All Star game was Tuesday. Home Run Derby was Monday night

Was wondering how long it would take for someone to bring this up. Think it definitely plays a role so i'd say where they're at now in this era as far as ratings is concerned is pretty good. I don't expect it to ever get back to what it used to be.

Keep building ths CM Punk angle properly and the numbers will go up. WWE programming suffers from changing its mind too much. If something doesn't go over instantly they just forget about it.

The CM Punk angle is white hot, Vince getting "relieved of his duties" adds interest, keep building on it. The only other thing would be to build up some mid card fueds a bit better so you're interested in RAW all the way through rather than just the last quarter hour. Make the IC/US title's the #1 contender spot again, and build the woman/tag team division up so it matters.

And one final rule, noone gets on the main roster till they are ready, green people on TV just didnt happen in the attitude era. The WWF (as it was then) was the best of the best, not the best and some newcomers.

And whilst I like Cody Rhodes the character, send him to a gym to put some muscle on his legs, he's far too gangley to look like a real threat.

A Brokeback Mountain tag team? :wtf:

And before that, it was down. On July 4th. Wonder what people were doing then.

A guy about ten rows back from me at Mania was yelling at the people with signs to put them down because he couldn't see. About three matches in, I got tired of it and the following exchange took place:

HIM: Put your signs down!
ME: Get better seats!
REST OF SECTION: :lol:

That was the last time we heard from him.

Yeah really. Honestly unless you're first three rows or so dont even bother with floor. Go for the lower bowl.

I'd be pissed if I had a sign blockin my view..just sayin'

You're right, RVDMark. If Cody Rhodes had more muscle tone in his legs, the ratings for Raw would improve.

Along w/ the gym, send Cody a "Dr. Swearths" tape . . . it will help on the mic.

I came into this thread expecting the boiler plate "get rid of pg/get rid of cena/bring back the attitude era" type responses...and oh joy, I wasn't disappointed.

The WWE has been moving along just fine for a while now. Give it time. I'm pretty sure that no show has had a ratings spike, like some of the people in here seemed to have been expecting.

That's what's up!

The Punk shirts that were sold in Chicago are going for upwards of $300 on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/WWE-CM-PUNK-CHIC...item35b3c76dea

Most of the people in this thread have said the exact same thing you just said, Haze FX.

I understand if it's when they pan shots of the crowd and such, but we were never on camera in the first place, and it was literally like 90% of the entire match. I was looking around and with the exception of a few that were across from the hard camera these 2 were the only ones standing waving signs around hoping orton would look up and acknowledge that they "luv him". it's just a dick thing to do regardless

My Solution, Nitro Girls :naughty:

DJ Ran

Master P

Big Swoll

Yeah that's different. We were across from the hard camera, so of course there were signs all night. I would be frustrated if we were somewhere else and that was happening. You expect it on that side, not anywhere else.

Big Dick Johnson

Must you ruin everything, VSG?

now thats funny

It's not his fault he's terrible.


Oh wait, yes it is.

Bring Kellys Expose to Raw, give it some edgyness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J0F1vAo0aA[url] < Watch and Enjoy.

If you can somehow work Brooke Adams and Layla into this equation, I'm all ears.

Most ratings you see are Live+SD...which takes into account DVR viewing up to 3 am local time the next day. This DVR viewing only counts fully if all commercials are viewed during the viewing. There's another rating called the C+3 which takes into account commericial viewing up to 3 days later but for the most part, Live+SD is good enough for the general public and tend to be pretty close to C+3 numbers.

On a side note, while absolute ratings are nice, USA Network and the advertisers in general pay their rates on the 18-49 ratings. In this sense, RAW did a 1.6 and 1.7 for the first and second hours respectively...good for fourth on Monday (Pawn Stars topped Monday night's cable ratings). Last week, RAW did a 1.4 first hour and a 1.6 the second hour 18-49, good for sixth (at least the last hour was good for sixth). RAW last week had to go up against the HR derby (2.5) and the MLB Special that had the celebrities and models playing softball or whatever (2.7).

Who in their right mind would DVR something and watch all the commercials?

What about airing Raw at midnight or 1 am for fans who work on Monday Nights and have basic cable.

Not sure. I think it is impossible to make wrestling as hot as it was in the attitude era, because right now there is no Stone Cold - esque babyface. Everyone from every walk of life could relate to the Stone Cold story - flip off your boss, fire out expletives, beat the hell out of people, and get away with all of it while drinking a half dozen beers. That story was iconic, and can never be replicated.

I think they are on the right track to getting their old fans back, though. With the return of HHH, the development of CM Punk (which is easily the most interesting character they've had in a LONG time), and the general unpredictability that comes with having no WWE Championship around, the interest will gradually come back. Will it reach Attitude-era highs? No, not until another truly iconic figure comes along.

As another discussion, there are only two people I could call iconic in the traditional term of WWE - Hogan and Austin. These two were bigger than WWE at their peak - they were each the sole reason the company took off. They were helped by great undercard work, no doubt - but their characters, image, etc. was a rocket from which the business launched. For as good as HBK, Bret Hart, and Ric Flair were (greatest in-ring of all time), they did not expand the viewership like Austin and Hogan did.

So, in short, what can they do? Nothing. Until you get a once-in-a-lifetime story with a once-in-a-lifetime character, you can't manufacture lightning. However, you can use interesting and business-altering plots such as Vince leaving, the championship being gone, and developing CM Punk's epic heel persona (which will translate very well into a face turn within two years) to build back the base, hoping that when lightning strikes you'll have the pieces in place to take full advantage and become more mainstream.

I didn't say anyone would...but in not doing so, those who are Nielsen familes are at most counting as .75 of a viewer since they aren't watching the 15-18 minutes of commercials that are typical of an hour long show. Networks and advertisers have a more precise measurement called C+3 (commercial+3 days after the showing) which gives a better picture as to commercial viewing.

This is also the reason why online viewing (legal and illegal) and On-Demand viewing mean nothing towards a show's prospects. Advertisers don't want to pay unless these viewings show the same commercial spots as shown during the original showing.

The On Demand shows even have commercials in them now. I fast forward through those, too.

lol :'(

Only way to survive this place off late.

I think all we've categorically proved is that if we can make ABT watch some fucking ads, the rating will improve.

Never gonna happen. I am much too busy doing other things to watch wrestling live. Unlike dronepool, though, I definitely will watch it later.

Yea I just catch it on youtube. I don't even have cable. It's my fault the ratings are in the toilet.

I just download the shows after they happen, or recently YouTube'd them before work because I've been to eager to watch Raw.

But I'm not in the US, so I can't bump this up. But I don't blame anyone for skipping ads, even live TV I'll flick to a music channel while the ads are on.

Is it not a hassle to download every week? Do you keep all of them?

I tend to agree with this...though I mean add in that The Rock was/is still larger than the WWE even still to this day with his relative success in major Hollywood motion pictures...say compared to WWE produced movies.

I don't think we'll see the WWE achieved Attitude Era numbers ever again...mostly due to the climate of television viewing which is more fragmented then ever before...especially compared to the late 90's/early 2000's. Even the most popular of shows today don't get the same ratings as top shows did in the mid to late 90's and early 2000's just because there's so much more ways for the TV audience to be split.

I also tend to agree that we won't see Attitude Era type attention and media coverage until the perfect storm hits....the perfect superstar with the perfect storyline with the perfect compliment of top-card and mid-card wrestlers. The Attitude Era wasn't just Stone Cold...we had The Rock, HHH, Mankind, along with the tag-team division, a women's division that people cared about (at least comparatively speaking), along with the rest of the undercard.

To have all that happen again will take a lot of hard work from the WWE, but also a little bit of luck.

The Attitude Era won't happen ever again and would fail miserably because of three letters: MMA.

True, but advertisers are not going to pay networks for what is shown On-Demand because it does not show the same commercials that were shown during the original airing and often times, when those shows are watched, the commercials can be outdated...another thing the advertisers aren't paying for. It's the same reason why online viewing means jack shit to the advertisers as well. They want the exact same commercials shown during the original airings and those same ones shown in a timely fashion. And they actually want the commercials viewed, hence why a viewer doesn't count as a full viewer unless commercials are also viewed.

Click a link, it downloads while I'm working and ready when I get home.

I kind of keep them, I've got a lot of free space right now so I forget they're there, but if I run low they're usually the first to go apart from a couple of great ones.

lol why is Khali feeling Umaga's leg up? :'(

I agree that it won't happen, bit not the reason in the slightest. Were people really watching a scripted show with strong storyline elements because real fighting wasn't as widely available? Seems retarded.

No, I get all that, but as a consumer, I don't give a fuck about any of it.

Because he wanted to let Umaga know he was still there, even if he was talking to somebody else at the time.

Loved it when Umaga chopped the shit out of Johnny Jeter of the Spirit Squad in some bar.

http://youtu.be/FXImc3q7uH4 (Embedding disabled)

UUUUUMAGA!

Fair enough...but some would say that line of thinking hurts a lot of shows save for the ones that are pretty well established...it's also might be why we see more in-product advertising. These shows gotta pay the bills somehow. ;)

And I don't think MMA has a lot to do with this. People have known the deal behind pro wrestling for awhile now...it's all scripted. If you weren't a fan of pro wrestling before hand, then you weren't going to watch anyway. The Attitude Era as we known it won't happen in today's climate as long as the WWE is concerned about keeping it's correct crop of advertisers and maintaining the image is has tried to portray for the better part of the last half decade.

You don't think that Raw is pretty well-established? They've been on the air for something like 18 years. It's definitely not the consumer's fault that he doesn't want to see a bunch of advertisements for shit he doesn't care about.

http://i55.tinypic.com/2q8d65g.gif
HHH: "Some people like Zack Ryder"

It was more a general statement than one directed specifically towards RAW. RAW is in no danger as far as ratings go and tends to be in the top 5 as far as weekly ratings go and is usurped only by a couple of shows and sports...

Interesting enough, sports have remained largely immune to a lot of issues presented by DVR and illegal downloading as people tend to watch those events live and don't like it delayed...even by a couple of minutes. That's part of the reason we're seeing so much more sports on cable...which might be another contributing reason for the difficultly of RAW gaining traction in their ratings...at least compared to the Attitude Era. The same issues are being seen by network shows...especially in the male 18-34 demographic.

Yeah, sorry, you're "delusional and an idiot!" Raw used to get twice the viewers it does now. And you're comparing the worst of the attitude era to the general product now.

They are doing "great," about half as "great" as they used to, so please shut the fuck up. Thx

I guarantee you it has a big factor. It's why you'll never get those Attitude Fans who left back. Why would they watch a fake sport, when they have UFC/The Ultimate Fighter, which is real. The vast majority of Attitude Fans are now UFC/MMA fans and think Pro Wrestling is stupid now.

Good for you. You expected to see the answer that makes the most sense. Why, you must be a psychic, one step ahead of the "IWC!"

But not really. Because if you were, you wouldn't be stupid enough to believe that this product is anything compared to what it used to be.

Did you run around polling millions of people? Shut up?

Seriously, to elaborate, WWE had to fuck up/lose steam in the first place for people to even migrate to MMA. It didn't come out in the past couple of years.

Have to agree.

OOOOOORTMMMMAAAAGGGAAA!!

What.

http://i.imgur.com/35Coq.gif

TNA.

swear to god TNA "ripped off" Power Slam when they made that logo

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile...8_658819_n.jpg

Does Sting have people in clown masks working for him now or something?

http://i.imgur.com/5sv2y.gif

That may be going a bit too far with The Joker thing.

http://i.imgur.com/MUQ2P.gif

TNA = Total Non-Stop Flipping

It's Destor's favorite wrestler, Jack Evans.

I figured if anything will make Destor come back, it's claiming he loves Jack Evans.

http://derrickbateman.net/wp/wp-cont...011/07/020.jpg

Why would Sting want to kill the guy next to Daniel Bryan :shifty:

Umaga was an Orton guy.

Attitude Era fans grew up and found something real. How is that a stretch?

:lol:

For once, I think I agree with Gertner. Personally I know A LOT of MMA fans who watched wrestling during the Attitude Era that don't watch anymore. I think it's totally probable that those who watched wrestling for the thrill and excitement just don't see it there in wrestling anymore. MMA on the other hand has it even in the undercard fights.

To some extent, I can see the point. Wrestling has become too stale and predictable as it is right now. There's no excitement anymore. It's why stuff like Punk's promo, the Nexus debut and The Rock's "return" got so much attention. They were unexpected and exciting. Sadly, 2 of the 3 faded fast and the third is still in progress.

But I don't think getting them back is impossible, it's just gonna require a majore step away from what the WWE is right now

I think you're right, Feared, with more of an emphasis on your latter statement that getting those viewers back isn't impossible and needs a lot of work.

The WWE had to fuck up to lose those fans. And that demographic is not the only one that exists contributing to the empty space left by all those viewers.

MMA has been around for a while now. Yeah, it's bigger now, but honestly, the only factor it could really play is in the absence of a good product. You could simply watch both.

MMA also cannot speak to every reason people in that demographic or any have watched or stopped watching wrestling.

And just as a tidbit, if I understand correctly, a big part of the emergence of staged wrestling was because original wrestling began to get stale and boring.

I also don't mean to come off as disrespectful to anyone, not that it really matters if I do, I just find a big hole in the things people say in justification that everyone should be satisfied with the Attitude Era being over. There isn't any disconnect with reality here, we all know it's over. It is not just simple bitterness about that so much as being surprised at how low expectations have plunged. This is also because a few people have even gone as far as to call nostalgic folk idiots for praising Attitude over what's going on today years later. I happen to think the opposite, that you have to be an idiot to think it's even close.

I could stop watching wrestling if I didn't like it, and I did for a few years. I got made fun of for sticking around because of Bret Hart, which was around when I got back into it. I understand that Bret can no longer wrestle.

But being ridiculed for watching because of Hart is just as confusing to me as people apologetically defending what is usually not even half as good as a little over ten years ago.

Bret Hart almost invariably had excellent matches. Today, a lot almost invariably have lackluster to bad matches.

Peh. I dunno. I'm still going to call a shitty match shitty. I'll hope for the good stuff to keep coming. But I won't embrace the notion that because the Attitude Era is over that you should just sit back and "enjoy" the parts that suck. I don't care who is doing their best, or whatever.

The truth is, if changes were made, the ratings would be a lot higher than they are now.

Also, people bitched about what was stupid back then as well. There was a big period of time where we swore to God that HHH was the bane of the WWE/F title. There were tons of things "we" bitched about.

Just seems like there's a lot more to bitch about now, and that isn't my fault, it's wrestling's fault.

All I could come up with is now that Flairs out they wanted to make a joke out of the new-new-new-new-new-new-new-new Four Horsemen.

For some reason I cant wait for the TNA show on Saturday Im going to even though its gonna be about 100 degrees. Front row seats though.
Might get on TV with the Bound For Glory recaps they show on Impact so I might take a sign..

I think that is the top reason why ratings are down now. Everyone wants the shows to be edgier like they were before. Being PG doesn't help the shows out if most of the audience are adults. If you want PG, do it on Saturday or Sunday mornings like they used to do with Superstars. For all the claims that being PG helps WWE, I've never seen the proof. Limiting the shows and targeting kids makes no sense for a primetime show, when most kids are asleep. All it does is piss off the audience and make the shows more stale...

<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RuRNmKhuogc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

:lol: the title of this mashup.

Bring back Steven Richards, epic heel of all time~

Dana White visits WWE Headquarters
 

UFC President Dana White made a visit to WWE headquarters. Word is that Dana visited to sit down with Vince McMahon. Their meeting was described as more of a friendly social visit where Dana visited WWE HQ for the first time and met one-on-one with Vince. Apparently the potential business deal with WWE and Brock Lesnar that we've reported on was not why Dana visited Stamford.

White's tweet was: "I was there a couple weeks ago and checked out WWE hq's. It was cool."

--------------------

Was gonna make a thread for this so people can speculate as to why he was there, but then I thought of all the annoying "Anti-MMA" wrestling fans that frequent this site, so I'll just post it here

I'll never understand how professional wrestling fans can accuse MMA of being "two guys groping each other on the ground" or essentially calling it gay. Biggest case of the pot calling the kettle black there ever was.

I mean, it's fine to not like MMA, but calling it gay and boring seems like a bit of a stretch

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but when people claim that going PG helped WWE, they mean sponsor wise...they were going to begin to lose a lot of sponsors if they continued with the TV-14 content.

I don't necessarily buy this argument. Would they have lost SOME sponsors? Sure. Especially if they had pushed the limits of TV14 and started to go really beyond into some seriously adult content. However, I don't recall any significant trouble with sponsors from 1998-2002. If anything they had more problems with parental/television/violence organizations, like the Parents Television Council, but not with sponsors. I recall numerous adult brand/product sponsors during the Attitude era.

Now, did PG help them get bigger, better paying upfront sponsors and other financial opportunities? Sure, but at the cost of their own content, content control, ratings and fans. Sure, now they have a large line of toys and more toy sales compared to what they had in the Attitude era days, and I'm sure they get a larger sponsorship and royalty check too from Mattell.

I get it, I truly do. Almost all major companies eventually sacrifice financial profit and growth over consumer growth and loyalty, in some form or fashion. It doesn't mean I have to be happy about it though. Especially when it comes down to profits vs poor product.

well they do spend an awful lot of time on the ground pressed against each other, just like "real" wrestling. then again every time someone does a gorilla press one of his hands is on the other guy's junk

Didn't Dana White once verbally attacked the WWE or wrestling in general around the time UFC got really popular in the mainstream?

I know he previous attacked boxing and tried to get viewers away from that sport but I believe he tried the same thing with wrestling. I think there was even a report one year of how less people were signing up to be wrestlers since MMA was the new big thing to do.

I'm not the biggest fan of MMA, but I don't bash it. Seems silly.

I don't know why I can't get into it. Maybe because I don't really know who anyone is.

Feel like that shouldn't deter me so much, though.

That's probably the most well thought out, insightful post I have seen since posting here. Ppl always say get over the Attitude era, but you can't argue with success, the fans, and extremely high ratings. If WWE paid more attention to their past success, then maybe they would be more in touch with the fans now. And again, numbers don't lie. Losing millions of viewers pretty much speaks for itself.

WWE using the PG direction not only screws the product up, but limits everything. Obviously, if the current product were more like the Attitude era, then the fans would be watching. There's a reason the business boomed so much back then. B/c they had cutting edge characters, storylines, and actually listened to the fans. You can't ignore your fans and keep your audience.

You hit the nail on the head too when you said if changes were made, the ratings would be higher. It's very apparent a huge change in direction is needed to freshen up the shows. Until that happens, the ratings will continue to reflect negatively...

It's funny you say that. WWE never had a problem with sponsors back during the Attitude era. If the sponsors were gonna walk, it would've been back when they were pushing the envelope. Sure, being PG makes them more attractive to sponsors, but WWE would find sponsors regardless. Did having DX make them unattractive to certain sponsors? Yes, but they also kept drawing in sponsors who knew WWE was popular enough to make them money. Success equals money, PG or not...

Ok.

People are posting out of their ass and it's time to step in on my post.

WWE went PG around the time returning to USA Network.

You think that is a coincidence or the fact that USA Network is a lot more influential and reaches many more households then it did when WWF was airing before TNN/Spike.

I know WCW seemed like the PG Show back in the day compared to WWF but they still had Nitro Girls, and Factions/Tag Teams to give it the edge that was needed.

You don't need ECW style storylines to give the show edge, just better, more unbelievable storylines, not just crap like in TNA right now.

Cage Matches that have no doors, TLC Matches, Backstage Brawls, actual edgy wrestling with risk, not scripted garbage.

WWE has gone to the Entertainment aspect which is why it can't go back to a Pre PG show.

You have Congress breathing down the necks of NFL for concussions and WWE for sterioid use. WWE wants to walk a fine line between scripted matches and insane storylines or actions like Daniel Bryan with that chord.

Turning Cena heel and giving CM Punk and Cena a stable to take on the whole WWE could give it more of a directive to edgyness.

I also wouldn't mind seeing Orton involved in some way, but I'm not sure how that'd play out with him on Smackdown.

I enjoyed his Viper role on Raw, where he would punt anyone and was like Stone Cold Steve Austin, unpredictable.

I think Cena not getting drafted to Smackdown and not being fired just goes to show how PREDICTABLE WWE has gotten when their poster boy always comes out on top every week with the same old shit.

I can't get into it because it is totally homosexual.

I like to watch MMA from time to time. Anytime I watch it with a group of friends they try to educate me on the fighters and such but I don't care. I just want to see these dudes beat the shit out of each other. And if the fight ends in anything other than a KO I feel like I wasted my time