Million Dollar Mania doesn’t draw
The ratings are in and McMahon’s Million Dollar Mania didn’t evidence any ratings improvement for the WWE. In fact, the numbers slipped to 3.0 after hovering around 3.1 to 3.2 in recent weeks. So, giving away oodles of money isn’t going to make people watch pro wrestling. That’s pretty much settled, right?
So, quick, before Vince McMahon starts hawking anti wrinkle cream on the air, let’s make this clear one more time: wrestling is what makes people want to watch wrestling. As a recent entry from me showed, with about 90 broadcast minutes to work with on Monday, Raw featured about 30 minutes of in-ring time and over 60 minutes of non-wrestling content.
That mix needs to switch polarities. At the very minimum, a two-hour-plus-overrun Raw broadcast should feature 45 minutes in the ring 45 minutes of other stuff; and wrestling was never as popular as when the mix was 60 minutes in-ring, 30 minutes out.
Actual wrestling matches are what boosts ratings, Vince. Learn it, live it, love it.
The last true “holy sh-t” moment I remember on SmackDown was years ago, when Big Show back body-dropped Brock Lesnar and the ring collapsed. Moments like that create buzz and buzz creates an interest in watching, which boosts ratings. As for RAW, it’s been a while, which is surprising since I generally prefer RAW to Smackdown.
Tags: anti wrinkle cream, ratings, WWE Raw