2013 Pro Wrestling Thread

They never panic too much over fall ratings because of the NFL. Come winter, it's Road to Wrestlemania which always helps, especially since they can trot out the part-timers and guest stars to compensate for their poorly-booked or heatless workers and their dodgy storylines. Now if they were to turn a 1.8 after TLC, or something equally over the top, that might be something. But that's highly unlikely.

 

Also, TV ratings all around are sliding, excluding the Hot Show of the Moment, whether that's Walking Dead or, years ago, Keeping Up With The Kardashians. More overall viewers watching TV, but the pie keeps getting cut slimmer and slimmer, so if you can deliver a specific niche (wrestling, all those insane MLB contracts), it seems to be really valuable still. WWE is also expecting to make a killing the next time it goes out for a TV contact, I believe.

 

Yes. As crazy as it sounds, WWE's stock is up significantly over the past several months. In a little over a year, WWE stock has nearly doubled in price. Which, if I understand it right, on paper, Vince is twice as rich as he was this time last year.

 

Wow. Great ending to RAW.

 

Foreshadowing a Cena heel turn, or at least a confused face role they can see which way the wind blows on?
You get the impetus for the Authoritah to finally be done with Orton. And at the end you have Cena standing tall (albeit non-decisively) with the Authoritah, looking like he's in line to be the next "Face of the WWE."
If it's ever going to happen, they sure did plant a seed that it could be this Sunday.

An HBK-Bryan seed was also planted in that melee.

 

So was a Punk-HHH if they decide to do that for 'Mania.

 

I can see the confused face role, where something screwy goes on where Cena wins, and the Authority applauds him, even though Cena looks like, "why are YOU clapping for me?"

Seems like they're definitely going to do Bryan/HBK. That's the second time Bryan's got the best of his mentor.

 

Not a bad little Raw to build TLC, which any other year is an also-ran show. Great ending, too. Lots of stuff teased.

 

After three weeks of the same old shit, we finally get something good going in the build up for TLC.

 

I missed it because I was watching another trainwreck on a different channel.

 

Pretty fun article up on The E's website that looks at the fallout of unifying the titles. Logical stuff, but something we haven't went over here. Thought I'd go over the highlights for discussion.

1. The Royal Rumble gains back a bit of its impact. For the first time in about 10 years, there's no mystery about who the Rumble winner will challenge at Wrestlemania. Also, does Elimination Chamber have as much impact now that one of the matches won't determine a No. 1 contender for the world title of which the Rumble winner didn't challenge?

2. Money in the Bank. What started at one specialty match at Wrestlemania and morphed into two matches at its own PPV has been a great concept. Now, with one match and one champion, does it become as important as the Rumble winner or will it go away? Hard to think such a popular match will go away. Then again, the King of the Ring champion used to get a title shot, and that format hasn't been seen in years.

3. The two midcard titles will gain some more meaning (well, as long as they're booked well). Still, there are two championships. Should the IC and US titles merge next? Yes.

Good times ahead, I think. I'm excited.

 

I could see MITB moving back to Wrestlemania and changing the MITB PPV to something else (or even doing away with it entirely, if they start scaling back on PPVs at some point, since they'll be freebies on the WWE Network). Maybe move Elimination Chamber there and kill or rejigger the February PPV, or at least keep the Unified Undisputed Ultimate Universe Championship out of it so that the Rumble winner and the title match winner can spend the next two months setting the stage for their match.

In theory, having one world champion and one secondary champion makes the titles more valuable. But the World title hasn't been relevant for some time as the No. 2 belt (as it were) until Cena won it. Can't imagine a Langston-Ambrose unification match moves the needle that much right now.