Perhaps not; you might be the exception that Mr. 4thStreet and his ilk are not. There's a reason that I said these threats are not commonly followed through on rather than saying that they're never followed through on.

Watching with a critical eye (what I do) is rational.
Hating the product and quitting it (what you apparently do) is rational as well.

Throwing an "I quit" tantrum and then tuning in the next week anyway, that's all I was criticizing.

fair enough

i enjoy this thread and i enjoy watching clips after the fact of segments that would/do entertain me, be it intentional (anything with punk) or unintentional (joker sting).

i quit watching several months ago when supercena lost to miz then buried the wwe title by saying it wasn't worth going after, turning the ****ing wwe champion into a mid-carder WHILE he held the title. then supercena won the title anyway. it just wasn't anything i gave a **** about watching anymore. for instance, entourage is beyond terrible, but it's the last season so i power through, wwe isn't going anywhere so why bother. supercena dominates raw, boreton dominates sd.

i started watching again after the shoot, but i guess i shoulda known better. the first sign that wwe could **** that up as massively as they have proven they have was that they booked the shoot on the front end of ****ing back to back shows they were airing. the shoot, even with smarks, legit blurred the lines between kayfabe and reality so well that nobody knew wtf was going on, and instead of waiting for a week to see what was going to happen, 1 ****ing hour later the whole thing is revealed as a work.

granted, the whole build up to MITB was fantastic, but it could have been epic. they played everything so perfectly close to the vest that if they actually had the suspense for a week to see what was going to happen, the next raw could have been at the very least the highest rated raw since the attitude era. i mean look at the mainstream attn it garnered as it was. imagine if they didn't reveal next week's storyline immediately after.

anyway, MITB could basically have been renamed WWF one night stand. that's what it was: a ppv for the smarks. a flashback to the attitude era where the squeaky clean tool was booed out of the arena and the rebel anarchist was more over than almost anyone has ever been over. it was a tease that the attitude era could actually be rebooted. and it was done effectively the same way ECW one night stand was. ECW one night stand was so massively over in a way that was just electric. the response: bring back ecw! sounds good, except the wwe overly saturated the brand to have their own ******ed spin on what was once a great tradition. bobby lashley, ecw champion? lol. the whole thing was treated as the official triple A of raw/smackdown. build a champ, move him to raw. build a champ, move him to sd, rinse repeat. ecw was buried almost immediately by not allowing it to be the ecw everyone knew and loved. BUT AT LEAST WE HAD ONE NIGHT STAND!

MITB was the attitude era's one night stand. it was such an unbelievable ppv with unbelievable angles, and the night was over with the possibility of summer of punk 2.0 taking full steam into maybe a new attitude era. instead of letting a cena/punk feud truly blossom, they bring in kevin nash? they randomly scrap him to have punk feud with the #2 face in the company? they turn his promos into basically cena promos? they bury the hottest commodity they have by constantly feuding him with established faces? they had huge momentum again, and instead just buried it in favor of the status quo: cena headlines, punk jobs not getting a fair shake at being the main eventer he's JUST proven he can be.

sooooooooooo, i've already long given up on smackdown, and until there's actually gonna be a true run at the top with punk instead of whatever the **** this nonsense is, i have no reason at all to watch raw. i think ADR is overrated, i can't stand cena, and the 2 guys i DO want to see carry the show are stuck in the middle (miz and punk). when miz and punk are back at the top, i'll probably tune back in for 20-30 minutes per show, but til then, **** it. i can just youtube their segments

Best ending to an article ever, or best ending to everything ever?

You realise you are wrong about this, right? And likely on both points.

People sick of WWE programming arent going to be tuning in for twice as much of the same programming and at least two weeks ago Cody got to be on TV once a week.

Brand integration only works when the main stories on the show arent complete ****. Someone like you who rages on how bad the programming is right now shouldnt be calling for the end to separation.

I really think that we have to realize that we are watching what is essentially a children's show, with the odd adult-oriented storyline and joke. Wrestling is different from what it was in "the olden days". It can be argued that the matches are on a consistently higher quality (which I agree with), but the writing is nowhere near as good or enthralling as it was in the past (even ten years ago). Perhaps it goes in cycles, and we'll get some better writing, but it's not a horrible thing to be upset that it sucks currently.

What does get frustrating is when people constantly rag on every single detail, without realizing that part of the point is to be surprised. So what if you guys don't really see any logical end to Punk/Nash/HHH yet? I'm sure they have something figured out, or will figure something out. It might not necessarily be what you want, or make sense to you, but it's going to happen.

If you're not being entertained by what you're watching, then you wouldn't watch it. If you feel angry and keep threatening to leave, then do it. Otherwise just do what I do:

Watch the show, enjoy the show. Sure, bitch about stuff here and there. I do it. But ultimately I realize that I'm being entertained by it, and can pick out things that I like.

Sorry for the tl;dr, but I think this argument is getting a little silly.

fail

consolidating the best qualities of both shows into a single roster and giving them more shows to appear on between ppvs would make the quality of the show from top to bottom much better than it is now on both raw and smackdown. not to mention this would finally bring TRUE draw power to smackdown shows and not have the embarrassment of what looks like constant 3 digit crowds.

wwe has a lot of great pieces, we can agree on that. the problem is they don't have the depth to fill both shows no matter how much they seem to believe they do.

imagine a world where khali never again appears on raw or smackdown

imagine a world where alex riley no longer existed

how bout 1 show with orton, cena, miz, cena, truth, adr, and assorted fringe main eventers going after the wwe title

christian, mark henry, morrison, swagger, ziggler, bryan, etc going after the IC title

ACTUAL tag teams with ACTUAL tag feuds

the titles mean something. feuds can be properly developed by giving them 2 shows a week instead of 4 raws between PPVs. you don't have the same feud at the top of the card for a ****ing year. soooooooo much dead weight can be relegated to superstars or outright released

cena could be involved in storylines that keep him in the main event without him having to chase for the wwe title. oh to dream

Ill take storywriting at a sesame street level if it means i get great matches. Right now they arent producing either. At least the sesame street stories would make sense, unlike building towards a Punk Nash match then at the last minute (literally) saying "nah, fooled you, its not happening". Or having a match change its stipulations after the contract signing cos they didnt think a normal match has enough draw. Or "Nash sent himself a text" - just cos it seems to have been written by a sesame street viewer, sesame street would never do it.

You would never have Ernie give Big Bird a dead leg, claim that Bert sent him a text then have Bert say he didnt later 'proving' (without showing the video) via a call from someone in security that Ernie sent himself the text. At some point someone would have realised this was stupid and gone in another direction, such as The Count sent the text and have him heel turn by draining the blood from Big Bird's neck as both Bert and Ernie look on in horror at what is happening.

Now thats a sesame street/Raw id watch.

I'm very scared that we are going to see the formation of the new NWO at Night of Champions. I'm not sure who is going to be in it, but I just have a feeling that the ppv is going to end with the NWO screwing HHH or Punk.

an NWO would make sense and be the perfect copout for the new punk disaster

frankly i don't think it would be THAT bad or THAT hard to sell logically. they already set the wheels in motion with h turning on nash. and i did mean it when i said punk will be the new COO or GM or whatever the hell u wanna call it. i guarantee 100% that if punk/hhh is closing the show, that it WILL happen. if it's cena/adr it won't.

1. punk wants to abolish the status quo
2. the nwo was all about destroying the status quo
3. punk and nash now have a common enemy in h and both now want him out of power. the new stipulation frees that up as a possibility
4. nash comes back at NoC to screw h and let punk win, hands punk an NWO shirt, he puts it on, they shake hands and pose
5. next night on raw they gloat about taking down hhh, now they're taking over the wwe
6. miz and truth join
7. they spend the next few months burying everyone

tragically we all know where this ends. 4v2 handicap match against cena/hhh where cena/hhh win without a single elimination

X-Pac is being brought in. It just has to happen. I would cheer for X-Pac if they did an angle where Punk cleans him up from his old ways and made it really ****ty.

wrestlezone.com has a picture from tonight's Smackdown/NXT tapings,
http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/2416...r-smackdownnxt

This is a TV taping, can you imagine what the house shows must look like?

Does anyone know what the breakdown in revenue sharing for the advertising on Smackdown is?
Does WWE see any of that, or does it all go to Syfy?

The have a lot of details on their corporate website, for instance this:

http://corporate.wwe.com/documents/Q...tion-Final.pdf

will give you their Q2 2011 revenues which has advertising revenue folded into a few other stuff. Theoretically with enough time and the right search terms you will find out on there.

I know it varies channel to channel and even show to show how they break down advertising revenues so its not going to be something people will know without specifically knowing if you know what i mean. But id be surprised if their syfy contract isnt on there.

Smackdown spoiler of no significance.

holy **** WM made 16.7 million alone

Im surprised its so little. 35 million in revenue but it did over a million buys at like $60 a pop. I assume im missing something ldo, but yeah, a LOT of the company's profit comes from the one event to the point they made a huge deal about it being in March last year and thus making the Q2 2010 figures look bad compared to previous years.

So yeah, it makes enough that it can fund Orton going to the papers two more times

the best you will find in terms of ad revenue in any filing is their 2nd quarter 10-Q showing that they only made 200,000 in ad revenue for the 2nd quarter and costs directly attributed to it are 100,000.

they claim that they no longer all advertising during canadian broadcasts as the reason for the decline

Satellite and cable companies taking their cut? Nearly 50% seems extremely high, but I assume WWE isn't getting the entire $60.

Some good news for Kurt Angle, TMZ is reporting that they have a copy of his blood analysis, which shows him under the legal limit of 0.08. His BAC was recorded as 0.06.

http://www.tmz.com/2011/09/06/kurt-a...ilty-document/

Smackdown spoiler



lol

Complete Smackdown spoilers:


Might be the smallest SmackDown taping ever. 1600 paid with 3100 in attendance for an arena which holds 9100 for tapings.

That should be the biggest reason to end brand extension completely imo. It's getting embarrasing, SD can't draw anything..and it makes it even worse with all the obvious canned heat they add to the tv show. Just call it quits and stick with Super Raw.

Really hate to OOTLaw it up but cops can still give you a DWI if they think you are on drugs afaik even if you are below the limit on alcohol.

Yeah that is likely it, just seems high, esp when they are dropping 1.5mm on advertising it themselves.

all these rants are pretty amusing when its really pretty simple:

WWE has had a massive talent drain and they have not replaced it with comparable talent.

Gone from RAW/Smackdown: Taker,Rock,Austin,Edge,Jericho,Foley,HBK,Triple H the wrassler--im probably leaving someone out here.

Main eventers in of any quality: Miz,Punk,ADR, maybeeee Shamus. I dont care how good creative is--no way the product is going to be as good with that kind of talent loss.

+Orton & Cena. HHH is still onscreen. Foley might be coming back on screen, Jericho maybe. It doesn't matter that they aren't wrestling, the average fan doesn't care about wrestling.

A lot of those losses are long ago though, and WWE hasn't reasonably taken proper efforts to try to build new main events up. Not as many as they should have. They're way too hesitant to pull the trigger on guys like Dolph Ziggler. They pulled the plug on Jack Swagger too early. They put themselves in this position.