As we reported earlier this week, in order to mark the 31st Anniversary of the birth of Hulkamania, the WWE Network added up some Hulk Hogan themed programming. Firstly, the Madison Square Garden card where the Hulkster defeated The Iron Sheik to win the WWE Championship. This Old School card, however, wasn’t in its entirety; the two hour version of the show featured the removal of two matches and some backstage interviews cut.
In addition to this famed MSG show, the Network also added the 2009 DVD – “Hulk Hogan’s Unreleased Collectors Series”, and this marked the second time a match compilation DVD has been added to “Beyond the Ring”. The DVD was obviously cut down from its full nine hour run time down to just 1 hour, 54 minutes. The special featured the following matches:
Hulk Hogan vs. Harry Valdez (Championship Wrestling; 11/13/1979)
Hulk Hogan vs. Andre The Giant (Madison Square Garden; 9/22/1980)
Hulk Hogan vs. “Macho Man” Randy Savage (Detroit, MI; 4/26/1986)
Hulk Hogan vs. Kamala (Houston, TX; 6/26/1987)
Hulk Hogan vs. One Man Gang (Philadelphia, PA; 12/5/1987)
Hulk Hogan & Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Ted DiBiase & Virgil (Maple Leaf Wrestling; 3/12/1988)
Hulk Hogan vs. Triple H (SmackDown; 6/6/2002)
This past week saw “Breaking News” make a return as well, to announce that WWE will be running the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX for WrestleMania XXXII. The special, as with past Breaking News shows, featured Scott Stanford from WWE HQ discussing the announcement and a Skype call from Michael Cole who was actually within Cowboy Stadium. These shows are really nice and are a great example of how WWE should be driving traffic to the Network when normally people wouldn’t be checking it out.
Main Event began its exodus from the WWE Network this week. Main Event is currently not allowed to air on the Network as Sky in the UK have the exclusive broadcast rights to the show as part of their new deal, and as the Network currently lacks the ability to geographically restrict content (which they are working on – according to a recent interview with Stephanie McMahon), Main Event will remain off the Network. Fans in the US can still check out Main Event with their Hulu Plus subscription though, which this week featured pretty good Kofi Kingston vs. Tyson Kidd and Bray Wyatt vs. Jack Swagger matches.
The Network’s Rivalries series has ended for now, closing out with a bang, because the latest episode looked at the Edge/Matt Hardy rivalry. It can be quite easy to forget now just how compelling that more-than-personal feud was and how intense it became on TV by modern day rivalry standards. The episode did a good job of reminding us all though, helped in particular by WWE working in the interview footage with Matt Hardy originally recorded for the “Twist of Fate – The Matt & Jeff Hardy Story” DVD, and fairly recent clips with Edge and Lita too. Even if you may have been lapsed with your viewing of Rivalries up to now, this is one to check out.
Coming up…
At the moment we are in a little bit of a down period in terms of the brand new original series on the WWE Network. This past week Rivalries ended its very short run (7 episodes) as mentioned earlier, The Monday Night War series came to an end last week, and Countdown is only making very sporadic appearances with new episodes now – but there is a little light which we can see, on Monday night right after RAW a new series called “WWE 24” will debut. The 30 minute show will take a behind the scenes look at WWE’s biggest and most significant events. The first episode will recount last year’s WrestleMania from New Orleans. The synopsis reads as follows: “The premiere episode of the original series, WWE24, takes you behind the spectacle of WrestleMania XXX and its most compelling stories.”
This is the only new show set to air on the Network this coming week right now – that gives us time to catch up on some recently added content which we have almost forgotten about already; like: Tough Enough, Prime Time Wrestling, TNT, Hardcore TV… Nitro… RAW…
Classic of the Week
Tonight the Royal Rumble will air live from Philly, and the card consists of tag team and three-way matches. The Royal Rumble has a semi-tradition of delivering some really solid tag matches, so, with this in mind this week we are going to highlight one of the more forgotten tag team bouts from the Royal Rumble…
The Hardy’s vs. MNM Royal Rumble • January 28, 2007
These two teams stole the show the month prior with their match at ECW’s final PPV foray – December to Dismember (yes, it wasn’t a difficult show to steal, but still).
These four guys delivered us a fun, fast paced tag team match to open the 2007 Rumble. The San Antonio crowd were really into the match, cheering the babyface Hardy’s over the heel-ish Mercury and Nitro. So instead of watching ANOTHER Rumble match, check this one out this afternoon, I’m sure you’ll love it too.
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I hope the Rivalries show returns soon. A lot of great rivalries have yet to be covered.
Stone Cold vs HHH
Mick Foley (as Manind and Cactus Jack) vs HHH
Mankind vs The Rock
Taker vs Kane
Taker v Mankind
Taker vs Stone Cold
Taker vs HHH
Taker vs HBK
Taker vs Brock Lesnar
Jericho vs Benoit and Benoit vs Kurt Angle are deserving to be on the show, but I doubt they’ll cover it for obvious reasons.
If the show covers rivalries that did not happen in WWE:
Sting vs Hogan
Sting vs Ric Flair
one can wonder, if that garbage they called Royal Rumble last night will get released and re-aired..
I have to “congratulate” the WWE: not only have they “topped” their previously garbage ppv’s: King of the Ring 1995, December to dismember 2006 and Fatal 4 way 2010…I really did’nt think it could get more trashed than those..but, hold and below: RR 2015!
I can’t believe, that even Bootista last year did’nt get that much boooed.. we all knew the winner..but, my, oh my..the way to get to the winner…!
WrestleMania is the only ppv I have faith in…and I am not even sure it is going to be one I really look forward to, with this road full of holes! 2014 was bad…if this continues…and I can not see what should change, with RR being my absolute favorite show of the year…2015 looks to be the year where I am signing off as a collector of ppv’s.
How can you have faith in WM after the main event has been sealed? I’m hoping Reigns gets screwed out of his opportunity at Fast Lane or something, setting up something else for the WM main event. This is what I have faith in!
I honestly don’t have much faith in the current product.. and when NOTHING in my favorite ppv of the year clicks, and I do not want to own it on bluray…or even dvd…not even if it went down in price like hell…then, it is truly time to quit the ppv collection from her on ever after. I really don’t see how WWE can turn this around..there is no sparkle at all in the current product..no energy at all.
Agree. And I feel like Sting’s signing is worthless now since HHH had to stick his face in there and face Sting himself. They are liars when they say they listen to the fans. We have been wanting Sting/Taker for years. Now it is possible, but won’t happen.
well.. I am not a booker, and don’t have theose skills.. but, the current writing- and bookingteam for the past years…they are just as unskilled, imho..
Main thing for me in wrestling was never bout, who wins or looses…it is about, how you as performers give an entertaining piece of action, to get me keep interesting in following the product..
Since Summerslam 2012, I can truly say, that the curve of excitement has pointed lower and lower, down, down, sinking more and more, for every year..
Last night was the finale nail in the coffin.. too bad..
This article mentions the Monday Night Wars, which have been on the Network, and I know a release is expected in May with the first ten episodes on the set. I know I’m jumping ahead, but isn’t each episode around an hour? Doesn’t that make for a 10 hour set? Do we know if it is to be multiple discs?
As you say, it’s planned to be the first 10 eps + extras but it sounds like all of that wouldn’t fit. Maybe they will edit the episodes shorter if it’s going ahead still and if they are keeping it a 3 disc DVD, 2 disc Blu-ray format.
Agree. It seems the only way they could keep the episodes in their entirety and to add extras is to make it a 3 disc Blu-ray, which we only see on very rare occasions. There are many spots though where these episodes can be edited. I notice some of the same scenes over and over. Very curious to see how it shapes up. Thanks for the info.
Not every MNW episode is a full 60 minutes. In fact I don’t think any episode is a full 60 minutes. Most of them are in the 52-55 minute range. Now if you cut out 5-8 minutes per episode, that will leave you with 50-80 minutes of more room for the box set. So in theory the 10 episode set should range anywhere from 8 hours, 40 minutes to 9 hours, 10 minutes. So it is possible to fit the entire first 10 episodes onto a 3-dvd/2-br set. Probably no room for extras though.
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I hope the Rivalries show returns soon. A lot of great rivalries have yet to be covered.
Stone Cold vs HHH
Mick Foley (as Manind and Cactus Jack) vs HHH
Mankind vs The Rock
Taker vs Kane
Taker v Mankind
Taker vs Stone Cold
Taker vs HHH
Taker vs HBK
Taker vs Brock Lesnar
Jericho vs Benoit and Benoit vs Kurt Angle are deserving to be on the show, but I doubt they’ll cover it for obvious reasons.
If the show covers rivalries that did not happen in WWE:
Sting vs Hogan
Sting vs Ric Flair
one can wonder, if that garbage they called Royal Rumble last night will get released and re-aired..
I have to “congratulate” the WWE: not only have they “topped” their previously garbage ppv’s: King of the Ring 1995, December to dismember 2006 and Fatal 4 way 2010…I really did’nt think it could get more trashed than those..but, hold and below: RR 2015!
I can’t believe, that even Bootista last year did’nt get that much boooed.. we all knew the winner..but, my, oh my..the way to get to the winner…!
WrestleMania is the only ppv I have faith in…and I am not even sure it is going to be one I really look forward to, with this road full of holes! 2014 was bad…if this continues…and I can not see what should change, with RR being my absolute favorite show of the year…2015 looks to be the year where I am signing off as a collector of ppv’s.
How can you have faith in WM after the main event has been sealed? I’m hoping Reigns gets screwed out of his opportunity at Fast Lane or something, setting up something else for the WM main event. This is what I have faith in!
I know I can be naive from time to time. lol
I honestly don’t have much faith in the current product.. and when NOTHING in my favorite ppv of the year clicks, and I do not want to own it on bluray…or even dvd…not even if it went down in price like hell…then, it is truly time to quit the ppv collection from her on ever after. I really don’t see how WWE can turn this around..there is no sparkle at all in the current product..no energy at all.
Sting might be regretting that he signed a deal, with the low level of excitement last night managed to produce.
Agree. And I feel like Sting’s signing is worthless now since HHH had to stick his face in there and face Sting himself. They are liars when they say they listen to the fans. We have been wanting Sting/Taker for years. Now it is possible, but won’t happen.
well.. I am not a booker, and don’t have theose skills.. but, the current writing- and bookingteam for the past years…they are just as unskilled, imho..
Main thing for me in wrestling was never bout, who wins or looses…it is about, how you as performers give an entertaining piece of action, to get me keep interesting in following the product..
Since Summerslam 2012, I can truly say, that the curve of excitement has pointed lower and lower, down, down, sinking more and more, for every year..
Last night was the finale nail in the coffin.. too bad..
This article mentions the Monday Night Wars, which have been on the Network, and I know a release is expected in May with the first ten episodes on the set. I know I’m jumping ahead, but isn’t each episode around an hour? Doesn’t that make for a 10 hour set? Do we know if it is to be multiple discs?
The DVD was pushed back to June last we heard (see: http://amzn.to/1yhveQp).
As you say, it’s planned to be the first 10 eps + extras but it sounds like all of that wouldn’t fit. Maybe they will edit the episodes shorter if it’s going ahead still and if they are keeping it a 3 disc DVD, 2 disc Blu-ray format.
Agree. It seems the only way they could keep the episodes in their entirety and to add extras is to make it a 3 disc Blu-ray, which we only see on very rare occasions. There are many spots though where these episodes can be edited. I notice some of the same scenes over and over. Very curious to see how it shapes up. Thanks for the info.
Not every MNW episode is a full 60 minutes. In fact I don’t think any episode is a full 60 minutes. Most of them are in the 52-55 minute range. Now if you cut out 5-8 minutes per episode, that will leave you with 50-80 minutes of more room for the box set. So in theory the 10 episode set should range anywhere from 8 hours, 40 minutes to 9 hours, 10 minutes. So it is possible to fit the entire first 10 episodes onto a 3-dvd/2-br set. Probably no room for extras though.
Real men don’t have The WWE Network
WRONG!