The scrambled channel method was a way to “watch” WWE and WCW pay-per-views in the 1990s without actually buying them. As The Undertaker pointed out, it also worked for porn channels.
Cable television exploded in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This also coincided with the rise of the pay-per-view era of pro wrestling. Many fans used various methods to watch wrestling events on “scrambled” cable channels, which still supplied the event’s audio with a distorted picture.
Some had cable descrambler boxes, some tried the “two pennies” or “paper clip” trick. If budget was an issue, some just watched the whole show scrambled.
The Undertaker and his co-host, Matt Lyda, reflected on the start of their respective wrestling fandoms with Stephen Amell on the latest episode of the Six Feet Under podcast. Amell mentioned first learning about other promotions through wrestling magazines and renting videotapes as a kid in Toronto.
Like many others who only knew of WWE, he also learned about performers like Ric Flair this way, noting that he didn’t know who Flair was other than being a guy “from the magazines.”
“Did you ever watch a pay-per-view you couldn’t afford? So you didn’t buy [it], so you watched it through the squiggly lines,” Amell said, referring to the scrambled channels.
“I watched porn like that,” The Undertaker deadpanned.
“Yes, that too,” Lyda said with a laugh. “Everybody knows about the squiggly lines, all so you can catch a nipple.”
“They kept you invested, they knew what they were doing!” Undertaker added.
“Looking back at it as a marketing major, I would’ve bought ads on that squiggly line channel,” Lyda added. “And just had ads pop up about every 5-10 minutes, because everybody was watching that.”
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