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My night of Network viewing!

So in between writing my gruelling and extensively researched piece for Sporting News tonight, I also checked out some stuff on the Network because reasons.  And it was a pretty good night!

First up, the Santino Royal Rumble special, which was pretty fun, as Santino is always entertaining hosting these kind of fluff pieces.  Basically an extended version of the “by the numbers” video packages, with extra stuff like highlighting funny moments and showing all 39 of Kane’s eliminations and such.  I’m of course a huge mark for the Rumble so this was a breezy 40 minutes.  Also, Santino mispronouncing “John Cena” is never not funny.  Thumbs up!

Second, I was digging through the “Beyond the Ring” section (basically the documentary portions of a bunch of home video releases) and decided to check out the “History of the World title” one from 2009.  I actually have the DVD on my shelf to complete the set of “History of WWE title” and “History of IC title” ones (because the packaging looks the same and I’m a bit of an obsessive collector…shocking I know) but I’ve never sat down to watch it before.  I actually really enjoy when they venture into the old-timey history stuff, moreso for the fascinating nostalgia than their ridiculous attempts to connect the Gotch-Hackenshmidt era to the modern big gold belt.  But given they have hundreds of hours of the classic 70s NWA era that never get put to use and big names like Terry Funk and Harley Race who were in their prime, I’m shocked we don’t get more excuses to use that footage.  It’s so cool to see stuff like the Funk brothers winning the title and Gene Kiniski still kayfabing 30 years later.  Fun fact:  My dad grew up in the same neighborhood as the Kiniskis and went to school with Kelly and Nick. So that stuff was all great, and then the documentary completely goes to hell once it gets to the NWA – WCW transition and loses all semblance of reality or a timeline that makes any sense.  But the 1900-1980s history portion for the first 3/4 is all really great.  I believe the DVD set has a hell of a matchlist as well, so check it out if you find it cheap like I did!

Comments

  1. Speaking of awesome old stuff, when are we going to get a documentary on Memphis? Does WWE still not own the rights to the Memphis stuff? I loved the Mid-South DVD they came out with last year, and it'd be really great to see a Memphis one.

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  2. I wish they would include the matches that came with the docs on those DVDs because you can't find a lot of them on the network.

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  3. Rumor a year ago or so that Lawler was CLOSE to having the Memphis video rights sorted.

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  4. I watched the Heyman documentary followed by the two ECW Exposed episodes yesterday and it made for a great evening.

    The network is great thing to get lost in especially if there are things you've never seen before, for I that's almost all of the WCW library.

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  5. Missing matches aside, there is literally hundreds of dollars worth of content just in the Beyond the Ring documentary section alone. Almost unfortunate for me, given I'd spent a couple years actually buying most of those DVDs. Just watching the ones I don't have, though, makes it quite the value.

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  6. I wouldn't be surprised to find out the older history portion is made-up, also. Actually, I'd be shocked if it wasn't. We just don't know enough about the time period to dispute like the later years

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  7. Cheers for this, I wasn't really sure where all the documentaries were. This will be my focus for a while.

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  8. Getting the Network is worth it for me just for these, because I *didn't* buy any.


    The bigger the fan who have been and the more supportive you have been, the less the Network is a bargain, somewhat ironically. For cheap asses like me, it's a bargain.

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  9. I also watched the Santino Rumble thing and it was highly entertaining. More stuff like that -- as I've suggested before, such as Santino & Foley Discuss The History Of Jobbers -- would get lots of easy 'buys' from me.

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  10. Yeah the matches on that set are really really good. I had no idea that Rey and Orton had a 30 minute, big-time fight feel classic just after Wrestlemania 22.

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  11. A question for those that may have seen the DVD:
    I watched the Music of WWE on the Network, but it was only an hour long and seemed clipped. Is the DVD release any more indepth? Seeing Jim Johnstone (sp?) talk about his process is awesome. I would like to hear more from Jimmy Hart as well.

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  12. Foley would go on Facebook and find something to bitch about it.

    "I wasn't comfortable with talking about Special Delivery Jones in an unflattering light."

    There's a reason WWE doesn't work with him as often as they used to.

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  13. I wonder if Kiniski tried to break up playground fights by correcting the guys battling every two seconds until they just gave up and went inside

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  14. Didn't he also destroy his TV with a sledgehammer after Daniel Bryan was left out of the Royal Rumble, and then just a few weeks ago told fans they should calm down and just enjoy the show?

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  15. It was something like that. He's done a lot of odd things in the last two years or so that seem like cries for attention so it's hard to keep them straight.

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  16. I wish that wasn't true, but it is.

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  17. Love how they admitted wrestling became worked early on because as a shoot it was extremely boring

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  18. Probably has some brain damage from all of the head shots.

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  19. I watched ECW Exposed last night as well. It's amazing how positively Heyman came across and how negatively Styles came across. Styles (and Tommy Dreamer) seem to go so overboard with their nostalgia for ECW (whereas guys like Heyman, RVD, and even Taz seem to remember it fondly but have managed to move on to bigger and better things). Like, I shook my head when Styles went on a rant about how stupid WWE's humor was and then went on to say how ECW did humor so much better....and proceeded to show a number of clips that were barely chuckle worthy.

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  20. nope. it also only includes the countdown plus a handful of extras.

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  21. Smackdowns first month of 2006 were great. for example, the Angle/Undertaker rematch is worth looking for, too.

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  22. Same here. I used to buy just about every documentary they made. I also spent so much money and time trading and buying seasons of raw, nitro, primetime, superstars, etc... If I'd have known the network was coming it would've saved me a lot.

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  23. Question for everyone here: Does anyone with the network still buy wwe dvds or blu rays? I used to buy quite a few per year but since the network hit, I don't see the point. I did get the Macho and Sting blu rays that came out this year but that'll likely be it for a while.

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  24. I don't doubt it. I also think he regrets wrestling such a physical style, which made him retire so early. It's why he kept coming back and doing more damage to himself because he misses the spotlight.

    But then again it's that physical style that made him famous. Catch-22.

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  25. Nope. Nothing now. I actually stopped after finding then online anyway tho

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  26. Didn't we all freak out about that and other stupid stuff wwe has done lately? He's a smart guy and a fan, he gets frustrated like us

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  27. Wwe humor does suck tho

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