On second thoughts, I give up

What happens during any holiday is the WWE give up. What will happen is next week that will be used as an excuse as to why the rating will be yet another record low.

Basically the 400,000 extra viewers they got last week, WITH competition, decided to give it a wide berth last night when there was no competition, no NBA game last night.

It saddens me to see such few people watching wrestling on TV now. Looking at WWE's numbers, TNA's numbers, Lucha's numbers. It's just sad. And everyone one of them sticks on as much matches as they can. Going on and on about bloody belts when the TV audience in 2016 is watching shows like Game of Thrones, Netflix which isn't even a TV channel is producing Orange is The New Black. That's what wrestling should be following. Interesting characters with interesting storylines that twist and turn everyweek, the kind of show where every word means something, every facial expression means something and the audience can't miss a show because they will be missing vital parts to the story.

I can't get my head round it. Still in 2016 they are still doing 1970s wrestling.

You're better giving up, there is no excuses you can make. The business is in a terrible place.

The 'business' isn't in a terrible state

The WWE World Heavyweight Championship has been officially changed back to just the WWE Championship.

Where's wheadon when you need him?

With two world titles on the horizon, it's more or less a certainty AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, Bray Wyatt, Sami Zayn etc become champ at some point.

Not holding out much hope, but I'd to like to see Buh Buh Ray given a huge push as part of this brand split. He could be so much more for them then one part of a jobbing nostalgia act.

Sadly there is absolutely zero chance of that happening. Bully Ray was something that could only have happened in TNA. WWE just don't do characters like that anymore.

Can you imagine how bad WWE is going to be after the brand split?

why what you mean?

Good. "WWE World Heavyweight Championship" was a mouthful. Having such a long name for the belt was disrupting the flow of promos. And of course hyper-corporate on-message WWE made everybody use the full and correct name for the belt at all times. Hilarious.

I hear Dean Ambrose is the WWE Champion now? Laughable. That belt means nothing anymore.

I'm new to the thread, but have been reading through here for ages, and your messages always entertain me - yes, I'm a Vince Russo guy too

So the ratings go up and someone doesnt post the result but hey go down and they post them, for anyone whos not blocked him please do to save you your sanity.

Maybe i should just copy and paste one post and re post it every couple of days.

I think people like me are the reason for declining ratings.

Wrestling works really well as catch up show.

I rarely watch raw live.

Every Tuesday I look at the review to keep me upto date as to whats going on and then
will find the matches I want to see online.

not much to say, i watch like 1 condensed hour a week

as for their arguments its same cycle over and over again so i dont really comment much anymore. Ratings are terrible. Other shows still prosper despite DVR's so no excuses.

watch billions instead with your time. great show

What makes you think that both raw and smackdown fresh matches and some nxt stars will finally get there chance so I think wwe will improve

Fresh matches wont make any difference. Smackdown does considerably less viewers than Raw and all this is is a situation to make USA Network happy because they were showing old reruns of TV shows that were getting ratings round about what Smackdown is getting now. Why pay money to WWE for Smackdown for a show that gets the same as an old rerun of shows they already own the rights to?

The matches wont mean anything. This doesn't just apply to wrestling, it applies to anything you watch on TV from Eastenders to Big Brother to real sports like football to the gameshows that are on, chat shows that are on, anything at all. The only way you will sit down and watch anything on TV is because you either like an actor in the show or a person on the show or you're basically watching it for the first time.


Wrestling falls into the first category. The only way you will sit and watch Raw and Smackdown for 5 hours a week is if you either really like a certain person on the show or you really like wrestling. What used to happen is millions and millions of people all over the world would watch wrestling on TV because they liked the wrestlers on TV, they liked their personalities, they liked the overacting, the big characters, the kind of people that just can't exist in real life, same reason people watch movies. They want to see something that is so fantastical it could never be real.

What WWE has done over the past 10 years, and more importantly the last 2 years, is strip away anything remotely entertaining about the wrestlers and the show. They've stripped it bare to the point of they're trying to make it look like a real sport. The wrestlers have realistic names, they are by all means average people, they're regular men and women, that's it, there's nothing special there, there is no personalities or characters, everyone of them could easily exist in the real world. There is no storylines or plots. There's just nothing there. It's a kids show on at night for some weird reason.

And what you are seeing now is more and more people tuning out because it's dawning on them that nothing will change. The WWE doesn't even give you a glimpse that they're even trying. At least with TNA you can see obvious changes on the show, even if it's not your kind of thing at least you can see they're trying to make an effort, WWE is just effortless and what a lot of younger fans don't understand is the real world doesn't really respect wrestling. The average person on the street does not like or respect wrestling. They think it's stupid and goofy and beneath them and those are the people that you need to convince to watch it and there's been times in history when those people have watched it, not because they like it or respect it but because it was good and if something is good then people will watch it. What you are seeing now with WWE is the core audience, it's about to dip under 3 million in America. In other words the core hardcore audience must be in the 2 millions. It was 10 million just 15 years ago on Monday nights.


It's sad to see what it has become. It used to be must see. Whenever Vince McMahon and Vince Russo would talk about a show Vince McMahon used to tell Vince Russo, if it's good they will watch it. In other words Vince McMahon wasn't judging anything he had written or scoffing at it or saying he didn't like it, what Vince McMahon was saying was, the only people that matter are the fans and if they don't like then they'll tell us they don't like it. I don't know what's changed that way of thinking over the last 20 years.


Clearly the audience are speaking. Clearly they don't like it. Clearly they don't like wrestling matches and wrestlers without storylines and characters. That being said with Game Of Thrones and Orange Is The New Black, even smaller niche shows I like such as Scream and Wayward Pines, the WWE can't compete with that and it was the truth many years and is the truth today and I think Vince Russo told Vince McMahon the same thing he told him on the phone in 2002 when Russo said it's not gonna work out. Vince McMahon doesn't have the talent in that company to turn that ship around. And it's true to this day. Even The Leftovers is starting back soon. My God it blows everything else on TV out of the water. Some of these shows even I sit back and I wish I had half the writing talent those writers have it's that good. TV nowadays is so sophisiticated, so good, some of the best actors in the world aren't in the cinema, they're on TV, the best stories, the best acting, it's on TV. That's why I can't get too mad at the wrestling companies because I can't even armchair book it myself. I sit back and watch these shows I watch and I think to myself it can't be topped. Twin Peaks is coming back next year, forget about it. It can't be done. They're just too good to compete with.

I for one fully expect to be blown away by Twin Peaks 2017.

Who would you guess is Brock Lesnar's opponent at SummerSlam?

The New York state athletic commission have suggested if he gets a medical suspension from the Nevada SAC after UFC 200- which he surely will- he can't do Summerslam.

I just think it'll be even more meaningless matches and hours of wrestling nobody will have time to watch, and even less stories, characters, spectacle and fun.

Somebody should do 30 minute RAW edits and stick them on Pirate Bay. I'd watch that.

who would you like to see as the next Paul Heyman Guy ?

Yeah I doubt Lesnar will be back at all this year.

If Lesnar wins and I think he will, despite Hunt being a very hard hitter he is not so good when taken down. Lesnar is a lot quicker, bigger and stronger overall, so I think he should win. So yeah, if Lesnar wins I think he will want to stay in the UFC and go for bigger fights and try to regain the belt.

It is clear his heart is more in to UFC and for me personally I would love to see him more in UFC than WWE as like seeing him fight competitively.

I think because the WWE is so watered down now, it's so neutered to the point where they're scared to even have a drop of blood on the show, seeing Lesnar there is just a waste. I would imagine most casual fans that watch when he is on the show are watching because they expect him to be violent. Just like casuals will tune in to see Rock insult someone or Steve Austin trash talk whoever is in charge and drink some beer. With Lesnar they can't or should I say WONT give the audience what it wants to see with him.

I said something similar before on here about it. With MMA being a real sport and him not needing the money, if he wins his fight I could see him giving it another shot just like any sportsman would. Any sportsman in any sport if they can still go at a competitive level will still go, that's part of their make up, they do it for the competition, the money is secondary.


It's hard to fault him because the WWE isn't giving him anything to do. And what's even sadder is there are fans out there that will gladly have him just stand there with a t shirt on while Paul Heyman talks for 10 minutes doing the same thing over and over. It's not selling any tickets. It's not getting anybody over. What good is it doing? Just passing the time.

Hazy cause he once claimed that he could take down Brock in a real fight.