Coffey

I would be on board with using the free PPV to re-establish a couple guys like Ryback or Cesaro.

I don't think that the cost has ever been the problem which is why it's weird to me that WWE's entire campaign is the $9.99 thing. If the Network were $4.99 or $19.99 I'm not sure how much would change. To me, it's all about the content. Even if the Network was $20/month, that's still saving $30/month from the old PPV model. More original programming might help. Reality TV stuff is cheap. I mean, it wouldn't be a draw to get new people but it's new, different & sometimes interesting programming that could spread some word of mouth. I used to love WWE Confidential when they would do a WWE Cribs. I still remember Al Snow's hockey jersey collection. NXT should be a bigger draw too. No reason why RAW can't have an NXT match each week where they mention the show on the Network each week. Then they can talk about the upcoming NXT PPVs too.

Shoutboxes are great for non-wrestling stuff too. Like I know we have several sports fans or we could use it for live reactions for PPVs or whatever. Maybe not a terrible idea after the Hell In A Cell thread went berserk.

I really liked the first episode of Lucha Underground. A lot. The first match was a stinker & Vampiro is the pits on commentary but I love the look & feel of the show. The Spanish Soap Opera/Low Budget movie style vignettes were a lot of fun to me. Main event was a good spotfest too. Love the way the ring looks. The intro videos were really good too.

The WWE Network will strive if the current product is hot. You heat up the show, more eyes wanna see it. I don't think it's a lack of content hurting the subscriber numbers, I think it's apathy. Right now, who is going to get the network? Casual fans don't care about PPVs from 1995. Hardcore fans have already seen all the content on there. What's the draw? Only the current PPVs really. I'm not a big detractor of the WWE TV-PG rating from a content perspective. However, PG in 1984 is not the same thing as PG in 2014. WCW Nitro was PG technically too but it never really felt like I was watching children's programming. WWF in the 80's with Hulkamania and early 90's was too but you still had Hogan eating a fireball or Savage getting mauled by a cobra & stuff like that. WWE sometimes nowadays does feel corny & for children. Like that midget shit a couple weeks back. Sometimes WWE tries to walk the line too which also doesn't really work as you end up alienating both sides equally. I don't think in this era you can be the "circus" that WWE wants to be where you have "something for everyone." You need to target a demographic and go after it. WWE Monday Night RAW is their flagship show. WWE Pay-Per-Views are on Sunday nights. Both Sunday and Monday are school nights and the shows last until 11PM. Plus the WWE Network is a subscription based monthly bill. Why are they targeting children? Kids can't stay up until 11pm on school nights & adults switch to different content from 10pm-11pm. That's why the third hour of RAW always has the lowest rating. I honestly feel like WWE has went out of their way so much to appear as a non-wrestling show that it has hurt them now when they need wrestling fans. You can call wrestlers Superstars, wrestling Sports Entertainment, fans the WWE Universe, whatever, you're still a wrestling show with wrestlers wrestling for fans at the end of the day. Kids will want to watch whatever is "in" just like kids watched when wrestling was super hot in the Attitude Era. I'm not saying that WWE needs to return to TV-14 or bring back blood in matches or have Diva thong matches or anything but they need to compete with other weeknight programming. Wins and losses don't matter. Titles don't matter. Everyone is overexposed and stale. No match-up feels fresh. We don't get conclusions to stories and the fans usually get a feel good payoff once a year at Wrestlemania. What's the draw to buy the Network? I don't care if it's $2 a month, the price isn't the problem. It's not about fans being cheap it's about it not being worth the time. From all reports, you have writers not writing to make the best show but to try to appeal to Vince McMahon's tastes & his ego. You have, apparently, a civil war between Triple H & Kevin Dunn. You have a ton of people showcased on each show because of politics instead of putting the most talented people on there. It's just a mess. I'm not there though, that's all rumors & hearsay. From what I can see, I see a show that is repetative, bland & needs a new breath of life breathed into it. The show is monotonous. It's like watching a factory of robots reciting lines from Days of Our Lives with some acrobatics in the middle. There's no heat or passion or intensity. Everything about the show feels like corporate shilling. The WWE "Did You Know?" facts, the running $9.99 "joke", the stooges that are the pathetic commentators, shilling for the WWE app, talking about Twitter wars...it's all hideous. RAW feels like a 3-hour commercial telling you to do everything but watch RAW. Then when there is wrestling, even the matches themselves have ad breaks. Change the damn show & go in a new direction. WWE is complacent. They're scared to take risks. They have not had any competition for so long that they have had no reason to try new things & are just coasting. Well the WWE Network was a big risk. Dropping Pay-Per-Views from cable and onto the Network was a big risk. The new contract for RAW was a big risk. Yet even with all that going on...nothing changed. They didn't try to improve or try to shake things up, they just expected the WWE name and brand to carry them through it all. Well, it hasn't. Hey, I'm not a stockholder. All I know is from what I've read from various corners of the internet. I'm not a businessman & might be talking out of my ass completely. I'm pretty sure though if you put out something that people want to see, they'll pay for it. If you put out something that people don't care about, they won't. You want more WWE Network subscribers? Put on a better, modern professional wrestling show that doesn't insult the intelligence of the viewing audience and that features good writing and continuity. Just like the other popular television programs that do well.

The second fall was an accident? I didn't know that. I just assumed it was a planned spot with that part of the cage supposed to give.

A lot of the enjoyment I get from wrestling nowadays is conversing about it with like minded individuals after the show. If I waited to hear about good stuff before watching it, I can never partake in the discussion post show & I'll always feel like I'm behind. I like reacting to things in the moment, even if I make hyperbolic statements in the heat of the moment or whatever. That's part of the fun for me. I don't want to watch clips a week later when I already know what happens. That's not fun to me at all.

Why can't we watch the other wrestling AND WWE? I watch wrestling from all over the world but WWE will always be the top dog. How many wrestling fans skip Wrestlemania? I've been watching WWF since 1987, I'm not going to give it up cold turkey because the writing is bad. There's still a ton of good matches each year. I watch ROH, NJPW and the occasional other Indy but I still watch RAW sometimes & WWE PPVs. That's one of the perks of the WWE Network, so I'm going to take advantage of it. If I'm not a fan of something I see, I'll talk about it afterward. Just the same as if I like what I saw (like RAW last night). If I watch an old show from like 1989 or a random Indy show from a month ago, who am I going to talk about it with? Cause everyone (not literally everyone but most wrestling fans) watch RAW so there's always people to chat with about that. Same for WWE PPVs. This thread is 18-pages long. If this were an ROH iPPV thread how big would it be?

RAW owned. Really hope to see Jamie Noble work again at Survivor Series. That main event was getting really good too before the schmoz ending. Not upset with it though cause it wasn't a PPV main event.

Some good shit on RAW tonight. Orton was good. Ryback was good. Mark Henry was good. Stephanie McMahon was good. Like this RAW a lot more than Hell in a Cell last night. ...and we have not had Rusev/Lana yet!

So after taking out pretty much both The Big Show & Mark Henry last night, what's next for Rusev & Lana? Dude seems to be going places to me. Got a rub from The Rock, even. Pretty crazy that out of the roster, The Rock came out to confront Rusev & Lana...but I think that made him seem like a bigger star. Not having to cheat to beat The Big Show is pretty great too. I do think that Mark Henry will still turn on The Big Show but I'm curious where Rusev goes next. I would like for it to be either Ryback or Sheamus but I'm not sure if either of those will be in the cards. Rusev as U.S. Champion could work if he renamed it the Russian Title or something but the midcard belts are death for a lot of wrestlers nowadays, so I'm not sure. I definitely think he's the best part of the show though. Well above my enjoyment of other people like Ambrose. I am hoping for a Luke Harper solo push though. That should be fun.

I don't think they have forgotten how just that they don't finish all of them. The Daniel Bryan title win at Wrestlemania last year was a good finish to a story. Not the story they weren't necessarily trying to tell at the beginning but at the end, the fans got what they wanted (other than him winning the Rumble). I just think they don't care about most of the roster so they're kinda apathetic to some of the stories. Plus with Vince changing his mind so often & writers writing to appease him instead of trying to write the best show, things get wonky. I'm not sure how much the WWE Network is going to change things in the future. PPVs used to be $50. Now on the Network they're $10. That's a lot less revenue. I know if I get paid less, I don't work as hard. So I hope that doesn't translate to the shows too. I don't know if the payoffs are less for the wrestlers but the workload certainly didn't diminish any. And now WWE makes less off the shows so they might not try as hard each month. I dunno. That's what I'm worried about.

This wasn't even the best WWE show of the last few months, let alone of the year or if you add in other federations too. WrestlingForum.com, not great for discussion mind you but has a huge influx of posters. After every PPV they do a "rate this PPV" thread. Right now, 5/10 is leading that poll with 20% of the votes. That doesn't seem like a "great" show to me. Opinions vary & certainly if someone liked it, more power to them. For me though: I thought the Bellas did well. They exceeded my expectations. I thought Rusev/Show & the tag match were pretty good too. Miz/Sheamus, I missed. AJ/Paige left a lot to be desired & was just there. Main event was disappointing. Too convoluted & a bad finish. 2/3 falls match needed more time. Cena/Orton was too long & just featured a lot of kicking out of finishes to add fake drama. That's like the whole show. That's just "meh" to me. Not one outstanding match and a few that underperformed. Elimination Chamber earlier this year killed this show. So did Wrestlemania.

Oh, so it's the "we're all just a hivemind!" defense?

Get outta here with that shit. If a show sucks, I'm dumping on it. I thought this was in the middle but it certainly wasn't some grandiose fantastic show like you're trying to make it out to be. You're in the minority. I guess EVERYONE ELSE is wrong? LOL.... fuck outta here.

Sorry you haven't had much time to watch wrestling this year.

It won't be the case forever. And if they wait too long to take a risk when they do go to take one it will be too late. How many more people are going to cancel their WWE Network subscriptions?

I feel like WWE needs a complete overhaul. No more Vince in charge. No more Kevin Dunn vision. Call up a bunch of NXT guys, start new feuds, change the look of the show, set & start fresh. Everything right now just isn't working. WWE are making money, that was a big crowd tonight, I just hate the direction of the show. The cameramen are awful, the commentators are terrible, the wrong people are getting ample amounts of TV time...it just really feels a lot like late WCW. John Cena & Randy Orton combined have 27-world titles between them. That pretty much sums everything up for me. WWE is so horribly overexposed right now, they need new faces, a new look & a new direction. No more building the entire federation around one Hulk Hogan style babyface that conquers all like it's still 1985.

You know WWE will never listen to any negative feedback about their shows anymore because of the WWE Network. They'll just say "it's only $9.99 for three hours of entertainment." I didn't think the show was bad. I think it looked better on paper than what happened. I expected more out of the matches that I anticipated. Bellas did a lot better than I thought they would. I really liked the Rusev stuff. There were some good spots throughout the night too. I'm not completely sour on the whole show. I just expect more from certain individuals and WWE constantly steps on their own feet.

Do that match again. Remove the top of the cage stuff, the interference by Noble, Matthews & Kane. Take away the announce table spots, add blood (yes, fucking blood for the blood fued in the cage match, damn it), have Ambrose win w/ the cinder block finish THEN have Wyatt do the run-in. Would have been a lot better, given us a resolution to the last PPV & a reason to tune-in tomorrow.

I don't mind a Bray Wyatt Vs. Dean Ambrose feud but we needed a conclusion to the last feud. A run-in fuck finish in a cage match doesn't help anyone or give the fans any resolution.

It just feels like building to the next table spot over & over to get the crowd to chant "holy shit!" like it's 1998. The crowds are trained well...

I love Rusev. Dude is money. Him & Lana both.

Match was OK. Cena kicked out of everything in there. I said on Twitter he looked like Road Warior Hawk with some of his no-selling. Post shot to the crotch, low blow, chair beatdown, two RKOs, etc & he's right back up to get his shit in on the steps...lol.

It'll never be The Diamond Cutter.