offical wwe thread

[famicommander]

Apparently WWE stopped using pyro for entrances as a cost cutting measure, and didn't tell the talent. You can actually see the Hardys pause and wait for the pyro to go off during their entrance at Great Balls of Fire.

And sadly, another ROH star debuted at the NXT TV tapings

Spoiler:

Kyle O'Reilly

 

[Electric Grave]

He's dropping it to Reigns at Mania. I don't even have to watch it to tell you that.

OMG Nooooooo!

I hate you Fannie!!!!

 

[famicommander]

Here's a nice breakdown of Ring of Honor's growth since Sinclair bought them.

This is attendance from January through June from 2012-2017:
2012: 671 per show, 12,750 total
2013: 621 per show, 11,546 total
2014: 830 per show, 13,282 total
2015: 986 per show, 21,700 total
2016: 928 per show, 23,210 total
2017: 1,105 per show, 24,307 total

As long as they have a good turnout for the UK Tour, ROH should have its most attended year ever (again) this year.

 

[jro]

OMG Nooooooo!

I hate you Fannie!!!!

Pretty much common knowledge already, sadly. It'll be the third year in a row Reigns wins the WM main event, IIRC (beat Hunter, beat 'Taker, beats Brock). At least now they're leaning into the tweener skid, but it still blows, overall.

 

[famicommander]

It doesn't matter if you're heel, face, or tweener if you can't wrestle and you can't cut a promo.

Reigns is exactly the kind of guy NXT should be around to help. He has athletic potential, he has a family history of great wrestlers. There's no reason he couldn't at least become decent. But instead of developing him they send 40 year old men to developmental and kick Chris Hero out of the Shield so that Tyler Black (Rollins) and Jon Moxley (Ambrose) could protect Reigns and carry him much farther up the card than he had any business being.

 

[Electric Grave]

Roman Roucheys is a fucking disgrace, how can he not see that himself. You know...I mean the guy must watch his matches and realize he isn't doing much of anything up there. Just pride alone in what you do should drive you to be a better performer, even if you're not a wrestler, but god he's awful.

Tweener? I've seen some grown ass douchers cheering for that POS. How can you call yourself a man and root for a lame fuck like that?

 

[famicommander]

WWE runs way too many shows for guys to realistically get much time to improve while on the road. That's why developmental promotions usually stay in one place. Except WWE decided to use NXT to try to kill ROH/LU/GFW/CMLL/AAA/NJPW/the indies so they had to take it on the road. Consequently, everybody they call up from NXT who wasn't a product of the aforementioned promotions in the first place fucking sucks.

Look at this crowd shot from Raw on Monday:

They're still making money so they aren't going to change anything, but you can bleed TV viewers and draw increasingly smaller crowds forever. You especially can't do it while scooping up every damned free agent wrestler who hits the market. Something will have to give eventually.

 

[Renmauzo]

Wow, that's a LOT of empty seats. If nothing else, they must have pretty good cameramen for the smoke-and-mirrors you'd need to make the place look full every week.

As much as Vince might not believe it or want to accept it, there is no doubt in my mind that professional wrestling is in the midst of a revolution and that WWE isn't everyone's dream anymore, nor is it necessarily the place to make the most money (especially when factoring the schedule differences and paid vs. unpaid travel/accommodations). Like most revolutions, the wars are fought in inches, but all fall in the end when stagnation sets in.

Opinions are changing, the other promotions are thriving, and the voices of the fans are getting louder.

 

[famicommander]

It's not the other promotions in general that are thriving. It's a specific subset of them.

Of the major promotions:

WWE is the biggest and most profitable by far, but they have been shrinking for years

NJPW is easily number 2 on the list in terms of profitability and size, and they're also growing the fastest. By far.

CMLL is, as always, slow to do anything but they're doing fine. They own all the buildings they run shows in and they draw great crowds. They could do better on the international exposure front, and their TV/PPV business isn't as big as AAA's, but they're easily the number 3 promotion in the world in both size and profitability.

AAA is the next biggest but they lose money and can't always pay talent on time. They're essentially Mexico's TNA, if TNA were actually popular. They recently had a big talent exodus but it seems to be business as usual. They stay alive because they have a great TV deal.

ROH is next. They are growing slowly and still very small compared to CMLL or NJPW, let alone WWE. But they are profitable, and they are the only US-based promotion that is growing.

GFW is in total chaos. They have deep pocketed owners now but they still don't have any real revenue besides their Indian and UK TV contracts. They're going to start running house shows again soon but who knows how well they will draw. They only run 2 PPVs a year and they don't charge for tickets.

LU may not even get a season 4. If they do it will likely be without all the guys who jumped ship out of AAA.

Dragon Gate is doing well crowd wise but they don't have the TV or internet exposure to be global.

All Japan is a shell of its former self, but they are on the rebound lately.

Pro Wrestling NOAH is lucky to be alive.

That's really it. Some Japanese indies are doing well (DDT, Big Japan) but most US indies are money pits, and the only three major promotions in the world that are both profitable AND growing are NJPW, CMLL, and ROH.

 

[Electric Grave]

I think the reason WWE has the upper hand in all of this is availability. For the thirsty it's common knowledge to find all the good stuff, the good promotions, the great performances, but for the regular dude, it's hard to keep up with all the other promotions. In my case, I just watch indies through youtube and sometimes is great, others not so much. It's a give and take and not having that easy access like network and what have you hurts the product. I dunno, I just think I'd be down to watch the other promotions if they were more accessible. Just my 2 cents, I don't disagree with what you are saying, I'm just explaining why is easier to stay with WWE, but I do agree wholeheartedly that they are killing the business, hopefully what Renmazou says holds true and things will have to change no matter what.

 

[famicommander]

Just a PSA:
Fite TV streams via their website too (www.fite.tv) now instead of only via App, and they have ROH's weekly TV show in higher resolution and bitrate than rohwrestling.com. It's free too, and you can cast it to your TV. The episodes are streamed every Monday night in a normal timeslot but after that they're archived and available on demand, so you can watch whenever.

 

[norton9478]

ROH is probably in the best position. They are owned by a very profitable and growing company that is essentially becoming a modern day equivalent of the DuMont network (which coincidentally was the big wrestling network during the first golden era).

Sinclair needs the ROH product as much as (or maybe more than) the ROH needs Sinclair. It's a cheap way to give viewers an exclusive product. If it self-sustains itself outside of broadcasting, even better.

The only thing that would suck is if it gets too successful and they bring in some pencil pusher to get more out of it by making it "more like the WWE" since everybody thinks that is what "successful wrestling" is.

Wrestling content aside, fuck Sinclair broadcasting.

 

[norton9478]

The fact that "Impact" (let's just call it that) is still on the air and creating a regular product is the greatest achievement in wrestling history.

 

[norton9478]

Wrestling is really big (in terms of popular culture) right now but broadcasters and spon-sores [sic] want nothing to do with it because the WWF/E hot shot the business from 1997-2005.

 

[famicommander]

Wrestling isn't popular at all right now.

There are more promotions that are visible but that's largely because of the internet and the massive increase in TV channels.

As I said above, there are three promotions that are growing: NJPW, CMLL, and to a lesser extent ROH. That's it. And those three promotions combined don't make up for the loss of WCW and ECW as far as mainstream popularity. Not by a longshot.

2016 and 2017 were even worse for Raw.

WWE is declining and the promotions which are growing aren't big enough to replace the ones we've lost. They're just finding their audience, giving that audience what it wants, and trying to grow the audience organically.

Even if NJPW takes off like a rocket in the US it will never be as big as WCW was in 1997-1998.

 

[norton9478]

It is popular in terms of Popular culture. There have been a lot of national media articles on wrestling related issues/
And for once, they weren't about premature deaths.

 

[JoeAwesome]

Look at this crowd shot from Raw on Monday

I was at RAW on Monday, and I can personally say that's not how empty it was the entire night. Houston fans, with any sport, are terrible at showing up on time. The only side with empty seats was where the hard camera is...

Edit: That picture -was- where the hard camera is. I'm sure those seats aren't very popular for casual fans because they're not on TV, and just as expensive as the other side. Plus, some of those seats are likely reserved for sponsors, family and crew.

Wow, that's a LOT of empty seats. If nothing else, they must have pretty good cameramen for the smoke-and-mirrors you'd need to make the place look full every week.

...That being said, it's easy to doctor it up. Blackout the nosebleeds where the hard camera is shooting, restrict seats where said camera is, and dim the lights beyond the lower bowl all so the audiences at home are deceived. WWE has it down to a science, but GFW is where it's really apparent.

I dunno, I just think I'd be down to watch the other promotions if they were more accessible.

The internet wrestling community loves FloSlam, but I haven't given it a shot. If you want a free PPV each month from one good indy, go watch Wrestle Circus on Twitch. Best free indy PPV or you're money back. Seriously, just look at the line up from Dive Hard with a Vengeance.

 

[Hot Chocolate]

Full line up for the Mae Young Classic

Congrats to Mercedes Martinez after a long road of being everywhere else around the world

Also officially signed are Bobby Fish( made his tv NXT debut this week ), Lio Rush after at a CZW event said his last day with the company is in August and Kyle O'Reilly made his taped debut this week for NXT

 

[famicommander]

ROH just announced ANOTHER NJPW co promoted tour for this year. This time it's Global Wars, making stops in Buffalo, Pittsburg, and Columbus October 11-13.

This is in addition to the War of the Worlds US tour in May and the upcoming War of the Worlds UK tour.

Also, WWE has canceled Talking Smack. I think between this and no longer using pyro, they're cutting costs and preparing for USA to make them eat a huge reduction in TV fees.

 

[Renmauzo]

Too bad there are no Canadian tour dates

At least the shows will end up on NJPW World eventually.

 

[famicommander]

Too bad there are no Canadian tour dates

At least the shows will end up on NJPW World eventually.

They probably won't, actually. These are ROH shows, not NJPW shows. Only one of the four WOTW US tour shows from this year made it to NJPW World.

You'll have to order PPVs/VODs or DVDs (or use other nefarious means).

 

[famicommander]

Ring of Honor weeklies

Women of Honor Wednesday:

Throwback Thursday:

Future of Honor Friday:

The Women of Honor match this week features STARDOM High Speed Champion Kris Wolf

 

[JoeAwesome]

Edited my last post, but in other news, glad to see Candice LeRae get in the MYC (even if it's not a big surprise).

Also, anybody seen the Kurt Angle 24 special on the network, yet? I want to this weekend, if nothing more than to see what Dixie's dumb ass has to say.

 

[Renmauzo]

They probably won't, actually. These are ROH shows, not NJPW shows. Only one of the four WOTW US tour shows from this year made it to NJPW World.

You'll have to order PPVs/VODs or DVDs (or use other nefarious means).

Ah, fair enough. I thought I remembered seeing all the dates posted from WotW, but tbh, I'm still getting the hang of the search engine on NJPW World. Either way, thanks for the heads up FC.

 

[Syn]

It appears that all of LU season 3 is on youtube.