I’m not going to mess around today. This second Mailbag column was meant to be posted yesterday. Various things got in the way. It’s not going to get delayed again. You know the drill by now, GO HERE to keep sending in your questions and I’ll keep answering them. Now let’s get going!
Is WWE cutting out classic content? There’s been almost nothing for two months!!
If you looked at the last two months in a vacuum, it really would look that way. For those unaware, we saw just shy of 50 episodes of Tuesday Night Titans added in May (for June) and an even smaller amount of Old School shows in June (for July). If I’m being honest, it even crossed my mind as a possibility at one point.
Then the WWECW news landed and a credible rumour began to swirl of a “huge” batch of WCCW being prepared too. For the record, the WWECW situation is actually still developing. I can’t go any further into it now, but it could get very interesting on the 10th.
So, when you put together what seems to be an oncoming storm of classic content, there’s no way they’ve given up on that part of their content strategy. I have a feeling that we’re in between the old and new pace of classic/vault content additions. Signs point to switching from staggered uploads to bulk, binge-watch friendly drops. This probably left them with the tail end of their backlog while changes were made. Just a theory, but it fits.
Have you seen WWE putting out more collection previews and ads? Thoughts?
Of course, I’ve seen them. While not everything turns into a WNN article for public consumption, I take in far too much WWE Network and pro wrestling content than is probably healthy. It’s my unpaid job at this point. The only way I keep sane is by generally having a cutoff point at a certain time of day. If it’s not absolutely earth-shattering news, I often let something slide until the next day if it’s officially night time over here in the UK. Seriously, late night classic content surprises are the bane of my existence.
Anyway, I loved that they made an effort to promote last month’s collections so heavily. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to have done the same THIS month, but that’s another story entirely. Quite frankly, I’m mainly glad because it should have put to rest the argument that the more niche footage only struggles because WWE’s marketing team isn’t behind it. Let’s hope people flocked to the Sammartino collection after such blatant promotion.
Favorite Max Mini match on WWE network?
So, I just used the search function on the Network in order to refresh my memory on this little dude. I completely forgot that he made a brief return in 2014 to work with El Torito. Isn’t it funny what memories we choose to suppress?
I’d have to say that I most remember his 6-mini tag match that took place on the 11/17/1997 episode of Raw. Sunny was the referee. The ending is rather fun. Let’s just say I enjoy watching little people running in fear for their lives. Wow, that could be taken out of context…
Are there any plans to switch away from using Adobe Flash to serve on demand video streams in favour of HTML5 like YouTube and many other services have done or are working on doing?
WWE hasn’t publicly announced any plans to do so, no. Like you said, HTML5 video is rapidly becoming the standard Internet-wide. It’s much more secure and lightweight due to being fully built-in on most mainstream browsers at this point.
In all fairness to WWE, they have been burned by adopting the hot, new video format in the past. As ill-advised as the move was in hindsight, the company made a big deal of using Microsoft’s Silverlight plugin many years ago. There was even a section of WWE.com dedicated to singing its praises from the rooftops. Needless to say, it no longer exists.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this experience made them a little gunshy as far as moving away from the archaic Flash again. If HTML5 keeps growing in prevalence though, it’s surely only a matter of time.
Should Chris Benoit be listed in matches? Putting him in collections and listing his name isn’t promoting him, its just accepting he is part of history. You don’t need to publicly praise the man, but at least give us a way to find his matches and not make collections incomplete by keeping him out.
Oh boy. As it stands right now, we’re kind of at a weird compromise. Most of Benoit’s matches do have milestones. They’re worded carefully so as not to name him, but you can find just about every match he participated in while scanning through a show. Don’t bother searching for him by name though. You’ll get nothing.
As far as collections go, there was a weird anomaly where the 2004 Royal Rumble match was an option in a “subscriber’s choice” poll. When it didn’t make the final cut, there were cries of a conspiracy. In truth, it was 29 matches being whittled down to a shortlist of 10. With two-thirds of the field always set to be omitted, it’s pretty much impossible to prove. Feel free to discuss the controversy in the comment section below. Just try to avoid invoking the Illuminati.
As far as Chris Benoit being referenced directly on the Network? I’d have to say no. Not because we as fans can’t handle it. We obviously can. But the almost inevitable PR backlash really isn’t worth it. The moment Chris Benoit was mentioned by name, we’d see headlines like “WWE promotes child killer”. Not because it’s true, but because it grabs attention. With us already able to access the man’s work if we really want to, the potential negatives far outweigh the positives.
And that’ll do for today! Remember to keep contacting us with your WWE Network-related questions and I’ll see you next time!