The W
June 7, 2009 - birthdaybritney.jpg
Views: 178985040
Main | FAQ | Search: Y! / G | Calendar | Color chart | Log in for more!
28.3.24 0422
The W - Pro Wrestling - Why Is No One Is Watching Raw?
This thread has 11 referrals leading to it
Register and log in to post!
Thread rated: 5.48
Pages: 1 2 3 Next
(1158 newer) Next thread | Previous thread
User
Post (41 total)
DirtyMikeSeaver
Bockwurst








Since: 19.5.02
From: Toronto

Since last post: 1592 days
Last activity: 1592 days
#1 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.93
http://411mania.com/wrestling/wwe-raw-rating-slips-to-near-record-low-viewership/

So this is a serious question because I've lurked around 'here' for years and seen the appetite for RAW and WWE in general wane. The last RAW thread got 4 replies.

So why is it that no one is watching? There's no NFL, NBA or NFL, so they can't use that. Is Daniel Bryan and CM Punk that important?

Is it show quality? I mean, I haven't watched much but the shows, but they don't seem that bad.

Personally, I just get turned off that after all these years, it's still seems to be about Triple H and Stephanie. I guess they mean well, but man...



Kevin Kelly: "Mr. Austin, would you like to comment on Wade Keller's Take that endorsing the XFL hurts your anti-authority character?"

Steve Austin: "Oh shit, he actually said that? I thought the boys in the back were ribbing me!"

Kelly: "No, he really said that. Did they tell you the part about you sitting in the stands, looking all skeptical?"

Austin: "AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah... oh man that was too much."
Promote this thread!
DirtyMikeSeaver
Bockwurst








Since: 19.5.02
From: Toronto

Since last post: 1592 days
Last activity: 1592 days
#2 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.93
http://411mania.com/wrestling/wwe-raw-rating-slips-to-near-record-low-viewership/

So this is a serious question because I've lurked around 'here' for years and seen the appetite for RAW and WWE in general wane. The last RAW thread got 4 replies.

So why is it that no one is watching? There's no NFL, NBA or NFL, so they can't use that. Is Daniel Bryan and CM Punk that important?

Is it show quality? I mean, I haven't watched much but the shows, but they don't seem that bad.

Personally, I just get turned off that after all these years, it's still seems to be about Triple H and Stephanie. I guess they mean well, but man...



Kevin Kelly: "Mr. Austin, would you like to comment on Wade Keller's Take that endorsing the XFL hurts your anti-authority character?"

Steve Austin: "Oh shit, he actually said that? I thought the boys in the back were ribbing me!"

Kelly: "No, he really said that. Did they tell you the part about you sitting in the stands, looking all skeptical?"

Austin: "AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Yeah... oh man that was too much."
thecubsfan
Scrapple
Moderator








Since: 10.12.01
From: Aurora, IL

Since last post: 947 days
Last activity: 327 days
#3 Posted on | Instant Rating: 9.42
Show quality, the relative quality of shows - but also show frequency and same-ish feeling. A weekly 3 hour show and 18 Network shows/PPVs (maybe more when you throw in NXT specials) is just kind of numbing. I'll watch the Network shows because I haven't canceled yet, but there's very little in between them you have to watch because they come so frequently.

There are segments on RAW that are very great, but the whole thing feels like a giant time sink. I can barely bother a great match on SmackDown, and I was stunned to find out as many people I follow actually bothered with Tough Enough (though viewers clearly didn't.)



thecubsfan.com - luchablog
Greymarch
Boudin rouge








Since: 24.2.03
From: Toronto, Canada

Since last post: 2144 days
Last activity: 1332 days
#4 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.77
Because it's been mind-bendingly dull?
graves9
Sujuk








Since: 19.2.10
From: Brooklyn NY

Since last post: 1689 days
Last activity: 1449 days
#5 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.32
Just not interested enough in the wrestlers and the story lines besides for Brock and Owens and the authority is a a big turn off that even Rollins can't save. HHH has been cutting opening show promos that last too long for around fifteen years now. The show feels like a chore watching in a three hour format and it is clear that Vince and others are just out of touch these days.

(edited by graves9 on 30.6.15 1830)
wannaberockstar
Frankfurter








Since: 7.3.02

Since last post: 2735 days
Last activity: 198 days
#6 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.18
For me, the three hours are killing it. It's just hard to sit through all of them without flipping around. :\
BigDaddyLoco
Scrapple








Since: 2.1.02

Since last post: 327 days
Last activity: 327 days
#7 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.52
I still watch. I don't really enjoy it though, at least not as much as I feel I should. Cubs is right, it does feel like a giant time dump but it is also impossible to get behind anybody with the start and stop pushes. Of course it's not as simple as that.

If I know Brock isn't on Raw I more or less wait for the Cena challenge/ Owens segments, which has become the main event, and tune out after that. So many guys are just lost at sea right now. We are watching a show where Luke Harper can't even find an lower card feud. There is so much talent on this roster that is just being wasted with nonsensical booking and rehashed storylines. It's just not a fun show and it's probably two and a half hours of annoyance for the half hour of quality sprinkled in.




A lot of other people are having less fun than me if this is accurate, plus there are a lot of other places to get your wrestling fix these days and I've been drifting that way more and more every month.



AWArulz
Scrapple








Since: 28.1.02
From: Louisville, KY

Since last post: 99 days
Last activity: 99 days
#8 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.81
I have pretty much lost interest. I watched the fine Cena Cesaro match the other night but that was it. I turn it on, and usually quickly turn it off,

I've thought a bit about why I have lost interest, especially after reading everyone else and it is similar. I really am uninterested in the chickenshit heel who never seems to do anything himself and always needs help. So while Rollins does a lot of good things, the J &J and Kane presence bores me. Cena, I like watching (yeah, I know, I am one of the few). But I have always liked the mega faces. The crowd reaction sees him as a tweener but he rarely does anything heelish. But I have been given no reason to care about most of the rest of the roster. Why should I care about what R-Truth says or does, or Cesaro or, hell any of the rest. It's Reigns, the Authority, Brock from time to time and Cena. The rest are bit players at best. Let's see if Owens actually rises above bit player status before we assign him much.

But there's the reason. 3 hours. Bellas do their thing against random other women. A tag team I don't care about of singles guys who they couldn't get over goes against those other singles guys who couldn't get over. I KNOW I am supposed to know their names but I don't. Trips or Steph or Kane comes out and talks forever. We recap it all a few times. Finally Reigns or Cena or Rollins comes out and wrestles and we all go home happy?

I'd rather work, frankly.

(edited by AWArulz on 1.7.15 1156)


We'll be back right after order has been restored here in the Omni Center.

That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumbling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy - Swift

Dionysus
Bockwurst








Since: 10.7.11
From: San Francisco, CA

Since last post: 766 days
Last activity: 711 days
#9 Posted on | Instant Rating: 4.53
For me it's four main reasons.

1. A preference for TNA's style, coupled with not having much interest in watching a second wrestling show per week.

2. THREE HOURS + Smackdown, etc.

Back when the Authority Story Arc began I was seriously tempted to start watching. WWE finally seemed to have a good main plotline with compelling villains (the McMahon-Hemsley Regime were the main villains of the WWF golden age after all) and a fresh hero (I'm not a Bryan fan, but at the time I liked his archtype).

But the three hour time commitment was way too much for me to want to dive into. (Also, as someone who grew up watching UPN, I'd feel bad to be watching RAW without watching Smackdown as well.)

3. Lack of faith in WWE to wrap up storylines and maintain continuity. For example, I loved the idea of the Authority as a 1-year storyarc--But, I'm not interested in a multi-season sitcomesque show with the Authority as permanent villains and little continuity or character growth.

4. How they handled the Zack Ryder situation. #RyderorRiot. If they had given him a US title feud for wrestlemania, I probably would have gone to see it.

Overall they could easily fix 4, and in theory could fix 2. Changing 3 and 1 is more tricky, since it would require changing their writing style so much. I am probably not their target audience, so it is understandable why they wouldn't want to do that.

(edited by Dionysus on 30.6.15 1904)
Kevintripod
Knackwurst








Since: 11.5.03
From: Mount Pleasant, Pa.

Since last post: 23 days
Last activity: 4 days
#10 Posted on | Instant Rating: 6.77
A 3 hour RAW with hardly any storylines (and the ones they have being not that great) with most of the matches just thrown out there equals boring.

All the people that have been just wanting good wrestling are getting what they asked for. Great storylines and good soap opera makes very good wrestling, not just good matches thrown together.





"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill
SKLOKAZOID
Bierwurst








Since: 20.3.02
From: California

Since last post: 1692 days
Last activity: 822 days
#11 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.65
I tuned out immediately after the post-WrestleMania Raw and have only watched the free months' PPVs and almost all of the Kevin Owens Raw stuff.

All of it, to me, stems from the Authority storyline. I can't stand it anymore. Even if you go back and watch the Austin/Vince storyline, you see Vince switching it up. It wasn't always perfect ("It was me, Austin!") but you at least had moments where you saw Vince and Austin having to team up occasionally, or Austin/Vince getting rid of each other for a bit to keep things fresh. The Authority can't even stay off of TV for 3 weeks.

Not even Brock can save it, because now he's just being used by the Authority to give them face pops (which the lack of a who-to-cheer-for moral compass also hurts). Let Brock be Brock for Brock's sake, not the McMahon family's.

Owens/Cena is a great storyline, and a lot of it has to do with it being a clash of personalities that isn't entirely driven by a matchmaker, but instead between two ambitious characters: one who's trying to leave a legacy behind and one who's trying to establish one. It's that UFC-style "Who are these people and why are they fighting each other?" stuff Paul Heyman was talking about in that shoot interview a few years back with Ariel Helwani.

There's just no compass. It's hard to care for who the winner is between Seth Rollins and the Authority after the way Rollins' reign has been handled and the static cardboard personalities involved in the Authority.

But hey, maybe WWE just doesn't care about ratings anymore since they're such an international global media juggernaut please retweet and subscribe and like WWE on Twitter/Youtube/Facebook/Tout.

    Originally posted by Dionysus
    3. Lack of faith in WWE to wrap up storylines and maintain continuity. For example, I loved the idea of the Authority as a 1-year storyarc--But, I'm not interested in a multi-season sitcomesque show with the Authority as permanent villains and little continuity or character growth.


It was great when Daniel Bryan was around and was gunning for the World Title there. Everyone had a motivation and you knew who to cheer for. Once Bryan was out and Brock became champion by the end of Summer, it was time to end the Authority storyline because its mission statement had been fulfilled. Bryan was gone, Cena was a fill-in, and Roman Reigns was about to bring in a new era. Clean slate, Sting comes in and helps Dolph, everyone is happy.

But they just couldn't let it go away because they couldn't think of another way to set up conflict, which is pretty sad. You have Rollins and Wyatt already on the roster, Reigns could turn heel (or if they had the balls, Cena could), and they wouldn't need the Authority.

(edited by SKLOKAZOID on 30.6.15 2122)
yamcharulez
Mettwurst








Since: 6.1.02
From: chicago

Since last post: 2158 days
Last activity: 1257 days
#12 Posted on | Instant Rating: 0.22
The fact that it's 3 hours isn't bad the fact that most of that 3 hours is a Triple H / Authority and them recapping it over, and over and over.

I gave up on Raw and Smackdown a long time ago, I just watch the PPV/Events on the network since they do a very good job of recapping weeks of tv into about a two minute video.

The only thing I watch regularly is NXT because they focus on matches and not long drawn out promos. the fact that it's only an hour helps.



Dont say its not worth it, when you can sleep with no fear, that kind of time is worth any thing.- FFX
Big Bad
Scrapple








Since: 4.1.02
From: Dorchester, Ontario

Since last post: 1927 days
Last activity: 1495 days
#13 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.83
    Originally posted by SKLOKAZOID
    All of it, to me, stems from the Authority storyline. I can't stand it anymore. Even if you go back and watch the Austin/Vince storyline, you see Vince switching it up. It wasn't always perfect ("It was me, Austin!") but you at least had moments where you saw Vince and Austin having to team up occasionally, or Austin/Vince getting rid of each other for a bit to keep things fresh. The Authority can't even stay off of TV for 3 weeks.


Austin either beat Vince up or completely humiliated him (cement in the car, making him wet himself, bedpan attack, etc.) at least once every three weeks for about a year and a half straight. In almost two years of the Authority angle, HHH/Steph have allowed their opponents to get one directly over on them maybe....ten times?

* Big Show knocks out HHH
* Bryan attacks HHH on the go-home show before WM30
* The 'Occupy Raw' show where Bryan gets his match with HHH
* Vickie pushes Steph into the mud
* Roman Reigns doctors Steph's coffee
* End of Survivor Series 2014
* End of Wrestlemania 30
* A couple of Sting appearances
* The Shield taking it to Evolution

Vince knew enough to make himself look the fool on a near-weekly basis. HHH and Steph rarely even show anger at their plans going awry, just annoyance. In particular, at least HHH can take a beating from time to time, but Steph never gets any comeuppance since the male wrestlers obviously can't hit her and she always makes a point to talk down to the divas at any opportunity.

After years of Cena "always overcoming the odds" any never making any heel feel like a threat, now we've swung in the opposite direction and the heels are dominant. Since Cena isn't really a face, we've had roughly two months (Bryan's reigns) of a wholly-liked face wrestler as world champion since Wrestlemania 29.



After over 13 years and 6800 posts, was finally named W of the Day on 3/21/2015. It's now all worth it!
Tenken347
Knackwurst








Since: 27.2.03
From: Parts Unknown

Since last post: 41 days
Last activity: 3 days
#14 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.26
    Originally posted by thecubsfan
    Show quality, the relative quality of shows - but also show frequency and same-ish feeling.


That right there is why I often have nothing to say about the show. I already said it - just check back about 8 months or so to find it. There are still occasional bright spots, like the Cena/Cesaro match, but even at that, that match was thrown out with little fanfare and only the most elementary reason for them to fight. Still a great match, but not a ton to talk about.

In more general terms, I think a lot of my dissatisfaction with RAW stems from the fact that they hardly ever actually finish telling stories (or in Roman Reigns' case, start telling them). Daniel Bryan beat the Authority at WM 30, and that should have been the end, but the very next night on RAW, they sent Kane out to keep the story rolling. Heck, go back a couple years. Michael Cole's heel run was initially great, but it should have ended when Lawler beat his ass at Wrestlemania. Instead, somehow, Cole won that match and they milked the heel run until we were all very, very tired of it, and it only ended due to the real life near-tragedy of Lawler's heart attack. In contrast, in the 1.5 years of me watching NXT, they've resolved two major Sami Zayn arcs, the Charlotte/Sasha feud, the Hideo Itami/Ascension angle, Kidd/Neville, and countless other more minor feuds, but the point is that all of those stories ended definitively, they didn't just peter out or get forgotten. A good story has a beginning, middle, and end, and RAW just never seems to get to the end of any of its stories.
JimBob Skeeter
Bierwurst








Since: 2.1.02
From: MN

Since last post: 1678 days
Last activity: 1637 days
#15 Posted on | Instant Rating: 6.56
    Originally posted by Tenken347
    A good story has a beginning, middle, and end, and RAW just never seems to get to the end of any of its stories.


Or at least endings that make sense. Since WM, I really don't take the time to say "I am sitting down for this whole three hours cuz I want to watch this all." Now, I have it on, but I'm more than likely watching/listening to something on the other tv (I have two in the mancave.) If I see something on Raw that catches my eye, (like Owens), I'll switch the sound. Steph/HHH backstage? Sure, I'll listen to it. In the ring? I'll wait until they get interrupted by whomever they are talking about and catch it on the replay/(REPLAYS).

I honestly remember the second or third Raw after WM that I was so pissed at the ending, I honestly didn't turn it on for tow weeks. Read the highlights, yes. Then Brock came back and saved us all. Until we had Kane/J&J help Seth. Why? HHH brought back Brock for a reason. it makes absolutely no sense for them to beat down Brock.
Dr Unlikely
Liverwurst








Since: 2.1.02

Since last post: 2171 days
Last activity: 1778 days
#16 Posted on | Instant Rating: 9.59
    Originally posted by Me on 16.6.15
    I mean, I know the real reason: Stephanie and HHH are in love with their characters and get carried away and can't help but steamroll the top heel every few months because they ran out of faces to humiliate again


    Originally posted by Me on 19.5.15
    It saddens me to have to say it on this, of all days*, but this show would be a thousand times more watchable if you could simply take a laser and carve Kane, HHH and Stephanie out of it. The talent is there and slowly but surely forcing their personalities to the front for better (New Day! Titus! of all people ROMAN!) or worse (Ziggler, possibly), but every time this show opens with The Authority coming out for a 20 minute interview, which seems to be EVERY SINGLE WEEK for the last 20 years and the next 75 years, I just want to die. I literally want to stop watching WWE programming forever. I hate it. It's horrible. Stop. Stop. Please, stop. No more Authority. No more 20 minute opening promos and devoting every opening and 95% of every closing to The Authority coming out and cackling and then making "uuuuhh oooooh!" faces as we do another slow-burn on Kane. I know every top angle has to be about The Authority because the two of them are helplessly in love with themselves as TV performers based on pretty much nothing but being the two biggest marks in the business, but why is the top angle in 2015 about Kane? He's going to turn on the Authority, chokeslam Rollins, get a nice pop for it and turn heel again six weeks later. We know this. We know it. Stop.

    Neville is great. Zayn will be great. Owens can be great. You have almost 10 active tag teams, and almost half of them have the talent and/or charisma to actually help carry a division. Your best worker is your champ. You're finally (admittedly an entire year too late) booking Reigns in the right direction. Ambrose has almost fully repaired himself from the nearly fatal damage you did. Cena's Indy Worker Fantasy Camp has lit a fire in him in the ring and made for fun weekly TV. These are all really good things.

    Stop making it so hard to last long enough to get to them. Stop making me want to turn your show off as soon as it starts and when it gets to the end every single week. Stop continually booking the same angle that got old and killed your ratings over a decade ago. Stop.

    Stop.


    Originally posted by Me on 9.4.15
    the company has had zero interest in booking anything of note for anyone not in the main event for the last several years, leading to that pattern of match-rematch-rematch-rematch-PPV monthly death cycle for titles that nobody even wants, and that's if your lucky. They basically taught fans that storylines for anyone not in the main angles of "Being Against The Authority" or "Being John Cena" weren't worth following, if they existed at all. And that concept of boiling a feud down to "the same two guys wrestle for four weeks to build to the same match at a PPV" managed to even take the shine off of watching wrestlers wrestle.


    Originally posted by Me on 7.4.15
    No one in charge will admit it, of course, but The Authority has been the clear, obvious, unvoidable, omnipresent albatross on this show for the entire last year. I'm not hitting Rollins with any of that, but this is an entire year (more!) of shows starting with some variation of The Authority in the ring, building to some variation of The Authority cackling back stage and ending with The Authority coming out and ruining a match. No more Kane. No more Big Show. No more Stephanie. No more HHH.


    Originally posted by Me on 31.3.15
    Don't have Kane and Show in the main event. Like ever again, if possible.


    Originally posted by Me on 3.3.15
    So, now we know: Stephanie won't even show ass for John f'n Cena. I'm sure some quarters will praise it as excellent mic work/character development, but she's outpacing even HHH in the "must go over every other character at all times in the most dominant way possible" stakes, and this was on a night where HHH fake fired the same guy he brutally buried 12 years ago and invented a completely made up and entirely new beef with the internet to go over the paying audience. There's good heeling and there's just refusing to ever get comeuppance under the guise of good heeling, and Stephanie interrupting everyone on the mic to get her points in because she's the actual boss has to fall into the latter camp.


    Originally posted by Me on 11.2.15
    I can't imagine why "HHH talks at somebody at length!" and "Brock Lesnar shows up but doesn't say or do anything!" didn't bring in viewers. It's a conundrum!


    Originally posted by Me on 10.2.15
    "It's like watching a rerun!" -Booker T, talking about The Authority and their evil plans at the beginning of the show, making a play for the Shoot Comments That Aren't Supposed To Be Shoot Comments Hall of Fame


    Originally posted by Me on 27.1.15
    Let the talent speak in their own voice, not in the voice of a deranged millionaire. Almost all of them are more likeable that way and do as good, if not a better job selling their characters and motivations.


    Originally posted by Me on 3.12.14
    the steady-hands they have utilized in the manner they have been utilized clearly have not moved the needle in the way the company believed they do. There are viewers and consumers out there who can be reached, demographics that have been abandoned, that you must cater to if you want to compete against All Forms Of All Entertainment In All Venues as they apparently believe they do. Modeling yourself after the corny variety show format that died 30+ years ago is a curious, curious business model unless you plan to go to a format of John Cena having lip-synch battles and playing video games on the Titantron with special guests every week.


    Originally posted by Me on 11.11.14
    just yet another example in the recent, storied history of Stephanie/HHH not being able to help themselves and making sure they get to put every heel in their place in addition to the faces


    Originally posted by Me on 11.11.14
    Is there a database that can tell us how many matches ended with "Kane interferes, drawing a DQ" in the past year?


    Originally posted by Me on 28.10.14
    This is just no way to run a TV show. There can't be anyone who honestly thinks the smart thing to do is recognize someone with growing popularity and think: how can we use this to get Cena over? And yet, it's happened again and again and again: someone gets over, Cena talks about how he respects them, Cena gets to claim whatever attribute was making them popular, they take on the aspects of Cena that makes him unpopular, then - if they managed to survie that - they get to wrestle Kane until they die.

    As people have said above, literally the only story they have left is "Will Cena do the one thing, the only thing that would make him interesting again and turn heel? NO! NEVER!", so they keep doing it with fewer and shorter breaks in between. This is the third one this year and it's only October. Wyatt did it. Heyman did it. The Authority did it.

    It's insane.

    And it really is something that permeates the rest of the product. They are so tied into this mentality of getting people to love X no matter what the cost is that it seems to be the only way they operate. Kill the tag champs to launch a Big Show/Mark Henry feud nobody wants. Kill Cesaro to launch an Ambrose/Wyatt feud people would have loved a few months ago.

    And then each of these feuds AND their matches will repeat for four weeks so that we can, what, watch those matches again at a PPV? Nah, man, I ain't paying for that. And I say that as someone who was actually paying for the product from April until this month and would have been cool paying for it moving forward if it wasn't this bad.


    Originally posted by Me on 28.10.14
    And it is the writing, of course, since this kind of misguided desperation of making THIS ONE GUY the only star that matters is exactly what we got around HHH from 2000-2001 and 2002-2006 and January-March of 2009, 2011 and 2012. I will accept the "Vince needs to go, HHH gets it" partyline to a certain degree, but if HHH still hasn't figured out that this kind of death march booking was awful when it was for him and is still awful now, he ain't as smart as he thinks we think he is.



    Originally posted by Me on 6.6.14
    this ending reinforces the idea that HHH (and Stephanie) can never, ever, ever lose. Beat HHH and then Orton/Batista in the same night to win the title? Stephanie sends out a known rapist and attempted murderer to break your neck and make you forfeit the title. Soundly thrash Evolution two PPVs in a row, culminating with a clean sweep? HHH just buys one of you the next night. They've set up a scenario where the only person who can beat HHH or Stephanie is Vince and the only people who can beat Vince are HHH or Stephanie. Who cares about that?


    Originally posted by Me on 18.3.14
    HHH had to go back to 20 minutes at the top and at the end, the kind of thing that once ended the company's run at the top


    Originally posted by Me on 4.3.14
    It's more that they've shown that they still don't get what they're doing wrong. They just don't. The show was built around HHH telling another guy he's just not good enough and then standing triumphant over him, which feels like pretty much the ending of every notable Raw going back every year to 2002 and even extending back to to 2000 when he beat Foley at a PPV, put him in a cage and pulled him behind a bus for a week, retired him at the next PPV and re-retired him at the one after that. I know that's not literally the case, since he's been hurt or getting haircuts during some of those periods, but still, the idea that, 14 years later, the only dramatic concept they're willing to run with is another "HHH has power, belittles guy for a few months and then wins or loses depending on how he feels that year" angle is just sad and wouldn't be acceptable in any other thing on TV (except the NFL). It's lazy and insulting and stopped being good TV


    Originally posted by Me on 4.3.14
    if you've beaten HHH the next move is "This is an unending war that will run through all space and time and happen so often and in such ways that beating HHH never actually means anything because he's already beating the guy who will beat you and then that second guy will go away for a few years and come back and beat you, too


    Originally posted by Me on 29.1.14
    I get mad at WWE because I like watching TV and they continually screw up every good storyline they stumble into and interesting character they manage to let on. I stopped watching for a few years, as I think my board posting history would bear out, because they made it so joyless to watch for so long. Since I started again, I've seen them come up with/back into year after year (Randy Orton: Murderer, Nexus Invasion, Summer of Punk, Brock Lesnar: Also Murderer, Daniel Bryan Revolution) of that one great idea that they ultimately fumble and destroy completely and thoroughly, to the point that it's become clear that they kinda don't know what they're doing and get carried by some talented people who accidentally manage to bail them out. (The sudden, glorious rise of Ryback: Cyberbully, which I wished for back in October, proves again that the people playing the characters need more freedom.)

    If/when I stop watching again, it'll be for the same reason I stop watching any other show on TV, that the writing is terrible and nobody in charge is able to fix it.


    Originally posted by Me on 28.7.11
    HHH has demonstrated the uncanny ability to convince himself and others that "getting beaten up by HHH," "verbally admitting in front of everyone on TV that HHH is better than me, then possibly getting beaten up by HHH" or "losing to HHH, losing to HHH again, getting a halfhearted victory where you win on a technicality, then losing to HHH again a little while later just for the hell of it" are all viable routes for furthering the careers of his colleagues and the company.


    Originally posted by Me on 17.12.02, in a thread titled "HHH Appreciation Night"
    I do kind of wish that, during the Appreciation Highlight Reel, they could have superimposed the ratings of the shows from the clips they were showing, so we could have watched the ratings go from over 6 down to closing in on 3 with every defining HHH moment.


    Originally posted by Me on 3.12.02
    That's the thing with booking a heel so tough that it will be a huge thing when the babyface gets the definitive win, the face actually has to get that definitive win. We've been waiting for it now since Wrestlemania 2000 and it never happened. If it happens now, almost two years after the fact, it's too late anyway.

    At HHH's peak, in the months leading up through the Royal Rumble to Wrestlemania 2000, they had a chance to do things properly. He made himself into pure evil, had run roughshod over everyone, forced The Rock to finally show a human side by defending Foley in the big Raw walkout and then followed that up by actually retiring Foley. If they had tied things up at Wrestlemania 2000 by having Foley on his stay-of-execution get a final win or by having his friend and partner The Rock get revenge, it would have been perfect execution: build up the heel as insurmountably evil, push it just past the expectation of his downfall (Foley losing the Hell in a Cell match and being forced to retire) and then finally provide the relief the fans have been waiting for by having the hero find a way to triumph at the end. Never happened.

    They forgot the end and just never got around to doing the payoff. No comeuppance for HHH, that's where it all went wrong and I think that's where their current problems originated.


    Originally posted by Me on 3.10.02 in a post that covers 2000 through 2002, about HHH at the time but just as true for the Authority today
    But still, it's that unending pattern of the last three years where, as both heel and face, he dominates everyone and they turn around and praise him for it that, I think, has had the cumulative effect of getting a lot of people where they are today in terms of being tired of seeing him coming out on top and being the focus of everything.


    Originally posted by Me on 6.8.02
    And then there's HHH. He spends the entire show making all the other heels (and Booker and Goldust, for extra measure) looking like idiots while they stand around and get bullied by him


    Originally posted by Me on 22.1.02, when the thought of "Why don't they just make the whole plane out of 20 minute HHH interviews?" hadn't fully sunk in yet
    I'm probably alone on this and will bring down hatred from on high, but I lose interest very quickly in HHH interviews.







    Originally posted by Me on 19.5.15
    *MAY 19TH MAY 19TH MAY 19TH MAY 19TH MAY 19TH MAY 19TH MAY 19TH MAY 19TH MAY 19TH MAY 19TH MAY 19TH
andy1278
Bockwurst








Since: 11.1.02
From: Brunswick, GA

Since last post: 1096 days
Last activity: 1075 days
#17 Posted on | Instant Rating: 6.00
It feels - and looks - like the same show every week. Authority promo. Some combination of Rollins/Reigns/Ambrose/Orton in a match. Whatever the Bellas are doing that week. Outside of New Day being fun - and they have cooled that down since the title change - and the Cena Open, I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

And yeah, the look. I feel like we haven't had a dramatic change in how Raw looks in two decades.

It's a three hour show and it feels like mostly filler, and I feel like the company feels that way too since we get rematches of half the show on SmackDown.

I'm watching back the first year of Nitro. Some of the shows are bad, but at least they are interesting and there are interesting, random matchups. I think this is why Brock-Kofi interests me on July 4th... it's something NEW. I don't feel like it is a match that has been rehashed a million times on a weekly basis.

Also, to hop on what was said early, the Ryder thing still burns... and we keep seeing it with Barrett and Cesaro. Why do I want to watch these guys and cheer for them when, when Vince starts noticing we are cheering for them, he is going to bury them?

There's a little bit of time management in there, too. Ten years ago, I didn't have a wife and kid. I also didn't have endless shows at my disposal due to Netflix. Boring Raw rarely takes priority for me over playing Mario with my kid of watching an actual GOOD TV show.

I watch highlights on YouTube, but that's it. I stick to NXT and PPVs, and that's about all the time I can make for the product - or feel like it deserves right now.

(edited by andy1278 on 1.7.15 1220)
Lexus
Andouille








Since: 2.1.02
From: Stafford, VA

Since last post: 1462 days
Last activity: 208 days
#18 Posted on | Instant Rating: 6.28
It's just not as entertaining to me any more.

Raw used to be a variety show; and it always has been. A bunch of different personalities all interacting to create a TON of different acts that you wanted to watch, just because you knew the characters and were able to identify them, and could actually anticipate what two of them would do if they met each other (well, besides the obvious beating-each-other-up factor).

Now, it's still a variety show, don't get me wrong, but the focus really seems like it's less on the personalities themselves and more on the situations. It used to be the personalities dictated what situations would happen, now the situations are staunchly dictated, and the personalities can come and go as needed. Structurally, this is brilliant, and I get why they do this; specifically to avoid another Daniel Bryan from happening. Not that they didn't want to push Bryan, but reshuffling happened a ton when he got shelved, both times. So now we have vanilla, almost video-game like scenarios where any character can get involved. Flat out, this is why Ambrose gets the reaction he does; he's a personality that drives situations, as a direct result of Seth Rollins' shitheel moves that drove specific situations.

Compared to ROH, where it's almost akin to workrate-porn with some matches, The Decade being dicks with no immediate payoff to taking Corino Jr. on the horizon, Jay Lethal insisting the TV Title is worth more than Jay Briscoe's World Title, and personalities like Cheeseburger making me mark out like crazy because he's the tiny guy who dresses like he works at Burger Shot from Grand Theft Auto, all in a tidy package that I actively have to seek out, the WWE just seems like bloat.

Compared to Lucha Underground, where it's spot-porn, and you have women fighting men (like they'd ever give the Divas a chance), the 'Temple' itself is a character within the show that charges it's own dynamic as something very different than what I'm used to seeing on a wrestling show, and it's so polished and structured like the whole show is one long vignette, again, all in a tidy package of one hour without the bloat or need to come up with filler. Ironically, it's like an inverse WWE creative wise; Hollywood went out and got Wrestling writers to put on a good show.

Now, also on the topic of variety, Raw is very mood swingy. What I mean by that is it's tone and almost target audience shifts drastically every 15 minutes. Imagine you're sitting down, watching TV. You're watching an episode of 24. It's intense, it's action packed, it has you wanting more when it's done. Up next? An episode of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. You scratch your head, thinking about the episode of 24 you just watched, but truck on, marking out for King Friday when he invariably shows up, but you're already way past what's being presented to you as a viewer. Up next? An episode of Murder She Wrote. Angela Lansbury goes around solving a crime, but she definitely isn't Jack Bauer. After sitting through that, mostly playing on your phone, making sure your Clash of Clans buddies are taken care of, what's next? A clip of what happened on 24, followed by some footage from Disney on Ice. After this, we get an episode of Beavis and Butthead straight from 1995, same music videos and all. Then, to close out the programming block, it's the Hodown from Hee Haw.

(edited by Lexus on 1.7.15 1317)

"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Frown and the world laughs at you."
-Me.
StaggerLee
Scrapple








Since: 3.10.02
From: Right side of the tracks

Since last post: 937 days
Last activity: 937 days
#19 Posted on | Instant Rating: 2.01
Bad storytelling. Pure and simple. HHH seems v to forget the purpose of a "bad guy" u s for the good guy to triumph eventually. Not just in the Authority angle, but the product as a whole.
Peter The Hegemon
Lap cheong








Since: 11.2.03
From: Hackettstown, NJ

Since last post: 61 days
Last activity: 30 days
#20 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.73
    Originally posted by Lexus
    It's just not as entertaining to me any more.

    Raw used to be a variety show; and it always has been. A bunch of different personalities all interacting to create a TON of different acts that you wanted to watch, just because you knew the characters and were able to identify them, and could actually anticipate what two of them would do if they met each other (well, besides the obvious beating-each-other-up factor).

    Now, it's still a variety show, don't get me wrong, but the focus really seems like it's less on the personalities themselves and more on the situations.


It's interesting you say that, because I always felt that the "variety show" aspect was something WCW had over WWF/E. It always seemed to me that Vince had certain ideas of what the show should be, and the wrestlers had to fit into that to succeed. Whereas on Nitro you'd get luchadors doing lucha matches, ECW guys doing hardcore matched, old school tag teams doing old school tag matches, and so on. WCW had its own problems, of course, but they seemed to do a better job of keeping up the variety and letting the performers mostly do what they were best at.

I really haven't been a big WWE fan since the end of the Rock & Wrestling era, but after WCW died I watched it fairly closely. In the last few years, though, I've barely paid attention--if it weren't for this board I probably wouldn't know who half of these guys are. So it's hard for me to even say why I don't watch. It's true that Bryan, and to a lesser extent Punk, was someone I wanted to see. Mostly I just don't find much of interest in Raw. If I'm home on a Monday night, I'll occasionally check in and see what's going on, maybe watch a match.

I suppose it's also that I watch more TV series than I used to (partly the influence of The Lovely Future Mrs. Hegemon). Combine that with the Mets and Rangers, and I don't have much time to watch Raw.

But you mention what Lucha Underground is doing right, and I agree. I watch that most weeks even though I can only get it in Spanish and don't understand the speech well. I'm sure I've said before that the male-vs.-female storylines have often been a favorite, but when you talk about the use of the Temple and the fact that it's a shorter and more coherent show, those are definitely factors for me as well. So if nothing else, LU shows that there's still a part of me that will be a wrestling fan when the elements are right.
Pages: 1 2 3 Next
Thread rated: 5.48
Pages: 1 2 3 Next
Thread ahead: TNA Impact Wrestling 7-1-2015
Next thread: WWE RAW #1153 6/29/2015
Previous thread: NXT #285 7/1/15
(1158 newer) Next thread | Previous thread
I saw this on their Facebook page. Fuckin AWESOME. Time to go back to ignoring WWE.
The W - Pro Wrestling - Why Is No One Is Watching Raw?Register and log in to post!

The W™ message board

ZimBoard
©2001-2024 Brothers Zim

This old hunk of junk rendered your page in 0.323 seconds.