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Wrestling in Australia (disambiguation)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Venables001 (talk | contribs) at 08:58, 26 March 2006 (→‎Live Events). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Professional wrestling in Australia first became popular in the 1970s when WCW Australia was broadcasted nationally. The home-grown stars kept audiences entertained before World Wrestling Entertainment became a global wrestling empire.

Throughout the 1990s, both WCW Monday Nitro and WWE RAW were broadcasted on free-to-air networks but were put in poor timeslots and were subsequently cancelled because of poor ratings. WWE's major pay-per-views (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, King of the Ring, SummerSlam and Survivor Series) were all shown up until 2001, when every pay-per-view began being shown.

WWE programming returned in 2000 with WWE RAW being shown on Fox Sports on Tuesday nights. SmackDown! followed and was broadcasted on FOX8 Friday nights but was moved to Saturday nights in 2001.

In early 2003 negotiations between FOX8 and WWE fell through and SmackDown! was cancelled and NWA/TNA (TNA iMPACT!) replaced it. Pay-per-views were also unusually taken from Main Event and given to the cinemas at Crown Casino. SmackDown! returned in August on Saturday Nights as well as the pay-per-views and RAW was moved to FOX8 to Friday nights. In order to prevent spoiler hunting on th Internet, Fox8 moved the WWE Programming to timeslots closer to their US Airdate.

In February 2005, WWE HEAT, WWE Velocity and WWE Experience were added to FOX8 and set up a large wrestling program on Saturdays and Sundays which now exists today. Despite Heat, Velocity and Experience all being cancelled in the United States the shows are still shown in Australia to fulfill contractual obligations. When WWE SmackDown was moved to Friday Nights in the US, in Australia it remained on Friday Afternoons.

Live Events

Shows from North American promotions have been held in Australia as early as 1985 when WWE toured through Melbourne, Perth, Newcastle and Adelaide and through Melbourne and Brisbane again in 1986. That was the last Australia saw of a live North American product until WCW did a Nitro taping in Melbourne and a Thunder taping in Brisbane in 1999.

The next time WWE came to Melbourne was for the 'WWE Global Warning Tour' in 2002. A crowd of 56,000 packed into Colonial Stadium as well a pay-per-view audience throughout Asia witnessed the first WWE show on Australian soil in 16 years.

WWE has visited Australia regularly since Global Warning by touring at least once a year since 2003. An independent circuit show was organised in October 2005 called International Assault to further increase the amount of North American product showcased live in Australia.

Current Programming

Television

File:Fox8.gif The Undisputed Home of WWE

Television Specials

Pay-per-view

File:Main Event.jpg

Local Promotions

Defunct

See also

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