WWE 24/7

Since we all are still getting over the stomach punch from Saturday night, I thought I'd turn some attention to the new WWE 24/7 digital service. I've been waiting on such an occasion as this to do my review, so here it is. And yes, this is going to be another one of those articles written by some old guy who is going to complain about how much cooler things were back in the day.

Everything looks better in the rearview mirror and finally, Vince McMahon and the WWE have decided to exploit the old school fans who deserted professional wrestling in the late 1990s. By purchasing many of the available tape libraries from the different promotions he ran out of business, the WWE created a digital cable service to separate the disenfranchised from their money once again. And this should be no surprise: WWE 24/7 is a heck of an enjoyable deal.

Over the past few years, the library purchases have livened up some of the WWE's best-selling DVD sets like the ones for Paul Heyman's ECW; The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection; The Spectacular Legacy of the AWA; the Roddy Piper and Dusty Rhodes collections, etc. Instead of only featuring the wrestlers in their WWE (nee WWF) heyday, all of these DVD sets were able to round out--with varying degrees of critical success--the entire careers of some of the best-revered wrestlers from the 1980s and more.

So, what better way to get in on the digital cable in demand phenomenon than to have an entire channel dedicated to the history of wrestling--before it was labeled as "sports entertainment"?

Each month the programming on WWE 24/7 follows some sort of highlighted theme. For instance, February was "Dynamic Duos" and featured a lot of tag team action; March is all about Wrestlemania; and April promises to focus on the lost art of the wrestling managers.

March's featured Hall of Famer is Jimmy Snuka, so there are new matches featuring the man known as Superfly that rotate throughout the month. Entire episodes of WWF RAW and old Saturday Night's Main Event from NBC are also available (with drastic music changes) from time to time. The highlight for me is that old NWA TBS Saturday Night 6:05 shows are replayed as well. It's great to go back to the kayfabe days of seeing Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, and the Four Horsemen, Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express, and all of the favorites from the great studio wrestling days on the Superstation. Who doesn't miss the immediacy of studio wrestling?

Being an old NWA fan, it's great to relive some of the great angles from yesteryear. Almost as fun is seeing the guys rock some serious mullets. I swear it was Christmas morning to me the time I turned on to see Cornette and the Express make their TBS debut. And even though Dusty's famous "hard times" promo is available on both the Dusty and the Flair DVD sets, to see it in context of what was going on in Jim Crockett Promotions was a serious treat. Round that out with some of the old Florida Championship Wrestling and World Class shows (which are sad to see in retrospect and I think we all know why), WWE 24/7 is totally worth spending $7.95 a month.

But wait--there's more! There are PPVs and big shows from the past as well. WWE Old School has old WWF house shows from the Boston Garden (hello, Pete Doherty!) and Madison Square Garden. So far, there has been way too much Hulk Hogan on these shows for my taste but man, someone must've liked him if he was able to make all that money. There also is a roundtable show when Jim Ross; Dusty Rhodes; Freebird Michael PS Hayes; Pat Patterson; and Mike Graham discuss wrestling's main eventers from the 1980s. Trust me, listening to these guys sit around swapping war stories and tall tales is worth the price of the service by itself. The viewer gets to feel almost like a fly on the wall of the wrestlers' locker room as the guys goof on each other, talk about how much money they made, complain about their peers, etc. And if you've ever seen Michael Hayes do his impression of Terry Funk talking to Dusty Rhodes, trust me, you'll never forget it. Absolutely hilarious stuff.

Growing up, I was never the biggest fan of the WWF. To this day, I am no fan of Vince McMahon or really anyone in his family; especially Triple H. But I have to give it to ol' Vinnie Mac--no one else could have pulled this kind of a deal off as well as he has. Sure, the wrestling landscape has been reduced to scorched Earth and the direction his company has taken over the past ten years--booking on ego instead of for profit--is tough to swallow but the WWE 24/7 service is a fun ride back to the days of good guys, bad guys, and kayfabe. Any and all of the so-labeled disenfranchised and displaced wrestling fans can find something to remind them of how things used to be and how much we enjoyed suspending our disbelief for a few hours at a time.