[cmpunkisgod.]

Children are simply not a big enough market to make it a viable business. Yet they continue to dumb down and pacify the product to fit the PG-audience. There has simply been no revolution in wrestling for ~a decade and real fans are getting more tired with every complacent RAW.

Heck, it took me 40 minutes to get through monday's RAW and even that I found a chore..

[wwf20112]

You really don't have charasmatic guys anymore. I can't watch raw as I work and that comes first and I dont bother to DVR it. There are things in life that come before wrestling. I doubt I will watch it again and only play the games

[Scrotey Loads]

They had to know that going to 3 hours was going to kill ratings. It's a weekly miracle that I watch the whole show (minus the B.A. Star bullshit; not even a miracle could make me watch that).

But I'm sure AD REVENUE has never been higher! And I guess that's what's important - not ratings - when you're a 66-year-old businessman who's done everything that can ever be done in the world of pro wrestling.

[roadkill_]

I don't want to watch CM Punk. He doesn't look like a wrestler. His promos are annoying as fuck - and I don't mean good heat. Beyond that its not just a kids show now, its a show for dumb kids who need special attention in class.

[WTFWWE]

http://www.gerweck.net/tv-ratings/2006-ratings/


2006 at one point had 4.0+ ratings for 11 weeks. The last time this happened was in 2002! RAW's average rating for the year was the best since 2003 and 2006 managed to pull the averages from 3.6/3.7 everything was pointing to WWE 2006 being the next boom but what the fuck happened? 2007 BOMBED bad and then it was downhill since.

What do you think happened? What would you have done to make 2007 even better in the ratings?


Note: Ratings were getting bad before the Benoit incident so don't mention it.

[roadkill_]

Some remarkable similarities with the end of WCW;

1) Not promoting PPV's, even in the run-in show
2) Going to three hours
3) Bringing in celebs for quick-fixes
4) Bringing in has-beens for quick fixes
5) Killing momentum of guys who are clearly over - Daniel Bryan was the most over behind Rock at WM. Fail.

[Patrick Bateman]

Wrestling is out.

[HOV]

I agree, 2006 had the rise of RVD, Edge and the return of ECW. It all looked rosey. As for 2007, the Great Khali, Chris Benoit, Donald Trump its hard to specify what went wrong.

[TromaDogg]

Originally Posted by Scrotey Loads

But I'm sure AD REVENUE has never been higher! And I guess that's what's important - not ratings - when you're a 66-year-old businessman who's done everything that can ever be done in the world of pro wrestling.

They won't continue to get high ad revenue forever with ratings falling the way they are though. The two go hand in hand.

What makes me laugh now is what Vince said when he was introducing the Attitude Era.

Originally Posted by Vince McMahon

We, in the WWF, think that you, the audience, are quite frankly, tired of having your "intelligence insulted". We also think that you're tired of the same old simplistic theory of "Good Guys VS Bad Guys". Surely the era of "The super-hero urge you to say your prayers and take your vitamins" is definitely, passe.

Basically, most viewers back then felt the exact same way about the show as they do now, WWE recognised this and addressed it and made changes. Now over the last few years, they've got straight back to this bullshit and viewers are tuning out in their droves again. It really isn't difficult to see the connection.

I don't want the Attitude Era back 'as was'....I don't want to see crap like Mae Young giving birth to a hand again, women taking chair headshots from men, anything like that. I do want a show though where there's a point to every guy on the roster being there, where you don't have 'Super Cena' hugging babies snd kissing fat girls, 'Super Sheamus' winning every match with the same move, or even the boring 'Super Punk' that we got for the first half of this year . A show where you have lower card guys featured in backstage segments and a half decent storyline to build them up so that when they come to fight in the ring, the crowd actually gives a shit rather then crap like Hornswoggle being named as the anonymous Raw GM, or that crap on Monday with AJ resigning and being replaced by Vickie. That's truly intelligence insulting to the viewing audience.

Am I, and all the other people who complain each week really asking too much?

[Duke Silver]

The rise of Cena and Batista heavily contributed to the success of 2006, but 2007 was a tough year. Constant injuries, shitty storylines, and the Benoit tragedy. I don't know if it's possible to pinpoint exactly why the WWE started to slide. It's more likely to be an amalgamation of reasons. By that point, people were starting to get tired of Cena and Batisita, Triple H was injured in January, Taker was injured in April, HBK was injured in May, Cena was injured in September, add to that list Kennedy and a few others that slip my mind. Raw was at it's worst and Smackdown had more than a few hiccups.

Basically, the product went to hell in 2007.