November 2023 Wrestling Talk

[Zakk_Sabbath]

1 minute ago, odessasteps said:

Don't know if I'd be rocking the boat given the ratings trend on your two shows on WBD channels. 

Feel you, but at the same time, that's kind of exactly the reason I'd rock the boat - if I'm WBD and I see one of my properties is struggling, my move shouldn't be to put their biggest competitor into 99% of American homes!

It'd be like if they said "Well, that Justice League movie was the absolute shits huh - let's just pack it in and see if we can get Disney to let us put Spider-Man on Max"

[Elsalvajeloco]

If it's not on the same night as the other shows, what issue is there? 

With Bellator basically being a non factor, UFC's top competition is also on ESPN in the PFL. Granted the UFC has been embroiled in a now decade long class action lawsuit so it wouldn't be a good look, I've never heard the UFC trying to pull a power move to get PFL off ESPN. And the PFL owner/CEO has been talking cash shit about the UFC same as TK with WWE (or sometimes vice versa with Paul and AEW). The UFC is always on Saturday and PFL is always on Thursday or Friday.

[Zimbra]

Shit, TBS still airs Marvel movies I can damn near guarantee they do not care about a conflict of interest with a wrestling show that airs on a d-tier network that they are minority owners of.

[Cobra Commander]

if AEW is still part of the WBD family in September 2024, they should at least ask about the cost of commercials for Dynamite/Collision to air during NXT.

[Norwegian Rudo]

18 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

This actually isn't the first time the WWE had a show on the CW. Remember that Saturday Morning Slam existed for a few minutes.

On one hand, I think that NXT would quickly end up in the same realm as Main Event (formerly on Ion) or 2000s Superstars (formerly on WGN America)

But on the other hand, getting the NXT shows off of widely watched cable would do wonders for being able to keep NXT guys fresh once they get onto shows that people watch. We might see the Triple H version of promoting NXT guys that we never saw in the 2010s because Vince would kneecap all the new guys.

Smackdown started on UPN, which is one the networks that combined to create the CW, and they aired on CW for several years as well.

Also, you do know CW is a broadcast network, right? As in, it's available to far more people than USA is? They currently do dogshit ratings, but I don't see any reason why NXT would drop significantly, and they would have significant potential to grow.

Edit: It's official

‘WWE NXT’ Leaving USA for The CW – The Hollywood Reporter

Edited November 7, 2023 by Norwegian Rudo

[Cobra Commander]

being available and being popular are two different things

Here's the viewership totals for the CW last Tuesday

• Inside the NFL: 285k
• The Swarm: 301k

So I could see the CW believing that NXT, which had 674k people watching last week, could double their ratings on some night of the week.

But wrestling fans are creatures of habit. Not all of them are in markets where the CW is Channel 2 (like my market). Just because it's available doesn't mean they'll actually watch it. Switching networks has shown itself to be a problematic thing for wrestling shows. Like how switching from USA to TNN kicked off a dip in WWF ratings long ago.

The cycle next September is probably gonna be.. big first show, big first rating, high hopes, and then ratings that will be the best on the CW, but still not impress network people enough. Smackdown got dropped by multiple networks despite high ratings for those networks for similar reasons.

Googling a little bit and 2012-14 feels like an eternity ago if they were pulling over a million viewers for a show on Ion. Which wasn't actually good enough and they got bounced anyways.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

50 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Feel you, but at the same time, that's kind of exactly the reason I'd rock the boat - if I'm WBD and I see one of my properties is struggling, my move shouldn't be to put their biggest competitor into 99% of American homes!

It'd be like if they said "Well, that Justice League movie was the absolute shits huh - let's just pack it in and see if we can get Disney to let us put Spider-Man on Max"

The CW is programmed by Nexstar, not WBD. WBD just has an ownership stake and has very little say in day to day operations, as far as I can recall.

So rocking the boat would, in effect, be a great way to implode that relationship, I'd suspect.

[Elsalvajeloco]

Is NXT going to drop? I mean people made a big deal about UFC ratings when they went to FS1 and were used by Fox to bolster FS1 (and for a short time FS2), but that was overblown cause UFC was also doing shows 3 out of 4 weeks a month. If moving a majority of the shows to FS1 didn't do the trick, the oversaturation would have.

They will probably go down a little, but not disastrously down unless WWE just stops giving a damn about NXT (the tv show). Now growing? Yeah, I don't see that one at all. Not in this TV climate and already two other marquee/flagship shows. 

That said, if Raw moves off Monday, we could be seeing a time where Raw could legit be the C show and no longer a priority.

[Cobra Commander]

have they specifically said which night USA Smackdown is going on... just saying that before we get some dumbass swap with Monday Night Smackdown and Friday Night Raw.

[zendragon]

These have been showing up on Youtube 

[dragonzombie]

TKO Q3 Earnings Report

https://411mania.com/wrestling/tko-holdings-q3-earnings-report-449-million-revenue/

The Earnings Call recap

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/tko-q3-earnings-call-recap-wwe-nxt-deal-saudi-arabia-raw-rights-vince-mcmahon

[Cobra Commander]

6 minutes ago, zendragon said:

These have been showing up on Youtube 

the YouTube algorithm is a mysterious thing (that probably spies on your browser history) and sometimes stuff like that pops up when it's been on YouTube for 4 months.

It's more mysterious than Twitter's trend algorithm that probably pushes "Jim Cornette" as a top trend to any users who follow wrestling accounts whenever Jim does something (today it was him chewing out Kane on gun control)

[Zakk_Sabbath]

1 hour ago, Sparkleface said:

The CW is programmed by Nexstar, not WBD. WBD just has an ownership stake and has very little say in day to day operations, as far as I can recall.

So rocking the boat would, in effect, be a great way to implode that relationship, I'd suspect.

 

1 hour ago, Sparkleface said:

 

I kinda remember youve mentioned working in TV before so you would probably know better than me (and yes, @Zimbrathe Marvel movie comparison was a terrible one, I'll acquiesce to you as well). I guess I may have overstated things - honestly, reading some of these replies, I dare admit that it may have been a bit of a wrestling bubble'd suggestion of me.

My thought process was probably a little aggressive, maybe a little Bischoff-esque I admit, but I'm looking at it as a complete outsider wondering why in the last four years they haven't at least attempted to leverage any of Turner's relationships somewhat. Obviously, this is a wild oversimplification, but whoever handles the March Madness thing couldn't try to put in a word at CBS? What the fuck else do they have going on at 11:30 Saturday nights that they couldn't throw BOTB on there to get killed by SNL or whatever?

I don't know, I might be overvaluing broadcast TV in 2023, but I'm thinking back to like Smackdown doing super well in its initial run OTA (and getting hugely popular with low income non cable subscribing families) or how those Strikeforce fights did pretty decent for CBS - this is still considered the semi recent past, right? Like I'm not going back to the OG SNMEs or anything.

 

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

11 minutes ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

My thought process was probably a little aggressive, maybe a little Bischoff-esque I admit, but I'm looking at it as a complete outsider wondering why in the last four years they haven't at least attempted to leverage any of Turner's relationships somewhat. Obviously, this is a wild oversimplification, but whoever handles the March Madness thing couldn't try to put in a word at CBS? What the fuck else do they have going on at 11:30 Saturday nights that they couldn't throw BOTB on there to get killed by SNL or whatever?

In most stations, infomercials or similar in-trade paid programming, which are profit generating for local affiliates. CBS would have to pay a rights fee to AEW to air their program, and tell their affiliates to give up something that makes their station money. That's how you lose affiliates (assuming they just don't decline to carry the network programming and air their infomercials anyway, which outside of prime coverage they can typically do).

Not to mention that ad buys in that timeslot for anything not SNL are pretty paltry, so you're asking for a station to throw money away for... what exactly?

If AEW wanted to leverage relationships and buy the time themselves, they could do that and get in-trade time to try and get the ad buys themselves, but they'd likely lose a lot of money in the process.

[colonial]

From what I can tell, while WBD and CBS both own a 12.5% stake in the CW, they pretty much have no say in programming decisions. CBS pulled its CW affiliations on a few of its owned-and-operated stations earlier this year after the CW agreed to air LIV Golf (CBS has aired the PGA Tour for decades). Honestly, I would expect both WBD and CBS to sell the rest of their CW stake in Nexstar sooner rather than later.

CW is aggressively picking up sports packaging -- they have deals for ACC football and basketball and will air NASCAR Xfinity races next year along with NXT. The CW of old, full of teen soaps and dramas, is long gone. Now it's a hodgepodge of reality fare, scripted imports, sports and "The Chosen." It's now the network for people who don't know what streaming is and how to use it. I'm not sure what NXT's ratings are now on USA, but I could actually see it fall once it moves to the CW.

 

[Elsalvajeloco]

3 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

 

I kinda remember youve mentioned working in TV before so you would probably know better than me (and yes, @Zimbrathe Marvel movie comparison was a terrible one, I'll acquiesce to you as well). I guess I may have overstated things - honestly, reading some of these replies, I dare admit that it may have been a bit of a wrestling bubble'd suggestion of me.

My thought process was probably a little aggressive, maybe a little Bischoff-esque I admit, but I'm looking at it as a complete outsider wondering why in the last four years they haven't at least attempted to leverage any of Turner's relationships somewhat. Obviously, this is a wild oversimplification, but whoever handles the March Madness thing couldn't try to put in a word at CBS? What the fuck else do they have going on at 11:30 Saturday nights that they couldn't throw BOTB on there to get killed by SNL or whatever?

I don't know, I might be overvaluing broadcast TV in 2023, but I'm thinking back to like Smackdown doing super well in its initial run OTA (and getting hugely popular with low income non cable subscribing families) or how those Strikeforce fights did pretty decent for CBS - this is still considered the semi recent past, right? Like I'm not going back to the OG SNMEs or anything.

 

I remember EliteXC only did a couple shows on CBS (one featuring future WWE talent Shayna Baszler ironically). The first one did decent to good for network standards and excellent by MMA standards.  Unfortunately, EliteXC was pretty much out of business not too long after the first show. The Strikeforce shows...I don't remember any of those doing particularly well or at least to make CBS continue to want do more of them. The last one definitely didn't do all that well. I think Fedor vs. Brett Rogers IIRC did pretty okay, but yeah, I don't remember anything blow away. 

Now that Bellator show featuring Fedor's retirement and really nothing else major this past summer....that was an utter failure on all fronts. Then again, given that they just cancelled Bellator and all combat sports including boxing which has been on Showtime since 1986, they had pretty much thrown in the towel on Bellator. I think Bellator was hurt by the fact that both UFC and the aforementioned EliteXC which gave way to Strikeforce being on Fox and CBS respectively pretty much made being on network TV not all that special. The UFC shows on ABC as few and far between as they've been are good but nothing spectacular. Hell, I believe PFL had a show on NBC one afternoon. I believe it was one of those NYE shows they did from the Hulu Theater or whatever the hell they called it at the time. So they basically went against a bunch of major bowl games so nobody watched. 

I definitely agree that Turner Sports should be leveraging the March Madness thing a bit as well as the NBA playoff and MLB playoffs to help AEW, but it's tough in a world where pro wrestling has been slotted at a certain position. For one, so much is about satisfying advertisers. Second, the amount of shoulder programming and unnecessary auxiliary stuff makes it very difficult to fit wrestling in. You need to block out 2 1/2-3 hours for a game. You have to an hour long pregame show and a 15-30 minute wrap around post game show. That's your ENTIRE prime time lineup.

[colonial]

The week before All In at Wembley, Saraya appeared on a few UK morning shows, did a full media blitz for the British press and, along with Paul Wight, did a "compare UK and U.S. snacks" video for a YouTube page. Yes, Saraya is British, a good speaker and has the "riches to rock bottom and back" story that sells, but this is something AEW needs to be doing with their wrestlers regularly.

The NHL airs on TNT -- why isn't Chris Jericho (son of an ex-NHL player) or even Anthony Bowens (whose father was "America's foremost hockey fight expert") dropping by the pre-game show to give predictions and whatnot? Why not make 1-2 AEW regulars part of a team of celeb prognosticators for March Madness (one could be a legend like Sting or Jericho, while the other could be MJF or Britt Baker)? Even if it's not TV, you could do something similar with the streaming crowd, those who watch everything on TikTok or YouTube. 

 

[Greggulator]

I want the James Mitchell cocaine bit ruins NWA on CW and WWE snakes it away to be as true as anyone else but there is absolutely no way that happened.

WWE and CW are both owned by publicly traded companies. The CW is 75 percent owned by Nextstar if you want to quibble and Nextstar is a soulless media company (and not some religious group.) 

Have you ever bought a house or a car? Do you remember how much insane work goes into all of it before you and the old owner come to an agreement on the price and who has to pay for what things need to be fixed while the real estate brokers and a bunch of other people are involved? NXT going on CW is going to be that but about 500 times more complicated. And, also, since both companies are on the stock exchange (publicly traded), there are also all kinds of regulations you have to tend to for these sorts of deals. If the rules aren’t followed it’s really easy to get sued. 

The announcement came out the same day TKO (the WWE’s corporate owner) made its first public statements telling everyone how much money they made the past few months. That is not an accident. Timing big announcements on the same day a company tells the public how it is doing financially (earnings call day) is pretty commonplace. It is a sign that this has been in the works for a really long time.

Billy Corgan is an idiot. And a narcissist. Sure, I like a few songs on Gish and Siamese Dream like anyone else who went to high school in the 90s and had exposure to an alternative rock station. But he’s not a business owner. He is not an executive unless you count bossing around James Iha or seeing how much Zwan merchandise is left in the warehouse as an executive skill. 

My very strong hunch is that Corgan had a meeting with a CW executive who is a fan of his music, since the CW exec knows they want to get into sports and they had a possible thing going on with NXT, and they nodded and smiled and wished Corgan luck and since he is a maniac without any experience he went and told some wrestling journalist they had a deal in the works and whoever wrote up the article has no clue how any of this works (or how to call the Nextstar media relations team so they could say ‘this is not true’) and wrote it like it was fact and not some insane Billy Corgan delusion.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

1 hour ago, Greggulator said:

He is not an executive unless you count bossing around James Iha or seeing how much Zwan merchandise is left in the warehouse as an executive skill.

This is a safe space, right? We're all friends, right? We can make embarrassing confessions, can't we?

I had a crush on James Iha. In fairness, I was 13 and hadn't realized what a colossal dork Billy Corgan was yet, or how much more of a dork James Iha was to be bossed around by him, or how my tastes needed to develop, but... look we all make mistakes when we're 13, right?!

[Zakk_Sabbath]

10 minutes ago, Sparkleface said:

This is a safe space, right? We're all friends, right? We can make embarrassing confessions, can't we?

I had a crush on James Iha. In fairness, I was 13 and hadn't realized what a colossal dork Billy Corgan was yet, or how much more of a dork James Iha was to be bossed around by him, or how my tastes needed to develop, but... look we all make mistakes when we're 13, right?!

Listen, you could've done a lot worse than Iha in that band

 

[Zakk_Sabbath]

4 hours ago, zendragon said:

These have been showing up on Youtube 

I forgot to respond to you earlier, but I randomly got Mick Foley's recommended to me just the other night, along with a bunch of episodes of that WWE lost treasures show - are those any good? I feel like it's probably just a lot of shit they've got in the warehouse that they plant elsewhere

[Greggulator]

1 hour ago, Sparkleface said:

This is a safe space, right? We're all friends, right? We can make embarrassing confessions, can't we?

I had a crush on James Iha. In fairness, I was 13 and hadn't realized what a colossal dork Billy Corgan was yet, or how much more of a dork James Iha was to be bossed around by him, or how my tastes needed to develop, but... look we all make mistakes when we're 13, right?!

I know a woman who went out on a few dates with him. They lived in the same neighborhood in Brooklyn and they were on the same dating app. She said he was kinda dumb but really nice and she could not resist the ability to tell people “You know that guy James Iha from Smashing Pumpikns? Well…” 

[zendragon]

14 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

@Zimbra@Norwegian Rudothank you guys.

Man, "Sinister Minister ruins NWA's TV deal (owned by Billy Corgan) by doing cocaine on PPV" is the kind of thing that would make someone's head explode if you told them that 5-15 years ago.

Previously unsaid sentences in the history of the English language 

[zendragon]

7 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

I forgot to respond to you earlier, but I randomly got Mick Foley's recommended to me just the other night, along with a bunch of episodes of that WWE lost treasures show - are those any good? I feel like it's probably just a lot of shit they've got in the warehouse that they plant elsewhere

The show where triple H offers people money for Andre’s boots or what ever?  Seems very scripted like a lot of “reality “ shows

[Log]

@Greggulator pretty much nailed it. 
 

I have a friend who’s involved with a wrestling company who’s been talking to CW. He said a couple weeks ago, when the news of an NWA deal broke that it was for a reality-type show. He said CW was fishing for wrestling content. He also felt that they were most-likely talking with WWE and were holding off any decisions on adding any in-ring wrestling programming until they knew what they’d have with them. 
 

Now, the cocaine thing may have lost Corgan his deal, but it was in no way related to NXT ending up there. That was in the works for a while before that.