WWE Superstars Cancelled?

[Troy]

Chad Ruffner sent an e-mail to WGN America concerning replays of WWE Superstars. The e-mail response noted the following:

“Our final airing of ‘WWE Superstars’ is Thursday, April 7.â€￾

According to ProWrestling.net, WGN America confirmed that WWE Superstars has been canceled. Additional information was not provided.

WWE Superstars debuted on April 16, 2009

This was bound to happen after the ratings kept dropping. Originally the show was getting around a 1.0 rating but recently staying above 0.5 has been a chore. WWE haven't used the show right in the past year, to begin with it was an extension of the main brands and it would feature big names. Now it is the new version of Heat/Velocity. Good riddance and a waste of an opportunity by WWE.

 

[The New F'n Show]

I enjoyed the fact you could see guys you never saw but Show won't be missed too much.

 

[SpectreVLV]

I think WWE should still have a similar show to Heat/Velocity/Superstars to at least give the bottom card some viewers, and let them warm up. The thread about Chris Masters stated that he was on a winning streak in Superstars, which means it still might have at least a minimal short-term, positive effect. The show such as this can be streamed online on the WWE website just like WWE NXT. It can be just a small addition to the existing shows, and can also be used as a way to warm up the crowd before RAW or SmackDown (meaning the show would stream before the other two).

I don't think WWE is hurt in any way by the fact that this show is kind of a failure. The company can just pop another one with a different name after sometime, and the fans will watch it or not, depending on the quality.

 

[Zen]

The dissapointing thing to come out of this of course is that, for 95% of the time, Superstars had the best wrestling week in and week out. It provided plenty of youngsters with oppurtunities to show what they have got--most of the time they ran with the ball. Hence, Superstars > Nxt.

 

[TheGoldStandard]

If they don't get another show, I see a lot of releases coming.

 

[Chase]

The show was very not worth mentioning. The fact WWE stopped promoting the show as a whole kind of made it not watchable. Before they made it where you can see big time matches. Then it became a place where guys who never were on TV were on it. So really shows was ok but they could have done so much more with it.

 

[Troy]

It was a waste of an opportunity just like the WWE ECW brand was. Used correctly it was a great place to reboot some careers, to try out new gimmicks and to give some lower card talent a chance. When they stopped caring about the show it's quality declined but like Zen said there were some good matches on the show. The issue was half the air time was filled with clips from mainly RAW but also Smackdown. If they gave the three to four matches they had each week more time it would have been better. It could have been a great show if they put as much effort into it as they did with NXT which will be irrelevant if Tough Enough succeeds.

 

[Troy]

In talking to a few people close to the situation regarding why Superstars on WGN has been canceled, I was told in essence, because WGN was paying B or C show money for D show delivery.

WGN brought the show on board hoping it would bring ratings to their national feed, which does not have great clearance across the country's cable systems.

The hope at the time was that bringing in a proven ratings draw in WWE would elevate the network's appeal and possibly get it picked up by cable companies that weren't carrying it. Unfortunately for them, the show that they got was not RAW. WWE initially loaded up the show but it was clear from the outset that in the viewers' eye, it was the company's number three broadcast and at that point the die was cast.

The show quickly became undercard mania and the ratings it got were representative of what the show had become.

Obviously, there are some talents in WWE that are very concerned what the loss of the show will mean to their status within the company.

Not sure why WWE didn't try harder to keep the show when they were supposedly getting paid good money for the show. It wouldn't have been that hard to keep the ratings up, they just had to put some effort into booking the show and actually use the some big stars on the show in proper storylines. It could have been an extension of RAW and Smackdown rather than being a midcard graveyard.

 

[D Jones]

Nice knowing you Chris Masters

 

[Prodigy]

I saw a great match between McIntyre and Kaval at the tapings I attended last year. I'm not saying this was a big draw, but this, mixed in with one massive match could've really drawn and given lesser superstars a push, but wwe failed...again!

 

[TheGoldStandard]

With Superstars being cancelled. Does anyone think this proves WWE doesn't care about their lower guys?