10 Hidden Gems & Curiosities From WWE Network
Some of the highlights and oddities from the Network's thousands of hours of grapplin' action.
The WWE Network harbours thousands of hours of pay-per-views, TV shows, Network originals, and archive footage, and its vault of wrestling goodness is only getting fuller. While its headline attractions are the new wrestling shows and original programming, the backroom boys in Connecticut have also gathered together the WWE's library of both its own shows, and the footage owned by the Fed after acquiring most of its competitors over the years.
This includes WWE, WCW, and ECW shows, but also shows from earlier territorial days include AWA, Global Wrestling Federation, Smokey Mountain Wrestling, and Mid-South Wrestling. With such a wealth of content, the biggest challenge facing the would-be Network diver is how to find the good stuff.
Some of the matches hidden in the trackless depths of WWE's streaming service are excellent athletic contests or intense, crowd-igniting performances. Others are just bizarre, sometimes regrettable, but always fascinating if only to confirm they ever happened at all.
WWE has organised many curiosities and highlights into its various collections, but far from all of them. There are always more fascinating moments to be dredged out of its darker reaches...
10. The Arkansas Hog Pen Match - In Your House 5 (1995)
Most one-off gimmick matches are one-offs for a reason, but in the heart of the New Generation Era can be found a contest which is both defined by a ludicrous stipulation and actually pretty good fun. 1995's In Your House 5 saw a svelte Hunter Hearst Helmsley facing hog farmer Henry Godwin in a match where the winner was the first to throw his opponent into a hog pen full of what was charitably described as mud.
Much of the drama came from the teasing of the various sources of gunk, with the first row getting a bucket of slop over them instead of Helmsley, and a handful of the stuff later getting mashed into the blueblood's face.
The match fits the 'curiosity' rather than 'hidden classic' category, but the crowd certainly got a kick out of the prospect of Helmsley getting dumped into the hog pen, and both men played it to the hilt. Just pity the poor folks who had to sit next to a clutch of flatulent pigs all night.