The Official WWE / NXT Discussion Thread *May Contain Spoilers*

[ShaunGBD]

you missed Cena gets help from Vince to keep the title 2/1

 

Thats where my money is on

[shawn michaels]

I missed (sadly) this last raw? Was it any good? What happened in the vince-punk-cena storyline?

[MasterJ]

Raw drew a 2.9 this week.

[Tha Black Phenom]

Good things happened. Mainly beginning and end. See it, see it now.

[1234]

Anyone else catch Punk's reference to his ROH heel turn in the opening segment? I love little references like that.

 

Anyway, I don't have a clue what will happen at the ppv, which makes it a must watch event for me. Not even sure what to hope for.

[Zeel1]

Raw drew a 2.9 this week.

 

Huh. I thought it'd be better than that this week...

[MasterJ]

I will stream the ppv. Most things WWE do are predictable I see this being the same. Cena beats Punk it ending or Punk beating Cena with Vince's help the reason being that Cena is not replaceable. Also if someone cashes in MITB they will lose.

[Teh_Showtime]

How is it predictable if you just named 3 possible outcomes?

[nimo34]

Raw drew a 2.9 this week.

 

MLB Homerun Derby was on ESPN. It's been known to pull a lot of viewers from Raw.

[MasterJ]

How is it predictable if you just named 3 possible outcomes?

 

I meant to say I dont see this one being the same:)

[Remianen]

If I'm Vince I'm going to sit back and let Punk's contract run out. Its like with Albert Pujols. People SAY he's the best in the world at what he does. However if you wait until the contract's up you can look at it evenly.

 

Bad example on SO many levels. WWE has Cena, et al. Pujols' contract expires and the only way he's back in a Cards uniform is at a STEEP "hometown discount" because teams with cash will throw so much money at him, it'll make A-Rod look homeless. If Pujols leaves, the Cards have NOBODY to put fannies in seats. You going to bet the bank on Matt Holliday?

 

If people really want this to be more than a fun two week story then buy the pay per view. Its exactly like Aries said at DX. If you're a fan of this buy it and support it. Streaming it and downloading it isn't going to convince anyone that matters that CM Punk is even worth it.

 

Yes, buying a PPV for ONE match/program. That'll show 'em to shoot for overall quality!

 

Not too mention there is virtually no way its not Cena vs. Rock at Wrestlemania. Its simple, its two very house hold names and its going to print its own money. So whatever this is with Punk and Cena has to be wrapped up by then and if Punk doesn't come back until the winter they're going to be in full Wrestlemania hype mode leaving Punk to do battle with any number of people that aren't nearly as captivating as what he's doing now.

 

This I completely agree with. Cena-Rock is money. No way they pass up on that.

 

The only way this thing translates into anything is if Punk sticks around. Again though TV ratings were down last week, if they're down again this week and the pay per view bombs then what?

 

Stennick, you seem to be ignoring what last Monday's date was and its significance in the States. TV ratings are almost always down on that date. Who the hell is going to be sitting in front of a TV when it's warm, it's still light outside, and girls are walking around wearing next to nothing?

 

Hm, wait. Did I say that last part out loud?

 

I'm inclined to go with Taker on this one. Punk beats Cena in some harrowing fashion, gloats to Vince, and then whoever won MITB cashes in on him (perhaps after Vince has assaulted him in some way. Or maybe Vince convinces the Nexus to turn on their erstwhile leader?). That could lead to Cena vs whoever at Summerslam with Cena once again the underdog.

[MasterJ]

 

 

Stennick, you seem to be ignoring what last Monday's date was and its significance in the States. TV ratings are almost always down on that date. Who the hell is going to be sitting in front of a TV when it's warm, it's still light outside, and girls are walking around wearing next to nothing?

 

.

 

They bombed again this week too though.

[shawn michaels]

Good things happened. Mainly beginning and end. See it, see it now.

 

So, a little help here. Beginning and end, so i assume that's 2 promos, the first and last, that are worth watching, right?

[Stennick]

=f Pujols leaves, the Cards have NOBODY to put fannies in seats. You going to bet the bank on Matt Holliday?

 

You're a New Yorker so I wouldn't expect you to know much about the Gateway to the West but this town is BUILT on baseball. You don't see Pujols jersey's everywhere you see Cardinal jersey's everywhere. Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Bruce Sutter, Ozzie Smith, etc. Baseball is religion in this town and as long as we have a top five owner like we do willing to be agressive in free agency as well as our farm system we'll be in the playoffs and selling out stadiums for a long while. Fun fact the Cards have one losing season in the last ten years. So yes I think we'll be just fine. He's batted below 300 this year and we've maintained a hold on first place.

 

Stennick, you seem to be ignoring what last Monday's date was and its significance in the States. TV ratings are almost always down on that date. Who the hell is going to be sitting in front of a TV when it's warm, it's still light outside, and girls are walking around wearing next to nothing?

 

Yeah and they did a 2.9 this week as well. Let me guess Home Run Derby? And then the pay per view it'll be "people are on Vacation in July and August so the numbers are down". And then when the fall hits it'll be "kids are back in school and in bed before RAW's over".

 

So far as much as people don't want to admit it this angle has flopped success wise. The tv ratings are very very low, and if the pay per view numbers are even on point with last year you can't consider this angle a success. This is going to turn into another example of the IWC loving something but the main strea audience just not caring. I personally love it and I'm sitting around thinking "wow" everytime Punk says something but I think the audience the WWE has these days isn't the same audience during the era in which this would have worked.

 

Again I know people will say "it hasn't had time to catch on". Did the nWo need time to catch on? I'm not asking for records to break but how can you spin it that its a good thing all the important business numbers are going DOWN? If this was an angle the IWC didn't like....say Katy Vick and we had two really bad numbers in a row followed by an unimpressive ppv number people would say "enough is enough stop it already the numbers show nobody cares". But because this angle was taylor made for us we're willing to give it a year, or a decade whatever it takes.

 

I like Punk and maybe he honestly doesn't care whether he goes back or not but if he figured "all right with this angle I'll show this company I can be a business changing indvidual". If he thought or felt that way he's kind of proving them right. The problem is they don't have "time" its not like you can give this another month or two. They had three weeks which was either enough time to prove it didn't work or not enough time to prove anything depnding on your viewpoint.

[BHK1978]

Pretty much what Stennick said about the Cardinals. Cardinals fans are true fans that stick by that team no matter what. Yes I know Red Sox and Yankees fans claim to be the best fans (And I am saying this as a Yankees fan.) the fact of the matter is they are not. When the Yankees were bad in the late 1980's early 1990's they did not draw at all. It was not until the strike year that the fans started to come back because it looked like it was going to be Yankess vs. Expos that year in the World Series.

 

Same thing with Red Sox fans, they were not supporting the team in the mid to late 1990's. My father and I used to go to one or two games every year. That stopped around 2002 or so because by then the Red Sox were looking like they had a legit shot at winning the World Series so these "fans" began showing up for the games again.

 

So St. Louis can lose Pujols and it will not hurt the team at the box office.

 

Okay now let us return to WWF talk. I noticed that they showed a clip of Bruno Sammartino in the commercial for the Steel Cage DVD. I was kind of shocked to see that because I always thought that Bruno was persona non grata when it came to the WWF.

[MasterJ]

Yea the IWC is loving it but the problem is thats only maybe 5-10% of WWE's viewers and TBH dont really matter as much as they think they do. Its an ok angle but with fans like me who only watch WWE/TNA Punk talking about that Colt guy and other stuff from backstage its just like "What in the hell is he talking about."

[Stennick]

I have no doubt that if if Pujols walks away from a 25 mil, 8 year contract we're going to be very agressive in the Free Agent market. If we can sign two all star free agents for what we were offering him then in some ways it helps the team. Its not like we lose Albert and do nothing about it.

 

BHK I think the Bruno thing is one way. I think Bruno wants nothing to do with them but Vince I think we've seen is always open to making ammends with these guys which is kind of shocking in some cases.

[Fantabulous]

Whilst the overall rating of Raw itself doesn't look good, a better measure of the strength of the angle is how well its quarters do. If Raw does a bad number but the the first and last quarters of the show (where the Punk angles ran) show a major increase in viewership, then it's a strong sign that the Punk stuff itself drew viewers but rest of the show had nothing worth seeing and people tuned out in droves, hence the bad rating.

 

It's also worth mentioning that the Home Run Derby (4.64 from 9-11pm), wasn't the only show that could have taken something away from Raw's numbers; Closer (5.27 at 9pm) and Rizzoli & Isles (4.66 at 10pm) did strong cable ratings as well.

[Gabbo]

I hate the blaming of other shows for ratings being down. The aim is to make people watch your show over anything else not be something to watch when there's nothing else on. Using examples of other TV shows is not acceptable in showing why ratings are down, if your show was good people will watch it.

[Fantabulous]

I hate the blaming of other shows for ratings being down. The aim is to make people watch your show over anything else not be something to watch when there's nothing else on. Using examples of other TV shows is not acceptable in showing why ratings are down, if your show was good people will watch it.

 

There is so much I want to say in response to this but I can't because I'd get suspended or banned. Suffice it to say that your statement shows tremendous ignorance of the facts. Highly rated sports programs that have taken place at the same time as Raw have regularly been shown to take away from Raw's ratings, regardless of the quality of Raw.

[Zeel1]

I don't think he's denying that other shows do affect the ratings, but more saying that they SHOULDN'T BE, that they should aim for Raw to be so good that it's the one you want to watch over anything else instead of the other way around.

[Gabbo]

There is so much I want to say in response to this but I can't because I'd get suspended or banned. Suffice it to say that your statement shows tremendous ignorance of the facts. Highly rated sports programs that have taken place at the same time as Raw have regularly been shown to take away from Raw's ratings, regardless of the quality of Raw.

 

So why bother mention a Crime Drama then?

 

Zeel got it.

[Fantabulous]

I don't think he's denying that other shows do affect the ratings, but more saying that they SHOULDN'T BE, that they should aim for Raw to be so good that it's the one you want to watch over anything else instead of the other way around.

 

Except it's very rare, if it's ever happened at all, that a wrestling show has been so good that it's not been affected by highly rated programming going on at the same time. If you've got a great Raw going on at the same time as a great sports game/match or some other highly touted game, it's almost certain that the show most likely to be affected by the head-to-head is Raw, and history has shown that to be the case.

[Zeel1]

Except it's very rare, if it's ever happened at all, that a wrestling show has been so good that it's not been affected by highly rated programming going on at the same time. If you've got a great Raw going on at the same time as a great sports game/match or some other highly touted game, it's almost certain that the show most likely to be affected by the head-to-head is Raw, and history has shown that to be the case.

 

Well yeah, I know that, and to be honest I think you have to have pretty high standards to be all "Well this is no excuse", but at the same time, I see his point. It really doesn't reflect well on you to say that there's no way you could've gotten good ratings cause something else was on. It's basically like saying, "Come on man, we can't compete with that. In comparison to that, we suck!"

 

Plus, it's Prime Time TV we're talking about, there's always going to be something else on.

[Fantabulous]

It really doesn't reflect well on you to say that there's no way you could've gotten good ratings cause something else was on. It's basically like saying, "Come on man, we can't compete with that. In comparison to that, we suck!"

 

Plus, it's Prime Time TV we're talking about, there's always going to be something else on.

 

Except in this case, I think it's a fair call to say that a program going head-to-head with your own, that just happens to cover one of the highlights of the year for the country's national sport, is probably going to take away from your ratings.

 

Yes, it's Prime Time, and there will be always be something else on, but it usually doesn't affect Raw except in the case of major games/matches or some other highly rated sports event. Which is exactly what happened here, has happened numerous times before, and will happen numerous times in the future.

 

In any event, like I said earlier, I wouldn't tout the poor overall rating as a sign the storyline isn't getting over. I still think the quarter hour numbers will tell a more accurate picture in that regard.