Now that I've gotten a WWE Network subscription, I was wondering what everyone's favorite periods of weekly television are. A time when you thought that week to week, every show was just strong and must-see. I'm currently checking out the post-SummerSlam 2002 editions of Smackdown and outside of some ridiculous crap (Billy and Chuck, anyone?), the product was just incredibly strong week to week.

 

 

Going off what's on the network, ECW from mid 2008 to its closure was always good for 1 or 2 good matches a week. A solid mix of great vets, hard working rookies and simple booking. You have 1996 Nitro on there too which contains some of the most exciting wrestling television to be put on tape. WWF from January-August 2000 was an incredibly hot product with a ream of good TV matches and hot angles. I don't know how their vault archive looks at this point so I'll refrain from any of that.

I just watched '97 Raw in conjunction with The Lapsed Fan podcast covering all the PPV's and that is a really, really strong run. Especially post-Mania through Montreal.

Quite recent, but I thought the summer of 2013 had some really compelling TV.

Quite recent, but I thought the summer of 2013 had some really compelling TV.

All The Shield trios matches, Bryan gaining more and more steam with every week. Great year for TV.

The first year of TNA on Spike was a pleasure to watch. Very easily digestible thanks to the format, tons of good matches, booking that made sense. Way overlooked, as much of good TNA is, for obvious reasons.

 

Quite recent, but I thought the summer of 2013 had some really compelling TV.

All The Shield trios matches, Bryan gaining more and more steam with every week. Great year for TV.

 

Yup. Awesome run. Probably my favorite period after I got back into hardcore fandom in 2011.

Smackdown in summer 2009 was quite good with the Punk/Hardy feud and the new Smackdown 6. The whole 2007-2009 Smackdown period was pretty great, though, with lots of solid matches and great long-term storylines. ECW in the same period was also very good.

Smackdown in summer 2009 was quite good with the Punk/Hardy feud and the new Smackdown 6. The whole 2007-2009 Smackdown period was pretty great, though, with lots of solid matches and great long-term storylines. ECW in the same period was also very good.

Remember watching a lot of 09 Smackdowb and loving it. You had great IC Title feuds in this time too. Rey and Jericho fighting for the IC before switching off to Morrison. Good times.

ECW in '95-96 is pretty much straight gold. You can go right up until Barely Legal, after which the TV falls off a cliff and only recovers in spurts.

Smackdown last year got a lot of hype for a while. It probably needs to be revisited but the time from around August 2016 - April 2017 had some very tight week to week booking, AJ having great TV matchs, that hot Miz vs Ziggler feud and Cena popping in as well. There was probably a WWE first of three simultaneous women's feuds running at once for a while. It's all fallen off a cliff post-Mania sadly.

Memphis pretty much 79-89

First season of Lucha Underground and the second season up to Aztec Warfare. LU's emphasis is on the wrestling style and unique production, but I think it's overlooked just how incredibly good the week-to-week booking was in a traditional pro wrestling sense for the first season and a half or so.

The first period that comes to mind is late 96/early 97 with the rise of Austin, Bret's turn and formation of the Hart Foundation all the way through Survivor Series '97. I think you can then essentially skip ahead to the night after Mania 14 with Austin as the focal point of the promotion and take that for a while, perhaps even until late 99 or so? Some others may be able to provide more specific dates there. 2000, with the Radicalz, great stuff from Rock, Foley, HHH and Austin's return building to Mania 17 the following year is also great.

 

From there, the next can't miss period is whenever The Shield and Daniel Bryan started having weekly matches on TV in 2012-13. Even if you don't find much to care about on the rest of the shows, those outings will always deliver and are well worth seeking out.

World Championship Wrestling 1985-1987

The first period that comes to mind is late 96/early 97 with the rise of Austin, Bret's turn and formation of the Hart Foundation all the way through Survivor Series '97. I think you can then essentially skip ahead to the night after Mania 14 with Austin as the focal point of the promotion and take that for a while, perhaps even until late 99 or so?

 

Honestly, as much as the main angles were great in 97, the undercard stuff was pretty rough to say the least. But it felt mostly like a hot and fresh product like Nitro at the beginning, so that made it easy to watch. The TV in 99 quickly became unwatchable though.

The Bryan-Authority run from about late 2013 to Wrestlemania 30, late 2016-early 2017 Smackdown Live, and the first season and a half of Lucha Underground really stand out.

Now that I've gotten a WWE Network subscription, I was wondering what everyone's favorite periods of weekly television are. A time when you thought that week to week, every show was just strong and must-see. I'm currently checking out the post-SummerSlam 2002 editions of Smackdown and outside of some ridiculous crap (Billy and Chuck, anyone?), the product was just incredibly strong week to week.

 

 

 

WWF Raw 1993!

I want to think about this more, but I think the two things that I'd say I look for in a great TV run more than anything are:

 

* high quality (not just in-ring, but promos, booking, and announcing)

* a sense of optimism

 

I think in terms of actual match quality, the Smackdown Six period of late 2002 is probably much stronger than any period in 2000 WWF TV, for example. But in 2000, everyone who got so much as a pop got a television main event, and there was a real feel of guys climbing the ladder and the company having exciting things coming in the weeks and months ahead. To me, that was missing in late '02. I think 1996 WCW and 1997 WWF did a great job of capturing both. I think Memphis produced the most exciting week-to-week TV I've ever seen, even during their down period. All Japan and New Japan TV was awesome for close to most of the 20 years between 1980 and 2000. Crockett from 1985-88 probably did the best job of appealing to my tastes in wrestling of any national wrestling company ever. Lots of different runs with lots of big positives.

Yeah, that's been a huge stand-out in watching a lot of 2000 WWF lately. Everything is so hot that it's impossible (for me) to not have a blast watching it, which is kinda why I watch wrestling to begin with.

Smackdown last year got a lot of hype for a while. It probably needs to be revisited but the time from around August 2016 - April 2017 had some very tight week to week booking, AJ having great TV matchs, that hot Miz vs Ziggler feud and Cena popping in as well. There was probably a WWE first of three simultaneous women's feuds running at once for a while. It's all fallen off a cliff post-Mania sadly.

 

Agreed 100%. That was a hell of a run until the Superstar Shakeup nuked SDL. Loved the Alexa/Becky and Miz/Ziggler feuds especially.

 

That and the summer of 2009 Smackdown were two of the first that came to mind. Morrison, Punk, and Hardy were all killing it against one another with awesome matches.

Seems interesting that general consensus shows that there's not much worth seeing on Raw in the 2000s.

2004 was a really strong year for RAW in terms of match quality. Too much HHH, but still very good overall. The first half of 2007 stands out as pretty good, too. I also really liked 2005 before the draft, after which everything was built around guys who didn't seem quite there yet like Carlito and Masters.

I liked Loss point about sense of optimism. I think that was a really interesting way to put it. The last time modern WWE really captured that for me was in period just before and after Wrestlemania 30, when it seemed like theyd finally put the Attitude Era to rest in their collective conscious and had five or six hot new stars to build around

Yes! The night after WM30 really put a lot of new things on the table in a way that I thought they were moving forward. It seemed like they had taken some risks in a bold effort to finally create some new stars, with Bryan, Lesnar, Cesaro, and The Shield all positioned well.