With SmackDown being touted as the “sports presentation” show that’s sort of what I expected (and why I was initially excited for the brand split). You’d have two distinct feels to the shows.

SmackDown would be the more “workrate” based show with Brian, Nakamura, Zayn, Cesaro, Reigns, Ziggler, New Day, Usos, Gable, Morrison, even guys like Sheamus, Jeff Hardy, Heavy Machinery, etc. who don’t necessarily fit in the top tier of in ring talent but can go and more importantly add some “character” and diversity to the roster so it’s not just a bunch of “vanilla midgets” applying submissions to each other. And yes, Brock and Rousey.

Raw would then be the more “entertainment” show with the bigger personalities. This is where Strowman and The Fiend fit. You’d still want some guys that can handle the action between the ropes to hold on to that “hardcore”/IWC audience. That’s where Rollins, Owens, Styles, Black, Joe, etc come in. This is where the first brand spilt went wrong; they seemed to go for similar “feels” as described above but they left Raw with a coming-to-the-end-of-his-career Austin, Hall, Nash, Big Show, Taker, Kane, Bubba Dudley, and Bradshaw. Grim.

Tbf, the current situation is different; you’d be unlucky to pick 3 random names out of a hat and not get at least one guy that’s at least an 8/10 in the ring.

I didn't really buy the sports thing when I heard about it. FOX always knew they were getting the circus. I'd buy the WWE doing something different (I know that sounds laughable) *if* it were something new. Say ESPN or Fox Sports orders a one-hour wrestling show, and they actually went to Vince and said "Hey, we want it to actually be wrestling and separate from your other stuff that we value for entertainment" (if you can call it entertainment). Know what I mean? I can actually buy Vince doing wrestling on the side. Like Southpaw as a promotion without the comedy. Dunno, can just see them getting so far away from wrestling that they decide to do wrestling as a novelty, haha.

When they first did the draft, I was pretty pissed off they didn't bring up The Revival, Gargano & Ciampa and American Alpha to be the tag team base on Raw. I say Raw just because they've got three fucking hours to fill. You send them there, throw in The Usos as a brother team, and you've got four ace teams that can shake things up and be analogous to the SmackDown Six but on Raw. The Usos could turn heel and you could do tags, six-mans, eight-mans, singles, etc. The New Day and Enzo & Cass could have anchored an "entertainment" tag division on SmackDown.

I bring that up because while it's so natural to go with Raw being the entertainment show, it's just the length of it. That's where you put Cesaro doing 20-minute things with guys, because SmackDown is only two hours, so it's easy to keep it snappy. Today, I'd just go with booking around a few people on SmackDown. Roman Reigns, Daniel Bryan and Brock Lesnar seem like natural fits for that to me. You don't need a Randy Orton in that mix, so you can use him on Raw. Bray Wyatt doesn't fit that mix, so you can use him on Raw too. So you go with the guys that have great chemistry with Bryan, Brock and Roman:

* AJ Styles -- great matches with Roman, Brock and can work with Bryan too.

* Finn Balor -- great matches with Brock and could also be there with AJ.

* Shinsuke Nakamura -- still a dream match with Bryan, don't care what anyone else says.

* Sami Zayn -- can do that shit with Nakamura and could also work with Bryan, although Roman and Brock don't really work on paper for me.

* Kevin Owens -- partner to Zayn, great start to a tag division. Working with Styles & Balor would be interesting.

* The Usos -- could go heel with Roman or help him out as faces, whatever. Another great tag team for the show.

* Naomi -- guess that means she's there too, so there's a woman for your division.

See how it all sort of flows and feeds itself? You start with Roman and end up at Naomi, haha. But you don't need Jeff Hardy or Rey Mysterio for that paradigm, so you can just use them on Raw. Andrade works well with Rey and matches with Jeff would actually be pretty interersting too, so you send them to Raw, which means Charlotte Flair for the Raw women's side, as well as Zelina Vega and Aleister Black since those marriages lock them all together.

Just start with a few top guys and build the show around them. Instead they've got these shows and just allocate people to them for no rhyme or reason and they're disjointed. Then things like a draft might actually mean something, because guys would have better identities within the confines of their shows and the rosters having more function means you have to think about it more and move people with plans for them instead of it just being "now you're on the red show."

Aside from wanting the Usos on both shows (don’t blame you, and I know you’re just free-thinking here) that all stands up for me. I can’t wrap my head around how they’ve ended up with some of the guys in certain shows, and in certain positions.

RAW:


Avg - 1.82 million viewers
(credit - showbuzzdaily)


Most Watched on YT:
Drew/Seth contract signing - 909k
6-Man tag - 282k
Liv vs Ruby - 275k


https://i.postimg.cc/Y0pFPb37/raw.png

At this point, WWE really needs to spice things up with the format for their empty arena shows since its not really working in terms of entertainment.

They sort of had the idea with replaying classic past matches but instead of wasting valuable Mania build time with it, should have reserved that for the post-Mania shows when things start to slow down a bit in terms of storytelling and general interest.

They needed to spice up the half-full arena shows too. Too late.

AEW and NXT both had a decent week.

AEW - 693k
NXT - 637k


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https://i.postimg.cc/hGgynnrh/Screen...3-18-30-PM.png

Seems old people were the reason for AEW's decline in viewership since everything else was pretty much up in terms of ratings. NXT meanwhile squandered whatever momentum they gained after that brief 2 weeks on top.

Next week should be interesting since it will be the first time in over a month AEW will have a lot more of their roster to work with and WWE hyping up another Takeover-like card for NXT.

First time SD has gone under 2 million, minus the week it aired on FS1, since moving to FOX


Avg - 1.92 million
(credit - showbuzzdaily)


Most Watched on YT:
Otis vs Dolph - 367k
Tamina attacked - 322k
Mandy vs Carmella - 268k


https://i.postimg.cc/6qNZkhBz/Fast-D...May-01-FRI.png

The stuff with the demos is a lot more worrying for WWE since SD no longer leads in the key areas and the more those start turning red, the more FOX is going to be upset.

I think wrestling has REALLY dropped the ball on this golden opportunity.

In a time when nothing is on, they have pretty much just shown up, but aside from 2 theatrical matches, an intriguing MITB concept, Chris Jericho on commentary, and Bubbly Bunch skits, nothing spectacular has happened in the last 2 months of wrestling.

I know it's hard without the instant feedback from a live crowd, but instead of drawing new fans, they are losing fans.

As a lifelong fan of pro wrestling, it's depressing.

Yikes

Avg - 1.686 million
(credit - showbuzzdaily)


Most Watched on YT:
Drew vs Murphy - 588k
AJ Styles returns - 397k
Liv vs Charlotte - 323k


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RAW starting to inch closer to what AEW and TNA/Impact did for their highest ever shows, not counting the brief time TNA was on Mondays.

yeah i was about to say they are getting to tna 2008 raittings

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I firmly believe that this is going to be catastrophic for the company in the long term. It's brand poison. This is territory-killing stuff.</p>&mdash; Dave Schilling (@dave_schilling) <a href="https://twitter.com/dave_schilling/status/1257798497102737409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 5, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">NFL Draft viewership was up 40%. Millions are watching 1990s era Bulls games and related documentaries. I have friends that stayed up overnight to watch opening day of the Korean Baseball League. Something doesn’t add up</p>&mdash; Christopher Nyren (@CNyren) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNyren/status/1257771058586845185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 5, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

when they have nascar start up next week lets see how many watch that.

Feel these empty arena shows should have never started off with Smackdown and RAW since their first empty arena shows left a bad taste in people's mouths.

Not only did it take WWE too long to realize having rows of empty seats in the background looked bad visually, the novelty of airing lengthy classic matches simply to waste a ton of time wore out quickly.

AEW and NXT's first empty arena shows would have been a much better starting point for this coronavirus era of wrestling since they felt better in terms of vibes and looked better visually.

Yeah the product is and has been shit for ages and the limited roster and lack of star power is finally catching up to them

WWE has made it unlikely for new fans to get invested unless they have friends/family who are already fans. The chances of anyone otherwise deciding to spend 5 hours of TV watching weekly seems impractical/unrealistic.

Both Wednesday shows went up.


AEW - 732k
NXT - 663k


Add them together and they are only 291k viewers less than RAW on Monday (credit - showbuzzdaily)


https://i.postimg.cc/K8ZsKc9s/AEW-NXT.png

PWInsider reports that WWE Backstage had 75,000 viewers this week

Both shows being up is good.

Going back live helped AEW a lot but the real benefit was them getting back most of their roster to work with which should help freshen things up for the next few weeks of shows.

NXT got a boost by tossing 2 Takeover-level matches but the real interesting thing is if Charlotte had another dud of a segment since her title reign and star power hasn't been the big key ratings generator WWE had been expecting by now.

This is the first time AEW has topped RAW in the 18-34 male demo in the same week. (AEW - .24 / RAW - .23) per Wade Keller of PWTorch. (number not included in showbuzzdaily chart)

Turns out her match with Io was a big draw unlike last week's match against Mia Yim.

The other TakeOver-level match between Cole and Dream was a big dud though.

Meltzer speculated next week could very likely be another rise for both shows since news shows have been slowly losing their stranglehold over viewership.

SD back over 2 million


Avg - 2.04 million
(credit - showbuzzdaily)


Most Watched on YT:
Bray/Braun - 609k
Lacey/Tamina vs Bayley/Sasha - 321k
Jeff Hardy/Sheamus - 305k


https://i.postimg.cc/X7Q5Mbt6/Fast-D...May-08-FRI.png

Avg - 1.92 million
(credit - showbuzzdaily)


Most Watched on YT:
Becky's Preggo - 2.2 million
Edge/Orton - 790k
Aleister/Rey vs Seth/Murphy - 561k


https://i.postimg.cc/wj2V54f5/Screen...3-20-53-PM.png

Forget bringing back the Wild Card rule, WWE should just have new baby announcements each week since Becky's announcement was a big ratings success.

UFC on ESPN+ definitely hurt both shows this week.

AEW - 654k
NXT - 604k


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https://i.postimg.cc/mDZ43Jks/Screen...3-25-27-PM.png

Plus Survivor as well considering it was the other big notable show for the night and the numbers it did for its finale.

Wow, is that the excuse AEW are using this time?

R.I.P

There's always something else people would rather watch.

2.04 avg for SD this week


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Here's how the big 4 did this week:


SD - 2.04 million
RAW - 1.92 million
AEW - 654k
NXT - 604k

Based on the past month, seems SD's ratings finally settled down in terms of how low they'd go for the empty arena shows. A little over 2 million is probably the best they are going to be for the foreseeable future.

Wow, Raw still almost tripling the rating for AEW. That’s not good.

The biggest hurdle AEW has right now is that it can barely beat the WWE's C-Show. And they have Jericho and Moxley.

NXT's Top guy? A dude who looks like a drowned rat.

I think empty arena shows have gone pretty much as far as they can go in all companies. Even when you try to shoot things creatively or have the other wrestlers serve as an unofficial audience, the lack of a proper crowd really saps a lot of the energy away from everything.

I do think that once things are "normal" again, everyone will get back some of their viewers who decided to take a break. The problem is I don't know if they'll get back everybody because some people will have found other things to do especially as this drags on longer and longer.

Florida's allowing 25% capacity at events, but having crowds back anytime soon is lunacy.

I'd bet WWE will end up being the first ones to have fans back. AEW will let them soak up the negative PR at first but they'll probably end up following suit within like a month...possibly with a few sensible precautions in place but at the end of the day it's still a show with fans in the building and that's not a thing that should be happening.