The Official UKFF RAW Thread...

[DJM]

 

So long as people are buying the ad space, are USA Network really concerned with the ratings?

Probably, if they continue to go further down. Apparently the main reason USA want Raw is because they want to be known as the number 1 network in ratings (and Raw brings up their station average). Wrestling is utter dross when it comes to making money from ads, because the folk that watch it are poor backward trash.

 

I've now got a morbid curiosity to see how far they'll (WWE and USA) things slide before realising their product is worse than a 4pm handjob from a plumber. Be interesting to see how next weeks show with proper stars will do.

 

The rating will probably be better. But I doubt they are going to be able to sustain that rating each week without HBK, Taker, Flair, Lesnar and Austin(?) on the show every week (which they obviously will not be and should not be). There is an over-reliance on past stars to pop a rating or get people to watch PPVs on the Network, and then the next week or next few weeks the rating will drop again.

 

The (full-time) wrestlers they currently have on the shows each week should be able to get them better ratings than they are getting, but with the awful writing of the shows and the poor writing for the wrestlers at the moment people are not going to watch. Also people are given no reason to care about most of the current roster, because most of the time it seems like WWE itself doesn't care about them either.

[WyattSheepMask]

 

 

 

 

So long as people are buying the ad space, are USA Network really concerned with the ratings?

Probably, if they continue to go further down. Apparently the main reason USA want Raw is because they want to be known as the number 1 network in ratings (and Raw brings up their station average). Wrestling is utter dross when it comes to making money from ads, because the folk that watch it are poor backward trash.

 

I've now got a morbid curiosity to see how far they'll (WWE and USA) things slide before realising their product is worse than a 4pm handjob from a plumber. Be interesting to see how next weeks show with proper stars will do.

The rating will probably be better. But I doubt they are going to be able to sustain that rating each week without HBK, Taker, Flair, Lesnar and Austin(?) on the show every week (which they obviously will not be and should not be). There is an over-reliance on past stars to pop a rating or get people to watch PPVs on the Network, and then the next week or next few weeks the rating will drop again.

 

The (full-time) wrestlers they currently have on the shows each week should be able to get them better ratings than they are getting, but with the awful writing of the shows and the poor writing for the wrestlers at the moment people are not going to watch. Also people are given no reason to care about most of the current roster, because most of the time it seems like WWE itself doesn't care about them either.

Case and point, the new WWE video game is focused on a guy who retired 12 fucking years ago Edited October 14, 2015 by WyattSheepMask

[quote the raven]

Raw has sunk to a new low for me, i used to + it and skim watch in about 30 or 40 minutes, now i read the spoilers in the morning and if nothing catches my eye i delete it.

 

All the time the network is doing ok i cant see them forcing a dramatic change.

[King Pitcos]

I honestly dont think anything can turn wrestling around. We've seen it all

 

That's probably the sad truth of it. Over the last few years, they've indulged every Internet masturbatory fantasy and they've trolled all those desires too, and either way rarely makes any odds to business. The only thing that really did positively impact numbers was The Rock's return, and that's a nostalgia/non-sustaining thing. And I suppose the Ryback title shot at Hell in a Cell pointed at picking things up with a new star, but they fucked that one on the night long before the buyrates came in, so it was too late by the time anyone saw what it drew. And even that might have been a one-night novelty spike.

 

I'm not sure what WWE could feasibly do that would have us chuffed with it every week, but I suspect that even if they managed that it wouldn't be a big turnaround for the numbers.

[Guest]

The product doesn't have to be that Fresh really. You can have Ambrose doing stuff that Stone Cold might've done in the money days and it's still good, you just need to show you're progressing and giving those types of folk a proper shot. I'm looking forward to Taker v Brock 3 and everything but damn if that isn't summing up their problems atm.

 

More than three storylines at a time would be a good start, and without two of those being 3-6 months old and well past sell-by date. Less bloody rematch clauses. let people who can express, do so without being folded into a WWE Universe™ box. Trust the bloody wrestlers to be able to carry a decent angle. Write a decent angle. If someone's gotta take a shitty-timed loss out of kind of necessity, make them look like a million quid.

I'm sure I'd be out of my depth but with the show in its current state I feel like I should write in going "you guys need a hand coming up with something?"

[MEGABUCKS]

Just like any show if it drags on it gets boring. WWE really need to start treating it's tv like a season. Maybe start in June and the season ends at Wrestlemania the next year. That way they can rest and have time to plan out what they can do for the next season and it would be alot fresher when its back.

 

They can still run house shows on the off season. They got the Network now so people who still want wrestling they still have NXT and even 1 off house shows on it and other orginal content.

[Arch Stanton]

They're in a comfortable position now, so don't expect things to change significantly for the better any time soon. Necessity is the mother of invention and there is no necessity for them to change their model as things stand. Ratings aren't what they were but I imagine they are pretty healthy by the TV network's standards, a long way from upsetting network executives. The WWE Network subscriptions hover above the one million mark, live events do well and the whole WrestleMania weekend has grown into a monster money maker. Ten years ago they were still holding WrestleMania in regular indoor arenas, now there is talk of 100,000 people in a stadium next year. They are very good at making money, regardless of the quality of their product. Sadly I think that if you're not happy now, it is likely that you're going to have to wait for things to get a lot, lot worse before survival mode kicks in and they start taking real chances creatively.

 

As I don't see the creative processes improving, our best hope is that they just stumble across a new superstar. I believe that people watch wrestling for the personalities and right now they just don't have enough interesting or entertaining ones to keep viewers invested. It's more or less as simple as that for me. Of course, the booking could be a hundred times better than it is, the show could be shorter and the presentation could be freshened up, but even then there's a limit to how many people will sit down in front of their TV and watch a bunch of guys putting on wrestling matches, no matter how good the standard of the action is. WWE probably have the strongest roster of in-ring talent that they have had in over a decade right now, but it's got to be the weakest in terms of star power that I think they have ever had. How many guys or girls on the show have any real kind of aura about them? There's Brock Lesnar and maybe one or two more, if I'm being generous. There is nobody with real mainstream cross-over appeal. Even Cena never got there.

 

Unfortunately, the truth of the situation is that you can't teach or cultivate that natural charisma and magnetism, so I get the feeling we've just got to stick it through until a new messiah rides into town. Somebody with a look and personality that actually connects with the real people out there, not just a ton of internet points to satisfy that hardcore fan base that watch currently and won't go away. I'm not sure if that person is even on the roster or in Developmental right now, but I suspect not from what we've seen.

 

They have to work on growing their casual fan base to generate any kind of buzz about wrestling again. That isn't going to happen by pushing ordinary looking guys with ordinary personalities through sub-standard angles and crap material.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Arch Stanton

[Dirty Eddie]

I think that a big ongoing issue they have is their reluctance to roll with the punches and keep any momentum going. They are so Hell bent on pushing certain acts (some good, some bad) that they often let great things slip between the cracks because they've got other plans in mind that they refuse to alter. They've had hot acts in the last few years that have been on a roll, only for the booking to suddenly put the brakes them on or send them in a different (almost always less interesting) direction.

 

Ambrose was red hot when he was chasing Rollins for the belt, with unanimous fan support and a credible, long-running history between the two of them to work with. But they had other plans, so he lost all the matches and then got lumped into a never-ending win-lose-win-lose feud with the Wyatts.

 

Kevin Owens had an amazing introduction, lived up to the hype, put on great matches and got over in an incredibly short space of time. They should have continued that right to the top. How fresh would it be having Owens as a genuine top heel going for (or holding) the title instead of still having to put up with Kane and Big Show near the main events, with Sheamus waiting in the wings with the Money In The Bank case. Instead KO is plodding about in the midcard already, just one of the guys.

 

Go back even further and you can include Ryback, Barrett, Cesaro, even guys like Zack Ryder, Fandango and Adam Rose had something, at some point, that was flushed away - even if they were never going to be more than mid-card guys. They throw away so much goodwill from the fans when they ignore genuine support or love that an act is getting, just because it doesn't suit their current plans. Just fucking go with it - what's the worst that could happen?

 

Daniel Bryan's "Yes" chant/hand gesture is the closest they've got to getting any of their shit over with a mainstream audience in years. They had sport players and fans in stadiums doing it, videos of people from all over the world having a laugh and joining in. Now I'm sure that 90% of them probably had no idea where it came from, but it's still the closest WWE have got to the days where they influenced millions of teenagers all over the world to point at their knobs and shout "Suck It" at random people. The mad thing is, they didn't even really want to feature Bryan all that much, or give him a big WrestleMania title win. They only did it when the fans shit all over their attempts to do anything else, so they had no choice.

 

When they get gifted a red-hot character that the fans have taken to, they need to push that shit for all it's worth. 

Edited October 15, 2015 by Dirty Eddie

[WWFChilli]

They suck the dick of mainstream acceptance so badly these days that I think all they put out is naff these days. The New Day is super fun but edging close to jumping the shark. They have a 3 hour show, do more, use more, try more.

[DraxSpago]

They could do with an unofficial brand split, similar to what Bryan wanted to do when he won the iC title, have him wrestle exclusively on Smackdown (and PPV's) but not make a big deal about it, then you don't have to explain anything when he does eventually turn up on Raw

 

Apply that to the bulk of the roster (half of them exclusive to Raw obviously) and you're at least creating some fresh PPV matches down the line, the major downside with that is you get even more repetitive matches on TV but we have that at the moment anyway so at least you might pull some new Network subscriptions this way

[UK Kat Von D]

They suck the dick of mainstream acceptance so badly these days that I think all they put out is naff these days.

They like mainstream acceptance but don't really do anything to actually fit in with the landscape of modern culture.

The attitude era was at a time when we had stuff like Jerry Springer and South Park. We wanted trash TV. Transvitites were funny and a girl flashing her tits went down a treat. Now people watch stuff like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones but wrestling doesn't reflect that. People love superheros again, but the closest we have is Neville wearing a cape and Stardust acting like a nutter.

We live in a time where everyone binge watches series, it's the norm to stick on a TV show and just watch several series in a month. Getting people to watch 3 hours or Raw every week shouldn't be that hard.

 

It would be easy for people to accept lots of long intricate stories (I mean actual stories not just rematches.) Everyone should be doing something with a goal, stories overlaping and leading onto other feuds. People want can't miss episodic television. I don't think it would be possible for WWE to keep up with that

Edited October 15, 2015 by UK Kat Von D

[Pinc]

The attitude era was at a time when we had stuff like Jerry Springer and South Park. 

 

You are Vince McMahon and I claim my £10.

[Guest]

I nearly pissed myself the other day when I found out original WM30 plans were Bryan v Sheamus, again. So typical of them. Thank god Punk threw a mardy.

[Powerful_Fox]

 

They suck the dick of mainstream acceptance so badly these days that I think all they put out is naff these days.

They like mainstream acceptance but don't really do anything to actually fit in with the landscape of modern culture.

The attitude era was at a time when we had stuff like Jerry Springer and South Park. We wanted trash TV. Transvitites were funny and a girl flashing her tits went down a treat. Now people watch stuff like Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones but wrestling doesn't reflect that. People love superheros again, but the closest we have is Neville wearing a cape and Stardust acting like a nutter.

We live in a time where everyone binge watches series, it's the norm to stick on a TV show and just watch several series in a month. Getting people to watch 3 hours or Raw every week shouldn't be that hard.

 

It would be easy for people to accept lots of long intricate stories (I mean actual stories not just rematches.) Everyone should be doing something with a goal, stories overlaping and leading onto other feuds. People want can't miss episodic television. I don't think it would be possible for WWE to keep up with that

 

 

I haven't thought about it in this light before (in the sense of it not reflecting modern audience TV preferences), but it is superbly put mate. It was always clear that back then the outrageous TV was the height of popularity but I have never personally made the connection that these days they aren't catering to that change in demand. It may not be so much that the existing product is stale, just wrong compared with what the mainstream demand is.

 

Well said.

[DCW]

How the fuck do you practically make carny wrestling into nuanced, intricate Breaking Bad/GOT style episodic television and keep everyone on board? This always gets mentioned and I just don't think its possible.

 

The market they're aiming at is kids and adult morons anyway, and I doubt they'd be into such a thing. I (being one of those adult morons) definitely wouldn't!

Edited October 15, 2015 by DCW