I hate to say I told you so. Nah, no I don’t.
After Wrestlemania 33 the RAW ratings surged BUT once it became clear that Roman Reigns was going to be pushed as a good guy they quickly dropped. He’s not the only problem. The real problems stem from poor booking, bad management, and a TV producer that is way past his prime.
The TV producer that has been with WWE forever and is a large part of the booking problem is Kevin Dunn. This guy hates wrestling, mutes the crowds, has contempt for wrestling fans, and has pull with Vince McMahon on who to push. What does he base his thoughts on? Looks. Let me let you soak that in. Looks are the reasons that WWE shoves people down our throats.
Upper management are glad handing yes men which was truthfully outed by CM Punk in his pipe bomb. They focus only on merchandise sales, marketability, and just like Dunn they base their decisions on looks. They do not see the problem with wrestlers losing more than they win or what is called 50/50 booking. No one gets behind losers or wrestlers that have zero momentum.
Everything I am telling you can be researched by Googling it. There are dozens of insiders who used to work for WWE or know people close to WWE that will confirm this. It’s just sad what Vince has let the company turn in to. Hardcore fans are all that is left because WWE doesn’t understand one thing. No one will watch your product unless it becomes water cooler talk. How many wrestlers are on late night TV anymore? How many wrestlers are on talk shows? Not many compared to the Attitude Era when people were established stars. Heck, even the Rock and Wrestling era was mainstream. Today’s WWE is fail. They have to consistently give us what we want and not who looks good on camera. Stone Cold Steve Austin, Mick Foley, and Daniel Bryan were not the best looking guys but we loved them and so did the general public. What is so hard about figuring that out? We shouldn’t have to get pissed off about this stuff.
Here are the RAW ratings after Wrestlemania 33 until now.
April 3rd Episode: 3.767 million viewers (First RAW after Mania)
April 10th Episode: 3.429 million viewers
April 17th Episode: 3.346 million viewers
April 24th Episode: 3.007 million viewers
May 1st Episode: 2.87 million viewers
May 8th Episode: 2.696 million viewers
May 15th Episode: 2.751 million viewers
Ratings don’t matter? Ratings matter if you want to stay on TV and keep advertisers. WWE is limping along with charity work as their main selling point. I will continue to remind you that Stephanie McMahon Tweeted “Charity is the new marketing” and then quickly deleted it. She apparently attended some big convention and figured out that supporting charities has been a popular marketing tool forever. They sacrifice everything for the chance of a photo opportunity with some sick or disabled children. I play Captain America for Make a Wish, hospitalized, and special needs kids. I don’t take pictures and plaster them everywhere or post videos of it. Charity shouldn’t be exploited WWE. Sick. My mentioning of my own work with charity in this article has no benefit for me except to make a point.
Bottom Line? WWE will continue to fail unless they get behind more than one person at a time. They need to stop two hours of talking in a three hour show and they need to fire the dinosaurs like Kevin Dunn, Michael PS Hayes, and legacy employees that have lost touch with what fans want.