{"id":12400,"date":"2019-05-03T23:58:29","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T22:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=12400"},"modified":"2019-05-03T23:19:56","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T22:19:56","slug":"blood-money-viewers-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/03\/blood-money-viewers-wrestling\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood, Money, Viewers, Wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Ciaran James@<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheCiaranJames\"><strong>TheCiaranJames<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What does the future hold for WWE,\nafter the recent Q1 financial reports, many were left quizzed over Vince\u2019s\nexplanation of the current state of the company. It\u2019s clear that WWE right now\nis in a creative slump, talent is squandered, storylines don\u2019t stick, the wrong\npeople are pushed, and the content overall is of a poor quality. The viewership\nin the US is dropping week by week, ratings decline hour to hour, yet Vince\nsee\u2019s the silver lining of financial deals with Saudi Arabia and FOX TV. The\nFOX agreement is the pinnacle of a wrestling tv deal, I don\u2019t think the NWA or\nVince McMahon Sr ever imagined such deals could ever happen, and it will also\nbe the last major one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WWE were extremely lucky that the\npopularity of Becky Lynch and Kofi Kingston grew, otherwise WrestleMania might\nnot have been the huge success it was. Yes, there were other factors, but\noverall the storylines of the women\u2019s triple threat and Kofi\u2019s journey to glory\nfuelled the event in the final weeks. In the aftermath the quality of content\nhas dropped even further, Robert Roode shaved and beat one of their brightest\nprospects, The Uso\u2019s secretly filmed the Revival shaving and on top of that\nBaron Corbin has been favoured as the top heel on Raw. Is this really the type\nof content that draws fans to watch, keeps them tuned in and overall makes them\npay for the Network. The 3-hour run time has been a killer for the whole\ncreative division, the exposure of talent for that long week after week, having\nto create fresh matches and promos is draining. The key to keeping characters\nfresh is to limit their exposure, treat them as a special attraction, hype\ntheir appearances, with the depth of talent WWE has this is not difficult. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Roman Reigns is by WWE\u2019s standards a\nbig star, however to get him there and tell his story they devalued one of\ntheir biggest commodities in Brock Lesnar. In 2019 Brock Lesnar is still one of\ntheir biggest draws, he\u2019s an MMA and Wrestling legend and skilled ring\ntactician, unfortunately WWE managed to brainwash the masses. The biggest\nmistake they made was portraying Lesnar as the self-serving, money grabbing superstar,\nthey attempted to ruin their greatest commodity. The truth is, Brock\u2019s wrestles\nthe way WWE want him to, he appears as per the contract they agreed, he wins\nand loses in accordance with their decision, he even blows up backstage per\ntheir request for their Network documentaries. But make no mistake, the big TV\ncompanies want the biggest most bankable wrestlers on their channels, and\nLesnar fits their idea. And in 2019 Vince nods to the demands of the TV\nexecutives, why, because it\u2019s best for business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some will argue that the wrestlers\nnow are not like the stars of yesteryear, true we haven\u2019t got the Stone Cold\u2019s,\nRock\u2019s or Mankind\u2019s; however, the talent now is far superior. The standard of\nwrestling now is as high as it\u2019s ever been, and it\u2019s only getting higher, the\nproblem is WWE don\u2019t know how to sell that product once it hits the main\nroster. The Revival, Ricochet, Andrade Almas and even EC3 are bankable talents\nthat the audience want to believe in, but if the company portrays them as a\njoke then in turn the audience do. Take for example the men\u2019s money in the bank\nmatch, Strowman, Corbin, Orton, three acts who are overrated, boring and past\ntheir prime. Think of the excitement levels of MITB if Adam Cole, Aleister\nBlack and Velveteen Dream were to take part, after weeks of decent build and if\nbelief was put into their characters. These are ready made, bankable wrestlers\nwho have a direct connection to the audience, and especially the diehard fans\nwho\u2019ve followed their careers from the independents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another factor that can be\ncontributed to the drop-in fan interest is the Saudi Arabia deal, WWE went from\nscreaming at the top of their lungs about the \u201cGreatest Royal Rumble\u201d to only\nmuttering the words of \u201cCrown Jewel\u201d last November. Decline of the audience in\nNovember can be attributed to the Kamal Khashoggi murder controversy, add to\nthat Saudi Arabia\u2019s treatment of homosexuals, women and suspected links to\nterrorist organisations and you have very muddy waters and dissatisfied fans. Another\nfactor with the Saudi super shows was the inclusion of big names, Undertaker,\nKane, Triple H and even Shawn Michaels came out of retirement to the behest of\nSaudi princes. The fact that Undertaker and Shawn Michaels appeared at Crown\nJewel and not a US big show such as WrestleMania and Summerslam, further\nexposes their greed and that maybe US flagship shows aren\u2019t worth their time.\nSurely a WrestleMania return for HBK has far more meaning than a one-off\nappearance for money, but then this year Goldberg is the name signed to appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The biggest question now is what\nhappens to WWE\u2019s lucrative one-billion-dollar contract with FOX if viewership\ncontinues to decline? In the US especially, television programmes can be cancelled\nif the viewers don\u2019t tune in, therefore what happens if Smackdown\u2019s ratings are\nnot above what FOX considers acceptable. Obviously, FOX will do all they can to\npromote and market WWE programming, they won\u2019t take drastic action just yet,\nafter all it\u2019s yet to debut on their channel. Between the FOX TV deal and the\nSaudi agreement, WWE right now are sitting very pretty and are about to become\never richer. With the financial clout they now have, WWE have no excuse for not\npurchasing the best talent to improve their content, but then again, NXT I\u2019m\nsure works perfectly well on a much smaller budget. There are arguments that\nTriple H should take over creative control of the main roster, it\u2019s a fair\nargument but we all must remember that Triple H creates one hour of TV a week.\nBased on the success of NXT, why not give Triple H the reigns, he can\u2019t do\nworse than Vince in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ciaran James@TheCiaranJames What does the future hold for WWE, after the recent Q1 financial reports, many were left quizzed over Vince\u2019s explanation of the current state of the company. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28,2,185],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-12400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-editorials","category-featured","category-wwe","tag-wwe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-3e0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/wwe-hq-696x391.jpg?fit=696%2C391&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12403,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400\/revisions\/12403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}