For the Monday Night wrestling stuff, there were some interesting reviews floating around. While I gave RAW a C- (C minus), many others were MUCH kinder and even went out of their way of saying that it was the best show they've seen in a while. Rocky marks. Ahem, excuse me there. I honestly can't see how anyone could have graded the show so high. I'd say that a B- would be the maximum it would get if I ignored the fact that none of the midcard matches had angles or storylines surrounding them, because those matches lacked the energy to fire up the Philly crowd, who are always hot for a wrestling show.
But that's just my opinion on the show, as I question some attention spans when they forget about the rest of the show once the Rock shows up. It's like a lot of viewers were mindless zombies until they saw the Rock and they began to lube themselves up after that. Yecch!
Before I get any more evil in the introduction, on to the PDC.
Thanks to Digital Citizen for sending in this week's Ratings Analysis banner. Impressive job here!
The Rock equals ratings. Need I say more? With the ECW/WCW invasion angle beginning to water down a little bit, the Rock stepped in and helped to keep the ratings momentum going. His overrun return rating was a massive 7.1, which is reportedly the highest rated TNN segment in the cable network's existance. That's very impressive, and no other overrun by the WWF has even come close to that sort of insane number. I told you that a lot of casual fans just walked away from the WWF once the Rock was "suspended" to go make his movie for 3 or 4 months.
I forgot to mention that the opening segments are achieiving higher ratings than before, now scoring somewhere in the mid fours. That's better than the late threes or middle threes. Still, the show would have been rated much higher if the opening segment was watched more, but the sign that it's at least increasing as the rest of the WWF is becoming successful, again, is a good sign. This week's RAW is like an exponential monster, as it starts off low and then shoots right off to a high rating. Starting with a 4.6 and ending with a 7.1 is a mighty big difference.
I'll go on my opinion that a lot of people were watching for the Rock. I believe that the show would have drawn a lower rating with the midcard the WWF was employing that night. Just the simple fact that none of the matches, even a Title vs. Title match, had any proper build up or hype really hurts the tone of the match. Proof of that was when the Philly fans were chanting "Boring" during the Edge/Christian vs. Storm/Kanyon match. Now had there been a storyline to tell around it, then maybe fans would have paid more attention to it. That simple.
Livewire and Superstars have, I guess, bottomed out at 0.9 every week, while Mtv Heat has as well with their 1.5 rating. I don't watch Heat often, and I still have yet to watch the latest Heat to give you some analysis on why Heat still isn't getting good ratings. Oh wait, I know why... the show's format sucks and Mtv flat out sucks. Need I say more?
-Looks like Diamond Dallas Page is becoming the latest victim of the wild WWF jealousy. Apparently, some of the WWF wrestlers just don't like Page's self promotion attitude. Geesh, he's not an arrogant prick like they are thinking. If you read his book, you'll know that Page used to run and operate bars, and he was extremely successful at doing it. When you're in that kind of work, self promotion is the only way to get attention to your line of work. He's just doing the same in the WWF right now, and it's out of habit. It's very doubtful that DDP is purposely being an asshole to anyone backstage in the WWF. He wouldn't have received a Time Warner/AOL buyout to just be a total asshole. He missed out on all of that free money just to come into the WWF, so why would he disrespect anyone? I think that a lot of WWF superstars better just lose their paranoid attitude and become a team player, because the ECW/WCW invasion saved the WWF's ratings, while the current WWF roster wasn't exactly doing that, thank you very much.
-I'm sort of worried about the WWF expanding with an extra timeslot for possibly the ECW/WCW talent. As of right now, it seems apparent that neither the WWF or ECW/WCW could survive without each other. The WWF's current roster, as I mentioned above, weren't exactly generating ratings until the Invasion started. On the other hand, ECW/WCW aren't gaining the crowd responses like any WWF wrestler, and the only time they are cheered is when someone stomps a mudhole in them. I don't know the exact details of this, but 4 hours of combined wrestling has worked ever since the ECW Invasion started.
-Not that I'm a stock expect, and I never have, but I'm sort of rattled about the massive price decrease on the WWF shares, which occurred the other day. The WWF stock went down $2.39, in the wake of the WWF announcing that they would meet expectations. Now usually, this is understandable, but when a company shows improvement heading into the next quarter, wouldn't the stock price at least remain stable instead of decreasing like it did? Plus, the Rock was coming back, who is somewhat of a celebrity these days. I remember when the stock went up the day Austin returned to the WWF, so why not with the Rock?
-And finally, whoooooooo, rumor has it that slick Ric Flair would like to work out a deal to appear on WWF television. Wow. I suppose that the Nature Boy is getting that "itch" to return to wrestling, which always occurs when he takes time off. I'm sure he's looked over all options, like Hogan's joke of a promotion and the MECW (Missed ECW) federation, and weighed his options. He probably saw that the WWF is indeed the best route to go. Ric Flair has been sitting back and waiting on what the wrestling world would produce on options, and it appears that he's made his choice. Add that, and that David Flair will be an eventual WWF wrestler and that Arn Anderson is becoming a popular road agent backstage.
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@That's all for today. I hope to be back tomorrow, unless I blank out when I look at the screen tomorrow morning. It happens. Just chill till the next episode.
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