The Official UKFF RAW Thread...

[Benno]

There's a middle ground though isn't there. Plenty of your bigger TV and Film series pay attention to their more hardcore fans voices, at least to an extent. You can't base your entire product on obsessive Twilight fan girls or Marvel hardcores who are attending the comic cons and picking through every detail, but you have to do a degree of fan service to those people.

 

You can make way more money making a DC or Marvel universe of films where you pay attention to the little details, than you would flinging out the shite they used to when I was a kid that they'd attach Spiderman or Batman's name to. Studios these days are more wary than ever about the shitstorm your hardcore fans can cause having ripple effects to the masses.

 

WWE PR speak is they "make movies" but I can't think of many successful movie franchises that would have stories end like the Lana/Rusev story or pay so little mind to the little details. If WWE is supposed to be a movie it's a fucking terrible movie.

Edited October 18, 2015 by Benno

[King Pitcos]

What about this for a scenario. We all remember the "if Cena wins we riot" sign. What about #ifCenawinswecancel. Are the shareholders going to risk having their share prices ruined for WWE's artistic vision?

 

WWE have caved to that nonsense once this year without people actually cancelling anyway, they caved to it last year as well without the boycotts actually happening then either. But even though Daniel Bryan did get to win the belt at WrestleMania 30, even though Brock Lesnar squashed John Cena at SummerSlam 2014, and even though Roman Reigns didn't get to win the belt at WrestleMania 31, the Internet is still full of crying and the Raw ratings are still dropping. Because giving in to fanwank "this or I riot" rubbish doesn't solve a thing.

 

The kids holding the "if Cena wins we cancel" sign (or tweeting it) are the ones who are most likely to never cancel. If Cena wins, they won't cancel. If Cena loses, they'll find something else to complain about anyway, as we've seen happen all the times that Cena has lost. The people WWE needs to worry about are the people who don't care enough about the win/loss records of Internet darlings to take bratty signs to TV tapings.

Edited October 18, 2015 by King Pitcos

[Guest]

The type of fan who's like 'waaa John Cena' doesn't have the foresight to put across any effective protest. And if there is a backlash, it won't be because of Cena, it will just be because of the problems that stand out as obvious, their complete lack of direction and effort in storylines. Post-modern fans are nearly always bad, but thank god the Bryan stuff happened - apparently WWE could do with that kind of kick up the arse more often. They really would've had Bryan v Sheamus and Orton v Bootista at WM30, that genuinely nearly happened - I wouldn't compare it to those wanky, wacky RATM xmas #1 contrarians - this needed doing.

I think it's difficult for that to happen again though, with them half-heartedly pretending to listen to fans like 'heres Cesaro v Owens, that's what you asked for', 'here's THE LUNATIC FRINGE off to open Raw' but with no actual story written and two part-timers made to look a billion times bigger than anything else going currently, which may be true but they shouldn't be TELLING us that

[UK Kat Von D]

To be clear I'm no way endorsing a mass cancellation at all (although the ensuing mayhem would be an extremely interesting time.)

 

Hopefully it doesn't happen, maybe it never will. I'm just of the opinion it's a bigger potential threat than declining ratings. Ratings is gradual, old names can be brought back to spike them back up and there are a million of excuses available. A large enough amount of people cancel at once (even if it's just for a week to prove a point) and we would have all out chaos

[King Pitcos]

Of course it will never happen, it's not feasible. Even if it turned out that network subscription money was being used to pay for a child pornography/prostitution ring (Chyna was right!), there's probably more people who wouldn't cancel because they want to watch Chris Benoit's WCW matches in good quality than there are people who would cancel.

 

And if by a stroke of magic, a substantial number of cunts did cancel as a knee-jerk tantrum over one win or loss, WWE would only respond by giving into whatever the tantrum was about (though they already give in to it when the cancelling is pretend, so the never-happen prospect of really cancelling is irrelevant). It wouldn't have everyone any more interested in the next six weeks of Roman Reigns vs Bray Wyatt or whatever.

[UK Kat Von D]

Stop saying it will never happen because you are making me really tempted to go lead the campaign myself. Yeah, I really am stubborn enough to try and fuck the entire landscape of wrestling just to prove you wrong

[neil is brill]

It won't make CM Punk come back though.

[Pinc]

They could have every intention of resigning the day before the next Takeover special, but if one day 500000 people unsubscribe the share holders will fucking flip. In the time of monthly PPVs people had a month to calm down and just order the next one out of habit. Now you can unsubscribe, even if just to send a message.

 

It will clearly never happen at the kind of scale you're talking about and you would have to be a mental case to think it could.

 

Batista's return popped the biggest rating they'd had since Raw 1000 and his segments continued to do well for months. There weren't half a million people at home fuming along with all the Boo-tista lads in the arenas. Your whole idea is just mad.

Edited October 19, 2015 by Pinc

[UK Kat Von D]

It won't make CM Punk come back though.

That's good because I don't have time to watch Raw anymore. When he left I just stopped watching every week and pretty much stick to PPVs and the occasional good bit on Raw. I can't remember ranting about wanting Punk back at all, or were you just making a shit joke?

[PunkStep]

No rant, but there was this...

 

 

I miss him every day.

 

 

[UK Kat Von D]

You can miss someone but not want them back!

[tiger_rick]

Stop saying it will never happen because you are making me really tempted to go lead the campaign myself. Yeah, I really am stubborn enough to try and fuck the entire landscape of wrestling just to prove you wrong

 

You've got more change of tattooing Ashley and Uncle Fred on Cheryl Cole's cunt.

 

Fucking excellent stuff in this thread this week.

 

To throw in something that's kind of being skirted around. WWE want to be mainstream. That's clear. And they think of Raw as a TV show (the longest running weekly episodic show in history if you hadn't heard). But they don't write a TV show. They don't write characters. They barely write plots. They don't write twists that you don't see coming. If it is a TV show, it's something as lazy and miserable as fucking Eastenders. It used to be good, it used to make you want to watch. Now you could miss it for months on end and miss nothing. It still gets good vieing figures for what it is but nothing like it used to. And their only idea is to keep bringing back old characters from when it was good.

 

I could stomach an hour and a half of Raw being matches for no reason between guys I couldn't give a shit about if they at least made the rest interesting. I think they need to start every single Raw booking meeting with "Name one thing on this show (before we write it) that people are going to be tuning in for". Just one. Was it a cliff hanger last week? A huge debut? A return? A match we've pushed all week on social media. Whatever. Just one thing. They should start tonight. And if anyone around the table thinks there is anything then they should be taken to the top of WWE global HQ, poisoned, buggered, shot and then thrown off the roof.

 

And then run over.

 

And then made to wrestle Sheamus for twenty minutes.

[Linus]

I know wrestling is a different thing because it's live and the fans are vocal onscreen.

 

Would Breaking Bad, The Wire & Game of Thrones etc be as popular if they let a bunch of self entitled internet wanks influencing the writing of their shows? Of course they wouldn't and the WWE shouldn't just bow down anytime these people throw their toys out the pram because John Cena a guy who happens to sell a lot of merchandise and house shows, wins some US title matches.

There's one massive difference between Raw and those shows - the writing. Oh, and the acting. Two massive differences - the writing and the acting. Hmm, and the directing. Three massive differences, then - the writing, the acting, and the directing. And maybe the awards they win? Yeah, four massive differences - the writing, the acting, the directing, and the awards....

[Linus]

 

WWE is becoming to main stream and instead of thinking outside the box they are firmly stuck inside of it. It's almost like WWE has given up on Raw because it's become un-fixable and on a downward slideand instead they are focusing more on NXT were the possibilities and surprises etc same endless because they have fresh and raw talent that can still be molded and a fan base that probably haven't seen a fraction of what NXT can pull out of the bag, NXT is the underdog compared to Raw and Smackdown with room to grow and expand and it's fan base is firmly behind it were as Raw peaked years ago and now it's meh i might watch it but I'm not bothered if I miss it or I'll watch it but fast forward through most of it.

So which is it? You can't become mainstream if your flagship TV show is on a downward slide, you've contradicted your own false statement (that WWE is becoming mainstream) in the space of one sentence.

 

Actually, becoming mainstream - or, more accurately, trying to become mainstream - has no bearing on ratings. You can be shit and unwatched and still be mainstream as hell.

 

It's a huge mystery as to why Raw has allowed to become what it's become. It defies any kind of common sense. But so does an industry built around men in their pants pretending to fight...

[King Pitcos]

I could stomach an hour and a half of Raw being matches for no reason between guys I couldn't give a shit about if they at least made the rest interesting.

 

That's a good point too. The boring matches part of Raw would be far less irritating if there was a focus on the main bits being good. It's mad that there are really only about half a dozen people they write anything for, and there are twenty-odd writers doing a 50 hour workweek to come up with stuff for those few performers, and it's still such unexciting bollocks. Every week should absolutely have a big-hitter angle for at least one of the storylines.