Watch the Breaking Ground series premiere.

On Sunday morning, WWE released the first episode to their Hard Knocks-inspired series, Breaking Ground to the WWE Network, Facebook, and YouTube. Future episodes will be exclusive to the WWE Network. I will get this out of the way. If they think this is closely related to Hard Knocks, someone needs to watch Hard Knocks again.

Hard Knocks is a reality show, but it doesn’t look scripted and this show very much looks like it’s painted with WWE’s micro-management brush. Also, Hard Knocks is a weekly show that covers the previous week so it feels like it’s very much in real time. This show didn’t and one of the first scenes was dated as September 9, or about 7 weeks ago. That doesn’t make it feel like real time.

However, it’s possible that this series premiere was an intro and the rest of the show will very much be in real time. However, I’m not sure there are that many interesting things happening at the Performance Center to create a 30 minute weekly TV show. Well, unless it’s scripted.

In this first episode, you’ll see some familiar faces such as Bayley and Apollo Crews. Narrated by William Shatner, much of the show centers around Baron Corbin who doesn’t look like a pleasant person to be around. But there are new characters that we haven’t met yet on WWE TV like former NFL player Tino Sabbatelli who is having concussion issues and the youngest roster member, NXT diva Nhooph. Nhooph struggles with training and doesn’t seem all that athletic.

I’m not quite sure if they know who their audience is. They’re both trying to talk to NXT viewers as if everyone is familiar with the characters, but also, awkwardly introducing them. I’m sure they’ll get their voice down in future episodes.

There is a cliffhanger here and if you have been following, you sort of know what’s going to happen. NXT announcer Devin Taylor was also trying to make it as a wrestler, but couldn’t stay healthy. Coach Sara Amato (Sara Del Rey) discusses her career with her and Jason Albert and Canyon Cemen have to make a hard decision and it looks like she’s involved. Taylor was recently cut from the roster, so this might be what we see in the next episode.

Is it worth watching? Yes. But is it as uncut and unfiltered as they’re trying to make it seem? Definitely not.