Re: The Wrestling Thread III: AEW Fyter Fest - Saturday, FITE TV
Posted: Tue Jun 25, 2019 5:18 pm
That's strawberry floated on a WCW scale. The WWE are in trouble, surely.
KK wrote:WWE is a long way off from dying, or even reaching the state they were in monetarily during 96/97 (in spite of declining TV ratings and attendance they’re now making more money than ever!) but the state of mainstream wrestling were WWE suddenly cease to exist would depend currently on what happens with AEW. On PPV, albeit for just one show, they’ve already surpassed TNA’s peak (Samoa Joe vs Kurt Angle) and are at the level of a low level WWE PPV prior to the WWE Network. And this is with no weekly TV, belts, mostly unfamiliar names to a wider audience, or much storytelling.
It all depends on how they do on TNT and ITV, really. TNA briefly became more popular than WWE here in the U.K. and packed out big venues but they could never capitalise on it. If AEW fails on ITV I’d say the consequences are worse for interest in wrestling in the U.K. because WWE becomes a lot less visible once they move to BT Sport. And as other sports have found out, you remove that bigger shop window and you sink into irrelevancy. One thing WWE does still have going for them is YouTube; R-Truth regaining the 24/7 title at a wedding, which didn’t air on TV, has had more views than people who watched RAW and SmackDown in the US combined (4.3 million). There are still a lot of wrestling fans out there clearly, they’re just not prepared to pay for the WWE Network or watch the entirety of RAW and SmackDown every week. And people spending a few minutes watching a silly skit doesn’t exactly mean viable engagement in the product.
Mafro wrote:Enjoying Rollins making a complete arse of himself on Twitter.
Johnny Ryall wrote:BT Sport aren't shy about putting certain things on Youtube for free (champions league final comes to mind, although you could argue that was to brag about their broadcasting technologies streaming it in 4K etc) so I wonder if it would be worth their time bringing back something like Sunday Night Heat (or eh main event???) and having it on Youtube for free in the UK. Youtube does have that whole geo blocking thing they can do to make sure it stays in the UK.
Johnny Ryall wrote:KK wrote:WWE is a long way off from dying, or even reaching the state they were in monetarily during 96/97 (in spite of declining TV ratings and attendance they’re now making more money than ever!) but the state of mainstream wrestling were WWE suddenly cease to exist would depend currently on what happens with AEW. On PPV, albeit for just one show, they’ve already surpassed TNA’s peak (Samoa Joe vs Kurt Angle) and are at the level of a low level WWE PPV prior to the WWE Network. And this is with no weekly TV, belts, mostly unfamiliar names to a wider audience, or much storytelling.
It all depends on how they do on TNT and ITV, really. TNA briefly became more popular than WWE here in the U.K. and packed out big venues but they could never capitalise on it. If AEW fails on ITV I’d say the consequences are worse for interest in wrestling in the U.K. because WWE becomes a lot less visible once they move to BT Sport. And as other sports have found out, you remove that bigger shop window and you sink into irrelevancy. One thing WWE does still have going for them is YouTube; R-Truth regaining the 24/7 title at a wedding, which didn’t air on TV, has had more views than people who watched RAW and SmackDown in the US combined (4.3 million). There are still a lot of wrestling fans out there clearly, they’re just not prepared to pay for the WWE Network or watch the entirety of RAW and SmackDown every week. And people spending a few minutes watching a silly skit doesn’t exactly mean viable engagement in the product.
BT Sport aren't shy about putting certain things on Youtube for free (champions league final comes to mind, although you could argue that was to brag about their broadcasting technologies streaming it in 4K etc) so I wonder if it would be worth their time bringing back something like Sunday Night Heat (or eh main event???) and having it on Youtube for free in the UK. Youtube does have that whole geo blocking thing they can do to make sure it stays in the UK.
WWE has named Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff as Executive Directors, Sports Illustrated has learned.
Heyman is set to become Executive Director of Monday Night Raw, while Bischoff will fill the same role for SmackDown Live. Both will report directly to WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon.
WWE confirmed the news with Sports Illustrated, with an official announcement expected later today.
The two positions are full-time executive roles, with no plans at the current time for this to be introduced as part of a TV storyline.
Mafro wrote:https://www.si.com/wrestling/2019/06/27/wwe-paul-heyman-monday-night-raw-eric-bischoff-smackdown-live-vince-mcmahonWWE has named Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff as Executive Directors, Sports Illustrated has learned.
Heyman is set to become Executive Director of Monday Night Raw, while Bischoff will fill the same role for SmackDown Live. Both will report directly to WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon.
WWE confirmed the news with Sports Illustrated, with an official announcement expected later today.
The two positions are full-time executive roles, with no plans at the current time for this to be introduced as part of a TV storyline.