Is Indy Wrestling the Reason for WWE Ratings Decline?
By Carl Gac
With the alarming decline in TV ratings numbers for WWE, we look at whether Indy wrestling is part of the reason for the slump.
In recent months, WWE has been plagued with a decline in TV ratings numbers, with Raw at its lowest point since before the Attitude Era. A steady fall has seen fans calling for big changes in the company, with many calling it time for Vince McMahon to step down and allow Triple H to be the man at the top. After all, he is doing a pretty good job with NXT.
When you watch an episode of Raw, or SmackDown for that matter, it seems like the same old stuff every week. Starting with a long in-ring promo, usually featuring The Authority, a few matches that don’t really excite the crowd, a whole host of backstage segments and plenty of camera time for the commentary team (who are mostly their to plug the WWE Network and social media). You could take any episode of Raw, at least from the last couple of years, and every one of them followed the same pattern. At times, things seem massively over produced, and nothing seems like it happened as a reaction to other things on the show. Everything appears to be very finely micro managed and it probably is by McMahon. This is to the detriment of the amount of extremely talented men and women you have at your disposal.
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As a fan of the WWF/WWE for as long as I have been, this is the worst time that I can remember for the on-screen product on the main shows and pay-per-views. I find myself only caring about a small handful of wrestlers on the roster, including Kevin Owens, Neville, New Day and Cesaro. They are the only men I would pay money to watch on the main roster, which is concerning since so few Superstars attract me to the current product. The fact that some of those men are the few that you could regularly watch on the indy circuit is something I think that makes me still care about them now. It’s alarming to me that I find myself so switched off by men that are products of the biggest wrestling company in the world, but there’s no connection with a lot of the guys that have been brought up by the company themselves. Roman Reigns, Ryback and Dolph Ziggler just don’t cut it for me, too much telling the fans what they should be into and not enough listening to what the fans like or love.
When you step back and look at the current WWE product there’s a striking difference to a lot of the other wrestling that we watch on a regular basis. While WWE seems massively over produced the likes of PWG puts on high impact, exciting matches every time. I can tune in to any number of Indy promotions from around the world and find the hottest stars of the current wrestling world tearing it up in a ring every time. If I knew I could tune in to Raw and see something different from the big guys just kicking lumps out of each other I’d be more than happy. I’m not a fan of the kick/punch/not much else style that sits at the top of the WWE card with the likes of Reigns, Sheamus and Big Show in the top spots.
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It’s not too long ago that a small statured man like Rey Mysterio brought something different to the upper card in WWE. Where is that style of wrestler now? Thrown at the bottom of the card or in tag matches that don’t get the time they deserve the majority of the time. Now, with the loss of Seth Rollins to injury it seems we’ll be stuck with the big man style for a while.
I find myself tuning in to wrestling to watch exciting matches, to watch men who leave it all in the ring and make impress me with their ring work. I find so few men that do that on WWE that I find myself watching more random federations, and enjoying them a lot more than WWE. I can tune in to any number of promotions, from Progress Wrestling and ICW in Britain, to PWG and Lucha Underground in the United States and know that I’m going to see good wrestling, great story telling and exciting matches every time I watch. I tune in to WWE and see the same stuff I’ve seen the previous few weeks. At one point over the summer I think I turned off Raw during a Sheamus vs. Randy Orton match, tuned in the next week and it was still happening. When you can turn off the show and not really miss anything, you know it is not worth watching.
The proliferation of indy companies that now have TV (on YouTube at the very least) or on demand services are, for my two cents, the reason WWE numbers have fallen. If I can tune in to watch the likes of Mark Andrews flying high against a Will Osprey (google him) then why would I want to watch the 47th match between Orton and Sheamus this month? The answer is I wouldn’t. If I know that watching Raw will barely spring a surprise why would I not watch a company where literally any wrestler in the world could turn up?
I feel there’s so few positives to watching Raw and SmackDown every week, that I’m ready to not watch them again. When fans who have supported you for nearly 30 years are ready to turn their backs on you, surely that’s the time to realize your problems and change? Right now I’d rather spend my money on buying an indy company’s DVD or t-shirt than on keeping my subscription to the WWE Network. It’s not something I thought I’d do, but if things continue in the current vein that may happen sooner than later.
Some might say it’s a bit ironic that Vince McMahon put much smaller companies out of business when he expanded the WWF back in the day, and now they are struggling due to the smaller companies out doing them!