Wrestling Observer Radio
One of the more compelling things that Dave Meltzer said in this edition of Wrestling Observer Radio was that it was a good thing that Goldberg wasn’t booked as a comedy figure, or he would die a thousand deaths. But there were many other aspects of WWE he touched upon, through the episode.
According to him, Raw did the second best ratings this fall because of Goldberg, despite the fact that there was a third-hour drop. While Rollins and Owens did not keep the crowd hooked, SmackDown did fine, despite the fact that Ellsworth was in the main event.
While Meltzer was entertained by SmackDown, he felt it was too suited for laughs. He wants Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt to become tag team champions because the titles don’t feel important with Slater and Rhyno. He added that the American Alpha – Uso feud cooled any momentum that the former had.
Jordan and Gable, as serious competitors feel out of place in the comedy tag team division.
Perhaps the most interesting thing that Meltzer touched upon in this episode was the Network vs. Pay-per-view model. While at first glance, it seems that Pay-Per-Views and the WWE Network both yield as much revenue; in reality, one tends to forget Internet Pay-Per-Views and Home Videos.
And there’s a significant loss that WWE suffers when this is taken into account. He also maintained that it’s much more expensive to maintain the WWE Network, because of the many shows on it. The part that should worry the WWE Network is that they lost subscribers when they went to 2 Pay-Per-Views a month.
However, profits are not badly affected, as WWE earns a lot of money from TV broadcast.
Meltzer also spoke about house show numbers, and how they’re solid once more, after a disappointing October. He attributed John Cena’s absence to an overall drop of 1,000 people per show. But because of the European tour, house show numbers have gone up again.
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