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July Wrasslin’ |OT-15| Hybrids are Best for Business

D

Dr Duncan Steel

Member
dream said:
I actually think the real advantage WWE has over the Ultimate is that, despite Vince's protestations about "being in the entertainment business," deep down, they acknowledge that they are a pro rasslin company and promote their company accordingly. As a result, they're able to build matches and book stars (this is hypothetical). Whereas Dana likes to believe he's running FIFA or some such shit, and he adopts the same philosophy where nobody is a star.
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world fucking domination brah
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
I'll call a huge sub dropoff. They'll be lucky to break 500k. That's my thought. Not like it really matters - I mean shit performance with subs, I hope it toes the line and presses them to do better instead of looking at it like a loser, that's my only concern. Just enough to keep them busting ass.
 
P

Patryn

Member
Sid said:
Why is it a BIG problem? aren't the subs healthy?
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Not really. They were at around 600k last they announced numbers, and I believe that they said that they would need to be at 1 million+ to be profitable.

The bad network numbers were one of the reasons for the last round of layoffs, along with a bunch of other cost-cutting measures.

Basically, it's under-performing, but not a DIRE situation yet. But if they roll it out to the world and it continues doing numbers akin to what it's doing, they'll likely have to shutter it within a couple of years.
 
H

Hasney

Member
iMPACT! Wrestling senior official Earl Hebner posted an inappropriate message on his Twitter account Thursday night—likely meant as a private message to a user he is following.
The message stated, "I Will take ur blow j when u are ready 2 give it 2 me."
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I need to stop reading that LOLTNA thing
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
dream said:
But really Dr. Steel, what is your problem with people moving from pro wrestling to the mixed martials? It's really the exact same business, built on the exact same foundation, sharing the same mythology, only without the bullshit like Adam Rose and the VaudeVillains. It's really just a different form of pro wrestling.

In fact, I'd say it's an even purer form of pro wrestling than what WWE and TNA puts on. You can draw a clearer lineage from, say, Dillashaw vs. Barao to Gotch vs. Hackenschmidt than you could with whatever match WWE puts on to cater to Sblargh.
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I still argue that they're only superficially the same. The appeal of watching partly choreographed fights with pre determined winners is completely different to the appeal of watching an actual live sport where anything could happen.

Wrestling tells stories. In sport, sometimes stories happen, but it's never anything other than a happy accident.

Wrestling has more in common with Rocky movies, than Rocky movies have in common with boxing, in terms of their impact on the audience, and why the audience enjoy them. Boxing has zero appeal to me, but I love Rocky.
 
S

strobogo

Banned
MMA didn't steal dick from wrestling, audience wise. There is cross over and there are people that watch one or the other. If someone completely quit wrestling once MMA blew up, I really doubt they were the kind of fan that ever put any kind of money into their wrestling hobby.

I bet there are more people that jumped to MMA and back to wrestling in the last 3-4 years of UFC being boring as fuck and over exposed than the other way around. I remember the times when I'd be at a house with 15-20 people every month for a UFC show. That wave crashed hard. None of those people give a fuck about MMA anymore. It's over. It is not only not expanding in the US, its popularity is clearly on the decline, which is why UFC (much like WWE has done) has been trying to expand internationally to make up the difference. The main difference being when WWE expands to new countries, they take all of their stars with them. UFC fills their cards with guys who have losing records and guys who don't even have wikis. What UFC frequently does when expanding internationally would be like if WWE had a debut show in Singapore and 80-90% of the card was filled with local guys and indie talent from Alabama.
 
P

Perspicacity

Banned
btm1mmoiqaa2l7z.jpg
 
Z

Zach

Member
¡HarlequinPanic!;123013603 said:
MAN this month is ending with a BADA BANG.

All this wrassle news, and I'm getting used to the end of month frenzy of "WHATS DA FREE GAMES" on the new consoles.
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Oh yeah. It's free games time soon, eh?
 
P

Patryn

Member
Sid said:
Why is it a BIG problem? aren't the subs healthy?
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Oh, should probably also add that apparently the Network was one of the reasons they didn't get as good of a television contract as they had hoped to get. And because they didn't get as good of a contract as they implied to investors, they're facing a lawsuit from the shareholders.
 
dream

dream

Member
plagiarize said:
I still argue that they're only superficially the same. The appeal of watching partly choreographed fights with pre determined winners is completely different to the appeal of watching an actual live sport where anything could happen.

Wrestling tells stories. In sport, sometimes stories happen, but it's never anything other than a happy accident.

Wrestling has more in common with Rocky movies, than Rocky movies have in common with boxing, in terms of their impact on the audience, and why the audience enjoy them. Boxing has zero appeal to me, but I love Rocky.
Click to expand...

I think that's because most sports are handicapped by being real. They don't have the advantages WWE has in being able to build a story with a beginning, middle, and end, in which things happen to propel the plot. That said, I think narratives do tend to naturally emerge in real sports.

The grand narrative of the 2014 Stanley Cup playoffs was the Kings coming back from 0-3 in the first round, squeaking by the second, then going to a ton of game 7s en route to winning the cup. It was a story of resilience and toughness. The story of the 2014 NBA Playoffs was redemption; the Spurs had a chance to redeem themselves in the same situation, against the same team, but with an extra year of wear on their tired bodies.

The best Ultimate fights are built on stories too (I'd give you examples but I legit cannot think of any because fuck the Ultimate), just like, say, WrestleMania. I mean, yeah, you get the Just Bleed crowd, but when you look at the PPVs that have popped massive buyrates, the common denominator between them is they all had a great buildup, be it in the form of an "angle" for the fight, or a character who has been developed over time.
 
S

strobogo

Banned
Another big advantage WWE has over UFC is that their feuds can be over anything. UFC feuds are all the same thing. They're actually more obnoxious when trying to build up a clearly made up or at least heavily exaggerated angle. And all these blood feuds where guys HATE each other and they're going out there to HURT each other always end with guys hugging in the cage and saying they were just trying to build a fight. Those motherfuckers should get 15% of their purses docked for breaking kayfabe like that.
 
S

Sid

Member
Patryn said:
Oh, should probably also add that apparently the Network was one of the reasons they didn't get as good of a television contract as they had hoped to get. And because they didn't get as good of a contract as they implied to investors, they're facing a lawsuit from the shareholders.
Click to expand...
So it's doing more harm than good,I wonder why they were so optimistic?
 
J

jmdajr

Member
strobogo said:
MMA didn't steal dick from wrestling, audience wise. There is cross over and there are people that watch one or the other. If someone completely quit wrestling once MMA blew up, I really doubt they were the kind of fan that ever put any kind of money into their wrestling hobby.

I bet there are more people that jumped to MMA and back to wrestling in the last 3-4 years of UFC being boring as fuck and over exposed than the other way around. I remember the times when I'd be at a house with 15-20 people every month for a UFC show. That wave crashed hard. None of those people give a fuck about MMA anymore. It's over. It is not only not expanding in the US, its popularity is clearly on the decline, which is why UFC (much like WWE has done) has been trying to expand internationally to make up the difference. The main difference being when WWE expands to new countries, they take all of their stars with them. UFC fills their cards with guys who have losing records and guys who don't even have wikis. What UFC frequently does when expanding internationally would be like if WWE had a debut show in Singapore and 80-90% of the card was filled with local guys and indie talent from Alabama.
Click to expand...

Are MMA fans invested in these people as either athletes and characters? I feel that is one thing WWE has a leg up on. Hell look at Punk. Even now people want to know what he's doing at all times.
 
dream

dream

Member
strobogo said:
Another big advantage WWE has over UFC is that their feuds can be over anything. UFC feuds are all the same thing. They're actually more obnoxious when trying to build up a clearly made up or at least heavily exaggerated angle. And all these blood feuds where guys HATE each other and they're going out there to HURT each other always end with guys hugging in the cage and saying they were just trying to build a fight. Those motherfuckers should get 15% of their purses docked for breaking kayfabe like that.
Click to expand...

The worst part is all the hardcore MMA nerds eat that shit up because they jerk off over "classiness." Fuck that. I want to see QRJ knock King Mo out, then put his nuts in the man's mouth and cut a promo about how he just made King Mo blow him.
 
R

Rafa=FedKilla

Banned
strobogo said:
Another big advantage WWE has over UFC is that their feuds can be over anything. UFC feuds are all the same thing. They're actually more obnoxious when trying to build up a clearly made up or at least heavily exaggerated angle. And all these blood feuds where guys HATE each other and they're going out there to HURT each other always end with guys hugging in the cage and saying they were just trying to build a fight. Those motherfuckers should get 15% of their purses docked for breaking kayfabe like that.
Click to expand...
What about when they say they are going to eat their soul?
 
K

Kornflayx

Member
strobogo said:
Another big advantage WWE has over UFC is that their feuds can be over anything. UFC feuds are all the same thing. They're actually more obnoxious when trying to build up a clearly made up or at least heavily exaggerated angle. And all these blood feuds where guys HATE each other and they're going out there to HURT each other always end with guys hugging in the cage and saying they were just trying to build a fight. Those motherfuckers should get 15% of their purses docked for breaking kayfabe like that.
Click to expand...

The biggest advantage the WWE should have, is that they can determine the outcomes of their matches and advance the storylines logically.
 
L

lovely ladies

Member
jmdajr said:
Are MMA fans invested in these people as either athletes and characters? I feel that is one thing WWE has a leg up on. Hell look at Punk. Even now people want to know what he's doing at all times.
Click to expand...
Only speaking for myself, I think so. It's just natural you end up rooting for your favorites and such.
 
E

El Pescado

Member
WWE closing down the Network would make me so sad. I love being able to put on old shows whenever I want and I don't want to go back to paying $60 a month for PPVs. :(
 
P

Patryn

Member
Sid said:
So it's doing more harm than good,I wonder why they were so optimistic?
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I believe they had done a bunch of surveys about people's exposure to wrestling, and for whatever reason they classified pretty much any person who has watched so much as 5 minutes of wrestling as a fan. Based on that qualification they projected that there were tens of millions of possible subscribers, and thought they could easily get a significant percentage of that.
 
T

Terrabyte20xx

Junior Wrestlemania XXX Champion
I don't feel it was unreasonable to think they could get 1 million subs by the end of the year... but that was before they squandered all that momentum from Wrestlemania.
 
Z

Zach

Member
El Pescado said:
WWE closing down the Network would make me so sad. I love being able to put on old shows whenever I want and I don't want to go back to paying $60 a month for PPVs. :(
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It would be quite the downer. Especially if I'm not able to relive the Monday Night Wars before it dies. Surely, even worst case scenario, it'll last another year-plus, right? RIGHT?!

It's weird how invested I am in wrestling again. I'm 16 again, baby!
 
Z

Zach

Member
Terrabyte20xx said:
I don't feel it was unreasonable to think they could get 1 million subs by the end of the year... but that was before they squandered all that momentum from Wrestlemania.
Click to expand...

I still think offering the Network outside of the United States will help tremendously.
 
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