The Wrestling Thread III

[SerialCeler]

Makes a change to 1999-2000, when they would do two dates a year, and tickets would sell out almost instantly.

[KK]

Some UK ratings for the past few weeks...

IMPACT WRESTLING

21st April (debut episode) - 151,000
5th May - 135,000

WWE RAW

24th April - 39,000
1st May - 44,000

WWE SmackDown Live

25th April 2017 - less than 18,000
2nd May 2017 - 34,000

Sky: '...and we paid HOW MUCH for this gooseberry fool?!'

[KK]

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Some UK ratings for the past few weeks...

IMPACT WRESTLING

21st April (debut episode) - 151,000
5th May - 135,000

WWE RAW

24th April - 39,000
1st May - 44,000

WWE SmackDown Live

25th April 2017 - less than 18,000
2nd May 2017 - 34,000

Sky: '...and we paid HOW MUCH for this gooseberry fool?!'

Are these the live showing, the most watched showing or all of the showings added together?

I really don't get why sky haven't tried it on another channel the impact wrestling figures constantly show that the appetite is there.

[KK]

They're the Live airings. If you combined absolutely everything for RAW (including 1 Hour editions) you'd get to about 70,000.

[Mafro]

Christ. Always surprised at how low the numbers are.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Christ. Always surprised at how low the numbers are.

They always used to be in the hundreds of thousands on sky sports.

I just don't get what benefit sky has from putting it on sky sports, I can't imagine many of the viewers are subscribing to sky sports just for wrestling, surely they should give it a go on an entertainment channel and see how it gets on.

[Mafro]

Are all the WWE shows exclusively on the sports channels on Sky now?!

[KK]

It pads out Sky Sports 5, which would be empty without WWE programming. But sticking it on 5 is only hurting it too, because it's missing on BT and TalkTalk packages, and is more likely to be overlooked even if you do have it.

I think a whole load of factors has led to the state it's now in. YouTube highlights, WWE Network, the programming itself, declining popularity of Sky Sports in general (everything is down; only big Premier League games now pull in a million+), expecting people to stay up until 3/4am on consecutive nights, which with the increase in PPVs on the Network is twice a month, that USA has increased the advertising during RAW to almost 50 minutes...

WWE is dying on Sky Sports, but there seems to be no appetite to save it.

Are all the WWE shows exclusively on the sports channels on Sky now?!

RAW highlights air on Sky1 on Sunday mornings; Main Event and abridged Network specials air on Sky Sports Mix.

[Mafro]

I bet Sky made no effort to try and get the new UK show on any of their channels too.

I see the ITV World of Sport tapings that were meant to happen next week have been postponed due to contract negotiations.

[BAKA]

Sasha Banks losing to Alicia Fox...

Kurt Angle. 'Je suis gold freakin' medalist'.

[Slimgrady]

The Finn Balor WWE 24 is excellent, one of the best. Doing jäger bombs in the pub

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Guess I'm not going in November after all as they're not coming here this year by the look of it...

Yeah it seems pretty light on UK dates looking at it.

It appears they've added a Nottingham and Birmingham show to the tour now, if either of these are near you?

WWE November tour

Nov 1 - Glasgow, Scotland (Raw)
Nov 2 - Brighton, England (Raw)
Nov 3 - London, England (Raw)
Nov 4 - Barcelona, Spain (SmackDown)
Nov 4 - Minehead, England (Raw)
Nov 5 - Madrid, Spain (SmackDown)
Nov 5 - Cardiff, Wales (Raw)
Nov 6 - Manchester, England (Raw taping)
Nov 7 - Manchester, England (SmackDown & 205 Live taping)
Nov 8 - Birmingham (Raw)
Nov 8 - Dortmund, Germany (Raw)
Nov 8 - Leeds, England (SmackDown)
Nov 9 - Leipzig, Germany (Raw)
Nov 9 - Nottingham (Smackdown)
Nov 10 - Hamburg, Germany (Raw)
Nov 10 - Milan, Italy (SmackDown)
Nov 11 - Mannheim, Germany (Raw)
Nov 11 - Padova, Italy (SmackDown)
Nov 12 - Florence, Italy (SmackDown)

[BAKA]

Neither near me, but it's good to know they're adding more. Thanks Return!

[KK]

UK Special gets underway on the Network in 10 minutes.

[Slimgrady]

Great to hear JR again.

[KK]

First time I've seen the WWE use the green screen to pretend the announce team are actually there since Brain and Gorilla Monsoon.

Lighting is pretty dark. Ring is very squeaky too. Feels a little like a local indie promotion.

[Slimgrady]

A man in an Alan Partridge mask chanting Dan, terrific.

"What's this Wanker thing they're talking about?"

[KK]

I do like how WWE continually get away with saying "wanker" on their supposed PG programming.

[Return_of_the_STAR]

Why are all these 205 people on the uk show?