Sky Box Office/BT Box Office/WWE Network memories

[Matthew]

So all of the above are being demised within the next month as far as WWE are concerned, what’s your memories, good and bad, of any of the ways in which WWE PPVs/PLEs were broadcast into your home.

I remember the little 5/10 segments they’d broadcast to hype up the card, especially for the UK events, and it would play on a loop for the week leading up to the show itself. It was the way in which I’d find out the card itself, as this was the days before finding these sites/forums.

Silversion Memories thread-esque.

[WyattSheepMask]

I only ordered a couple of events on Sky Box Office and there’s not really much to tell, but I remember the network launch as it was full of people (a lot on here including myself) messing around signing up using US addresses, messing around with IP Numbers on Playstation 3s, setting up burner accounts every month in order to get the free month trial, and it took a few days before it actually got anything to play. It launched on either a Monday or a Tuesday and I didn’t get anything to load properly until the first NXT Takeover which would’ve been Thursday morning our time.

There was a lot of “why isn’t this on there?” or “where’s such & such?”. Seemingly there were a lot of people expecting everything that has ever been committed to tape to available right from the off. There was a decent amount of content available from launch (around 1,500 hours I seem to remember reading at the time), but there was a lot of annoyed people early on as you had to sign up for a minimum of 6 months and they felt like they were being short changed 

Edited November 30, 2024 by WyattSheepMask

[gmoney]

I remember putting in a pin code and the charge for the PPV was added to that month's Sky bill. Great days, we'll never see the like again.

[Doog]

Pretty much watched on Sky Sports and then later ordered every PPV on Sky Box Office from when I got into wrestling in 1999 up until about 2015 when I started not full time watching.

Other than the Rumble 2000 incident, main memory is, having switched to Virgin Media in 2007, being sat up, food prepared, beers cracked etc, all ready for WrestleMania 23 and it not working at all. Cue going to bed in a huff and having to watch one of the replays the next day when it eventually worked.

Cut to 2008, WrestleMania 24, same situation, all prepped, excited, beer on the go, slight nerves as what happened with 23 but then it comes on! So I relax, it's working fine, national anthem comes and goes, JBL comes out....aaannnd off it goes. 2 bloody years in a row.

Edited November 30, 2024 by Doog

[bbabba]

I remember the excitement of getting the WWE Network when it launched in the UK around March 2015. Logging in for the first time and not being able to decide what to watch (in the end I went for Spring Stampede 1999).

I've had the Network continously ever since. Some months the only thing I'll watch is that month's premium live event. But even then, I still consider the Network exceptional value for money,  probably because I used to buy every PPV off Box Office for £15-£20 a pop before the launch.  The fact there hasn't been a price increase on the Network in nearly ten years is incredible,  considering how much the mainstream streaming services have increased their prices in the past couple of years alone.

I'll be very sad to see the Network go, and will always look back of the past decade with nostalgia and fondness in the same way I feel about Silvervision in my pre Sky subscription days of the 90s.

[Arch Stanton]

Fond memories of the incredible WWE Network T-shirts they put out when it launched, I remember all the cool kids on the Kef were wearing these bad boys.

[DavidB6937]

I remember thinking nah ill never get rid of all my DVDs. The Network is just a fad. And then I did and.. oh damnit.

[wandshogun09]

1 hour ago, gmoney said:

I remember putting in a pin code and the charge for the PPV was added to that month's Sky bill. Great days, we'll never see the like again.

Wasn’t a great day in our house when the bill came in though. Wand Sr/Wand Classic was absolutely livid. 

[Supremo]

I despair thinking how much money I spent when they were doing those fortnightly Brand-exclusive pay per views. Absolute dross, too. Great American Bash 2004, headlined by The Undertaker vs. The Dudley Boys, in a Handicap Concrete Crypt match.

£14.99, wasn’t it? Fucking hell.

[TheScarlettChad]

The Network was a game changer, and a great idea. Remember when they couldn't get it working over here due to Murdoch or some shite, and they had to cover up the NETWORK part on the UK Tours? Bonkers. I loved it though. Loved being able to watch every PPV for £10. And watching random episodes of RAW/Smackdown/Nitro whenever was amazing. Its gonna suck when none of that is on Netflix. I'll miss the WWE Network, even though I haven't used it in about two years. Oh well.

[FLips]

47 minutes ago, Supremo said:

I despair thinking how much money I spent when they were doing those fortnightly Brand-exclusive pay per views. Absolute dross, too. Great American Bash 2004, headlined by The Undertaker vs. The Dudley Boys, in a Handicap Concrete Crypt match.

£14.99, wasn’t it? Fucking hell.

The benefit of having a friend group all into wrestling was we would stay at each others houses and pay a few quid each in turns and get them all. Class times.

[HarmonicGenerator]

Teenage me would never have convinced my parents to get a PPV on Sky Box Office, but I definitely made use of the 10 minutes you could watch free before the feed cut off. There’s a number of PPVs whose opening matches I watched repeatedly, knowing I’d never see beyond. 

I could occasionally get them to have Sky Sports for a month, but catching all the PPVs kind of stopped mattering once The Wrestling Channel showed up. Then I was buying ROH DVDs and by 2010ish, when I fancied watching the Rumble or WrestleMania, you could usually find them on DailyMotion. A group of friends and I did shell out for Box Office for Manias 23 and 27, though.

Once we got the Network, there was no looking back, skimmed or fully watched every big show, at least until AEW showed up. I got rid of the Network at the start of the pandemic and have only watched a handful since. 

The Network was an unbelievable resource for the five years I had it, though. Every PPV ever, plus all the thousands of hours of other stuff? It was a wrestling fan’s dream. Teenage me would have never gone outside. Netflix is handy but it’s a shame that that incredible back catalogue’s not going to be there anymore. 

Edited November 30, 2024 by HarmonicGenerator

[The Gaffer]

The big dystopian boosh-agh!-slam THIS. IS SKY SPORTS idents followed by that pregnant pause where you weren't entirely sure if the PPV feed was going to patch in or not was really exciting as a youngster during the Attitude Era boom. SummerSlam 2000, Invasion and WrestleMania X8 were all peaks of my live PPV watching fandom from back in the day. I just remember buzzing about those shows. Watching whatever android they had in the Stamford studio do endless looped build up shows, seeing those weird text-in channels on Sky fill up with messages at around 11:00 PM with other people staying up late for the show. I have really good television memories, there. There was something insanely exciting about how WrestleMania would just cut straight inside the arena first rather than air a package. Fucking loved that shit. 

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

I had the Network on day one as it launched in the US.

I used a Bob Evans restaurant in Kissimmee, Florida as the address and although you needed a VPN, I figured out quite quickly that as soon as it showed the rating of the programme you were watching you could turn off the VPN and continue to airplay with no issues so I use to use the free data on Tunnel Bear and it didn’t cost me anything.

I can remember that when the Network was going to launch in the UK it was pulled about 45 minutes before and cited reasons about SKY being non too happy with the PPV’s being included with the £9.99.

I had the Network up to about 2 years ago and then cancelled after I become disappointed that classic content was hardly being added (that was my sole reason for subscribing, if I am being honest) and also due to that absolute awful redesign, which I thought made searching for things more difficult than it really should be as well as the watchlist being removed - I am told this was re added later.

I do have Netflix but I do not watch modern day wrestling, my interest in WWE ended in around 2009. I continued to watch TNA up to about 2014 and the non committal statement on what Classic content will be added, does not make me too optimistic about being able to throw on a random episode of Nitro from 1996 when I am stuck for something to watch.

Fortunately, I do still have all my wrestling DVD’s of seasons sets and compilations at my parents house, I am contemplating buying an external hard drive and converting them all.

 

Edited November 30, 2024 by Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

PPV’s on Sky Sports/Box Office/C4 were the one time of the week, up until I was about 16 and it was common place for me to do it, I would be allowed to stay up very late which allowed me to tap into discovering the Adult Channel previews while killing time waiting for the wrestling 

The summer events used to mess with my brain so much in that I’d be going to bed at 4am and daylight would be breaking making me think it was much later in the morning 

I stopped staying up for shows once the Network came in but one of my last good memories of late nights came in 2014, ironically watching Survivor Series where I was watching the main event on my laptop at the dining table, at the same time my late Dad was getting up and ready for his work shift and having to stifle my marking out when Sting made his debut

The Network has been an absolute godsend, I got it back permanently the night of the Cardiff show 2 years ago cos my stream was a bit wonky and cancelled it, knowing it was going anyway, after my last payment came out at the start of the month meaning tonight’s Survivor Series will be the last live event I watch on there which saddens me a little ( my account officially ends on Monday)