The Wrestling Thread's got...needs - Part 216

[Dr. Evil]

But kids aren't the target market.

WWE's marketing a show almost exclusively to children, but the vast majority of people actually watching it are old people. It's a massive contradiction. More young people were actually watching during the Attitude Era, which was supposedly targeted more at adults.

The NFL does bigger ratings than ANYTHING in the 18-34 and 18-49 demographics. Those are the people who spend money.

Marketing exclusively to children hasn't hurt Disney in any of their non ESPN/ABC ventures like the Disney Channel, Pixar or even Marvel (although Marvel has a lot of adult fans too).

 

[famicommander]

Marketing exclusively to children hasn't hurt Disney any.

Disney as a corporation targets everybody. The actual "Disney" brand targets children, but then you have Marvel, ABC, ESPN, etc targeting everybody else. It's all the same company.

WWE puts on a children's TV show that is watched by 55+ year old men. WWE's ratings and attendance have been declining for over a decade precisely BECAUSE they adandoned their core fanbase to chase a group (in this case, kids) that don't watch their show en masse. Their numbers are still fine in absolute terms but in comparison to where they were 15-20 years back they're putrid.

Being a children's show makes it really hard to have good heels. That's my biggest issue. There aren't any good heels in WWE at all. There are some in NXT, but none in WWE.

 

[Dr. Evil]

The WWE's ratings have declined because their core audience has jumped to the UFC. I have stated that I have been watching more UFC than WWE in the last five years.

But, I bet you cannot say one thing nice about the WWE product today at all. You are probably the only poster here who hates Renee Young. Many of us praise the WWE when they deserve it. You just bash it no matter what.

The WWE gets praise when they deserve it. A lot of us who criticize WWE also praise it when they deserve praise.

 

[famicommander]

I've said nice things about WWE in this very thread:
"Every time I come back I usually regret it, but occasionally they still hit a home run"
"I was a huge fan of wrestling in general in the 90s. That's when I grew up, and I loved ECW, WCW, and WWF."
"I didn't say there was anything wrong with what WWE is doing. Business is business."
"NXT is competently booked and events are competently built and reacted to"

WWE has all the tools to be great. Incredible talent, tons of know-how, a large platform. But they squander it.

It's no secret I'm hard on WWE, but it's because I find their product legitimately unentertaining. If WWE just unleashed Styles, Nakamura, Danielson, Joe, Devitt, Moxley, etc I'd do backflips. Take the training wheels off these guys. No more heavily scripted promos, no more taking away peoples' finishers, no more stopping matches if someone happens to bleed, no more TVPG. Let Nakamura wrestle strong style. Let Ambrose/Moxley just go up there and shoot from the hip on the mic. Let guys show off their entire movesets without fear of exposing the low skillsets of guys like Sheamus, Miz, Ryback, etc. in the ring. Basically WWE just needs to get the hell out of its own way, but they're more interested in making cartoon crossovers with Scooby Doo and spending 65% of their showtime on RAW trying to sell you the network.

All of WWE's products feel like advertisements for WWE's other products.

 

[Dr. Evil]

I've said nice things about WWE in this very thread:
"Every time I come back I usually regret it, but occasionally they still hit a home run"
"I was a huge fan of wrestling in general in the 90s. That's when I grew up, and I loved ECW, WCW, and WWF."
"I didn't say there was anything wrong with what WWE is doing. Business is business."
"NXT is competently booked and events are competently built and reacted to"

WWE has all the tools to be great. Incredible talent, tons of know-how, a large platform. But they squander it.

It's no secret I'm hard on WWE, but it's because I find their product legitimately unentertaining. If WWE just unleashed Styles, Nakamura, Danielson, Joe, Devitt, Moxley, etc I'd do backflips. Take the training wheels off these guys. No more heavily scripted promos, no more taking away peoples' finishers, no more stopping matches if someone happens to bleed, no more TVPG. Let Nakamura wrestle strong style. Let Ambrose/Moxley just go up there and shoot from the hip on the mic. Let guys show off their entire movesets without fear of exposing the low skillsets of guys like Sheamus, Miz, Ryback, etc. in the ring. Basically WWE just needs to get the hell out of its own way, but they're more interested in making cartoon crossovers with Scooby Doo and spending 65% of their showtime on RAW trying to sell you the network.

All of WWE's products feel like advertisements for WWE's other products.

Now I understand. My apologies if I came off as a bit angry.

You are not like a certain "Fox Marvel fan" who once put all Marvel Studios fans into the "Marvel Studios is perfect and can do no wrong" category when even a big Marvel Studios fan like myself, a non-comic book person has criticized Marvel Studios for some of the things that they have done (like demanding that the Avengers be a bit more diverse in it's makeup, which they fixed at the end of Age of Ultron or even a more diverse slate of films, which they fixed with BP and Captain Marvel as well as Thor: The Dark World, which they cannot fix now and one dimensional villains which they have fixed on the TV/Netflix front, but not so much the movies).

I called him out on it with my list of issues I have with Marvel Studios, and he got banned for it temporarily.

Hell, I believe at one point, our mod, OnTheAir wasn't optimistic that Black Panther was going to be made, but his mood about the film has since changed since the film was made official.

 

[TheCommissioner]

I've said nice things about WWE in this very thread:
"Every time I come back I usually regret it, but occasionally they still hit a home run"
"I was a huge fan of wrestling in general in the 90s. That's when I grew up, and I loved ECW, WCW, and WWF."
"I didn't say there was anything wrong with what WWE is doing. Business is business."
"NXT is competently booked and events are competently built and reacted to"

WWE has all the tools to be great. Incredible talent, tons of know-how, a large platform. But they squander it.

It's no secret I'm hard on WWE, but it's because I find their product legitimately unentertaining. If WWE just unleashed Styles, Nakamura, Danielson, Joe, Devitt, Moxley, etc I'd do backflips. Take the training wheels off these guys. No more heavily scripted promos, no more taking away peoples' finishers, no more stopping matches if someone happens to bleed, no more TVPG. Let Nakamura wrestle strong style. Let Ambrose/Moxley just go up there and shoot from the hip on the mic. Let guys show off their entire movesets without fear of exposing the low skillsets of guys like Sheamus, Miz, Ryback, etc. in the ring. Basically WWE just needs to get the hell out of its own way, but they're more interested in making cartoon crossovers with Scooby Doo and spending 65% of their showtime on RAW trying to sell you the network.

All of WWE's products feel like advertisements for WWE's other products.

ok so when you do that and sponsors start bailing because they aren't comfortable with the direction, how do you make that revenue up?

that is a serious question

these are the issues that WWE deals with that NO OTHER PROMOTION in the US has to deal with

 

[Dr. Evil]

ok so when you do that and sponsors start bailing because they aren't comfortable with the direction, how do you make that revenue up?

that is a serious question

these are the issues that WWE deals with that NO OTHER PROMOTION in the US has to deal with

No other major sport has to deal with that either. Look at the NFL. Despite the run-ins-with police by a lot of players and the whole things with CTE and Deflategate, the NFL still has it's major sponsors forking over billions to renew with the NFL.

 

[TheCommissioner]

I ask the question because part of the reason the WWE went to TV PG was because they were losing sponsors, and it was becoming difficult to get new sponsors in the door

I remember watching RAW late 90s early 2000s and seeing the same commercials over and over because of a lack of ad sales

 

[TheCommissioner]

and there are companies that have gone on record - Dodge being the one I can recall that have come right out and said theyd never do ad space with WWE because wrestling is considered "the wrong type of customer"

 

[Dr. Evil]

They went TV PG because of "The Summer of Hell 2007" in which there was the triple murder-suicide of Chris Benoit, his wife Nancy "Woman" Sullivan and their son, followed by a major drug scandal that forced the suspension of at least 20-30 WWE superstars as well as about as many injuries as there are today.

It was a snowball effect that almost killed the WWE. They had to change as a result.

Ironically, it was around that time that I started to watch MMA, namely Pride FC.

I remember the WWE still being TV 14 around WrestleMania 23 time.

 

[famicommander]

I think Linda McMahon's political aspirations had as much to do with WWE going TVPG as the ad revenue or the negative publicity from 2007.

That, and since they've gone public they're also accountable to shareholders in addition to advertisers and such.

If enough people came back to the product, the advertising money would come back along with them regardless of the perceived maturity (or lack thereof) of the content.

That's another major problem with WWE. They try so hard to satisfy everybody that their product is pulled in so many different directions and as a result they don't excel at anything anymore.

 

[famicommander]

To move away from the WWE/ROH discussion, here are the estimated attendances for TNA recently

Tuesday night's live Impact: 400-500
Wednesday's tapings: 200-300
Today's tapings: 150-250

and strangely, they're also doing a live One Night Only PPV tonight.

That should tell you how hard it its to draw fans to a wrestling show in this day and age. TNA has Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, James Storm, Bobby Roode, Davey Richards, Eddie Edwards, Awesome Kong, Gail Kim, the Beautiful People, EC3, Bobby Lashley, Drew Galloway, and Ken Anderson at these tapings along with multiple title matches and they're drawing less than half of what ROH draws for normal house shows.

 

[famicommander]

Sorry to triple post but I just stumbled across some awesome news (for ROH/NJPW fans):
Rocky Romero has signed a 2 year deal with NJPW. Apparently there really was smoke with the WWE rumors, but NJPW came hard when they found out about them.

Romero ultimately wanted to keep wrestling, but WWE was interested in him as a trainer. NJPW offering him a 2 year deal is an aggressive move. Usually only the very top guys in NJPW get more than one year deals. Hopefully the Bullet Club+Nakamura jumping woke them up and they get a lot more of their guys on multiyear deals.

His contract also allows him to continue appearing for ROH and independent promotions without TV deals.

source:
http://prowrestlingsheet.com/rocky-romero-two-year-contract-new-japan-wwe-rumors/

This makes me very happy, especially because it means Roppongi Vice won't be broken up. One of my favorite tag teams in the world right now.

 

[TheCommissioner]

on that we agree, I was a big fan of Forever Hooligans, sad when Koslov retired, but when he hooked up with Baretta and Roppongi Vice showed up, I was on board

 

[famicommander]

I'm wondering if this could mean Tama Tonga and Bad Luck Fale may stay too. Those three were mentioned by Meltzer as being on WWE's wishlist, but as far as he knew none had given their notices like Nakamura, Styles, Anderson, and Gallows did.

Tonga and Fale would probably get a push in NJPW's heavyweight tag division if they stayed.

 

[Hunter Rider]

 

[Dr. Evil]

 

[Dr. Evil]

 

[Dr. Evil]

 

[Wylie Times]

To move away from the WWE/ROH discussion, here are the estimated attendances for TNA recently

Tuesday night's live Impact: 400-500
Wednesday's tapings: 200-300
Today's tapings: 150-250

and strangely, they're also doing a live One Night Only PPV tonight.

That should tell you how hard it its to draw fans to a wrestling show in this day and age. TNA has Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, James Storm, Bobby Roode, Davey Richards, Eddie Edwards, Awesome Kong, Gail Kim, the Beautiful People, EC3, Bobby Lashley, Drew Galloway, and Ken Anderson at these tapings along with multiple title matches and they're drawing less than half of what ROH draws for normal house shows.

I think a lot of that has to do with how badly TNA's brand is damaged in the eyes of fans. The promotion is largely seen as a joke, even during the brief periods they've had where the show as good people still refused to watch because they had been burned so many time sin the past.

Jeff Hardy was one of the biggest draws going during his last WWE run, but he damn sure wasn't drawing similar crowds when he went to TNA. Them letting AJ go was the death of their credibility to most people.

 

[Hunter Rider]

 

[Dr. Evil]

I see Renee is channeling her inner biker chick....

 

[Pink Ranger]

I see Renee is channeling her inner biker chick....

She's obviously falling under someone else's bad influence, but who? Who?!

 

[TheCommissioner]

I think a lot of that has to do with how badly TNA's brand is damaged in the eyes of fans. The promotion is largely seen as a joke, even during the brief periods they've had where the show as good people still refused to watch because they had been burned so many time sin the past.

Jeff Hardy was one of the biggest draws going during his last WWE run, but he damn sure wasn't drawing similar crowds when he went to TNA. Them letting AJ go was the death of their credibility to most people.

I checked out after that for a bit...how do you let your best homegrown talent and easily one of the best performers on the planet just walk away?

 

[famicommander]

So TNA has signed
(impact taping spoiler)

Spoiler

Dragon Shynron from Chikara

and promptly jobbed him out to

Spoiler

Jeff Hardy

in a 3-minute match

also

Spoiler

Matt Hardy turns heel, EC turns face, Tyrus turns on EC3, Hardy wins the title again

this sounds like a trainwreck

but hey, they're setting up

Spoiler

Beer Money vs the Wolves for the tag titles

so that's at least one watchable segment