On October 22nd 2000, WWF’s Sunday Night Heat would replay a graphic scene from that week’s episode of Smackdown. Rikishi, who was in his weird evil mob boss phase at the time, would destroy a pickup truck belonging to Stone Cold Steve Austin with a sledgehammer. He would then threaten to attack Jim Ross, a noted friend of Stone Cold with the same hammer. As strange as this is to say, that scene would ordinarily be fairly typical of attitude era WWF programming, but it would later be named specifically when the company’s deal with Channel 4 in the UK. A deal that many thought was a well made match, but it would not just end badly, but ti would start badly too.
In this video, we’ll look at the broadcasting deal that existed between WWF and Channel 4 in the early 2000’s. We’ll also look at what made the relationship go sour, and what that meant for fans in the UK at the time.
Channel 4 gets an attitude
At one time if you were a fan in the UK who only had access to the five free TV channels, your options for American wrestling were limited. (1) Starting on July 30th 1999, Friday nights on Channel 5 brought WCW Worldwide, which was similar to the US version but with specialized commentary for the UK by Scott Hudson and Larry Zybysko. We would continue to get more towards the end of the year though, as starting in late ‘99, when you were very lucky, you’d even get a WWF pay per view through a short lived broadcast deal with Channel 4. Through that same deal on Sunday evenings we had WWF Heat, very much a B or maybe even C show by then, but broadcast in a very easy to catch time slot. Initially at least, but we’ll get to that. Wrestling on UK television had been a big deal for many years until it was cancelled in the 1980’s, being a part of World of Sport which aired on Saturday afternoons. This wrestling is still remembered today by the older generation, as in when someone of that age finds out you like wrestling this is what they think you mean, but it’s very different from what WWF and WCW were presenting by the late 90’s, and Channel 4 somehow didn’t seem to be fully aware of how different.
Whether your show aired on a free channel versus a paid subscription channel back then made the world of difference. In October ‘99, before Heat started airing, (2) the highest rated wrestling show was often Worldwide, higher than Nitro or Raw, purely because it was available in every single home with a television, versus the paid channels that weren’t. If you’re looking at those numbers and wondering why Nitro rated higher than Raw, it’s worth pointing out, as a fan from Wales says in a letter to the Observer in November ‘99, (3) “Raw also has a replay early Saturday morning and Nitro doesn’t. Many fans watch Nitro and tape Raw. The reverse is impossible unless you own two satellite systems.” (4) This didn’t guarantee Nitro the win every week, but it does mean that the rating was regularly much closer every week than it was in the US. That might well be as close to Monday Night Wars ratings talk as we’ll ever get on this channel.
If any of the five free channels that were around back then were going to feel like a perfect fit for the attitude era, Channel 4 was going to be the one. It was known as the edgy and cool channel compared to the BBC, but frankly it’d be hard to be seen as less cool than them. It’s target viewership often skewed towards teenagers and younger adults, so you might think WWF might be a good idea for them. You might think that. Their first mistake came with the decision to air Heat in an early evening time slot. In just the first few months of this scheduling, all ages of viewers could well have been shown Mae Young giving birth to a hand, Mae Young being put through a table by the Dudley Boys, and Mae Young taking the Olympic Slam by Kurt Angle. There were of course many other examples of questionable things to broadcast in such a time slot, but if you haven’t clocked why I’m focusing on Mae Young, I suppose I’d better get to it then.
Royal Rumble 2000
The first pay per view that Channel 4 would broadcast came on January 23rd, and it was the 2000 Royal Rumble event. While this show is fondly remembered for many noteworthy things, from Taz making his debut and ending Kurt Angle’s undefeated streak, to Triple H and Cactus Jack having a brutal street fight, to the Rock sort of winning the Royal Rumble, it’s also less fondly remembered for another moment. Not less remembered because it’s not noteworthy, but less remembered simply because nobody wants to. Third on the card that night would be the Miss Rumble 2000 swimsuit contest, which was open to all women on the roster. Unfortunately though, it was open to all women on the roster.
If we’re going to be charitable, we could say that this segment did one good thing, in that it got across the personalities of the women involved. Ivory in particular stood out by refusing to fully to participate, foreshadowing her joining Right to Censor later in the year. I suppose we should get to the thing I’m not talking about though. One of the participants, a late entry, was seventy seven years old, and unbeknownst to us at the time, pregnant with a human hand. Mae Young would enter the contest, and upon winning by judges vote, would celebrate by showing off a prosthetic body suit that was supposed to make her look as nature intended. For what it’s worth, it clearly wasn’t apparent that it was a body suit at the time, as Dave Meltzer would write in his recap of the show, (5) “The WWF in its previews on the TV-14 logo listed “N,” promising nudity, and delivered the ultimate tease of giving it without giving it, in the form of 77-year-old Mae Young unzipping her bathing suit”. He goes on to say that “While a huge “X” and “censored” appeared on the television screen, the crowd live got to see it for what seemed like an eternity, for whatever it was worth, and there were a few token glimpses to the television audience as well.” No indication is given that Mae was actually covered up, implying that they weren’t sure of that until a week later. Not that it makes anything any better though.
If for some reason you’re wondering who came up with this daft idea, it was this bloke. (6) According to the PW Torch, Vince got the idea from seeing “There’s Something about Mary”, and wanted to do something similar on his product. McMahon, who was famous for being out of touch with pop culture outside his own company, had to see that of all films. The situation crossed the line and upset many viewers, even the venue that hosted the event, Madison Square Garden. A rep for MSG would release a statement claiming that they were “disturbed” by what had taken place, and would go on to say, (7) “The event was promoted as being consistent with traditional WWF programs, however there was an intentional and significant departure within the event about which both The Garden and the public were unaware. Today, the Garden has received a guarantee from the WWF that the presentation of the next event on February 28th will be consistent in every way with traditional WWF programs - and for that matter, so will any future events that may be held at The Garden.” It didn’t end there for the world's most famous arena though, (8) as according to Dave Meltzer, “MSG lawyers are investigating whether the WWF violated conduct clauses in its contract with MSG.” Wade Keller added that Garden officials “had stopped the WWF from selling merchandise they deemed inappropriate”, so this was perhaps part of a larger issue brewing between the famous venue and the WWF.
The reason I’m bringing all of this up is because allegedly, Channel 4 bosses saw what they had aired the following day and were furious about it. I’ve yet to see any concrete proof of this, but it’s a long talked about theory that this was the point where C4 developed buyers remorse. It’s worth pointing out that Channel 4 didn’t air the Armageddon pay per view a month earlier, and so didn’t show the Kat doing something similar on that event.
Royal Rumble 2001
After the 2000 Royal Rumble, things really started to go downhill between the channel and WWF. The timeslot that Heat would air in would move around the schedule, making it difficult for viewers to find until May 2001, when the show would move to midnight into Monday morning, where it would stay for the end of the run. While that was annoying, it wasn’t the most annoying thing that Channel 4 did. While we were still fortunate to have free airings of four pay per views a year on the channel, typically the Rumble in January, Backlash in April, Fully Loaded in July and Armageddon in December, they would become littered with advert breaks that would interrupt the broadcast, sometimes at the worst possible times. It was almost like watching a film and a commercial coming right as Mufasa is thrown off the cliff or something. The most infamous instance of this occurred during the airing of the 2001 Royal Rumble match, spoiling the return of a big surprise entrant.
On August 7th 2000, The Big Show made his last televised appearance that year, wrestling only on one house show after that. From there, he would disappear to casual viewers for the rest of the year, so much so that he was cut from that year's main video game release, Smackdown 2 Know Your Role. Big Show had disappeared at least to everyone who didn’t have access to Ohio Valley Wrestling, WWE’s developmental group at the time.
Jumping ahead to the 2001 Royal Rumble match, Big Show would make his triumphant return as the twenty third entrant, and would do so just over sixty pounds lighter. I say triumphant, but he would last not even one and a half minutes in the match, before being eliminated by The Rock. That's all well and good if you were in the US and had bought the event on pay per view, or are watching today on whatever past events are on in your area. As a UK viewer back in 2001, we saw the Big Show charge to the ring, a cut to an ad break, and by the time the action resumed Show was already out of the match. To say this disappointed and even angered some viewers is an understatement, as it’s still remembered by UK fans to this day. It also marks maybe the clearest indication to us viewers that Channel 4 didn’t really care about the WWF product anymore, and was seemingly happy to throw an ad break in regardless of if it hurt the viewing experience. (15) On the screen now are comments I found posted in 2001, on the forum of UK based entertainment website Digital Spy, showing just how unhappy these fans were with Channel 4’s WWF coverage. I’m sure many of them would have been happy to learn that the writing appeared to be on the wall come contract renewal time. While the deal would end at the end of 2001, we wouldn’t have to wait that long to find out.
Cancellation
On July 27th 2001, the British media reported on WWF getting axed by Channel 4. This would have been considered a big story at the time because much like in America, wrestling was possibly at a peak it’s popularity. As a kid myself back then WWF seemed to be everywhere around the time Channel 4 first started airing it, which might actually be part of the problem. An article printed in the Guardian newspaper claimed that (5) “The decision to drop the American show, which has a global following among children and teenagers, was made because of the increasingly violent fighting scenes and misgivings over its portrayal of women. According to a Channel 4 spokesperson the show had become "increasingly difficult to edit.” This does appear to be Channel 4’s first mistake in their airing of Sunday Night Heat. While in the US Heat would air at 7pm, in the UK Channel 4 chose to air it at 4, but it’s content would sometimes not make for great family viewing.
Channel 4’s decision was said at the time to have been due not just to their own opinion, but because of several incidents that had received complaints from viewers to the Independent Television Commission, one of several governing bodies for broadcasting that have since merged to form the Office of Communications, or Ofcom for short. The Guardian only names one specific incident, the Rikishi, Stone Cold and Jim Ross segment that I mentioned in the intro of this video. No other incidents are detailed, but I’d be willing to bet that in any given week a disgruntled parent would be able to find something on WWF TV to complain about, especially given its unfortunate time slot.
The content of televised wrestling shows had already been discussed by the media by that time, to the point where complaints had led to a study that was carried out into how viewers were affected by the content of wrestling. There were several other factors that caused this level of scrutiny, such as the rise of backyard wrestling, and other cases of children imitation what they had seen on TV.
In March 2001, (16) UK trade magazine Broadcast reported on a study titled “How do audiences perceive TV and video wrestling?”, which was commissioned because “in the past three years the ITC has received 128 separate complaints.” This doesn’t just relate to Channel 4, but Sky One and Channel 5 as well, who were also showing WWF and WCW within that time. The study consisted of interviewing “85 wrestling fans aged six to 55-plus from across the UK.“ According to Broadcast, a report was compiled from these interviews, and the conclusion of it was interesting. “Viewers questioned by the report said they followed the fortunes of their favourite wrestlers in a similar manner to developments in soap plot lines. It also found that most viewers were well aware that the violence in the shows was faked and that the narrative was pre-scripted. Viewers also agreed that the violence involved was no worse than in other types of programmes. Parents who watched the shows were largely unconcerned about their children mimicking what they saw on screen, seeing no link between watching the sport and real-life violence.“ While wrestling seems to come out of the report mostly unscathed, Broadcast does add that “Some participants in the research were concerned about the portrayal of women, especially their maltreatment by wrestlers and for being shown as sex objects.”
Given that both Channel 4 and the study mentioned concerns about how poorly women were treated on WWF programming, while they were clearly correct, it showed an obvious lack of product knowledge when the deal was first being put together. Off the top of my head while writing this I came up with a list of questionable moments or storylines involving women within the previous year. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to describe on this platform so they’re scrolling up the screen. Even while the Channel 4 deal was being made, you had many more dodgy moments involving Stephanie McMahon from Test and Shane fighting over her like she’s property, to the Bulldog throwing a bin and knocking her out, and another thing on the subject of her being knocked out. My point is, did Channel 4 really know what they were getting themselves into if this is one of the reasons they gave for ending the deal?
You could also make the argument, as the Observer and Figure Four Weekly would a few weeks later, that wrestling wasn’t the most complained about thing that was airing around the same time by far. A few weeks later Dave Meltzer would add an interesting comparison to the conversation. (6) “The decision was criticized because the station had aired a comedy show on paedophilia the day before wrestling was canceled, which drew more than 1,000 complaints, while wrestling received relatively few viewer complaints.” The comedy show that Dave is referencing is Brass Eye, a satirical take on media coverage of sometimes very serious topics. On July 26th 2001, they had as Dave says aired a special episode about the subject that YouTube wouldn’t like me talking about. The Brass Eye special is pretty infamous for how badly received it was, (7) causing around three thousand complaints on the night that it aired alone, leading the ITC to demand an apology from Channel 4. Brass Eye was viewed in it’s live airing by around two million viewers, which will likely have been much higher than a 4pm airing of Heat, which is why there were far more complaints for the comedic show than for WWF. As Broadcast noted, there had been nearly a hundred and thirty complaints across three different channels over three years, versus three thousand in one single night. Dave makes a very interesting point by bringing up Brass Eye, because it reminds us that television as a whole had issues with what was deemed acceptable around this time, but it’s not a very fair comparison to make though given the scale of the shows involved.
Ending
Fans at the time wondered if Sky TV would be picking up any of the WWF programming that Channel 4 had cut. According to Broadcast, Sky had in February 2000 renewed their deal with the promotion for five more years, bringing the number of hours per of WWF content annually up to over four hundred with the addition of Smackdown to the schedule, joining Raw and various B-shows like Livewire, Superstars and Metal. In August 2001, (14) Sky would comment saying they had no intention of adding any more WWF, which was not really a surprise with Heat, but was more of one regarding the four pay per views a year that fans were set to miss, one being the Royal Rumble. Dave would note though that the promotion was already in talks with other companies to carry those events. The 2002 Royal Rumble, the first after the Channel 4 deal ended, would be available to UK fans, but for the first time as an actual pay per view event. Aye, cheers Channel 4.
WWF would air on free television for the last time in many years with the December 31st 2001 episode of Heat. As if to show they had no intention of changing, earlier that month WWF would include a segment where the Undertaker, then feuding with the Hardy Boys, would throw Lita off the stage, (17) which according to the Observer would be edited off UK broadcasts of the show. It would take a few more years for the company to fully embrace a PG product, which actually might have done quite well on Channel 4.
Nearly twenty years later, WWE would again be seen on free to air UK television. In January 2020, they would sign a deal with Channel 5 to air two weekly best of Raw and Smackdown shows a week. If I were being a cynic, or just teasing a bit, I’d point out that this deal was made just a couple of months after another wrestling company would launch a show that also aired on free TV. Can’t be related though, nope. Not at all.
Sources:
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-9-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wwf-goes-public-hall-fame/ WCW Worldwide launch
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/october-11-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-vince-russo-leaves-wwf/ UK ratings Oct 99
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/november-8-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-life-and-death-owen-hart/ Why Nitro did so well
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/october-4-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wwf-unforgiven-and-ufc-22/ Closer rating
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/january-31-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wcw-departures-wwf-royal/ RR2000 review
https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch586/T586WWFNews.html Update on Mae angle
https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch587/T587CoverSidebar.html MSG statement and merch quote
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-7-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-radicalz-debut-wwf-rock/ MSG Lawyers
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-14-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wcw-turmoil-hall-fame/ Big Show
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-21-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-steve-austin-return-wcw/ Big Show 2
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-6-2001-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wcw-purchase-price/ Cancellation announcement
https://www.c21media.net/news/channel-4-axes-increasingly-extreme-wwf/ Story on axe
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/jul/27/channel4.broadcasting Story on axe
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/august-13-2001-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wwf-invasion-ppv-does-big/ Sky TV
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/7245/wwf-on-channel-4 Fans comments from 2001
https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/knives-are-out-for-wrestling-but-public-laps-it-up/1171973.article Broadcast 1 March 16th 2001
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/december-31-2001-observer-newsletter-2001-retrospective-more-97426/ Last airing, Undertaker and Lita
https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a30607187/wwe-raw-smackdown-uk-tv-channel-5-highlights/
https://transdiffusion.org/2025/11/03/an-americans-view-of-channel-4/
