Numbers
By Scott Keith on 16 October 2019
Honestly WWE needs to find a totally new direction. Between the debut of AEW and the switch to Fox + NXT on USA, they had more eyeballs on them then in the last like, decade, and still managed to fuck it up by presenting confusing, convoluted, uninspiring content. They had a golden opportunity to propel the product back into the mainstream and laid an egg. Maybe there's a new generation of creative, or stuff sitting in a lock box they've been recalcitrant to utilize, or maybe they're just brain dead and lazy – i don't know – probably not! – but the hardcore, loyal audience is only shrinking, and the mainstream, casual audience does not care.
The way I see they have one or two more weeks of momentum in this climate to make an actual splash. Raw doing 2.00Mm in hour 3 on Monday, to me, shows that they've blown a huge opportunity so far. If SD on Fox was a hit people would have tuned into Raw. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, with all the Fox and USA hubbub behind them, and it sucked by any measure.
This swing-and-miss at an opportunity this size is unforgivable.
Oh, I think Vince is acutely aware that there's a problem right now. Bischoff's firing likely wasn't a coincidence. I bet there's more pyro and ballyhoo to come if the numbers don't pick up soon.