Wwe ppv? No thank you

**GoldSpirit** · 03-10-2011, 05:19 PM

(This was posted under the thread "PPV" but that thread went off on a tangent about british armed forces.... here's what I wrote... with some edits)

The only PPV's I ever actually BOUGHT were Summerslam, Survivor Series, Wrestlemania, and MAYBE Royal Rumble (and I'm talking, like ,Wrestlemanas 3 through 11. I haven't bought a PPV since, probably, the early 90's... Actually, MOM bought them... after ALOT of begging and pleading and promises. maybe a couple in the late 90's/early 00's.)

I MISS the old cable boxes. This is what i did:
I would tune into whatever channel the PPV was on and LISTEN to it
If I was lucky I would be able to see bits and pieces. (Thank god for Good Ol' J.R.). **The imagination can be a wonderful thing...

The PPVs are just too expensive to buy... especially since there are about 400 PPVs a year and none of them are really all that GOOD.
Back in the day PPVs were EPIC. (especially before RAW came along.).
This is where you saw the BIG matches. The REAL Championship matches. Matches that you cared about because they were built up. They were anticipated. They were going to be the equivalent of the High noon showdown.
The BIG NAMES came out for the PPVs, while the midcarders and jobbers were relegated to TV.
Now If you didn't watch, or weren't around for the WWF (I'm talking now 1980's up until the "Attitude" era) you don't know what "JOBBER" really means.
I'd watch WWF and see guys that you have never heard of, nor WOULD ever hear of again, getting completely squashed by guys like Sgt. Slaughter, Koko B. Ware, The Junkyard Dog, Hercules Hernandez, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, The Road Warriors, Beefcake, Piper, Hogan, Hitman...etc.
It would be like "up next... Jim Steward vs. Rick Rude" and Steward would be some out of shape guy dressed like a knock off "Rocker" with a mullet and porno mustache and he would get KILLED. And the announcers (McMahon and Monsoon or whoever) Would be like "Jim Steward wrestles out of Binghamton, NY. His nickname is "The stretcher". He's 5'10", 200 lbs. He MIGHT get a few good shots in, make it interesting for a minute, but then BOOM. squashed. game over. Have fun being an electrician in upstate NY for the rest of your life.
It wasn't Randy Orton vs. CM Punk 10 times before they faced off at Summerslam (to the same conclusion). Or match after match of M. Night twists or DQ's. AKA GIMMICKS.
Basically, You would never get GREAT matches, you got GOOd matches. You got WRESTLING. (Dont get me wrong, there WERE great matches between legit superstars but generally it was a "Watch how badly X superstar can beat this scrub from the Florida panhandle") PPV quality matches were reserved for PPVs.
The pay off was the PPV. That was when shit was gunna get real. (hah... btw, I don't mean "REAL" real, just ... damn, you know what I mean.)
There was a reason to watch those PPV's.
Thats when Hogan might get beat. Thats when Macho Man might win the belt. That was when Mr. Perfect was gunna be, well... PERFECT. There was a vested interest on the part of the fan in the outcome of the matches. That was when truly "Anything could happen". (Don't get me completely wrong here, there have been good PPV's over the years , but they are few and far between. )
WWE is living off of the memory of it's OLD PPV's. The ones people cared about enough to spend the money to buy.

As for TODAY'S PPVs, I just DL them the next day (and avoid coming to this site) if I REALLY want to watch... and I can't even be bothered to do THAT 90% of the time.
They just aren't very good. Plain and simple. At most I'd pay $10 to watch one. What's the point? All they are now are episodes of RAW that they CHARGE you for. You MIGHT get one good match out of a PPV.
Speaking of which, how STUPID is WWE for not having a MITB match at WM? That alone is almost worth getting the PPV. (oh wait, they made a whole PPV out of it that I have no real interest in watching because it ends up being another RAW with ladders and full of midcarders. CHAVO!)
WWE needs to learn that they have to put out a better product and lower their prices. (especially in this economy.)
Even Wrestlemania this year looks boring outside of MAYBE The Rock hosting (I'm starting to think GM after that.) and Cole vs Lawler (how sad is THAT? How sad is it that one of the most anticipatedc WRESTLING MATCHES AT WRESTLEMANIA IS COLE vs LAWLER???!? That's mostly because of my undying LOVE of SCSA... but I digress. Even HHH/TAKER sounds boring on paper...unless they really bring it. but I'm not buying into the storyline there. It FEELS thrown together. I'm sure they shoe horn in the emotion by the time WM rolls around. HBK anyone?)

In conclusion:
Get it together WWE.

Lower your prices.

Stop having eight hundred thousand PPV's (and only doing three to four weeks of build up...)

Make your championships MEANINGFUL again (Miz is awesome... let him keep the belt six more months at LEAST.)

Stop trying to make us care about matches that are meaningless, without proper story telling, and underwhelmingly executed. (Divas, I'm looking at you.... and Drew McIntyre...and Kofi Kingston....Hell, half the roster.)

Get better announcers (or just bring back JR already.)

ok... list getting out of hand. this is about fixing PPVs not the entire company (really, one and the same.)

just MAKE IT WORTH WATCHING.

**Also see: SPICE channel.

**wallyman** · 03-10-2011, 06:05 PM

i think most ppvs are just put out there to make money now....serioyusly b4 it was about being entertained and the revenue came with it...now its think revenue first then think of the entertaiment aspect of it...

**Automatic** · 03-10-2011, 06:19 PM

You can't compare the nowadays programming to the 80's and early 90's, that's unfair. Nowadays WWE has to step up their game every week, back then it was only on PPV and SNME. I do think WWE makes PPV's too expensive for domestic audience and I'm actually happy with the amount of PPV's, because that means I get to see some good wrestling. And you should buy WrestleMania. If you watch WWE you should buy at least WrestleMania, that's the least you can give back.

**Robstar** · 03-10-2011, 06:27 PM

Lmao, I totally I agree with you here. Great post. Loved the Jim Steward bit, I think I saw that match.

I think the year is WAY overloaded with PPV's, perhaps even if they took it back to where they alternated between Smackdown & Raw PPV's (with ECW thrown in - could we, dare I say it, have a Superstars PPV????

) At least then there was more time for build up and less brand crossover - which has become farcical. Christian vs ADR (Brodus Clay) on Raw anyone?

**efrum** · 03-10-2011, 06:31 PM

Originally Posted by wallyman

i think most ppvs are just put out there to make money now....serioyusly b4 it was about being entertained and the revenue came with it...now its think revenue first then think of the entertaiment aspect of it...

Surely it's always been about revenue?
Its pretty simple really, if the pay per view has a good card - buy it. If it doesnt - dont.
PPV buys have been on a steep decline recently and thats not just because they are less interesting and more frequent, its also because they are too easy to stream online and this seems to me like a viable reason why less effort seems to go into them these days.

**thejman93** · 03-10-2011, 06:33 PM

I'd like to seeSummerSlam, Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, Survivor Series, King of the Ring, and ECW One Night Stand. Use RAW and SD to really build up those 5 WWE PPV's and use ONS on Memorial Day weekend to give the 90's fans a PPV just for them.

**Kincaid** · 03-10-2011, 06:35 PM

If you stopped at Wrestlemania 11 you missed a few good WM's over the years.

**jhorton1215** · 03-10-2011, 06:47 PM

Not ordering the event, because I bought my ticket instead.

**The Brown One** · 03-10-2011, 07:16 PM

Another thread about someone bitching about PPV prices being too high. If your'e going to order 1 ppv a year, it should be WM. Why? The matches on the card will have had much more buildup than any other PPV, due to the month and a half gap beetween the Elimination Chamber PPV, and Wrestlemania. It looks to be a good card, except for a few matches, and even a few that will probably be announced shortly. I'm looking forward to performances by Drew Mcintyre, and Kofi Kingston, even if they are involved in a stupid 6-man match, like the rumors said. Hell, even Jerry The King Lawler vs Michael Cole might have a payoff: We might see one of them fired, and the GM revealed. Stone Cold as the special ref is a bonus to that. The other matches on the card look good, and yes, even The Undertaker vs Triple H -.- How can you say that it will be a boring match? Have you seen Taker's Wrestlemania matches as of late? He maybe older, and slower, but he can still fucking go at Mania, and usually puts on the best match of the year in the WWE. In conclusion, order Wrestlemania, and download/stream the rest of the PPVs.

**GoldSpirit** · 03-10-2011, 07:34 PM

Wow. The poll is split pretty evenly so far. You would think that people would be MORE apt to buy WM, at least.

I, for one, will not be. I will NOT pay $50 plus.
"The Streak", to me, is boring. I don;t think The Undertaker has "it" anymore. Though I am in favor of his rebooted character.
Seeing HHH and The Dead Man is a bit of a "nostalgia" trip for me. But will it be a good match? Is THAT match alone worth getting the PPV?
I'm ALMOST interested in the Miz vs. Cena match... The Miz has grown on me (not that I ever disliked the guy). And I'm hoping to FINALLY see Cena turn heel. (My opinion of what will happen.)
Other than those two matches I really don't have much of an interest in this WM. (Again, I DO love SCSA so MAYBE I'll at least DL it the next day to see what hell he raises.

You can't compare the nowadays programming to the 80's and early 90's, that's unfair. Nowadays WWE has to step up their game every week, back then it was only on PPV and SNME. I do think WWE makes PPV's too expensive for domestic audience and I'm actually happy with the amount of PPV's, because that means I get to see some good wrestling. And you should buy WrestleMania. If you watch WWE you should buy at least WrestleMania, that's the least you can give back.

I'm not sure WHY you think it's "unfair".
Also, you almost contradict yourself by saying that you watch PPVs because you get to see good wrestling. There is PLENTY of good wrestling on TV.
The "best" matches AREN'T on PPV... as they SHOULD be. They ARE some GREAT matches on PPV, no doubt, but there are just as many on regualr TV every week. That's part of the problem. We don't have to order a PPV to see great wrestling, and the one thing that COULD make it worthwhile... The Championship belt... has lost much of it's prestige. I think that the WWE has sort of shot itself in the foot when it comes to PPV buyrates. By putting out such a great product on weekly television they sort of lost the "magic" of PPVs.
Unfortunately it seems WWE's response to that is having "run ins", DQ's, and Twists every week that keep the resolution of the "showdown" from happening until the PPV.
example:
Orton comes out, has a match, gets jumped by Punk.
Punk and Orton have a match, New Nexus gets involved... DQ.
Punk and Orton have Tag team matches against eachother (with another two guys who are feuding)

We don't get the pay off... or a clean win... until the PPV.
It's a TIRED act.
It's the same thing week after week.
I say eliminate all but 4 PPVs. spend 3 months on each.

I, for one, can't stand that there is a PPV EVERY MONTH.
As I said, they all play out like an extra episode of RAW or Smackdown instead of being an EVENT.
I think buy rates are down because a PPV ISN'T a spectacle. It ISN'T an event. It's basically meaningless.
They treat them like a commodity first and an event second.
Too bad for them that people don't want to buy them anymore.
There is no "Must see" moment. It's not a "can't miss it" event.
the next night it's just back to square one and most of the time the events of the PPV have no meaning by the next week.

No... Your reasoning for me to buy WM is that, as a FAN it's the LEAST I can do to "give back"...
That, sir, is ridiculous.
The WWE is a Publicly traded company. The make more money than I can even imagine.
If I want to "give back" as a fan then I'll go to the local show at the Armory or VFW hall.
THAT'S giving back.
The WWE makes plenty of money and so do their "superstars".
I think "Joe Wrestler", who drives 200 miles, busts his ass for 100 fans, and makes $50 is the guy who deserves the fans "giving back".
I'm sure that 99% of the guys in the WWE lockerroom would agree with me.

But I digress.
I will NOT be ordering WM... and I will not be logging on to the EWN until around 9 pm The following Monday.