Bullet Club
Member
3 nice butts and lots of empty seats.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
3 nice butts and lots of empty seats.
Not sure about the overall attendance, but that segment is bathroom break territory for me. Alexa is great talker and one of my absolute favorites right now, but putting her in a ring with Bayley and Sasha is letting the air from her balloon. That paring is wrestling malpractice. Sasha has so much to offer as a don't give a shit about anyone else character, and all they are doing with her is making her friends with a hugger. I know Bayley is a hit with little ones, but a hugger and a boss? WTF?
3 nice butts and lots of empty seats.
At a minimum, we need more titles for the women to make the non-RR women on Raw relevant.
Bullet Club
Member
RIP Dynamite Kid
And that segment was a bit early for a piss break, it was about 15 minutes into the show. It was pretty bad though.
It was the lowest rating Raw of all time. It's getting to WCW 2000 levels.
Bayley was great in NXT but the character doesn't work as well on the big stage, at least the way WWE are booking her.
And that segment was a bit early for a piss break, it was about 15 minutes into the show. It was pretty bad though.
It was the lowest rating Raw of all time. It's getting to WCW 2000 levels.
Bullet Club
Member
Y2H
Member
Rest in peace to another legend. His intensity and technical prowess in the ring was incredibly entertaining to watch and helped him stand out from wrestlers of similar stature. It's weird knowing he lived one town away from me for so long before his death.
If anyone hasn't seen him wrestle you should check out his matches with Tiger Mask in Japan. They're fun to watch and you'll see how they innovated the style and techniques used by many cruiserweights and light-heavyweights in modern wrestling. You'll also see the origins of Chris Benoit's wrestling as he was heavily inspired by Dynamite.
Not sure if true or not, but won't be shocked. Despite a shit ton of talent, they just aren't doing much of interest. Drew and Elias are ready to take the reigns but there's no title in either picture. Brock is never there with the top belt, and the secondary belt on raw just doesn't feel that important. It really needs to be a stepping stone instead of a surrogate belt. Don't even get me started on the lack of tag teams. on raw. Smackdown needs more people that don't feel like yesterday's news IMO (Orton, Hardy).
Bullet Club
Member
Here are the ratings:
Raw Rating: A new low – At what point does Vince McMahon decide it’s him and the booking, not “unavoidable TV trends”?
Last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw drew a 1.61 rating on USA Network among live and same-night-DVR viewers, the lowest non-holiday rating ever. Viewership began at 2.262 million, grew to 2.399 million, and then dropped to 2.196 million over the course of three hours.
This is down from the year-ago rating of 1.96 and the two years ago rating of 2.08. That’s a 23 percent drop from two years ago.
With the departure of Roman Reigns after positioning him for years as the top star could be playing a role, as could Braun Strowman’s surgery sidelining him. Perhaps it’s going back to having an “absentee Universal Champion” whom the company had convinced viewers didn’t care about WWE and had no pride in his job performance. At some point, though, it’s not the absence of stars but who is being pushed in their absence that could be at play. Ronda Rousey was supposed to be a big-name insurance policy against this kind of erosion of fan support, but she’s at best propping up what could be even worse ratings or at worst making no difference.
Editorials will be written on websites and rants will be spoken on podcasts, but all that matters is when Vince McMahon decides to point the finger at himself and his team and insist on producing better shows that listen more to fans and stay away from heel general manager authority figures and cheesy sit-down talk segments and get back to promoting a show resembling pro wrestling where popular athletes are engaging in battles inside the ring with perceived high stakes. If McMahon can bring some sense of authenticity back to the characters and what they’re saying and if he can get more in step with the demographic he’s chasing with edgier characters, things could get better quickly.
The ten-week rolling average for Raw headed into this week was 1.96, and this week marks 12 weeks in a row where the rating was below 1.80, indicating a new all-time-low water level of viewership and interest in the product. While there are other ways for WWE to draw revenue, and comparing ratings today to 20 years ago requires qualifiers and adjustments before drawing too much judgment, it’s not good that fewer and fewer people at a rapid rate are deciding that settling in for three hours of Raw on a Monday night is worth their time anymore.
The only bright side is that the first-t0-third hour drop-off last night was only 66,000, the lowest in four weeks and well below the 321,000 average for the year, indicating that fans stuck around for Rousey’s tag match later in the show.
https://www.pwtorch.com/site/2018/1...im-and-the-booking-not-unavoidable-tv-trends/
Raw Rating: A new low – At what point does Vince McMahon decide it’s him and the booking, not “unavoidable TV trends”?
Last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw drew a 1.61 rating on USA Network among live and same-night-DVR viewers, the lowest non-holiday rating ever. Viewership began at 2.262 million, grew to 2.399 million, and then dropped to 2.196 million over the course of three hours.
This is down from the year-ago rating of 1.96 and the two years ago rating of 2.08. That’s a 23 percent drop from two years ago.
With the departure of Roman Reigns after positioning him for years as the top star could be playing a role, as could Braun Strowman’s surgery sidelining him. Perhaps it’s going back to having an “absentee Universal Champion” whom the company had convinced viewers didn’t care about WWE and had no pride in his job performance. At some point, though, it’s not the absence of stars but who is being pushed in their absence that could be at play. Ronda Rousey was supposed to be a big-name insurance policy against this kind of erosion of fan support, but she’s at best propping up what could be even worse ratings or at worst making no difference.
Editorials will be written on websites and rants will be spoken on podcasts, but all that matters is when Vince McMahon decides to point the finger at himself and his team and insist on producing better shows that listen more to fans and stay away from heel general manager authority figures and cheesy sit-down talk segments and get back to promoting a show resembling pro wrestling where popular athletes are engaging in battles inside the ring with perceived high stakes. If McMahon can bring some sense of authenticity back to the characters and what they’re saying and if he can get more in step with the demographic he’s chasing with edgier characters, things could get better quickly.
The ten-week rolling average for Raw headed into this week was 1.96, and this week marks 12 weeks in a row where the rating was below 1.80, indicating a new all-time-low water level of viewership and interest in the product. While there are other ways for WWE to draw revenue, and comparing ratings today to 20 years ago requires qualifiers and adjustments before drawing too much judgment, it’s not good that fewer and fewer people at a rapid rate are deciding that settling in for three hours of Raw on a Monday night is worth their time anymore.
The only bright side is that the first-t0-third hour drop-off last night was only 66,000, the lowest in four weeks and well below the 321,000 average for the year, indicating that fans stuck around for Rousey’s tag match later in the show.
https://www.pwtorch.com/site/2018/1...im-and-the-booking-not-unavoidable-tv-trends/
Bullet Club
Member
Bullet Club
Member
RIP Larry "The Axe" Hennig
-- WWE's restriction on their UK talent under contract looks to be even more severe than initially reported. Trent Seven lost a "loser leaves town" match in his own Fight Club Pro promotion and he actually had to work with wrestlers who were also under contract to WWE. Seven teamed up with Tyler Bate and Pete Dunn and the trio lost their match and said their goodbyes afterwards.
Other limitations include men not being able to have any sort of physical confrontation with women so in a match that included WALTER and Meiko Satomura, at no point could WALTER do any moves to Satomura so they got around it by having her duck and counter his attempts at chops.
-- With Alexa Bliss not yet fully cleared, it appears that Becky Lynch is also in the same boat but for slightly different reasons. According to the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Lynch has not been doing anything physical at house shows or Smackdown Live because she hasn't been fully cleared.
The report goes onto state that while Becky has been cleared from her concussion, WWE doctors have yet to give her the clearance from the nasal fracture she suffered before Survivor Series. The concussion was expected to be the tricky one to predict because every person and every concussion is different, however, now that she's over the head injury, WWE obviously feels confident that she will be fully cleared within the next week in time to wrestle at the TLC PPV on 12/16.
-- WWE's restriction on their UK talent under contract looks to be even more severe than initially reported. Trent Seven lost a "loser leaves town" match in his own Fight Club Pro promotion and he actually had to work with wrestlers who were also under contract to WWE. Seven teamed up with Tyler Bate and Pete Dunn and the trio lost their match and said their goodbyes afterwards.
Other limitations include men not being able to have any sort of physical confrontation with women so in a match that included WALTER and Meiko Satomura, at no point could WALTER do any moves to Satomura so they got around it by having her duck and counter his attempts at chops.
-- With Alexa Bliss not yet fully cleared, it appears that Becky Lynch is also in the same boat but for slightly different reasons. According to the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Lynch has not been doing anything physical at house shows or Smackdown Live because she hasn't been fully cleared.
The report goes onto state that while Becky has been cleared from her concussion, WWE doctors have yet to give her the clearance from the nasal fracture she suffered before Survivor Series. The concussion was expected to be the tricky one to predict because every person and every concussion is different, however, now that she's over the head injury, WWE obviously feels confident that she will be fully cleared within the next week in time to wrestle at the TLC PPV on 12/16.
Last edited:
Bullet Club
Member
Bullet Club
Member
Here is the full card for Wrestle Kingdom 13, taking place on January 4 inside the Tokyo Dome:
- Kenny Omega vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP title
- Chris Jericho vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP Intercontinental title
- Kazuchika Okada vs. Jay White
- KUSHIDA vs. Taiji Ishimori for the IWGP Jr. title
- Cody vs. Juice Robinson for the IWGP United States title
- Guerrillas of Destiny vs. The Young Bucks vs. EVIL and SANADA for the IWGP tag team titles
- Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr. for the British Heavyweight title
- Yoshinobu Kanemaru and El Desperado vs. Roppongi 3K vs. BUSHI and Shingo Takagi for the IWGP Jr. tag team titles
- Kota Ibushi vs. Will Ospreay for the NEVER Openweight title
- Pre-Show: A gauntlet match to determine #1 contenders for NEVER six man titles
New Japan is set to return to the United States for two events.
The tour will be called New Beginning USA. The first event will take place January 30 in Los Angeles, California at the Globe Theater. They will follow that two days later with a show in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Grady Cole Center on February 1.
It was mentioned during tonight’s press conference, which announced the tour, that the young lions training at the NJPW dojo in Los Angeles will be a featured part of both shows. It will be running in conjunction with the New Beginning tour in Japan; wrestlers who are not a part of the USA tour will be wrestling on those cards.
New Japan was last in the United States back on September 30 at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach, California. The Golden Lovers defeated Kazuchika Okada and Tomohiro Ishii in the main event.
https://www.f4wonline.com/japan/njp...272041?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
Well done Becky.
The Elite
BOSS
I wouldn't be shocked if NJPW works with the new promotion if all of that pans out. I don't think NJPW is in any sort of exclusive agreement with ROH. I'm sure the goal will be to work with the Elite guys to help build the New Japan brand stateside.
Bullet Club
Member
-- Monday's WWE RAW episode, featuring the final red brand hype for Sunday's TLC pay-per-view plus a TLC main event with WWE Intercontinental Champion Seth Rollins retaining over Baron Corbin, drew 2.194 million viewers. This is down from last week's 2.285 million viewers. This is the lowest RAW viewership in show history.
For this week's show, the first hour drew 2.347 million viewers (last week's hour 1 - 2.262 million), the second hour drew 2.186 million viewers (last week's hour 2 - 2.399 million) and the final hour drew 2.048 million viewers (last week's hour 3 - 2.196 million).
This week's second and third hour were the lowest ever second and third hours in RAW history.
RAW was #9 for the night in viewership on cable, for the third week in a row, behind the NFL's Monday Night Football, Monday Night Kickoff, SportsCenter at midnight, Rachel Maddow Show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Last Word, Hannity and The Five. RAW was #5 in the 18-49 demographic this week, behind the NFL, Monday Night Kickoff, SportsCenter and Love & Hip-Hop.
The NFL's Monday Night Football topped the night in the 18-49 demographic and in viewership this week, for the fourteenth week in a row. The Vikings vs. Seahawks game drew 11.389 million viewers. Monday Night Kickoff came in at #2 in the 18-49 demographic with 4.579 million viewers, SportsCenter came in at #3 with 2.836 million viewers and Love & Hip-Hop ranked #4 with 1.601 million viewers.
Bullet Club
Member
Bullet Club
Member
Breaking News: Old man appearing on poorly rating wrestling show!
The Elite
BOSS
Vince must be concerned about this ratings to make an appearance like this. Rumour is they are going to do a draft to shake things up. I bet Becky is going to RAW if that's the case.
The Man has been great to watch but Asuka deserved that win. The shakeup will probably setup the four horsewomen rivalry I imagine.
As for the men, there's not much going on.
The Man has been great to watch but Asuka deserved that win. The shakeup will probably setup the four horsewomen rivalry I imagine.
As for the men, there's not much going on.
Your post has me hoping Vince just re-assigns people tonight / dictating changes. Some hopes:
1) above all else - trade Becky for Bliss. Love them both. On Smackdown Bliss could return to the title picture in meaningful feuds whether she wins or loses. She is wasted on the same show as RR. And Becky chasing a heelish RR would be months of compelling TV if she is given the full green light in terms of Stone Cold stunts.
2) Corbin, who actually has a personality and voice now, is interjected into lower title pictures.
3) Strip Brock of title for not appearing enough. Admit he has a friendly schedule, but reinforce that champs need to be present.
4) Elevate Drew more rapidly and keep him in the Triple H awesome heel role. Star waiting to break out there.
Edit:
5) Probably going too far into the "we admit this is fake" train, but demand to see the person who decided Ziggler would give Drew his first pinfall loss on a raw of all shows, and then fire them on the spot while ordering Ziggler to 205. The guy is literally known for how well he takes a beating and then slows down the momentum of their most likely break out men's wrestler. Unreal.
Last edited:
The Elite
BOSS
I like a lot of these ideas. I definitely think Becky is going to Raw. I think they want to show her off on their top show.
Yeah, she deserves Raw no doubt. But I also honestly think Raw needs her to save the women's division from running out of steam. Elevating RR so fast and so quickly has been letting air out of the Raw women's division and it's a snooze fest now. Every women on Raw comes across as cannon fodder for RR right now, except for Sasha who would be better off as cannon fodder than a former boss who just wants to hug it out now.
I think RR was a great pick-up overall, but giving her 3/4 Brock treatment was stupid. Brock was an established pro-wrestler bad add who briefly conquered UFC, and then came back with an advocate who covered up his deficiencies. RR is a UFC has been who came to Raw, has been unable to cut a compelling promo and been given no one to help her there, and who has ultimately done nothing but make the entire roster on her show look like the freshman team playing the varsity team. They have no chance of winning, their coach couldn't care less if they do, and the audience is bored.
Chase Lebowski
Member
Finally a semi decent PPV. The SD Women title match, Styles vs. Bryan and... Ronda vs. Nia were great. I love how Ronda quickly climbs on Nia.
I'm happy The Elite finally ended that H storyline. Yeah, it went meta, they even said that no one was believing it, but still, not that great. BTW Cody is comedy gold.
Kinda hyped to see what Vince will say and what happens in January to get the ratings back on track (if Alvarez is right).
I'm happy The Elite finally ended that H storyline. Yeah, it went meta, they even said that no one was believing it, but still, not that great. BTW Cody is comedy gold.
Kinda hyped to see what Vince will say and what happens in January to get the ratings back on track (if Alvarez is right).
Nok Su Kow
Member
The entire old wrestle community decided on the other place
jobber
Would let Tony Parker sleep with his wife
nah. i'm staying here. last time i went over there, tjpw wasn't even acknowledged.
Bullet Club
Member
More bobs & vagene are coming to Impact!
- Impact Wrestling VP Don Callis says the move to Pursuit Channel will be good for the company, as it allows them to produce a “sexier” and “edgier” product.
Callis briefly spoke about the move to Pursuit on the latest episode of his podcast Killing the Town. “A lot of fans thought, ‘Wow, you guys should be on a different network with a different demographic’ so we announced this week we’re moving to Pursuit which is an exciting thing for me,” he explained.
“It’s a great strategic move for us,” he added. “And I think people are going to love to see a sexier, edgier, maybe even a little more hardcore IMPACT Wrestling. I’m really, really pumped about that.”
In case you missed it, Impact will begin airing on Pursuit starting January 11 at 10pm ET.
RIP in Peace Hornswoggle
- Impact Wrestling VP Don Callis says the move to Pursuit Channel will be good for the company, as it allows them to produce a “sexier” and “edgier” product.
Callis briefly spoke about the move to Pursuit on the latest episode of his podcast Killing the Town. “A lot of fans thought, ‘Wow, you guys should be on a different network with a different demographic’ so we announced this week we’re moving to Pursuit which is an exciting thing for me,” he explained.
“It’s a great strategic move for us,” he added. “And I think people are going to love to see a sexier, edgier, maybe even a little more hardcore IMPACT Wrestling. I’m really, really pumped about that.”
In case you missed it, Impact will begin airing on Pursuit starting January 11 at 10pm ET.
RIP in Peace Hornswoggle
Dthomp
Member
I really hope that Impact doesn't go all in too much on the violence "ECW" approach. I want good wrestling not out of shape guys with fucking blades every match. Give us a better wrestling product then the WWE and we will find the channel and watch. I'm all for a little more sex appeal however as long as it means you don't lose all the other characters that you also have there. I really want to watch Impact but just haven't been given enough to go out of my way. Every little thing I see features Sami Callahan? and some stupid hardcore junk.
Bullet Club
Member
Random Wrestling Roundup!
It looks like Sting is back in WWE, judging by this picture:
He needs to start coming out to The Final Countdown again.
-- Vince McMahon is said to be "very high" on the idea of pushing Mandy Rose as a star, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. It's said to be a similar strategy that the company had with Lana when she split from Rusev before she gradually faded into being just another woman on the roster.
It looks like Sting is back in WWE, judging by this picture:
He needs to start coming out to The Final Countdown again.
-- Vince McMahon is said to be "very high" on the idea of pushing Mandy Rose as a star, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. It's said to be a similar strategy that the company had with Lana when she split from Rusev before she gradually faded into being just another woman on the roster.
Holy Shit --> https://www.foxnews.com/entertainme...klash-after-forcing-tampon-down-rivals-throat
I say WWE should sign her immediately. That it is some next level heel antics that WWE could use in the division.
I say WWE should sign her immediately. That it is some next level heel antics that WWE could use in the division.