Current WWE

[Petey]

I live in NY and they've been running commercials for the upcoming MSG house show on Raw for the past several weeks (possibly longer) and they've been specifically playing up Cena vs. Bray Wyatt in a lumberjack match. Small sample size and all that, and I do agree that WWE does try to push the WWE brand now more than ever, but I think there's still a tendency to advertise specific wrestlers/matches assuming the wrestlers and matches are worth promoting.

[Loss]

While I do think the lineup affects the house, there are so many factors that play a part that I'm not comfortable reducing it to just the lineup (nor do I think anyone in this thread is doing that).

 

For example:

 

- How often does WWE go to the market?

- What did they draw last time they were there? Was this an increase or decrease? Who headlined that card?

- Were there any no-shows or last-minute card changes the last time WWE was in town that might have disappointed people and discouraged them from going to a future show? Any surprises that might have ensured an increase next time they came back?

- Did the finish of the last show in the market send people home happy?

- Was the next date announced at the house show with tickets available for sale to those that were there?

 

Not knowing the answers to all of those questions in every case makes it really difficult to drill down.

 

I'm sure there are other factors I didn't think of too.

[Russellmania]

YO ucan also compensate for the smaller venues by using percentage (capacity vs. actual attendance) instead of actual numbers. Cornette made that point when comparing his B show run to Dusty's A show run in his Midnight Express book.

this seems like really faulty logic. What's better, a gate where you sold 10,000 of 20,000 seats (50%) or one where you sold 4,000 of 5,000 seats (%80)?

 

I guess my point is that it's a bad premise to assume that you need to "compensate for smaller venues". In most cases there's a reason they're running smaller venues in the first place.

[shoe]

I'm with Johnny on the promoting of shows. When tickets for events go on sale their isn't a lineup introduced . Eventually it does filter out there. Though it seems you have to look a lot harder now. A lot of people don 't listen to the radio they listen to their I- pod. Newspapers are passé . In the 80's you knew what the main event was going to be months in advance because tickets would go on sale right then and there with a main event announced , or off rematches on the main event which back then went on before intermission.

[cm funk]

I live in NY and they've been running commercials for the upcoming MSG house show on Raw for the past several weeks (possibly longer) and they've been specifically playing up Cena vs. Bray Wyatt in a lumberjack match. Small sample size and all that, and I do agree that WWE does try to push the WWE brand now more than ever, but I think there's still a tendency to advertise specific wrestlers/matches assuming the wrestlers and matches are worth promoting.

 

Yeah, I don't know what it's like in the rest of the country, but they heavily advertise the shows at MSG, Barclays Center, Nassau, Jersey, Philly Spectrum, CT casinos, upstate NY places like Binghamton and Albany. Just listening to WFAN AM sports radio and a few FM stations I hear their ads on a regular basis when there's a show coming up. I was impressed with the last ad I heard which had already been changed to the latest lineup promoting Rollins against Ambrose......and they do a good job on these radio ads promoting specific names and matchups. I'm sure they don't put that much effort into it throughout the country......but in the North East they do

 

I do think overall it's promoted as WWE the brand being the draw though. That doesn't mean that there aren't performers who are individual draws, or programs that get hot and draw, but ultimately the brand is the draw.

 

I did think at the time when Meltzer was criticizing Daniel Bryan as a failure on top that it was pretty insane. All empirical evidence showed that this guy was drawing. By far the hottest crowd reactions......crowds full of people wearing D-Bry merch and homemade D-Bry signs......almost always strong quarter hour ratings.....B house shows with him on top were doing just fine.....it was fairly bizarre how Dave wouldn't accept that he was drawing money. Him and Alvarez got into a few arguments on the subject and Dave was thoroughly owned each time and was really only citing a few weak PPV buyrates (wasn't Bryan's fault) and how shitty he thought some of his merch/t-shirts were (yet the crowd was full of people wearing the stuff and he was 2nd or 3rd in merch sales)

[Dylan Waco]

Loss point is true, but I think all of those points (and others) apply just as much, if not more, to the territory era.

 

I can only speak to Charleston here (I could probably find out other places with a little effort though), but the last show here did 8200 paid (Meltzer reported at 7500, but I know multiple people who work for the building, including one who would absolutely be privy to the actual figure). Main event was Cena v. Orton Cage Match which was announced and advertised about five or six weeks out. Initial ticket sales did okay, but they saw did a huge spike after the advertising and everyone attributed it to it being Cena in a cage match to the point parking attendants for the building were talking about it when me, my friend and his son arrived. I was told they did 80% of the house in the last four weeks, which would not shock me at all. I am skeptical of "pops" being a measure of anything, but Cena got a Bruno level pop that night (honestly one of the loudest I've ever heard at a live wrestling show and I've been to hundreds of them), and Cena merch was everywhere (I was told they sold out of hats, but I have no clue if that's true).

[BillThompson]

My schedule has been pretty tight lately and I haven't been able to watch much wrestling. I make time for the project watching I'm working on, but as far as the current stuff goes I think it's very telling that I haven't bothered with any WWE main roster programming since the week before MitB, but have watched NXT each and every week (Before anyone says anything, has nothing to do with Cena as I like him as a worker). Not sure how this relates to anyone else, but I know that I actually look forward to NXT every week, and I haven't been able to say that about WWE since I started watching again earlier this year.

[fakeplastictrees]

It's 2014 and WWE has absolutely zero competition in the U.S. The releases and injuries of the last decade or so tells us that no one REALLY matters outside of John Cena. With that said, why is Kane, RVD, The Miz, and Jerry Lawler still working for WWE? I can understand if TNA was this HOT product and was on the verge of creating another 'war', but this simply isn't the case. The 4 guys I mentioned (and some others- ADR being a prime example) are beyond terrible and bring ZERO to the product. Why keep them around? If WWE wants to keep these 5 guys on the payroll and off TV, I can live with that. But why have these subpar performers, that board on being absolutely dreadful, on TV in 2014?

[BillThompson]

ADR is a damn fine performer. When he's put in spots to work he always delivers. I could agree with him not being pushed simply because he'll never be taken seriously as a threat again based on the way he's been booked. However, as a worker, a guy who can go out there and have good matches with everyone on the roster, he's a valuable asset.

[Tim Evans]

ADR vs Sheamus from Main Event this week was pretty good. It was weird to see a Last Man Standing for a B feud on a C level show like Main event.

 

I've been a WWE fan since about 1995 and my current feeling for the product is probably the lowest it's been since 2004 when HHH was running wild. Raw is just a chore to watch these days with all the rematches. Usos/Wyatts, Rhodes bros/Rybaxel, etc. it's just too much.Also them running the same match on Raw that they ran the previous Friday on Smackdown makes Smackdown just useless to watch. It's a shame because that used to be WWE's best show. The bad commentary also kills the shows. I have to watch Raw on mute because it gets unbearable hearing the bad jokes from Lawler and JBL's talking points. I wish they would put Saxton and Regal on Smackdown.

[cm funk]

I'm sick of Lawler on commentary and think he needs to be put out to pasture for sure. I wouldn't mind him occasionally showing up to do angles, but he's beyond stale/lazy/uninterested on commentary.

 

I'm cool with RVD right now because he came back to work with younger/newer guys and put them over. That's been the entire point of his current run, and I can't hate on that. He has a rub to give and is still really over, and he is willingly in the company to put people over. RVD "gets it"

 

I've been down on the Miz in recent years but a lot of it has been up to shitty booking. Since his latest tv return the last few weeks he's actually been cutting good promos and being booked properly as a cocky, smug annoying heel. He was so miscast as a face for a while and they screwed him over with the way they wishy-washy booked him for months with no direction and one week he's a heel and one week he's a face.....and understandably the crowds hated it. I thought his match with Jericho on RAW was rather good and it made me remember why I've enjoyed Miz in ring in the past. Not like he's a great wrestler.....but he's serviceable when given things to work with, and has had his share of better than average matches with the right opponents

 

As far as ADR.....he's honestly one of the best in ring guys in the company. I get why people don't like him and tune out on him and think he sucks or whatever......but it's totally down to bad booking IMO. He is really fucking good in ring and can go with anyone. Him and Sheamus are two of the most underrated guys by people due to the fact that they've been booked so poorly......but any time they're given a chance to go out and just have a hard hitting high level match on a tv show or a PPV they deliver the goods. Sheamus has been in some of the funnest tv matches this year IMO. I can say the same for Ziggler, who is also a much maligned figure due to booking rather than his performance

[Dylan Waco]

Del Rio is good, at times very good. Sheamus is great. In fact if we are talking about the 10's (weird to think of that as a decade to be writing about isn't it?), I'm not sure there are too many people I would rate ahead of him in the WWE.

 

Having said that I couldn't really get behind the Main Event match tonight. Generally speaking I think WWE LMS matches are a fool proof gimmick. I can't think of one I haven't at least enjoyed and I did enjoy this match. Still I thought this lacked any sort of context and that bothered me. It's one thing to do a match like this on Main Event. Honestly I have no problem with that and think it's a good idea for the network going forward to do matches like that on that show. But these guys haven't been booked in anything even approximating a serious feud. While you could make the argument that the match got over the significance of the U.S. title and for that reason alone it worked, I still have a real problem with the LMS match being used on no build, in a non-feud. It just made the match seem more forced than it should have.

 

Having said this, it was a reasonably well worked match. In fact it was worked a lot like the WWE house show gimmick matches I've seen over the last several years where you have liberal use of one prop (here it was the cane), building to very minimal use of the key props (the table and the chair). To my mind that is a smart way to build a match like this and Sheamus has really been a master of this style. This is going to come across like a weird criticism, but I think I would have liked the match more if they had done a hot angle on Raw and then aired it on the network as a special house show match on a Saturday Night or something of that ilk.

[Matt D]

One thing about WWE and how much TV they have is that after a while, everyone has history with everyone else. I was thinking about that when Del Rio was wrestling Ziggler in another match with no build on Raw. It was there to set up the Main Event match, and even more so, to set up a future Ziggler vs Fandango match, but it was very easy to go back and think about the concussion and double turn from last year.

[Petey]

True, although I think WWE sometimes drops the ball in pointing out the wrestlers' past history with each other.

[Loss]

My only problem with Sheamus is that rolling out the big forearms to the chest in every match reeks of a guy getting his shit in. Otherwise, I do think he's very good.

[KrisZ]

How different is Sheamus pounding dudes chest from Cena doing his 5 knuckle shuffle or Punk's running knee in the corner, or Bryan's kicks to the chest while the guy is on his knees. It's a signature spot that works for him.

[Loss]

I agree with that and he's not the only one who does it. In general, I'm just not a fan of the WWE approach where every signature spot is rolled out in every match. I like signature spots, but I also like it when they aren't so predictable. The forearms to the chest stand out to me as a glaring example of that for whatever reason.

[KrisZ]

I can see where it would bother people but I could also see where people wouldn't be happy if the signature spot from the wrestler wasn't in the match. The best part of such a spot is the rare time when someone counters it.

[Dylan Waco]

I can see that argument to a degree though I can think of FAR worse "getting their shit in guys" with far loftier reps than Sheamus. More importantly, Sheamus - with the possible exception of Cesaro - is probably the least formulaic offensive wrestler on the roster in terms of having a broad, expansive, move set that he can shift or tailor to different matches, opponents, settings, et.

[Dylan Waco]

I can see where it would bother people but I could also see where people wouldn't be happy if the signature spot from the wrestler wasn't in the match. The best part of such a spot is the rare time when someone counters it.

I actually think it's a brilliant spot. It always looks brutal, it always gets a pop (and often times gets people into a match that was cool before hand), and like the 619 he is very good at finding different ways to utilize it.

[Matt D]

A lot of times it's all about the set up. I think Sheamus (from what i remember. I haven't seen a ton of him this year, actually) is fairly decent at working things like the apron forearms in different ways in different matches. Like the 619 and often times it ends up being fairly clever how he does it. I could be wrong on that.

 

EDIT: OR you know, what Dylan just said.

[Loss]

This reminds me that in the modern WWE world of fan trolling, a Rey heel turn where he does absolutely nothing except 619 attempts and 619s in his matches would be hilarious.

[Steenalized]

Sheamus' forearms spot annoys the hell out of me, though he admittedly has gotten pretty good at not setting it up the same way every time. The one that drives me insane is Orton's draping DDT spot that he works into every match, sometimes more than once.

[Dylan Waco]

The only offensive spot in current WWE I can think of offhand that I really loathe is that trashbag Tanahashi spot Rollins has started to do every match. Obvious I'm excluding all of the offense of RVD and Kofi

[(BP)]

I've seen a few people assert that signature moves are more over than any individual wrestler, and that most pops are for a popular move being executed and boos for a counter to a move the crowd wants to see. From that perspective, the crowd's been conditioned to expect guys to get all of their shit in.