A friend of mine who’s knowledgeable about the wrestling biz saw SummerSlam before I did. He’s a cynic, like me, but he LOVED SummerSlam.
He thinks the Lesnar-‘Taker finish was brilliant, and that Jon Stewart interfering in the Cena-Rollins finish reaped SO MUCH mainstream publicity. Yeah, just like David Arquette winning the WCW title, I countered. “It’s different,” he responded. If it is, it’s not different by much. Putting focus on Cena’s chase of a 16th world championship was good, if only because it gets Ric Flair on TV. Cena’s 15x T-shirts, however, guarantee that No. 16 is not in the immediate future.
Seth Rollins might be the best-bet for WWE’s new go-to babyface. I’m not sure if the septuagenarian sees that, but I do.
As far as Lesnar-‘Taker goes, meh. I read and heard about the finish before I saw it and visually, it was much better than described. ‘Taker is a heel now, but if he disappears ‘til ‘Mania, he’ll be the “returning legend” by then, a/k/a a babyface.
It would be better to rematch Lesnar-‘Taker right away, but only a few WWE shows really count, and Night of Champions isn’t one of them. Witness Sting’s WWE record dropping to 0-2. SEE? WCW SUCKED ALL ALONG! TOLD YA! If Sting had beaten HHH at ‘Mania, his match with Rollins means so much more.
I was curious to see this week’s Raw rating. But not shocked to see it was basically the same as last week’s Raw rating. It dropped a bit, in fact.
If SummerSlam was, indeed, a hot show – and it was better than most of the WWE Network’s “big events,” certainly – why did Raw’s rating stay flat?
At the risk of repeating myself – both now and in the future – it’s because WWE has a hardcore group of followers who watch everything offered, plus kids and their parents. They watch Raw and Smackdown, they buy the Network and merch, they tweet, they Facebook, they blog, they waste their money and their lives. BTW, Monday’s social media increase means ABSOLUTELY ZILCH.
It doesn’t matter if the product’s good. WWE fans are going to watch NO MATTER WHAT. There will be a seasonal bump come ‘Mania. That’s when casual fans come around, just like casual NFL fans watch the Super Bowl. But, given the current WWE product, there will never be a big spike otherwise.
