I'm kind of surprised they've stuck with the PPV model instead of bundling in the WWE Network as a package deal (like Netflix).
The biggest losers here, besides arguably WWE themselves, is Sky customers. If they want to continue watching WWE Live then it's now going to cost them an extra £29.99 a month, plus £20 activation fee. Or they can change their broadband supplier to BT and get it cut down to £16 a month. Another more drastic option is dumping Sky completely and getting BT TV, or alternatively BT Sport is included in a few of the Virgin Media packages.
NowTV customers meanwhile are completely screwed, because as far as I'm aware you can't purchase BT Sport stand-alone.
Considering how low the ratings currently are on Sky, I can't see them suddenly increasing on BT Sport. I'm not even sure SmackDown is even going to make it to prime time Saturday in the UK, because it's dependent on FOX keeping it on Friday night.
FITE has announced that AEW Fyter Fest next weekend will be £8.99 in the U.K., which is disappointing considering it’s free in the USA. No doubt it’ll be available all over the internet the following day.
ITV4 has got a big boxing match from 2am to around 6, so they would have had to air it on ITV1 had they picked it up.
KK wrote:FITE has announced that AEW Fyter Fest next weekend will be £8.99 in the U.K., which is disappointing considering it’s free in the USA. No doubt it’ll be available all over the internet the following day.
ITV4 has got a big boxing match from 2am to around 6, so they would have had to air it on ITV1 had they picked it up.
Bought it with some of my free credit Won’t be able to watch live again so I’ll have to watch on the Sunday evening.
WWE has a PPV in 3 weeks (Extreme Rules), imagine if they do another Corbyn/Rollins main event. The crowd really got into the last 5 minutes of the match, but at the start they were chanting "AEW", "boring", "this is stupid" and "Daniel Bryan".
They've announced Shane McMahon and Drew McIntyre against Roman Reigns in a handicap match for RAW tonight, so last night's match solved strawberry float all.
Stomping Grounds also went off the air 45 minutes earlier than advertised. Truly the modern day version of In Your House '95. One of the theme tunes for the show was:
Like Great Balls of Fire, Vince choosing relevant music again.
You could probably argue it's been a sideshow for years in the US anyway, certainly within the last 10 at least due to the complete lack of big stars and definitely since WCW died.
In the grand scale of things if WWE died it would have zero affect on my interest in wrestling since I don't watch anything from that company anymore.
If WWE died, then companies with actual interesting, nuanced products could eventually fill that void and eventually be far more respected in the mainstream.
Rog wrote:Zero posts for a PPV. Wrestling is truly dead.
You need to broaden your horizons
If WWE goes then the whole thing is practically dead. It will be reduced back to a sideshow.
They're making more money than ever via the likes of Saudi Blood Money so that's not going to happen anytime soon, but even if it did, there are more alternatives than ever, and whilst it's debatable (and pretty interesting) what the affect the death of WWE would have on the likes of NJPW, AEW, indies etc. I don't think it would die.
Tl;dr just subscribe to NJPW World and enjoy the G1 next month
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.
I won’t be watching the full shows (though maybe the Saturday, July 6th show from Dallas), but I plan on seeing bits and pieces online, such as Jon Moxley and KENTA’s matches and the finals.
RAW Spoilers - In a match that makes absolutely no sense, Undertaker returned during the Handicap match and helped Reigns. It's now Taker/Reigns vs McIntyre/Shane at Extreme Rules....
JChalmers wrote:RAW Spoilers - In a match that makes absolutely no sense, Undertaker returned during the Handicap match and helped Reigns. It's now Taker/Reigns vs McIntyre/Shane at Extreme Rules....