The creative booking is the worse it's been in a very long time and the television ratings are the lowest they have been in a very long time.
But guess what? WWE doesn't care! Why you ask?
- WWE's annual revenues are the highest in company history, at over $729 million a year with profits being as high as ever before.
- WWE has it's own Network that while subscribers haven't hit the 2 -3 million mark yet, they are still working on building the Network with more features, efficiencies, etc., to completely "own" their own distribution.
- WWE corporate sponsorships, media presence, etc., is the highest it's ever been before.
- WWE social media engagement is one of the HIGHEST of any company in the world.
- Wrestlemania is the biggest it's ever been before, with multiple cities fighting over the rights to host a Wrestlemania.
So quite frankly, the WWE could care less about us "Internet Wrestling Fans" lol. They figure that as much as we bytch, we will be right back watching the program again anyway.
This is all true. Vince McMahon JUST became a billionaire last year for the very first time at the age of 70. He is now valued at 1.1 billion net worth, and you can BET YOUR AZZ that nice, fat, round number was at the forefront of his mind.
THAT'S why you're seeing more emphasis on expansion and less emphasis on quality.
The UK Championship is a silly concept, the men in that tournament were all 18 years old and were about 5'9" 175 pounds on average (SMALLER THAN ME). Does anyone EVER see any of these guys as credible threats to Brock Lesnar?
The Crusierweight Championship isn't a shell of what it used to be, with vanilla midgets like TJ Perkins and Rich Swann offering ZERO personality. The glory days of lightweight wrestling featured incredible lucha high flyers like Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Jericho - larger than life characters who just happened to be small. And yet, the Crusierweights HAVE THEIR OWN SHOW NOW.
NxT (as a concept of a televised minor league) isn't a bad idea, but it doesn't appeal to me. I simply don't have 20 hours a week to dedicate to wrestling.
RAW being three hours is BRUTAL, but it's not going back any time soon. The reason? An hour more of commercial time!
The brand split is stupid but it doubles the number of low end, throwaway PPV's, each of which may net a few thousand network buys that wouldn't otherwise happen.
The Network is booming and so are WWE.com sales.
Everybody is a champion now. The storylines are paper thin. Tons of rematches. The WWE DELIBERATELY teased a Cena vs. Orton match which they knew wasn't gonna happen, but they were yanking our chain because those guys have already wrestled over 100 times. They act like Undertaker vs. Reigns and HHH vs. Rollins are these great, fresh matches as though being involved in a tag feuds mean nothing.
But as Tenacity stated, it doesn't matter because reducing RAW to 2 hours, making it QUALITY, and trimming all the fat is the last thing on McMahon's mind. He's HAPPY to sacrifice content for the greater good of becoming a world brand.
I would be perfectly happy with a quality 2 hour RAW, a taped 2 hour Smackdown, and 6 PPV's a year, but WWE is going in the opposite direction. On PPV weeks, now that Smackdown is on Tuesdays, you can get live wrestling content on TV 3 nights in a row (Sunday-Monday-Thuesday). In another 5-10 years, it'll be on TV 7 days a week in some form or another.
