Right now in the United States, the only way to legally watch WWE Network content is through NBC’s Peacock Streaming service. This deal gave the WWE Network a much wider potential audience in their most important market, and was seen as a smart move at first. Fans started to get more skeptical about the deal when they realized how broken the search system on Peacock was, and that you wouldn’t even be able to rewind or restart live events.
With Peacock Came Censorship To Two Classic Events
However, the biggest shock to fans came when segments started to be removed from shows. This started with removing the match and segments between Roddy Piper & Bad News Brown from Wrestlemania 6, where Piper had half of his body painted black. Also removed was a backstage segment from Survivor Series 2005, where Vince McMahon dropped a racial slur in a segment to John Cena, prompting Booker T to spout his “Tell me he didn’t just say that” catchphrase.
These are two segments that by all accounts are not acceptable by today’s standards, and shouldn’t have been greenlit in the first place. That doesn’t make censorship right in this situation however. When the WWE Network first launched in 2014, they’d include a screen at the start of events stating that they were being displayed in their original form, and the views displayed won’t always reflect WWE as a company today. This vanished over time, and now segments are starting to go as well.
Being Removed On WWE Network Worldwide
When this was just the segments being removed on the Peacock streaming service, that was one thing. However, reports from the UK indicate that these same two segments have also been removed on their version of the WWE Network. You can see them in the timeline of the show, but are unable to watch them. This means that these segments risk being lost to time for most, thus allowing WWE to hide their racist past and potentially not be held accountable going forward.
Right now, this is just a really bad Wrestlemania match and a comedy segment that only Vince McMahon enjoyed being cut. However, WWE has a lot of questionable content in their backlog, especially in regards to the ECW tape library, the WWF attitude era, and more. These removals set a bad predicident, and are likely just the first of many. Do you agree with WWE & Peacock removing content from the streaming service as they see fit? How far do you see content cuts from WWE going? Let us know what you think in the comment section down below.
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