Where did they go?

[Mr Lawrence]

As a veteran of Screen sport and Lifestyle Chanel, i was always aware of other federations. Plus us lucky Coventrians had PWI on sale here from late 88/early 89. That was my first delve into learning such things as Savage and Leaping Lanny were brother.

[Mr Lawrence]

3 hours ago, JNLister said:

Apologies to those who've heard this story many times before, but there was a point in 1988 where Sky had been weeks or even months behind with WWF TV and then suddenly caught up, either by skipping stuff or doing multiple episodes a week. This coincided with WWF having a big round of cuts, which meant that to our eyes a load of guys just disappeared without explanation.

So we made one up. One kid had seen an Apter mag and half-remembered the story about Adrian Adonis and others dying in a car crash. This quickly turned into Chinese whispers and within weeks it was a well-established fact that all the missing wrestlers had died in a coach crash and that Junk Yard Dog was the driver.

The WWF Magazine was out over here with the results to Mania 5 before it showed on cable.

What Cable used to do was show old shows on a Thursday (about a year behind) and quite uptodate ones on the Saturday, they eventually scrapped this and started showing Primetime i think or Challenge. Primetime was on Eurosport for some reason. As far as i can remember, may be wrong.

[Chili]

1 hour ago, Mr Lawrence said:

The WWF Magazine was out over here with the results to Mania 5 before it showed on cable.

What Cable used to do was show old shows on a Thursday (about a year behind) and quite uptodate ones on the Saturday, they eventually scrapped this and started showing Primetime i think or Challenge. Primetime was on Eurosport for some reason. As far as i can remember, may be wrong.

I've seen Primetime clips online and it had the Eurosport icon in the corner, why was it shown on their and on Sky at the same time?

[garynysmon]

2 minutes ago, Chili said:

I've seen Primetime clips online and it had the Eurosport icon in the corner, why was it shown on their and on Sky at the same time?

I believe i'm right in saying that Sky had a sizeable stake in Eurosport before launching its own sports channel/s.

[JNLister]

22 minutes ago, garynysmon said:

I believe i'm right in saying that Sky had a sizeable stake in Eurosport before launching its own sports channel/s.

Yep, it was a joint venture of the European Broadcasting Union (the Eurovision people) and Sky. In the UK at least it was effectively marketed as part of the original Sky package (with Sky Channel, Sky News and Sky Movies) after they launched on Astra in 1989 (which meant you could get satellite on a wall-mounted dish.)

[TomJones233]

I do remember getting a WCW annual before they died, like a year or so before, and having no idea who any of those people were, including "Big Sexy" Kevin Nash. WWF was always the top dog here in the UK, I vividly remember having a Rock PE bag as a youngster. WCW wasn't the BK of wrestling, it was The Wimpys, you heard of it, you knew of it, MAYBE, but you never saw it. I had that annual and i never watched a single Nitro, Or Thunder or PPV, until years later.

[wordsfromlee]

32 minutes ago, TomJones233 said:

I do remember getting a WCW annual before they died, like a year or so before, and having no idea who any of those people were, including "Big Sexy" Kevin Nash. WWF was always the top dog here in the UK, I vividly remember having a Rock PE bag as a youngster. WCW wasn't the BK of wrestling, it was The Wimpys, you heard of it, you knew of it, MAYBE, but you never saw it. I had that annual and i never watched a single Nitro, Or Thunder or PPV, until years later.

It was the opposite for me and the area I lived in. Around '99, WCW was the top dog as Worldwide was shown on Channel 5 on a Friday evening so everyone could watch it, where as WWF was on Sky. It wasn't until Royal Rumble 2000 and Sunday Night Heat was broadcast on Channel 4 that WWF took over.

[garynysmon]

5 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

It was the opposite for me and the area I lived in. Around '99, WCW was the top dog as Worldwide was shown on Channel 5 on a Friday evening so everyone could watch it, where as WWF was on Sky. It wasn't until Royal Rumble 2000 and Sunday Night Heat was broadcast on Channel 4 that WWF took over.

There were plenty of kids at our school too who used to watch Nitro on Cartoon Network/TNT (free to air), but didn't have Sky Sports so didn't really know much about the WWF.

 

[TomJones233]

Thinking about it, It would have been around 1999-2000, so that's probably about right.

[PowerButchi]

5 hours ago, Mr Lawrence said:

As a veteran of Screen sport and Lifestyle Chanel, i was always aware of other federations.

Same. I think my favourite wrestlers in 1991 were Jerry Lawler (no change there) and the other Terry Garvin.

Edited December 29, 2020 by PowerButchi

[DCW]

Why didn't TNT show the WCW PPV's? my only exposure to WCW was when I'd be sent away to stay with my cousins up in Belfast for a few weeks during the summer and they got Cartoon Network/TNT through an aerial. Remember seeing Bret on there in 98 or 99 and he looked miserable (even for him) and arena/presentation/commentary/entrances seemed so second rate compared to the WWF.

[garynysmon]

The extent of my wrestling obsession as a kid led me to find AAA Wrestling in Spanish on Galavision on Sunday nights (I didn't have a fucking clue what was going on), not to mention the more well known New Japan on Eurosport with Oliver Humperdink randomly on commentary.

WCW Worldwide was on HTV Wales both on Saturday or Sunday afternoons and late night, can't remember exactly when but the Video + (remember that?) was set to record it every week anyway.

I remember that Raw finally started to be shown on Sky at least two years into its run and we had to depend on WWF Mania/Action Zone for highlights before then. Initially Thursday (?) early evenings before moving to Friday nights. Nitro was on TNT straight after the Cartoon Network shutdown, 8pm on Fridays was it?

Regardless, I distinctly remember usually being able to watch both Raw and Nitro on Fridays before switching back to DSF showing an episode of Thunder and usually a random episode of Smokey Mountain or ECW after it into the early hours of Saturday.

Also, does anyone else remember RTL 2 showing WWF Superstars on Monday nights, which also had a bonus match or two thrown in that we didn't get on Sky?

I remember seeing a few matches from 93/94 with the Coliseum Video logo on the video wall, so was probably taped for home release but wanted to fill time on the international broadcasts for some reason.

 

 

[PowerButchi]

Dunno, may have been the expense of broadcasting it live or maybe a hope they could have done a deal with U-Direct or another channel or something to make a few bob. Turner dropped another bollock by not really dealing with VHS over here after the early 90s First Independent released tapes until 1999 either.

Edited December 29, 2020 by PowerButchi

[tiger_rick]

10 minutes ago, PowerButchi said:

Dunno, may have been the expense of broadcasting it live or maybe a hope they could have done a deal with U-Direct or another channel or something to make a few bob. Turner dropped another bollock by not really dealing with VHS over here after the early 90s First Independent released tapes until 1999 either.

Absolutely. Surprised they didn't do more with videos and PPVs over here when they had Davey Boy in 1993 and even more so at the height of the nWo success in 1997/98. I think some tapes were available mail order by that point but a really limited market.

[Merzbow]

Did anyone ever have the 1998 series of VHS tapes that all looked like this? I don't remember ever seeing these in the wild before.