WWE Network: What to watch; hidden gems, etc.

Cafe Society
1

I’ve had WWE Network for about a week now, and though I can only watch it outside my home (I don’t have nearly good enough of an internet connection to allow streaming), I’m loving it so far.

The problem I’ve been having is that there’s just so much content that it’s hard to know what to watch!

The first show I watched most of was Bash at the Beach '97. I knew there was a Chris Benoit/Kevin Sullivan career-threatening match in there, and I’d never seen it. I was also curious as to how the “Benoit warning label” would play out. (There is no Benoit warning label, by the way. You just don’t get the “separators” for his matches). ETA: I also checked out Benoit’s ladder match for the U.S. Title with Jeff Jarrett at Starrcade '99, and his WWF Title match against The Rock at Fully Loaded 2000.

So therefore, the first match I watched on the Network was, hee, Glacier and The Cat vs. Mortis and Wrath. Surprisingly decent wrestling from those four, actually, and the ending was creative. There was an outstanding Cruiserweight Title match between Chris Jericho and Ultimo Dragon, and a brilliant trios match involving Juventud Guerrera, Hector Garza, and Lizmark Jr. vs. Psychosis, La Parka, and Villano IV. (Watch the referee doing the “duck and cover” in the corner when the tecnicos do their synchronized suicide dive. It’s hilarious!)

I watched around the edges of Over the Edge '99, just to see how WWE handled Owen’s death. There was a nice memorial graphic at the beginning. Anything and everything associated with Owen, though, was removed. No promo for his match with The Godfather, no announcement of the accident, no Jarrett and Debra promo with Jarrett saying, “Owen Hart, I’m praying for you, buddy.”

That’s about as much of that event as I’m willing to watch.

I watched the DDP/Savage match at Spring Stampede '97, the Montreal Screwjob (I’m amazed HBK made it out of there alive), Austin winning the belt at WM14 and retaining it against Dude Love at Unforgiven, the first part of Survivor Series '98, CM Punk’s WWE pay-per-view debut at Survivor Series '06 as part of DX, and I just watched the fantastic match at Royal Rumble '14 between Daniel Bryan and Bray Wyatt.

Good GRIEF, there is just so much to watch. Anyone coming across some hidden gems, or watching clearly historical moments?

2

I don’t have it and won’t get it. That being said, the first thing I would look for is The Shockmaster.

3

… “He fell flat on his arse…he fell flat on his f#$##$g arse!”

4

I am in the same position as the OP - it doesn’t help that the descriptions of the older PPVs mostly talk about whatever BS headlining match was at the end of the PPV. The older WCW ones were all about the undercard guys, not whatever Hulk Hogan was up to then.

I like a lot of the WCW/New Japan fusion matches, there were a few in the first WCW thing I watched, though I forget exactly which one it was.

I noticed you can do a search by person - I totally missed that at first.

I hadn’t watched much of NXT, and there are several episodes of that show on the WWE Network - I recommend checking out all of the Antonio Cesaro/Sami Zayn matches from that show, especially the most recent one from the aRrival show.

I hear that Dean Malenko and Rey Mysterio had a great undercard match on one of the WCW shows in 95 or 96. I was going to check that out next.

The only problem, really, is sitting through so much of the lousy content on the rest of the PPV - that WCW one I watched featured DDP vs. Johnny B. Badd (who later became Marc Mero, and was never that good) in the opener, and the announcers kept reminding the viewers to check in on CompuServe!

Tim

5

Adam Rose’s entrance on NXT is fantastic!

ETA: He comes out with an entourage of like 12 people all looking like they’re dressed up for Mardi Gras. He gets up on the apron and then does a Nestea Plunge onto them, and they crowd-surf him to the other side of the ring. It’s really fun to watch. (He did this on the March 6 edition, episode 211).

6

Some ones to check out: Pat Patterson vs Sgt Slaughter, Piper vs Valentine dog collar match, Magnum TA vs Tully Blanchard I quit match, Flair vs Kerry Von Erich at the David Von Erich memorial show, Piper vs Hart, Rick Rude vs Jake the Snake, Steamboat vs Savage, Hogan vs Andre, Flair vs Steamboat Chitown Rumble, Flair vs Funk, Midnight Express vs Rock and Roll Express, Bret Hart vs Davey Boy Smith at SummerSlam, Bret vs Owen at Wrestlemania, Bret vs Shawn, Bret vs SCSA double turn match, Invasion, Bash at the Beach, Heatwave 95 Raven vs Dreamer, Edge vs Foley hardcore match, the first TLC match, Shawn vs Razor ladder match, Angle vs Guerrero WM 20, Shawn vs Angle WM 21, Shawn vs Undertaker 1 and 2, Shawn vs HHH street fight, CM Punk vs Cena Money in the Bank, RVD vs Cena One night only, Punk vs Bryan Over the Limit.

7

I don’t have The WWE Network and don’t know it’s search capabilities, but if you’re a fan of technical wrestling, check out ECW matches with people like Jericho, Melenko, Guerrero, and Benoit. Some excellent hold-for-hold wrestling.
If you weren’t an original ECW watcher, you might not know this, but ECW had many types of matches. They had Lucha Libre style matches. They had Puroresu style matches. They had their (sometimes stupid) Hardcore matches.
If you like promos and can search for them; Mick Foley/Cactus Jack/Mankind/Dude Love and The Rock are two of the best.