10 Things You Didn't Know About WWE In 2014
2. WWE Network's UK Debacle
From the moment it was finally, belatedly launched in February 2014, the WWE Network sat at the centre of just about every single on-screen conversation. To ludicrous, unheard-of degrees.
Remember constant mentions of the $9.99 price tag? Or all the free/in-house clobber having the branding all over it? Or when the commentators would sit around literally calling paying customers stupid for buying pay-per-views through the old method rather than signing up for the Network instead?
It was a service so good that the relentless, excessive promotion didn't grate enough to ruin it. Not that half the world could know that for themselves.
Despite World Wrestling Entertainment's initial promises to launch their service all over the world, only the United States got any of the above. In July, a premium televised version was rolled out in Canada, and the likes of Mexico, Hong Kong Australia and New Zealand were serviced by the summer. And yet, the market that once saved WWE's skin was out in the cold.
There was no SummerSlam return to Wembley in 2014, or at least not one anybody could watch on the Network. An October launch was delayed for a month. Then that delay (just 20 minutes before air) was delayed again, forcing Vince McMahon to post a since-deleted apology video on WWE.com. January 2015 - 11 months later, it finally arrived.
That all this timed out with the company's UK winter house show tour brought further derision - audiences vociferously booed adverts and references to the still-unavailable service.