10 Best WWE Network Shows Of 2018
2. AWA Team Challenge Series
The dying days of the American Wrestling Association were for many years merely the preserve of a joke at Verne Gagne's expense, an Eric Bischoff self-own or those wishing to find their old favourites wrestling over a turkey on YouTube. The Team Challenge Series was all pink screen patter and Sgt Slaughter silliness until the archivists working for WWE kicked open another locked door and unearthed a ludicrous gem.
The AWA Team Challenge Series pilot drips with tragicomedy from the opening few seconds of the intro. Out-of-time cheerleaders chant "AWA" against poorly chopped-together footage of hair metal and half-a*sed pro wrestling. As if to literally reflect what Gange didn't understand about how Vince McMahon had changed the game, these gaudy visuals faded out to reveal a shot of him with dog looking even older than he actually having the gaul to spout off about the future of the industry.
It is, from then, a darkly comical attempt at turd-polishing. Future Beverly Brothers Mike Enos and Wayne Bloom smash a green screen with sledgehammers, the commentators desperately put over an instant replay gimmick even if the spot wasn't worth a first look let alone a second one, and wrestlers that were once (and in select cases, would be again) somebodies look less than nobodies as they walk down a hollow studio floor to video clips of audiences reacting to somebody else.
This is further away from Sports Entertainment than grizzled NWA pay-per-views from the same time period and yet, it's exactly what the WWE Network was built to house.