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

[JNLister]

This is post-88 US wrestling on ITV as I have it at https://itvwrestling.co.uk/post88.html#Anchor-America-24688. Any confirmed corrections/additions always welcome:
 

As well as the occasional WWF broadcasts as part of the British wrestling slot in 1987 and 1988, there were several cases of American wrestling appearing on ITV:

Central and Tyne Tees began airing late-night/early-morning WWF tapes from late 1987. While billed as Superstars of Wrestling, the tapes were actually a repackaged version of Wrestling Challenge. The matches appear to have been recorded between spring of 1987 and spring 1988, but were not necessarily shown in order. The earliest match we have traced (which aired on the debut episode) appears to have been Raymond Rougeau v Bret Hart from either Houston on 19 October 1986 or Madison Square Garden the following day. Also on the show was Hulk Hogan & Rick Steamboat vs Randy Savage and the Honky Tonky Man from the Meadowlands Arena on 5 January 1987 and Outback Jack v Jimmy Jack Funk from the Boston Garden on 7 March 1987.

The same tapes aired on Thames/LWT from June-88 to April 89.

Central showed tapes from several US promotions, including Professional Wrestling from Florida (from the first half of 1989), Global Wrestling (Florida version, not the later Dallas group), and matches from the AWA/World Class/Memphis partnership of late 1988.

Thames/LWT showed NWA/WCW wrestling from January 1990. Although these were still billed as Superstars of Wrestling, the shows were repackaged versions of NWA Power Hour, originally taped between July and December 1989. A second run of 1990 tapes aired between the summer and autumn of 1990.

In the summer of 1991, several episodes of NWA television from mid-1990 aired on Thames/LWT on Saturday nights.

From September 1991, most ITV regions began airing relatively up-to-date WCW Worldwide shows eary on Sunday mornings, though there was no consistent timeslot.

LWT repeated one match each Sunday afternoon in the Sharp's Funday show.

From Spring 1992, a repackaged version of Worldwide begain airing nationally on Saturday afternoons. From July 1994, the show would feature highlights of recent pay-per-view events. WCW was dropped by ITV in 1995.

[Chili]

I wonder how WCW and ITV came to be then? Obviously the Sky/WWF deal doing great but I'm just surprised someone would even be aware of WCW. 

[davertfnewman]

ITV were possibly so desperate for some wrestling action that it prompted them to show awful mid-eighties cartoon Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling in a separate slot to their Saturday morning kids show blocks.

[David Mantell]

44 minutes ago, Chili said:

I wonder how WCW and ITV came to be then? Obviously the Sky/WWF deal doing great but I'm just surprised someone would even be aware of WCW. 

I was aware of "the NWA" from when I bought my first PWI (May '88 issue, Andre on the cover.) Sting was the centrefold and Ric Flair was the Press Conference. He was quoted as saying that one of the reasons he was so successful was because "I have the women" which never made any sense to me at 14 since Marty Jones was also a successful world champion despite being this ugly cross eyed bloke (sorry Marty)

Once the WWF deal with Sky was in place, the late night TV had to buy wrestling tapes from somewhere else and WCW was the next biggest.  Had Greg Dyke not done what he did, then I reckon WCW would have replaced the WWF for the American Specials on Saturday lunchtimes sometime in 1989/1990.

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, JNLister said:

From Spring 1992, a repackaged version of Worldwide begain airing nationally on Saturday afternoons. From July 1994, the show would feature highlights of recent pay-per-view events. WCW was dropped by ITV in 1995.

I was in The  Library of Birmingham today looking at mid 90s Timesheets (and God how It had gone downhill since it stopped being exclusively ITV) and I found out a few dates of things.

Most ITV areas started Sat afternoon WCW in early May 1992 just at the same point as LWT ended Sat night coverage. LWT started on Sat 20th June.  Granada TV was still calling it "Superstars of Wrestling" at that point.

Early on, one episode in the Central area got postponed to a Sunday to make way for International School Boy Football.  This is actually a much better deal than British Wrestling got, which would just be pre-empted for the week, end of story.

Central continued to show WCW about 6 months longer than everyone else, right up to the end of 1995, although I seem to remember it was still on in the LWT area until September when I went on my ERASMUS year abroad.

[David Mantell]

11 hours ago, Chili said:

I think the lack of VHS and PPV availability might be what clouded my mind for a long time that WCW, whilst really good was very much the Burger King of American wrestling to English fans. Yeah WWF were on first with Sky, but they still marketed better regardless. 

If you read PWI and the other Aptermags, you were told that "the NWA" was the WWF's equal - and in many respects its superior.

[David Mantell]

1 hour ago, davertfnewman said:

ITV were possibly so desperate for some wrestling action that it prompted them to show awful mid-eighties cartoon Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling in a separate slot to their Saturday morning kids show blocks.

The cartoons were just sold as generic cartoons, like the Hulk Hogan edition of the A Team was.

Putting WCW on Sat afternoon was absolutely ITV's way of sheepishly uncancelling Wrestling.

[Tamura]

In addition to what @JNLister says above, Yorkshire TV briefly showed NWA Main Event in an early morning slot in either late 1989 or early 1990. I remember seeing the TV guide in the newspaper and it simply saying "Wrestling", so I set the video. The first week include the post-match Flair/Funk/Sting/Muta brawl from the Great American Bash. Other not-so-good stuff included Tommy Rich versus Iron Sheik, plus we even got the Ding Dongs winning a match.

Paul E is hilarious on commentary though, especially when it comes to Dong. The second week was better, more Flair/Muta/Funk/Sting shenenigans, including Sting nearly killing himself and Flair selling a kick like he'd been killed stone dead. Plus Sid versus Lee Scott...
 

I have memories of the Steiners murdering some jobbers, the Dynamic Dudes, and Terry Funk saying "Norman the Nitwit" instead of "Lunatic". It was only one for a handful of episodes before disappearing again.
 

[The Reverend]

Here in the Anglia region* we were getting WCW Pro in the early hours of Sunday morning. I remember it musty have been already on another regional station* as a class mate told me it was on ITV, and so I set up the trust VCR and scanned the TV listings, but the only thing I could find was something called American Gladiators. Being 11 years old I guessed that this maybe it as I could vaguely remember the word Gladiators being used in commentary at sometime (possibly by Gorilla Monsoon). 

Early Sunday morning I got up to watch back some great wrestling action (I was another poor non-Sky kid, so any wrestling was a bonus) and found a load of people firing balls at each other and rolling around in massive hamster cages! So disappointed

Anyway Anglia did soon catch up and we got WCW Pro. I think it must have been around late Spring or the Summer of '91 that it was shown. I can recall Cactus Jack, the Yellow Dog saga, the York Foundation and the abysmal Firebreaker Chip being on there. Something makes me think it was slightly on a delay as well (possibly by about a month). I recall some segments where Missy Hyatt and Paul E. Dangerously were looking for the 'Chamber of Horrors' that was going to feature at the '91 Halloween Havoc.  A kid at scouts told me that as they were showing this footage, ITV was going to show Halloween Havoc. I was a bit dubious about this claim, and rightly so - talking out of his arse! 

I'm not sure when it was taken off, but there was a bit of a gap I think until '92 when ITV Anglia started showing Worldwide on a Saturday afternoon (IIRC about 2:30pm). I remember this as I would often nip to the local shops and pick up some sweets and the latest wrestling mag - which due to the printing/import time was just about up to date with the WCW matches which were about 2 months behind. 

*It's crazy now thinking that back then a lot of the regional ITV channels had quite differing line-ups instead of one set ITV schedule. 

[David Mantell]

3 hours ago, The Reverend said:

It's crazy now thinking that back then a lot of the regional ITV channels had quite differing line-ups instead of one set ITV schedule. 

That sometimes happened even with British Wrestling. The final regular episode, the week before The Final Bell, headlined by Pat Roach Vs Caswell Martin was not shown in Scotland . (Still they got the 1990 and 1993 Joint Promotions Scottish TV tapings to make up for it.

[davertfnewman]

Don't know if anyone has mentioned that WCW was on Sky Sports in 1991. I recall watching the big eight-man with Sting, Pillman, El Gigante and Tommy Rich against Ric Flair, One Man Gang, Barry Windham and Nikita Koloff on one episode, Sting getting some Cactus Jack-in-the-boxes, the Yellow Dog and the Freebirds on some episodes.

[BigJag]

On Sky? How did that happen? Surely Sky was WWF only.

[Merzbow]

It was on the old BSB before Sky bought them, wasn't it?

[Devon Malcolm]

14 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

It was on the old BSB before Sky bought them, wasn't it?

Yeah, here's a hilariously terrible trailer for it.

https://tvark.org/american-wrestling-promo

[Merzbow]

Oh god that's brilliant, it's like some recent art school grad was tasked to do it and thought it was cutting edge.