Hilarious.

Why are The Simpsons on TV after 25 years? Are they gritty - whatever that means? What about Big Bang Theory - is that award winning writing...wait for the canned laughter before you answer.

People watch a variety of forms of entertainment. YOU WATCH and have for decades. I'm pretty sure I could leave for another 10 years, and come back, and you will be complaining about how Apollo Crews needs to step aside to let some indy geek move up the card.

You completely missed the point. I don't know what's happened to you, man, but I hope you work your way through it and come out shining on the other end.

Yeah, but the up's are down from the up's they were. Sometimes the up's are more down than some of their down periods.

If your goal is to lessen the importance of PPV and television as methods of delivery of your product, you're going to have to be able to point to Network subscribers as indicators that your product isn't dying. If you cannot follow that, I don't know if I can help you any more. There have been Forbes articles written on this, man.

Classic "I have no counter" statement

It's not worth retorting to you, man. You can't honestly believe the stuff you're forcing on people. For a guy who claims to like arguing, you commit some of the most egregious logical fallacies I've seen on these boards, and you stopped being fun when you started talking down to people and calling them things like "meatball" and coming off like a huge condescending prick. You haven't done it so much to me, but I've seen it done to others, and it's not cool, man.

Television continues to be a major revenue stream. Continues to increase year over year. I dont see how they are lessening the importance of PPV and television. Care to explain that one?

The point of The Network is to merge with the PPV business (check out a WWE investor meeting if you dont get it), because the company feels PPV is less profitable long term. PPV you create programming where you lose half of the money right off the top to the cable providers. Network they essentially keep all the revenue. And the long term growth opportunities are likely greater with the Network in markets like India and China. Who knows, WWE could be wrong on that, but so far they seem to growing the business year after year.

WWE had 19K at MSG. They have nearly 15K tonight in Boston. They will likely have close to a 100K in Dallas for Mania. They have sold 60K+ tickets for each Mania the last 10 years. I get it, you dont like WWE right now. Cool, dont watch. Come back in 6 months and maybe you will enjoy. No, instead watch every week, read dirt sheets, sit there and nod and then come on here and complain about the show.

I think the guy I called meatball was named meatball.

If that makes me a prick, well a prick I am.

The reality is I take more personal shots on here than anyone. Why? Because people like you are not used to having someone disagree with you about sports entertainment. You think you have the market cornered on what people 'should' think about modern day sports entertainment. I happen to disagree that the sky is falling and every week is garbage. I am happy to debate any point without taking shots at anyone. But go ahead make some comment about how I'm trolling, or whatever road takes you as far away from actually defending your position in an intelligent manner.

His name is Mr. Meatball to you. I don't call you nick, Nick.

No one really insults you, other than perhaps the labels of trolling and being delusional with your points -- which is backed up by a certain amount of evidence. Your third paragraph is a perfect example of how you come off condescending, dude.

but if you did, wouldnt you find it odd if say Heyman got upset about it?

Ive never been delusional or trolly in my life.

Been on holiday for a couple of weeks, but simply had to chime in on how fuck awful this rating is, and how horrifying on paper the rest of the year looks with Cena taking time off. Granted, most people watching this Raw could have figured out it was going to get killed against Packers/Chiefs, but still, the worst is yet to come.

Anybody else surprised they haven't taken the title off Rollins in a panic yet?

It's still 2nd place. Cable ratings are down for everybody except NFL. Not a big deal. Less people watching TV overall in traditional sense.

Just counting cable ratings is pointless when the big hitters on Monday night are all network shows.

Since June 15, 800,000 people have stopped tuning in.

I CAN'T be the ONLY one who's glad Cena will be gone for a while...I may not like him at all, but he really desperately needs the time off for himself. It seems like he's really burnt out right now from no time off in who knows how long.

I'm happy for it. He's been going full time for how long now? Needs a breather and it could be good for him. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

To his credit, this is far and away the most I've enjoyed him since he became the guy. Matches have been top notch, hasn't been treating his opponents like a joke during promos, and the US title is now as big if not bigger than the world title.

That said, hopefully whoever takes him out assuming it's an injury angle gets a nice, long and strong run going into a Mania rematch.

Being rumored from after Hell in a Cell till maybe January since WWE doesn't have any dates set for him in December.

They could still panic and cut his break short or he gets bored and wants to come back early but he's getting at least a month off.

Cena deserves the time, but I find it ironic it comes at a time when he is the most interesting he has been in years.

Oh, believe me, I thought of that as I was making my earlier post, and I agree. The irony isn't lost on me.

Maybe give him an extra month off and let him be a "surprise" entrant in the '16 Rumble match.

Ooooh....have whoever beats him for the belt dominating the rumble, only for the unadvertised Cena to hit the ring, go after the guy, taking 52nd both out of the ring. Cena feels so strongly, so personally about the US title and has such disdain for the guy who beat him for it that he's willing to give up a shot at his record tying world title to ruin the other guy's chance at challenge him for the United States title at Mania.

I like Cena returning in the Rumble. Seems like a prime spot for it. I don't really want to see him go after the US Title again though. Or if he does, he wins it, then loses it quickly to Dolph Ziggler and moves into a WrestleMania program with The Undertaker.

Taker Cena for the United States heavyweight championship with Cena going over.

Then he loses the title the next night to Samoa Joe on Joe's debut.

It feels like Cena has returned in the Rumble like 26 times.

A

The idea that "you don't enjoy it, you should stop watching" is sort of redundant.

Firstly, it's evident that a lot of people have done just that. There's a bunch of guys on this very forum, who came here as wrestling fans and have since stopped watching.

Secondly, the people here, at least the ones you're talking about, probably don't see WWE as a "TV show" in the same way they might see something like Lost, Sons of Anarchy, or Breaking Bad where their viewership is based on the quality of the writing. It's probably more equally compared to a sports team. My favourite soccer team is Aston Villa, has been since I was about 6. In the time I've been supporting them they've won a couple of trophies and had a good 2-3 year spell where they were competing at the top of the league. In the last 3 years, however, they've been abysmal; narrowly avoiding relegation for three seasons, and it's looking to be a similar situation this year. Do I just give up? Do I forget about something I've loved for 25 years? No. I hope (against all hope) that things will get better; that the performance improve, the style of football is enjoyable, and we start to win.

With a lot of guys here they've watched wrestling as long as I've been a Villa fan, including me. It's almost habit at this point. And we hope (against all hope) that it improves to a point where we/they can enjoy it again.

I wouldn't even know what to watch if it weren't for wrestling.

I haven't watched for 2 weeks don't plan to start watching again anytime soon.

Ratings are low coz the product sucks. Simple as that.

That's why I barely watch at the moment. I stream Raw and get through it in about ten minutes.

this times a fucking million.

3,287,000 viewers, last hour getting close to that 3 million mark

3rd hour has been killing the ratings and viewership for months now. Used to not be the case where instead it was 8pm as the weakest, 10pm as the middle, and 9pm as the strongest.

Vince in panic mode is almost no different than regular Vince.

I'm worried he'll panic a make cena champ again.

Won't really do anything for the long run with ratings and viewers. WWE would get a small spike and then be back to normal within a few weeks. Happened with a lot of Cena reigns and mega pushes that were panic-based.

Even putting Cena in prime spots like the main event a few weeks ago didn't help with ratings.

Yes but does Vince know that?

I can't believe the ratings went down with the show being so riveting on Monday.

Hard to imagine why numbers would go down at this time of year.

The streak....is over

3,357,000 viewers average

so is RAW good now?

72k increase overall but third hour still dragging things down. Getting to the point where 8pm is now their strongest hour unlike a couple months ago.

The actual rating went down though, hilariously. 2.21.