What exactly is this site all about? For the most part, it is a blog and podcast about professional wrestling. But to be even more specific, both the blog and podcast will revolve around what I consider to be the best value available for any pro wrestling fan—the WWE Network.
There are lots of things to love about the WWE Network. From original programming to getting each upcoming pay-per-view event to being able to watch rare “old-school” broadcasts of all sorts of past professional wrestling events—if you are a pro wrestling fan at all, then the WWE Network has something for you.
Perhaps the best part of the WWE Network is their astonishing library of all past WWE, WCW and ECW pay-per-view events. Not just some or most of them mind you—almost all of them, even the events that happened just once, such as 1991’s This Tuesday In Texas.
If you are an old time wrestling fan that grew up watching WWE or WCW or ECW, the WWE Network provides a trip down memory lane that is so thick with nostalgia you will literally get lost for hours surfing through your favorite matches and moments from years gone by.
If you are a new fan with a desire to try and get caught up on the rich history of professional wrestling, then your prayers have been answered as with the WWE Network you can relive pretty much 30-plus years of history with the touch of a screen or the press of a button.
And if you are looking for something to help enrich your viewing experience, then you have come to the right place as this blog and podcast is going to be largely devoted to the grand and glorious history of pro wrestling that can, to a large degree, be discovered—or perhaps re-discovered— through the WWE Network.
For some, this blog and podcast will serve as a jumping off point to try and give those wanting to delve deep into the WWE Networks’ library a point of reference to try and determine which pay-per-view events are worth their time. For others, the blog posts and podcasts will be a quasi-companion that might help give you some additional information, an added perspective or some other useful bit of historical insight that will enable you to get more out of a WWE Network item than you otherwise might have obtained. It is my sincere hope and goal that the blog posts will provide you with something that will help to make your viewing of each event all that more relevant and enjoyable.
So how exactly will this work? With the blog posts, I will go through all the pay-per-views of a particular year, watch them all over again, call upon my own memories of the events in question and provide a recap of the year being examined. As much as I can, I will call upon my memory (ever fading though it may be) and add in my own thoughts, reflections and recollections of what was going on at that time in history to try and give you additional information and facts that are not included in the re-broadcast of the event. I will try my best to fill in important gaps in information so that the event you are watching makes more sense.
For instance, if there was a major alliance shift—such as Barry Windham’s heel turn and joining of the Four Horsemen in 1988—I will clue you in to that. Things that got overlooked and glossed over—like Ultimate Warrior’s stunning departure from WWE in 1991—will be addressed to make sure that the wrestling fan, whether he/she is young or old, has a solid historical grasp on whatever event he or she is watching.
Naturally, many of you may be asking the appropriate question, “Why should I listen to you or care about what you think or remember?”
Fair enough. I might be asking the same thing. So let me try and persuade you that this blog and podcast might actually be worth your time.
I have been a professional wrestling fan for pretty much as long as I can remember. The first pro wrestling card I went to featured Tony Atlas vs. Ken Patera at the old Capital Centre outside of Washington DC. I saw so many cards there I lost track. Some of those cards were epics in every sense of the word. I saw a lumberjack match between Bruno Sammartino and Larry Zybysko. I saw Hulk Hogan face Andre The Giant—but this was when Hulk was the heel and Andre was the face. I saw just about every superstar you could hope to see during wrestling’s golden era (or one of the golden eras depending on your age and point of view), including Hogan, Randy Savage, Ted DiBiase, Andre, Ultimate Warrior, Rick Rude, Jake Roberts, Sting, Lex Luger, Ric Flair, the Road Warriors, Demolition and more. After I relocated to California, I was as heavily into the Attitude Era as anyone and I saw several Smackdown tapings in Bakersfield, California—including the night Stone Cold Steve Austin and Booker T destroyed the Green Frog Supermarket. I remember even being at the WWE themed restaurant in New York City just after it opened.
All told, I estimate that I saw probably 80 percent of the pay-per-view events on WWE Network as they happened. I was even present at several of them including the 1990 and 1991 Great American Bash in Baltimore, Maryland, Capital Combat 1990 at the DC Armory, the 1993 Royal Rumble in Sacramento, California, WrestleMania IX in Las Vegas, Summer Slam ’14 in Los Angeles and WrestleMania 31.
As far as writing is concerned, I have written several quite well received WWE articles on Bleacher Report and I spent a good year or more writing as a Featured Columnist for the Washington Capitals hockey team. Add on the fact that I am an attorney with 16 years experience as my “day job” and an argument can be made that I actually know how to write and speak in public.
When you take all that into consideration, I think I can offer some historical information as to many of the years I will explore that might be missing from the straight up pay-per-view broadcasts. I don’t say this to try and brag—rather I am just trying to convince you that maybe, just maybe, it would be worth some of your time to see what I have to say and think.
The podcasts will then be additional content for each of the years we will be exploring but they will be much more than that. I mean if all I did on the podcast was regurgitate what was in the blog posts, well that would not be much fun, would it? The podcasts will not only discuss various aspects of the present blog post, but it will naturally focus on current events so that we can explore and discuss what is going on with WWE and pro wrestling today. Discussions will range from the most recent pay-per-view event (or whatever WWE is calling these events now) to the most recent edition of Raw or Smackdown to developments on NXT and so forth. The podcast will also discuss some of the other shows and features on WWE Network that I think might be worth your time and effort. For instance, I might talk about an episode of Legends House or a good episode of Legends of Wrestling or something I saw on Beyond the Ring that I found to be quite good.
One thing I must mention though is that on the podcasts there will not be too much discussion about TNA/ Impact Wrestling or Ring of Honor or New Japan or any of the other organizations out there. In no way should that be interpreted as my slighting these organizations. I have nothing but respect for any organization trying to make a name for themselves and there is definite talent in Impact/TNA, RoH, NJPW or what have you. But I don’t feel as though I would be able to say anything about any of these organizations that would be better or comparable to the coverage they get from Ring Rust Radio or the Ross Report or PW Torch, or something along those lines.
The podcast will be very interactive, complete with you guys sending in questions by e-mail, or calling up or something along those lines. I would love to be able to connect and interact with other passionate wrestling fans out there so I really hope that comes to pass. And, certainly, I am going to do all I can to get guests on the podcasts who can add to and enrich the entire experience. Obviously though, I will have to do a good job with you fine folks first before any past, present or future wrestling stars or personalities will give me the time of day. Hey, at least I recognize that right off the bat.
Oh and before I forget, as to the blog posts, there will be spoilers in these articles. If you do not want to know the outcome of some of these matches that will be discussed, then please do not read along.
But for those who want to get an idea of what a particular pay-per-view was all about—or whether a specific year was particularly good—then you might just enjoy this ongoing project.
As much as possible, I will stick to the chronology of how the events played out during the year in question, but I will try and discuss one organization at a time. For instance, I am currently running through 1990 and there is a lot of ground to cover. When that blog post comes out, I will focus on WWE first and go through all the pertinent events in chronological order. Then a subsequent blog post would focus on WCW and go through all the key events in 1990 chronologically. Or something along those lines. I think this will be the most thorough and entertaining way to present this to you. Otherwise, I fear things would just be a bit too scattered and haphazard to be really worthwhile. There may be times when deviating from this may be necessary. But in general, that will be the plan.
So if you want to be a part of one of the biggest pro wrestling history projects of all time, then let’s begin…shall we?