WRASSLIN'! (let's talk wrestling here?)

I had heard peacock was scrubbing old WWF/WWE content and removing things they deemed "inappropriate"

Yah some instances of blackface and use of the n word. There's almost nothing up on peacock at the moment compared to the entire wwe network library, so I think they are taking their time combing it.
 
What a great time to be a wrestling fan. AEW is cooking and we just got a Takeover where one night WALTER and Ciampa tried to murder each other over a necklace and KOR and Adam Cole continue an almost decades long feud of trying to murder each other. And Mania still to come. Great week so far!
 
So Today I watched the first edition of WWF’s Royal Rumble from 1988. I guess I accidentally skipped over it initially when I was working my way through and to be honest I didn’t miss much. The Royal Rumble event was great, Hacksaw Jim Duggan took the title but the rest of the PPV (which according to Wikipedia wasn’t even a PPV but a special TV event) was pretty bad. Ravishing Rick Rude vs Ricky The Dragon Steamboat was fun but beyond that you had two best of 3 tag team matches, then 25 minutes of Dino Bravo bench pressing and another 45 minutes of Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant signing a contract. Kinda lame but the Rumble was pretty great.
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So Today I watched the first edition of WWF’s Royal Rumble from 1988. I guess I accidentally skipped over it initially when I was working my way through and to be honest I didn’t miss much. The Royal Rumble event was great, Hacksaw Jim Duggan took the title but the rest of the PPV (which according to Wikipedia wasn’t even a PPV but a special TV event) was pretty bad. Ravishing Rick Rude vs Ricky The Dragon Steamboat was fun but beyond that you had two best of 3 tag team matches, then 25 minutes of Dino Bravo bench pressing and another 45 minutes of Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant signing a contract. Kinda lame but the Rumble was pretty great.
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Yah, a TV special on USA to go head to head with an NWA ppv. Vince being Vince.
 
Just an update on my WWF PPV rewatch. I just finished the 1994 King Of The Ring and it’s been a lot of fun. Watching the slow churn of Wrestlers and storylines and announcers. 1994 is the first year with no Hulk Hogan. Also no more Mean Gene unfortunately. I gotta see the rise of Syd Justice, Ric Flair, Undertaker, and Yokozuna Also, seeing both Jake “The Snake” Roberts go bad and Shawn Michaels break with Marty Jennetty and turn into his “The Heartbreak Kid” heal. Also, Scary Shari Martel get past around from the Macho Man to The Million Dollar Man to Sean Michaels. Seeing the Brett Hart/Owen Hart storyline is fun. Also now you have Diesel and Razor Ramon reach prominence which is nice.

As far as announcers go. Gorilla Monsoon and Jim Ross are by far the best play-by-play guys over the past 10 years. Vince McMahon is way too shouty. Color Commentators; the best are Jessie Ventura, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, and Jerry The King” Lawler. Having the Color guy as a heal supporter works much better. Macho Man and The Hot Rod “Rowdy” Ronnie Piper were alright but them being “good guys” doesn’t help with the drama.

Another note, many associated “the mullet” hairstyle with the 1980s but if pro wrestling is any indication, the mullet hairstyle didn’t really reach its apex until like 1992/1993.

Here are few screen shot from the past few weeks…
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when the wwe network first started i watched a bunch of mid to late 80s prime time wrestling mostly to watch heenan and monsoon’s banter in the studio segments. almost every line heenan said was a joke in some way- to me the guy is legitimately the funniest person in all of wrestling and no one else comes close.
 
I did a deep dive on WWF PPV via The Peacock app during the early days of the Pandemic, watched every PPV from Wrestlemania III through Wrestlemania 2000. I recently decided to revisit WCW Nitro Era, I started off with Bash at The Beach 96 where Hogan turns heal. Fun stuff watching Sting’s transformation.
I was exploring all of the offerings on Peacock and saw that they have a whole section dedicated to WWE (separate from "Sports"). It's wild to me that they categorize everything on the app into "Movies", "TV Shows", "Sports", and then "WWE" - haha. I clicked through it and was completely lost. I'm amazed about how many different..series? or leagues? that they have in there. Is there a logical entry point into that category of entertainment?
 
I was exploring all of the offerings on Peacock and saw that they have a whole section dedicated to WWE (separate from "Sports"). It's wild to me that they categorize everything on the app into "Movies", "TV Shows", "Sports", and then "WWE" - haha. I clicked through it and was completely lost. I'm amazed about how many different..series? or leagues? that they have in there. Is there a logical entry point into that category of entertainment?
So, WWE started off with their own subscription network but when NBC/Comcast was launching their streaming Platforms they bought the right to the be the exclusive streaming home of WWE and thusly had a bunch of wrestling fans sign up in order to obtain the network, you also can watch current PPV via Peacock for free.

WWE is the biggest pro wrestling company and over the years they acquired many of their rivals, including ECW and WCW so both of those are available on the app too.

Where to start is completely subjective lots of interesting and fun eras. Lots of my enjoyment was initially tied to nostalgia but I was surprised at just how much I ended up enjoying it. I have not watched much pro wrestling over the past 23 years so there is a bunch I haven’t seen yet but it f I was gonna suggest a place to start I would suggest Wrestlemania III that is the pinnacle of Pro Wrestling and peak Hulkamania.
 
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