WCW Worldwide on ITV Sat Afternoon 92-95 - Ratings?

[davertfnewman]

39 minutes ago, Callum1993 said:

I vaguely remember WCW being on Channel 5 on a Friday night in like 99/2000 I think? From memory it wasn’t shown in order it jumped between years without any rhyme or reason.

In terms of the VHS’s I think the first ever Wrestling VHS I bought was Spring Stampede 1999…I think in Blackpool in late 99. 

Spring Stampede is one of the best tapes to have, great card from start to (almost) finish. Souled Out 1998 was really good too.

[wandshogun09]

Just looked at that ad for the VHS tapes again on page one.

Did any of you curl up “groaning under the sheer excess of penal power” watching this?

[TAFKA Jonny Vegas]

I have fond memories of WCW Worldwide on ITV during the early to mid 90's.

We didn't have Sky and my only real exposure to wrestling was flicking through WWF magazine in the local newsagents, the Hasbro/Galoob figures I would look at in the toy aisle of Tesco during the weekly food shop on a Saturday and the occasional glimpse of it on TV if I was at a friends house.

I have vivid memories of drawing a lot of the wrestler's on A4 sheets of paper and keeping them in a drawer in my room. I really wish I could go back now and see who or what I had drawn.

I don't recall all that much about who was actually on it however the two that really stick out for some reason were 2 Cold Scorpio who I definitely drew in red tights and Johnny B Badd.

Channel 5 WCW Worldwide around or after we started getting Heat and selected PPV's on Channel 4 wad brilliant until they began adding the 60's Batman style BANG, THWACK and BOING's.

In my late teen's I worked in a Gamestation concession store inside a Blockbuster video in Coventry. One day the manager called me over as someone had traded in a whole host of WCW PPV videos from around '89-'92 fof 50p each as they didn't scan on the system.

He sold them to me for £1 each and years later I gave them away when it became increasingly rare to even have a VHS player. Wish I still had them.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2025 by TAFKA Jonny Vegas

[David Mantell]

5 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I’d say it’s pretty hard to say. In the London region WCW wasn’t usually on Saturday Afternoon but overnight Friday. I’m sure I remember a mid afternoon run for a bit, but it definitely was a late night show too. Because of the regional model of ITV it was not often shown at the same time.

Not true!!!   It was on Saturday afternoon in London like other regions. I remember it making the move from Sat night to Sat afternoon in the summer, a couple of months before Summerslam. It stayed there until WCW was lured away by Superchannel in late 95.

LWT had weekend afternoon WCW a bit ahead of the rest of the country as there was Pat Sharp's Funday on Sunday lunchtimes,  a cartoon plus one bout from last night's WCW.  One Sunday lunchtime they actually showed a brutal Abdullah Vs Cactus Jack brawl going all over the arena.

Friday nights was back in 1990 with months old tapes of NWA Worldwide, before ITV and WCW got serious about each other in late 91.  Or else you are thinking of the end period 1999-2001 on Channel 5.

[gmoney]

2 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

Ah, wasn’t this when they were putting stuff like “THWHACK!!” and “KAPOW!!” over chair shots and stuff? Absolutely rotten. 

Yes, and this might be the tenth time I've talked about this on this forum, but Scott Hudson and Larry Zbyszko commentated over highlights of Nitro, Thunder and matches taped actually for WCW Worldwide as if it were one show. So despite the changing set, and often attire, if someone had two matches on the show (one on Thunder and one on Nitro for example) they would claim it was their second match of the night. Utterly pointless and extremely typical of WCW, 

[Chili]

My only memory of WCW TV pre TNT was at my Nan's around midday and it was The Hollywood Blondes defeating Z-Man & Johnny Gunn. This was the North West so the Granada region in the afternoon. Don't think I ever saw anything else unless it was rented videos (Superbrawl II & Bash 1990). I only knew about DSF airing WCW PPV's long after they were done. Always found them not showing them over here really annoying. Dunno why TNT Europe couldn't air them or something.

NEVER saw WCW tapes in the shops. It was always WWF until WCW randomly released Uncensored 99, Spring Stampede 99 and Starrcade 99 to Great American Bash 2000.

Edited January 13, 2025 by Chili

[HarmonicGenerator]

8 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

Ah, wasn’t this when they were putting stuff like “THWHACK!!” and “KAPOW!!” over chair shots and stuff? Absolutely rotten. 

I remember a friend of mine insisting we watch it a few times. He didn’t like wrestling and I’m pretty sure he just watched in hope of Major Gunns showing up.

[BomberPat]

11 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

Just looked at that ad for the VHS tapes again on page one.

Did any of you curl up “groaning under the sheer excess of penal power” watching this?

Most blatant case of false advertising since the WCW Cruise. 

 

 

Edited January 13, 2025 by BomberPat

[garynysmon]

I vividly remember that Van Hammer was all over those early shows.

I wasn’t even aware that WCW was on TV until my mum was up with my baby sister and happened to stumble across wrestling on ITV. She recorded it and I watched it after coming home from school.

Not long after it seemed to pop up in a better timeslot on HTV Wales, on Sunday afternoons. And this is where Lord Steven Regal’s long TV title run was showcased.

I remember at least one episode where Regal was co-commentator with Gordon Solie too.

So my first exposure must have been 1992 and into 1993, before we got Sky in May 1993 and could watch PPV’s on DSF. 

The beauty of DSF (and WWF on RTL 2) was that the commentators never talked over ring entrances, so could record entrance themes on audio tape (fuck sakes, showing my age here now).

I won’t regale you with the ‘hilarious’ time I was watching the preceding night’s PPV after Sunday lunch with my nain (grandmother) in the same room when apparently my Dad had stumbled in drunk halfway through the recording (when Brutus ’the Butcher’ was making his entrance)  and started changing the channels to the German softcore filth.

Back then you could only record the Sky channel you were watching at the time.

Never have I moved so quickly in my life in diving towards the VCR to press stop!!

Edited January 13, 2025 by garynysmon

[mim731]

17 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I’d say it’s pretty hard to say. In the London region WCW wasn’t usually on Saturday Afternoon but overnight Friday. I’m sure I remember a mid afternoon run for a bit, but it definitely was a late night show too. Because of the regional model of ITV it was not often shown at the same time.

Is that correct? I watched it very routinely on a Saturday afternoon in North London throughout 91/92. It definitely had a lengthy stint in that spot. I know it did move about a bit, and I remember my Dad taping the late night version for me a couple of times, but it was on Saturday afternoons for a good while in our area. 

27 minutes ago, garynysmon said:

I vividly remember that Van Hammer was all over those early shows.

I've posed it before, but they definitely saw Van Hammer as a big enough deal in that time period to send him on the PR rounds over here. 

[air_raid]

Heavy Metal Van Hammer vs Maxx Payne in arm wrestling was definitely the way to my heart.

[Statto]

23 minutes ago, mim731 said:

 

I've posed it before, but they definitely saw Van Hammer as a big enough deal in that time period to send him on the PR rounds over here. 

You can definitely see why those two lads got chosen to come do that PR tour - Hammer was the archetype of what the British public saw an American wrestler as being (big, tanned, muscular, long bleached blonde hair & shouty - Hoganesque, basically) and Badd was colourful, flamboyant and looked just like Little Richard. Two easy to grasp gimmicks, too. 

Plus you could lose them off any house shows in the States for a week without hurting any ticket sales too much. 

 

[Jazzy G]

It was on at 12.35am Monday night/Tuesday morning. My mum worked in a pub called the Black Horse at the time and would video it for me when she got in. Eventually I learned how to set the timer on the video recorder so I could tape it myself, and I ended up with a 3 hour VHS tape of episodes off the telly. The first match on the tape was Scotty Flamingo Vs Johnny B Badd, and the last one on there was Brian Pillman Vs Ric Flair where Austin was disguised as a cameraman at ringside. Fond memories. Eventually it would also start airing at about 3.15 on a Saturday afternoon so I could watch the football scores on Grandstand, then change channels for the wrestling followed by Baywatch. I didn't have much access to Sky and the WWF, hence my lukewarm attitude to Hogan, and fervant adoration of Sting. It was by watching this that I learned of the Real Event tour "Saturday, March 13th 1993 at the GMEX in Manchester", but because the following UK tour show happened on a school night I wasn't allowed to go, even though they were on at Blackburn Ice Arena, so I missed out on Sting & Ricky Steamboat Vs the Hollywood Blondes. I did hear about Arn and Sid's fight at the Moat House, tough. Also, when I went to the GMEX in 1993 I got to see surfer Sting as WCW World Heavyweight Champion.

[David Mantell]

34 minutes ago, mim731 said:

Is that correct? I watched it very routinely on a Saturday afternoon in North London throughout 91/92. It definitely had a lengthy stint in that spot. I know it did move about a bit, and I remember my Dad taping the late night version for me a couple of times, but it was on Saturday afternoons for a good while in our area. 

You are right. It was on Saturday afternoon from mid 92 to late 95 when WCW eloped with Superchannel (only for Superchannel to go bust a couple of years later

If WCW had not quit ITV when it did, then by early 96, Giant Haystacks and Fit Finlay would both have been back on Saturday afternoon ITV.

But anyway, does anyone know how well Sat Afternoon WCW Worldwide was doing in the ratings?

[The King of Old School]

9 minutes ago, Jazzy G said:

It was by watching this that I learned of the Real Event tour "Saturday, March 13th 1993 at the GMEX in Manchester", but because the following UK tour show happened on a school night I wasn't allowed to go, even though they were on at Blackburn Ice Arena, so I missed out on Sting & Ricky Steamboat Vs the Hollywood Blondes. I did hear about Arn and Sid's fight at the Moat House, tough. Also, when I went to the GMEX in 1993 I got to see surfer Sting as WCW World Heavyweight Champion.

Also Regal/Rhodes, Flair/Rude and British Bulldog/Vader on that card!

By the time this show came around I was a bit out of my wrestling fandom and completely obsessed with football. I also didn't know a great deal about WCW anyway apart from Sting. I was lucky that my grandparents had sky so I saw loads of WWF in the early 90s as they always recorded it for me before we got sky and before I even discovered watching WCW on ITV, WCW always just seemed such a come down and boring in comparison. 

I do always remember though that my mum was on the ball and asked If I would like to go to this as there was still a slight interest there or I could go and watch Rovers at Leeds instead, to which I obviously chose that as going to away games was the biggest excitement ever back then.