[Coffey]

It Pat Patterson still around backstage to help with angles & whatnot?

[Starbuck]

I really don't think it matters who they have back there so long as Vince makes the final call. Until that changes, nothing changes.

[Coffey]

Originally Posted by Starbuck

I really don't think it matters who they have back there so long as Vince makes the final call. Until that changes, nothing changes.

That's why I'm asking because it used to be Pat & Vince that did everything & if Pat isn't around anymore, that puts a lot more pressure & workload onto a Vince McMahon that isn't getting any younger. Thus, he might be tempted to push a lot of the shit he usually overseas, onto other people like Hayes or Stephanie.

I know Pat used to lay out all the Rumbles, but when he stopped you could noticeably see the difference in the matches. They made less sense.

[Starbuck]

Vince seems to have his hand in too many things. He can't be a creative genius if he only dedicates say 20% of his time to creative. That's what the creative team is there for, to work on creative for the 80% of the time when he's doing all the other things he has to do but what seems to happen is that Vince does his shit, gets everybody else to do their shit and then when it's presented to him, uses the little time he has dedicated to okaying things to completely change everything and the end result is actual shit for a product. So many former writers have said the exact same thing, former wrestlers, current wrestlers and even Stephanie and HHH have both said it too, that's he's basically spread too thin and that he makes ALL the decisions. Like I said before, until that changes, nothing changes.

[Coffey]

Originally Posted by Walk-In

It Pat Patterson still around backstage to help with angles & whatnot?

Anyone know?

[Wrestlinfan35]

Originally Posted by Starbuck

Rock/Cena was the most promoted match probably in WWE history. It got built for a whole year. A year. WWE didn't even advertise the fact that Brock, HBK, or HHH were going to be on this show and a random 'Oh btw, guess who's here next!!' promo at the top of the hour doesn't count. Ridiculous comparison. Rock/Cena disappointed with a bazillion times the promotion behind it than HHH/Lesnar. The latter, outside the arm break and Raw 1000 segments, has just been a disappointment all together. Why? Because outside of said segments, WWE has failed to follow even the most basic rules of advertising, promotion and their old favorite, feud building/story telling. Advertising it more would have helped more than a little bit. Don't be stupid. If people who don't follow every week don't know top names are going to be on a particular show, they don't watch. Seems like your butthurt/bias/whatever you want to call it against Brock Lesnar, for whatever reason that you have it in the first place, is clouding your judgment when it comes to him.

I wasn't directly comparing it to Rock/Cena, I was just saying it's a similar situation. There's a feud that was, like you said, probably the most promoted match in WWE history. It was still doing decent numbers, 3.5 overruns, but not something you'd expect out of a program of that magnitude. You'd expect better, obviously. Same applies here. Except what differs is the numbers this feud is doing aren't even decent. They're just not good. And oh come on, everyone knows the deal. 6 million+ people watched RAW 1000, they know what's main eventing Summerslam in just a few days. They know it's Lesnar/HHH. You don't need to advertise that they're on RAW because people assume the build up is going to be taking place. I doubt most people are thinking "Oh the match is in two weeks, but nah they won't appear or say a word until then." It's a crummy excuse. The feud is just not clicking, whether it be drawing-wise or storyline-wise, it's not clicking. Hell, the three way feels more like the SS main event than this does.

And I have no bias towards Lesnar lol. I'm entertained by him most of the time when his mouth isn't open. Who doesn't love just watching a beast do his thing. I'm just saying, he's not really been impressive since coming back, in terms of TV ratings. People can put the blame on him being beaten by Cena all they want, but really this started the week after he came back when the first segment drew embarrassingly low.

[#Mark]

I still don't get why they're involving HBK. If he's not working then what's the point of them building a story between Bork/Michaels?

[AthenaMark]

Originally Posted by Starbuck

Rock/Cena was the most promoted match probably in WWE history. It got built for a whole year. A year. WWE didn't even advertise the fact that Brock, HBK, or HHH were going to be on this show and a random 'Oh btw, guess who's here next!!' promo at the top of the hour doesn't count. Ridiculous comparison. Rock/Cena disappointed with a bazillion times the promotion behind it than HHH/Lesnar. The latter, outside the arm break and Raw 1000 segments, has just been a disappointment all together. Why? Because outside of said segments, WWE has failed to follow even the most basic rules of advertising, promotion and their old favorite, feud building/story telling. Advertising it more would have helped more than a little bit. Don't be stupid. If people who don't follow every week don't know top names are going to be on a particular show, they don't watch. Seems like your butthurt/bias/whatever you want to call it against Brock Lesnar, for whatever reason that you have it in the first place, is clouding your judgment when it comes to him.

Rock/Cena disappointed because they made it about Cena and no one wanted to watch that. It was no surprise that the ratings went down when the promos of his started to go away from a dream match aspect and into a whining aspect that featured his played out rap character that no one had seen since 2005 or him trying to talk like an adult all of a sudden when he was apologizing full stop to Edge/HHH/Michaels and everyone else for years. Cena brought the Rock ratings down yet of course, the Rock fans brought the PPV buys through the roof.

Lesnar was paid 5 million and if he doesn't go over Cripple H in some form at Summerslam, it will be the biggest waste of time of 2012 by far.

[Quasi Juice]

Originally Posted by AthenaMark

Rock/Cena disappointed because they made it about Cena and no one wanted to watch that. It was no surprise that the ratings went down when the promos of his started to go away from a dream match aspect and into a whining aspect that featured his played out rap character that no one had seen since 2005 or him trying to talk like an adult all of a sudden when he was apologizing full stop to Edge/HHH/Michaels and everyone else for years. Cena brought the Rock ratings down yet of course, the Rock fans brought the PPV buys through the roof.

Lesnar was paid 5 million and if he doesn't go over Cripple H in some form at Summerslam, it will be the biggest waste of time of 2012 by far.

He will go over HHH at Summerslam for sure. Summerslam will be the moment Lesnar gets built up again as a brutal beast. They are banking on him to draw big at WrestleMania, probably against The Rock.

[Starbuck]

Originally Posted by Wrestlinfan35

I wasn't directly comparing it to Rock/Cena, I was just saying it's a similar situation. There's a feud that was, like you said, probably the most promoted match in WWE history. It was still doing decent numbers, 3.5 overruns, but not something you'd expect out of a program of that magnitude. You'd expect better, obviously. Same applies here. Except what differs is the numbers this feud is doing aren't even decent. They're just not good. And oh come on, everyone knows the deal. 6 million+ people watched RAW 1000, they know what's main eventing Summerslam in just a few days. They know it's Lesnar/HHH. You don't need to advertise that they're on RAW because people assume the build up is going to be taking place. I doubt most people are thinking "Oh the match is in two weeks, but nah they won't appear or say a word until then." It's a crummy excuse. The feud is just not clicking, whether it be drawing-wise or storyline-wise, it's not clicking. Hell, the three way feels more like the SS main event than this does.

And I have no bias towards Lesnar lol. I'm entertained by him most of the time when his mouth isn't open. Who doesn't love just watching a beast do his thing. I'm just saying, he's not really been impressive since coming back, in terms of TV ratings. People can put the blame on him being beaten by Cena all they want, but really this started the week after he came back when the first segment drew embarrassingly low.

6+million people watched Raw 1000, they were advertised as appearing for weeks and when they did they got a very impressive number. The next week what happened? Absolutely nothing. That very clearly doesn't work and if you know anything about even basic marketing principles you would know that out of sight, out of mind. Then they didn't even advertise them for the week after and Shawn Michaels just randomly appears out of nowhere to top it all off. It's an absolute promotional mess and they numbers prove it. It isn't like Brock and HHH are there every week and people just expect them to be on the show like they can with Cena etc. He's a guarantee. Brock/HHH are not. If they want big programs like this to work then they need to let people know what's going on. If they know and still don't tune in because of the storyline direction, then you can call it a fail. And btw, I'm not trying to excuse anything because there is nothing to excuse. They didn't advertise therefore people didn't know therefore they didn't watch. Creatively it has been a disappointment because outside of 2 segments, the arm break and Raw 1000, they were very clearly filling time between now and back then. Ratings wise it has been a disappointment because outside of 2 segments, the arm break and Raw 1000, HHH and Heyman have been carrying things since Brock doesn't appear and when he does and something might actually happen, they don't advertise it. It's not as simple as labeling it a failure because 2 big stars haven't hit the mark every week. How can they when 1 of them is never there and when he is they don't tell anybody, they don't tell anybody his opponent is there and then they don't tell anybody about special appearances by beloved hall of famers either?

And what about the week after that when his segment drew 900,000+ iirc? He hasn't been the ratings monster that somebody like Rock is but he isn't a complete fail, he bumped up the ER buyrate and most likely will give Summerslam a nice bump too provided they pull their head out of their ass and start treating this the way that they should have all along.

Originally Posted by AthenaMark

Rock/Cena disappointed because they made it about Cena and no one wanted to watch that. It was no surprise that the ratings went down when the promos of his started to go away from a dream match aspect and into a whining aspect that featured his played out rap character that no one had seen since 2005 or him trying to talk like an adult all of a sudden when he was apologizing full stop to Edge/HHH/Michaels and everyone else for years. Cena brought the Rock ratings down yet of course, the Rock fans brought the PPV buys through the roof.

Lesnar was paid 5 million and if he doesn't go over Cripple H in some form at Summerslam, it will be the biggest waste of time of 2012 by far.

I know that and I've been saying it since it happened. We didn't get Rock/Cena at Mania, we got Dwayne/John and it didn't do anywhere near as well as it should have in terms of tv ratings of course. It still was a massively successful program financially because at the end of the day, people still wanted to see them go at it. On a substantive level though and as a huge mark for both guys I was highly disappointed with how the feud played out.