Bix

I may have misread what you were saying: Do you mean 60% in a vacuum or with 2012's universe? I thought you meant in a vacuum, they'd go with the higher percentage. Either way, they want as many people as possible watching. Also, remember that At any rate, while yes, we've reached the point where a USA/TBS/MTV/etc.-level network's universe is not going to change much year-to-year, I don't think you can really extrapolate from the last boom period into 2012 numbers because so much has changed. The most fair way to compare then to now a way is just giving both numbers (audience and rating) in the proper context.

Every time you tell me a story about a luchador almost being raped, it becomes just a little less surprising.

Also, as long as we're clearing up how ratings work, I might as well rehash this: Sweeps months (where Nielsen sends out a ton of diaries to be filled out by people not in their regular sample) have nothing to do with cable. They're for the local broadcast stations. The networks load up their schedules to boost the local stations and the local stations push all sorts of attention grabbing stories for their newscasts. Cable shows are only affected indirectly, by the stronger competition.

Cable households, yes.

Yes. No, it's not. Yes. Is there really that much difference in the number of households that have Raw from year-to-year at this point? I get that more people are watching a 3.1 this year than a 3.1 last year. But is it radical on USA? Also something I mentioned when something like this came up the last time: If the Finale of American Idol draws 1 million more viewers than the Finale of MASH, all that tells us is that 1M more people watched AI. It doesn't tell us how many more people were alive in the US in 2012 than 1982, and what the ratio of viewers was. Because I swear to you that everyone in TV if given the choice of these: 1. 1 million more viewers than the average of the MASH Finale (105.9M) 2. the average rating of the MASH Finale (60.2) in an 8:30pm - 11pm time slot 100 out of 100 tv folks would rather have #2. Not even close 60 rating is something that TV folks can't even conceive of anymore as the Super Bowl doesn't even get into the 50s. So while there are problems comping July 2012 Raw with July 1999 Salad Days Raw... I actually don't think "viewers" is a great way to make the direct comp. John, no offense, but that's ridiculous. Ratings drive ads. More eyeballs = more ad money. Of course they'd take X viewers over a higher percentage in a world where the percentage means less than X amount of viewers.

"I AM THE BATMAN OF SEX!"

Yes. No, it's not. Yes.

1. The cable ratings that we commonly see are a percentage taken from homes that have access to the cable network in question and are sometimes referred to as "coverage area ratings." It's how UFC's specials on Fuel can draw a decent-sounding rating with an actual audience of ~200,000 people. Network TV ratings ("household ratings") take into account every home with a TV, which has, at times, led to somewhat misleading ratings on start-up networks if they weren't on in certain markets. 2. They have minute by minute information, which is why the quarters don't always average into the hour's rating. 3. Dave posted this last week: 4. A share is based on homes where TV is being watched at the moment. 5. Just used in comparison to other shows, IE "the hour that went head to head with the finale of X did a..."

I think his point was that he was going to pay them for their trouble even if they didn't wrestle, so he doesn't see it as quite the "robbery" everyone else does, even if it was still ridiculously unprofessional.

Manliness. Intensity. Biologically programmed.

Kudos to Adam Pearce for condemning "Team Ambition" on Twitter. Didn't mince words at all: @JaysinStrife I think anyone robbing anyone is a piece of shit. In or out of wrestling. After seeing the footage, & regardless of why, what Tony Kozina did is reprehensible; totally classless. And I really respected Tony. #sad @BJ_Whitmer As a vet, Tony has to be better than choking out a 16 yo kid, regardless of whether the kid belonged in the ring. Irresponsible. Manliness.

Photoshop, he's not in the registry.

http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-sto...ast-nights-show

So...while we're on the subject of Davey Richards self-destructing, who the hell no-shows a New Japan tour? It's not exactly "the golden ticket" anymore, but that doesn't make it a good idea. Also, if Richards' Facebook profile is any indication, he doesn't make a living as a wrestler like O'Reilly says he does, he works as a personal trainer at a gym.

Kyle O'Reilly blogged about it...

Wow. I presume ROH is dropping O'Reilly too?

Where exactly is Kozina supposed to have shot on the kid? Everything looks like weird work except for the unprotected piledrivers and maybe the finish (looks like he MIGHT have put the triangle on legit but it's hard to tell from the camera angle). Or do they just mean Kozina took liberties by guzzling the kid in a shitty match?

I wouldn't count the jumps for Orndorff but 3 turns in a 4 year run in '80s WWF is pretty insane when you think about how they booked back then.

It was really obviously scripted. Waltman not really doing anything in the opening segment was a bit weird, though, unless he's still not cleared in Missouri.

No, it's in Phoenix.

This is debatable to some extent, but in general, I think yeah, you should watch every ITERATION. If they come through 3 times, try to find one of each, at least. Though there's something to be learned from watching what they do one night apart. That's basically what I mean. Don't go into each version of match 2 of the feud expecting anything different each time. If you're curious how close each match is or whatever, go ahead, but if you're just trying to follow the feud, stick to one market if possible unless a match is missing or something like that.

It's a late '80s WWE house show feud. Most of the wrestlers (but especially Hogan) worked the same match in every market, then had a new match for the rematch that they took to each town, and so on. Of course it's repetitive if you're watching matches from multiple markets. Remember, most people didn't see these matches on TV. The Toronto matches (as well as matches from other cities in Ontario, mainly London & Hamilton) were aired in Canada as part of the Canadian versions of the WWF TV shows (WWF Maple Leaf Wrestling, WWF Cavalcade, WWF Wrestling, etc.) to comply with Canadian Content mandates. The Philadelphia cards aired on PRISM, a local cable channel. MSG Network (NY), NESN (Boston), and Z Channel (Los Angeles) were available outside of their home markets to C-Band satellite dish owners, but there weren't many of them. Only one version would air on Prime Time, and how much later that was varied. They likely dropped the Philadelphia, Boston, and Los Angeles broadcasts in '89 (and later MSG & the Ontario house shows in '92) to avoid exposing this. The only screw-up I can think of is when they included two Hogan-Race Texas death matches back to back on the same Coliseum Video release. If you're watching every version of a WWE house show match that you can find, you're doing it wrong. Also, they didn't do the superplex in Boston because the cage was a chainlink fence (which they still used on a bunch of house shows back then) and they didn't have the stability of the blue bars. Plus, with such a big bump for such big guys, I'd guess that they didn't do it on many house shows besides MSG (which I don't remember being botched, anyway).

Come off it, we live in the age of the internet. I'm sure most wrestling fans are aware of TNA somehow. TNA actually gets better ratings than WWE over here. TNA has always existed in the age of the Internet. That didn't stop wrestling fans who bumped into them from constantly asking Kurt Angle, Mike Tenay, and I'm sure many others who haven't admitted it publicly what they've been doing since they left wrestling.

I don't put much stock in Meltzer's ratings because he doesn't use seperate ratings for each style of promotion. For example, there is no fucking way that John Cena vs. CM Punk at MITB 2011 equaled ANY of Misawa's, Kawada's or Kobashi's five star efforts. Hmm? Dave has repeatedly said he's rating matches in the context of their time and promotion. Even then, yes, it did.

All of those mid 80s Bruno brawls are pretty awesome and yes he was still a draw then. Hell, he was still a draw in 2007.