Professional wrestling thread

Speaking of Rey, why wasn't he suspended? I swear I saw his name on the WWE Roid list there.
This whole suspension is fishy to me unless I'm missing something here, but Orton & Rey were and are still on the program even after they were on that list.

 

Orton is a major kiss-ass and i think rey was still out when all the suspensions were handed out. Could be wrong on that though.

 

Surprised I haven't seen this on here yet.

Meltzer is reporting RAW scored only a 2.8 rating this week.

Not good. I know you had a killer MNF game and the Yankees-Indians, but after just naming a new champion ... a 2.8?

Ouch.

 

I've DVR'd from the first episode, but can't remember a time in the past year where I've actually watched one.

I think the only time was to go back at watch Benoit's last match.

 

Technically they suspended the people on the Signature Pharmacy list. Rey was connected to Phil Astin, Benoit's doctor, but not that list. I don't know how they'll handle Mysterio. As for Orton, allegedly they already had suspended him for steroids that he got from Signature, so that's why he didn't get another suspension.

 

Almost as good as a 1.1 for TNA's 2-hour debut, the same rating they'd been getting for one hour. In some ways the 1.1 for two hours means the audience didn't tune out, but then again, the 2-hour format didn't gain a bigger audience because of the 2-hour format.

A 2.8 for Raw? Yeah, I think the Yankees game and having the Cowboys on MNF did have a major impact. Perhaps Cena can say that without him, Raw's rating tanks, but what was the rating for HHH's match and the overrun with HBK (where most thought HHH would reappear or even Jericho)? If those were higher marks, then HHH can still think HHH = ratings. If the marks are low, he'll just say Orton doesn't equal ratings.

 

I quit on ECW. I was hoping it would work, and there are some good wrestlers on there, but the booking sucks.

And the only thing that keeps me watching Smackdown is the Matt Hardy-MVP stuff. That's quality. They've kept it going this long, and I still think it's some of the best stuff they put on TV each week. Reminds me of some of the old stuff the WCW used to do back in the '80s. And the two play off each other really well, and the fact they've kept the tag titles on them so long makes it even better.

 

What amazes me is that even with the mass of bad booking, TNA's rating (which continues to hover around the same mark) is still much higher than it was before Russo came in (they were averagng 0.7s and 0.8s if I remember correctly).

Beyond the bad booking, another of TNA's problems is its timeslot. The only major things that RAW faces head-to-head anymore are Heroes and Monday Night Football.

But Thursday night has always been when networks role out a lot of their heavy hitters, which is why Smackdown switched to Friday night.

On Thursday night, CBS has Survivor and CSI, ABC has Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy, NBC has THe Office, 30 Rock and My Name Is Earl, FOX has Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader, the CW has Smallville and Supernatural.

On top of that, Thursday is a pretty big sports night, with college football and national baseball broadcasts on ESPN.

The fact is, wrestling's ratings as a whole are all in a steady decline — except for TNA, which has been hovering at the same mark for months.

ECW's ratings have been hanging at 1.1 and 1.2, matching TNA's, far below the mid-2s where it debuted. Even before this week, RAW was down to the low 3s for several weeks.

I think the business is dying a slow death, and neither company is doing anything to stop it. In fact, they're both just alienating their fanbases.

 

Just like journalism! Oh, the irony of it all.

 

Journalism needs to showcase more five-star stories! They already know that if it bleeds, it leads!

 

ECW is awful. But I did enjoy the Punk-Morrison main event. Maybe I'm in the minority.

 

Punk-Morrison was a good match and they have good chemistry, but they need to stop booking Punk to be such a loser. Squashed by BDV and then lose cleanly to Morrison in a 48-hour period? Not good. But then the only reason they gave Punk the belt was that they had no other options with Morrison getting nicked for the Signature Pharmacy thing. A shame, but you tend to expect it with these guys.