Downs...
4. Bugging
On Friday 26th July, the reinvigorated Network launched via Watch.WWE.com shortly before updating itself on the various devices that house it, and early feedback on some improved features (more on those later) was overwhelmingly positive. The effusive praise sent many rushing to see it for themselves, which in turn resulted in a deluge of defects.
The beleaguered @AskWWENetwork account was hit with countless queries pretty much from the off, as it became apparent that the v2.0 didn't exactly leave the factory floor in perfect working order.
Reactive rather than proactive, the organisation set about implementing fixes which in turn caused other issues and various outages. It was a scattergun roll-out - not only were there many problems, but they weren't always able to be replicated via different apps, devices and browsers.
Though not a total omnishambles, the functional and often destructive bugs rattled the faith in the quality of one of the few things almost every browbeaten WWE fan still agreed on. That was, when they could even watch...
Michael Hamflett
Contributor
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett
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