Any WCW fans on here?

[The Reverend]

The WCW thing on TV is a bit of a muddle as back in the early 90's ITV was so regionalised.

I certainly remember catching bits of WCW/NWA in the early - mid part of 1990, and distinctly remember watching a Doom match. Then in 1991 (from around the middle of the year) we had WCW Pro (I think that's what it was called) on at about 2am on a Sunday morning on Anglia TV. I would tape it and get up extra early on a Sunday morning to watch it. It always seemed like a 'B' show featuring the likes of P.N. News, Van Hammer, Arachnaman, Firebreaker Chip etc. But I do remember it being fairly consistent as there would be a run-in one week, setting a tag team match up for the next week. It used to be on after American Gladiators, and also student cooking show 'Get Stuffed'. It must have been a little out of date as I recall a segment with Missy Hyatt and Paul E scouring the streets for the location of the Halloween Havoc 'Chamber of Horrors' and a lad at Scouts told me that ITV would be showing the event, but this was whilst we were on a coach to London for a Christmas trip wit the scouts to Greenwich museum.

I really can't remember when it finished but Worldwide used to air on Saturday afternoons in 92 as my best friend and I first became friends after he watched it and then found out I was the only other big Wrestling fan in the school. I used to love it cos it was so out of date that it actually ran in time with the official WCW magazine, which was great as there were no spoilers so I'd buy the mag, a quarter of sweets and then sit down for the afternoon watching Worldwide.

Not entirely sure when it finished as in 93 I dipped in and out of Wrestling. I discovered music and was too busy buying CDs plus WWF seemed crap. By 94 I was back in though after buying the first Powerslam and I remember that WCW was back on late nights on ITV as I still have some episodes with the Honky Tonk Man, Orndorff etc. on video.

[PowerButchi]

There used to be a handy thread documenting the history of WCW on UK TV on here somewhere.

[Benno]

WCW was for poor people who used to get the Sky cut off regularly (i.e. us). DSF and TNT were free all year round. You could watch all Nitros, Thunders, Saturday Nights and PPVs. It was a great time to be a wrestling fan. So much wrestling on those Sky channels.

 

 

I have fond memories of going round to my mates Grandparents house (they happened to live next to my Grandparents) and catching Nitro and the odd PPV. Like any great Gran, my mates would always throw food at us and be insulted if you didn't eat it all. For some reason he never shared my love of the Stinger, much preferring the likes of Luger.

 

He's a smack head now.

 

12 Year old me would like to politely know WHAT THE FUCK? There was somewhere I could have watched the PPV's?

 

If DSF was one of the German Channels on Sky I remember catching the odd ECW episode or Smokey Mountain, I even used to scan their teletext for Raw/Nitro spoilers in German (I found out about Xpac coming back there because the Raw spoilers mentioned 123 Kid) but I do not recall any PPV's.

 

The glory period for me anyway was spending Friday Night watching Nitro, a terrible Thunder episode and then the 2am Raw repeat. I genuinely think the reason my brother stopped being a wrestling fan was he got fed up with me refusing to turn Nitro off for Raw at 10 and making him sit through Thunder.

 

When crow Sting was boss and Nitro was amazing, there was no better part of my week than watching the Cartoon Network logo bouncing around at 5 to 9, waiting for someone to flick the switch to turn on TNT.

[PowerButchi]

DSF had the PPVs until about 1998 when they moved most of them to the digital only channel DSF Action that we couldn't get. DSF action was pretty much just wrestling. Gutted we couldn't get it.

[Benno]

DSF had the PPVs until about 1998 when they moved most of them to the digital only channel DSF Action that we couldn't get. DSF action was pretty much just wrestling. Gutted we couldn't get it.

 

Somehow I must have missed that, wow. I would have pretty much killed to see Starrcade '97 particularly.

[Vamp]

The channel five show was a fine example of how not to put together a wrestling show.

 

I loved it.

[PowerButchi]

HEEL TENAY!

[GalaxyV.2]

I remember WCW on a Saturday. For some reason I have an abiding memory of Horace Hogan faffing around in a car park.

 

Never really got into WCW after it went off ITV. Though I did find it's dying days of insanity rather great TV.

[PowerButchi]

It was 3 years divorced from Saturdays when Horace was mincing about.

[Gooner]

I first watched it I believe in 1990. It was on in the early hours of Saturday morning on ITV. I had watched WWF at the time for a short while and was a big fan so when a friend's brother told me about wrestling being on ITV I remember setting it before bed, waking up next morning and fast forwarding till I got to the beginning of the show. I only remember bits and parts of the show but the memory I have is of Sting wrestling a jobber and Lex Luger doing likewise and they would cut to just in front of where wrestlers come out the curtain and the Horseman were just standing there staring on. After that I kept taping each week, I'm sure they changed it to the early hours of Sunday morning before it ended up being show on the same channel on Saturday afternoons as WCW Worldwide. It was a good way to watch wrestling as I didn't have sky and only managed to catch WWF superstars of wrestling sometimes at a friends house and getting them to tape the PPV's and borrowing them for the night. I would buy either federation PPV's shows if I had money spare and sore them in Woolworths, WHSmith, HMV, Virgin etc once they came out over here. When Nitro came on over here in 96 I was able to watch at a friend's house on a Friday and I got sky that summer and came across the DSF Action channel which was great way to keep up with the PPV's a few weeks after they originally aired on PPV. I kept up to date till about the end of 1999 and after that barely watched the show again.

 

Did TNT get taken off the sky package in either 1999 or 2000? If not did TNT in UK just stop showing WCW nitro and WCW Thunder period? I remember there was a reason I couldn't watch the show anymore, it may have been something to do with moving to SkyDigital I think.

[SpursRiot2012]

Nitro was on Bravo for a while.

[CTXRussomark]

Did TNT get taken off the sky package in either 1999 or 2000? If not did TNT in UK just stop showing WCW nitro and WCW Thunder period? I remember there was a reason I couldn't watch the show anymore, it may have been something to do with moving to SkyDigital I think.

Yeah, TNT was never on Sky Digital. I remember because when we switched to Sky Digital in early 2000 I had my gran keep the basic subscription to analogue purely so I could still get TNT for Nitro & Thunder. TNT closed down and became TCM in August 2000 and Bravo picked up the rights to Nitro (but not Thunder) with the War Games 2000 episode being the first to air.

[Gooner]

Did TNT get taken off the sky package in either 1999 or 2000? If not did TNT in UK just stop showing WCW nitro and WCW Thunder period? I remember there was a reason I couldn't watch the show anymore, it may have been something to do with moving to SkyDigital I think.

Yeah, TNT was never on Sky Digital. I remember because when we switched to Sky Digital in early 2000 I had my gran keep the basic subscription to analogue purely so I could still get TNT for Nitro & Thunder. TNT closed down and became TCM in August 2000 and Bravo picked up the rights to Nitro (but not Thunder) with the War Games 2000 episode being the first to air.

 

Okay cheers, now I remember, a friend told me TNT was on Sky Digital and I took his word for it. I knew something weird happen to stop me from watching it, even as it went in to a bad period if we look back on history. I saw few episodes on Bravo in 2000 at some point, but can't remember much of it, so couldn't have been anything too good.

[Captain Wolf]

I had a bit of an odd relationship with WCW over the years. When I got into wrestling in the late 80s I wanted anything wrestling related, so needless to say had a bunch of figures (did anyone NOT have the Sting & Luger 2 Pack?) and the ring, in fact I had all of them except entrance gear Luger, Tom Zenk, Butch Reed and Big Josh, albeit I never had a clue who half of them were. I booked a fairly brutal 'Death of WCW' when my ring started to break and I got old enough to realise the WCW figs were too big for the WWF ring and figures.

 

I rented a few VHS tapes (the one where Robocop does a run in for Sting and the Chamber of Horrors Halloween Havoc) and thought both were crap. Needless to say Sting was my favourite, purely on look alone, and I remember reading pretty much the entire comic run (I've still got the annual actually) and enjoying it, but never really giving watching it another go. Despite this I remember having a sticker album (which had a nifty little cardboard ring to build), one of those shitty LCD games, an odd card game (this I've still got) and a toy WCW belt. Like the previous Scottish poster, the notion of free WCW on ITV was news to me, as I'd definitely have watched it, purely because it was wrestling.

 

Come the Attitude era, after years as a lapsed fan, WCW actually became an interesting oddity for me. Everyone kind of kept up with it, being on TNT, but it wasn't anyone I knew's favourite. Despite this, we LOVED Revenge on the N64, and I always had a bit off a soft spot due to guys I remembered as a kid like Warrior, Savage, Hogan and Razor Ramon cutting about. I was gutted when it went down the tubes, because even though I was never a huge fan, it always had that alternative appeal. A bit like Atletico Madrid or a Sega Saturn.

[bAzTNM#1]

Sky Sports showed WCW and WWF at the same time a few times didn't they? I remember watching an Owen Hart WCW match from about 1991 on there.