Instead, I'll do something else I like doing. I'm going to look at some numbers. For the purposes of what I am doing, January is already over. I am going to look at Raw viewership this month. I think it is interesting. I am going to compare it to January 2014 and January 2013, which was the first January to have weekly 3-hour episodes. I get my numbers from TV by the Numbers.
2013
Week 1 (CF): 4,420,000
Week 2: 4,550,000
Week 3: 4,317,000
Week 4 (RR): 5,020,000
Average: 4,577,000
2014
Week 1 (CF): 4,537,000
Week 2: 4,403,000
Week 3: 4,869,000
Week 4 (RR): 4,719,000
Average: 4,632,000
2015
Week 1: 3,763,000
Week 2 (CF): 3,905,000
Week 3: 4,100,000
Week 4 (RR): 4,420,000
Average: 4,047,000
Hopefully, I did all the math right and didn't botch anything. "CF" represents the Raw that went against the top college football game, whether by the old system or the new playoffs system they are now using. "RR" represents the Raw the night after the Royal Rumble.
You can look at the numbers and draw your own conclusions. Let me tell you what stands out to me. 2015 is bad. Yeah, you can bring up the fact that they went against the most-watched show in cable history and still did the kind of numbers you would expect during football season. However, the BCS game in previous years would put up strong numbers and the WWE would do well against it. You can also bring up the weather causing the Raw event to be canceled this week. Instead, they did interviews and gave away the Royal Rumble match and title match from the PPV for free. I was almost going to leave the number out just to be fair. I thought it would be horrible. It ended up being the best for the month, so I still included it.
It is not a very auspicious start to the year. This is where Wrestlemania season starts. It is usually hot, as you can see from viewership averages in previous years. You had Brock Lesnar appearing regularly. Sting made a surprise appearance. The Rock made an appearance. Knowing that these top guys can appear at any time, like how The Rock did on Raw a few months ago, should get fans interested to tune in. Daniel Bryan is back. Cena is around. Roman Reigns, whatever his worth is, is there. I sincerely doubt people are waiting on Randy Orton to come back to tune in.
If the WWE does not turn things around, you can imagine how bad these numbers might get. What can they do? I can't answer that right now. Guys that are supposed to be draws don't seem to be able to keep the audience coming in. They need to change how the full-time talent is utilized, but things are very messy now. These part-timers just cannot do it. If things remain mediocre for Wrestlemania season, the WWE will get murdered in the dry months and football season after that.
While on the subject of viewership, TNA's numbers have grown. Their last episode averaged 517,000 viewers. That is good. That is where I expected them to be for the debut episode on Destination America. The fact that they got there with taped episodes is a good sign. I am not saying they will get back to a million viewers, but they are certainly a top draw for their new network and that might help them in the long run.
Back to the WWE. The WWE Network finally reached a million subscribers this week. They finally reached that benchmark. The announcement was made against this attempted protest to "#CancelWWENetwork" after what happened at the Royal Rumble. It's good they finally got there. Their stock even rose a bit due to it. Just keep in mind, that number was the initial goal back when there was a 6-month commitment. A few things have been changed. The WWE is also giving away another free month in February. Remember when the WWE used to actually make money off of PPVs? Obviously, these kind of things are good ideas, but you just did this in November. Two months later, you promote another one? I would have waited six months. Congratulations on getting to a million, but now you have to try to maintain it and go further. And it would help a little if you could do it while making a profit.
Let me go back to when I was talking about making a kind of spectrum to rank the divas. Let me try to explain why it might be useful. Last year, I talked about grading the performers in various things. Categorize them based on their position on the roster, grade them on their talent, and grade them on how well they are getting over. Imagine doing that for various divas, whether you want to split it up by those currently in the company, those to have held a title, or whatever. By putting it into some kind of diagram, it might make it easier to evaluate these women. Separate the periphery divas from the credible jobbers and separate those women from the centerpieces. When I was talking about this last time, I talked about wrestling ability as the deciding factor to determine where the eye-candy divas to have held titles in the diva division would be placed. You can also do it based on overness. You can do it based solely on whom your favorites are. A lot of ways to do it. The important thing is to just understand that these women are being pushed differently and being utilized differently. Why do I bother putting so much thought into analyzing? Well, someone might find it useful and do something with it.
One last aside I want to make about what I talked about last time. I was talking about what it would mean for Stacy Keibler to have won the Women's Championship. One major point that relates to what is going on now, a title reign does not change your position in the division. Look at the men's division. Look at the saga involving Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan. Daniel Bryan is a 4-time World Champion in the WWE, in addition to some other solo accolades and the tag titles. Prior to last Sunday, Roman Reigns had never won any solo titles or distinctions. Just looking at that, you might say that Roman Reigns deserves to win the Royal Rumble, get this push, and eventually win the title at Wrestlemania. Daniel Bryan has also gotten his Wrestlemania moment last year. You can say he got two in one night. Roman Reigns has never had that. Thing is, despite those booking accomplishments and moments, Daniel Bryan is still not pushed as an A+ player. You might even get the sense that Roman Reigns, a guy that does not even have all that stuff on his resume, is being groomed to be ahead of him.
What do those Daniel Bryan fans want? Do they want to settle for him getting a bone tossed to him whenever the WWE feels like it. That is, do they want to settle for a guy they love so much getting some accolades here and there, but never really being pushed as a true top-tier star? Do they want him to live in the shadow of guys that might not be better than him? Or do they want him to actually be treated the way he deserves? Treated. It doesn't matter how many times you have been booked to hold a title, even a World title, it comes down to how you are actually treated. That is what determines what your place in that division is. If you want to work your ass off to earn something, work to earn the treatment of a top star. Don't settle for just holding a title and not really being that guy they want to be a star.
Sometimes when I am on Twitter, I try to tell other Paige fans not to settle. They get excited for the most trivial of things and sometimes make excuses when the WWE isn't booking Paige well. Other times, they are dumbfounded by what the WWE is doing. I like Paige. She has a ton of potential. I also recognize she has been pushed as a credible jobber. It doesn't matter what the WWE booked her to be last year and what PWI has to say. She should be treated better. She should be given a legitimate opportunity and if she capitalizes to get very over, she deserves the better push. You do not see Daniel Bryan fans settling for Bryan just getting a moment here and there and getting a title reign occasionally, while someone not better than him gets the better career. Why should Paige settle for even worse? And why should her fans settle?
How about Mickie James? She was in the same position as Daniel Bryan. She got over with the fans and the WWE continued to treat her the same way they would have had she never gotten over at all. Fans obviously did not know what they were seeing. They never even considered whether she was winning the title because the WWE was actually developing her to be a star in that diva division or to put over the star and be used as a backup when the star was not there. Even I settled when she would win the title in 2008 and after. I knew they weren't actually pushing her like Trish or Lita. I didn't do a very good job realizing what was coming.
I once saw someone justify that the WWE must have wanted Mickie to be the top face of the diva division simply because she held the title so much. He then even measured how long each title reign was, as if holding the title a little bit longer means they care about you that much more. This guy fails to actually pay attention to what was going on in the diva division when Mickie James was being pushed. A lot of these pushes were obvious filler pushes. He fails to pay attention to the depth in the division at the time. Mickie James was often the only face with wrestling credibility when one needed to be pushed. And he fails to actually pay attention to the manner in which Mickie James was being pushed. Centerpiece push? Filler push? Jobber push? If simply counting title reigns and moments is not enough when talking about how the WWE is treating Daniel Bryan, why are people only looking at those things when understanding whether or not the WWE actually wanted Mickie James as a top star? Actually analyze how she is being pushed. You will find that she deserves to be in the same discussion as Daniel Bryan and other men that got over that the WWE never intended to get that over.
No comments:
Post a Comment