WWE: Monday Night Raw 152 - watching the ratings is more entertaining

[M.C.G. 31]

Annoying fans into submission is horrible. That's CM Punk circa Straight Edge Society and post HBK feud heel Jericho did. Every week they'd come out and drone on and on. I feel that way every time Miz comes out. I just can't stand the guy anymore because he annoys me to death.

I don't even know what to say if you think SES Punk and Jericho annoyed/bored people.

 

[BonMorrison]

What? Suit wearing Jericho was incredible for the entire duration of his run.

 

[Blitzkrug]

I think i liked suit Jericho more because he tried to act smart through his vocabulary.

The cruiserweights in my opinion, show a bigger problem with the WWE fanbase, which a user on /wooo/ put better than i could have;

Lemme tell you why:

Conditition. The WWE Universe has been psychologically conditioned to not believe the hype.

>In 1991 Bobby Heenan introduced the NWA World Title to WWE TV and hyped it up for people who had never seen it. He then hyped up the champion. When Ric Flair debuted, he was everything he was supposed to be.

>In 2002, a white monster showed up on screen and gave a fireman's carry facebuster to Maven and triple-powerbombed Spike Dudley. Brock Lesnar, in under a year, became everything he was supposed to be and then some.

These are examples of introducing characters to your audience that works. Now, on the other hand:

>In 2010, 7 rookies who never drew a dime were selling merch like crazy and were getting over as the next NWO. They lose to John Cena before they reach full potential and all of them fizzle to nothingness, including Heath Slater. Yes, I said it.

>In 2011, new non-Nexus CM Punk is the hottest thing in wrestling since the NWO. His flame is completely extinguished in 60 days.

>In 2012 Tensai/Giant Bernard makes his character debut to the WWE Universe. He is hyped as being a monster. He beats Cena and Punk (champ) clean on free TV. He is a jobber within two months.

>In 2012 A Monster gets hype promos for months and months and finally makes his debut as the "Funkasaurus." He goes undeated for a few weeks and then he fizzles to nothingness (with Tensai, no less).

>In 2013 (ish, I don't remember) Brock Lesnar re-debuts the night after Wrestlemania to roaring "HOLY ****" chants. He loses to John Cena in 30 days.


...I could go on, but do you see the pattern? The WWE Universe knows better than to get its hopes up about anything because nothing ever lasts. The days of following and loving a wrestler for decades is over.

They are ******** on the CWC because 1: it was a WWE Network exclusive, so these are vanilla midgets to them, and 2: why bother getting invested?

When John Cena retires, the WWE is finished. Neither KO, AJ, or a shield member can carry this company...and vanilla mega man damn sure isn't gonna cut it.

I noticed this a lot myself recently. Kevin Owens, who is well worth the hype and has finally gotten a deserved WWE title run after years on the indies and making a splash in WWE? Don't care, because no matter how good Owens is, WWE will find a way to screw it up.

This is why i prefer to stick to the video games

 

[These Are The Days]

Maybe a week or so ago I said my favorite go to comfort food in the entire world is macaroni and cheese. I freaking love that stuff more than a kid does. But anyway, if I were to eat it for every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner then after a certain period of time I would get tired of it or just want something different. I felt that way about Straight Edge Society Punk and heeled up, sparkly, five word syllable dropping Jericho. It was good stuff don't get me wrong.

I loved them at first but after several months they just wore me out because I knew no matter what I was gonna get no less than an 8 minute segment on why I was a hypocritical gelatinous parasite. Or I was gonna have to watch Punk "save" someone else or lecture on and on about a straight edge lifestyle. Not one of his sermons either connected with me or bothered me because I did then (and still do now) life a straightedge lifestyle. After a certain point Punks sermons became nothing more than an actual waste of my time and Jericho's grandiose speeches felt the same: 1. Tell everyone to shut up after coming out or insult. 2. Insult if not done yet. 3. Stump speech on his current problem. 4. I'm the best in the world or tell everyone to shut up! 4. Catchy insult 5. Either continue on why I'm the best in the world or start here 6. leave

I think I got to about 100 days with both acts before I started changing the channel or muting the volume when they came out to speak. Always watched their matches but wasn't going to deal with it much longer.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Kevin Owens is just a CM Punk-like champ. Even though he's the champ, HHH, authority figures, Rollins and Reigns will overshadow him. When Balor comes back, he will too.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

I think i liked suit Jericho more because he tried to act smart through his vocabulary.

The cruiserweights in my opinion, show a bigger problem with the WWE fanbase, which a user on /wooo/ put better than i could have;



I noticed this a lot myself recently. Kevin Owens, who is well worth the hype and has finally gotten a deserved WWE title run after years on the indies and making a splash in WWE? Don't care, because no matter how good Owens is, WWE will find a way to screw it up.

This is why i prefer to stick to the video games

The fans aren't the problem when it comes to the cruiserweights. They have been conditioned but it's not that they're conditioned to not believe the hype. You can point to those failures but when you conveniently leave out the successes, you lose credibility on this topic. When it's something Vince cares about, it generally works out for him. The Shield worked. The Wyatts worked for a long time before they got stuffed. AJ Styles is working. KO is working. Finn Balor is going to work. Even the Cruiserweights will work once they work out the kinks. It's not a matter of making it seem important that's the issue here nor is it that the fans are trained to not buy the hype because of past failures. It's because they aren't doing much that makes any sense towards the goal of getting them over. It is really difficult to get a bunch of nobodies over at the same time working with one another instead of working with established talent. But what got these guys over in the CWC was the tourney structure, the quality of the video packages, and the quality of the commentary. The tourney structure was a built-in incentive setup for everyone that was easily understood by the audience. They debuted a division after crowning a champion of it on their Network while not debuting said champion...on the go-home show to a PPV that they put a match on for its title. That is just plain stupid. It should've been pushed off a week or at the very least had Perkins on the debut show.

The guys working the CWC had stories built in to their video packages. Things Raw is not doing at all. What they do is show stupid little promo clips where they act cookie-cutter jobber-like and are treated as such. No backstory. No purpose. Little personality. The presentation of the Cruiserweights absolutely sucks in comparison to what Trips did with DB and Mauro and the crew working the CWC. And Graves on commentary simply isn't enough to compensate for the fact that Saxton couldn't sell water to a dehydrated person in the desert and he's not enough to compensate for what Michael Cole is under Vince's supervision. Cole is not bad with freedom but he is terrible under the normal TV management.

The Cruiserweights won't replicate what the CWC did but they can still get over if they present it a lot better than what they have so far. The talent in the ring is there. It just has to be more story and less exhibition with some flashy new ring setup.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Kevin Owens is just a CM Punk-like champ. Even though he's the champ, HHH, authority figures, Rollins and Reigns will overshadow him. When Balor comes back, he will too.

I don't think Rollins, Reigns, and Balor will overshadow him but their insistence on making the authority figure stuff a big deal will definitely overshadow him because that's certainly the intent. The McMahon drama is the story and all the actual wrestlers are just puppets.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

It sounds like the debate did huge numbers... at least 97,000,000 viewers, probably 100,000,000+.

 

[GKJ]

My body is ready for the ratings

 

[Big Poppa Puck]

Tensai was DOA with that gimmick. Everyone knew it was Albert and were ******** all over it and the character wasn't as good as say, Bray Wyatt, where the Husky Harris chants went away fast.


They should have just re-introduced him as A-Train or carried over the Giant Bernard gimmick and tried to build him up that way.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Tensai was DOA with that gimmick. Everyone new it was Albert and were ******** all over it and the character wasn't as good as say, Bray Wyatt, where the Husky Harris chants went away fast.


They should have just re-introduced him as A-Train or carried over the Giant Bernard gimmick and tried to build him up that way.

The fans were just ungrateful when it came to Tensai. At least he shaved his back like they wanted for all those years.

 

[ColePens]

Pffft, I was told the CW division is failing because of the filthy casuals.

The filthy casuals do sort of need a reason to invest. The casuals if they watched CWC had a reason built into the matches with the tourney format.

Sure, Pink, but CWC worked without needing fake storylines. Nobody seriously cares if BK was heelish or not. Just tell the story of their real lives, their path to WWE, and make it a competition. WWE did the dumbest debut which had Foley reading from a card..... followed up by trying to get us emotionally invested before we really even know the competitors.

They seriously should have taken those 1 minute video packages and used them again for Raw. They were brilliant. They gave us a little feedback and let us pick who we like. Then the announcers can call the match, don't mess around with fake emotional storylines until we get to pick and choose who we like.

CWC was done so well and you see how Raw writers tried to infuse how they write Raw instead of what made CWC so good. The "casual viewer" doesn't matter. It's how it was presented. It was presented like crap and that's why it's looking like crap.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

 

[M.C.G. 31]

"It looks like Monday Night Football got massacred" - Alvarez

if Football got massacred because of the debate, imagine Raw. Alvarez says his 2.5m number may be too generous.

I predicted 2.35m - 2.5m yesterday, I believe, I can't remember. Somewhere in that ballpark. Let's see...

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Hour 1 - 2.85m
Hour 2 - 2.381m
Hour 3 - 2.203m

Average - 2.478m

 

[These Are The Days]

Hour 1 - 2.85m
Hour 2 - 2.381m
Hour 3 - 2.203m

Average - 2.478m

That was a lot better than I thought they would do. That first hour saved them. WWE logic says Roman =ratings based on those numbers

 

[Emperoreddy]

They did better then I expected, but I'm not surprised the debate eat everyone's ratings.

Lots of people care to some degree

 

[KaseMeOutside]

that horrible first hour caused them to lose almost 25% of the audience

seems like the hardcore base is probably around 2 million people give or take a little, who will accept any crap WWE gives them.

 

[DenisSamson3]

that horrible first hour caused them to lose almost 25% of the audience

seems like the hardcore base is probably around 2 million people give or take a little, who will accept any crap WWE gives them.

The debate started the second hour.

 

[KaseMeOutside]

That was a lot better than I thought they would do. That first hour saved them. WWE logic says Roman =ratings based on those numbers

meh debate wasn't on yet, and it doesn't look like people came back after it was over, also here on the west coast unless you have directtv or dish, the debate came on at 6 pm and raw at 8 pm

 

[Emperoreddy]

meh debate wasn't on yet, and it doesn't look like people came back after it was over, also here on the west coast unless you have directtv or dish, the debate came on at 6 pm and raw at 8 pm

Debate ended at just about 11PM EST so there was no way people were coming back.

Debate started 9PM EST

 

[M.C.G. 31]

This drop was because of the debate.

BUT.... the last time Raw had a drastic dip like this, it set the course for their new average viewership. It started last year on the Labour Day show and it set the new "average" as those fans that didn't tune in for the holiday show didn't come back. WWE better hope and pray that the fans come back and don't just completely drop Raw in a similar move to what happened last year after the Labour Day show.

 

[DenisSamson3]

Is this the lowest rating since raw started? Or did 1993, 1994 or 1995 have lower?

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Sure, Pink, but CWC worked without needing fake storylines. Nobody seriously cares if BK was heelish or not. Just tell the story of their real lives, their path to WWE, and make it a competition. WWE did the dumbest debut which had Foley reading from a card..... followed up by trying to get us emotionally invested before we really even know the competitors.

They seriously should have taken those 1 minute video packages and used them again for Raw. They were brilliant. They gave us a little feedback and let us pick who we like. Then the announcers can call the match, don't mess around with fake emotional storylines until we get to pick and choose who we like.

CWC was done so well and you see how Raw writers tried to infuse how they write Raw instead of what made CWC so good. The "casual viewer" doesn't matter. It's how it was presented. It was presented like crap and that's why it's looking like crap.

Nobody cares that Kendrick was heelish but it isn't a bad thing either. He's been a heel pretty much the whole time in the CWC. Pretty much agree with everything else.

 

[These Are The Days]

Seems like the hardcore base is probably around 2 million people give or take a little, who will accept any crap WWE gives them.

I guess so because crap is about the gentlest and most polite adjective you can call what we saw last night. I turned it off when I heard a voice say, "AWWWWW SUNNAAAYYY!!! DONCHU DARE BE SOUR!!!" after the Club lost again.

It's amazing how that number could easily be as high as 4 million if WWE bothered to tap into a different audience than families and relying on parents to buy stuff for their kids to drive company sales.