WWE Ratings at all time lows...

What do they need to do to turn the tide?

My suggestions would be:

Drop the God damn boring, three year long (WTF) Authority garbage. Seriously, they wonder why people are tuning out? Watching Stephanie emasculate everybody is tiresome as hell: how are people supposed to get behind the tough wrestlers exactly?

Stop putting old guys like Kane in the main event spots. He has been around for 15 years for the love of God!

Use wrestlers people care about. Look what they did with Daniel Bryan for the longest time before they had to use him. He was booked to work that great Mania against Sheamus for God's sake.

@supermeatman:

Where is your source?

Anyway, wrestling has been awful since spring 2002 when they splitted the roster and had to change to WWE.

I haven't been watching regularly since that time but the little stuff I seen from spring 2002- Oct 2015 I notice today's wrestlers can't cut promos, bad storylines, bad acting, questionable in ring performances, no charisma and today's wrestlers lack star power. That's why you see HHH, Undertaker, Kane, Rock, Sting etc. in top spots. Hell isn't Stone Cold on the cover of WWE 16?

I feel like at the turn of the century they changed writers and the show tanked from there.

The attitude era of the WWF was great! They need to pick up storylines like that again and maybe I'll tune back in.

The lack of any viable competition doesn't push the WWE to do better. The last time I watched this program on a regular basis has been years. Off and on I'll watch a few minutes as I did before and after Sting debuted but it seems so diluted with HHH and his female running the show.

Their main problem is branding.

Since the change to the WWE they just don't have a voice anymore. In reality it took one of the most popular things in pop culture and turned them into a new entity.

I think they need the older wrestlers, problem is that they're dying off left and right so it's hard to pass down that torch to younger generations.

This is unprecedented. You used to have fathers take their sons to see the wrestlers from the 50's and 20 years later those kids would take their sons to see wrestlers in the 70's and that went into the 90's. Now with so many wrestlers dead it's hard to get the older fans to get to the shows and one thing is very evident. Wrestling cannot survive on the youth market alone.

Roddy Piper who was the most important person in wrestling as far as bridging the gap between generations is gone. The giant that was Hulk Hogan is tarnished. People like the Rock and Stone Cold have turned their backs on the WWE. You have some of the more popular WCW wrestlers on the WWE in various forms but come on, there's a reason that the WWF destroyed the WCW.

They need to go back to the formula of the 80's. I don't know how many people listened to Roddy's podcast but it was pretty incredible and really laid out what the WWE is missing. He never ripped the WWE but when you heard him talk to older wrestlers and the young pups it was evident that new and old wrestlers missed the way the WWF was run in the dozen years between the 80's and 90's. For all the bravado, wrestlers are superheroes and villains and that's what the WWE has strayed from.

Good guys on one side, bad guys on the other. Let those pieces do their thing, not only does it simplify all these half assed stories going on in the WWE but it also gives a very clear way to pick loyalty. In the late 90's the WWF let all their stars go off in different ways and it's hurt them badly. Now instead of two main factions you have a dozen and conventional logic would say "well that gives people more choices" but all it does it dilute your fans. It makes shows like Smackdown and RAW anything but appointment watching. There was a time that you wouldn't miss a show because it always had good guys vs bad. It didn't matter if the good guy was third string, he was a good guy and who knows? Maybe Hogan or Macho Man would show up.

These days it's too segmented, there's no identity anymore. It's just a production company (WWE) and a bunch of employees going on their own ways.

Don't know, haven't watched much since the turn of the century.

@Master_Live:

Where are your MLB season awards and postseason thoughts?

@Jaysonguy:"People like the Rock and Stone Cold have turned their backs on the WWE. "

What do you mean?

"superheroes and villains and that's what the WWE has strayed from."

What are you talking about? If they had they stayed with that formula, then it could of been Ted Turner buying WWF instead the other way around. One of the best wrestling main event was Rock vs Austin and some say Warrior vs Hogan. They were all faces. Going into the Attitude era is the reason they prevailed long term.

I mean that back in the day when Hogan or Piper were in film roles they brought that entire world to wrestling. They didn't take a hiatus from wrestling and work on film, trying to become bigger and bigger there. They stayed wrestlers and everything they did outside of wrestling they brought back to the WWF. The Rock does not do that, he never did that. He certainly paid his dues in the WWF but then he left and sure, he'll make some appearances here and there but he's made those two worlds very separate. He hasn't shared his film success with his wrestling world. ANd don't say that he's made appearances while he's been doing films and promoting. It takes more dedication than that.

I'm also not saying that the Rock needs to, if he chooses not to help his wrestling background and keep it afloat that's fine. The thing is that the WWE needs to find people who are willing to do that.

The "good vs evil" is what allowed the WWF to beat Turner's WCW. Again, go back and listen to Roddy's podcasts. There's one episode where someone breaks down the fall of the WCW and some of the mistakes there are repeated in the present day WWE. You can't have an entire stable of wrestlers with angst against everything. The WWE lost it's direction because you have so many moody wrestlers that are going a million ways. It's not good for wrestling, it doesn't make it a compelling thing to watch.

Kayfabe. That's what the WWE is missing.

Well, that and good ratings.

Wrestling has been on decline last few years due to lack of competition.

The golden era was the monday night wars when wcw were still around.

TNA had potential to provide competion but failed to continue growing due to thier own problems of poor decisions.

Competetion is needed, the attitude era in wwe was a fantastic response tona very good nitro at the time.

With no competetion wwe have become lazy and the product just isnt as good anymore.

@Jaysonguy:

"They didn't take a hiatus from wrestling and work on film, trying to become bigger and bigger there."

That's not fair. The Rock probably got bored with Wrestling and his movies are doing very well. Hogan and Piper can't claim that.

Wrong. The Attitude era is what saved WWF during the Monday Night Wars and eventually surpassing WCW. The reason why WCW was winning at 1st because it became more adult oriented. Shawn Michaels pushed Vince to go that same route while Bret Hart wanted to stay family friendly.

Rumor has it this was another reason why Bret and Shawn hated each other and some their off screen problems spilled into their promos. Look up "Sunny Days"

The Montreal Screwjob, rise of Stone Cold, Rock, DX and sexualized female characters such as Sable was Vince Russo' s ingredients for WWF victory. His formula was called crash TV which consisted of shorter matches, backstage vignettes, and shocking television.

Where I find you wrong is saying WCW was ahead in the race thanks to being more adult in nature. The Atlanta based organization put together a better product. The wrestling was better. The shock effect was better. The writing was better. Recall when Luger showed up on Nitro at the Mall of America. I forget if that was the first Nitro though. Recall others (Rick Rude was it) wrestling for the WWF on a taped Monday Night program yet being LIVE on Nitro. Veterans still in their prime jumping ship to the WCW was killer. During this time the WWF was boring and was losing their bread and butter performers. And then everything went to hell in the WCW.

@Solaryellow:

Nitro debuted Sept 1995. The ratings for WCW and WWF were pretty much even.

It was untll mid-1996 that Nitro began to draw better ratings than Raw based on the strength of the nWo.

I say that WCW's biggest risk was turning Hogan from an all-time baby face to a Heel and teaming up with the Outsiders and formed nWo. It clearly paid off. Especially when WCW won the contracts w/Kevin Nash and Scott Hall who both were already primed for Main Event status.

Imagine if John Cena turned heel? I would say he would create a huge impact, but what's holding the WWE back from the switch is their heavy donations and requests from "Make-A-Wish" Foundations.

You're spot on about the Make a Wish, no one with more tubes coming out of them than fingers wants a visit from a bad guy before they die.

You're also right about Hogan and it comes back to my point. WCW jumped above the WWF when it got their one major villain (Hogan) and his cronies and made their own team of good guys to take them on week after week.

Let's all understand here. The WWF never jumped ahead of WCW ever again. It's that the WCW became so horribly mismanaged that the WWF became number one again by default.

Rome wasn't built in a day. Once the WCW got the ball rolling it was lights out for the WWF. Yes, the NWO contributed to the domination as did so many other components in the machine. From September 4, 1995 until mid 1996 (when Nitro solidified it's domination) the ratings wars went back in forth with the WWF holding a slight advantage. it was back and forth for the most part.

Nowadays we see the WWE players routinely break kayfabe. That breaks the unwritten rule of this profession. I'd like to be able to say ratings take priority over kayfabe but clearly that isn't the case for the WWE. Was this practice broken in the 80's and 90's? Sure. To the extent we see now? Not in my opinion.

I heard WWE is currently in the reality era.

One thing that WCW had over the WWF back in the day, is money. Vince wasn't a billionaire back then and couldn't afford to keep his past talent, while Eric Bischoff was on Ted Turner's payroll, he was able to convince a lot of talented wrestlers to sign up for WCW. One thing WWF did better was building up their roster from Jobber, to Mid-Card, to Main Event status. WCW relied too heavily on brand name wrestlers, they had their shot making Chris Jericho their face of the company, and he walked away to Vince's footsteps.

Which is exactly the problem. Everyone knows wrestling is predetermined but I doubt many want to see heels and faces intermingling like you do with those b.s. reality programming.

When I look at the WWE I see a few issues. One, being a wrestler doesn't automatically mean you can write and book compelling story lines. Two, banging and then marrying the owners daughter should not be the reason why you are essentially running the show.

One of the last times I went to see a live event (been to 2 or 3 since) here in my area was the Raw when VKM's limo was blown up. The following week Benoit went apeshit causing the WWE to cave in and squash the story. To this day I still shake my head over how the WWE dealt with a wrestling committing a crime and how relatively tame it has become since then.

@Solaryellow: Another problem, they have great talent, but will have no idea to create storylines or even set a match. It's no wonder CM Punk quit on a bad note. He's been trying to prove that he's main event status, only to be pushed aside for John Cena instead. I feel they treat Cesaro like crap, and he's a very entertaining Wrestler and fun to watch. What the WWE need to do is to find wrestlers with great chemistry like The Rock and Triple H had for a very longtime and they just discover their new Lita/Stratus duo with Bailey and Sasha Banks.

The WWE has misused talent for the longest of times. We've gotten people (HHH) who would never have been elevated above mid-card status if it weren't for banging the daughter and getting cozy with the owner. We've gotten people (Cena) who perform well enough and paid some dues with asinine gimmicks yet are forced down our throats. We've gotten wrestlers (Bautista) who flat out suck yet are pushed time and time again although the fans never really warmed up to the idea. For the longest time Benoit, Punk, Bryant, etc.., were completely bastardized for god knows what reason.

Fans can read the boards and the sites of "insiders" yet the members of the "IWF" have no idea what they are talking about. Apparently the only ones who know what they are talking about are the ones writing crappy story lines with poor ratings. For the life of me I can not tell you any program besides Raw that is a staple on Monday night but I can tell you during those hours I am not watching the WWE. I'd prefer watching a pot of water come to a boil.

@Solaryellow: That maybe a reason why Triple H is now in charge of talent, then again, look at what he has recruited and in NXT. All that talent building up have flourished. I do think Triple H knows what he's doing, but another issue is that Vince still has the final say on who's going to be the next big brand since Cena. They're trying to push Reigns a lot, but they have mismanaged him and they are now forcing him down everyone's throat! I feel bad for Dean Ambrose as he's a great wrestler and already Main Event status caliber wrestler with a great kayfabe as the lunatic fringe. I LOVE the Wyatt Family stable and Bray Wyatt, they have a great duo with Luke Harper and Erik Rowan that can be biggest tag-team heels and Bray the biggest Main Event Heel, same with Braun Strowman. Another issue, we haven't seen a face vs face or heel vs heel for a long time.....

More cheap titillation.

I don't think the current format allows that, or allows it to the point where it's huge.

Cena is, at best, the youth champion? Where he is someone that has the popularity of fans from 0 to maybe 14?

I don't know if the current demographic of wrestlers allows them to really pit sides against each other.

Plus there's no sides, each one is a certain degree away from everyone else, I don't know how you would find two wrestlers in line with each other and how you would turn one 180.

Screw the demographics! Man the Shield vs the Wyatts would have been the biggest Heel vs Heel stables of all time....

Link

I would go with Harper/Trout/Arrieta(I wouldn't be opposed to co-winners)/Keuchel/Bryant/Correa.

I think the best thing for them to do is to separate Raw and Smackdown again. What made the early 2000s so good was the fact that it was two separate brands, Each with their own titles and story lines. You didn't have the same 4 guys getting the belt, A lot of people had their moments to shine and I think that adds a lot of appeal to it. It switches things up so if someone wasn't feeling Raw, They'd switch to Smackdown for something new and visa versa.

Also, Putting more effort into the Divas would be a plus too. They have plenty of fine talent who can actually put on skillful matches when given a shot. Sort of tiresome for them to deal with the same recycled junk and painfully short matches.

I think all this PC garbage has reflected on to the new program. Remember when DX would always be telling people to suck it, Steve Austin beating up anyone that came in his way women included "Chyna". I have not watched wrestling since the Rock and Hogan went at it. That was truly one of the last epic matches I can think of. After that it's gone all downhill.

The idea of the WWE being PG is hilarious. Let's target kids when there are a lot of parents out there who won't let their kids watch wrestling because of the violence...

Truly only the most brilliant of minds would make such a decision!

@LostProphetFLCL: Like I said, I haven't watched much wrestling as of late. The last time I did was a few months ago and it seemed very stale and boring to me. Also people change with time, what I thought was great 10 years ago might not be interesting to me now. I'm just saying this from a personal perspective.

That's what I've been saying for a while now. Who the heck wants to watch guys so old wrestle they have tits? The WWE really needs new blood badly, not to mention less scripting and more unscripted fights to shake things up.

@crazy_neal0707: "I have not watched wrestling since the Rock and Hogan went at it. That was truly one of the last epic matches I can think of. After that it's gone all downhill."

Last time I was into it was when it was still called WWF. I think after that Wrestlemaina they had to switch to WWE.

Not too long ago I found out that match originally was supposed to be Austin vs Hogan but Austin turned it down as he didn't think it wouldn't of been a good match. I remember thinking after the Hogan vs Rock match (2002) what if it would of been Austin vs Hogan and how that match would of gone.

@PSP107: That would have been epic, but the part that made that match special was how Hogan was supposed to be that bad guy but the crowd had embraced him. Everyone was dumbfounded it was a flash back of Wrestlemania 6.

Good. Wrestling is stupid

Nah ahhhhhhhhhhh it ain't.

Wrestling has been on decline last few years due to lack of competition.

@supermeatman: the reason for the drop is some of the major stars have retired

And John Cena seems to be thrown to the way side for these mediocre wrestlers such as Brock Lesnar I mean seriously​ all lesner seems to know how to do is suplexes

Management needs new blood for one.

Just watched HITC, Shane jumped off the cell again.

@supermeatman: yeah it was basically spot for spot his wrestlemania 33 match.

A but more on top of the cell than with taker.

Usos vs new day was a better cell match than shane v Owens

They need to go back to basics and get the storylines in place with the current days. At the moment it's insulting to everyone's intelligence. The attitude era had a bit of everything thats why it worked so well.

It feels like the titles don't mean anything anymore. There is no consistency in story lines, no consistency in title reigns. The product is just so boring and stale.

Anyone who is a fan of wrestling needs to watch New Japan Pro Wrestling G1 Climax tournament that is happening right now. The wrestling is fantastic, no bullshit filler, just pure wrestling.

@PSP107: Same here, I stopped watching around the same time. Probably late 2001 for me.

I watched the Royal Rumble on youtube and i probably only know a handful of guys. That sums up the current WWE problems.

They need to bring back elements from the Attitude Era.