Sky Box Office/BT Box Office/WWE Network memories

[Ironic Indie Lad]

Never had Sky growing up but luckily my mums friend was a gigantic wrestling fan and used to tape WWF for us in the very early 90s. Earliest tape I can recall was Survivor Series 1990 which had adverts for Lethal Weapon on Sky Movies. Always the bit with Mel Gibson saying "Do you really wanna jump?! DO YOU WANNA?!"

We eventually got cable and broadband in 2003. Originally a basic package but then my brother and I both had part time jobs and paid for a Sky Sports subscription. Superb deal for my dad as he could now watch the football for the price of absolutely gratis. 

We always bought the UK PPVs in Box Office even though we knew going in it would probably be decent at best. It was wrestling, it was live and it didn't involve staying up all night. That was pretty much the only criteria that mattered to us at the time.

We would stay up for every PPV with very few exceptions through about 2007/8. End of an era really as that's when life, work, girlfriends etc. started to get in the way. (and the small detail that the product was mostly crap for years at a time!)

 

[davertfnewman]

The story I always tell is getting Sky TV in our house in the Easter holidays of 1991, not long after WrestleMania VII, with it being installed on a Friday where I studied the satellite guide with the idea that I'd watching Transformers, MASK, He-Man, Turtles, all the cartoons I could hope for, and the job getting finished at 5pm when the DJ Kat Show finished and the Children's Channel turned to Lifestyle, very disappointing. However, stuck around on the channels long enough to come across the episode of Prime Time from Gold's Gym, with Bobby Heenan challenging Mike Christian to a posedown and claiming an injury when the strap on his singlet snapped back on him. Add in Jake Roberts, Ted Dibiase, Bret Hart, the Undertaker, the Nasty Boys, the Hulkster and others and I was hooked.

From there, it was a case of us getting Sky Movies Plus for UK Rampage, which was great although I was disappointed we didn't get the Movie Channel too for some animated movies, although it quickly started to happen. Summer of '91 is one of the high points of my fandom, because I got to see pretty much the full build for Summerslam, which is one of the greatest cards of all time and won me forever as a Bret Hart fan, seeing his ascension.

[Bus Surfer]

I remember a group of us clubbed together and ordered Capital Carnage to watch at a mates house at the arse end of 1998. 

 

We were absolutely naive and assumed we were in for some title changes and progression of storylines - We certainly didn't realise these UK shows were just house shows that existed in their own bubble. 

 

It was crap, but everyone pretended it was cracking. Only thing I remember were Jackie's norks and Hebner slipping on the middle rope taking a swig of beer. 

Crap