10 Times Wrestling Companies Had To Apologise To Fans

1. A Second Failed WWE Network Launch Sees Vince McMahon Apologise

Raven Sandman Crucifixion ECW
WWE

For UK and Irish wrestling fans, the launch of the WWE Network was a rocky one.

While fans in certain countries were lauding the mass amount of wrestling content that was now at their fingertips, those in the UK and Ireland had to patiently wait from false start to false start.

The US had access to the WWE Network from February 2014, parts of Asia followed in August of that year, and several European countries were streaming on-demand wrestling programming by the time 2014 came to a close.

For the UK and Ireland, the initial announcement saw 1 October 2014 as the formal launch date of the WWE Network. Only that didn't happen, as said launch was shunted to 3 November. Then though, just 20 minutes before the 8pm UK launch on that November night, WWE announced an indefinite delay for British and Irish users to get access to this streaming service.

Eager to keep their hefty UK and Irish fan base sweet, WWE went one better than releasing a generic statement of apology here. Instead, none other than WWE Chairman Vince McMahon made a video apology to those fans through WWE.com - ahead of the WWE Network finally being made available to UK and Ireland customers on 19 January 2015.

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Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.