[SoupBro]

Maybe the ratings were bad because noone wants to see Punk face Ryback or Cena. Maybe they wanna see Punk face someone good and different. Punk going against 2 supermen isnt interesting.

I always find it funny ppl blame one guy which is usually Punk yet Vinny Mac was advertised for the show, Cena was gonna be on the show and the new guy ppl are saying is a draw in Ryback. They are going against MNF they will never win especially when the demographic that watches wwe also watches the NFL and im pretty sure they would rather watch a live football game and watch Raw on YouTube.

Funny im sure if ratings were great it'll be due to the "only draw" in wrestling Cena or maybe Vinny Mac, hell im sure ppl would say Ryback is drawing the ratingz.

[chbulls1_23]

Wow another shitty week. It's the 3 hours that's killing it. This week would've been a good show if it didn't drag on. Dammit Vince, drop an hour from Raw.

[Tnmore]

If the numbers were good Punk marks would credit him with it thats for sure.
As a critic pointed out Punk has Heyman with him, has had a high feud going with Vince, has had guys like Folly doing promos on his ability and is involved with the three main stars in Cena,Rock and Stone Cold. Even after all that he still cant draw in the numbers. The near 2 years of Punk being shoved down our throats needs to end and soon.

Exactly. If the numbers were high, punk marks would credit that to punk. But it failed to increase and look at all the excuses here.. 3 hrs is too long, poor storylines, Cena, Vince etc.. He has to be top champion but wont take the responsibility for low ratings? even when he is the focus of the show? the main event angle? If good booking is what really makes the difference then why does this guy even need to be the champion? Build a new star instead, perhaps with someone who can actually be a draw with minimal amount push. Fuck punk, enough of this "I've been held back" garbage.

[King_Of_This_World]

Are people really still doing this ridiculous thing of blaming individual wrestlers for poor ratings? Was it Rock and Austins fault that ratings dropped in 2002-03 when they were still the main guys like they were the years before when the ratings were huge? No, of course not.

If Punk and Ryback where in the attitude era it would still be getting monster ratings....because it was the attitude era when the product and roster was far better than it is now.

Its the product, storylines and roster that is the reason less people are watching nowadays, not Punk or Ryback.

[Teh_TaKeR]

Originally Posted by Falkono

Simple because he is to blame...

Everybody knows the end of the show is the most important part of the programme. It is what the show builds towards. It will have an event/cliffhanger that leads into the following show. It will be the main angle in WWE.
People leave during the show as lets be honest sometimes its so bad your go watch something else.
But if the final viewing number is lower then the start or second hour number it means less people wanted to tune in to see the end. The end should be the highest viewed part of the show. If the segment before it lost 1m viewers and the final segment gained 900k viewers tjats still 100k down on the highest point. Thats what is important. People are not tuning in to watch the end in the same volume they once did. Seeing as Punk ends the show I fail to see how people cannot attribute his popularity to that. If Rock ended the show it would be the highest peak in terms of viewership in the show.

So you say he's to blame at the end yet he wasn't the only one in the ring to end the show. Nice logic. Blind haters.

[TromaDogg]

Meh, we all knew before they went to 3 hours that adding the extra hour was gonna cause problems, especially given that most people could only just about manage sitting through the 2 hours of crap they were putting out before. It's not mattering a great which wrestlers they put on the programme at the moment.

Trying to put the entire blame on Punk or anyone else is pointless. WWE Raw itself as a whole is a fundamentally damaged product at this stage. It needs better writing, structure and focus in order to pick itself up again.

[Choke2Death]

Originally Posted by SoupMan Prime

Maybe the ratings were bad because noone wants to see Punk face Ryback or Cena. Maybe they wanna see Punk face someone good and different. Punk going against 2 supermen isnt interesting.

Yeah, right. Like when Punk vs Bryan actually lost viewers when they were heading into their first real feud?

Face it, Punk cannot be blamed for losing viewers from the existing audience during Raw but he can be blamed for failing to bring in a bigger audience from the get-go when he's promoted as the focal point of the show and gets several segments every week.

[The Hardcore Show]

Originally Posted by Choke2Death

Yeah, right. Like when Punk vs Bryan actually lost viewers when they were heading into their first real feud?

Face it, Punk cannot be blamed for losing viewers right now but he can be blamed for failing to bring in a bigger audience when he's promoted as the focal point of the show and gets several segments every week.

So I guess the answer is to have Ryback kill him at Hell in a Cell and never smell a main event again right? Or maybe John Cena can do that because he really needs the the WWE Championship?

[Choke2Death]

Originally Posted by The Hardcore Show

So I guess the answer is to have Ryback kill him at Hell in a Cell and never smell a main event again right? Or maybe John Cena can do that because he really needs the the WWE Championship?

I didn't say a word about Ryback beating him at HIAC or Cena becoming WWE Champion so stop putting words in my mouth. (although I would rather have them as champions because I can't stand Punk but that's a different topic)

[Gamblor]

"If the numbers were good Punk marks would credit him with it thats for sure."

If the numbers were good, Punk haters would never credit him and it would always be someone else, that's for sure.

Here's the fact of the matter, the numbers are just going to keep going down, slowly with Vince around, but still surely. Vince coming back gave it a nice bump, but the numbers are going to follow a downward trend if WWE keeps up with the lazy storylines they produce. Even if they bring Lesnar back for a few weeks, only the first week they advertise Lesnar will see an increase, and then it will keep going down from that number until The Rock comes back. Then it will go down for a few weeks until Mania time rolls around, and then that combined with having Rock, Lesnar, Undertaker, and maybe HHH to go on top of Vince, Cena, and Punk, will we see ratings remain steady as they'll have another starpower to go around throughout the whole show in all the main segments without having to use someone twice. That is when ratings won't be on a downward trend. The other way to keep ratings from going in a downward trend is to come up with creative, interesting storylines that people will tune in and see what happens each week. But until WWE have writers that can do that, or they can find another megastar on the roster, they'll have to rely on these old big drawing super/megastars to bump the numbers up for a week or two.