What’s the story?
PWMania.com is reporting that 205 Live is not doing well in a few aspects of the business. They are struggling in the WWE Network ratings, and many fans are leaving the Smackdown Live tapings even before 205 Live begins.
In case you didn’t know...
In a recent post regarding WWE Network ratings, it showed a pay per view that was two months old defeated 205 Live in the rankings for the week. Not a good sign for a show that isn’t even two months old yet.
The heart of the matter
There are a few reasons one can point to the lack of success 205 Live has and one is the lack of established characters. The show has a lot of new faces to the casual WWE fan. While they’re doing a great job building the characters and the fan base for Rich Swann and Jack Gallagher, it’s hard for a casual fan to get invested; which leads right into the second reason.
The Cruiserweights are getting the treatment the Divas did before the revolution. They’re only getting three-minute matches; where they are much longer on the 205 Live program. Fans didn’t care about the Divas division a few years ago because the WWE didn’t, and that could be the reason why the Cruiserweights are suffering the same fate.
What’s next?
It’s hard to tell what kind of leash 205 Live has for the WWE Network considering that they’re not going to have any other programming that will really blow it out of the water. One can assume the viewership for Main Event and Superstars were poor too, so it may just move from a live to a taped show in the future.
Sportskeeda’s Take
It’s a shame that the Cruiserweights are not getting any attention on Monday Night Raw after a good start. Is is completely mirroring the Divas of just a few years back. The fact that management has noticed means a change will come pretty soon.
They should just move it to Smackdown, but they also should have Triple H handle the decision making rather than Vince McMahon. It’s not that 205 Live is a bad show, it’s quite the opposite really. It just needs room to grow like NXT did prior to the WWE Network.
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