The Post-Wrestlemania Raw Crowd Appreciation Thread
 

For one night we get to have fun.

They were good.

Appreciated.

Last year as well. The one night of the year the smarks get to be heard. All of the other days it's families and kids only cheering a few wrestlers including of course Cena while being dead the rest of the show. On this night, we got to experience a mostly male and probably drunk crowd.

BTW they are still humming Fandango's theme at the train stations around the stadium.

The post WM crowd is as close to internet marks as you can get. I bet most casual watchers only found this crowd mildly amusing at best though.

We will be back to the lame crowds next week with a majority of fans being familiy's. But like I said, one night a year the internet marks get to be heard.

That's because most casual watchers are sinfully boring people who live sinfully boring and vanilla lives and don't even know it because they're idiots.

Ya! How dare them not care enough to research wrestling on the internet! Damn losers and their other hobbies and lives and families and I don't think this point makes sense anymore.

I don't care about casual fans there it's just the constantly dead crowds only popping for a couple of guys while being dead for most of the show, then when I actually went to Raw, the families would yell at anyone who cheered for someone like Punk, this was just nice. The crowd seemed to be one big family just like last year at the Raw the night after WM.

That's not quite what I meant but okay.

In other news, the crowd was off the charts tonight. Loudest and most vocal RAW crowd I can ever remember.

On Twitter there are pictures of people dancing on the train. I mean this is what I do miss. When I came home from Raw the subway was full but quiet. These people had fun.

Yes, it made me enjoy watching the show and actually want to be there, or go to a show, but only if the crowd was as into it as they were tonight.

Thanks to the overwhelming demographic being adult males, kids weren't able to yell at men for cheering heels. Tonight's crowd gives me hope maybe a PPV crowd will be better because being at that Raw was so boring other than the ending. Kids all around me screaming at Kofi Kingston, climbing on me to see better, yelling at the couple smarks in the section who dared cheered any heel. Has that been the experience for any of you too?

Lol yes, internet fans who love and worship vanilla midgets have exciting lives.

It's not even worshipping vanilla midgets. It's about the crowd being silent for most of the event. At least these fans made it fun.

:yes:

Heck, the Sacremento crowd is a mark crowd but they were loud and made that one show fun even if it was a mark crowd. It's about the crowd being into an event vs them just sitting there silent for most of the event outside of Cena, Orton, and Ryback.

WWE actually thanked the fans for the crazyness of RAW.

Wish I could go.

You could see how much fun the announcers were having even when they tried to cover it up who the fans were chanting for. A great crowd can turn an average show good and a good show great like tonight. I just hate that now we go back to those regular crowds.

That was a great night. It was amazing to look over at the Titantron and see that the camera was shaking.

Yes, exactly. It's just smark crowds tend to be louder because they cheer or boo most wrestlers vs the family crowds that only cheer the top babyfaces and are silent the rest of the show except for yelling at people who cheer heels. I don't care who they cheer and boo, but just be loud doing it. Make the show seem like "You have to be there" instead of "This is boring."

Unfortunately, that's their mindset and the reality. They are bored. They don't care. They don't want to be there. They don't really have time to be there. They're only there because their kids want to go see John Cena. Other than Cena and maybe a couple other guys, the kids don't really care much either.

The parents are there thinking about how they need to get home, get their kids in bed, because they have to get up in the morning, make sure their kids get to school and then they have to go to work to deal with their stupid jerk of a boss, make sure their kids get home and do their homework, then they need to go to the store and make dinner.

This is what's wrong with catering to a family/kid friendly audience. Unfortunately, the long term and true fans have to suffer 98% of the time through shitty crowds and cheesy jokes and storylines aimed at kids.

Just watching the show on TV, the crowd was the most entertaining part of the show (I type this as they pull Jericho off of Fan-Dodge-Durango, then Y2J pops a codebreaker) with their random and AWESOME chants.

I especially liked the RVD, Randy Savage, and JBL chants. And the wave. :D

Lol "true fans". It's a business. Catering to smarks = no business.

Honestly, I think you can cater to the average fans for the money, and still work things in for the smarks. (Not saying cater to them at the expense of everything else, mind.) I'm pretty sure there's more of a happy medium somewhere that we haven't hit yet.

Well, what would you call someone who is a long term fan but not a smark?

I've been a fan since 1992, I understand it's a business and they want to appeal to whatever audience makes them as much money as possible. I don't really care for ROH, etc., or think that Punk, Daniel Bryan or Colt Cabana are Gods and should be main eventing every show.

It's moronic however, to not recognize that most of the parents of these kids don't care, don't want to be there and if they could avoid going they would. They are not true fans.

As long as they pay, who cares

The people who've been watching and paying for PPVs for more than 5 years.

The "true fans" aren't there target demographic.

Which is stupid. I understand that they have to try and gain new viewers, but wrestling is a niche and they will continue to lose their foundation that provides the decent ratings when business is down or its not Mania season. There is a reason their average ratings have slowly gone down over the years now. CM Punk will never pull in the 7s or 8s Rock/Foley/Austin did, but neither has Cena. Casual fans will always come and go. Hardcore fans who quit watching rarely come back. Look at all the people in the casual forum who loved wrestling enough to post on a wrestling forum who no longer watch wrestling and even mock people on a wrestling forum because they watch wrestling.

They grew up and MMA came along. That's what happened.

Also, before you go on your basement dwelling virgin spiel. There is a difference between typical smarks who pirate everything and fans who follow the product constantly year round. The hardcore internet guys are a small percentage, but their is a large percentage of fans who watch every week and order PPVs and things. It is the modern day "killing the town". WWE makes a shitload of money off of WrestleMania, but there is no reason they can't make more of it year round by balancing appealing to new fans/casual fans and providing solid and intriguing entertainment for loyal fans. They have done a good job in recent years, but they drop all that around WrestleMania time and then they wonder why a crowd like tonight shits all over everything.

MMA and Wrestling aren't the same though. That core base is what has kept WWE in the 2s and 3s in the ratings. They watch wrestling because they like pro wrestling. For every Kris P Lettus there are 10-20 of the average poster here who isn't obsessed with the indys and loves watching wrestling with interesting characters and storylines.

Those crowds come up 2-3 times a year.

Even Edge said this: the UFC took all the attitude fans because it has the personalities and it's real. If the WWE didn't appeal to kids they'd lose money.

Also, the MMA fad has maxed out. UFC stretched themselves too thin and they lack enough legitimate draws to do the number of shows they do a year.

I was a kid during the attitude era. You can appeal to kids and not making the product so fucking watered down and vanilla.

Yeah, the crowds filled with fans willing to pay thousands of dollars to go to WrestleMania and not just $75 to take little Johnny to a SmackDown! taping.

So how then would you appeal to kids without doing that.

It doesn't matter though. It still draws a ton of people and those fans aren't coming back unless you appeal to their kids.

Not hard. Kids will like whatever the fuck you do. Kids will cheer Cena just as much if he actually did face adversity than if they do the SuperMan shit they've done for 7 years. Make an awesome product with developed characters and storylines. Kids will go along with it. Stone Cold drew more money in his prime than Hogan did. Why? Because he pulled from 2 major bases - kids and the 18-35 demo.

It is fucking stupid to base your business off of casual fans who only watch and pay 3 months out of the year. You can appeal to them without completely abandoning your core fanbase. It is like pissing off all your close friends just to go to one awesome party with "cool people". You have your one cool night, but then the rest of the year your alone and hated. Why do you think you have to completely sell out to kids to appeal to them. They are a good market to have, but they can't be your only market considering your business is inherently violent and stigmatized.

When you say "kids" what age range, because 8-14 made up a small fraction of that fanbase, which happens to be their target fanbase now.

Ticket prices were also different in Hogans day and Hogan basically wrestled on close circuit. Hogan is also more popular than Austin and it's not close.

During their peaks as #1 babyface, Austin sold more merch and tickets. Hogan is probably more popular because he had twice as long of a career and went out of his way to do reality shows, movies, be in a high profile divorce, sex tape, etc.

Also, Hogan can't be too popular because he hasn't done shit for TNA in terms of ratings. I imagine Stone Cold Steve Austin could move the needle.

Core fanbase is interchangable. When I say "casual" I refer to the fan who doesn't post on message boards or scour the net, but still watches every week.

Did Austin have a cartoon? Was Austin a pop culture icon? Did Austin sell out the Silverdome? If you ask 100 random people to name a wrestler would Austin's name get mentioned more than Hogan? Hogan is the biggest star in history. Hogan's match with the Rock during Austins stint got a louder response than anything Austin ever did.

Nothing could help TNA.

They aren't casual fans then. If they watch every week then they are committed to the product. If you go out of your way to watch CSI every week, are you just a casual fan of CSI or are you a serious fan of CSI? Casual fans are like the guys who pop up during WrestleMania or when WWE gets in the news and they go "Oh yeah...I forgot about 'rasslin." or simply watch it when they have nothing better to do.

Hogan wrestled across 3 generations to Austin's 1, so many more people know of Hulk Hogan. Hogan has done a better job of marketing himself after his career. But, it is a fact, based on what Vince McMahon has said, that Austin shattered every box office and merch record Hogan set in the 80s.

Austin made people buy 12 ppvs a year instead of just watching a cartoon. I promise WWE made more money going from 4 ppvs to 12 ppvs under Austin than that cartoon ever made. Austin led the WWE from the abyss and let them start doing stadium shows again, and he sold out the AstroDome. Austin also led WWE to create SmackDown!, HeAT, and increase the demand for syndication.

I'd argue that crowd reaction has nothing to do with tangible monetary drawing power. Remember, you are the one who says CM Punk almost killed the WWE despite getting damn near riot level reactions when he faced Cena.

Touche.

Jim Ross even said this before" Hulk Hogan is the most recognizable athlete in history" how old are you James?

I was too.. I was 12 when the attitude era/Monday night wars took off.. Every Monday night was dedicated to 5 hours of wrestling.. That shit appealed to me and I was a dumb ass 12 year old

I'm not arguing that. I'm saying Austin's peak was bigger than Hogan's peak. Hogan has managed to turn being a shitty wrestler with a media machine behind him into over 3 decades of self-promotion.

I'm 24. I don't have this romanticized view of Hulk Hogan. I see him for what he is - a shitty wrestler with boatloads of charisma and a brilliant mind for self-promotion aided by massive media machines behind him for 2/3rds of his career.

They would prob say the rock.. All about who is fresh on the mind.. Unless those 100 randoms are all 100 from the impact zone..

I just don't understand what is so hard to understand that you can appeal to kids without making your entire product a vanilla superhero cartoon with no depth.

Hogan also turned heel which set off the Monday Night Wars and became the best heel of the 90's, while Austin's heel turn fell flat because it didn't have the same shock value.
During the vast majority of Hogans times ppv was just starting out, so using the ppv's angle isn't really fair, although ppv wouldn't be popular if it weren't for Hogan

See you weren't around then for Hogan's peak in the 1980's. I'm now in my 30ms and without question Hogan was a bigger household name in the 80's then Austion was in the 90's. It was insane how big he was.

Popularity doesn't equate to dollars. You want to talk about drawing and making money. If is a fact that Austin made more money for WWF than Hogan did based off of merchandise, live event revenue, ppv revenue, tv revenue, etc.

Also, PPVs wouldn't be around if not for Hogan is a stupid argument. That is like saying Friends wouldn't have been as big of a show if it weren't for I Love Lucy.

You can't factor ppv revenue because it was just starting out and wrestling was basically syndication when Hogan ran. Also, ticket prices weren't the same and neither was merchandise, so it's not a reasonable comparison. If Austin drew 18,000 at MSG and Hogan drew the same and Austin did it at 1999 and Hogan at 1986 of course Austin drew more money because things were cheaper back then

I'll argue that the wrestlers there aren't capable. That's what not having territories does. Wrestlers used to come into the company after working the territories for years. Now the roster is full of green guys who shouldn't be there. The writing isn't awful, but I could do without all the stop-start pushes.

I think it is a combination of mediocre writing and the wrestlers not having the balls to take charge over their character. It isn't Vince's job to make you a star. He provides you the stage to become a star.

Hogan - He did anything and everything to protect his character. Megestar
HBK/Nash/Hall - They raised hell about their booking and they became stars because they made sure their characters were taken care of.
Austin - Raised hell and was protective of his character - Megastar.
Foley - Offered tweaks and changes and led changes from the intial idea of Mankind. Mick Foley became the most beloved and unlikely wrestling hero ever.
CM Punk - Raised hell and became a big star.

It isn't politicking. It's survival. Don't bitch about the bad writing and storylines and Vince holding you down if you don't have anything to offer them. If you dislike it that bad then find another line of work. (Woo Woo Woo, You know it!)

People are afraid to get labeled as a politicking guy or maybe just afraid of getting fired, but if you are truly the star you think you are then you'll get over and Vince will have no choice but to listen to you. Back in the territory days, bookers didn't do shit with your characters. That was you. They just gave you a forum to get your character over and make them money while interacting with other characters.

Well that's because back in the day if you failed you could go somewhere else. Not the case anymore. In that time promoters just basically threw a mic in a guys face and said "talk", so they actually learned. I truly don't think because of how things are set up that you're ever going to have a roster with depth again.

Pat Patterson told a story once where he was wrestling in San Fran and had never spoke before and couldn't speak English and the promoter told him out of the blue to go upstairs and cut a three minute promo right now. That would NEVER happen now.

Also a lot more money/credibility/etc. to lose now doing that. I'm glad WWE is investing in NXT and the developmental stuff more and making it more about the all around product than just producing good in-ring hands.

With Japan dead and the indys being a joke, it will be hard. WWE should let all these guys cut promos at house shows and on SmackDown! where it can be edited out. Sin Cara kinda got fucked over when they just threw him out on RAW without any time to settle into the WWE style. I need to find the Legends Roundtable they did where they talk about all this. JR goes on a rant about "What's a push?!".

I am too, but guys are still getting called up waaaay too fast. Case in point: Bo Dallas. Also,looking at NXT right now, aside from Bray Wyatt, no talent really jumps out at me, and none of them can speak. Big.E.Langston's promos down there were atrocious.

Well fuck, the new NXT isn't even a year old yet. WWE should be smarter than that and know it will take years. Look at all the talent produced in the early 2000s from OVW when they let them develop over 2-3 years.

House shows would be perfect. If I were creative, I'd let the guys go out there and ad-lib promos in front of the crowd. Sin Cara is fucked from the beginning because he can't speak english. Rey wouldn't have gotten to where he is if he didn't. Sin Cara also didn't really have anybody aside from low level guys that could even wrestle his style

I think they need to give the young guys something to actually promo about. A 10 second box-in-box promo about "Grr...I'm going to beat you." isn't going to help anybody learn how to do promos.

OVW also had Cornette who was doing wonders with that talent. Wasn't aware that OVW was its own company back then. Always thought it was just a farm system.

No different than the territory days. Ric Flair probably cut a shitload of promos in front of 100s of people in shitholes before he learned how to cut an awesome promo and got to cut a promo in The Omni at Starrcade.

That'd help if they actually had prolonged feuds. It's a tricky situation, because you can't have two guys having a prolonged feud if neither can talk, but on the other hand how are they ever going to have something to talk about if they don't have a prolonged feud.

Lol this is turning into a Legends of Wrestling Round table right here

Fuck, you don't even have to be The Rock or Hogan. Those are once in a lifetime talents on the mic.

Harley Race will never be accused of being The Rock on the stick, but this promo gives me goosebumps. If you have star potential and you can put together coherent thoughts in a way that make people listen to you, you got a shot:

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He also had to cut a bunch of promos on camera for each city he was travelling to. He also had the benefit of being surrounded by a bunch of wrestlers who had been around for ages and could cut promos. Also, people got into the business because they loved it and would live off nothing for years and couldn't afford to take a second job as opposed to today.

Harley was a legit bad ass and really talked that way. His promos fit him so well. Plus people thought it was real and really bought into it. Heck, look at Piper. People thought he was a raving lunatic. Can you imagine if Piper with those mic skills were starting out today?

Percy Watson is a guy who is entertaining as all hell on the mic and in the ring. Can't figure out what went wrong, because I thought he was going to be a huge star and future champ.

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Fuck, even Benoit could cut a promo:

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Benoit's promo skills were either under-rated by some or over-rated by others. He was in the middle for me and that's good enough.

This is why I liked the concept of ECW in 2007-2009. They put the new guys on there, but it also had veterans. They worked together and developed the talent. NXT is close to that formula, but they really just bring in established guys for a one-off match to sell tickets.

I liked it too. I enjoyed it more when it got away from the old ECW and let guys like Punk and Sheamus find their footing in front of thousands

Argh! I'm at work early in the morning and can't stop humming Fandango's theme!!!

Just want to say I enjoyed the Steele/Gertner back and forth in here. Interesting stuff, guys :y:

Got this email this morning:

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