Mat Quest: An Introduction

If you use any type of streaming service, this has probably happened to you.

You are in the middle of watching a series – or worse, a movie – when it suddenly disappears. 

With the convenience of streaming comes the peril of media rights. Your favorite show may become inaccessible when those rights expire. And, as Raw moves to Netflix, speculation has run rampant about what will happen to the WWE library when the promotion’s current deal with Peacock expires in the spring of 2026.

Internationally, Netflix already has the rights to Raw and the archive. We already have seen the archive of NXT drop into the void, after the CW began broadcasting new episodes, and chose not to upload any of the substantial NXT archive, to which they also have the rights, to their app. 

So what happens in 2026? If the WWE archive rights go to some new entity, I have zero confidence the published library survives in full – in large part because when Peacock bought the rights, not everything from the WWE Network made the migration (Get it? Migrate? Because birds!). 

As someone who follows wrestling and studied history, it’s probably not a surprise I like watching older wrestling – partly to check out stuff I haven’t seen, and partly because it reminds me of when I first started watching as a kid in the 1980s. I also know how WWE likes shaping, or reshaping, what is accepted as wrestling history, using its influence as the biggest promotion on the planet for the past several decades. Given that approach, though, I think that makes it less likely that all the currently available non-WWE content survives any move from Peacock to another platform. I’m talking about WCW, ECW, and especially the older stuff from the territories: Mid-South, World Class, AWA, etc. 

But if you’re looking at the older wrestling on Peacock, maybe you don’t know where to start. 

That’s where, hopefully, this series of articles serves a purpose. Mat Quest aims to provide a viewing guide to the wrestling on Peacock, starting from the oldest footage on the platform. 

How will it work?

Basically, I am going through every event and show currently on Peacock, starting from the beginning – or, in this case, 1973. I will let you know what I consider to be worth watching. If I think it’s skippable, it probably won’t be mentioned. Or maybe I will mention something in passing if you are looking to take a deep dive into a particular wrestler or style or title. I want to focus on the non-McMahon promotions, but I am folding in older content from WWE (or, as it was known in the 70s, WWWF) as well. For the record, we are defining older for now as essentially anything that aired prior to the debut of Raw.

A daunting task? Absolutely. Luckily I have a little over a year to get through it. 

A couple of things to remember… 

First, these recommendations are based solely off of my opinion. One of the great things about wrestling is that, I believe, there is something out there for everyone.

Second, these articles are meant to be informational. I definitely will go on a rant or a tangent from time to time, but this series will not be the place for in-depth match reviews or lengthy think pieces on how a certain match or segment contributed to the greater wrestling zeitgeist. You probably will find pieces like that on this site at some point, just not here.

Maybe you are a newer wrestling fan who is interested in the older stuff but was unsure where to start. Maybe you want to make sure you check out the good stuff from the archive before it possibly disappears, moves or evolves into its own paid service. Or maybe you are just burnt out on the current wrestling product and are looking for something different to watch. 

No matter the reason, I hope you check out this guide, and find it informative and helpful. 

For what is available on Peacock, the uploads really do not get going until the mid 1970s – 1976, to be precise. There are a handful of shows from 1975 and one from 1973: a complete card from Madison Square Garden that aired on HBO. And so that is where the journey begins.