Raw Rating 3/30

[Deleted]

I think more than anything it's mostly just that what WWE is doing right now feels like an utter farce. Like, they're putting on shows where nothing happens while constantly blathering on and on and on about how incredible it all is and how WrestleMania is TOO BIG FOR JUST ONE NIGHT and it just comes off as a completely miserable experience.

[slaughterama]

I really thought that with everyone being home, ratings for WWE and AEW would rise drastically. Figured people wanted escapism and get their minds off of everything going on right now. Instead, these shows are a 2-3 hour reminder how bad things are right now, and I think that is what is turning people away. I get that AEW probably can't afford to stop running new TV right now, but WWE might be best served to subscribe to the theory of "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" and shut things down after this week. Just carrying on at this point is probably just going to dig the hole even deeper. Send everyone home, and when you come back, you'll have a hungry audience waiting for you that you can try and build off of.

[bob]

the show was piss poor

is earned it

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

With all of TV up and increasing, WWE's bottoming out with no sports competition is an indictment on their inability to make a compelling program

The situation they are put into sucks, I know some of it is really out of their control, but the shows themselves are not sustainable. A three hour show is NOT SUSTAINABLE in this format.

AEW has been met with the same issues and they have by and large consensus put on two great live shows the last two weeks, WWE by and large has not been able to figure out how to make shit work. Times are hard for anyone and you can say it's hard to really blame the ratings on WWE, but there is at least some level of blame for WWE on this. They've been steadily losing ratings for years and when forced to put down all their smoke and mirrors and let their writing carry the show, their ratings are dying.

And moreover, this is Mania season, the go home show to Mania. And there is no interest in it, so I can't imagine how WrestleMania is gonna do when it comes to viewers and buys. I guess time will tell.

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

Mar 31, 2020 20:59:01 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

I think more than anything it's mostly just that what WWE is doing right now feels like an utter farce. Like, they're putting on shows where nothing happens while constantly blathering on and on and on about how incredible it all is and how WrestleMania is TOO BIG FOR JUST ONE NIGHT and it just comes off as a completely miserable experience.

On top of still promoting matches that have been well reported to be officially cancelled

I get the shows were taped but god damn edit shit out or edit a segment in. It just comes off like they're gonna promote Roman vs Goldberg as taped and as planned along with the other cancelled/restructured matches until Mania happens and then they're gonna go "Well WHOOPS". It's extremely lazy, disingenuous, and downright scummy to be falsely continuing to advertise matches you know people ain't gonna see.

[Deleted]

LU managed to film am entire 22 episode season in a month , WWE should have taken a cue and just did shows completely vingette style.

Would have solved the lack of a live audience and really made the shows during this time very interesting and different.

[prettynami]

Mar 31, 2020 22:20:11 GMT -5 @sigmax said:

LU managed to film am entire 22 episode season in a month , WWE should have taken a cue and just did shows completely vingette style.

Would have solved the lack of a live audience and really made the shows during this time very interesting and different.

That's a level of forward thinking they are incapable of.

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

Mar 31, 2020 22:20:11 GMT -5 @sigmax said:

LU managed to film am entire 22 episode season in a month , WWE should have taken a cue and just did shows completely vingette style.

Would have solved the lack of a live audience and really made the shows during this time very interesting and different.

We really need a Broken Matt Hardy/Penta storyline down the line for AEW because I wanna see how crazy the vignetes could be...

[Mandarin Dessert Version 0]

The sad/scary thing is...this is how their shows look when they still have an end game like Wrestlemania in sight?

Imagine the post-WM shows when they don't have an end game in sight?

[flakeymcgill]

This has the potential to be devastating for WWE beyond the current restrictions. There's similarities between WWE now and Disney in the 70s and 80s - the arrogance in thinking that the brand is more over than the core product and that the core product can be neglected because of assumed customer loyalty to the brand. Filming snore-fest programming in empty arenas, as much as the current situation is beyond their control, will damage the brand. And what do they have to fall back on? Nothing.


They're dangerously close already to relying on the audience who pretty much still watch out of habit. This has the potential to break that habit. It wouldn't surprise me if when things do get back to normal if the new baseline audience for Raw wasn't a good 20-30% down on what it was immediately prior to it.

People will find other things to watch. They spend so long negating the product thinking the brand was all important that now what will people return for? As Raw's audience continues to slide people will find other things to do and other things to watch on a Monday night.

[Brian Suntan]

Apr 1, 2020 6:03:01 GMT -5 flakeymcgill said:

This has the potential to be devastating for WWE beyond the current restrictions. There's similarities between WWE now and Disney in the 70s and 80s - the arrogance in thinking that the brand is more over than the core product and that the core product can be neglected because of assumed customer loyalty to the brand. Filming snore-fest programming in empty arenas, as much as the current situation is beyond their control, will damage the brand. And what do they have to fall back on? Nothing.


They're dangerously close already to relying on the audience who pretty much still watch out of habit. This has the potential to break that habit. It wouldn't surprise me if when things do get back to normal if the new baseline audience for Raw wasn't a good 20-30% down on what it was immediately prior to it.

People will find other things to watch. They spend so long negating the product thinking the brand was all important that now what will people return for? As Raw's audience continues to slide people will find other things to do and other things to watch on a Monday night.

I don't disagree with the idea that if the audience continues to drop, it will be hard to get them to come back after this is over.

However, I actually think that's a reason to continue. Nothing will force people to find other things to do on a Monday night like having no show at all.

[111111]

But Paul Heyman is a creative genius and worked shoots are the solution to everything.....

[Cyno]

It's amazing how entertaining the initial Performance Center Smackdown was and how awful everything has been since. Yes, not normal times and there's probably a lot of wrestlers who can't even work the shows because they're stuck in places with stay-at-home orders (and wrestling isn't exactly an essential business), or they're at-risk like Roman Reigns where they don't want to risk their lives unnecessarily. But it's like there's no real effort being put into these shows. Everything just feels really phoned in.

Maybe that's been the case for awhile now and the empty arena just exposes that without crowd noise.

[Pushed to the Moon]

Apr 1, 2020 13:20:40 GMT -5 Cyno said:

It's amazing how entertaining the initial Performance Center Smackdown was and how awful everything has been since. Yes, not normal times and there's probably a lot of wrestlers who can't even work the shows because they're stuck in places with stay-at-home orders (and wrestling isn't exactly an essential business), or they're at-risk like Roman Reigns where they don't want to risk their lives unnecessarily. But it's like there's no real effort being put into these shows. Everything just feels really phoned in.

Maybe that's been the case for awhile now and the empty arena just exposes that without crowd noise.

I agree. The first one was new and fun with HHH being a dick on commentary and the vibe was like "We're all in this together. Let's just do our best to have fun." Then they somehow managed to make something new and unprecedented feel stale after only like 2 weeks. We knew what we were gonna get in terms of replaying old matches padding time so there's no real incentive to watch unless you wanted to see things from the past (And I'm not talking about Taker and Goldberg. Hiyooooo!).

Obviously I'm not going to blame them for the chaos in the world and the restrictions make things hard but tossing an hour of old shit in the middle of the show really smacks of not trying. There's still the occasional wacky flash of fun guest commentators and I actually found the Austin/Byron thing hilarious but overall it's just so low effort.

[xxshoyuweeniexx]

To me it’s not even the lack of a crowd, but the presentation is terrible for the most part. Outside of promos like Taker’s and Edge’s and the backstage promos, everybody sounds and looks like goofs acting the same way they would in front of a crowd in front of no one. Everything just feels so..off. There’s some creativity, but not a lot compared to Dynamite.

[Deleted]

If they're going to keep putting the retro content in to pad the show out then they should really just designate the third hour as a flashback period of the show for awhile. It'd probably crater ratings for that hour, but it's not like having gigantic recaps that pop up the hell out of nowhere isn't already doing that.

[Brian Suntan]

I think they have been evolving and working in different things, a few more segments in locations outside the PC, skits like Corbin nearly killing Elias.

But getting the WWE to change is like moving an oil tanker, and the bits where they're trying are surrounded with padding to the point it's suffocating the shows.

I'd liken it to a latter day Undertaker matches, whereby every move is followed by a couple of minutes of stalling and lying around on the floor.

With nearly two weeks to edit and polish their biggest show of the year, hopefully it will be a lot tighter.