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WWE 24/7
Launched	November 2, 2004
Owned by	World Wrestling Entertainment
Website	WWE.com

WWE 24/7 is a subscription video on demand television service provided by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It features footage from WWE's vast archive of wrestling footage, including classic WWE, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and more. It offers around 40 hours of rotating programming per month, arranged into four (previously six) "programming buckets", often centered around a specific theme.

Currently, WWE 24/7 is available only on digital cable. Among the services carrying it are Comcast, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, Rogers Cable, Cogeco and Cablevision. Some of its programming was packaged as Madison Square Garden Classics and began airing on MSG Network in the summer of 2006. As of November 2007 the service has around 115,000 subscribers.^[1]

Contents 1 Programming buckets and programs 2 Previous buckets 3 Legends of Wrestling 4 Extra material 5 WWE Video Library 6 Technical Difficulties 7 Editing 8 Production and management team 9 References 10 External links

• WWE Legends - focuses on "narrative, retrospective and thematic programs" dealing with "legendary" wrestlers.
  • Hall of Fame: "Mean Gene" Okerlund hosts an original profile of a specific WWE Hall of Famer. Throughout the rest of the month a rotating selection of matches featuring that star are featured, usually changing every two weeks.
  • This section also contains archived DVD and video releases with an emphasis on other legendary wrestlers.
  • Legends of Wrestling: A round table discussion.

• The Big Ones - vintage pay-per-views and "super show" events
  • Also featured are recorded house shows, usually from Madison Square Garden or Boston Garden
    • Every month three "Big One" events for the next months theme are offered up to be voted on at WWE's 24/7 subsite, with the winning event offered for viewing amongst the next months selections.

• TV Classics - the history of the history of professional wrestling is shown through re-airs of classic wrestling television shows.
  • Extreme Championship Wrestling - hosted by Tazz and Joey Styles
  • Championship Wrestling from Florida - hosted by Mike Graham
  • World Class Championship Wrestling - hosted by Michael "P. S." Hayes and Kevin Von Erich
  • National Wrestling Alliance/World Championship Wrestling (without a host)
  • An array of classic WWF programming, sometimes but not always, related to the months theme, including Tuesday Night Titans, and Prime Time Wrestling.
  • A featured program of the TV Classics section is Monday Night Wars, which recounts the 1990s battle for ratings supremacy between the WWF and WCW by showing back to back episodes of Monday Night RAW and WCW Monday Nitro. Michael Cole acts as host, recapping previous goings on—including major events at any pay-per-views that would have just passed—and previewing the "next" weeks content.

• Shorties
  • Short matches and/or memorable moments centered around the month's theme are hosted by a particular superstar (e.g. moments or matches involving food for Thanksgiving).

When the service debuted it did so with six, more specialized, buckets. These were later combined and pruned into the current, more broad, four. The original six buckets and their programming were:

• Hall of Fame - Featuring only the Okerlund hosted biography and matches of a particular Hall of Famer.
• Big Ones - Past pay-per-views
• Specials - Home video releases and network specials
• ECW - The History of ECW show (then hosted by Tazz alone)
• Prime Time - Any past wrestling programming that would have originally aired in or around "prime time," including the Monday Night Wars series
• Old School - Recorded house shows

Over time the "ECW" bucket was expanded to "Territories - ECW" and began to incorporate shows from the "territorial days" of the business. Later still the name was changed to it's current "TV Classics" when it started housing the programming found in the "Prime Time" bucket, which was removed altogether. The "Old School" and "Big Ones" buckets were combined, keeping the "Big Ones" name, and becoming a bucket for any and all larger shows. "Hall of Fame" was renamed to the less restrictive "WWE Legends" and began to house material from the "Specials" bucket, which was also removed.

In November 2006 WWE began producing Legends of Wrestling, an original series made specifically for the 24/7 service.^[2] The program features commentator Jim Ross hosting a round table discussion with wrestling veterans about the careers of specific legends in the wrestling business, historical occurrences, and renowned feuds. During the discussion they share stories of and debate the merits of the topic. The series has been divided into unofficial "seasons" of six hour long episodes (with a short intermission) featuring the same panels.

Panelists

Panel One Mike Graham Michael "P. S." Hayes Pat Patterson Dusty Rhodes

Panel Two Eric Bischoff Mick Foley Michael Hayes Jerry "the King" Lawler

Panel Three Tazz Pat Patterson Michael Hayes Mick Foley

• Before some selections begin there are short "promos" and clips shown featuring either memorable moments in the history of wrestling or a selection of highlights of a particular superstar before that star announces "You're watching WWE 24/7".

• Through some programs a crawl will appear on screen to detail historical moments -- title changes, important matches, birthdays -- in the history of wrestling for the month.

• Other times a lower third will appear on screen to provide supplemental information to what's going on on screen. Often it is tied into the month's theme.

Main article: WWE Video Library

The WWE Video Library is the largest professional wrestling tape library anywhere in the world, with well over 80,000 hours of content. It not only consists of World Wrestling Entertainment footage (dating back to 1970), but WWE has aggressively purchased regional and national competitors, through time amassing a gargantuan library of television programs, pay-per-view recordings, video productions, and recordings of wrestling matches dating back to the 1950s and representing a very significant portion of the visual history of modern professional wrestling and sports entertainment.

As the service grows, some have reported difficulty in receiving all of the scheduled programs. WWE.com placed a disclaimer on their monthly schedule (before removing the week by week calendar schedule altogether) that "programs and air dates vary by cable provider".

On April 4, 2007, the 6 programming buckets were merged into 4 buckets. The free "Month Preview" show hosted by Jack Korpela (formerly hosted by Steve Romero) mentioned this was to make things easier for 24/7 viewers, but in an odd twist this may have made things temporarily more difficult. People from different areas had varying problems ^[3] ranging from getting the new buckets but not all the programs to retaining the 6 old buckets, therefore not getting several new updates (as updates for Hall of Fame, Specials, Territories-ECW, and Prime Time are discontinued).

Since World Wrestling Entertainment is no longer allowed to use the "WWF" name and their 1998-2002 logo except for "specified circumstances",^[4] instances of both are edited and are removed from pertinent programming. In addition, previously licensed music, most notably entrance themes, to which the rights have expired or do not allow them to be used, are replaced with alternate songs. Ring announcer Michael Buffer is also edited out of programs he took part in for World Championship Wrestling and replaced with a different announcer.

Some "Big One" events are edited for length. This is generally indicated by having a "WWE 24/7 Fast Forward" graphic appear on screen while the sound of a sped up audio tape plays where the excised portion would normally be.

In the wake of the Chris Benoit double murder-suicide a number of wrestling websites reported that Benoit's likeness and references to him were being removed from pertinent programming by some cable providers.^[5][6]

• Steven Lazas - Director, Broadcast Operations^[7]
• Steve Finkelstein - Producer ^[7]
• Shannon Skemp - Director, Business Operations and Development ^[7]
• Jill Andrews - Director, Affiliate Marketing ^[7]

• WWE 24/7 at WWE.com
• WWE 24/7 Programming Schedule at Sunflower Broadband

v • d • e Current World Wrestling Entertainment programming
Primary television	RAW · Friday Night SmackDown! · ECW
Secondary television	A.M. RAW · Afterburn · Bottom Line · The WWE Experience · MSG Classics
Television specials	Pay-per-view · Saturday Night's Main Event
Webcasts	Byte This! · Heat
On-Demand	24/7