Seems WWE have gone back of their word that the wrestlers in the UK Championship Tournament would be allowed to wrestle wherever they wanted.

WCPW have just announced due to contract restrictions the 4 WCPW wrestlers in it can no longer work for WCPW.

https://youtu.be/XPi2PzZFYa8

The show that aired after Raw was terrible. PTI style show with JBL and Heyman defending WWE.

Now that Cena is in the title match the Rumble winner should be Undertaker or BRAUN. Really think it would be better for Strowman to get it because Taker doesn't need the accolade to push him for a title match.

It was good to see them at least trying something a bit different, variety is the spice of life and all that.

If the show was done properly, it's a decent concept. However, the show was just WWE saying STFU to the fanbase for questioning WWE decisions.

Question: how long has it been since the Raw main event scene has been this bad?

Reigns is a great worker but miscast and not popular, Rollins has been booked awfully and isn't over as a face, Owens has been godawful booking-wise and poor in the ring since he got the belt and Jericho is doing a comedy gimmick but it's just been these four going round in a circle since about August. Honestly can't think of when it was last this poor, though that 2015 Rollins run was quite bad.

Also, a guy I follow on Twitter did a Top 100 WWE matches and Top 25 WWE wrestlers for 2016 which is a good read:

http://wrestlingvirtues.blogspot.co....es-top-25.html

I've not watched enough NXT this year to comment on their matches much so for me, Roman Reigns vs AJ Styles was match of the year.

Nothing wrong with that, Most times its right to do so with fans of lots of TV show nowadays as it seems a thing nowadays to spend more time moaning about the shows they are watching then enjoying them

Well at least JBL did make the business case for Raw 100% staying at 3 hours long till at least December 2019 when he highlighted that the single largest income earner is the $170+ million a year that the WWE earns from the Big Three TV contracts, which he lists as the the NBCU deal in the US, the Sky deal in the UK and the Sony (Ten Sports) Deal in India.

By contrast JBL states that the networks is the second highest earner at around $150 million per annum.

What I found really surprising about this is that India is seen as a top three market for the WWE (at least in terms of annual broadcast right payments to the WWE). I always thought the top 3 was USA, then followed by Canada and then the UK.

However for everything else it was a case of JBL being the 'facts guy' with numbers and business strategy saying why WWE's decisions are always right, with Heyman playing the jackass who only really had 3 replies:-

"The fans are just bitching and whining."
"The fans need to STFU"
"Are the fans boycotting? No! Well they need to stop bitching and STFU"

This tells us much about Heyman's (and probably Vince's) attitude to the core wrestling/WWE audience, that unless there is a mass boycott of TV (and a corresponding jump in network cancellations) then they just don't care, as they are banking on this core audience to continue being vocal but still watch the TV and subscribe to the network.

Reigns vs. AJ at Extreme Rules was one of the last PPV WWE matches I watched (I only ever subscribe from Rumble-Mania) and I thought it was bang average. I guess I haven't really missed anything at all if it was MOTY!

Why whats the point? Its not like World of Sport was ever a threat to WWE.

Even if WWE feel like telling their fans to STFU, it's a bit cheeky to do it publicly on your network which many people are paying for.

WWE took the money for the extra hour knowing full well that it would potentially have an effect on the popularity of the product. That's why for years, Vince refused to go to 3 hours.

Have I not said that for months now?

Has Russo not said that for years now?


The wrestling fans that watch WWE will always watch WWE. They might complain, they might bitch and moan but they will always watch. Look at this thread. You see the same names crop up at 3 and 4 in the morning watching Raw and Smackdown live. These people will never stop watching. They will always pay money to watch wrestling. As long as the word WRESTLING is in the name of the company or the program synopsis they will WATCH IT.


That's why many people like myself are baffled as to why the WWE would make their TV shows glorified indy shows because the kind of people that watch that kind of wrestling are already watching Raw and Smackdown, you have them, you have their money so why not forget about the wrestling matches and focus on building characters and storylines and try and bring in outsiders because that is the only way outsiders will watch. They will only watch wrestling when there's either a big cross over star, which we don't have just now or they're drawn in by the larger than life characters and stories and more often than not that begins by word of mouth, you start hearing people talk about the wrestling and who did what to who etc.


So the whole show is focused on an audience that will always watch. As Russo says, Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel. They wont miss a second of it and I can't fault WWE for taking advantage of those people, especially if they're paying for Sky Sports and the WWE Network, at least £40 a month but my argument and many others has been, how much COULD they be making, how much money COULD they be making if they focused on bringing new viewers in. It's not about making money, they better be making money, they're the biggest wrestling company in the world, if they weren't making money i'd be worried so of course they are making money but how much better could they be?


And the ratings are still not improving. 2019 is still a long way away. I'm telling you that will be the year we see Smackdown gone altogether and not only are they getting a lot LESS money in the USA for their shows but I think that will be the time Raw finally changes timeslots and is put on a lot earlier. I think wrestling is on it's last legs as far as prime time TV is concerned, I've felt that way since 2005. I think in 2019 we'll see massive changes in how the WWE operates and how their programming is accessed and people need to remember the WWE relies on paying customers, they rely on paying customers for their live events and TV shows. They need that TV revenue and there's no way they're getting that kind of money again unless they can win back all those viewers and you all know this, once you stop watching wrestling that's it. For most people once they go they go, they don't go back.

While not necessarily meaning this post as it seems your a fan of Russo he did a interview with hannibal recently and thought you'd might like to see it.

On JBL/brawl for all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX4SE2bx7U8

On Kevin Owens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHkm1sfThYk

On Steve Austin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDR8cgwl0LM

On Sunny & Sable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDSOiJ6CX-s

On Working with The Undertaker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHqYJ4GWrmw

On The Rock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA_V17dM8y0

On Jim Cornette

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2hpSH1e3MU

Watched them all and really enjoyed the Interviews.

WWE.Com have just announced Undertaker & Shawn Michaels are being booked for next weeks Raw.

I've never seen them before. Thanks for them dave.

Hall of Fame spoiler:

I think we can all agree last night's Raw was best one of the year so far

Well other than the fact that their viewership is plummeting but ok, corporations are always right.

Yep

I'm just watching that Bring it to the Table show, and Heyman why don't you STFU!

I think many fans always believed Paul Heyman was against Vince McMahon's ideas but I think many now realise that Heyman is not that far from McMahon in terms of vision. Just like all his promos and advocates and clients and as boring as it all comes across, it might just be Heyman on his own enjoying that and not being forced to do it and much like Mick Foley, no matter how each passing week degrades fan's memories of their career, they will keep taking the money.


And as Russo says, there's a reason why the likes of Steve Austin and Shawn MIchaels don't work for WWE or appear on TV often. They wont degrade themselves for the money nor do they need the money. They wouldn't go out there and play all these silly games with Kevin Owens and Lesnar and allow themselves to be made fools of by even being shown to be part of it. People that want money never change. They always want more of it. Then you have others that have money through hard work and lots of luck and they know what's important in life.


And as for Michael Cole you couldn't find a better man in a suit. Even watching him is uncomfortable, he doesn't look comfortable, he doesn't talk like a regular person. It's like the wrestlers, they talk like wrestlers, no one talks like real people and uses real language. Listen to Paul Heyman speak aswell, he doesn't speak like a real person, it's all acting and stopping and starting and the eyes roll around and it's not natural and it comes across that way. It's just money. Middle aged men that just can't get enough money and will do whatever they're told to get more of it, the only reason I feel sorry for Mick is because for some reason his daughter is involved in it all and his son is on the writing team so he's in a lose lose situation, he either takes it on the chin and reads their terrible scripts every week or his kids end up out of a job, cause that's how the WWE works.

No they are not just as fans are not just because they are fans.

People like to moan about the shows they watch nowadays, It happens on any show where it interacts with its fan base. The voting is racist, This act is the joke act, They fixing the show etc etc, It's even entering drama shows (how dare they kill off X how dare they kill off Y in that way, They did that wrong it should have been done this way), Their is a difference between discussing a show and the consent moaning we see more and more off creeping into discussions about tv shows

Because of social media and the internet at time fans have started to take the shows and themselves too seriously

That's the hardcore. But the casuals have been gradually switching off for years so obviously something isn't right.