The Ratings Thread - a lot of people watched wrestling on Super Tuesday, sort of

[ColePens]

I'm very interested to see where Raw goes. I love Becky to death. She cannot drive a whole 3 hour show. People will just watch her parts on YT. Seth is dying. Fiend/Roman/Lesnar/Cain/etc are all on SD.

I'm very interested to see where Raw ends up in 2-3 months. And the funny thing is... you had chances to build stars on top of stars. Burying Kofi in 6 seconds and then having him beat AJ, once again, makes multiple people look bad.

 

[Cor]

I'm very interested to see where Raw goes. I love Becky to death. She cannot drive a whole 3 hour show. People will just watch her parts on YT. Seth is dying. Fiend/Roman/Lesnar/Cain/etc are all on SD.

I'm very interested to see where Raw ends up in 2-3 months. And the funny thing is... you had chances to build stars on top of stars. Burying Kofi in 6 seconds and then having him beat AJ, once again, makes multiple people look bad.

Can we talk about SmackDown's expected roster though?

Men Singles:
Brock Lesnar (part-time)
Braun Strowman
Roman Reigns
Bray Wyatt
Ali
Elias
Cedric

Women's:
Lacey Evans
Sasha Banks
Bayley
Kabuki Warriors

Tag Team:
New Day
Revival
Luchas
Heavy Machinery

Woof. Like there are all of the FA's, and perhaps the RAW list wasn't ordered in the exact picks like SD was, but based on that, this is the core. Maybe you add in guys like Buddy, Andrade, AOP, Uso's, but overall, nothing game changing.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Smackdown is just going to be Raw 2.0 again. It’s going to suck.

 

[Reality Check]

AEW first two shows is also just magnifying how poor of a quality SD and RAW are.

so yeah, the key wrestling demographic is going to tune out.

I can only speak for myself but I haven't been impressed by either AEW show. People are geeked because it's non-WWE. I'll give it another month in hopes that it will improve.

As for Smackdown they won the demo for Fox. That's what they're looking for.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

I can only speak for myself but I haven't been impressed by either AEW show. People are geeked because it's non-WWE. I'll give it another month in hopes that it will improve.

As for Smackdown they won the demo for Fox. That's what they're looking for.

That isn't all they are looking for lol they want to be above what Smackdown was doing on USA. That is a ridiculous drop in 1 week regardless. Curious what it is you don't like about AEW as you are definitely in the minority....I think it's pretty unfair to say people only like because it isn't WWE also.

 

[GKJ]

NXT not being included takes a lot of the intrigue away

 

[Reality Check]

That isn't all they are looking for lol they want to be above what Smackdown was doing on USA. That is a ridiculous drop in 1 week regardless. Curious what it is you don't like about AEW as you are definitely in the minority....I think it's pretty unfair to say people only like because it isn't WWE also.

Fox is looking anywhere between 2-3 million total viewers. That's pretty reasonable. What they care about, as most networks are, is the demo.

I don't want to sidetrack this thread but I think AEW not having any affiliation with WWE is pretty significant. TNA had already been around for a few years and had stink on it prior to joining Spike. Yet they still drew the same numbers that AEW currently has right now for a number of years.

Case in point:

I'm familiar with most of the talented after seeing them in ROH and other promotions. Frankly we can say this is ROH with financial support. Just the amount of praise i'm reading and hearing in contrast to what I've actually watched isn't matching up. Allin/Havoc sure wasn't it. Young Bucks are the Young Bucks and you either like them or you don't. Cody Rhodes versus Jericho is a hard no. Jon Moxley sure as hell feels like the same old Dean Ambrose that people were complaining about.

AEW deserves time and I will give them that. It's not to say that I have even disliked anything so far. Just don't really get the hype.

 

[Jussi]

Fox is looking anywhere between 2-3 million total viewers. That's pretty reasonable. What they care about, as most networks are, is the demo.

I don't want to sidetrack this thread but I think AEW not having any affiliation with WWE is pretty significant. TNA had already been around for a few years and had stink on it prior to joining Spike. Yet they still drew the same numbers that AEW currently has right now for a number of years.

Case in point:

I'm familiar with most of the talented after seeing them in ROH and other promotions. Frankly we can say this is ROH with financial support. Just the amount of praise i'm reading and hearing in contrast to what I've actually watched isn't matching up. Allin/Havoc sure wasn't it. Young Bucks are the Young Bucks and you either like them or you don't. Cody Rhodes versus Jericho is a hard no. Jon Moxley sure as hell feels like the same old Dean Ambrose that people were complaining about.

AEW deserves time and I will give them that. It's not to say that I have even disliked anything so far. Just don't really get the hype.

Talk about living up to one's username...

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Fox is looking anywhere between 2-3 million total viewers. That's pretty reasonable. What they care about, as most networks are, is the demo.

I don't want to sidetrack this thread but I think AEW not having any affiliation with WWE is pretty significant. TNA had already been around for a few years and had stink on it prior to joining Spike. Yet they still drew the same numbers that AEW currently has right now for a number of years.

Case in point:

I'm familiar with most of the talented after seeing them in ROH and other promotions. Frankly we can say this is ROH with financial support. Just the amount of praise i'm reading and hearing in contrast to what I've actually watched isn't matching up. Allin/Havoc sure wasn't it. Young Bucks are the Young Bucks and you either like them or you don't. Cody Rhodes versus Jericho is a hard no. Jon Moxley sure as hell feels like the same old Dean Ambrose that people were complaining about.

AEW deserves time and I will give them that. It's not to say that I have even disliked anything so far. Just don't really get the hype.

Fox is most definitely not looking at “anywhere between 2-3 million viewers.” They believe they can do a substantial amount more than what Smackdown on USA was averaging (2.1m or so). The 18-49 demo isn’t even double from what they were doing on USA either. The initial report was that they wanted at least 3-million once it leveled out.

 

[Reality Check]

Fox is most definitely not looking at “anywhere between 2-3 million viewers.” They believe they can do a substantial amount more than what Smackdown on USA was averaging (2.1m or so). The 18-49 demo isn’t even double from what they were doing on USA either. The initial report was that they wanted at least 3-million once it leveled out.

Not according to the podcast above with a vice president of Fox Sports. That was released just this week no less.

As we know with Dave Meltzer's information..."things change".

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Not according to the podcast above with a vice president of Fox Sports. That was released just this week no less.

As we know with Dave Meltzer's information..."things change".

I saw a transcript of it. It was a lot of comparison to what they were achieving on USA and how they believe they can see a big improvement from what they were getting on USA


I just don’t think you’re paying a billion dollars for the rights and hoping for “anywhere between 2-3 million.” I have very little doubt in my mind that we just saw Smackdown get close to the minimum Fox would be okay with. The problem is this is just week two.

 

[Emperoreddy]

I'm very interested to see where Raw goes. I love Becky to death. She cannot drive a whole 3 hour show. People will just watch her parts on YT. Seth is dying. Fiend/Roman/Lesnar/Cain/etc are all on SD.

I'm very interested to see where Raw ends up in 2-3 months. And the funny thing is... you had chances to build stars on top of stars. Burying Kofi in 6 seconds and then having him beat AJ, once again, makes multiple people look bad.

Who is Becky even feuding with on that show? Charlotte? Ember is potentially out for a year. Do people really want another feud with Bliss?

 

[GKJ]

Who is Becky even feuding with on that show? Charlotte? Ember is potentially out for a year. Do people really want another feud with Bliss?

Seems like she’s feuding with Asuka. At some point Nia Jax comes back too

 

[Jussi]

Seems like she’s feuding with Asuka. At some point Nia Jax comes back too

Damn Debbie Downer...

 

[WingsMJN2965]

That is a ****ing SCARY number drop. I thought it would sustain one more week with the draft being special.

It's clear as day IMO-
1. People are very upset how wrestlers are treated like kofi and bray.

2. Wrestling fans do not give a **** about part timers.

3. People gave wwe another chance and almost 1m turned back around and said **** no.

I mean, a 25% drop after they stopped promoting Hogan/Flair/Austin/Taker/Rock indicates they do care about the part timers/legends.

Honestly, I don't think people could give a shit about how wrestlers are treated if the overall product were good.

Don't think there's any one reason people are tuning out for, just an overall dog shit product. Though I do think Bray's booking was the, "Last straw", of sorts for a lot of people.

 

[ColePens]

I mean, a 25% drop after they stopped promoting Hogan/Flair/Austin/Taker/Rock indicates they do care about the part timers/legends.

Honestly, I don't think people could give a **** about how wrestlers are treated if the overall product were good.

Don't think there's any one reason people are tuning out for, just an overall dog **** product. Though I do think Bray's booking was the, "Last straw", of sorts for a lot of people.

I will argue the f*** out of this. If you build stars appropriately, everyone can feel bigger than they are. WWE's main issue for probably 15+ years. Started with Cena then Reigns/Lesnar. They are so hell bent on 1 draw. Everyone is sacrificed. We had MANY chances to build Bray, Rusev, Cesaro, Rollins, Ambrose, etc. Almost even failed to deliver on DB. Multiple times they had chances to do this. The most recent is just one of our probably 50 examples.

Kofi loses in 6 seconds making him look utterly meaningless. Kofi beats Joe, Ziggler, Orton along the way. Kofi beats AJ the next week. Now.... Kofi, Ziggler, Orton, AJ, Joe all do not feel special. Lesnar does. Who is taking Lesnar down? A guy who never wrestled a WWE match yet. It's the biggest biggest biggest WWE issue of all time.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

RAW

H1 - 2.521m
H2 - 2.318m
H3 - 1.997m (holy shit lol)


They had a .63 18-49 demo for hour 3.

 

[KaseMeOutside]

RAW

H1 - 2.521m
H2 - 2.318m
H3 - 1.997m (holy **** lol)


They had a .63 18-49 demo for hour 3.

This was my first time watching the full show love in a long time and I probably would have changed it after Becky's horrible promo.

That was the thing for me, the wrestling was OK. Nothing great, nothing bad but f*** the promos are just trash. Becky, Braun, Rollins, all supposedly top people...bad acting left and right. Braun's promo I just heard Vince the whole time

 

[GKJ]

Kairi and Asuka gonna get blamed since Nattie and Lacey had the highest rated segment last week

 

[M.C.G. 31]

I think it also speaks to Seth/Wyatt. Wyatt was never a draw historically and Seth has had poor quarter numbers since Dave started getting them. They advertised the FFH, they told us Seth was gonna go after him... and it still fell below 2.

 

[Cor]

RAW

H1 - 2.521m
H2 - 2.318m
H3 - 1.997m (holy **** lol)


They had a .63 18-49 demo for hour 3.

When was the last time RAW fell below 2M viewers?

 

[KaseMeOutside]

I think it also speaks to Seth/Wyatt. Wyatt was never a draw historically and Seth has had poor quarter numbers since Dave started getting them. They advertised the FFH, they told us Seth was gonna go after him... and it still fell below 2.

Seth is death

 

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

The ratingsslayer

 

[M.C.G. 31]

When was the last time RAW fell below 2M viewers?

April 29, 3rd hour. Before that it was an early December edition for the 3rd hour (not counting holiday shows).

 

[M.C.G. 31]