Sky Box Office/BT Box Office/WWE Network memories

[air_raid]

Fond memories of going to One Night Only but leaving a tape running on Box Office even though I hadn’t paid for it. Then coming home and listening to what the commentators had been saying of the matches I’d just watched. I don’t know why.

Plus, buying No Mercy and getting three mates round to watch it. They never all came round again.

[wandshogun09]

One Night Only was ace. They definitely set the bar too high with that one. There was some shite on there (*cough* Tiger Ali Singh vs Leif Cassidy *cough*) but the top matches delivered in a big way for me. Rare babyface Owen vs Vader was tremendous and easily one of Vader’s best matches in that WWF run. I felt like Bret and Undertaker were on the way to having an even better match than there corker at SummerSlam until the flat finish. And the main event had what turned out to be the Bulldog’s last great match ever against peak coked up bumptastic 97 Shawn. Crowd was electric and it felt like a genuinely big show on par with the big PPVs in America to me. I remember them pushing and hyping the show big time going in and we had that ‘Fab 4’ documentary thing on the four guys at the top of the card. They did a good job of making it seem like a show you couldn’t miss and it worked even on my Dad. He ordered it without me even having to ask, which never happened back then. 

Yeah, the bar was set and the follow ups like Mayhem In Manchester, Capital Carnage (even Jacqueline’s boobs couldn’t save it for me) and No Mercy were bollocks. They had some decent ones later but One Night Only was the best one for me. Being a Brummie and with the show going on just a short bus ride away at the time, one of my biggest regrets as a wrestling fan is that I wasn’t in attendance.

The fact we were supposed to get Bret vs Austin as well…

I mean, Taker vs Nation Ahmed would’ve been rotten and we probably wouldn’t have got the Vader vs Owen belter without the forced card reshuffle but getting Bret vs Austin on any card in 97 is obviously a massive win. 

Edited December 2, 2024 by wandshogun09

[2Xtreme_lives]

I would love to see those little wwe sky box office hype videos on the wwe vault one day.

I'll never forgot the 2001 insurrextion one where Kurt Angle said he enjoyed his day on the 'thames' spoken like its written. 

Many a late night getting up at 1am to set the vhs up. I've recently been ripping my old tapes onto my NAS what joy! 

[The King of Old School]

I had the network on a "free trial" for about 18 months I think with different email addresses etc.

Then after that just paid for it as and when usually around the time of the big events.

The Sky Box office era was fun though, like someone said further up the amount of money wasted on some of those awful 2004-2007 shows is incredible.

I never watched any live though, life's too short for that. They used to be replayed throughout the week at 3 hour intervals, so used to avoid any spoilers all day on the Monday and watch the 6pm showing after work.

[Devon Malcolm]

My brother just got them off Winamp.

[Lorne Malvo]

My one abiding memory of Sky Box Office is it cut out for me during MVPs entrance at Mania 23 and didn't come back on until the last 30 seconds of the show during Cena's title win celebration. And I can't remember the exact details but for some reason they wouldn't give me a refund.

I've held a grudge against Sky ever since.

Fuck Sky.

Edited December 2, 2024 by Lorne Malvo

[davertfnewman]

The WWF in the UK did mean you sometimes got gems like this:

"Show a little integrity, Kurt!"

[DCW]

I only ever ordered a handful of Box Office events, due to us either being in arrears of cut-off from Sky completely or my brother's friend acquiring a chipped ntl box which gave us free Box Office.  Me and a few school friends clubbed together to order Rebellion 1999, which was in hindsight a very decent UK-only PPV, considering some of the dross they'd serve up in the following years to come. Insurrextion 2001, when they completely binned the advertised card taking the cake in particular! When C4 stopped showing their few PPV's a year and Sky hadn't gotten the rights back,  I remember getting my da to order the 2004 Royal Rumble on Setanta Sports for me. My tactic of waiting til he had a few beers and bringing up the 'auld wrestling' of Hogan, Savage, Jake etc having the desired nostalgic effect. Remember being over the moon that Benoit won it too, which seems very off now. Reckon the last thing I ordered was Rebellion 04, with Heyman/Brock vs Edge in the crap main event. I've no idea what I was thinking actually paying for that shite, cos I was well into my smarky Power Slam phase by that stage.

Network wise, I wasn't really arsed with it. I did a few free trials or whatever but disliked all the music and stuff that was dubbed out for generics. I'd a terabyte hard drive full of 97 -04 ish PPV or DVD rips by that stage anyway, so didn't really need it. If one of the PPV's grabbed my attention, I'd just torrent it the next day or watch wrestling it.

Edited December 2, 2024 by DCW

[The Dart]

Things sure were different in 1997.  I asked my Dad if we could order One Night Only, he said yes, I called the cable company and they said they weren't showing it.  It was just on satellite.  I have a very strong memory of a cable TV listings magazine saying it was going to be on Sky Sports in December 1997.  Either that was a mistake, a lie, or "plans changed".  I don't think I watched it until the VHS was released which would have been 6 months later probably.

I think when I told my Dad we couldn't order it, he let me have Sky Movies for a month to make up for it.

Edited December 2, 2024 by The Dart

[Sphinx]

My Sky Box Office memories:

 

[DCW]

That was the Sky Sports closedown music too wasn't it? remember nodding off during the summer ppv's that I'd be allowed stay up for to watch live and waking up to that music playing away with the auld Sky Sports red graphic showing the next days listings screen. Not heard that in about 20 years! 

[simonworden]

We were a terrestrial only family until end of 2000, then it was basic package until I went to university at which point my parent's reduced food/washing bill opened them up to having more channels, better holidays and new cars (sod being the eldest child). Having heat, 4 PPV's a year and mates who lent me tapes of the other was enough for me growing up although as shows like the rumble went PPV only I started begging my parents to let me buy (pay them back for the shows). The first one Royal Rumble 2003 was an absolute shocker to get. I'd seen friend tap in the pin on Sky to order movies and assumed it would do the same so when I came on Monday to watch Rumble 03 I was devastated to realize only the first 10 minutes had been recorded as  you had to call to order the WWE PPVs for some reason, possibly due to the price, anyway got it sorted and everyone got their tape of it on time.

The next time I tried to view one was when I was working in a pub at uni and the manager gave me permission to order and watch upstairs with a few other interested staff. This didn't work and ended with me on the blower to sky swearing my head off as a 21 year old hot head over the fact they couldn't just let us book 1 PPV because it wasn't allowed on pub/business accounts. After I cooled down we had a good night of drinking upstairs and I watched the show the next day on my own at home while nursing a hangover.

I didn't try again on my own (parent's TV) until 2008 when on and off my mates and I would order Rumble/Mania for a delayed watch and takeaway binge. Those were good memories. 

I never once even considered booking a UK PPV back in the day but I think I've watched most of them through the network and buying the home videos. One Night Only was better than a lot of the IYH PPVs of the year (with notable exceptions), both of the big matches were fantastic and the lads didn't hold back like would happen in some of the latter events. I know it was just what was happening on the house show circuit at the time (I think) but Rebellion 2001 was a standout show for me as well having the final blue/black bar cage match as well as Rock/Austin main eventing. 

[hallicks]

My mate had us all round to watch Insurrexion in 2001, getting to watch “an actual PPV” in prime time was exciting. At least, the idea of it was. I seem to remember the event itself being a bit of a damp sausage, total house show vibes. My mate was convinced the rock was gonna run in at the end to help Undertaker in the main event, but I’m pretty sure he was off on his first Hollywood excursion at that point.

Also I may be mixing up events, but was this the one that had Austin doing his usual beer drinking celebration at the end, but they couldn’t find any 330ml (or smaller) Budweiser cans in the UK, so he was having to use what looked like pint cans instead?

[air_raid]

On 12/2/2024 at 9:11 AM, wandshogun09 said:

They had some decent ones later but One Night Only was the best one for me. Being a Brummie and with the show going on just a short bus ride away at the time, one of my biggest regrets as a wrestling fan is that I wasn’t in attendance.

See, I went to it. But I have a "biggest regret" in my locker... as HSH readers may recall, I passed on going to a SmackDown taping at the MEN which would have been piss easy for me to go to. I hadn't clocked that AJ was going for the WWE title. So as a consequence, WWE changed their big title in England for the first time ever, with my favourite WWE wrestler at the time winning it, at the nearest big wrestling venue to my house.... and I wasn't there.

[Chris B]

Let's not forget your man on here that set up a venue to show Wrestlemania live, but not telling the venue what time it finished, so it got turned off with an hour to go.

I still snort-laugh at the response someone gave of "Undertaker won, by the way".