Skip to main content

RAW on Canadian TV

Just to clear up the RAW on TSN discussions that pop up from time to time...

">Although I should note that the week after THAT is where RAW gets picked up in Canada by TSN and thus I’m able to watch it semi-live every week.

Huh? TSN started showing Raw in late 1994 didn't they? I definitely started watching Raw in Early 1995 but who can remember which channel it was on."


TSN showed edited versions of the show in death slots Saturday nights following the USA airing off and on from 94-95, but then lost the broadcast rights to the New VR in Ontario in 1995.  In July of 96 they bought back the rights for good and actually starting airing it on Monday nights, albeit taped delayed by two hours or so or even the next day sometimes.  At the end of 96 with the Mero-HHH title change they switched it to about an hour tape delayed, and finally in early 98 they went with a simulcast of the USA show and it stayed there until they got kicked off the station in 2006 for football.  


And to hit another question:


So what was WWF TV like in Canada between 1990 and 1996 when you could finally get RAW? Just WWF Superstars, and Challenge? Did you get All American (yes, I'm aware of th irony)/Mania/Action Zone? 


Just Superstars and Challenge, yes, although by 94 I had a big C-band dish in my backyard and I could watch all the USA shows.  Traditionally in Canada the syndicated show was rebranded into Maple Leaf Wrestling for distribution, although they dropped that by the 90s.  Typically we could just watch the American syndicated versions on the US network feeds anyway, so there was very little difference unless you were relying on an antenna for your TV programming.  And of course we had no access to USA Network up here, so Primetime/All American/etc had no coverage in Canada and things like Jamison meant nothing to Canadian viewers because we didn't actually get the original shows that explained the joke.  

    Comments

    1. We did get All-American and Action Zone on TSN though I can't remember for how long but yeah we never got Mania or Prime Time. I don't recall ever seeing Wrestling Challenge but I do recall Wrestling Spotlight.

      ReplyDelete
    2. I remember Terry Taylor hosting All-American on TSN. He was actually pretty good as a host.

      And Challenge was on for sure as "WWF Cavalcade." Ah, CHCH.

      ReplyDelete
    3. "Now let's head to the WWF Event Centre with Billy Red Lyons who has no more fucks to give."

      ReplyDelete
    4. I always remember how they would edit out the word "superstars" when referring to the show etc. So you'd always get Vince at the end of the program yelling "Next week!!......" And then just dead air. Also long stretches of dead air during matches... like seriously sometimes 2 minutes long where they must have been talking about their programs on USA network.

      ReplyDelete
    5. Anyone remember on the New VR when Raw switched from one hour to two hours and they didn't pick up the second hour? Or was it they wouldn't show the overrun? I have a specific memory of a Stone Cold Steve Austin match going for a few minutes and then the feed just fading out to to whatever the hell show was scheduled to be on.

      ReplyDelete
    6. oh ok--i would see it listed when I went on vacation and would read TV listings in the paper but never knew what it was. I live in Kitimat BC, 4 hours south of Alaska and I got whatever was available on Detroit ABC and CBS and Seattle NBC. I remember Detroit ABc in the fall of 1987 when I started watching on Sat nights has UWF, NWA Pro, POWW, GLOW, and finally WWF Spotlight at the end of the night. Since I would already have watched Superstars of Wrestling that morning, a saturday where i got Saturday Night's Main Event to finish off the day was great!

      ReplyDelete
    7. Stranger In The AlpsMay 19, 2015 at 11:00 PM

      In Nova Scotia, here's the deal:


      if you lived off antenna, you got two channels over the air, English CBC and French CBC. You were screwed out of any wrestling. Your weekday mornings consisted of The Friendly Giant, Mr. Dressup and Sesame Street, but Sesame Street was Canadianized in the sense that in between Muppet sketches, they taught you things in French. At least once or twice a week you got an Expos game. Saturday afternoons you got episodes of Star Trek. Saturday nights it was Hockey Night in Canada, "the greatest program in Canadian television history".


      If you had cable, which we were fortunate enough to have because my father worked for the local cable company, your main US channels came from Detroit. CBS, NBC and ABC. We would not get Fox until well into the 90's. The Detroit CBS gave us Superstars on Saturday at noon. It would be this way until 1994 or so. We never had a channel that offered Wrestling Challenge. There was a channel out of Hamilton, Ontario called CHCH on the cable deal that showed something called Maple Leaf Wrestling, hosted by Billy Red Lyons. It was basically Wrestling Challenge but edited with the matches in a different order than the original. Sometimes matches from Hamilton house shows were spliced in. Out of Halifax, NS came a channel called ASN. This offered RAW every Saturday afternoon beginning in 1994. In 1996, CTV began airing Nitro in a one hour format around the time of the Scott Hall appearance. TSN also offered shows like All American prior to getting RAW.


      Then we got running water in 1999.

      ReplyDelete
    8. Growing up in southern Ontario, we had

      * WWF Superstars every Saturday morning at 11am, via one of the Detroit stations.
      * WWF Wrestling Challenge every Saturday around either noon or 1pm on CHCH
      * WWF Cavalcade on Saturday evenings on CHCH, which was usually just a repurposed-footage show from either Wrestling Challenge or even random house shows from Maple Leaf Gardens

      Around October 1994, TSN started showing the Action Zone, which was pretty mind-blowing for its time given how just about every episode had a legit star vs. star match. The premiere had Bret vs. Owen, and of course there was that epic Shawn/Diesel vs. Razor/Kid matchup not too far afterwards.

      I don't recall TSN getting RAW on a regular basis until 1996, which is when I phased out Superstars and Action Zone as my regular WWF programming.

      ReplyDelete
    9. It's funny, you could definitely tell that the Muppets weren't "normal", but the animated segments fit seamlessly with the others. I still get the "A quarter has a caribou on it" song stuck in my head.

      ReplyDelete
    10. ASN was awesome, cause I get to see Robotech on there.

      ReplyDelete
    11. I used to get CHCH out of Hamilton and ITV out of Edmonton.

      ReplyDelete
    12. Stranger In The AlpsMay 19, 2015 at 11:35 PM

      ....and Go-Bots.

      ReplyDelete
    13. Watched that too, and Transformers. I had two 8 hour VHS tapes full of Transformers episodes.

      ReplyDelete
    14. I hope you never have to run in to Vince Jordan. He lives up there somewhere, though it might be New Brunswick

      ReplyDelete
    15. I seem to remember saturday's Maple Leaf Wrestling was the same show as Superstars of wrestling, only the opening and bumper segments were changed. I also seem to recall a weeknight show that had wrestling from Maple Leaf gardens but damned if I can recall the name of it...maybe on CBC? I think Friday nights on CTV was when I would see Learning The Ropes with Lyle Alazado which was followed by Checking It Out! (Don Adams from Get Smart as a grocery store manager).

      ReplyDelete
    16. Adam "Colorado" CurryMay 20, 2015 at 2:32 AM

      In my part of America, that part being 2 blocks away from a major city that has 2 professional (shuddup haters, they're pro teams even if they have been a joke), we couldn't get the first 2 seasons of South Park because we didn't have Comedy Central. The kids a few blocks away in the projects saw South Park, but we didn't.

      But wrestling? Hell yes, we not only got USA, TNT, and TBS, but ECW on MSG (albeit at either 2AM or 7 in the morning), and USWA until they went under on syndication, PLUS the Canadian feeds you guys got just in case I missed something. Global TV is THE SHIT, and living on the border is fucking awesome.

      ReplyDelete
    17. Adam "Colorado" CurryMay 20, 2015 at 2:38 AM

      I don't even know what to make of this.

      ReplyDelete
    18. OH CANADA! OH HOW I HATE THIS PLAAAACE!

      ReplyDelete
    19. Grew up in America, and I got episodes of IWCCW on channel 58 SportsChannel. Thanks.

      ReplyDelete
    20. Sat and sundays we got superstars and cavelcade/challenge at noon. Out of buffalo (wned). Sunday night was mlw which was just house show matches from the garden which I think chch showed.

      ReplyDelete
    21. Grew up outside of Detroit, watched a ton of Nitro and Raw at friends' houses until we got USA and TNT; however, we also got AWA and GWF on ESPN, and ECW at two in the morning on some random channel.

      ReplyDelete
    22. 11am Saturday, on channel 11, our CBS affiliate out of Detroit, on Saturday morning is how this Canadian watched Superstars for years. Before that, Maple Leaf Wrestling on our CBC channel.

      ReplyDelete
    23. Here in Winnipeg, aside from Raw, which was pretty much what Scott said, regular cable had Superstars/Maple Leaf Wrestling on Saturday mornings. Around 1996, our CTV affiliate started showing Nitro (once it went to 2 hours, it would just be the 2nd) followed by a local Indy (IWA or IWF I think) that featured Don Callis (Jackyl in WWF) as their champion with a Shane Douglas "franchise" ripoff gimmick. I think he was called "The Natural". We couldn't get white onions because of the war, the only thing the had were these BIG yellow ones...

      ReplyDelete
    24. Yeah we didn't get Comedy Central up here until like 2000 something, I guess.

      ReplyDelete
    25. Holy crap that Don Callis promotion! Wasn't, like Martel a part of that as well? I also vaguely remember them showing some lucha on their show as well? Like, maybe Ultimo Dragon?

      ReplyDelete
    26. Also wanted to add that KCPQ out of Washington was the BOMB for wrestling fans in the 80s because they had the Saturday night FIVE HOUR block of stuff every week for a while. Worldwide! Glow! POWW! Pro Wrestling This Week! It was like what the WWE Network live feed should be.

      ReplyDelete
    27. I don't remember but if there was any wrestling on CBC or the other big Canadian station I'm sure I watched it. We also got the random stuff they'd air on MSG, if you had the good cable package.

      ReplyDelete
    28. Martel was, Bad News Allen too IIRC. I think you may be right on Ultimo, they had a masked guy on here for sure. Also, Champagne Gerry Morrow!

      ReplyDelete
    29. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Wrestling_Alliance Wow. Bulldog Bob Brown haha. LOL Who the fuck was The Male Nurse?

      ReplyDelete
    30. Growing up in Calgary, Alberta, the two main WWF shows I would catch every Saturday were CICT-DT (back then using the on-air call signs "Calgary 2&7" and from late 1993 onwards, "Calgary 7"). As mentioned earlier, 11 am was "WWF Cavalcade" and 12 pm was "Maple Leaf Wrestling". You would only ever have at most one feature match on each show, and iirc, the better one would be on WWF Cavalcade as Maple Leaf Wrestling would often not even have a feature match!


      I recall TSN having sporadic WWF programming as early as 1993 (possibly earlier, but my parents didn't get cable before 1993), but I can't recall the names of the shows. I know it was 1993 because I remember seeing a match where Yokozuna squashed Typhoon in about 90 seconds. The show might have been WWF Mania? It definitely wasn't RAW, as it didn't begin airing at all until late 1994 where I live.

      ReplyDelete
    31. The guy in the top part of the duplex to my Dad in the late 80's/early 90's had one of those big C-Band shits in the backyard too. Till about 1993 we got EVERYTHING. Including the live feed of the announcers instead of commercials for some CFL games, which was awsome.

      ReplyDelete
    32. Wow you guys got that signal all the way up there?!

      I can remember it crapping out all the time as a kid and we lived only 20 miles away.

      ReplyDelete
    33. I grew up on Toronto on Superstars (Sat noon on WUTV out of Buffalo), Maple Leaf (Sat 7pm CHCH out of Hamilton), and Challenge which was either Sat at 1pm or Sun noon, I can't recall.
      Maple Leaf was just Challenge with a local house show match tacked on as a main event. It was my favourite because Superstars and Challenge generally only showed jobber squashes, so seeing Koko B Ware vs Haku was pretty intense.
      Challenge and Maple Leaf dropped off somewhere around 1990 and it was just Superstars until around 94 when the off and on, good luck finding it, hacked to pieces Raw came on.

      ReplyDelete

    Post a Comment