WWE has a 1:58 hard cutoff time. FOX makes massive advertising money for the commercial leading into the nightly local news. Its why in part last week's match was short. But for some reason they didn't cut at 10:58 it extended to 11.
"screw these bitches" "screw you fans" I'm in on the new look Bayley... New gear, hair and music. That's a proper old school turn.
I wouldn't be surprised if the wrong list was leaked and that was the draft results. They saw it and made some last second tweaks. Way to spoil the biggest two nights of a re-brand
He was so good tonight... Since he's hurt I rather see him on the Fox show with Renee. Also looks like Elias and Joe are not draft eligible because of being hurt. I would assume Cena, Taker, HHH wont be drafted
WWE doesn't deserve to have better ratings than AEW on any night of the week, but inertia will keep them on top. Sounds like the draft show was a bust, overall.
Think they only had 3 matches on the show. If they weren't talking draft it was all about blood money. If they go back to a draft I would just go to a random shakeup. Seems like its the best way to pull this off. No GMs, No networks, No war rooms, Just a random generator.
I think they did the best they could all things considered. People always ask for more of real draft feel. They did attempt that with war rooms, post pick breakdowns, a "insider" dropping some hints and some other things. The war rooms were something else. Pretty entertaining how lame they all looked but good effort, good try.
If you were there live you got to actually see like a handful of superstars? The rest of the time you were looking at a screen or listening to draft analysis. Hope they did something for them after the cameras were off
Agree in the arena that show had to fucking suck. Yes you got Rollins vs Reigns, The Fiend, New Day vs OC and Bayley vs Charlotte but they were TV matches and I fear they only got a 205 Live show. I would like to know if they tossed a dark match after all that.
The following Superstars are now free agents after they were not drafted on SmackDown: Cesaro, Humberto Carrillo, Akira Tozawa, Sin Cara, Eric Young, EC3, Chad Gable, Heath Slater, Drew Gulak, The B Team (Bo Dallas & Curtis Axel), and Tamina Snuka. I really hope Cesaro ends up in NXT
Current Rosters RAW Men : AJ Styles, Drew McIntyre, Randy Orton, Ricochet, Bobby Lashley, Kevin Owens Women : Becky Lynch (c), Alexa Bliss, Natalya, Nikki Cross Tag Teams : OC, Viking Raiders, Street Profits SD Men : Roman Reigns, Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman Women : Sasha Banks, Lacey Evans Tag Teams : The Revival (c), Lucha House Party, Heavy Machinery They are going to need those FA to fill out those rosters. SD currently only has 3 solo men on their roster
Also noticed WWE couldn't even follow the rules the announced the same day of the draft. Heavy Machinery was listed in the Monday draft pool and was picked tonight...really looks like they got thrown off by the accidental spoiler list and made changes on the fly
How much shit is the dude in that spoiled the results... Good thing Vince never follows social media.
Really interested to see what they do with the women's division. Seems odd to split the horsewomen up in Sasha and Bayley on one brand and Charlotte and Becky on the other, or to stack 3 on one show and leave Becky solo on RAW. I have no interest in seeing Becky v Charlotte AGAIN already. Maybe Ronda is coming back to RAW, so they will focus on her and Becky, which could explain the 3 others on SD.
I said it jokingly above but thinking about it that would have been kind of cool to give like a section each some raw gear or Smackdown gear. Like a group of raw fanboys in a visitors section and a bunch Smackdown people in a home section. Show them cheering for picks. Would have made more sense than the war room reactions. Were those execs like “hell yeah, she said the name I told her to say 2 min ago. LFG”
Nah, I think folks are willing to boo Bayley. She's needed a heel turn for a while. No one wanted Becky to turn heel, they just wanted her to kick some ass.
Will be interesting to see if she can cut a promo next week without the voice cracking and sounding like she's about to cry. The look is nice though.
The WWE roster is three times as big as AEW's but WWE is so shitty with building stars they have maybe half as much talent over and ready to feud with their top talent.
Backstage reporter: Bayley can you explain this change Bayley: Screw you BR: Well what about the kids who adore you Bayley: Screw them BR: Well as champion with the recent draft lots of the woman in the back want a chance at your title Bayley: Screw everyone. bayley walks off.... Please just do this.
They have some pretty big problems we all recognize, no need to rehash it. Just not convinced Vince cares, aren't they about to make like 2 billion dollars over the next 5 years?
I completely disagree with that. The first half is right, WWE is shitty at building up anyone beside their regulars, but WWE still has more stars than AEW currently. AEW is new so they have a pass, but to claim they have twice as many main event stars as WWE is a hell of an exaggeration.
Welp, the wrestling fanbase is what it is. WWE isn't ever going to grow it cause it's a bad product. Can't imagine they retain many new fans after that shit show last night.
This week is hilarious when you see people brush off a 30% loss of viewers from AEW to stress how NXT lost *checks notes* 80k viewers from a PPV quality show the week prior. I wont claim to be all knowing on these charts but it looks like WWE had way above average numbers in Sales Demo and the 18-49 men looks pretty strong. Not surprising they dropped. You had a show that made it debut and promised The Rock, Hogan, Flair, Goldberg. I'm actually surprised it only lost 50K in the second hour because the show last night wasn't good. Claiming WWE is never going to grow its fan base is also a false statement. I know people want to make dramatic takes after two weeks of TV but let's check back in a year and see how WWE and AEW is doing. I believe both products will eventually grow.
It's silly to say it won't grow when kids are all about wwe. 8 year olds don't care about snarky stuff.
I just think WWE is being paid way to much money from Comcast and Fox for them to not go all out in trying to fix the product. Steps are already being taken. Just give them time with now fully separated rosters. When they did the last true brand split Smackdown was fantastic TV for over a year.