Post by Hollywood Asia on Sept 15, 2008 21:23:58 GMT -5
The debut of the Championship scramble saw Chris Jericho, who was not even booked in the match, come out as World champion and Matt Hardy as ECW champion.
But when it was over, my thoughts were all they did was make their titles seem worthless. Champions win a title based on a fluke, and champions lose a title without getting beat. So what does the title signify? The reason a title draws (or doesn’t) is partially because the champion is viewed as the top man, and for a reason. He’s the best guy at that point in time, at least until somebody beats him, and then they are the best man. Not that the concept hasn’t been undermined in recent years, but this show did more to undermine championships than anything in a while. Granted, eras are different and titles in all combat sports are watered down and don’t mean a lot, but that doesn’t mean you make it worse? The very concept of titles is a means to draw money. When you cheapen titles to where they don’t draw money and you acknowledge they don’t, then you’ve defeated their entire purpose for the past 110 years.
I think the matches themselves, given the inherent problems, were scripted well. The wrestling was okay, although nothing was PPV quality except the Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels. The timing was funny, as none of the three matches ended up hitting the finish by the 20:00 mark. The crowd reactions were weak, which made even Jericho vs. Michaels come across a lot less than it could have been and made the other matches drag except for the crowd waiting for the five minute intervals and play guess the arrival. The crowd, according to live reports, burned out after Michaels vs. Jericho, and the women’s match (put in a position to die so the crowd would pop for the final scramble) and an Undertaker angle took it down, but the crowd did respond to the last few minutes of the Raw main event when Jericho was the surprise entrant and got the title.
Of course, the be all and end all of a new concept or any gimmick is, did it turn more people on than it turned off. Hell in a Cell, The Elimination Chamber and the Royal Rumble, the three WWE creations in the advertising for the show that this new concept was compared to, have all been major successes.
In this case, all early indications were this was a failure. The advance was weak, and the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland was being heavily papered in the days leading to the show, finishing with about 9,500 fans in the arena and the entire upper deck curtained off except for a small section facing the hard camera. Our response level was down 46% from last year’s show, which finished with 225,000 buys. Now I don’t believe for a second that the buy rate will be down that much, even though our response level is usually a solid indicator. But it was the lowest response I can recall for a WWE PPV show in forever, so it is a terrible sign. If the numbers are the lowest of the year, I’d blame the gimmick and the final Raw show in particular. I know my own interest in the show waned with the announcement of the second and third scramble, and died completely watching the go-home Raw which turned me off from a fan perspective on having any interest in the show. The killer, as noted last week, was the Raw and ECW scramble participants in terrible Battle Royals. The idea is to put the headliners in a position where they get you excited, not where the supposed headliners all look like jibronies who will go down easy. Who wants to pay to see that? My feeling is if it wasn’t for the Michaels vs. Jericho match, this would have been second to the December to Dismember and the lowest purchased WWE PPV in more than a decade. And even with one of the best feuds in years, the fact is, most of the promotion was still built around ambiguous matches that seemed to lack interest.
That said, with changing two titles, did they build intrigue for a concept that can become something annual? Or will this be the WWE’s newest Cyber Sunday concept?
The main storyline is Michaels destroyed Jericho, and then took the next plane out and went home. The new second generation heel unit of Randy Orton (okay, third generation), Ted DiBiase (also third generation), Cody Rhodes and Manu (Afa Anoai Jr.) attacked champ C.M. Punk before the main event and he couldn’t come out. There was an inherent problem in that Jericho took 20 times the punishment in his match than Punk did in that angle, and Jericho, the heel, came out as the replacement while Punk, the champion, never came out to defend the title the way fans are conditioned a champion should. But they kind of booked themselves into a corner with the idea of Michaels destroys Jericho and then gets the title, leading to Jericho having to defend against Michaels and changing their feud to being a world title feud.
The show moved along at a faster pace because you could see from the beginning they were going to have to rush to get everything in. The main event was cut to 17:15, and even then it went 15 seconds long.
There was also an angle where Big Show turned heel on The Undertaker, in saving Vickie Guerrero from death to hell by being put into a coffin alive, which went too long and got shockingly little heat. Still, they are laying the foundation for a lot of new programs and trying to elevate new stars. But in doing a lot of small things well, they actually missed the big things, which is the value of the titles that are going to have to headline most PPV shows.
Wrestlemania tickets go on sale on 9/20 for next year’s show at Reliant Stadium in Houston. They are doing a big deal as they are going to do Smackdown live on Friday in Houston, have more activities all week, the Hall of Fame on Saturday night built around Steve Austin (at least as things stand) as the main guy going in, as well as Raw also coming live from Houston. Tickets will be priced at $755, $255, $155, $100, $60 and $40.
Next PPV is No Mercy on 10/5 in Portland, OR. Thus far HHH vs. Jeff Hardy for the WWE title and Phoenix vs. Candice Michelle for the women’s title are announced. The way things are being teased, it’s probably Jericho vs. Michaels for the World title, Undertaker vs. Show, Matt Hardy vs. Henry for the ECW title and maybe Batista vs. JBL. The only other direct angle, but I’ve got no idea if it’s for PPV or TV is Hawkins & Ryder vs. the Colon Brothers for the Smackdown tag titles as far as stuff being teased.
WWE shipped 276,000 DVD orders, the vast majority being The Rock DVD set. The most shipped DVDs so far this year are Wrestlemania 24 at 303,000 units, which when you consider expectations, is a very disappointing number. This DVD included the most talked about Hall of Fame ceremony ever with Flair, and the Flair retirement ceremony. There were a lot of people expecting this to be the biggest DVD in company history, but it’s going to fall far short of Mania 22, at 426,000 units. I think a key point in this is how Floyd Mayweather appears to have meant nothing for DVD sales. The other top sellers are HHH at 236,000, Austin at 225,000 and Rock at 191,000. The early Flair numbers won’t be available for a few more weeks.
In July, the company had 15.3 million unique visitors to its web site and shop zone processed 839 orders per day, which is a good clip.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CREDIT: WRESTLINGOBSERVER.COM
Enjoy, and with proper credit its not illegal incase since every news site does it...
incase any BAD TRADER wants to report me
But when it was over, my thoughts were all they did was make their titles seem worthless. Champions win a title based on a fluke, and champions lose a title without getting beat. So what does the title signify? The reason a title draws (or doesn’t) is partially because the champion is viewed as the top man, and for a reason. He’s the best guy at that point in time, at least until somebody beats him, and then they are the best man. Not that the concept hasn’t been undermined in recent years, but this show did more to undermine championships than anything in a while. Granted, eras are different and titles in all combat sports are watered down and don’t mean a lot, but that doesn’t mean you make it worse? The very concept of titles is a means to draw money. When you cheapen titles to where they don’t draw money and you acknowledge they don’t, then you’ve defeated their entire purpose for the past 110 years.
I think the matches themselves, given the inherent problems, were scripted well. The wrestling was okay, although nothing was PPV quality except the Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels. The timing was funny, as none of the three matches ended up hitting the finish by the 20:00 mark. The crowd reactions were weak, which made even Jericho vs. Michaels come across a lot less than it could have been and made the other matches drag except for the crowd waiting for the five minute intervals and play guess the arrival. The crowd, according to live reports, burned out after Michaels vs. Jericho, and the women’s match (put in a position to die so the crowd would pop for the final scramble) and an Undertaker angle took it down, but the crowd did respond to the last few minutes of the Raw main event when Jericho was the surprise entrant and got the title.
Of course, the be all and end all of a new concept or any gimmick is, did it turn more people on than it turned off. Hell in a Cell, The Elimination Chamber and the Royal Rumble, the three WWE creations in the advertising for the show that this new concept was compared to, have all been major successes.
In this case, all early indications were this was a failure. The advance was weak, and the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland was being heavily papered in the days leading to the show, finishing with about 9,500 fans in the arena and the entire upper deck curtained off except for a small section facing the hard camera. Our response level was down 46% from last year’s show, which finished with 225,000 buys. Now I don’t believe for a second that the buy rate will be down that much, even though our response level is usually a solid indicator. But it was the lowest response I can recall for a WWE PPV show in forever, so it is a terrible sign. If the numbers are the lowest of the year, I’d blame the gimmick and the final Raw show in particular. I know my own interest in the show waned with the announcement of the second and third scramble, and died completely watching the go-home Raw which turned me off from a fan perspective on having any interest in the show. The killer, as noted last week, was the Raw and ECW scramble participants in terrible Battle Royals. The idea is to put the headliners in a position where they get you excited, not where the supposed headliners all look like jibronies who will go down easy. Who wants to pay to see that? My feeling is if it wasn’t for the Michaels vs. Jericho match, this would have been second to the December to Dismember and the lowest purchased WWE PPV in more than a decade. And even with one of the best feuds in years, the fact is, most of the promotion was still built around ambiguous matches that seemed to lack interest.
That said, with changing two titles, did they build intrigue for a concept that can become something annual? Or will this be the WWE’s newest Cyber Sunday concept?
The main storyline is Michaels destroyed Jericho, and then took the next plane out and went home. The new second generation heel unit of Randy Orton (okay, third generation), Ted DiBiase (also third generation), Cody Rhodes and Manu (Afa Anoai Jr.) attacked champ C.M. Punk before the main event and he couldn’t come out. There was an inherent problem in that Jericho took 20 times the punishment in his match than Punk did in that angle, and Jericho, the heel, came out as the replacement while Punk, the champion, never came out to defend the title the way fans are conditioned a champion should. But they kind of booked themselves into a corner with the idea of Michaels destroys Jericho and then gets the title, leading to Jericho having to defend against Michaels and changing their feud to being a world title feud.
The show moved along at a faster pace because you could see from the beginning they were going to have to rush to get everything in. The main event was cut to 17:15, and even then it went 15 seconds long.
There was also an angle where Big Show turned heel on The Undertaker, in saving Vickie Guerrero from death to hell by being put into a coffin alive, which went too long and got shockingly little heat. Still, they are laying the foundation for a lot of new programs and trying to elevate new stars. But in doing a lot of small things well, they actually missed the big things, which is the value of the titles that are going to have to headline most PPV shows.
Wrestlemania tickets go on sale on 9/20 for next year’s show at Reliant Stadium in Houston. They are doing a big deal as they are going to do Smackdown live on Friday in Houston, have more activities all week, the Hall of Fame on Saturday night built around Steve Austin (at least as things stand) as the main guy going in, as well as Raw also coming live from Houston. Tickets will be priced at $755, $255, $155, $100, $60 and $40.
Next PPV is No Mercy on 10/5 in Portland, OR. Thus far HHH vs. Jeff Hardy for the WWE title and Phoenix vs. Candice Michelle for the women’s title are announced. The way things are being teased, it’s probably Jericho vs. Michaels for the World title, Undertaker vs. Show, Matt Hardy vs. Henry for the ECW title and maybe Batista vs. JBL. The only other direct angle, but I’ve got no idea if it’s for PPV or TV is Hawkins & Ryder vs. the Colon Brothers for the Smackdown tag titles as far as stuff being teased.
WWE shipped 276,000 DVD orders, the vast majority being The Rock DVD set. The most shipped DVDs so far this year are Wrestlemania 24 at 303,000 units, which when you consider expectations, is a very disappointing number. This DVD included the most talked about Hall of Fame ceremony ever with Flair, and the Flair retirement ceremony. There were a lot of people expecting this to be the biggest DVD in company history, but it’s going to fall far short of Mania 22, at 426,000 units. I think a key point in this is how Floyd Mayweather appears to have meant nothing for DVD sales. The other top sellers are HHH at 236,000, Austin at 225,000 and Rock at 191,000. The early Flair numbers won’t be available for a few more weeks.
In July, the company had 15.3 million unique visitors to its web site and shop zone processed 839 orders per day, which is a good clip.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CREDIT: WRESTLINGOBSERVER.COM
Enjoy, and with proper credit its not illegal incase since every news site does it...
incase any BAD TRADER wants to report me
Its really hard for me to see when paragraphs end