2017 Raw thread

Originally Posted by TheKitchenSink

That heat for roman at the start... holy shit I don't think even Cena at his worst got that much shit thrown at him from a crowd. Possibly at ECW ONS when he went up against RVD, but I can't remember a typical Raw crowd ever being that hateful towards somebody

Roman played it like a champ to be fair, and then... "this is my yard now" left the crowd absolutely seething.

Thought that was one of the best RAW moments ever.

Reigns played that perfectly and he is working the smart fans just like the Rock n Roll Express did the yokels 30 years ago.

People always want a new Rock, a new Stone Cold etc. He is the first Roman Reigns and I'm loving this era. He has main evented 3 Wrestlemanias against Lesnar, Taker and HHH. If he gets Cena next year he has pretty much done all the top players. Reigns v AJ and Reigns v Balor could both be WM main events too.

I for one welcome our new greasy haired overlord.

Disappointed the raw crowd didn't do a juve at Anfield. It would of been immense

Originally Posted by History

Disappointed the raw crowd didn't do a juve at Anfield. It would of been immense

Could you imagine that :-) ?

Especially on Sheamus the Scouse loving swine.

Originally Posted by Jez Quigley

Thought that was one of the best RAW moments ever.

Reigns played that perfectly and he is working the smart fans just like the Rock n Roll Express did the yokels 30 years ago.

People always want a new Rock, a new Stone Cold etc. He is the first Roman Reigns and I'm loving this era. He has main evented 3 Wrestlemanias against Lesnar, Taker and HHH. If he gets Cena next year he has pretty much done all the top players. Reigns v AJ and Reigns v Balor could both be WM main events too.

I for one welcome our new greasy haired overlord.

I love how some people are claiming WWE did this on purpose to create a monster heel no, they genuinely did want people to like Roman and thought if they pushed him long enough the fans would eventually tap out. But just like with Cena, it isn't happening. Fans are just getting more irate as time goes by.

It's actually scary how closely Reigns is following Cena's trajectory from ten years ago. The crowd reaction towards him now is very comparable to how it was for Cena around 07/08, and both started off in popular gimmicks that turned sour, albeit for slightly different reasons.

The take away is the same either way. People don't want reruns of Hogan from the 80's. The cleancut superhero who overcomes adversity to get his just rewards has been outdated in wrestling for over 20 years, but Vince just can't let it go.

There are only two templates to a RR match:

1) Reigns spends most of the match getting beaten up. He then kicks out of his opponent's finishing moves, comes back with a thousand superman punches/spears, and wins conclusively.

2) Reigns spends most of the match getting beaten up. He then kicks out of his opponent's finishing moves, comes back with a thousand superman punches/spears, but as he is about to win there is some kind of overwhelming outside interference which causes him to lose.

That's it, and it was exactly the same with Cena. It's popular nowadays to frame the Cena-hate as being unjustified, but it wasn't. Neither is the heat Reigns gets. This isn't by design, it's just Vince McMahon being stuck in the past and trying to drag a violently unwilling audience back with him.

Originally Posted by TheKitchenSink

That's it, and it was exactly the same with Cena. It's popular nowadays to frame the Cena-hate as being unjustified, but it wasn't. Neither is the heat Reigns gets. This isn't by design, it's just Vince McMahon being stuck in the past and trying to drag a violently unwilling audience back with him.

Well if he hadn't got the message from the opening promo he surely got it when he took to the ring and was met with rabid Roman sucks chants from the crowd. Basically telling him to turn him or kill the push. He could use the turn, but then he'll likely get less of a reaction from the crowd. Perhaps this reaction is seen as money by his employers.

Originally Posted by Stickman

Well if he hadn't got the message from the opening promo he surely got it when he took to the ring and was met with rabid Roman sucks chants from the crowd. Basically telling him to turn him or kill the push. He could use the turn, but then he'll likely get less of a reaction from the crowd. Perhaps this reaction is seen as money by his employers.

It's Cena all over again. Vince has been aware of how the crowd feels about Reigns for years, but refuses to budge on his position.

Cena would have been an amazing heel when his heat was at its highest, but WWE left him in this shitty, stale babyface role and their ratings duly plummeted to the depths of today.

Vince hasn't learned his lesson, but the truth is that the only time Vince really listened to his audience was during the attitude era when WCW was a genuine threat. Outside of that time he has always operated under the motto "I know best". CM Punk referred to this in his pipe bomb promo, when he said something like Vince would be a billionaire rather than a millionaire if he hadn't spent his time as chairman surrounding himself with yes men.

Either way, I would expect Reigns to continue on his current path of being pushed as a babyface whilst the audience treats him like a heel. Apparently this is what WWE wants, even though evidence points to this practice having a negative impact on their overall ratings.

Originally Posted by TheKitchenSink

It's Cena all over again. Vince has been aware of how the crowd feels about Reigns for years, but refuses to budge on his position.

Cena would have been an amazing heel when his heat was at its highest, but WWE left him in this shitty, stale babyface role and their ratings duly plummeted to the depths of today.

Vince hasn't learned his lesson, but the truth is that the only time Vince really listened to his audience was during the attitude era when WCW was a genuine threat. Outside of that time he has always operated under the motto "I know best". CM Punk referred to this in his pipe bomb promo, when he said something like Vince would be a billionaire rather than a millionaire if he hadn't spent his time as chairman surrounding himself with yes men.

Either way, I would expect Reigns to continue on his current path of being pushed as a babyface whilst the audience treats him like a heel. Apparently this is what WWE wants, even though evidence points to this practice having a negative impact on their overall ratings.

The fact is they're no longer interested in ratings or PPV buy rates anymore, they judge their success by network subscriptions. And business is good.

Originally Posted by 24hr Leavesey

The fact is they're no longer interested in ratings or PPV buy rates anymore, they judge their success by network subscriptions. And business is good.

Not entirely true. Poor ratings could cause USA Network to drop them, and that's something they definitely don't want to happen. Also advertisers pay substantially less for slots in/on wrestling shows, so if ratings do continue to go south for WWE that puts them on very shaky ground.

They actually expected their network count to be well above 2m by now. Think they're only at 1.6m or so?

Originally Posted by TheKitchenSink

Not entirely true. Poor ratings could cause USA Network to drop them, and that's something they definitely don't want to happen. Also advertisers pay substantially less for slots in/on wrestling shows, so if ratings do continue to go south for WWE that puts them on very shaky ground.

They actually expected their network count to be well above 2m by now. Think they're only at 1.6m or so?

They announced 1.6m watched WM on the network, with 1.95m active subscribers at the AGM on Monday.

They signed a longer deal with USA last year, and USA pretty much own them, hence insisting on SD going live and WWE going with it. Television revenue was $241.7m, by far the single largest revenue stream over the years. Network is catching up though, with $180.9m last year.

Network should increase over WM season but short of opening in new markets, most of their base target area already has it. They had 370k international subs at 2016 end, compared to 1.4m in the US, so clearly there's scope overseas. We also pay a little more due to the price point being nominally the same regardless of currency.

Live events brought in $144.4m over 2016, as a comparison.