Royal Rumble

[Brian Fowler]

Are we just ignoring that every single show on television except the NFL, basically (and maybe MLB) is getting lower ratings than it (or shows in the same basic slot) did 8 years ago?

[Josh Mann]

Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, and Gonzalez gotta miss the point entirely. 

[scraylo187]

Brock vs. Show might have been the most realistic pro wrestling match I've seen in ages. I loved it. Bad guy just starts murdering the good guy with chairs, good guy gets one solid shot in, gets his ass kicked with more chairs. I had a fight with a bully that went just like this in 8th grade, except it was lockers and not chairs. 

 

I'm fine now. Completely fine.

 

I guess the Daniel Bryan silver lining for me is that he's the best wrestler in the world. They're not gonna push him to the moon but they won't fire him. He'll make comedy tag teams, feuds with cults, feuds with Los Matadores completely awesome, every week. And he never seems to check out like Punk does. Instead of 'clobbering time' Punk just needs to announce how many days he has until his contract is up, because I haven't seen a guy that wanted to be somewhere less since Bret showed up on Nitro.

 

Watched the Rumble with about 30 people, and when Roman did his crazy floor punch power up like Mega Man X finding new armor, you could hear everyone's breath sort of leave their body like a 14 year old finding the only copy of Tiffany Amber Theissan's sex tape in 1995. Dude is going to be huge. 

 

This Rumble felt more like the late 80's/early 90's Rumbles when you just sat around waiting for Hogan to win than they have in recent years, even the ones where Cena shows up at 30. Not a great show.

[Casey]

 

 

Did something happen with Daniel Bryan outside of the wrestling bubble that could prove that he can draw in the casuals like Batista can? 

 

I don't know that I've ever heard the name "Dave Batista" uttered on Sportscenter. There's a start.

 

 

You mean this?

 

If that's the case then we should fire everyone on top, and hire every artist that was on the ESPN Jock Jams albums.

 

You still haven't given a reason why the "casual" fan knows Batista more than they do Daniel Bryan in the year 2014. How about a legitimate answer instead of "you didn't like the teaser?!" At least try and troll properly.

[Gonzalez]

Are we just ignoring that every single show on television except the NFL, basically (and maybe MLB) is getting lower ratings than it (or shows in the same basic slot) did 8 years ago?

 

Shhhhhhhhh... Don't bring that up. Just keep yelling "WCW" "Vince Russo".

 

 

 

You still haven't given a reason why the "casual" fan knows Batista more than they do Daniel Bryan in the year 2014. How about a legitimate answer instead of "you didn't like the teaser?!" At least try and troll properly.

 

It's pretty simple by the end of 2014 thanks to GOTG Batista's casual awareness will be up 90%. While, DB's awareness is only the wrestling minority, and niche College basketball fans.  

[RandomAct]

Btw, someone mentioned Reigns earlier, and not getting the love.  I'm in the same boat.  I see nothing special about the dude.  I'd take Big E over him in a heartbeat.

[Fallacy!]

See Triple H, now you've gone and pissed off Dewey.

 

[Hooker]

If that's the case then we should fire everyone on top, and hire every artist that was on the ESPN Jock Jams albums.

How's their ring work?

[Petey]

Are we just ignoring that every single show on television except the NFL, basically (and maybe MLB) is getting lower ratings than it (or shows in the same basic slot) did 8 years ago?

I feel like baseball ratings are much lower now than they were 8 years ago. NBA is probably up though. I think college football is also up.

[Brian Fowler]

 

That wwe facebook poll is now at over 14,000 thumbs down, and still hasn't hit 4,000 thumbs up.

 

Do you have a link?

 

https://www.facebook.com/questions/10151921808686443/

[Mick32]

I haven't bought a PPV in 2 years and figured WTH? They can't fuck this up.

Don't I have egg on my face? All week I've be em thinking about a Punk line from the pipe bomb promo : "Vince is a millionaire that should be a billionaire".

The card was oddly booked. NAO go over clean. Bryan losing clean is fine, assuming you get the later payoff in the Rumble. The Lesnar-Show match was odd. Cena-Orton, while I like both, were set up to fail. And they somehow managed to get that crowd to shit on their two big returns, CM Punk, Roman Reigns, at least until they were fooled into thinking he might win, and fucking Rey Misterio. They have a big pile of money with Bryan and they seemingly don't want it.

[Fallacy!]

 

 

Did something happen with Daniel Bryan outside of the wrestling bubble that could prove that he can draw in the casuals like Batista can? 

 

I don't know that I've ever heard the name "Dave Batista" uttered on Sportscenter. There's a start.

 

 

You mean this?

 

If that's the case then we should fire everyone on top, and hire every artist that was on the ESPN Jock Jams albums.

 

 

I don't know what clip that is because I can't watch it on my phone, but if it's the one where the ESPN anchor mentions the fans were doing the YES chant "made famous by WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan" then yeah, that's a pretty fucking big mainstream deal, don't you think?

 

That alone is more mainstream notoriety than Dave Batista has ever gotten in his life.

[Josh Mann]

See Triple H, now you've gone and pissed off Dewey.

 

 

Kane Dewey. In that sentence, Kane is a verb, y'see...

[Peck]

Best part of tonight was Tortio and the guy that held the WWE title for 400+ days selling for him. Take that Rip Rogers. The Brock thing was cool until the beatdown lasted forever. Kofi also proved why he's still employed with his performance tonight. Can't wait till he finally fails at one of those jumps.

 

Which brings me to something that I was thinking about earlier..

 

Say a... um... overzealous?... fan shoves Kofi off the guardrail there. What does the WWE do? Refs are trained to officiate matches like "shoots". Does the WWE continue that trend and acknowledge that a fan eliminated Kofi? Do they just let him walk back in to the ring casually? Repeat the spot?  Such deep thoughts...

[Super Ape]

"What else are you people going to watch, TNA?"- Vince

This is why video games are a thing.

[Reed]

See Triple H, now you've gone and pissed off Dewey.

 

 

Little Dewey vs. Triple H at Mania.

[Hooker]

Btw, someone mentioned Reigns earlier, and not getting the love. I'm in the same boat. I see nothing special about the dude. I'd take Big E over him in a heartbeat.

It was me. Specifically, I don't mind Reigns, but this absurd push is turning me against him pretty quick.

[Cobra Commander]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not saying that Cena/Orton is quality entertainment. But it doesn't really send much of a message when you spend hundreds of dollars, shit all over the matches, and then keep spending money on the fed. If you don't like it, send them a actual message and stop this Cubs Fan "we'll buy tickets no matter how little the org merits our money" bullshit.

They are probably making people do six-month commitments to the WWE Network to avoid people throwing hissy fits and cancelling their subscription after a PPV that they hate. They've found a way to suck money in from people who hate how Daniel Bryan is being used.

 

and guaran-fucking-tee that the people willing to cross state lines for PPVs are going to whine and take sweet comfort in the WWE network.

 

You can't feed the machine and then bitch about how it functions.

 

Crowds like tonight are the fucking definition of the people mentioned in the Brian Pillman Smart Marks promo. They'd seriously spend their last 20 dollars on the WWE and then yell about how unhappy they are

 

 

They clearly paid to see one guy, and they didn't get what they wanted, so they let the company know it. What's wrong with that?

 

This idea that these anti-status quo fans are just going to keep giving WWE their money is ridiculous. In a given week, that's 1-2 million less people watching RAW on a weekly basis than there was when Cena's run on top first started. The PPV buyrates now are in some cases almost half of what they were during that time period.

 

The idea that people are just going to keep watching and complaining is ridiculous. Millions have tuned the WWE out and if they keep jerking around their fans like this, I'm sure there's more to follow.

 

how much money could I make selling "If Daniel Bryan loses, we complain online" t-shirts?

 

if we're talking ratings, they're in the 3s this year, they were in the 3s last year, the 3s in 2012, the 3s in 2011, They've topped 4 a few times in the last 4 years. They've down to their base by now and it's stayed consistent for a few years. Not going to guess what it proves that their ratings are lower than they were in 2005 when Cena was coming up.. no kidding? no Rock for 8 of 9 years, no Flair, no Michaels, no HHH wrestling, no Undertaker for 48 weeks a year, a change in the focus of the fed towards PG which brings aboard new fans at the expense of others.. of course some of the fans are checking out. That's not a thing that happens because of a lack of Daniel Bryan, it's an economic thing that is no surprise when you have one fed with no solid reason to push for 4s or 5s every week.

 

I just have no reason to take people seriously who keep handing the WWE their money and then bitching that they just got suckered again. The definition of Marks

 

 

But.. they're not continually handing WWE money over and over again. What part about this are you not getting? PPV buyrates now outside of Wrestlemania are roughly half of what they were in 2005-06 when Cena/Orton/Batista all ascended to main event status. That means half the people who used to give them money on a monthly basis are actually NOT doing so anymore. 

 

They also aren't watching RAW anymore. Your excuse really makes no sense. Yes, Flair/Undertaker, etc. are all basically gone, but Cena and Orton were supposed to be the new guys to keep it going.

 

OVER ONE MILLION less people are watching RAW right now every week than they were when the Cena/Orton/Batista era began. Half their PPV audience has vanished since that same time period. I have no clue what the live attendance numbers are like, but from the few I've been to over the last couple years, I can't imagine they were this bad during the mid 00's. Spin these numbers anyway you want, but they're pretty much undeniable proof that your "people are going to keep watching and still complain" talking point is pure horseshit.

 

So?

 

How many products get judged on their numbers compared to 8 years ago as opposed to more recent frames of reference? Bush was President when Cena became a name, people used MySpace back then, lots of stuff changes in 8 years

 

Let's just say that a lot of the one million 2005 people not watching now left the ship a long fucking time ago. They've been pretty consistently between 3 and 3.5 for most of the Obama administration. They bled a bit in the later 2000s and they stablized their audience.

 

The WWE audience are kids and people who swear their next carton is their final carton. What you guys are doing isn't exactly working

 

 

When products are giving you essentially the exact same thing now that they gave you 8 years ago then yes, it is quite fair to judge them on the numbers. If the same two teams played for the Superbowl every year, I don't know that the NFL's ratings would be as ridiculously high as they are now.

 

Dude, the numbers across the board are worse than they were when Cena got on top, and they're worse than they were when Obama took office if that's the barometer you'd rather use. Again, spin it however you wish. The numbers bear out that you're dead wrong in whatever point you're trying to get across.

 

there's not a whole lot of room to compare sports to scripted television. I'd say the best scripted TV comparison to the WWE is the Simpsons. The Simpsons averaged 9 million viewers in 2007, and they're at 6.5 million this year.

 

So it's not like intellectual laziness is exactly confined to just the WWE. Some other shows can stay on the air for years with a steeper decline in their ratings. Fortunately I don't read message boards talking about how the Simpsons really need to shape up before they lose their core fans, so I won't pretend those boards exist.

 

Hm, is there any TV show that was on the air in 2005 and 2014 that has better ratings in 2014? it seems like there'd be a few, right?

[TheVileOne]

See Triple H, now you've gone and pissed off Dewey.

 

LOL, look at Dewey Foley dropping truth bombs and not taking any shit.

[RandomAct]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not saying that Cena/Orton is quality entertainment. But it doesn't really send much of a message when you spend hundreds of dollars, shit all over the matches, and then keep spending money on the fed. If you don't like it, send them a actual message and stop this Cubs Fan "we'll buy tickets no matter how little the org merits our money" bullshit.

They are probably making people do six-month commitments to the WWE Network to avoid people throwing hissy fits and cancelling their subscription after a PPV that they hate. They've found a way to suck money in from people who hate how Daniel Bryan is being used.

 

and guaran-fucking-tee that the people willing to cross state lines for PPVs are going to whine and take sweet comfort in the WWE network.

 

You can't feed the machine and then bitch about how it functions.

 

Crowds like tonight are the fucking definition of the people mentioned in the Brian Pillman Smart Marks promo. They'd seriously spend their last 20 dollars on the WWE and then yell about how unhappy they are

 

 

They clearly paid to see one guy, and they didn't get what they wanted, so they let the company know it. What's wrong with that?

 

This idea that these anti-status quo fans are just going to keep giving WWE their money is ridiculous. In a given week, that's 1-2 million less people watching RAW on a weekly basis than there was when Cena's run on top first started. The PPV buyrates now are in some cases almost half of what they were during that time period.

 

The idea that people are just going to keep watching and complaining is ridiculous. Millions have tuned the WWE out and if they keep jerking around their fans like this, I'm sure there's more to follow.

 

how much money could I make selling "If Daniel Bryan loses, we complain online" t-shirts?

 

if we're talking ratings, they're in the 3s this year, they were in the 3s last year, the 3s in 2012, the 3s in 2011, They've topped 4 a few times in the last 4 years. They've down to their base by now and it's stayed consistent for a few years. Not going to guess what it proves that their ratings are lower than they were in 2005 when Cena was coming up.. no kidding? no Rock for 8 of 9 years, no Flair, no Michaels, no HHH wrestling, no Undertaker for 48 weeks a year, a change in the focus of the fed towards PG which brings aboard new fans at the expense of others.. of course some of the fans are checking out. That's not a thing that happens because of a lack of Daniel Bryan, it's an economic thing that is no surprise when you have one fed with no solid reason to push for 4s or 5s every week.

 

I just have no reason to take people seriously who keep handing the WWE their money and then bitching that they just got suckered again. The definition of Marks

 

 

But.. they're not continually handing WWE money over and over again. What part about this are you not getting? PPV buyrates now outside of Wrestlemania are roughly half of what they were in 2005-06 when Cena/Orton/Batista all ascended to main event status. That means half the people who used to give them money on a monthly basis are actually NOT doing so anymore. 

 

They also aren't watching RAW anymore. Your excuse really makes no sense. Yes, Flair/Undertaker, etc. are all basically gone, but Cena and Orton were supposed to be the new guys to keep it going.

 

OVER ONE MILLION less people are watching RAW right now every week than they were when the Cena/Orton/Batista era began. Half their PPV audience has vanished since that same time period. I have no clue what the live attendance numbers are like, but from the few I've been to over the last couple years, I can't imagine they were this bad during the mid 00's. Spin these numbers anyway you want, but they're pretty much undeniable proof that your "people are going to keep watching and still complain" talking point is pure horseshit.

 

So?

 

How many products get judged on their numbers compared to 8 years ago as opposed to more recent frames of reference? Bush was President when Cena became a name, people used MySpace back then, lots of stuff changes in 8 years

 

Let's just say that a lot of the one million 2005 people not watching now left the ship a long fucking time ago. They've been pretty consistently between 3 and 3.5 for most of the Obama administration. They bled a bit in the later 2000s and they stablized their audience.

 

The WWE audience are kids and people who swear their next carton is their final carton. What you guys are doing isn't exactly working

 

 

When products are giving you essentially the exact same thing now that they gave you 8 years ago then yes, it is quite fair to judge them on the numbers. If the same two teams played for the Superbowl every year, I don't know that the NFL's ratings would be as ridiculously high as they are now.

 

Dude, the numbers across the board are worse than they were when Cena got on top, and they're worse than they were when Obama took office if that's the barometer you'd rather use. Again, spin it however you wish. The numbers bear out that you're dead wrong in whatever point you're trying to get across.

 

there's not a whole lot of room to compare sports to scripted television. I'd say the best scripted TV comparison to the WWE is the Simpsons. The Simpsons averaged 9 million viewers in 2007, and they're at 6.5 million this year.

 

So it's not like intellectual laziness is exactly confined to just the WWE. Some other shows can stay on the air for years with a steeper decline in their ratings. Fortunately I don't read message boards talking about how the Simpsons really need to shape up before they lose their core fans, so I won't pretend those boards exist.

 

Hm, is there any TV show that was on the air in 2005 and 2014 that has better ratings in 2014? it seems like there'd be a few, right?

 

The absolute closest is Big Bang Theory.

[Cristobal]

Did something happen with Daniel Bryan outside of the wrestling bubble that could prove that he can draw in the casuals like Batista can?

Yeah, he popped that big 5.2M viewership spike in Raw in hour one, which proceeded to tail off afterwards.

[Josh Mann]

 

Btw, someone mentioned Reigns earlier, and not getting the love. I'm in the same boat. I see nothing special about the dude. I'd take Big E over him in a heartbeat.

It was me. Specifically, I don't mind Reigns, but this absurd push is turning me against him pretty quick.

 

 

Hell, Reigns is practically WWE's Great Comprimise in the Audience War of 2014. 

 

"OK, the little guy with the beard in spite of what you say you want we think we need to leave him HERE. But we'll give you THIS guy that you say you want! Happy?" 

 

That said, once they break him away from The Shield it'll take some time to develop his spinoff. 

[scraylo187]

 

Btw, someone mentioned Reigns earlier, and not getting the love. I'm in the same boat. I see nothing special about the dude. I'd take Big E over him in a heartbeat.

It was me. Specifically, I don't mind Reigns, but this absurd push is turning me against him pretty quick.

 

 

What absurd push is Roman getting? You might be thinking of the Ryback Rocket Ship that crashed shortly after leaving the atmosphere. 

 

But, sign me up as a huge Big E fan as well. Those two are my THESE GUYS ARE THE FUTURE picks.

[Fallacy!]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not saying that Cena/Orton is quality entertainment. But it doesn't really send much of a message when you spend hundreds of dollars, shit all over the matches, and then keep spending money on the fed. If you don't like it, send them a actual message and stop this Cubs Fan "we'll buy tickets no matter how little the org merits our money" bullshit.

They are probably making people do six-month commitments to the WWE Network to avoid people throwing hissy fits and cancelling their subscription after a PPV that they hate. They've found a way to suck money in from people who hate how Daniel Bryan is being used.

 

and guaran-fucking-tee that the people willing to cross state lines for PPVs are going to whine and take sweet comfort in the WWE network.

 

You can't feed the machine and then bitch about how it functions.

 

Crowds like tonight are the fucking definition of the people mentioned in the Brian Pillman Smart Marks promo. They'd seriously spend their last 20 dollars on the WWE and then yell about how unhappy they are

 

 

They clearly paid to see one guy, and they didn't get what they wanted, so they let the company know it. What's wrong with that?

 

This idea that these anti-status quo fans are just going to keep giving WWE their money is ridiculous. In a given week, that's 1-2 million less people watching RAW on a weekly basis than there was when Cena's run on top first started. The PPV buyrates now are in some cases almost half of what they were during that time period.

 

The idea that people are just going to keep watching and complaining is ridiculous. Millions have tuned the WWE out and if they keep jerking around their fans like this, I'm sure there's more to follow.

 

how much money could I make selling "If Daniel Bryan loses, we complain online" t-shirts?

 

if we're talking ratings, they're in the 3s this year, they were in the 3s last year, the 3s in 2012, the 3s in 2011, They've topped 4 a few times in the last 4 years. They've down to their base by now and it's stayed consistent for a few years. Not going to guess what it proves that their ratings are lower than they were in 2005 when Cena was coming up.. no kidding? no Rock for 8 of 9 years, no Flair, no Michaels, no HHH wrestling, no Undertaker for 48 weeks a year, a change in the focus of the fed towards PG which brings aboard new fans at the expense of others.. of course some of the fans are checking out. That's not a thing that happens because of a lack of Daniel Bryan, it's an economic thing that is no surprise when you have one fed with no solid reason to push for 4s or 5s every week.

 

I just have no reason to take people seriously who keep handing the WWE their money and then bitching that they just got suckered again. The definition of Marks

 

 

But.. they're not continually handing WWE money over and over again. What part about this are you not getting? PPV buyrates now outside of Wrestlemania are roughly half of what they were in 2005-06 when Cena/Orton/Batista all ascended to main event status. That means half the people who used to give them money on a monthly basis are actually NOT doing so anymore. 

 

They also aren't watching RAW anymore. Your excuse really makes no sense. Yes, Flair/Undertaker, etc. are all basically gone, but Cena and Orton were supposed to be the new guys to keep it going.

 

OVER ONE MILLION less people are watching RAW right now every week than they were when the Cena/Orton/Batista era began. Half their PPV audience has vanished since that same time period. I have no clue what the live attendance numbers are like, but from the few I've been to over the last couple years, I can't imagine they were this bad during the mid 00's. Spin these numbers anyway you want, but they're pretty much undeniable proof that your "people are going to keep watching and still complain" talking point is pure horseshit.

 

So?

 

How many products get judged on their numbers compared to 8 years ago as opposed to more recent frames of reference? Bush was President when Cena became a name, people used MySpace back then, lots of stuff changes in 8 years

 

Let's just say that a lot of the one million 2005 people not watching now left the ship a long fucking time ago. They've been pretty consistently between 3 and 3.5 for most of the Obama administration. They bled a bit in the later 2000s and they stablized their audience.

 

The WWE audience are kids and people who swear their next carton is their final carton. What you guys are doing isn't exactly working

 

 

When products are giving you essentially the exact same thing now that they gave you 8 years ago then yes, it is quite fair to judge them on the numbers. If the same two teams played for the Superbowl every year, I don't know that the NFL's ratings would be as ridiculously high as they are now.

 

Dude, the numbers across the board are worse than they were when Cena got on top, and they're worse than they were when Obama took office if that's the barometer you'd rather use. Again, spin it however you wish. The numbers bear out that you're dead wrong in whatever point you're trying to get across.

 

there's not a whole lot of room to compare sports to scripted television. I'd say the best scripted TV comparison to the WWE is the Simpsons. The Simpsons averaged 9 million viewers in 2007, and they're at 6.5 million this year.

 

So it's not like intellectual laziness is exactly confined to just the WWE. Some other shows can stay on the air for years with a steeper decline in their ratings. Fortunately I don't read message boards talking about how the Simpsons really need to shape up before they lose their core fans, so I won't pretend those boards exist.

 

Hm, is there any TV show that was on the air in 2005 and 2014 that has better ratings in 2014? it seems like there'd be a few, right?

 

 

Do you think anyone who watches The Simpsons regularly would try to deny that people have stopped watching because of the declining quality of the show?

 

I do, and I wouldn't. 

 

So where exactly are we now? Are you now arguing that WWE HAS lost fans, but that's okay because everyone else has too? That's a far cry from where we started a couple pages back with EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU IS GOING TO KEEP GIVING THEM MONEY AND COMPLAINING YOU RETARDS.

[Ace]

 

I am trying to figure out just who's bowl of cornflakes Big Show shit in to get that treatment.

I saw on Twitter after that match, someone was talking about him being injured, which would explain why that match went the way it did, which was just really weird. But it was from a 4th or 5th person source so I have no idea if it was true.

 

There seemed to be a lot less pointing at the Wrestlemania sign this year. I think I only saw it happen once (excluding after the match was finished). So that's a nice trend & something to be positive about

 

I REALLY wanted El Torito to do it.