WWE 24/7: Play, rewind, relive

November 29, 3:11 AMPro Wrestling ExaminerMark Satrang

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In a North American professional wrestling world owned by Vince McMahon and World Wrestling Entertainment, the viable options for alternative professional wrestling on a national level are slim. Other than TNA Wrestling, WWE stands alone as an international wrestling juggernaut on a national stage.

McMahon, who bought his company from his father in the early 1980s, took the northeastern-based company to the national and later international level. Along the way other wrestling territories from across the United States and southern Canada were either bought out or simply went out of business. McMahon, being the entrepreneur he is, picked up these territories’ videotape libraries for historical preservation, and of course his own personal monetary gain.

Now as technology has grown and on-demand television services have become more common, World Wrestling Entertainment has put out their own video-on-demand service, called WWE 24/7. Each month, the company puts out hours of current and classic programming from a variety of the nine promotional video libraries the company currently owns. The programming is divided into four programming buckets, including:

WWE Legends: Each month WWE 24/7 highlights one professional wrestling legend through a variety of classic matches, interviews, documentary specials and roundtable discussions.

The Big Ones: This section shows full, unedited super shows, pay per view broadcasts and compilation specials spanning from the late ‘70s to present day.

TV Classics: Here is where old episodes of weekly television shows from the varying promotions are re-aired in their original format. The highlight of this section each month are “The Monday Night Wars,” which show the competing WWE Monday Night RAW episode and WCW Monday Nitro telecast from the same night in history back to back. This “Monday Night War” is what brought professional wrestling to the pop culture mainstream in the late 1990s.

Shorties: “Shorties” are simply short, five minute clips that all carry the same theme throughout the month. They might feature video packages, interviews, quick matches, music videos or an assortment of other random bits that don’t fit in any other category.

Each month the programming carries an over-reaching theme that ties the majority of the programming together. The current month, November, features programming highlighting innovators and innovative moments in wrestling history. Naturally next month, December, will have an over-reaching holiday and Christmas theme.

The programming only runs $7.99 a month to have added to your cable programming. For the amount of programming one receiving per month, it is an absolute steal. In fact if you have a known wrestling fan in your midst that you are looking to shop for I would recommend offering to pay for a subscription to the service. Even a “hardened” wrestling fan myself and self-professed student of the wrestling business is constantly unearthing new events, new wrestlers, new matches and more stuff I had never seen or heard of previously. For a wrestling fan there is no greater gift than WWE 24/7.