Haha, I call Orange Cassidy David Arquette based on the lack of credibility and their general presence, but it turns out that they actually do have the exact same height and weight according to Google (5’10, 161lbs).

So you actually watch Smackdown weekly?

Not via online, clips, or abridged version but in its entirely each and every week because if so, that being the best main roster show is the biggest load of horse shirt.

Lol, that doesn’t make any sense. Stick to lifting your arguments from Dave Meltzer. You get lost when you have to come up with shit on your own.

I don’t watch Dynamite regularly and I don’t watch SmackDown regularly. I can still judge which is more successful and which product is better when I do watch. SmackDown breaks the reality of itself too, but at least not in main event segments. The highs are higher and the lows aren’t as low.

So no then.

Any show will look better when you cherry pick things to fit your view or criteria.

Comparing just RAW and SD, only real advantage SD has had over RAW is it being an hour shorter. Quality-wise, its been just as bad and at times even worse than RAW has been in general. At least RAW was more willing to experiment with new people even if it ended up being very hit-or-miss which is more than what can be said of SD's efforts under Prichard.

SmackDown seems absolutely abysmal and unwatchable based on results for like the past several months...

Been like that almost since the switch to FOX.

Debut show was loaded but did a terrible job giving a good reason to watch the actual regular weekly stuff.

At least when SD moved to USA Network and later became a live show, WWE actually bothered putting in some real effort to improve the show's quality for months before slowly going back to their old ways.

With FOX, they basically scammed the network into giving them a huge sum of money for a show they never had any real intentions of improving. Even worse is they managed to double scam FOX in terms of not giving them the big stars they wanted and getting even more programming that also had no real effort put into it.

LOL you all are too much. Smackdown is abysmal but a C level tag team showing up in a minivan is great television?

Funny don't draw money

Gotcha! You don’t fit my arbitrary paradigm therefore I win! Bullshit. Dynamite is borderline unwatchable. SmackDown is largely turgid, but I can get through a Daniel Bryan vs. Drew Gulak match. Nothing on AEW is that good. Nothing.

The Raw guys are all bums, sadly. I like what I’ve seen of Angel Garza. Everyone else is pretty shit, unless I’m missing someone obvious.

Yes, Vince McMahon scammed FOX. Because in five years he’s going to want FOX feeling cheated by him when he asks for more money. What sort of take is this, BigCrippyZ?

FOX knows what they paid for. Vince McMahon’s WWE on their network. I’m willing to bet they don’t even know who most of the wrestlers are. But yes, they are very mad they didn’t get Andrade. Grr, that Vincent Kennedy McMahon swindled us again!

SmackDown succeeds at what it wants to be. That it doesn’t appeal to people who lose their shit at Trent showing up in his mom’s car or Orange Cassidy comedically punching Chris Jericho through a table is probably not a bad thing.

AEW scammed everyone by saying they were going to change the world and offer a sports-based presentation. That one is actually true.

Absolutely! WWE doesn’t mean anything anymore. AEW creates new stars like Chuck Taylor and The Dark Order. So good to see talent being used to their fullest potential.

Wasn't just Andrade that FOX wanted since they also wanted Brock Lesnar (barely for a month), Ronda Rousey, Becky Lynch and/or Charlotte (only had Charlotte for a week), and Rey for their core of top stars. Only star they managed to actually get from their list was Reigns.

Also didn't get the sports-like presentation WWE promised for SD nor the sports-like talk show format promised for WWE Backstage.

Problem with AEW's sports-like promise was people thinking that meant it was going to be just like NJPW when that quickly ended up not being the case. They have added some sports-like stuff with post show press conferences for events and the rankings and records system even if those could use a bit more tweaking. Plus once Taz joined, they started doing breakdowns of moves/spots just like what you'd see in a sports game or sports news show.

Yep, sure, FOX asked for those names specifically and Vince said "Nah, you can't have them." And WWE definitely would produce a show for Fox Sports to air that Fox Sports didn't want.

The problem with AEW promising a sports-based presentation is that they put on bullshit.

FOX paid over a billion dollars for WWE Smackdown under the assumption that Andrade was going to be on the show, so I think the least Vince could do is to give them what they paid for.

Andrade wasn't even their first choice for Hispanic star to cater to their Hispanic market.

They wanted Rey first and even had him appear in ads leading up to the debut on FOX but WWE decided against it in the end. Then they asked for Andrade as a replacement and didn't get him either.

The key to that whole mess was USA Network actually paid more for RAW than FOX did for SD so WWE had to make sure USA wasn't left unhappy by all of FOX's talent requests but ended up swinging too hard in favor of USA.

Man, FOX must sure be unhappy right now.

This is exactly what Fox wanted to be going forward after selling most of their assets to Disney.

They wanted live sports television. I am not saying it's a great strategy, but it is their business plan.

Let's also not forget the big cross promotion Fox was going to do with Smackdown, but with no other sporting events happening, one could argue that Fox itself is partially responsible for lower ratings due to the inability to cross promote the show as planned.

Imagine paying $2 billion for a show, only for them to stab you in the back by preventing access to talent you asked for. You would just be fuming. But what can you do?

just gonna shove roman reigns down everyone's throat 3x as hard if he ever comes back

to be honest I've gotten to recording it and watching it later so I can ff through commercials.

I already do it for nxt and AEW. Don't know why i haven't started fir RAW yet. Probably just habit

Noid has gone full CyNick.

He did that a while ago

Watching it via a replay is completely fine since its not like a Hulu version where they cut out actual stuff so you don't get the whole show.

I pretty much do that for NXT since no commercials or WWE ads brings it down to around an 80-90 minute show instead of 2 hours. Still get all the actual stuff that happened without the added fluff from a live broadcast.

I can't remember if I've said this in this thread or not, but over here there are ordered shows that are one hour versions of both Raw and SmackDown. The funny things about that are that there is obviously demand for way more succinct WWE programming, but there is also demand for it. People have to edit and export those shows. That's the future of WWE programming.

When cable dries up even more, they are going to be valuable to streaming services. And cable will probably cut down on the ordered hours of programming before they outright cancel WWE. WWE have those hour versions produced, so should the bubble start to shrink, they can put on those hour shows and put on full length broadcasting on the WWE Network for those who eat it up. But they're obviously going to try and get their full shows over as much as possible.

The "sky is falling" mentality for WWE, even if you hate that company, is probably never going to amount to anything other than billions of dollars for WWE. Whereas the shrugging and excuses making for AEW is probably going to cost them a lot more a lot sooner.

Easy E is correct


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Eric Bischoff on TV ratings in relation to talent in AEW &amp; WWE being truly &quot;over.&quot; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/83Weeks?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#83Weeks</a> <a href="https://t.co/dZnQxq78L7">pic.twitter.com/dZnQxq78L7</a></p>&mdash; Meltzer Said What? (@MeltzerSaidWhat) <a href="https://twitter.com/MeltzerSaidWhat/status/1280302769518317574?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Eric Bischoff is very rarely, if ever, correct.

He's right about AEW losing about half their live viewers and the show not holding people and being worth shit. He's wrong that COVID ratings should just be thrown out. Keeping people somewhat engaged through this period is important. Audiences aren't just guaranteed to come back and give a shit about something they stopped giving a shit about again. And when you completely ass it like AEW, you're going to make such a bad impression that you'll end up doing real damage to yourself.

He’s also right about no one being a draw anymore.

The only way people affect ratings these days is if they’re a big fish in a small pond (Jericho getting, maybe, 100k viewers for AEW), or if a big star stops the bottom falling out (Cena, Brock and Reigns seem good at that — and Hogan and Flair in fucking 2019/2020 whatever). And The Rock when he shows up.

They still exist. Wrestling just doesn’t have ‘em.

Right. That’s what I meant. WWE can’t build stars anymore. And because of that, wrestling doesn’t matter anymore.

That is 100% by design, so much so that anybody even approaching getting breaking out unplanned is squashed down, giving up all the money they could draw.

If Austin 3:16 happened today, starting tomorrow Vince would book him to say stupid things, randomly lose matches to lucha house party, then stick him in months long never ending fueds with Dolph Ziggler and Baron Corbin. Then randomly team him up Apollo Crews.

RAW ratings delayed to Wednesday morning

I do think they were trying with Drew, what with the XFL launching, TV rights kicking in and contracts being longer. The virus has thrown that into the air. But yeah, no one has really done well in creating a star in a long, long time.

1.687 million

I believe that's the lowest viewership in RAW history


https://i.postimg.cc/8PJ2PkBK/Final-...Jul-06-MON.png

Wrestling is dead in the fucking water and Vince killed it.

They’re almost slipping to AEW-level demo placement too. Time to cut that shit to two hours and ship everyone over 40 to a new show on USA Tuesdays.

WWE Legends House 2

Bit of a shame since this week's RAW was actually pretty good for the most part. It still had its share of issues but the start and end were very good.

Prichard being just as ineffective as Heyman pretty much proves the only reason the huge bump happened with him was more due to curiosity of him taking over than anything actually show related. Same type of issue that has been plaguing RAW and WWE in general for years.

715 (AEW) and 759 (NXT)

add em up and they are only 214k away from RAW on Monday, Wednesday truly the A night for wrestling fans, add up the 18-49 demo and it tops RAW


https://i.postimg.cc/YqzWKN4t/AEW.png

Hahahahaha NXT wins again!

Just shut down AEW. It's over.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">If anyone thinks I consider being a top 7 show on cable anything but a huge win, they’re incorrect. A win in the demo is a win in the business, and this is a business. I know the industry wasn’t talking about the demo as much 20 years ago, but it’s what drives our revenue today.</p>&mdash; Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) <a href="https://twitter.com/TonyKhan/status/1281324955725107200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Lol way to spin your company dropping like a stone.