The first time you log onto the WWE Network, expect to be overwhelmed. You may think you're going on to watch WrestleMania X-Seven, or the debut of the nWo, or to check if they actually included all of Chris Benoit's matches (or, let's face it, what they did and didn't edit out of Owen Hart's tragic on-camera death at Over The Edge 1999). Whatever it is, though, I give you about five minutes. Tops. Then you'll get another idea based off your original one ("oooh, why watch Austin/Rock II at WrestleMania that I've seen a million times when I can watch their obscure Intercontinental Title match from 1997 that I haven't seen since it originally aired!!!") and maybe get as far as watching the full entrances for your second pick before you move onto your next one. It's entirely possible you could spend an entire day on the WWE Network and not have sat through one match in its entirety.
Don't worry. You're not broken. This is what it feels like for the first few days of owning a WWE Network subscription.
The WWE have finally released their vast video library of old WWE, WCW and ECW material in one fell swoop and made it cheap enough for the common man to afford. Long gone are the days where you'd purchase a DVD of an innocuous In Your House from 1996 because you just happened to find it for €9.99 in your local video shop (that NEVER sells wrestling DVDs) and, despite the fact that it was a mediocre show in all, you'd watch it so many times you'd be able to recite the commentary like it was a karaoke track (interestingly enough, those random DVD purchases you've seen a million times are probably going to be one of the first things you watch on the Network anyway).
Though it's currently officially only available in America, WWE are no fools and are happy to take your money if you're clever enough to manoeuvre your way through VPNs and whatnot to access it. It took me about 15 minutes to get logged on. If you're a Chrome or Firefox user, just download the Hola app and make all WWE.com and Network content American region. They accept international credit cards. Give yourself a fake US address and phone number via Google and, boom, you're in. If WWE ask, I now squat in a for-sale mansion in Beverly Hills (postcode: 90210, of course), with the only flaw in my scheme being that none of those yuppies from that 90210 show would ever be caught dead subscribing to the WWE Network. I can tell you this openly, and without fear of recourse, because WWE themselves are pretty much promoting it. Former World Champion, Raw commentator and WWE shareholder JBL spent a few minutes of the start of last week's 'JBL & Michael Cole Podcast' espousing the virtues of VPNs and proxies in order to gain access to the Network. And a significant chunk of WWE's rumoured 250,000 subscribers thus far are reportedly from areas the Network is quote-unquote 'not available'.
Not everything is there yet. They have all WWE, WCW and ECW pay-per views past up, but are going through the process of filling up their archives of Raw, then presumably Nitro and ECW's old TV show on TNN. Think of it like owning a subscription to Netflix Ireland and UK: you're not guaranteed to find the one exact movie you're looking for, but you're engaging in modern day channel surfing instead and enjoying the vast amount of content that is there, rather than lamenting what's not.
In addition to the archives, WWE are offering a slew of new original content exclusive to the Network. They seem to be adding a renewed vigour to current offerings such as NXT and Superstars, though history tells us that will merely be a blip before they begin gathering dust as forgotten playthings of the company's decision-makers once again. Their Beyond The Ring and WrestleMania Rewind series' are re-hashes of old DVD documentaries, which is one of WWE's strongpoints. Backstage Pass is basically a pre- and post-show for Raw and SmackDown with nothing revelatory being offered, but a fun watch if you're stuck for something to keep you amused while waiting for the shows to air (though the SmackDown one won't work in this way as it airs here hours before the US).
For me, the most exciting original project is the much-anticipated 'Legends House' reality show, which puts legends such as Roddy Piper, Jimmy Hart and Gene Okerlund living under the same roof then subjects them to a series of challenges. Wrestling and reality TV blends well as a format (see Tough Enough and Total Divas for further examples) so this promises to be a worthwhile watch, and hopefully WWE will continue down this avenue as the years roll by.
There were initial problems that users were greeted with when the service launched, a lot of which have been ironed out now. The main issue seemed to be actually logging in, with a huge backlog of fans eager, after months of tireless marketing, to find out what the big deal is. For that reason, I gave it a couple of weeks to allow them find their feet before purchasing. And I've yet to experience any discernible bugs, for what its worth. This seems to be the case across the board too. WWE Network's launch issues seemed to be consistent with similar problems that massive multiplayer online games regularly encounter upon launch. Though it's yet to be seen what will happen when almost every user logs onto the same stream at the same time, as will no doubt happen at their first Network PPV, WrestleMania 30. The results could be catastrophic. WWE fans are currently holding their breath...
One of the first things that struck me, and this is going to happen to WWE like it or not, is the immediate comparison to sites like Netflix. The WWE Network interface is not clever, yet at least. You know how Netflix remembers what shows you were watching, remembers what episode you watched and where you left off when you had to run out during the middle of an Orange Is The New Black, recommends shows that friends have watched, or figures out handy "If you liked this..." recommendations? Yeah, none of that is there yet. And it'd be so useful if it was.
It'd be a relatively easy deduction to assume that if you watched Fully Loaded 1999, perhaps you'd be interested in watching the next month's PPV, or the Raw that followed. Instead, if you do, you have to Google what came next, go to pay-per views, find that and look through the archive. They don't even have PPVs ordered by year yet.
Another slight wrinkle is that it takes an age for live content to load, and I've experienced long waiting times while waiting for streamed content too. Now this could simply be down to my Sky Broadband connection, or just a result of living with bandwidth hogging housemates, so I won't slight WWE there just yet. But this is where clever features like remembering your last viewed spot would come in useful, as I've experienced similar issues with Netflix that end in only mild inconvenience rather than me furiously screaming at my screen and housemates.
It's also a bit of a job finding what exactly you're looking for. I presume the menus were made with simplicity in mind, however it's anything but user friendly. If you've subscribed to WWE because you saw their ad for 'Legends House', for example, you have to figure out that it's going to be under 'Shows > Originals' before realising that they still don't have an actual episode up yet. There's also no easy-to-find indication of when it will be online either (I eventually found that it'll premiere on April 10th via a scrolling menu on the bottom of the Network signup page - which I shouldn't have to see once logged in).
Granted that can all be done in a matter of minutes, but it feels unnecessary doing so. Netflix has set the standard for on-demand video services that all will then be judged by. Considering I'm paying more per month for WWE Network than I do for my Netflix sub, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that kind of service. You can't help but feel, watching WWE programming, that they're putting more effort into promoting it than maintaining it.
But those, like a lot of other features, is probably on their long To-Do List. The reality is that it's better to have the WWE Network not yet fully formed than not at all. They've set a high standard in releasing content on their website and YouTube over the years, so I'd tend to give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll come through over time once they get a handle on things. Think of the clunky interface like if your remote control stopped working on your TV: at first it'd be a pain to have to get up and manually change channels and volume again, but over time you get used to it and anything that makes that job easier as a result feels like a treat. For what you're getting, it's ultimately worth dealing with.
At a cost of $9.99 per month (with a 6-month commitment), the price is reasonable for the content on offer - especially once PPVs start airing there monthly, but it's getting that value for money that proves a job.
If you're a nerd like me, you'll eventually want to get on top of the archive and start going through it with some structure that best ensures you enjoy as much as possible. For me that was done by going back through the old Raw archives from 1993, which they're updating regularly with new content until, presumably, they're up-to-date. I'll also watch PPVs as I pass them. If I ever finish that task (I won't), I may go back with WCW.
The problem, as it always is with these things, is time.
I'm a 26-year old man with a full-time job, a business to run on top of that (albeit WWE-related so I can technically cheat and count watching this as work), bills to pay, a social life to maintain, other hobbies to partake in and, on top of this, a bunch of other stuff I like to watch on TV (including WWE's own new shows every week). Technically there wasn't enough hours in my day to do all of the above to the degree I like before the WWE Network barged its way into my life. If you added a wife and kids to the scenario, this simply wouldn't happen, at least until the kids got old enough for me to hook them on WWE.
It's a harsh realisation that the WWE Network isn't for me. It's for me at 12 years of age. Back when I had all the time in the world once school ended and my hardest decision in life was whether to go out on the road and play football with the lads or to stay in and play Resident Evil 2. Back then, when time was the only thing I had, I was a full-on fiend for digesting any little morsel of information I could about wrestling's past to further enhance my enjoyment of Raw and SmackDown.
And, 14 years later, what has WWE gone and done? They've released literally everything that I wanted as a kid! I'd love to take time off work to sit on my arse and watch this. But I've also said that, in the past few days alone, about re-watching 24 from the beginning, going to SXSW, seeing an Eagles game in Philadelphia, playing 'The Last Of Us', non-stop sleeping, and probably a few other things too. Then real life goes and does that stupid thing of getting in the way.
It's a real nerd's quandary (and the ultimate first world problem): do you sacrifice everything else in life because there's this cool new thing that you'd have loved to spend time enjoying as a kid, or do you actually go out and live it? Symptoms of watching the WWE Network for an extended period include: hunger, thirst, sluggishness, loneliness, poor eyesight, and a severe lack of anything productive being achieved in your life. On certain days you don't mind treating yourself to the latter, but it's a tough call to make a long-lasting financial investment (however reasonable it may seem, price-wise) to doing so.
And that's where WWE may find themselves in trouble as the years roll by. The success of their business, for better or worse, is now directly linked to the success of the Network. And when this six month subscription comes to be renewed, I don't know if I'm personally going to look back at it and say I got value for money out of it. Not because WWE didn't give me a product worth the asking price, but because there are a million other things that I have to give up in 2014 to live a well-balanced life, and this is a luxury item that threatens to take away from that if I'm to use it as intended.
The question then becomes: do WWE have enough hardcore fans who are willing to invest that time into it, along with kids like the 12-year old me whose families can afford, and will allow them, to live out their wildest WWE dreams? There's no solid answer for that, only time will tell. They're targeting a million subscribers for 2014 though, with WrestleMania 30 expected to recruit the majority of that. So far they're a quarter of the way there and Mania is less than three weeks away. We'll see...
Rick Nash is a former independent pro-wrestler and currently runs WWE Parties Ireland, who present the WWE WrestleMania 30 Party @ Woolshed Baa & Grill on Sunday 6th April. Limited tickets still available (click the link for full info). Check out an ad below for a preview of what's in store!
