He'll pass out long before he taps

I may be the only person on here who is a proper Reigns mark btw

Is it only Mick and Noellee in Holy Foley there doesn't seem to be any clips of any other family member.

Give it to Rusev he's trying to make them boo him and cheer Reigns.

They can afford to lose Mick and still get all the ratings

Decent Lets go Roman chant, not much of a Roman Sucks reply

Wonder how long it is before Noelle makes her on screen Wrestling debut?

Catcus Jackie.
WomanKind
Dudette Love.

She seems nice so I do feel sorry for the car crash it will inevitably turn into

Hopefully this means Rusev wins Sunday

That was a good match, I just don't understand why it happened tonight and not next Sunday

Same old same old, all I can think is WCW giving away everything for free

I'm glad that it's finally giving Reigns some positive crowd feeling but I also think that keeping the belt on Rusev and keeping him strong is the best way forward

Boooooooo Richie!

Only Vince can make the fans cheer Reigns!

Hopefully it doesnt!

Made zero sense not just to have Rusev attack him and do an injury angle instead. Idocy.

And is there anyone who doesn't think this demon shit isn't just lame?

You're not! I think he's a top 3 or 4 worker in the company, far better than Seth Rollins.

I like the demon but I think it's been handled very poorly

I might be being harsh but if it was me I would've made the demon transformation a big thing, and while it wasn't as bad as it could be, I really thought he was going to cut a promo in the ring as the demon, I'd have saved the demon reveal and entrance for next week for the bigger pop

Have him come out as normal and promo to build the anticipation for the demon, or at most continue the video packages that tease the demon without showing too much

One thing I did like, and that I think should continue, is that the demon no sells a lot of offence from Rollins, I'm in two minds about it but there's a bit of me likes the idea of having Balor going over next week in a glorified squash match because the demon has so much power

I don't think that it would hurt Rollins long term and would even build more story to his character to a point where Rollins rebuilds and reclaims while turning face and getting crowd sympathy, lengthening the storyline between the two and potentially opening up both a heel turn for Balor as the demon takes over his character and The Club having an opportunity to build and establish as a top level stable

Build the anticipation, have a slow burn, think about Sting vs Hogan/nWo and the 18 month build but don't have a terrible payoff

Nothing seems to happen. No doubt all 3 hours will be under 3 million again this week. I don't think they can fix things and with the number of viewers lost since January last year, it could take years to convince those fans to come back, there just seems to be no effort at all in the show, it's just the same old wrestling format. Every wrestler is the same. They're all angry at each other for no good reason, babyfaces stand tall, heels run away, no one sells any moves.


If Vince McMahon really has been away from TV and wont return till Summerslam, I hope him watching the show away from the arena will maybe get through to him that a lot of stuff is tale, especially the commentary and he can see how it comes across on TV. I really think that is why nothing changes, I think they're all too close to it, they're inside that bubble and can't see anything past it but if he's watching at home or in a hotel maybe he'll see how things come across on TV as a viewer. Maybe if he's even more gutsy he will use the remote control and change channels every now and then and see what is on TV at 8pm,9pm,10pm,11pm at night and realise it's not family gameshows and puppets. It's adult TV and maybe realise how out of place the WWE's product is.


And I pulled this from elsewhere but I agree with this person and I think when the next contract negotiations are due this will be the end of prime time wrestling on American TV. TNA could still be doing prime time and I really hope they are but if they aren't then I think that could be the end, I think at the very least they will force WWE to change their timeslot to a much earlier timeslot of say 4pm or 5pm and by the time those contracts are up for renewal, Raw will have been on prime time for 25 years and it's had a good run. I think it's gonna end, I don't think the ratings can justify the $160 million a year they are now getting and that is set to increase again next year. I don't think they will pull the plug on Raw but I think the money they offer will be dropped significantly and I think they will ask the show be put on at a much earlier time. There's no reason for that show to be on from 8pm - 11.15pm. It's the most child friendly wrestling show there is.


And of course people make excuses, it's President's Day, it's Marshmallow Day, it's Independance Day, it's Christmas, It's the Olympics, It's wash your hair day, It's New Year's Day, every excuse in the book as to why ratings are down on Mondays and what I think will happen with the Olympics now, is every week all 3 hours will be below 3 million viewers and then when the NFL starts, which is very soon, i think those same people that stopped watching for the Olympics (which i do think is a valid reason since it's once every 4 years) I think they wont miss WWE at all and will no doubt watch the NFL and that's on 14 weeks, nearly 3 months, I think by that point the WWE will struggle to get those viewers back because those viewers will realise they have missed 4 months of Raw and they're no worse off. They've missed nothing.


I just don't see things getting any better and that Forbes article is exactly what I've said for months. The WWE is aiming their show at the hardcore wrestling fans only. Wrestling is a niche thing anyway, the hardcore fans are even more niche and what happens is the more wrestling there is on the show, the more regular the guys look, the less characters and stories there are, the more you push away casual fans because casual fans don't care about fixed matches, they're not gonna sit through it and that's what the WWE has done, they're catering to the hardcore fans and like Vince Russo and Shawn Michaels said, you have them! You got them already! Hardcore fans will never stop watching. You've already got their money and they will gladly keep throwing money at you so why not focus your efforts on the millions and millions of people that watch other shows on TV and try and give them something they might be interested in and before you know it you have new fans that are watching and that audience builds and builds.

The reaction to Reigns has changed massively since this programme with Rusev.

Rusev has done something that Sheamus, Stephanie, Vince, Triple H or Rollins couldn't do and that's get Reigns cheered. In those other programmes, Reigns was booed throughout.

Well all I can say is last night was the worst episode of Raw since the brand split why give away Roman Reigns vs Rusev for free 6 days before they face each other at Summerslam? Yet WWE have the cheek to criticise WCW for making those mistakes. Also Sheamus vs Cesaro in a best of 7 series? Haven't those 2 already faced each other the last 2 weeks? I'm probably gonna be sick to death of that match come the 3rd match (or 5th I don't know whether I'm counting the previous 2 matches that they have already had).

An OK RAW last night, I feel.

I'm not a Lesnar fan but I thought it was good that he shared some screentime with someone much lower down the pecking order in Heath Slater. Let's hope Slater isn't back to backstage segments with Rhyno next week.

Balor's demon entrance was quite good. Perhaps it was explained in his pre-taped promo the week before which I didn't pay much attention to, but I do wonder why the Demon only appears at certain times and at other times, such as on his debut, Balor is simply his leather jacket wearing Irishman self. The introduction of his Demon side and the intrigue that comes with it has made me warm to Balor more.

It's not been awful but I'm not particularly interested in the Reigns-Rusev feud. I hope (likely in vain) that it ends either way at Summerslam.

I watched a bit of the WrestleMania preshow this year. No way I'd sit through 2 hours of that crap before Summerslam

EDIT: Jinder Mahal. What's the point?

I can't see WWE leaving prime time in 2020. Never underestimate the power of the franchise in this day and age! Even though USA are estimated to be paying double for WWE (160 million) than it receives in estimated 30 second ad revenues (90 million). Sounds strange but that amount is a drop in the ocean compared to what something like NASCAR costs. NBC will also look at the problem of instantly dropping over 4 million unique viewers - good demographic ones at that - from their cable network every week night. That's very difficult to replace on a consistent basis.

I think Slater absolutely nailed his promo with Heyman/Lesnar.

Well Dave I hope you don't lose any sleep when I tell you this Rusev is surely gonna win this Sunday the result from last night might well have been a massive giveaway.

I think showing Finn as the Demon King was a good thing because Raw has more viewers than there are Network subscribers so it means more people get to see him as the Demon King and those people might be convinced to see more at Summerslam and I think the same way regarding certain matches. Some people look at it like giving away PPV matches for free but sometimes it's best to do it because you know more people are gonna see it, same with Championships changing hands, more people are gonna see it on Raw than say at a PPV so sometimes it does make sense to do it.


It might not be the end of WWE on prime time TV in the USA but I don't think either USA or NBC are gonna sweep it under the rug. If i was WWE i'd be trying to get those 1 million + viewers back and you see it with the big shows and the big events on Raw that they can do it, when they really try they can get 4 million viewers, even if it's just for one hour or a few segments, clearly the people are there to watch when it interests, the hard part is getting them to watch every week again. I don't have the ratings to hand but I do remember there being a big drop and then it just started going down. I thought it started it at the Royal Rumble 2015 but I remember reading it actually started in December at one of the Raws where there was quite a big drop. I personally didn't notice a huge difference in the shows, I know the Daniel Bryan situation pissed people off but I've no idea why there's been such a huge drop in viewers. You know more than me with how much gets made on the ads compared to how much WWE is being paid but even if they put Raw on earlier at 5pm, that might get them more sponsors too and open them up to a lot of other companies.

It's more Rusev getting 'The american' cheered than Reigns, But still give Rusev credit for that at least

He is in danger of getting very over, And i am certain that is not their plan. Thought it was interesting they actually made sure you knew he was being brave and had guts rather than he was just stupid