With tomorrow being my 49th birthday, I had several idea for a birthday blog. I thought about a political rant, but I'm about to burn myself out on politics. There have been some recent developments in my guilty pleasure of professional wrestling and I thought what the hell that's a decent topic that shouldn't cause any controversy.
First of all I would not describe myself as a "hard core wrestling fan". I think a term that best describes me would be "wrestling aficionado". I know the outcomes are predetermined, even the industry admits they are. The fun is much the same as watching a soap opera....what happens next, etc.
Growing up, I would commandeer the TV from my mother's room and move it into mine on Saturdays to watch "Doctor Who" on Saturday afternoons on UNC-TV and then stay up at night to watch WWF Superstars, Rollergames, American Gladiators and the like. I didn't get to watch Monday Night RAW (or WCW Nitro for that matter) unless my parents were out of town. It wasn't until 2002 that I got my own DirecTV account at my little house after moving here in November of 1999 so I missed most of the "Monday Night War". I did enjoy the documentary series on it on the WWE Network, one of the few non in-ring shows I've watched. It looks like we're on the verge of a new war this time on Wednesdays.
The first big move in the wrestling world came when WWE announced that "Smackdown" was moving from the USA Network on Tuesday nights, where it's been for a while, to Friday nights on FOX (as in the broadcast network). Apart from the fact that this will change my viewing habits from YouTube TV on my Google chromecast to watching over-the-air this doesn't change much in my life.
The next big move came with the announcement by Cody (known as Cody Rhodes in his days in WWE but WWE owns the rights to the 'Rhodes' name) and his cohorts of the formation of the new "All-Elite Wrestling" company (AEW). After several months of speculation it was announced that their new show on TNT will air on Wednesday nights. This lead to speculation about what would happen to WWEs developmental brand NXT, which airs on Wednesday night at 8:00 for one hour although it has been taped. We got that answer yesterday, as NXT will now go live with a 2 hour show on Wednesday nights on the USA Network. I'm somewhat surprised because rumors had it moving to FS1 as well as the fact that it will first air live on September 18th, two weeks ahead of AEWs debut on TNT on Wednesday October 2nd as well as Smackdown's move to FOX on Friday October 4th.
The question now is do I watch NXT live on Wednesdays, or do I go with AEW. To be honest it's really a moot point. I have an unlimited cloud DVR with my YouTube TV account so I can watch anytime I want as can most people around the world. I think my loyalty to WWE will win out in the end. It's possible I may watch AEW's first episode on October 2nd. With Thursday as my day off, it's not like I'll have difficulty finding the time to watch.
So wrestling is about to go through somewhat of an upheaval coming up. I think it will be good for the business to have some competition but I think with DVRs and time shifting when people watch things, it's not as big a deal as we may make it out to be. If you've read this, thank you, I know it was boring, I just felt I should post something around my birthday. I'll get political again soon enough.
