Triple H |OT| February Wrasslin
- Thread starter Mr. Sam
- Start date
- Status
Officerrob
Banned
That chart is perfect
Perspicacity
Banned
I think Sheamus has become Teddy Long's surprise singles match guy.
In fact Sheamus probably just waits in Gorilla waiting to be activated by some heel wandering into the ring, like he's a ginger draugr
In fact Sheamus probably just waits in Gorilla waiting to be activated by some heel wandering into the ring, like he's a ginger draugr
Liquidsnake
Banned
ViewtifulJC
Banned
FallingEdge
Member
Very nice picture of Vickie
dream
Member
Even though it may appear on the surface that Japanese pro wrestling as a business hit rock bottom and is on a slow ascent, the selling of New Japan Pro Wrestling, the strongest company, for only $6.55 million last week told a tale about an industry hanging on.
No companies are doing well right now, which some are blaming on economic fears spurred on by the earthquake and tsunami and an overall mentality in Japan right now that people are afraid to spend money on anything that isn't essential. Plus, attempts at expanding, whether it be Dragon Gate USA partnership, New Japan in the U.S., Pro Wrestling NOAH in Europe and All Japan in Taiwan have not taken hold.
Takaaki Kidami, whose Bushiroad Group Publishing purchased New Japan last week from Yuke's, talked at length this week about future plans.
He noted New Japan was running about 130 house shows per year, and he wants to cut down on that number. He felt the wear-and-tear on the talent was shortening careers. There are flip sides to what is the correct number of dates to run. The fewer shows you run, the longer it takes for young wrestlers to gain the experience necessary to fully comprehend working at the top level. The more shows, you can more experience but the physical demands are harder. The best way to do it, which is almost impossible, is for the wrestlers who need experience to work a lot more dates, but the wrestlers who know what they are doing to work an easier scheduled to prolong their tenure at the top. But, people who buy house shows buy them for the main eventers, not the prelim guys.
On the flip side, Kidami said that he feels they should run more PPV shows, and try and increase event program sales (something that was big in another generation) as well as a New Japan card game, which fits with his company. He also talked about expanding merchandise, with more marketing of T-shirts and action figures like in the U.S., and have higher production values on live shows, really copying what has worked for WWE and AAA.
Unlike American pro wrestling, which historically has at times reached every age group from young kids to grandfathers and grandmothers, depending on the city and the era, Japanese wrestling has usually been based on the 18-to-35 male age group. There have been exceptions, such as when company's are hot, some have become things you take a date to. There have been periods where people like Tiger Mask or Mil Mascaras were huge to young children in another era, but that died when wrestling moved past midnight on television. There was a period when older businessmen would go to live shows, but it's still that 18-35 group that has carried it. To this day, it's still the key group. Even at the strongest period, only 20% of the Japanese wrestling audience was over the age of 35, while in the U.S., 50% of the audience is over the age of 38.
Kidami said he's targeting bringing back those of 35 who were fans at one point when wrestling was bigger. He felt it was almost impossible to capture young children right now given the time slot, but also wants to target those 15-20 and hook them to be building block for future fans. He sees newcomer Kazuchika Okada, 24, in a role of fantasy big brother to teenagers while Hiroshi Tanahashi, a great star in his prime, as being able to bring back fans who loved strong action but lost interest as wrestling fell from the public conscious.
Kidami talked of international expansion included more of a presence in Mexico, as well as into Asia. The problem with Mexico, where a few years ago wrestling was on fire, is that wrestling is fading there. WWE PPV numbers have plummeted and the local promotions, CMLL and AAA, are not doing well. Japanese stars have not faced the cultural roadblocks of being main eventers like they have in he U.S., but I also don't sense a New Japan Pro Wrestling show in Mexico City would do all that well.
Kidami said he wants to have a full 2012 schedule released to the public as soon as possible. He also made it clear he doesn't want to change the in-ring product at all.
Kidami noted growing up and being excited about the annual Real World Tag League event (actually All Japan's were higher profile than New Japan's, although when New Japan was hot in the early 80s the December tag tournament was a big deal as well). He said he thinks there can be more emphasis put on tag team wrestling, and the idea of bringing in famous teams from all over the world for an annual tournament. The problem is, the business is so completely different. There were dozens and dozens of top tag teams, or major singles stars who could be put together as makeshift big name teams, in the late 70s and early 80s with dozens of territories and lots of international outlets that ran full-time schedules and had their own stars. There are not just less stars, but more importantly, almost every famous star is under an exclusive contract. And there are almost no famous tag teams.
He also wanted the annual 1/4 show at the Tokyo Dome to be even bigger as the company's focal point of the year. His goal is to make it not just a Japanese wrestling event, but a major annual worldwide wrestling event.
Kidami said it's important to improve the relationship with TV-Asahi and get television back on at a decent time slot, but that's been a battle that dates back more than 20 years. He noted that people between the ages of 35 and 60, who grew up on pro wrestling, don't think about it because the TV airs too late at night and people who work regular hours can't be up at 2:30 a.m. to see wrestling. He also felt it's important to get wrestlers to do commercial endorsements that air during prime time, so the wrestlers are shown as stars on prime time network TV. He also wants to increase an On-demand service for matches on the Internet.
He also said that he's going to push wrestles to utilize Twitter and social media to connect with the fan base as much as possible. He believes stronger marketing will gradually increase the fan base, saying all these things will take time and there is no quick fix. He said his own Bushiroad company grew so quickly is because he placed more of an emphasis on spending money on marketing and advertising than most companies of his size would do.
He talked about increasing meet and greet sessions with wrestlers, having talent do more Internet radio and have wrestlers who can write do articles for web sites. He said that the wrestlers who can build their names through the media will be able to be promoted the best.
The company hanging on right now is NOAH, which has never recovered from being canceled by Nippon TV at the end of the 2007-08 television season in the spring of 2008, taking away both needed money and exposure. Pro wrestling has been part of the network dating back to 1954, and at one point when NTV's financial situation stabilized, there was talk of bringing wrestling back. But that didn't come to fruition.
The company also got bad publicity from a public standpoint with a fraud case that made the news when a woman, a former sponsor of the company, stole $650,000 from Mayumi Misawa, the widow of company founder Mitsuharu Misawa. The case ended with the sponsor being sentenced to seven years in prison as part of a number of fraud cases, not all wrestling related, but Misawa never got her money back.
The woman had a company with NOAH business manager Ryu Nakata called NOAH Total Corporation, Inc., formed at the end of 2008. The new company was supposed to be a sister company to the actual wrestling company. The idea was the new company would work with the wrestling company to open up bars, restaurants, have a real estate division and a security company with the idea this would create jobs to allow the older wrestlers to transition out of the ring. The company never got off the ground, and then in 2009, Mitsuharu Misawa died after an in-ring accident when being suplexed on the back of his head.
Nakata is trying to distance himself from the woman, and he had no involvement in the fraud case, nor was he part of the proceedings, although just the fact he was linked with the woman has hurt his reputation.
NOAH has had to cut back of late, booking fewer wrestlers on its house shows. As noted before, Akitoshi Saito, who started with the company in 2000, and Masao Inoue, an original with the company, both did not have their contracts renewed at the end of 2011. Saito & Jun Akiyama were scheduled to, and did, win the GHC tag titles from Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson a few weeks ago even though Saito was not renewed and is only working some dates on a per show basis. Usually wrestlers never publicly criticize their company, but Akiyama was publicly mad about how Saito was treated and talked about it after the two of them won the tag titles on 1/22 in Osaka.
On the current tour, the only shows that drew were the big show in Osaka and when they've booked Tokyo. One show in Mie on 1/31 drew only 130 fans.
On the women's side of things, the period from 1999-2009 is known as the dark age of Japanese wrestling. Women's wrestling, which had boom periods in the late 1970s, mid-1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, wasn't popular at all during that period, but there were always plenty of companies drawing dozens or a few hundred fans. But to most in the general public, there was no knowledge that it even still existed, a far cry from the early 90s where you couldn't walk down a street in a busy part of Tokyo and not see someone like Aja Kong on a billboard endorsing a product.
Most of the old companies were around. JWP still exists and runs shows today. LLPW has been restarted under the name LLPW-X with Shinobu Kandori, a 90s star who became a senator, still as the top star. Oz Academy, run by 90s star Mayumi Ozaki, is still around with Ozaki, Aja Kong and Dynamite Kansai. Kyoko Inoue runs World Womens' Wrestling Diana and trains wrestlers. Yumiko Hotta runs Reina Womens' Wrestling. In addition, Tajiri's SMASH group uses women's wrestling with Kana as one of his top stars. Meiko Satomura runs the regional Sendai Girls Wrestling, running Northeast Japan. Rossy Ogawa, who worked for the All Japan women's group and later Arsion, started Stardom, based around Fuka, an MMA fighter.
Their new stars are Yuzuki Aikawa, who ran away with the 2011 Women's MVP award in Japan. Aikawa is an actress bikini model who they turned into a wrestler. They other pushed newcomer is Yuko Bitou, a former karate champion who is also very pretty. They may be the most promising of the promotions. There is also the Ice Ribbon promotion, which has a small cult following. Sendai Girls, Stardom, Diana, Reina and Ice Ribbon all air on Fighting TV Samurai, a 24-hour wrestling channel, but at no specific regular time.
Raw on 2/6 did a 3.25 rating and 4.61 million viewers, falling from the post-Rumble high the week before. When it comes to viewers on Raw, they are 13% down from what the show was doing at this time last year. It finished third for the night on cable.
The show did a 2.9 in Male teens (up 21% from the post-Rumble show), 3.0 in Males 18-49 (down 9%), 0.9 in female teens (down 36%), and 1.2 in Women 18-49 (down 20%). It was 69.4% males, higher than usual, so the drop in rating looks to be a combination of males being strong because of no sports competition, and women being way down, possibly due to "The Voice" and "Smash."
In the segment-by-segment, the opening segment with HHH doing a promo did a strong 3.62 open. Daniel Bryan vs. Big Show lost 508,000 viewers. Bryan's interview and the taped segment with John Cena and NASCAR driver Carl Edwards gained 43,000 viewers. David Otunga vs. Sheamus lost 197,000 viewers. The Chris Jericho interview and C.M. Punk coming out segment gained 94,000 viewers, which is another bad showing for the 10 p.m. segment. Randy Orton & Great Khali vs. Cody Rhodes & Wade Barrett lost 22,000 viewers. So what happened is that usually people tune in at 10 p.m. and leave at 10:15 p.m., and here either they tuned in and left immediately, or never tuned in, because you had virtually nobody leaving instead of the usual hundreds of thousands up and hundreds of thousands down. The Divas eight-person match lost 139,000 viewers. And the six-way with Jericho vs. Punk vs. R-Truth vs. Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston gained 443,000 viewers, low for an overrun and finished at 3.42.
As far as the demo movement for the main event, Males 12-17 went from 2.3 to 3.0, Males 18-49 from 3.0 to 3.4, Females 12-17 from 1.1 to 1.0 and Women 18-49 from 1.0 to 1.2.
Impact on 2/2 did a 1.15 rating and 1.61 million viewers for the first show from London. The show did a 0.74 in Males 18-34 and 1.06 in Males 35-49. The number was a huge disappointment internally, since Spike had advertised the show as being the return of Hulk Hogan, plus it was a great show, had the Bobby Roode vs. James Storm match (granted, unadvertised) and had the great look being from London. Plus, there wasn't the big sports competition as the only major sports opposition was an NBA game with the Los Angeles Clippers that did 2.35 million viewers.
In the segment-by-segment, Samoa Joe & Magnus vs. Matt Morgan & Crimson lost 126,000 viewers. The first segment with Eric & Garett Bischoff talking about "he" gained 56,000 viewers. Austin Aries vs. Mark Haskins lost 14,000 viewers which I consider as good given nobody knows Haskins. Bobby Roode vs. James Storm gained 112,000 viewers. Tara vs. Gail Kim gained 14,000 viewers to a 1.22 making it the highest rated segment of the show. The in-ring with the Bischoffs, Gunner and Hulk Hogan's return lost 100,000 viewers and did a 1.15. No matter how you slice it, it's one thing when a Hogan segment doesn't add viewers, but when it's a segment being promoted the entire show and it loses and it's Hogan's first TV in months, and when the show continually built toward Hogan's return, that is really sad. Storm vs. Bully Ray in the main event lost 40,000 viewers and did a 1.12.
Dave Bautista got a movie role he'd been rumored for some time, and one he was really hoping for, in a Sci-Fi movie called "Riddick," a sequel to "Pitch Black (2000) and "The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004) starring Vin Diesel, who will also be the producer. Bautista is listed No. 7 on the pecking order for the movie, which will be filmed in Montreal.
They are pushing February as the biggest month for Impact on TV in history as a promotional campaign. The idea is it's two shows from England as well as shows taped 2/13 and 2/14 that air 2/16 and 2/23, which will have some kind of a special hook. I don't know how this is a special hook, but Mike Straka will be a guest on Impact at one of this coming week's tapings, probably 2/14, to promote the launch of the MMA Junkie TV show that debuts after Impact on 2/23. The show that airs on 2/9 is billed as "Star Wars," using the big show name that Fritz Von Erich's World Class Wrestling used to use for its big shows in the 80s. This is headlined by Sting (the match he hurt his foot in) & James Storm vs. Bully Ray & Bobby Roode.
I got a rough cable estimate on the Royal Rumble indicating in the range of 250,000 to 285,000 North American buys, which is about where you would peg it (the last three years have ranged from 259,000 to 288,000 and Rumble and Mania have been the two shows that have held up in the past few years while virtually all the others have shown significant declines). The actual number should come out in about three weeks. An interesting comparison is that Rumble clearly beat UFC 142 (Aldo vs. Mendes) in the U.S., but in Canada, even the weak UFC show appears to have blown away the Rumble numbers.
The update on Hall of Fame plans are for Austin to induct Tyson, Del Rio to induct Mil Mascaras, Christian to induct Edge, John Layfield to induct Ron Simmons, Dwayne Johnson to induct Yokozuna and HHH & Michaels to induct the Four Horsemen ahead of the obvious choice of Dusty Rhodes. Simmons and Yokozuna are likely to be announced on TV after the Chamber show. There's no real standards so arguing who does and doesn't belong here is a waste of time. There are no standards passed just a matter of having your number called.
HHH gave Miz a tongue lashing backstage about not catching him. Miz was a big favorite of management a year ago because his notoriety was such from "Real World" that they got so much publicity when he won the title that nobody else in the company could have gotten. But the feeling now is that he's regressed, both in the ring and on promos. Certainly, he's booked a lot lower than a year ago but the feeling is when he was in the same position before he was hungry and forced them to make him a headliner. Now, he's mid-card and he's doing no such thing, and this mess up can't have helped him.
No companies are doing well right now, which some are blaming on economic fears spurred on by the earthquake and tsunami and an overall mentality in Japan right now that people are afraid to spend money on anything that isn't essential. Plus, attempts at expanding, whether it be Dragon Gate USA partnership, New Japan in the U.S., Pro Wrestling NOAH in Europe and All Japan in Taiwan have not taken hold.
Takaaki Kidami, whose Bushiroad Group Publishing purchased New Japan last week from Yuke's, talked at length this week about future plans.
He noted New Japan was running about 130 house shows per year, and he wants to cut down on that number. He felt the wear-and-tear on the talent was shortening careers. There are flip sides to what is the correct number of dates to run. The fewer shows you run, the longer it takes for young wrestlers to gain the experience necessary to fully comprehend working at the top level. The more shows, you can more experience but the physical demands are harder. The best way to do it, which is almost impossible, is for the wrestlers who need experience to work a lot more dates, but the wrestlers who know what they are doing to work an easier scheduled to prolong their tenure at the top. But, people who buy house shows buy them for the main eventers, not the prelim guys.
On the flip side, Kidami said that he feels they should run more PPV shows, and try and increase event program sales (something that was big in another generation) as well as a New Japan card game, which fits with his company. He also talked about expanding merchandise, with more marketing of T-shirts and action figures like in the U.S., and have higher production values on live shows, really copying what has worked for WWE and AAA.
Unlike American pro wrestling, which historically has at times reached every age group from young kids to grandfathers and grandmothers, depending on the city and the era, Japanese wrestling has usually been based on the 18-to-35 male age group. There have been exceptions, such as when company's are hot, some have become things you take a date to. There have been periods where people like Tiger Mask or Mil Mascaras were huge to young children in another era, but that died when wrestling moved past midnight on television. There was a period when older businessmen would go to live shows, but it's still that 18-35 group that has carried it. To this day, it's still the key group. Even at the strongest period, only 20% of the Japanese wrestling audience was over the age of 35, while in the U.S., 50% of the audience is over the age of 38.
Kidami said he's targeting bringing back those of 35 who were fans at one point when wrestling was bigger. He felt it was almost impossible to capture young children right now given the time slot, but also wants to target those 15-20 and hook them to be building block for future fans. He sees newcomer Kazuchika Okada, 24, in a role of fantasy big brother to teenagers while Hiroshi Tanahashi, a great star in his prime, as being able to bring back fans who loved strong action but lost interest as wrestling fell from the public conscious.
Kidami talked of international expansion included more of a presence in Mexico, as well as into Asia. The problem with Mexico, where a few years ago wrestling was on fire, is that wrestling is fading there. WWE PPV numbers have plummeted and the local promotions, CMLL and AAA, are not doing well. Japanese stars have not faced the cultural roadblocks of being main eventers like they have in he U.S., but I also don't sense a New Japan Pro Wrestling show in Mexico City would do all that well.
Kidami said he wants to have a full 2012 schedule released to the public as soon as possible. He also made it clear he doesn't want to change the in-ring product at all.
Kidami noted growing up and being excited about the annual Real World Tag League event (actually All Japan's were higher profile than New Japan's, although when New Japan was hot in the early 80s the December tag tournament was a big deal as well). He said he thinks there can be more emphasis put on tag team wrestling, and the idea of bringing in famous teams from all over the world for an annual tournament. The problem is, the business is so completely different. There were dozens and dozens of top tag teams, or major singles stars who could be put together as makeshift big name teams, in the late 70s and early 80s with dozens of territories and lots of international outlets that ran full-time schedules and had their own stars. There are not just less stars, but more importantly, almost every famous star is under an exclusive contract. And there are almost no famous tag teams.
He also wanted the annual 1/4 show at the Tokyo Dome to be even bigger as the company's focal point of the year. His goal is to make it not just a Japanese wrestling event, but a major annual worldwide wrestling event.
Kidami said it's important to improve the relationship with TV-Asahi and get television back on at a decent time slot, but that's been a battle that dates back more than 20 years. He noted that people between the ages of 35 and 60, who grew up on pro wrestling, don't think about it because the TV airs too late at night and people who work regular hours can't be up at 2:30 a.m. to see wrestling. He also felt it's important to get wrestlers to do commercial endorsements that air during prime time, so the wrestlers are shown as stars on prime time network TV. He also wants to increase an On-demand service for matches on the Internet.
He also said that he's going to push wrestles to utilize Twitter and social media to connect with the fan base as much as possible. He believes stronger marketing will gradually increase the fan base, saying all these things will take time and there is no quick fix. He said his own Bushiroad company grew so quickly is because he placed more of an emphasis on spending money on marketing and advertising than most companies of his size would do.
He talked about increasing meet and greet sessions with wrestlers, having talent do more Internet radio and have wrestlers who can write do articles for web sites. He said that the wrestlers who can build their names through the media will be able to be promoted the best.
The company hanging on right now is NOAH, which has never recovered from being canceled by Nippon TV at the end of the 2007-08 television season in the spring of 2008, taking away both needed money and exposure. Pro wrestling has been part of the network dating back to 1954, and at one point when NTV's financial situation stabilized, there was talk of bringing wrestling back. But that didn't come to fruition.
The company also got bad publicity from a public standpoint with a fraud case that made the news when a woman, a former sponsor of the company, stole $650,000 from Mayumi Misawa, the widow of company founder Mitsuharu Misawa. The case ended with the sponsor being sentenced to seven years in prison as part of a number of fraud cases, not all wrestling related, but Misawa never got her money back.
The woman had a company with NOAH business manager Ryu Nakata called NOAH Total Corporation, Inc., formed at the end of 2008. The new company was supposed to be a sister company to the actual wrestling company. The idea was the new company would work with the wrestling company to open up bars, restaurants, have a real estate division and a security company with the idea this would create jobs to allow the older wrestlers to transition out of the ring. The company never got off the ground, and then in 2009, Mitsuharu Misawa died after an in-ring accident when being suplexed on the back of his head.
Nakata is trying to distance himself from the woman, and he had no involvement in the fraud case, nor was he part of the proceedings, although just the fact he was linked with the woman has hurt his reputation.
NOAH has had to cut back of late, booking fewer wrestlers on its house shows. As noted before, Akitoshi Saito, who started with the company in 2000, and Masao Inoue, an original with the company, both did not have their contracts renewed at the end of 2011. Saito & Jun Akiyama were scheduled to, and did, win the GHC tag titles from Giant Bernard & Karl Anderson a few weeks ago even though Saito was not renewed and is only working some dates on a per show basis. Usually wrestlers never publicly criticize their company, but Akiyama was publicly mad about how Saito was treated and talked about it after the two of them won the tag titles on 1/22 in Osaka.
On the current tour, the only shows that drew were the big show in Osaka and when they've booked Tokyo. One show in Mie on 1/31 drew only 130 fans.
On the women's side of things, the period from 1999-2009 is known as the dark age of Japanese wrestling. Women's wrestling, which had boom periods in the late 1970s, mid-1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, wasn't popular at all during that period, but there were always plenty of companies drawing dozens or a few hundred fans. But to most in the general public, there was no knowledge that it even still existed, a far cry from the early 90s where you couldn't walk down a street in a busy part of Tokyo and not see someone like Aja Kong on a billboard endorsing a product.
Most of the old companies were around. JWP still exists and runs shows today. LLPW has been restarted under the name LLPW-X with Shinobu Kandori, a 90s star who became a senator, still as the top star. Oz Academy, run by 90s star Mayumi Ozaki, is still around with Ozaki, Aja Kong and Dynamite Kansai. Kyoko Inoue runs World Womens' Wrestling Diana and trains wrestlers. Yumiko Hotta runs Reina Womens' Wrestling. In addition, Tajiri's SMASH group uses women's wrestling with Kana as one of his top stars. Meiko Satomura runs the regional Sendai Girls Wrestling, running Northeast Japan. Rossy Ogawa, who worked for the All Japan women's group and later Arsion, started Stardom, based around Fuka, an MMA fighter.
Their new stars are Yuzuki Aikawa, who ran away with the 2011 Women's MVP award in Japan. Aikawa is an actress bikini model who they turned into a wrestler. They other pushed newcomer is Yuko Bitou, a former karate champion who is also very pretty. They may be the most promising of the promotions. There is also the Ice Ribbon promotion, which has a small cult following. Sendai Girls, Stardom, Diana, Reina and Ice Ribbon all air on Fighting TV Samurai, a 24-hour wrestling channel, but at no specific regular time.
Raw on 2/6 did a 3.25 rating and 4.61 million viewers, falling from the post-Rumble high the week before. When it comes to viewers on Raw, they are 13% down from what the show was doing at this time last year. It finished third for the night on cable.
The show did a 2.9 in Male teens (up 21% from the post-Rumble show), 3.0 in Males 18-49 (down 9%), 0.9 in female teens (down 36%), and 1.2 in Women 18-49 (down 20%). It was 69.4% males, higher than usual, so the drop in rating looks to be a combination of males being strong because of no sports competition, and women being way down, possibly due to "The Voice" and "Smash."
In the segment-by-segment, the opening segment with HHH doing a promo did a strong 3.62 open. Daniel Bryan vs. Big Show lost 508,000 viewers. Bryan's interview and the taped segment with John Cena and NASCAR driver Carl Edwards gained 43,000 viewers. David Otunga vs. Sheamus lost 197,000 viewers. The Chris Jericho interview and C.M. Punk coming out segment gained 94,000 viewers, which is another bad showing for the 10 p.m. segment. Randy Orton & Great Khali vs. Cody Rhodes & Wade Barrett lost 22,000 viewers. So what happened is that usually people tune in at 10 p.m. and leave at 10:15 p.m., and here either they tuned in and left immediately, or never tuned in, because you had virtually nobody leaving instead of the usual hundreds of thousands up and hundreds of thousands down. The Divas eight-person match lost 139,000 viewers. And the six-way with Jericho vs. Punk vs. R-Truth vs. Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kofi Kingston gained 443,000 viewers, low for an overrun and finished at 3.42.
As far as the demo movement for the main event, Males 12-17 went from 2.3 to 3.0, Males 18-49 from 3.0 to 3.4, Females 12-17 from 1.1 to 1.0 and Women 18-49 from 1.0 to 1.2.
Impact on 2/2 did a 1.15 rating and 1.61 million viewers for the first show from London. The show did a 0.74 in Males 18-34 and 1.06 in Males 35-49. The number was a huge disappointment internally, since Spike had advertised the show as being the return of Hulk Hogan, plus it was a great show, had the Bobby Roode vs. James Storm match (granted, unadvertised) and had the great look being from London. Plus, there wasn't the big sports competition as the only major sports opposition was an NBA game with the Los Angeles Clippers that did 2.35 million viewers.
In the segment-by-segment, Samoa Joe & Magnus vs. Matt Morgan & Crimson lost 126,000 viewers. The first segment with Eric & Garett Bischoff talking about "he" gained 56,000 viewers. Austin Aries vs. Mark Haskins lost 14,000 viewers which I consider as good given nobody knows Haskins. Bobby Roode vs. James Storm gained 112,000 viewers. Tara vs. Gail Kim gained 14,000 viewers to a 1.22 making it the highest rated segment of the show. The in-ring with the Bischoffs, Gunner and Hulk Hogan's return lost 100,000 viewers and did a 1.15. No matter how you slice it, it's one thing when a Hogan segment doesn't add viewers, but when it's a segment being promoted the entire show and it loses and it's Hogan's first TV in months, and when the show continually built toward Hogan's return, that is really sad. Storm vs. Bully Ray in the main event lost 40,000 viewers and did a 1.12.
Dave Bautista got a movie role he'd been rumored for some time, and one he was really hoping for, in a Sci-Fi movie called "Riddick," a sequel to "Pitch Black (2000) and "The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004) starring Vin Diesel, who will also be the producer. Bautista is listed No. 7 on the pecking order for the movie, which will be filmed in Montreal.
They are pushing February as the biggest month for Impact on TV in history as a promotional campaign. The idea is it's two shows from England as well as shows taped 2/13 and 2/14 that air 2/16 and 2/23, which will have some kind of a special hook. I don't know how this is a special hook, but Mike Straka will be a guest on Impact at one of this coming week's tapings, probably 2/14, to promote the launch of the MMA Junkie TV show that debuts after Impact on 2/23. The show that airs on 2/9 is billed as "Star Wars," using the big show name that Fritz Von Erich's World Class Wrestling used to use for its big shows in the 80s. This is headlined by Sting (the match he hurt his foot in) & James Storm vs. Bully Ray & Bobby Roode.
I got a rough cable estimate on the Royal Rumble indicating in the range of 250,000 to 285,000 North American buys, which is about where you would peg it (the last three years have ranged from 259,000 to 288,000 and Rumble and Mania have been the two shows that have held up in the past few years while virtually all the others have shown significant declines). The actual number should come out in about three weeks. An interesting comparison is that Rumble clearly beat UFC 142 (Aldo vs. Mendes) in the U.S., but in Canada, even the weak UFC show appears to have blown away the Rumble numbers.
The update on Hall of Fame plans are for Austin to induct Tyson, Del Rio to induct Mil Mascaras, Christian to induct Edge, John Layfield to induct Ron Simmons, Dwayne Johnson to induct Yokozuna and HHH & Michaels to induct the Four Horsemen ahead of the obvious choice of Dusty Rhodes. Simmons and Yokozuna are likely to be announced on TV after the Chamber show. There's no real standards so arguing who does and doesn't belong here is a waste of time. There are no standards passed just a matter of having your number called.
HHH gave Miz a tongue lashing backstage about not catching him. Miz was a big favorite of management a year ago because his notoriety was such from "Real World" that they got so much publicity when he won the title that nobody else in the company could have gotten. But the feeling now is that he's regressed, both in the ring and on promos. Certainly, he's booked a lot lower than a year ago but the feeling is when he was in the same position before he was hungry and forced them to make him a headliner. Now, he's mid-card and he's doing no such thing, and this mess up can't have helped him.
Needs a neck brace.
Biggest-Geek-Ever
Member
If you keep booking Daniel in matches with Big Slow, no one is going to give a damn.
Net_Wrecker
Member
That's what happens when every feud exists in a bubble and there are no real championship divisions. Almost every match on TV is "Them again?" They don't pay local jobbers for squashes, nobody from NXT/superstars is moved up except to attempt to get the occasional monster over, and all feuds consist of Guy A and Guy B fighting 74 times before they fight again at the PPV. Punk/Cena from last summer was like the only feud in recent memory where they went out of their way to keep contact to a minimum to build hype for the real match.
They probably thought it was going to be a good show based on last week, and boom, 20 minutes later, they're sick of it.
It's his world, you're all just living in it.
darkside31337
Tomodachi wa Mahou
Yep.
I honestly can't believe WWE would put so much stock into this micro-level analysis of ratings every week this way.
Why not just put on a damn good show every week? Get people to consistently tune in and ratings will go back up. I guess this takes too much effort or something.
Opus Angelorum
Member
Personally I feel both shows should me amalgamated, remove most of the drift wood and focus on (a bigger) story.
BillRiccio
Member
Dude you have a great gimmick I loved the stuff at the beginning of the match and the use of playing cards later was cool. How are you not in CHIKARA right now with this awesomeness. Send them the video!
Liquidsnake
Banned
Is that your fetish?
Nocturnowl
Member
We're talking about a company who can't even make tag teams out of the underused and sometimes promising talent they have, nor can they actually do midcard feuds, asking for a damn good show seems like a tall order for WWE, last week was probably as good as it's going to get at this rate.
Anyone remember that US champ guy? I think his name was Jangle or something.
Yeah I don't even understand the point of feuds anymore when guys are fighting each other every show regardless. Makes the PPV match completely pointless when they've fought each other every single show.
Is that belt still around?
I think his nickname was the McDonalds All-American Game MVP or something like that.
They might as well just make the IC/US titles defunct. They serve no purpose on the shows. It's just a useless prop that two people carry around.
Nocturnowl
Member
Belt? I thought US champ was his nickname...
Ah, this was definitely the nickname, yeah maybe that belt still exists somewhere.
"The McDonalds All-American Game MVP" Jangle, possibly holder of the US title
Your hate of him is hilarious. He gained viewers last week and smackdown ratings are still high as him as champion. Also, his heel character is great.
ISH THA BAIG MANS SHOW
dream
Member
Perspicacity
Banned
Is he trying to say any of those people don't deserve it? I mean, Tyson certainly doesn't deserve it but he makes more sense than any of the other "celebrities" to go in the past.
Besides Tyson that may be the most deserving class ever (well Edge could probably go in a few years from now, but he's retired for realsies so I'm cool with it).
Especially if these matches end in a no contest, DQ, or double count out.
I don't want to see the Big Show unless it's some spectacle. If he's going to tackle a horse or cow, I'll watch it.
Biggest-Geek-Ever
Member
You won't say that when Trips gets the timeslot and the spot hits 4.5
Mr. Luchador
Member
HHH v McMahon at Armageddon 99 was entertaining, if only for Vince McMahon stunt man acting skills.
Hunter usually spikes 4.6 so, still weak.
UberTag
Member
Which one is Shaq? A horse or a cow?
Professor Beef
Banned
Absolutely. Every single one of those guys is completely deserving of being in the HoF.
Hell, Tyson deserves to go in simply because the attention he brought to WM 14 is what really got the Austin era going.
Tyson should get in just for getting JR to say "Austin and Tyson" while having a heart attack.
He said "Tyson and Austin", not "Austin and Tyson!" Get it right!
. . . . . . . mark.
Mr. Luchador
Member
HOF is legit until HHH is crowned King of Fame.
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