Do you agree with Russo?

[Rysenberg]

That TV matches = Lower viewership + less entertainment for you as a fan?



Just watch the first minute or 2 to get the jist before commenting if you tl;dw it.

 

[Crayo]

Completely. The large majority of fans are attracted to wrestling because of the characters, the storylines, etc. The minority who actually watch for wrestling will watch regardless most of the time, but if some don't want to any,ore then you're losing a small portion (mostly internet fans) which don't affect the product at all.

 

[Mustafar Reginald]

You'd have to be pretty ignorant to disagree with the facts that segments receive more rating's than the actually matches. That fact is more or less all I heard Russo say in the two minutes I listened to. However, any good wrestling show has a fair balance of both, and not just an equal distribution of time but they go hand and hand. As in the matches actually flow with the story, and will impact it something. For example CM Punk & Dolph Ziggler vs. Ryback & John Cena from the November 5th Raw gained 1,084,000 viewers and the Diva's match of that night, Eve & Aksana vs. Layla & Kaitlyn gained 96,000 viewers after a segment which lost 190,000 viewers. And why is that? Their both tag team matches playa! . . . and maybe also because they were both integrated into the story the wrestlers were involved.

Point is, matches can get just as good ratings as [most - logic dictates it's impossible for all] segments, if they are integrated into the storyline in a way that hooks those non-wrestling fans to watch the match. That's essentially how you'll get them to purchase your PPVs. And for those who can't get invested enough to watch the wrestling matches, then those are people who aren't going to provided WWE with anymore money outside of the what they get from USA/Advertisement thanks to ratings and those people aren't worth catering to.

Also, I stopped directing my comments in response to what Russo said quite some time ago and just started writing from other thoughts that spawned from his comments. Wanted to clarify that in case someone thinks I'm trying to say he's wrong. I'm not, he's right. I'm saying it's possible to improve match ratings to equal most segments (the middle-ground ratings ones).

 

[Lockard 23]

Of course it's gimmicks and characters that draw in wrestling, and people as a large will care a lot less about a match if it's between people they don't care much about, or if the match is short and meaningless (which it is much of the time when it comes to TV shows) but even then, thousands of viewers still tune in to see those matches. I think where Russo is mainly wrong is that he isn't just talking about the TV shows, he thinks no one cares about matches at all, which is an opinion disproven by the fact that people shell out money to watch PPVs every month, and PPVs have nothing but matches, except for the select few promos they do backstage. Then there's house shows, which are also nothing but matches.