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Wrestling Channel Miscellany


herbie747

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Who was responsible for this awesome wallpaper? I remember having it as my desktop wallpaper during college when I got my first laptop.

 

Surely most college guys would've had Trish Stratus set as their wallpaper.

 

Most people would actually be shagging actual women during college. Trish Stratus wallpaper would have been a thing you'd do when you were 13/14.

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One of the best shows on TWC in my opinion was Memphis Wrestling. Every week was great episodic television. Corey Maclin feuding with Jerry Lawler before Lawler and his missus feuded with The Hillbillies. Maclin feuding with Koko B Ware. Cameos from WWE and TNA stars. Outstanding stuff.

 

Did that show do well in the ratings at all? I was gutted the run was finished before Sid came back.

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Remember stumbling across Raven's shoot one evening when I was flicking through Sky and was amazed to hear him talk about backstage stories and shite.I had only ever read about them in PS before and was mad to hear him admitting to all kinds of drug taking etc.Can remember watching a really grainy HBK one on there too.

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One of the best shows on TWC in my opinion was Memphis Wrestling. Every week was great episodic television. Corey Maclin feuding with Jerry Lawler before Lawler and his missus feuded with The Hillbillies. Maclin feuding with Koko B Ware. Cameos from WWE and TNA stars. Outstanding stuff.

 

Did that show do well in the ratings at all? I was gutted the run was finished before Sid came back.

 

^ This. The Memphis stuff was really fun to watch and the Classic Memphis re-runs from 2001 were good. I remember MLW Underground TV being quite sad, being a poor knock-off of ECW.

 

My biggest disappointment, was when I finally got exposed to modern Uk wrestling at that time, in the form of the FWA. It put me off UK wrestling for years after that. And in part, is the reason I won't get into anything UK based today.

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My biggest disappointment, was when I finally got exposed to modern Uk wrestling at that time, in the form of the FWA. It put me off UK wrestling for years after that. And in part, is the reason I won't get into anything UK based today.

I've never really enjoyed indy wrestling on tape, US or UK, but I've always enjoyed the modern UK shows I've been to. I wouldn't let it put you off if there's anything local getting good reviews. Wrestling is so much different live to on TV that it's worth going.

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Generic Question #1 : What are your best and worst memories of your time atop the TWC throne, sir?

 

The best moments were the road trips - FWA Carpe Diem, British Uprising III with Jimmy Hart & Co, The IWW Tours & tapings in Trabolgan, International Showdown, MEW in Newcastle, 1PW - just good times with good friends.

 

The worst moment was the phonecall in late 2004 from Dolphin TV, our partners & backers, saying that the channel was just losing too much and we had to make huge cutbacks. We were getting €32k per month to run the production - there were 7 of us in the office. And after that it ended up being 2 of us (me & Jody) plus some part-time editors working on a freelance basis - I actually ran up debt that year because there simply wasn't enough cash coming in to cover the office rent & wages, etc.

We did build back up again slowly the following year, but late 2004 sucked. And I got the news just as I got the keys to my new house. That sucked the buzz right out of that one.

 

 

Who was responsible for this awesome wallpaper? I remember having it as my desktop wallpaper during college when I got my first laptop.

 

Kevin Gilmour - a freelancer from Fife; the guy who also made that awesome NOAH poster on the first page, this 3PW promo, and all of the TWC bumpers.

 

 

One of the best shows on TWC in my opinion was Memphis Wrestling. Every week was great episodic television. Corey Maclin feuding with Jerry Lawler before Lawler and his missus feuded with The Hillbillies. Maclin feuding with Koko B Ware. Cameos from WWE and TNA stars. Outstanding stuff.

 

Did that show do well in the ratings at all? I was gutted the run was finished before Sid came back.

 

Yeah, loved that show. It did okay in ratings. We had ratings deals by then, so only paid for whatever ratings each show drew - that way we covered ourselves. We paid £250 for every 0.01 rating a show delivered. I guess they were happy, because they were on the channel for years on that deal.

 

When did you finish up with TWC? It seemed to barely run for a while before it became the Fight Network. I remember it showing old films and hours and hours of World of Sport towards the end.

I was working on it (but not in charge of it) right up until it went off the air in December 2008. The Fight Network bought it in January 2008 - but they had no UK offices, so they just kept paying my company to run the content for them - but they obviously had the say regarding the schedule and the overall look/branding, as well as supplied us with new shows, etc. But I was still working on it with my team.

When they got into financial difficulty, they just stopped sending schedules & new programmes, etc - the writing was on the wall - I made sure to get paid monthly in advance - but other vendors weren't being paid, and it was eventually Globecast that pulled the plug. They had a lot of unpaid bills in the UK.

 

Was there any effort to get classic AJPW and if so, what were the stumbling blocks?

We could never make contact - simple as that. And by the time we were on air, it was clear the Japanese stuff was very niche anyway and we already had more than enough: NJPW, GAEA, NOAH.

Edited by herbie747
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When did you finish up with TWC? It seemed to barely run for a while before it became the Fight Network. I remember it showing old films and hours and hours of World of Sport towards the end.

From memory, it ran from around March '04 (I got it around July of that year). It became TWC Fight & was eventually sold to the Fight Network, by which time the broadcast quality was as bad as old youtube footage, mostly WoS repeats & crappy MMA fed's. It was pretty solid between 2004 - 07. Herbie can no doubt correct me if necessary.

 

edit - we posted simultaneously

Edited by KingofSports
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Chris Hero says on a shoot interview that there was a CZW music video for TWC, where Alex Shane, Sonjay Dutt and maybe Jonny Storm were signing along to the CZW song. He says its the funniest thing he's ever seen. Can you recall this? Dont remember ever seeing it.

 

When we first heard the CZW theme song in the TWC offices, we all broke our bollocks laughing - it was so stupid - mainly the lyrics. So during an IWW tour, we went back to the TWC office one evening, and we shot a quick video with Jody & Jonny wearing wigs, Darren Burridge on air-decks, and M-Dogg 20 singing the song down the phone (which is what the vocals sounded like - we joked that Zandig probably sang the song down the phone when the song was recorded). We also got Alex Shane to take his top off & play some drums too - just a pisstake. Was a good laugh.

 

Ask and you shall receive:

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I forgot to ask did you ever have any dealings with Jerry direct over the Memphis shows Herbie?

 

Lawler? No - it was always Corey Maclin - but spoke to Lawler once when I called Corey and they were out for lunch. 

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I discovered TWC as a 14 year old from flicking through Sky and seeing pro wresting on Friendly TV, I remember watching FWA and TNA where for the first time I discovered there was wrestling outside of WWE. Once TWC launched I never missed a TNA show ever and I would beg my mother to let me have the TV from 8pm onwards to watch Supercard Sunday regardless of what event was being shown.

During the Friendly TV days I discovered they had a website and a forum which I joined. I had no idea what a forum was at the time but I discovered there were people with even more Wrestling knowledge than me which was surprising as all my friends gave up on Wrestling in 2001.

 

I watched almost every single show until the channel became the Fight Network, I couldn't get into WOS due to its age or NOAH, GAEA, CMLL and NJPW due to the language barrier but I gave everything else a watch religiously. Even promotions I forgot about that I am starting to remember from typing this (NWA Wildside and LAW). Even if I knew it was bad I still watched it. I don't remember seeing a single good wrestling match on Memphis but I watched it cause the story lines held my interest and Lawler was my hero.

 

My questions,

 

Why did you start a 2nd channel? TWC rewind or something? Was it due to the success of the first channel?

 

Do you have a list of all the original SuperCard sundays that you showed? How come it didn't vary much from TNA and FWA. Forgive me if I am wrong there?

 

What was the name of that show which had all of the random US feds in one hour. It might have been something extreme related? Who chose what went on and did you get the contents for free?

Edited by Zebra Kid Mark
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Why did you start a 2nd channel? TWC rewind or something? Was it due to the success of the first channel?

 

Do you have a list of all the original SuperCard sundays that you showed? How come it didn't vary much from TNA and FWA. Forgive me if I am wrong there?

 

What was the name of that show which had all of the random US feds in one hour. It might have been something extreme related? Who chose what went on and did you get the contents for free?

 

Firstly, glad you enjoyed it;  thank you!

 

1) TWC Reloaded was a joint venture between Dolphin (our partners & majority owner) and Cast (our playout providers). The idea was to show old episodes (so we had no license fee to pay) that were already edited (so no editing fee) and Cast would do Playout for free - so most airtime sold was profit. It worked for a while and then we ended up selling the EPG slot to Chartshow TV when they launched True Movies on channel 333. They needed a slot quick, so rather than wait on SKY to give you one, you can buy an existing channel. Once they showed movies for 2 weeks, SKY had to move them from Sports and they got channel 333, which was their plan.

 

2) Here you go. Yes, I believe you're wrong - there was a great mix: http://web.archive.org/web/20050306162545/http://www.thewrestlingchannel.tv/listings/Supercard.html

 

3) It was TWC Bloodbath. It was previously aired matches from the library, but we showed them as compilation episodes. It was exclusive to the Reloaded channel. http://web.archive.org/web/20050306170008/http://www.thewrestlingchannel.tv/listings/Bloodbath.html

Edited by herbie747
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