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WWE Raw drops to lowest TV rating in 18 years

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sora87

Member
I really wish they could cut Raw back down to 2 hours, and split the brands again. 2 hours for Smackdown, 2 hours for Raw, 2 hours for NXT.

I'd love that, split the main titles again, WHC goes to Smackdown
(let Cody have it)
, let the midcarders have that show and build up their stories. Raw with the WWE title and more top guys for the big story lines. 2 hours each. Ohhh if only.

I definitely think NXT has more than enough talent to fill a 2 hour show too now, it always seems too rushed and it's disappointing when a lot of the talent don't get a spot that week.
 

Anth0ny

Member
8-11 is one hour too long and one hour too late

I still don't understand how this show is supposed to be aimed at kids. My parents would never let me watch 3 straight hours of TV back when I was 10, let alone until 11:15PM. ffs my bedtime was 10PM. it's no wonder those youtube numbers are so high, I'm sure a bunch of kids get home from school the next day and watch all the shit from raw that they missed because they had to go to bed.
 

Ithil

Member
If they were ever going to extend NXT's timeslot, then maybe they could go to 90mins. Don't try to shoehorn in any more storylines though, just give some of the matches and wrestlers a few extra minutes to do their stuff. They could use the extra few minutes in a bunch of places not just matches though. Sometimes I feel entrances are rushed, with the likes of Balor and Asuka racing to the ring, when they have entrances that I dont mind lasting a minute longer. Backstage segments could get a few extra minutes too. All those minutes would add up and fill the time, and make the show feel less rushed.

Of course with the way they do NXT tapings, adding 30 mins to each NXT episode extends the tapings about 2 hours longer, so it is probbaly a bad idea in the long run as most crowds would get burned out at that point.

The thing is they try to avoid having the really big matches on TV, part of the reasons the Takeover shows work so well is that they don't overexpose the matches or wrestlers.
There isn't going to be a situation where two wrestlers wrestle on TV, then wrestle on TV again the next week, then wrestle the week after in a tag match, then they wrestle at the PPV and you're supposed to care?
Instead they might be in a tag, or might not be, but will have some promos between them and segments. The actual singles match will be held off til the Takeover show, and that's good.

The important thing to note is they usually do this for most of the matches, not just the big ones. Adding more time to the weekly TV show means you have to give a lot more of the big stars, possibly watering them down in the process, or give a lot more time to some greener people, maybe exposing them in the process. That you don't see Finn or Bayley or Gable/Jordan or Asuka every week helps in the long run as you don't get so used to the sight of them that they become commonplace.

Plus NXT is taped monthly, even adding a half hour to episodes means taping just two episodes takes three hours., so you'd have to tape twice a month, driving up costs a lot.
 

kiguel182

Member
8-11 is one hour too long and one hour too late

I still don't understand how this show is supposed to be aimed at kids. My parents would never let me watch 3 straight hours of TV back when I was 10, let alone until 11:15PM. ffs my bedtime was 10PM. it's no wonder those youtube numbers are so high, I'm sure a bunch of kids get home from school the next day and watch all the shit from raw that they missed because they had to go to bed.

They want to appeal to everyone while at the same time appealing to no one in specific.
 

kiguel182

Member
The thing is they try to avoid having the really big matches on TV, part of the reasons the Takeover shows work so well is that they don't overexpose the matches or wrestlers.
There isn't going to be a situation where two wrestlers wrestle on TV, then wrestle on TV again the next week, then wrestle the week after in a tag match, then they wrestle at the PPV and you're supposed to care?
Instead they might be in a tag, or might not be, but will have some promos between them and segments. The actual singles match will be held off til the Takeover show, and that's good.

The important thing to note is they usually do this for most of the matches, not just the big ones. Adding more time to the weekly TV show means you have to give a lot more of the big stars, possibly watering them down in the process, or give a lot more time to some greener people, maybe exposing them in the process. That you don't see Finn or Bayley or Gable/Jordan or Asuka every week helps in the long run as you don't get so used to the sight of them that they become commonplace.

Plus NXT is taped monthly, even adding a half hour to episodes means taping just two episodes takes three hours., so you'd have to tape twice a month, driving up costs a lot.

Not overexposing people is part of the reason NXT works. You don't see the same matches over and over again. And when they happen again is for story purposes that you understand.

It's also one hour instead of three which also helps a ton.
 

Mahonay

Banned
Not overexposing people is part of the reason NXT works. You don't see the same matches over and over again. And when they happen again is for story purposes that you understand.

It's also one hour instead of three which also helps a ton.
Being an hour long is a major helping factor. Yes, the booking is more traditional and there tends to be far more cohesive storytelling, but not being forced to fill several hours is huge.
 

kiguel182

Member
Being an hour long is a major helping factor. Yes, the booking is more traditional and there tends to be far more cohesive storytelling, but not being forced to fill several hours is huge.

I agree. It's not the only factor but it helps.

Raw should be two hours tops. They can cut the filler that way and try to avoid the 50/50 booking that is ruining half the show.
 

Ithil

Member
I agree. It's not the only factor but it helps.

Raw should be two hours tops. They can cut the filler that way and try to avoid the 50/50 booking that is ruining half the show.

Smackdown, at its current level of "things actually happening" should only be an hour.
 

Tom Nook

Member
I really wish they could cut Raw back down to 2 hours, and split the brands again. 2 hours for Smackdown, 2 hours for Raw, 2 hours for NXT.

Yes, 3 hours of Raw is too much, maybe have the 1st hour dedicated on promoting and previewing shows on the network.

If they were to do a brand split, keep the talents from RAW and SD separated. NXT is the developmental group.

  • Outside of the WWE,Women's, and Tag Team champion(s), the other talents are to be separated. The current champions can defend their belts on either brand.
  • Have the IC, US, titles be the champions on RAW and Smackdown respectively.
  • The holder of those titles are to be highly considered to be the number one contender of the WWE belt.
  • Don't have talent jump one brand to another without explanation.
  • Yearly Drafts
  • Have RAW and SD fight over for talents in NXT.
  • If an injury occurs, they have the talent pool of NXT.
 

thiscoldblack

Unconfirmed Member
I liked the 2 hour format, but if they are going to stay with 3 hours, they need to get rid of all the filler and give more matches / action.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
They need to showcase top NXT talents on the main events more whilst keeping them in play on the developmental promotion, rather than calling them up and usually sinking them into the midcard muddle and killing their momentum.

A solid run on NXT programming is a perfect showcase to see if the talent can work the WWE style, at which point they are more than ready to show up in guest spots on RAW and build their profile with the larger audience without interrupting larger booking plans.
 
I stopped watching wrestling and it's great you guys. You don't know what you're missing. No more being angry that someone didn't get a push, no more frustration at the quality of the product, no more sitting through 3 hours of shit for 10 minutes on entertainment. Play a game, watch a movie, the world is your oyster!
 
D

Deleted member 47027

Unconfirmed Member
I stopped watching wrestling and it's great you guys. You don't know what you're missing. No more being angry that someone didn't get a push, no more frustration at the quality of the product, no more sitting through 3 hours of shit for 10 minutes on entertainment. Play a game, watch a movie, the world is your oyster!

It's pretty crazy how once you let go, you're free to do anything.

I don't recommend hatewatching Raw. Lots of people do it and I don't know why.
 
I stopped watching wrestling around 2004ish and havnt looked back. I catch clips when my old favorites makes a return but that's it.

I still love old wrestling. I recently watched the resurrection of Jake the snake and it literally brought tears to my eyes. Since I watched this last week I've been rummaging through YouTube watching some older classics.

Stone cold has an awesome podcast. Listening to him "shoot the breeze" with wrestlers is great. He and others have very open and insightful opinions on what's wrong with the business and I agree with whole heartedly.
 

Zach

Member
I stopped watching wrestling around 2004ish and havnt looked back. I catch clips when my old favorites makes a return but that's it.

I still love old wrestling. I recently watched the resurrection of Jake the snake and it literally brought tears to my eyes. Since I watched this last week I've been rummaging through YouTube watching some older classics.

Stone cold has an awesome podcast. Listening to him "shoot the breeze" with wrestlers is great. He and others have very open and insightful opinions on what's wrong with the business and I agree with whole heartedly.

Is that Jake doc available outside of iTunes yet? I'd really like to see it on Netflix or Amazon Prime, but I'd even pay for it digitally... but not on iTunes.

Edit: You can buy/rent elsewhere now. Hooray! I'll watch it soon.
 
Did USA Network have any issue with WWE turning the final chunk of Raw into WCW for a little bit when Vince was trying to get air time for WCW?

They only did that once.

It is worth noting though that Raw used to be two different shows. WWF Raw and The War Zone. The War Zone was actually technically a completely different show even though it seemed like part of Raw. So there's some precedence I guess.
 
They only did that once.

It is worth noting though that Raw used to be two different shows. WWF Raw and The War Zone. The War Zone was actually technically a completely different show even though it seemed like part of Raw. So there's some precedence I guess.

It's still like that, all 3 hours are "separate shows"
 
Do people actually Remember the brand split it was awful.

The people calling for the brand split now were tweens and teenagers during the original Brand Split era so now they have nostalgia for it. In ten years, there'll be 20-25 year olds for this era of wrestling and complaining about Roman Reign's 12th WWE title reign.
 
Do people actually Remember the brand split it was awful.
Yep.

I don't watch Raw. I'll watch Smackdown on weekends while I do chores. NXT is pretty pointless until it's a Takeover. Just watch PPVs. You guys are wasting your days on pure garbage.

I'd like to see Raw cut out alllllll the bullshit and just do 8 minute matches with occasional 8 minute promos between commercials. No commercial breaks in matches, it kills the momentum, pace, and fun of wrestling. No recaps, no long matches or promos.
 
It was going good at the beginning. Stars like Eddie Guerrero and Rey benefit the split.

Smackdown was better than current day Raw for almost the entirety of the brand split. Plus you could just follow one show which was nice. Separate PPVs were stupid though. I guess NXT is really the equivalent to Smackdown at its best during the brand split in many ways.
 

UberTag

Member
The people calling for the brand split now were tweens and teenagers during the original Brand Split era so now they have nostalgia for it. In ten years, there'll be 20-25 year olds for this era of wrestling and complaining about Roman Reign's 12th WWE title reign.
Ten years? I give it five max.
Hell, Roman's about to kick off his 3rd title reign in 6 months.
 

Anth0ny

Member
i feel like a brand split might be cool nowadays because they'd probably throw anyone that threatens reigns' overness onto smackdown

and then mauro can call their matches
 
I stopped watching right after the invasion thing so I wasn't around for the brand split, but from what I know and video clips I've seen it looked like a terrible idea. I hate it. That whole era of WWE just seems awful to me. I honestly think it was worse then than it is now.
Some of the attitude era wrestlers that were chosen to be main eventers during that time I also find to be very weak. No offense to Edge or Jeff Hardy or anyone like them, but they were never main event dudes. I suppose there was a talent drought around the time or something. Though I actually like dudes like Cena and Orton nowadays.

I started watching because of Daniel Bryan again though. So I've been watching again for the last 2 years or so. These last few years revolving around him have been good tv, but now that he's gone and Roman is in I just don't care anymore. I've been watching Youtube clips of Raw for the past year.

I just watch what looks good, which is about 10-15 minutes. Seriously. Most Raws nowadays have about 2 good matches and maybe one promo segment that's watchable. That is it.

The best thing about wrestling right now are the podcasts. So many wrestlers have fantastic podcasts.
 

Gurrry

Member
8-11 is one hour too long and one hour too late

I still don't understand how this show is supposed to be aimed at kids. My parents would never let me watch 3 straight hours of TV back when I was 10, let alone until 11:15PM. ffs my bedtime was 10PM. it's no wonder those youtube numbers are so high, I'm sure a bunch of kids get home from school the next day and watch all the shit from raw that they missed because they had to go to bed.

This is a fantastic point and something that I didnt even think about until now.

I understand why they want the product under the PG rating, but all of the outside factors lend itself better to a rating and product aimed at a slightly older audience (especially the time slot).
 
T

thepotatoman

Unconfirmed Member
Ten years? I give it five max.
Hell, Roman's about to kick off his 3rd title reign in 6 months.

I'm already looking at the CM Punk/Daniel Bryan era with nostalgia and looking at the current Roman era with disgust.
 

Striker

Member
Yep, there's a lot of people on the roster right now that would hugely benefit from it
They have three upper midcard/main event guys out now in Cena, Orton and Rollins and the only 'new' guy in the main event scene is Ambrose. A transitional phase, if you will. They still aren't putting anyone anywhere else they do not deem fit. The Mania scene is a 46 year old Champion facing an active performer, a part-timer facing an active performer, and a guy in his 50's wrestling a non-wrestler in his late 40's. If there was ever a time to push new people, it's now, but they don't.

And they had many, many more stars and name brand in those days. Completely the opposite now because of lack of creating new guys in the past ten plus years.
 
They have three upper midcard/main event guys out now in Cena, Orton and Rollins and the only 'new' guy in the main event scene is Ambrose. A transitional phase, if you will. They still aren't putting anyone anywhere else they do not deem fit. The Mania scene is a 46 year old Champion facing an active performer, a part-timer facing an active performer, and a guy in his 50's wrestling a non-wrestler in his late 40's. If there was ever a time to push new people, it's now, but they don't.

And they had many, many more stars and name brand in those days. Completely the opposite now because of lack of creating new guys in the past ten plus years.

There's loads of new talent. They just seem to always get cold feet on pushing them when they don't instantly explode to the moon, unless they're favored. If they'd pushed Dean after the Shield split as the main baby face instead of Roman, they'd have a bonafide new baby face star already. Barrett was close more than once, but they always booked him out of the way for god knows what reason.

It's not a lack of creation. It's a lack of *support*.
 

dakun

Member
There's loads of new talent. They just seem to always get cold feet on pushing them when they don't instantly explode to the moon, unless they're favored. If they'd pushed Dean after the Shield split as the main baby face instead of Roman, they'd have a bonafide new baby face star already. Barrett was close more than once, but they always booked him out of the way for god knows what reason.

yeah they especially wasted Dean's oppertunity to shine after Roman was injured right before the Night of Champions in 2014. I remember the huge pop he got when he came out of that Taxi on the big screen.

It's crazy that after his run against Seth and Cena to close that year he was downgraded to a 7 man ladder match when it came to Wrestlemania 31. (of course after he had to job to Kane and Big Show during the Rumble)
 

sora87

Member
They have three upper midcard/main event guys out now in Cena, Orton and Rollins and the only 'new' guy in the main event scene is Ambrose. A transitional phase, if you will. They still aren't putting anyone anywhere else they do not deem fit. The Mania scene is a 46 year old Champion facing an active performer, a part-timer facing an active performer, and a guy in his 50's wrestling a non-wrestler in his late 40's. If there was ever a time to push new people, it's now, but they don't.

And they had many, many more stars and name brand in those days. Completely the opposite now because of lack of creating new guys in the past ten plus years.

Maybe they know if the midcarders get a show to go big and develop major story lines they'd easily outshine the upper card.
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
yeah they especially wasted Dean's oppertunity to shine after Roman was injured right before the Night of Champions in 2014. I remember the huge pop he got when he came out of that Taxi on the big screen.

It's crazy that after his run against Seth and Cena to close that year he was downgraded to a 7 man ladder match when it came to Wrestlemania 31. (of course after he had to job to Kane and Big Show during the Rumble)

The fuck-up after The Shield ended was that they wanted to get Roman over... but fucking Dean was the only one who gave a shit about Seth's betrayal. Roman just segued into a weird feud with The Authority, while Ambrose got the full on blood feud.

But the truth is Ambrose works better in the spot solely because he doesn't look, or act, like a main eventer. The dude is the scrappy underdog against guys like Lesnar, so crowds WANT to see him prevail. Course, the WWE has a tank in Reigns and books him as a guy who gets his ass kicked constantly. So fuck knows.

That said, Ambrose is going to walk out of Mania a God damn fucking star after his Lesnar match. Whether he wins or not. The WWE doesn't have nobodies fight Lesnar on PPV, that shit is reserved for the upper guys. So Ambrose is all but guaranteed a title run at somepoint this year.
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
Yeah Raw was horrific at the time though. If the brand split makes one show good at the expense of the other, then it can't really be considered a success.

People also forget that the Smackdown Six (and Brock) made that show good. Rest of it was... not good, at all. Selective memory ignores shit like Dawn Marie fucking Torrie's father into the grave.
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
Those dumb storylines had everything to do with Stephanie taking over creative and was bound to happen regardless of the brand split.

Heyman was head writer of Smackdown at the time.

His Smackdown was never great TV, he just had the Smackdown Six, Brock and Haas/Benjamin to cover over how much shit there was also going on.
 
Heyman was head writer of Smackdown at the time.

His Smackdown was never great TV, he just had the Smackdown Six, Brock and Haas/Benjamin to cover over how much shit there was also going on.

During the time with Torrie Wilson's Dad, Zach Gowan, Mr. America, Sable + Linda +Vince love triangle was definitely Steph as head writer. Heyman was out by early 2003 I believe.

Not the greatest source but I do remember reading Steph taking over around this time.

Although the exact timeline is a little sketchy, Heyman’s official tenure as head writer for Smackdown lasted between July 8th 2002 and February 27th 2003, approximately (although he stayed on as a consultant until 2005).
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
During the time with Torrie Wilson's Dad, Zach Gowan, Mr. America, Sable + Linda +Vince love triangle was definitely Steph as head writer. Heyman was out by early 2003 I believe.

Not the greatest source but I do remember reading Steph taking over around this time.

Although the exact timeline is a little sketchy, Heyman’s official tenure as head writer for Smackdown lasted between July 8th 2002 and February 27th 2003, approximately (although he stayed on as a consultant until 2005).

Huh. The more you know.

ETA - Although it ignores that Brock got a monster fucking push BEFORE he got to Smackdown. HHH may have buried him in the long run, but WWF was all behind Brock from the get go.
 

DeathyBoy

Banned
Uhhhh you don't want to watch that raw

The Steiner vs HHH feud was one of the most hilariously warped things I've ever seen. It turned into a man on man porno without the sex at points.

hhhsteiner2.jpg
 
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