From this time last year, WWE is down 47% in overall audience, 60% in 18-49 and 76% in 18-34 The common response to their ratings woes is "TV isn't what it once was, with streaming, etc." True but losing half your audience in a year is bad no matter what's going on. Six years ago Raw was doing 4.5mm viewers. It took five years for them to drop that number in half. It took only one year after that to lose another 50%.
WWE has the worst booking if any company ever. It’s worse than the last year of WCW. The problem for other companies is instead of driving those viewers elsewhere, they are just driving them away from wrestling.
For all of it's problems, WCW 2000 was never boring. In fact, if you missed an episode, you missed a month of storylines. It was a trainwreck. I actually couldn't get enough of it. Give that to me all day over the stale, boring product of current WWE.
I feel so bad for Creed and Breeze. Their livesstream starred around 2.5 hours ago and melted down with 1 match left. Creed thinks he may have deleted their entire game trying to reset his shit.
In haven't watched yet but I can't imagine the meltdown considering it's the first time ever he's been winning
Once they finally got started, 3 of the matches were pretty entertaining. But his laptop crashed a couple times, and they were able to save during the PPV and not lose too much time. Was ticking time bomb though.
I've watched some upupdowndown with Cole, almost positive that's a work. He's a good dude and jokes around about stuff all the time with the other guys. Don't see him getting that upset for real
Do you think they'd do 1v1 or would they make like an 8 man tag and surround McAfee with other wrestlers?
I mean, Cole can probably wrestle a broomstick to a 4 star match. Give Pat some time to prep and they could do it 1v1. I'd probably keep it a tag match and pair Pat up with a hot babyface.
Those AEW numbers are looking really good in the empty arena era. Wonder what kind of rating they would hit if it was live shows in front of a crowd?
In the infamous 18-39 demo AEW 5th in demo (.32) NXT 35th in demo (.17) AEW: 70,000 viewers in demo NXT: 6,000 viewers in demo AEW improved, over last week's already-good number. That's rare for them, as they usually see-saw their numbers week to week.
AEW seems to be rolling along. They also have seemed to handle Covid pretty well comparitively. I haven't kept up with NXT, but it appears NXT didn't have Ciampa, Finn, Dream, Rhea, or Cole on last night plus recent departures of Riddle, Bianca and Shayna to main roster, that's a lot of big talent not used. Anyone know the story on that?
Didn't Balor dip when all the positive tests came back? Do they have any type of story at all for Ciampa or Dream? Might be the classic "creative doesn't have anything for you" line.
Yeah I’m not seeing a legit superstar right now. They are in the same boat as WWE and offering a buffet of talent to hit different demos. I guess time will tell if MJF can be that guy. He’s not currently. I do agree of all the talent on the AEW rosters he’s the guy who could do it.
For my money, Sammy Guevara is much more talented and likely to be a star than MJF. Same with hangman. I don't think anyone can be an Austin/Rock level star though. I think those days are just over.
Some talent isn’t willing to work under the conditions. Some talent is waiting on testing results. Obviously WWE can’t speak on any of that.
I think Styles just locked up to what he said is his final wrestling contract. Take that with a grain of salt in this industry. Bryan also is recently in a new deal and they have given him a role in creative so I don’t expect him to leave WWE anytime soon either
I think they are over and will stay over. but what I was speaking on is another level... to bring in casual viewers and have them keep watching. I’m not seeing it anywhere
Right I was agreeing with you. I'm saying I'm not sure the casual viewer is ever going to tune back in to Austin/Rock levels. Times have changed.
Probably correct... But wrestling goes in cycles it’s possible another major star is born. It’s probably unlikely to happen in WWE with Vince in charge. The pulse of today’s times has long passed him by.
AEW had over a million viewers for the end of the Bucks v Butcher/Blade tag match. They had over 500k viewers in the demo. NXT had 600k TOTAL for the night. That's incredible
Mcafee wanted to play wrestler. It’s the same thing as when DC got Brock into the octagon after a match. They love wrestling and wanted to pretend to be a wrestler for a minute
this random episode of Thunder popped up in my recommendations so I decided to give it a whirl and I can't stop laughing at how much is in this Nitro recap to open the show also want to say how much I hate the visual presentation of this era WCW
there's just such a mind numbing quality to this, there are never any changes of pace, nothing's digestible, everything's rushed, I don't know if they're piping in crowd noise but it's basically just a constant dull wave, and you can barely hear the entrance themes so that just adds to the lack of audio dynamics actually wish I had some commercials to break things up
What in the world, they go to commercial as Sting is getting ready to make his entrance where he'll be facing three masked luchadores, when they get back from commercial they show footage of one of the luchadores hitting Sting with a guitar, the mask is removed and it's revealed to be Jeff Jarrett, Mean Gene interviews Jarrett. They then have a quick Bagwell/Flair match. Next, Sting makes his entrance to the ring as he's facing three masked luchadores again for some reason, only this isn't an additional match, this ended up being the actual match to the footage shown earlier with Jarrett using the guitar and unmasking. 2000 WCW in a nutshell
Don't understand how you guys can debate ratings and looking at raw tanking or whatever without really chalking a lotnuo to the simple fact the products need fans. Like no shit people stopped watching the big brand show(s) that thrived off of presentation and crowds. The crowds legitimized the products. I have barely watched anything since fans were removed. To me it's too much of a barrier although I did check out the Wyatt and undertaker cinematic matches.
the crowds not being around really sink the product. WWE is giving 7 hours of show from the same setup. AEW can at least set off some fireworks but both company’s need the live audience back and quickly
I’m down It was announced this morning that as of 9/1, DDT Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling NOAH, who each have the same corporate owner, will merge into a new promotion, Cyberfight. The plan is to incorporate aspects of each promotion into the new group.