[slik]

The comments on this topic on Reddit are really good/interesting IMO:


https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCirc...viewership_in/

No one has a story. They have things they do, and that’s it. Braun destroys things. Roman whines and gets opportunities. Balor smiles. Seth gets cheers from the crowd and wrestles well. No one has a STORY, just character traits (they’re lucky to even have character traits compared to some like Roode who’s just theme music and a robe). Imagine if instead of giving us the Kane storyline for example, they just wheeled out Undertaker everyweek and he talked about how his defining trait is being undead.

Give us a reason to watch. You treat it like a filler episode, we treat it like a filler episode.

-Kevin Owens has been reduced to a chubby little bitch -Braun is overpowered but is in a holding pattern doing nothing important -Nothing Finn Balor has done since he returned from the shoulder seth blew up has been relevant -Deleters of Worlds are obvious transitional champs in a dead tag division (... but there are good tag teams) and are doing repetitive boring shit with the B Team -Does Lashley + Reigns "matter" in the grand scheme of things since we know it's going to be Lesnar/Reigns #832?

Key phrase from that in my mind is holding pattern. It’s not just Braun, it’s literally the entire show. Week 1: New feud established. Week 2: Squashing other jobbers. Week 3: Tag team match or how will they coexist?!! Week 4: Match is ‘officially’ set up, even though writing was on the wall since week 1. PPV: Feud stalls til bigger PPV or is resolved. Week 5: PPV loser beats jobber. Winner repeats week 1.

And this was the go home show, too. Not only was it filler, but a lot of the "big" moments were tired repeats of things they've done too often. Particularly with Reigns & Lashley brawling & the entire locker room coming out to stop it. It was hype when Taker and Lesnar did it. Kinda still hype the other few times Lesnar did it. Not as hype as they do it with Reigns and others. It makes sense when you have two guys that have a History. Taker vs Lesnar had a lot of history going back to the ruthless aggression era and the streak being ended. You can even make a case for Reigns vs Lesnar. But Lashley vs Reigns? It was so fucking forced.

Seth’s the reason to tune in. Like can you imagine Raw right now without a showcase from Rollins? He’s performing at a higher level than anyone and bringing out the best in others too...unfortunately that’s like 20-30 minutes of a three hour show.

Not just filler, practically cut and paste from previous weeks. This past episode we had a pointless Ember/Liv rematch, the B-Team doing a skit that was funny the first time for the FOURTH week in a row, and a Mojo/Jose rematch that makes me wonder why we had two weeks of Mojo refusing to fight him in between. Not to mention the inexplicable three weeks in a row of Reigns/Lashley and Revival.

On the post-WM episode on April 9th, they had nearly 4 million people watching. Three months later, 40% of those people are gone.

The saddest part is they're squandering the best roster they've had in ages, maybe ever.

Seth just lost his title via a fucking rollup to a guy who hasn't been credible since Survivor Series 2014.

It's so weird that the being elite youtube show has more stories and story development than raw...

That's how they taught the fanbase how to watch, though. Summerslam, and Royal Rumble to Wrestlemania are the only important parts of the year.

The RAW after mania seems like the only RAW that’s worth watching anymore.

On USA this is still the highest rated program on their network. If Smackdown does this bad on Fox next year you bet your ass they're getting cancelled.

I've watched WWE for 25 years. I haven't watched a Raw or Smackdown in 5 months. WWE lost me. Which is a hard thing to do.

Like you, I've been watching WWE for a long while - since 1992. I watched Raw last night. I haven't watched Raw in nearly 2 months or so. After last night I remember why. It sucks. Meanwhile NXT is fantastic. The way to produce an amazing wrestling show exists in the same company where 1994-era WWF has come back to life (minus Duke the Dumpster Drose).

With RAW there is hope that maybe, just maybe, one of your favorite wrestlers will actually go out and have a meaningful killer match. There are so many people at their disposal that they should be making the most exciting product in all of television, and they don’t. It just keeps getting worse.

Good. Any show that clearly showcases low effort, dull storylines that don't go anywhere and have zero payoff, repeated confrontations and nonsensical character development deserves no other treatment. There's no excuse for sudden and unexplained face and heel turns, a nonexistent top champion and laughably bad angles like Lashley's sisters. There's no reason to tune in the following week because there's nothing that's must-see, despite their incredible roster. WWE has been arrogant for years, thinking they'd never really lose viewers, but they've never been this careless about their own product, at least not in recent memory. RAW has been running on autopilot for a long time but it's particularly bad this year. It's a good thing that mentality is coming back to bite them - if they actually care, that is. Either way, I do hope this trend of people not blindly watching a show anymore continues.

They finally got me, a fan of over 30 years who stuck with it through many ups and downs, to stop caring and not bother watching anymore. I watched almost every single Monday night, either live or recorded, and while my interest in other shows always waned, I was never willing or able to give it up because I always believed SOMETHING might happen and I didn’t want to miss it. I’ve gone several weeks without watching or recording, and I don’t feel I’ve missed anything.

mojo rawley vs. no way jose? really?

You mean last week's show of "Roman and Lashley fight the Revival again in a flatlining feud" and "Sasha and Bayley have finally snapped so let's put them in comedy skits" didn't make viewers want to watch more?