VINCE WILL LISTEN TO RATINGS

It's been a while since I've expressed my thoughts on the wrestling business. I've been focusing more on my other blog, and when I do share some thoughts I want to express I usually tweet it out. Yet and still--

I see some people are finally getting the point that complaining about Raw via twitter is not changing a thing. Vince said that he listens to the fans in the arena not the fans on twitter. So since he doesn't listen to twitter. Hit Vince where he does listen, his pocket. He may not listen to Twitter, but I guarantee he listens to the ratings. I haven't watched Raw in weeks, cause I got tired of complaining about it, and I got tired of being disappointed week after week. The only wrestling I watch now is my DVDs I got and Ring Of Honor on Saturday nights. Ring Of Honor has always been consistent great wrestling. Much like what NXT is to some people. But the supposedly "main show" has been quite a disappointment. I still keep up with the dirt sheets for results and stuff hoping the show gets better. But as it's turns out, the show is getting worse. I saw via twitter and other social media outlets that Survivor Series was one of the worse ever.

Which is sad to see because Survivor Series is one of the big shows of year for WWE, or should I say used to be. Don't be deceived to think that Vince doesn't know what's going on. Vince has an idea of what's going on. I'm willing to bet Triple H and other people working backstage are in Vince's ear letting him know how bad the product is getting. In the early 90s, it was the Kliq who let Vince know very bluntly on what was wrong with the product. Before he left the business, CM Punk was another one who let the office know. My question is who is the guy or gal in the back that will let Vince know the truth.

It's not like they don't have the talent to put on a good show. It's just poorly booked. I understand that some people are injured and some are taking a break to do other projects, but they still got Ziggler, Kevin Owens, Dudley Boyz, Usos, Dean Ambrose, Alberto Del Rio, Charlotte, Paige, Sasha Banks, Natalya, Paige, and others that can carry the product until the "main stars" come back. In all honestly it looks like the booking has become lazy. WCW and TNA esq if you will. So, if the company wants to present a lazy product, I suggest that we all change the channel.

History does show that Vince listens to the ratings. Some of us are old enough to remember the Monday Night Wars. When Nitro was kicking the crap out of Raw in the ratings, Vince sucked it up and went all out, and the product got better because of it. May be what's missing is competition.

~Daniel Richerson

ARE POLITCS AND FOOTBALL TO BLAME FOR BAD RATINGS FOR WRESTLNG?

Cue Hero by Chad Kroeger feat Josey Scott. It’s been a while since I posted a blog on this blog spot and it’s because I can’t watch wrestling like I used to. With the job and other stuff I have to do, I don’t have the time. And the fact that I don’t have DVR. Either way, I do the best I can with YouTube and the dirt sheets, mainly NoDQ.com and WrestlingNewsSource.com. Either way, this came to me tonight while watching the CM Punk DVD produced by WWE, and may I say, it’s a great DVD. One of the best ones I’ve seen. I put it up there with The Rise and Fall of ECW and the Bret Hart DVD. On to what I really want to say…

I’m reading that the ratings this time of the year are supposed to be down for the WWE because of Monday Night Football and the Presidential Debates. To me that’s just an excuse to produce bad TV. If football and politics are the source to blame of the bad ratings then why even put a show on TV during this part of the year? Why even put money into all the lighting and booking? I mean according to the way things are, the ratings are going to be bad anyway, right? So if no one is going to watch, why waste the time putting the show on? Here’s my thing. Maybe it’s not the politics or football that’s the cause of the ratings. Ever think that show has not been made important enough? Maybe if you put the mindset in that you’re going to produce the best product to the audience that will make them want to come back and watch every week no matter what else is going on. Have the mindset in that you’re going to produce a product so riveting that people would rather DVR the debates and football to watch your product. People would rather watch your product as it’s happening, and then go on YouTube to catch up on football or presidential debates.

Never underestimate the power of the tongue which is now turned into the power of social media. In a sense, it’s the same thing. If you’re producing the best product you can on TV, no matter if it’s live or taped, people will talk about it. People will tweet about it, and eventually it will become what is now called “trending worldwide” or like what it was called back before social media “the talk of the town.” WWE is pushing social media hard. Having like a Twitter celeb tweet about it every week to make it more relevant. It’s an idea that could work better if the product was more relevant as a whole. Here’s the problem with wrestling in general. Not just WWE, but wrestling in general. For some reason or another, wrestling promoters decide to wait for one or two times a year to do something that everyone will talk about. Like when CM Punk cut that historic promo in Las Vegas, which by the way was the best promo in wrestling for a long time, the media went crazy. As Colt Cabana said, “The internet blew up.” It was going good after that for a while, and the night I think it all messed up was when Triple H was going to run the show with just him, Punk, Cena, and Sheamas. Then for some reason, Vince McMahon decided to go bring everyone back under Johnny Ace and have the show run like usual. To this day I don’t know what was the idea behind that. It was stupid. I still feel that they could’ve gone longer with that storyline. The wrestlers would be still working house shows and all that but the TV show, they would be striking. To me, that would have been money.

 Sometime later, Brock Lesnar returned later and all of the sudden the buzz is back. It was the night after Wrestlemania, and what I still feel was the best Raw produced. The crowd was a wrestling crowd. That crowd in Miami is the reason I love professional wrestling. The passion not only from the wrestlers in the ring but from the crowd. Daniel Bryan was made that night. And that lasted for a little bit. Now, from what I’m reading, it’s become stale again. Why not keep the momentum going? Why not say ok, let’s build on the momentum that we have and keep the fire burning? I never do understand in wrestling where a major story line dies, the whole product dies. It doesn’t make any logical sense to me what so ever. You have the people talking. You have the people tweeting, posting on Facebook, and making YouTube videos about your product. Instead of building, you’re giving people that YouTube video that’s went viral and then a few months later it’s back to square one. If you have solid foundation, the building will be solid. Maybe that’s the issue with TNA and WWE with the lack of ratings. They’re destroying the foundation.

I don’t know if this is going to change anything that I’m saying. I don’t know if anybody big in the business is going to read this, but I feel that if you have buzz, keep it going. If you see it dying, it’s because you stop building and became content.

Daniel Richerson
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