Not official yet but WWE spoiled the twist from last week's Smackdown ending by announcing it for Mania's card on their Instagram account yesterday.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/CorruptedPOD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CorruptedPOD</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CountdownEnded?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CountdownEnded</a> there already promoting Daniel Bryan vs Kofi Kingston ������ <a href="https://t.co/7ZVKrBvRWC">pic.twitter.com/7ZVKrBvRWC</a></p>&mdash; Sonny x Digital (@SonnyVzz) <a href="https://twitter.com/SonnyVzz/status/1110323042675240960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 25, 2019</a></blockquote>
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I wonder what the WWE Title match at the biggest show of the year was going to be if Kofi didn’t get it? All three challengers for the top title matches have come from freak accidents by the way. Specifically Kofi and Becky — they were never meant to be anything, but they accidentally got over with the bubble, and now they are telling you they are top stars. What about their stories appeals to anyone outside that bubble?

The ratings are apparently down 23% from last year. That’s larger than the TV industry drop. They aren’t going to go out of business, but they are bleeding, and there’s no guarantee this TV money train is going to last past the new contracts.

I’ve gotten into an argument with people on here before about this, but I have no doubt that FOX and USA have it written in that if WWE underperforms they can opt out. They’re paying for a service, and that’s a predictable number of viewers to sell time to advertisers. If the advertisers hold because they are doing better than most things on television, it may not be an issue, but there is potential for a Jamie Kellner-like issue here, where WWE’s faster-than-the-industry trend of performing worse than TV, comparatively, becomes a bone of contention.

You are absolutely correct @ Noid.

FOX did not sign a contract that says they have to pay a billion dollars over a handful of years if WWE underperforms. That's just not possible. It wouldn't make sense from a business stand-point. I am sure if they under-perform there is the chance of being sent to FOX SPORTS (which is in less homes than USA Network) at a lesser pay-scale.

What is interesting to me, and I've mentioned here before, is if come October another 'shakeup' happens and magically most of the big names are on brand blue, since it will be in a prime position to have more viewers than RAW.

If Roman, Ronda, etc all go to SD then RAW will be left w/o the proven ratings go-getters. So SD going to FOX could actually cause RAW to drop in ratings. And of course, WWE fans have been programmed to treat RAW as the "A SHOW" for years, so will many migrate to Friday night to watch live, or just set their DVRs?

we're finally seeing the result of years of bland programming, uninteresting stories, very basic scripts.....Oh and creating like 2 stars the last 15 years. They can't rely on the old guard to carry them anymore. There's just a lot more interesting media that attracts people these days and the WWE has been stale for years.

obviously WWe ain't going anywhere anytime soon, but this downward trend will hopefully motivate them to do things differently

Jump up in ratings this week for SDLive, only 200k less viewers than RAW

It’s going to be hard to bounce back from.

Not great ratings news for RAW on the last show before WrestleMania:
Up 70k from last week but down 700k from last year

SD also dropped this week

RAW dropped 1 million live viewers from the post WM34 episode (3.92). Note this is often the most-watched RAW of the year.

Almost want to say that dean segment is having its numbers artificially inflated somehow.... That much more than taker and Kofi/Seth? Man I dunno about that.

Raw gonna drop below 2 million regularly when the football season starts again, it seems

The Dean segment is the weekly "here's what happened after RAW went off the air" and those always seem to do really well, better than anything actually on RAW for some reason. The Kofi/Seth segment was the opening promo btw, the match itself has half that amount.

Ah I was thinking it was the dean segment from during the show, wasn't thinking about it being the dark segment. Makes more sense now.

Pretty much WWE's ineptness and laziness with a Road to Mania finally came back to bite them big time.

For the past several years, they've been coasting on building up Mania properly but always got bailed out by the RAW After show. This year it didn't happen because of the 1-2 punch of them bungling the hottest storyline (Becky vs Ronda) and very little on the RAW side was interesting coming out of Mania.

I think next week won't drop too bad via 'superstar shakeup'

I dunno, Raw sounded really shit. What’s the point of a “shake up” when people appear wherever and whenever they want? But I guess the people watching have low standards. I think it will drop by about 300,000 on average.

SD rose 50k viewers from last week but not a great number for post WM episode

I think Smackdown was about 900,000 less viewers than last year's post Mania show.

I know WWE took the gas off the pedal after the new TV deals, probably thinking they could turn it up as soon as the new deals kicked in, but that is a pretty large number of viewers they are going to have to attract/win back.

Fox bought a show that has lost around 30% of its audience since the deal was inked. I have argued that ratings aren't anywhere near the level of importance they used to be, but that doesn't mean the old thinking is completely gone.

A show getting 3 million viewers vs a show getting 2 million is a big difference.

Would be funny if WWE somewhat tanks on FOX and they dump them.

They'd be more likely to just move SD to FS1.

Which I kind of assume is what will happen anyway. I think SD will debut 4-5 million but be half that amount a few months later.

I don't even know if it will be a few months. You'd think it'd be easy to retain them with, say, a Rock appearance, Brock Lesnar doing something, Ronda doing something, etc.; but WWE have really proven they don't know how to do things. That Raw show last year was supposed to be special. It spiked ratings and then no one came back.

It will be telling too how inclusive SD is. If people tune in and the rosters are merged a bit and they realize to follow this show they have to watch a 3 hr show on a different channel on Monday Nights it will turn new viewers off. Even things getting resolved at a ppv might tune viewers off who want to watch the show and see resolution on the show itself.

It will be interesting to see how they handle it.

That’s a good point. There are certainly interesting times ahead.

FYI last year had a 3.62 rating.

Down almost 1 million viewers.

Not surprised it ended up being lower than last week's RAW After Mania. Might be a new record for how quickly WWE squandered the momentum carried from a Mania.

The drop being just 14k from start to finish is really good compared to the usual trends but 1st Hour being almost 500k less than last week pretty much doomed this week.

From Observer's Dave Melzter on WWE's ratings woes and why its getting worse this year compared to sports.

The only demo where they average around the same decline percentage as tv in general is the over 50 group due to it being their main demo.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc..._ratings_drop/

That year-to-year drop is not good.

Melzter is nothing but an AEW stooge these days. Being that biased hurts his credibility. He is way to happy gloating about WWE ratings, while going out of his way to defend anything that doesn't paint AEW in flying colors. Example

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/20...rumors-653265/

I don’t get it. He’s saying that they’re looking to get paid for a 2-hour show. What is wrong with that?

I think he “revels” in the ratings decline because he hopes it kicks Vince/WWE in the arse and approach things differently. I think he genuinely wants WWE to be watchable/good/great but they’re just not right now.

Slight drop this week, mainly due to 3rd hour tanking via dumb Baron Corbin in main-event

They're getting closer and closer to that 2 million viewer line.

Yeah. I think that’s why most of us who revel in it do so. It’s not just shadenfreude. It’s the hope that enough people eventually stop clinging on to the WWE habit so they have to decide that just making sure they’re putting out content and phoning it in week after week isn’t good enough and that quality is important.

lol you are such a strange man

Good to see that the shake-up freshened things up for them.

(It's a little bit schadenfreude from me)

Live tv ratings are slightly down this week for SDLive, likely due to NHL/NBA

Yikes @ live tv viewers this week for #RAW #WWE

Terrible...

For comparison RAW Live TV ratings since night after WM:


Apr 8 - 2.92 million
Apr 15 - 2.66 million
Apr 22 - 2.38 million
Apr 30 - 2.16 million


This same week in 2018 - 3.06 million viewers

The scary part is next week likely going to topple that for an all-time low since nothing about RAW changed creatively from the Shakeup.

They squandered both the momentum from Mania and the Shakeup in record fashion. RAW getting a quality boost for their tag division meant nothing since Vince despises tag wrestling and it showed this week.

Probably safe to call the Bruce Prichard experiment a big failure for RAW's Creative considering its gotten a lot worse since he was hired.

Oh Im enjoying this

WWE: WWe universe your voices have been heard and we promise you a new era MORE BARON CORBIN and have Sami Zayn run down the audience that will put asses in seats

In 2010 TNA had 2.2 million viewers in ratings

Yep that was their boom period

Wow Cesaro is already on Main Event.

Because nothing makes sense.

How is it that Ricochet is in the men's MITB after losing his last Raw match, yet the guy that beat him last week not only isn't in that match, he wasn't even on Raw this week? A 3 hour show and they couldn't figure out a spot to get Roode on tv, but Lucha House Party got 2 segments???

SD could dip under 2 million this week,

SD ratings since WM:

Apr 9 - 2.19 million
Apr 16 - 2.22 million
Apr 23 - 2.07 million

Any bets on when Vince appears on TV again and ask the fans what the hell is going on with Raw when the ratings keep tanking?

Me too.

The other wrestling forum I am part of's ratings thread is more active than it's SmackDown thread, lol. This is getting to be a "story." Investors actually questioned the falling ratings, and as they fall way faster than other cable properties, it's only going to be questioned more and more, by all sorts of stakeholders.

This could snowball, and I am very excited to see what happens next week. And when you're ratings are more exciting than your TV product, then you're in real shit.

It was bound to happen sooner or later right you can only insult your fans with garbage for so long operating them for hating the fact that you're giving them garbage and blaming them before they just say f*** it and change the channel or go do something else.

Vince's entire deal as noted by osw review is you don't like what you like I tell you what you like.
And if it's not clear by now that that is not the way this works then there's no hope for this company as long as he's at the helm.

kofis losing at MITB

Definitely. WWE has been insulting for a long time and the company does not have its finger on the pulse. They have no stars and people have lost faith in them to create them.

Lol, Owens winning the belt is not going to help matters. Not sure if anything will.

In theory, heel Owens might be a better ratings draw than Kofi. But it’s all under WWE’s watch so, fuck it. Might as well put the title on Curt Hawkins.

--- Incoming TL;DR post ---

And I find this all the more ironic, considering NXT is better than the primary roster shows, and it is buried on the Network. If *that* were on TV where more people could see it, it would be ruined as well by trying to make it "consumer friendly" instead of keeping what attracts fans in the first fucking place. They already prove it by screwing over 90% of the call-ups, no matter how well they prominently were featured; they essentially make these folks "start over - again", since they likely had to start over in NXT to begin with.

Though I feel there is a degree of Vince being "out of touch", I don't think it is so much that he doesn't have "it" anymore as much as "it" doesn't jive with corporate think in a massive publicly traded company. The man is trying to serve two masters, and both of them suffer for it.

I saw a vid earler about how shitty the new Sonic movie trailer is, and heard one simple quote that is applicable:

"This looks like it'll please a borardroom."

It is applicable here as well. They keep doing shit that makes advertisers and shareholders happy and keeps parent's groups relatively quiet... but that comes at the detriment of keeping what is cool about wresting as an attraction. They spend more time trying to shape it into their "live action-adventure drama series" or whatever the fuck they categorize it as when they talk about RAW being the longest running of it than to cultivate and sustain what keeps fans relatively happy and wanting more.

They're quick to say stuff like "x isn't a draw", but in the current environment, who is - or can be? Most of the roster is filled with interchangable jobbers. That may not have been the intent, but it sure as hell is what they present them as. Titles are just a thing you have (or, in the case of the women, it is your turn for) not a thing people battle for. There was a point where Nakamura was numero uno hot shit IN SPITE OF HIS ENGLISH NOT BEING GOOD, and they did fuck all with that. Basically squandered it in short order, even with the golden heel turn, amounting to nothing, and then just randomly teaming with Rusev because reasons.

Meanwhile, on the other end (and this isn't really an excuse to bag on him this time) you have Roman Reigns, who is clearly supposed to be the mold of a champion. To the point that they were doing cart-before-horse advertising with him, making him SuperCena II, and throwing every bell and whistle into trying to get him over as that guy up to and including having one of the most popular wrestlers in the history of EVER actively endorse that guy... and through none of that did they realize (or, if they did, didn't care) that all of those things were a pretty large factor in why it is so hard to get him over. Baron Corbin is getting the reaction they want him to, but not for the reason why. It is not because he is a great heel who generates massive heat, it is because the fans percieve it as trolling by WWE, and they really don't want to see the guy. To paraphrase Cornette: "It isn't we want to see this heel get beat up, it's we don't want to see this heel!" Before, it was likely they'd pick up on that and adjust accordingly. Now, it's like even if they know, fuck it because he's getting boo'd.

Most of this shit consists of blatantly shallow attempts. Just like it was blatant and shallow to try to make Jinder a world champion right before attempting to crack the market in India. Just like it was blatant and shallow to try to build a roster around Eva Marie because she "is hot" (and I always feel that I have to object to that) and she apparently came across as a bitchy heel on an auxillary show nobody regularly watching wrestling gives much of a fuck about. TJP's whole gimmick screamed of being a corporate image of "what all the kids are into nowadays". I seriously believe deep down that the whole reason for the pre-injury push for "Ali" was exactly the same as the aforementioned Jinder push, just for another Middle Eastern show instead... his size deficiency was overridden by him being brown. They constantly try to find a replacement for Rey for a Mexican market, but most of the time, they keep trying to distill him to flippy shit and masks to sell to kids instead of the fact that, at this point, Rey is a goddamn legend.

They just need to re-evaluate the fact that they're going more off the rails because they're just not that cool thing to watch anymore. Cool things happen occasionally, but not often enough. Cool personalities emerge, but it is often in spite of WWE, not because of their creative direction. They've become tryhards in the game they pretty much wrote the rules for. They need to go back to what go them to their prominence in the first place and stop trying to manufacture shit in time for investor reports or a particular foreign tour.

Aaaaaand it did.

1.83 million.

I’m enjoying this way too much.

Yep!

1.83 million indeed

Another 200k-300k less and they'd be dipping in Tape Era range for viewership lows.

Worst for SD is the more it lowers, the lower the boost from FOX's reach is going to be when they move. Right now, it needs to more than double just to be at where FOX currently gets for numbers on Fridays.

Yeah, that’s not happening.

Observer's Dave Meltzer predicting Smackdown could be as low as 1.65 million by the end of the month due to how heavy the competition is going to get for WWE.

Ouch

:lol:

This is going to be hilariously awesome

Raw number will also probably get even more brutal when the NFL season starts... 1.7 million regularly for Raw maybe?

And what can they do? They can't just snap their fingers and make a star in the environment they've crafted for themselves. They're kind of boned.

That feels about right.

Last year WWE lost over a million viewers from the post-Mania RAW show to the start of the NFL season. Then an an extra 200k-400k loss per week from that start point during the season.

If they have a similar drop, they might be starting around the 1.7 million to 1.9 million range and dip as low as the 1.4 million range.

My guess for the floor for both shows is 1.7 for RAW and 1.5 for SDLive

Yet, that's what they keep trying to do. And, as you pointed out, they've crafted the environment for themselves.

Hogan, Austin/Rock, and even to a degree Cena were as much happenstance as product. There were a lot of moving parts in not only the wrestling industry, but pop culture as a whole. Even now, trends have shifted. For example, one of the things that "makes a star" with the fans is the "holy shit, I can't believe they're actually running with this person I like" feeling that they've cultivated, yet seem to either be oblivious to or don't care that they've done so. And that's on top of the lazy writing, telegraphing, shoehorning, and all around lack of stakes.

The company, though, seems to labor under their own dilusion that they can reproduce exactly the best results results on a whim by putting x time and y gimmick into z wrestler like working on an assembly line.

More often than not, they just eat their own tails.

The excuse they like is that fans shit on whomever they want them to cheer for to be cool. Not understanding that it's their poor execution that leads to the less-than-desired reaction.

If Brock returns I don't know how much that will bump things either tbh

Any return from Goldberg, Taker, Brock fans know is temporary

Almost feels like Vince purposefully keeps potential stars down so that they don't become "bigger than the WWE brand"

Hogan, Austin, Rock, Cena, they all got over naturally, and then WWE got behind them and ran with them.

Now a days, getting yourself over naturally is career suicide. Rusev is worse off now then he ever was. In 1998 they would have just let Rusev break into the main event and become a huge star. When it happened in 2018, they killed it for no reason. Broke him up from Aiden, had him job to Jinded Mahal at Mania, put him in goofy storylines about Milwaukee, turned him heel, and had him lose like what, 18 PPVs in a row?

If the point is to make money off of superstars, why do then devalue anybody who is getting over and could be a big star?

As long as WWE is the star, and nobody is allowed to be THE draw, then they are not bringing in any new fans.

I wasn't saying they didn't get over naturally, and I agree about them getting themselves over and the company running with it... although with Hogan, it was a bit more 50/50 in being the man to fill the role, but also having the role presented to him to begin with. Sorta like the Undertaker being a situational million dollar gimmick that wouldn't work on the wrong person. But part of why and how they got themselves over. I consider Cena a lesser degree, because they begrudgingly got behind him, since Vince, by his own admission, "didn't see it".

And this is the biggest conundrum of them all, as the endgame appears to be to manufacture more stars like The Rock, who transcends wrestling and becomes a Hollywood star and a pop culture icon... but when Cena did it, they... got mad at him? And when Batista did it... they didn't want him to?

I asked some time ago on the subject of Asuka of why the company would even hire Kana at all? What was the point if aquiring her was to squander her talents while they try to get the next bikini model over as "top draw"? But really, that question could be asked of a lot of the talent. Especially the poor sods in NXT, most of whom bust their asses to get better or even get over to begin with
(:cough:PatrickClark:cough: ) and the potential "reward" on the horizon is more money to become an underutilized afterthought.

Based on some reading elsewhere, its pretty much a lock RAW is going to set new record lows for the next 2 weeks.

Next Monday has them going up against Bucks vs. Celtics Game 4, Warriors vs. Rockets Game 4, and whatever NHL playoff games might be on as well.

The following week is the taped UK edition of RAW which typically is one of the least viewed episodes of the year.

Same for Smackdown likely going to set some abysmal numbers since they've been averaging in the high 70s to mid 80s range for weekly percentages of RAW's audiences.

There are actually two weeks of shows taped from the UK I believe!

Some more ratings info:

Meltzer shared in the Observer that DVR accounts for about 100-120k viewers, so most fans still watch the show live.

This is from last week. Wow.

Right, that's what I meant. If somebody got over, WWE used to happily give them the ball and let them run with it. Nowadays, if somebody gets over, they kick them in the nuts and purposely ruin them.

That excuse is so bizarre. There are plenty of good, successful shows, movie franchises, book series, etc. where the writers succeed in captivating the audience. This “blame the fans” idea really only exists (at least to this level) in WWE. So are they saying there’s some gene specific to wrestling fans post 2001 that makes them hate anything WWE wants them to like? Or are they admitting to breeding that reaction in their fan base (which would be their fault)?

These are rhetorical questions obviously, as the real answer is that’s an excuse a 5 year old would come up with to shake responsibility. They had a TV show on the network dedicated to telling fans why they’re wrong for thinking the product has become shit. How insecure can you get. Lol

Honestly, it's this idea that they can serve multiple masters at once that's gotten them to where they are today. The idea that they can be kid or family friendly as it relates to creative/programming, sponsorships, partnerships, etc., without eventually turning off and losing large swaths of fans (over the age of 9) that are actually your largest audience was the biggest mistake they ever made.

In the process of attempting to generate revenues by appealing primarily to kids and families you subsequently devalued your own product through poor creative decisions or lack of concern. In turn, you've either 1. forgot how or are too out of touch to create a good product for people over age 9, 2. you simply can't salvage things creatively without an actual major overhaul, 3. you simply don't care, or 4. some combination of all three.

Are they even appealing to kids though? Pretty sure most have better taste.

There’s lots of reasons this is happening. They’ve destroyed consumer faith because they don’t make stars because they can’t make stars because they destroyed kayfabe and the audience rejects whoever gets pushed.

It doesn't help... but if they were better at pushing those people the fan would cease rejecting them - kayfabe or not

Probably not anymore, but they attempted to do so for such a long period and it didn't really work out as well as they believed it would. I think that is where they really started to fall off the rails in terms of their creative becoming awful and have since never recovered and instead seems to have regressed even further. Since then, it's like Vince forgot how or just doesn't care to make characters and storylines interesting and diverse.

RAW is too long

They try to appeal to kids, no doubt, but they don’t know how to. A good kids product would be better than this.

Yeah, I never got the PG argument. While it restricts you in some ways, it doesn’t completely handicap you. You’ve just gotta focus more on storytelling.

It just seems like in doing so they forgot how to appeal to anyone or tell a coherent story simply because a lot of kids will overlook a lot more in terms of quality and still watch or buy products than adults will.

Right. All you need to appeal to kids is bright lights and violence so... fuck it, apparently.

They really do seem to wanna put in as little creative effort as possible while still making money.

Yet they still do things to appeal to the IWC here and there which just shows they still try and exposes their ineptness. I’d respect WWE more if they just ignored the hardcores completely.

I actually think the floor for RAW and SD is 1.0 and 1.5 million but I am not sure that could possibly happen until the fall.

I’m not sure there is a floor.

Tuesday can’t come quick enough. I want dem numbers!

RAW went slightly up, due to the 1st hour

Legit surprised that the 3rd hour didn't go under 2 million considering how bad the show was by that point.