's coverage of old NJPW stuff in 1994ish by accident too, while channel flicking at my Aunty's house. "That's New Japan Pro Wrestling!!" I excitedly exclaimed to my cousins, recognising the wrestlers and ring from photos in WCW Magazine and Powerslam. Their coverage consisted of random compilations of footage from anywhere in the early-to-mid 90s and must have lasted a good few years before it disappeared. As some have noted, more recent coverage was shown on the channel again 4-5 years ago.

 

I went looking for wrestling on Galavision in the summer of 1994 after someone at school proclaimed they had seen some "Spanish wrestling" on the channel, it was called "A-A-A" and "Jake the Snake was on it". I saw mention of it in Powerslam too. I didn't know the phrase 'lucha libre' at that point, so one Saturday I just left the channel on all day until I saw an advert for the wrestling "after the break". Jumped with joy. Watched it every week from that point on and fell in love with it. Was originally 2 hours of AAA on a Saturday afternoon, but expanded to show half AAA, half EMLL in about 1995(?) before disappearing in 1997.

[PowerButchi]

Did Tyne Tees not get networked WCW Worldwide on Saturday afternoons?