The OtherArena

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 12688

I wasn't surprised by Taker not losing this year:

(a) I have a feeling that Taker will never lose at Mania unless he has another match with Trip on it

(b) Meltzer had been covering that "soured on Batista" story for a while

It made it too obvious that Taker was going to win.

I'm not saying the it's a bad thing for Taker to specifically go over Batista at Mania. I just don't think it's going to be a long term positive for the company. I also think that over the past five or so years that they've pissed away the chance to use Breaking The Streak to mean something to a wrestler who would need it.

John

Paul Jacobi · Joined: 13 Dec 2006 Posts: 71 Location: NJ

eron · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 412

Iron Chad · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 1163

kjh · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 544

corrado · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 2782 Location: LI

I got some random Mania thoughts.

1. The fact that the ECW originals defeated the New Breed. That accomplishes nothing. The New Breed is groomed for the future and will probably get their win back tonight.

2. The fact that Steve Austin did not shave Vince's head. He just held him back. Wasn't one of the purposes of that to have a climax to the decade-long Austin/mcMahon feud? I mean I said it myself that they should stop recreating 1998, but still they should've had Austin do the deed instead of Trump and Lindsey.

And for those of you wondering if they could keep up the critical momentum of the Pre Mania Raws which got rave reviews, Last night's RAW was very boring and humdrum, and got negative reviews all over the board. They had Bobby Lindsey unveil Vince Luthor instead of Austin to a lukewarm reception. And the main event with Lindsey against Umaga and Osama Estrada was one of the worst main events in a while. The crowd crapped on it. Since the ratings were a bit disappointing the past few weeks, I expect worse ratings starting this week.

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 12688

If there's a ratings drop due to quality, it will likely be next week. The Post-Mania Raw has almost always popped a good rating of people tuning in to see what happened on the PPV is they didn't buy it.

The company booked the show expecting a strong intial tune-in than usual - they rolled out the tag team battles with Cena and Michaels. No doubt the NCAA Final played a bit into their thinking of loading up early. But I think more of it was an attempt to grab&hold the audience that tuned in early. They save the Mania highlights for a while, though by that point people knew many of the key results since things like Vince getting shaved and Cena beating Shawn were covered earlier in the show.

The next 3-4 Raw ratings will be interesting to watch. Sweeps is coming up April 26 - May 23, 2007. They're head-to-head with things like:

* CSI: Miami's last three shows of the season - 04/30, 05/07 & 05/14

* Dancing with the Stars - 04/30, 05/07, 05/14, 05/21 (Final Dance)

And of course the other network shows.

So 4/9, 4/16 and 4/23 are pretty important for Raw to grab&hold if they want to get Big Mo out of Mania.

I would expect to see the shows "loaded up" in attempts to do that.

John

kjh · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 544

jdw · Site Admin Joined: 01 Sep 2005 Posts: 12688

I suspect they'll load up the shows in the coming few weeks. They know this is their chance to try to grab a crowd.

I just don't see what they have to be able to *hold* that crowd come sweeps. I don't see them tanking, but to show some sustained growth, they're going to have to come up with some good stroylines and programs.

The cross promotion of the "brands" may help, but that was going on leading into Manua and even No Way Out. It's not going to be terribly fresh for very long.

John

kjh · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 544

Raw was back down to a 3.7 rating this week, so they've already lost the audience that just tunes in every year around WrestleMania time. That said, next week they're hotshotting a WWE title match between John Cena and Shawn Michaels, so it will be interesting to see how well the rating bounces back.

kjh · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 544

This week's Raw also got a 3.7 rating, despite (or maybe due to) the hour long main event match.

corrado · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 2782 Location: LI

I'm all for long wrestling matches on TV. But this match wasn't that great. It had its moments but fell short of expectations, in part because Cena isn't a great ring technician.

eron · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 412

Really? I liked it a lot. I thought it was exciting. I look at Cena matches the same way I looked at Austin or Rock matches. If this was supposed to be a technical encounter, sure it flopped, but it was more supposed to be an engaging wrestling encounter, more of a mix of everything. I thought Cena easily held his own in that regard. The match had a lot of reference to their original match at WM and they played it off well. The finish, again, was great. HBK kind of reigned back in trying to look like a Wrestling God, which made the match that much more effective.

I'll say straight up I enjoyed it tons more than Joe/Punk II, which was a 45 minute headlock/facelock fest until the last 15 minutes. This was enjoyable throughout. You also didn't know who was gonna win, since Cena had been pretty unbeatable forever and you had a feeling after the 30 minute mark it was going to goto a Draw or Edge was going to interfere.

Iron Chad · Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 1163

Stop hating, Cena is the best worker in the world right now, especially after he carried HBK to those two great main event matches.

-Chad

Regan · Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 146

I only caught the last ten minutes of the match, and did enjoy them. The only spot that rang false was Jim Ross's call of the superkick "out of nowhere". He'd just tried it all of twenty seconds before. It wasn't exactly him pulling a move out of the mothballs.

Kevin