Raw Ratings Way Down

Fozzy

Raw's ratings have been consistently lower for the last month, but this week the ratings are 2.5, which is a lot lower than the previous lowest rating they had on the USA Network, which was a 3.0. I think that's the lowest rating Raw has done since 1997, excluding one New Year's Eve edition which was just a "year in review" show

I've actually found a lot of stuff on Raw very entertaining in the last few weeks, so I find it hard to believe that a drop in quality is responsible for this. My guess would be that the parents of kids who watch Raw because of Cena have stopped their kids watching now, because SD and ECW haven't had the same drop in viewers. Just sepculation though

I'm afraid more bad than good will come of this, because it's going to put pressure on Vince to give in to what the USA Network have apparently suggested, which is to re-hire more Attitude Era stars like Sable and Chyna

EdK

Everything is so predictable and has been done the death.

Remember when they used to leave the arena every week ala Stone Cold Vs Booker in the super market or The title belt getting thrown in the river

Its very basic and repetitive now

EdK

During the Monday Night Wars they were pulling between 5 and 7 thats a huge decline its only double what TNA pulls under very different circumstances

Bubs101

In fairness they tried to leave it like that when they killed Mr. mcmahon

evad_lhorg

its getting those ratings because it is boring.

youre only enjoying it sta...fozzy because youuve just let your standards drop.

Jonny Arson

RAW (and WWE shows in general) have gotten very boring over the past couple of months in comparison to the improvement in programming seen late last year and early this year. You cannot be surprised by this ratings decline. maybe the imminent return of Triple H may improve ratings but it's gonna take a real shake up with the crap that is being churned out late

i think the belt must come of Cena ASAP as i believe that's a significant problem, too predictable, too much RAW is Cena, too much Superman....... his title reign has ran out of steam, even if it is Orton who gets the belt I'll just welcome seeing that belt on someone different and for some new edgy storylines

Vince135792003

evad_lhorg wrote:

its getting those ratings because it is boring.

.

I think its not as simple as that.

First off they had to end abruptly the "Who killed Vince angle?" which was not to everbodies tastes but it was drawing more people with Raw near 4.0's from what I can remember. That was only 5 weeks ago.

Secondly, I think the Benoit tragedy and the aftermath that has followed has left a mark to a degree with die hard fans but also with parents of kids who watch it too.

Then you have the list of injuries which has resulted in them having to chop and change story lines for the last 3 months. Any wrestling company would financially miss Rey, Triple H, Michaels, Undertaker and Edge.

Also on the horizon is Monday night football in America which always hits WWE to an extent too.

A drop from 3 3.4's to a 2.5 is crazy though. Its hard to make full sense of it espcecially with it 5 weeks after the Benoit situation.

rossie1977

last weeks Raw scored a 3.4 cable rating with hours of 3.2 and 3.5.

This is a huge fall :eek: if true

EdK

The following is from WWE.com:

Former ECW Champion Bobby Lashley will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his damaged left shoulder Tuesday in Birmingham, Ala, WWE.com has learned.

WWE physician Dr. Ferdinand Rios told WWE.com that the Dominator was evaluated by Dr. Jeffery Dugas, an associate of noted orthopaedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews’, today at the Alabama Sports Medicine & Orthopaedic Center in Birmingham.

It was determined that the extensive damage suffered in Lashley’s match with Mr. Kennedy on Raw was severe enough to warrant the procedure.

“They are going to do an arthroscopic evaluation of the left shoulder, that requires a small incision for the insertion of the scope,” Rios explained. “If it’s just cartilage or something that can be repaired easily, they will do so. If it is a complete rotator cuff [tear], then they’ll probably have to open [Lashley’s] shoulder up and repair it.

The rehab time for arthroscopic surgery is usually 6 to 8 weeks, according to Rios. But the former Army sergeant could be out of action for six months if there’s more severe damage, requiring extensive reconstruction of the shoulder.

“We won’t know until [the procedure] happens,” Rios said.

Mossy Monk

How to fix RAW: Get Santino Marella off the screen. He is ****.

EdK

Him AND his dodgy Italian accent

triple h

WWE has got boring in the last 5 weeks.

If Benoit was till alive maybe ' the vince is dead story' would have turned out great.
Undertaker, Shawn, Edge and so on.. getting injuries were bad news for wwe,

The general gist is, ( vince135792003 said this above, i am just saying it in my own words) wwe have had to change story lines in the past few weeks at the last hour. I am sure these story lines are wrote weeks in advance and all of a sudden we are seeing rushed story lines and nobody is to blame for that. It's just bad luck has forced this to happen. We are seeing some awful and foul stuff on wwe now. I have not watched SD or ECW for the last 2 or 3 weeks. I have watched Raw and not liked it. Last week i fast forward nearly ever raw match. I am on holidays this monday for two weeks, i will not even sky+ the wwe programs and i always did this in the past.

I saw Raw this week and after the Lashley match the first thing that struck me was --- " Bobby must be getting his summer holidays"

Fozzy

No one can claim that Raw was predictable this week

The Cena and Orton feud is goin great, it's like Rocky III the way it's goin. Booker's been the best thing on Raw, I can't remember a bad segment with him since he came back. Umaga is puttin on fun shows every week. Cody Rhodes is coming along nicely. Regal and Jeff Hardy have been worth watchin whenever they're on tv. And even Santino was great this week! I've enjoyed this year of Raw much more than any in the past six or seven years. Last year was headache-inducingly boring at times, but I look forward to Raw now

I think most fans seem to either be too focused on Cena apparently being the worst wrestler in the world or they don't think it's worth watching if there aren't guys on the show who were around 10 years ago

Vince135792003

I really think this is a one week anomaly. Obviously the ratings have dropped pretty badly since the Benoit situation but to drop that low in 1 week is insane.

estebancambias

Best news ever. Benoit is only part of the problem, the truth is the booking sucks. Why is every Raw based fully around the main eventers? They need to start caring about their mid-card guys. The WWE deserves this, they really do. The only show worth watching is ECW, and even at that Vince is doing his best to ruin it. Look at Smackdown, the internet community was delighted with it as it focused on wrestling, then Vince says ''Hahah, they want wrestling well then wrestling is not what they will get', lets insult the fans intelligence and shove Khali(who I like in a way), Mark Henry and Batista down our throats.

Then they give the belt to Hornswoggle, Oh my God.

**** you Vince!!! ***** HHH!!!!! and **** you Stephanie!!!!

Vince135792003

estebancambias wrote:

Look at Smackdown, the internet community was delighted with it as it focused on wrestling, then Vince says ''Hahah, they want wrestling well then wrestling is not what they will get', lets insult the fans intelligence and shove Khali(who I like in a way), Mark Henry and Batista down our throats.

Smackdowns ratings haven't dropped though.

estebancambias

Ok yeah I know, but if you are a viewer of Smackdown you cannot deny that the wrestling has declined so much.

Vince135792003

estebancambias wrote:

Ok yeah I know, but if you are a viewer of Smackdown you cannot deny that the wrestling has declined so much.

Yep, I get your point and agree with it but it hasn't effected ratings.

I've looked at the ratings every week off the net for a fairly long time and I've never seen a drop like that. Next weeks rating will tell the story.

Cactus Col

were there a lot of pre-emptions or something to explain it?

That's a shocking fall.

I bet that scuppers any rumours of a move three hours that there were going around

Vince135792003

Vince will be on Raw this coming Monday to "strike back" according to the headline on wwe.com.

Link here: http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/preview/4889310/

ShawnRaven

To me, it's not as black and white and is down to several reasons.

1) Injuries - for as long as talent keeps getting injured, the product is gonna suffer. RAW suffered the loss of a major player, like him or not, but when HHH got injured in January, that wasn't going to be a good thing that he was gonna be out for 6-8 months. Granted at the time, there was more than enough talent to go around. But then we had HBK getting injured on top of that, another big player. Next thing we know, talent is dropping like flies. In fact, even SD has suffered now because Kennedy and Booker were drafted to RAW to fill in the gap.

2) Benoit - granted, he hasn't been on RAW for the guts of a year, but a lot of people have tuned out from WWE (and turned to Indies, TNA, ROH, Japan) for their wrestling fix as a result of this. I don't think a moral highground for parents/kids have anything to do with it. People still listened to The Who when Pete Townshend was busted with kiddie porn on his PC, parents and all. But the quality of matches have declined, especially on SD when the likes Guerrero and Benoit gone.

3) John Cena - so he's a hit with the kiddies. Whoop de doo, i'm over 18 and quite frankly, am sick of hearing Cena's music every time RAW starts, whereas his ring work has improved, his gimmick is stale and his promos aren't even funny anymore. The last funny promo he was involved with was him, Big Slow and Booker in the ring bragging about movies, and that was over a year ago! People who aren't bothered with his work on the mic will easily tune off, and go back to the channel in 10-15 minutes when he shuts the f*ck up, which will easily provide a ratings drop.

4) Bad storylines & writing. WWE since buying out all their competition has fallen under the "We're #1 so why bother trying anymore" syndrome. As a result, you'll never get the quality of storyline (and ring work for that matter) you did during the Attitude era. It's not coming back, as much as people yearn for it. As a result a lot of people who have now seen what WWE were once capable of providing, find it a bit sickening some of the sh*t that has been handed to us from 2002-2007, and i include myself at that. From Katie Vick, to Al Wilson, to Shane McMahon getting his nuts fried by Kane to Chavo Guerrero Sr/Classic winning the cruiserweight title (and then topping that by giving it to a midget, but at least he fit into the weight class!)

Put all those into the equation, i'm surprised that ratings didn't take the massive drop a lot sooner! And if people think Vince coming back will bump up the ratings after the stunt he pulled, then forget it. He's not a miracle worker

Now... get Jericho, Rock, Austin and Angle back onto RAW and watch em fly back up, but thats as likely to happen as Bruce Grobbelar coming out of retirement and forgetting how to rig soccer matches! :P

VR!

Fozzy

Oh no. He'd better start off some huge storyline, because he's been the only consistent source of boredom for me this year in WWE. I'd rather he didn't stick around and do the same old thing every week

Oh yeah, Jericho, I'd completely forgotten about him the last couple of weeks. He could start somethin big happenin

Fozzy

The Wrestling Observer says that WWE were contacted by Neilsen earlier today to say that there had been a technical issue with the ratings of some programs and that Raw had been affected by it. So the news probably isn't so bad for WWE after all. Hopefully Vince will decide to stay off tv now and let everyone get on with the good jobs they've been doing

ShawnRaven

Fozzy wrote:

The Wrestling Observer says that WWE were contacted by Neilsen earlier today to say that there had been a technical issue with the ratings of some programs and that Raw had been affected by it. So the news probably isn't so bad for WWE after all. Hopefully Vince will decide to stay off tv now and let everyone get on with the good jobs they've been doing

Yes! Pre-recorded message like SD Summerbash tour 05 kplzthx!
VR!

Mitch Connor

VR - quick tangent. HHH getting injured was one of the best things to happen to the WWE recently. IN the months following the injury, WWE was probably at the best i have seen it in a long time - the Cena vs HBK matches just the tip of the ice berg - there were great matches, and some nice rivalries at the time, the WWE concentrated on good wrestling as opposed to DX skits and it was working brillinatly, til HBK, Taker and Kennedy got injured. I think it all started to go down hill very very quickly after WM. Now with Edge out, its going to get a lot worse.

Hopefully though, Orton vs Cena is done well - cause it has the potential to be a great fued, and could turn around RAW at least.

ShawnRaven

Tauren wrote:

VR - quick tangent. HHH getting injured was one of the best things to happen to the WWE recently. IN the months following the injury, WWE was probably at the best i have seen it in a long time - the Cena vs HBK matches just the tip of the ice berg - there were great matches, and some nice rivalries at the time, the WWE concentrated on good wrestling as opposed to DX skits and it was working brillinatly, til HBK, Taker and Kennedy got injured. I think it all started to go down hill very very quickly after WM. Now with Edge out, its going to get a lot worse.

Hopefully though, Orton vs Cena is done well - cause it has the potential to be a great fued, and could turn around RAW at least.

I'm in a little disagreement with HHH as it's not like he was the primary focus of RAW for that year (the focus was still on Cena, DX would open the show occasionally but the focus would still be on the champion), He certainly wasn't as overexposed as he was say, in 2003. I found Cena v HBK at Mania quite boring (as i did the entire PPV), and their rematch was much better. Some of the DX skits were actually entertaining, more than Cena's boring promos on Edge (when Edge was clearly destroying Cena, mouth to mouth and word for word)

What i'm trying to say is HBK v Cena would have probably happened even if HHH had not been injured. HHH didn't want to return to main event at that time anyway as Steph had just popped her sprog (from what i remembered reading). Which is also why i don't think he'll have the belt for a while even when he does go back.

I will however agree with you on Orton v Cena. And it will be done well, for one big reason, WWE can't afford to screw it up with all the injuries and bad press it has received this year, and more importantly, they know it.

VR!