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Vince Russo - Where are the casual fans?

16K views 154 replies 90 participants last post by  jim courier 
#1 ·
Vince Russo on his latest podcast talked about Casuals leaving in droves, WWE catering to wrong audience. He compares ROH, NXT, TNA, LU, NJPW and RAW.

Its a very good listen. I uploaded for easy streaming. Just click and play.

https://www.iradeo.com/station/136374

Post your opinion in this thread.
 
#2 ·
Going three hours was suicidal. I honestly think if there is ever a Rise and Fall of WWE DVD this would be a major factor. Going 3 hrs has meant all the casuals and those who give the show a try are exhausted and give up leaving nothing but the WWE hardcore fans (who themselves are not happy). The result is that the fanbase will ever dwindle each year as hardcore fans die or get new hobbies.
 
#4 ·
3 hours was putting short term profits over long term health of the company big time. they wanted that extra hour and so did usa. it helped with their network deal which vince over valued by a few hundred mill.

but in the long term we now have a 3 hour show that is boring and tedious to watch. old fans are leaving like you said.

and good luck convincing new fans to get invested in a 3 hour weekly show that isn't sports. its to much for everyone.
 
#3 ·
"The vanilla midgets and their neckbeard fans scared them away, bro." :russo
 
#10 ·
3 hours SHOULD have been perfect for them, especially with how talented the roster is.

We've seen them have great 3 hour shows, where the show flows from start to finish. We got a month or so ago, hailed as one of the best Raws in months but since then we've been given the lackluster stuff we tend to see. The problem is, the good Raws are so few and far between that it's not good enough to keep viewers.

They have 3 hours to get superstars over, give them some personality, backstage promos, ALOT of time throughout the weeks and months to sit down and plan storylines in advance for their 20+ superstars on the main roster and stick with it. The more superstars you have over, the more money your company is going to make.

Unfortunately, they use the 3 hours for the WRONG reasons. They open the show with the main event and then everything inbetween sort of just doesn't matter bar one or two matches between superstars the fans care about but they're usually meaningless matches that the fans ultimately don't care about.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I know a couple of people who are just 'casual fans' both of whom have stopped watching recently.

The reason being from both parties,
Is that the show is just boring.

They are both Roman Reigns fans
They both are willing to pay money to watch PPV's
and they are both certainly still open to watching again in the future.

BUT They both said the same thing which is the show is just boring and that the only time something of relevance happens is on a PPV.

Bearing mind these 2 people do not know each other and are at very different ages.


As a diehard/Neckbeard/mark/smark whatever you want to call me, I cant disagree with the fact that the show is boring.

Reigns,Ambrose,Usos,New day, Ziggler,Rusev,Sheamus, They all just feel so over exposed.
Creative is just predictable and uninspiring.

I don't feel like i am invested in anyone on the roster either, Everyone just seems so bland and stale.



The whole product just needs a shake and a freshen up, But i certainly cant see it coming this side of Mania.
 
#13 · (Edited)
It was bound to happen when they decided to put the title on a joke like bryan on wrestlemania of all times who couldn't keep it for a month due to injury and the terrible thing is that he had to vacate the title while going out without putting anyone over in the process....same with another one of his unreliable roh peers rollins. It badly hurt the credibility of the company and business as a whole. The transient effect of waves it produced is still not dying off, bigoted smarks are getting full of themselves with every coming week and actually starting to dictate their terms on the leftover casual audience, telling them who to like or not like.

The casual audience who grew up watching attitude era have lost all interest in the current pg product and most have abandoned it and moved on. All that left now are some millennials who're oblivious to attitude era. They're mostly infatuated with fapenense culture and would devour any shit thrown at them from njpw or other indy feds. For them anybody enjoying wwe product is a sheep whereas liking any other indy fed is somewhat "kawaii" basically a new hipster trend and it makes them look like 'cool' kids. They mostly feed off of dirt sheets while belittling the opinion of others. They think they know more about wrestling than anybody on this planet and whoever they like from indies is the absolute "best rasslor in the world" without any flaws. They go around internet overrating and hyping the shit out of their favorites and when these mediocre indy talents fail miserably on wwe main roster then its all vince's & creative's fault or wwe holding them back...lol

Most of young fans coming in have no choice but to ride the bandwagon and become pseudo-smarks.

wwe are pushing themselves in the corner for having to believe that this is the new demographic they have to cater to. Unfortunately that's why we will be seeing more of these no talent charisma vaccums like aj styles in main events until the time comes when people finally wake up and see through this smarky bullshit.
 
#17 ·
Just imagine being a casual fan. You turn on Raw and are met with 3 salesmen trying to sell you a network subcription, their homepage, twitter, various hashtags, more network, 9.99, social media, their sponsors, Smackdown, NXT, Total Divas, Austins next guest and another network subcription.

Then they have to sit thru a 20 minute promo and if they´re not tired by now they still have 2 hour and 30 minutes left before all the "fun" is over. And some people wonder why not casuals in masses comes back every Monday to spend their entire free time that day.

I´m a casual Shark Tank fan. I enjoy it but it doesen´t bother me if I miss an episode either. But there´s no way I would watch 3 hours every Monday, 2 hours every Thursday or wathever day its aired and then have any desire to watch 3 hour pecial episode once every mounth.
 
#58 ·
exactly wwe spends half the time marketing things that only hardcore fans would even think about , but give nothing in the show for them to watch, while throwing tons at casuals who will not use it. giving hrs of tv they are not goig to watch simply because they re not fans enough to sit through. vince has no concept of balance. on top of the fact the overall stories do not catch on for the most part to all fan bases
 
#77 · (Edited)
Russo living in the 90's yet again. Pro-wrestling is just not mainstream any more. Will it be again some day? Probably. These things go in cycles. Probably be at least the best part of a decade though.
No they don't

Wrestling always booms when it follows current mainstream trends and combine it with unique characters, matches and Storylines.

It's no coincidence that wrestling was at it's mainstream height firstly from 1984 - 1991 when Hulk Hogan was the all american superhero. This was at a time when the cold war caused a mass hysteria of patriotism. movies like Rocky (which had a huge influence on Vince McMahon to create wrestlemania), Superman and the various Schwarzenegger films were the biggest things around.

Then after that period ended and WWE refused to evolve things got stale until WCW decided to create Nitro in 1995 and interest grew again. Wrestling evolved and used reality tv like elements (even before reality tv was big!), facets from tv shows/movies like X-Files, Jerry Springer, Crow etc.. to influence their program and it worked.

now wrestling is just about 2 guys going to the ring and having a match with no psychology at all. Hell Most wrestlers today have the same moveset. It's boring to watch.
 
#23 ·
The idiots are out in force here.

"ITZ ALL DA VANILLA MIDGETS FALTS!!!1"

:lol

Here's a thought. Put on an entertaining show. Highlight your Indie darlings by putting them in competitive matches. Highlight your most charismatic workers by giving them the extended promo time. Engage the audience by telling cohesive stories that draw people in, rather than turn them away.

WWE isn't struggling because they're attempting to appeal to wrestling fans, they're struggling because they're not doing it well. If they can come up with engaging programming on a week to week basis, then the people will tune in, hardcore and casual alike.

It's not hard.
 
#27 · (Edited)
So he essentially wants True Detective with wrestling matches? And wasn't The Rock pretty much just a "cocky, arrogant wrestler"? I feel the problem is less to do with characters and more their constant need to take away investment from everyone but one or two people.

Granted there is always a place for "characters" if presented properly, but there's nothing wrong with presenting wrestlers, it's just they tend to do so as "good guy" and "bad guy", but if you look at most singles sports athletes they often split crowds. Some people love Floyd Mayweather, some people hate him. Same with Conor McGregor. Ronda Rousey. At the end of the day the pay off will be a wrestling match, I want invest in if they win or lose, I want a back and forth match that comes down to the wire, just like I do for sports, it's just it's 100% possible with wrestling because it's scripted.

Everyone should have there own identity, and that'll come as long as they don't always try to have to roster consisting of only 6' 6", 280 lbs jacked wrestlers in speedos. Variety, whether it's appearance, size, race, outfit is always good. I've become bigger fans of certain wrestlers just by listening to them on a podcast or by watching them on a show on the WWE network.

I don't know about everyone else, but if I wanted just an amazing story only I'd go watch the plethora of programming on HBO or Netflix. Wrestling offers a rare opportunity to give up all the excitement of a scripted entertainment and a live sporting event at it's very core. It's the reason I tend to not give up on the product even when I don't enjoy it, because wrestling at it's best in fucking exciting.

Wrestling is an opportunity to present to best parts of sports in a scripted format that should allow for the ultimate highs/lows that come with being sports fans.
 
#41 ·
Which millions of wrestling fans did he personally run off? WWE's fans? Nah, he peaked their ratings to an all-time high then he left for WCW. WCW's fans? Nah, for the 3 months that he had control the ratings went up almost a million viewers from where they were previously. TNA's fans? LOL hardly anyone knew that TNA existed, and ratings were actually relatively strong (for their standards) when Russo was writing the show -- He actually gave them their highest rating right below the show when Hogan debuted in 2010
 
#34 ·
You know what other wrestling TV show was 3 hours? Nitro. And where is it now? Gone, like WCW.


Its like...in all of wrestling history, WWE somehow only manages to copy the shitty ideas. Not to mention Nitro was 3 hours at probably the height of wrestling in the late 90s, and it STILL failed. WWE doing that these days...of course it had no chance.
 
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