10 Best WWE Network Shows Of 2019 (So Far)
As (Not) Seen On TV
The WWE Network is still an absolute nightmare to use and is still a not-inexpensive $/£9.99 per month, but it is still probably the best thing about being a fan of the product in 2019...even if it only serves to steer your attention anywhere but the weekly television output.
As well as being the home of NXT, the over-the-top service also fosters original content far beyond the silliness and bullsh*t first posited when it came to be. Back then, idiotic executives assumed that audiences wanted to see their favourite stars messing around in reality TV houses or pranking their colleagues. The formula was substantially simpler - they just wanted to see more of them.
More of the backstage area. More of where the wrestlers walk, talk and eat in between the matches. Where they sit in the cars as they travel from town to town. Where they work out and have lunch and who they do it with. Where they interact with Vince McMahon or Triple H or f*cking anybody in an organisation that often appears as though it can't possibly know how to locate it's a*se with both hands.
WWE started putting cameras everywhere in an effort to catch as much footage for as many products as they could get away with concurrently. Here are ten of the best to come from that model in 2019 - all of which could still well be contenders in December.
10. Untold: How Sting Finally Debuted In WWE
Brand new snackable content from WWE, the Untold series uses footage, stills and archived/telephone interviews to connect story point from random checkpoints in company history. A profile on Sting was the finest execution of the gimmick, with Steve Borden more than willing to share his memories of an extremely odd WrestleMania match made better by the company's crack editing squad.
Neglecting to discuss how the contest traversed from Vigilante Vs Oppressor to a Monday Night Wars retread, the anecdotes from the supporting DX/nWo players were worthy all the same. Typically for the company, it came loaded with lashings of subversively enjoyable horsesh*t, but the steaming pile at least sat atop a unique insight from a politicking Triple H.
At pains to justify why he was booked to go over in the contest, 'The Game' noted that a clash with The Rock later on during the show was supposed to lead to a battle between the two the following year. How he drew a line between the two matches perhaps highlights how he's risen to such a position altogether.
And speaking of Stamford's most potent polymath...