WWE Raw ratings for Jan. 2, 2012, mystery return man episode: Show averages 4.44 million viewers

football will kill anyone’s ratings.

So, I don’t think the case can be made that it’s CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Kane, Zack Ryder, whoever, that is bringing the ratings down. I mean, this time last year, Miz was champion, and…Miz was champion.

Let’s face it, RAW started off horribly this week, with an interminable John Cena promo. If I had a DVR facility, I’d have recorded the rest of the show and FFWed through the adverts, Divas match, and probably a fair amount of the rest of the show. Aside from Jericho’s return, Raw was poor.

I think most people who have a DVR facility would never watch it live. Especially if they are a football fan.

We are a dying breed… yes.. you & me… WE, the wrestling fan. The case I made earlier about the Wrestling business going from a 10.7 combined rating to now a 3.11 in 12 years is very troubling. Everything is cyclic.. its like a sin graph.. it ebbs & flows.. its up & down. I wonder if Superstars in the 80’s had these bad of numbers.. it was competing on Sunday mornings opposite Church. There were 40 million less people in the world just 12 yrs ago.. I doubt this is at all proportionate to the number of cable channels that have given us a great many of other things to do with our time.. except going our boobs.. as that maintains its constant growth rate..

Unfortunately the wrestling purist.. the folks like myself and countless others on here are in huge trouble. Things are going to change.. and its going to be more proportionate to where things are than where things were 12 yrs ago. As things trend down ward.. I wouldn’t be surprised if WWe is the longest running episodic television show (you remember that stat I am sure, cuz Michael Cole bombarded our brains with it for about 4yrs straight.) You may even see Raw &/or SD go to one hour. Yes, in comparison things are still good right now.. but for how much longer… There has to be a threshold where things are condensed to save money.. Rosters and the such. But, would that be such a horrible thing? Like the NBA, maybe WWe is in need of contraction? There would still be some jobbers, but it would force people to be very careful about taking that step forward. We exist in a world where we have been able to be gluttons.. we over do everything.. its how we as a country now owe $15 Trillion dollars.. and one liberal stated that there was nothing wrong with that. Contraction can be a good thing.. the hardest part about contraction is the 1st step.. admitting you have a problem. Its an ego pride type of thing.. but once you get past that, you can put in the hard work & make things overall great. Think about it.. would we get Cena on tv cutting 10-20 minute promos when he only has 1 hour? Hell No! Every decision would be looked at from a new perspective.. they have gotten too fat.. they need more discipline about how they spend their time & money. Maybe in the end.. this is all a positive thing for us.. the wrestling fan… we may finally get the product we desire so badly.. for things to be awesome again.

I really think that Michael Cole is contribution to this trend. People tune in to see what’s going on and Cole annoys them. Sometimes its just not worth sticking around for the second hour, especially if I have to listen to Cole.

I think throwing your arms up and saying “the business is cyclical” is a copout. Back in the late 90’s and 2000 there were many performers in WWE who were presented as big time stars – Austin, Rock, Taker, Angle, HBK, Kane, Mankind, Mr. McMahon, HHH, Jericho, etc. We are down to 3 right now with Cena, Punk, and Orton. And Cena has been the main guy for way longer than Austin or Rock or HHH were. A lot of us don’t care to see him play the same damn character anymore after all these years. WWE has done a poor job of making new stars. That’s their job and they failed.

I will say though that it did help to have WCW and ECW around back then. There were some massive stars in WCW as well like Hogan, Goldberg, Sting, Nash, DDP, etc, and so wrestling was way bigger back then and it was easier to stick as a wrestling fan because there was usually a great alternative option when one of these companies was putting crap on TV. But now when WWE puts crap on TV there aren’t as many exciting alternatives around and so it is easier for fans to seek out a different form of entertainment other than wrestling.

WWE has done a piss poor job of creating newer stars in recent years and preparing for the day when some guys like Taker, HBK, HHH, Batista, and Edge would no longer be regular performers.. If you don’t like John Cena, the last few years have been largely forgettable and rough to stomach at times.

I wonder if the WWE pimps out Twitter so much because they don’t trust the ratings to be an accurate judge of who is actually watching the show. With Twitter, they can get an idea on who is watching the show whether its live or recorded (or an illegal stream though they’d probably be less happy about that).