- 9 hours ago
On today's wrestling afternews, Adam Wilbourn and Andy Murray discuss the low viewership of the October 31st episode of WWE SmackDown.
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00:00Hello there my very good friends on this wrestling news video. Nobody is watching WWE Smackdown as it hits another all-time low.
00:07My name is Andrew H. Murray.
00:09My name is Adam Wilborn.
00:11And this is the news.
00:13After news.
00:14After news. The H stands for Hesley Nielsen.
00:17Yeah? Because it's his ratings.
00:19RIP.
00:19They determine this. The great man. The great man.
00:22Let's talk about Smackdown. It's on its ass. It's on its ass numbers wise.
00:25So this week. This past week. It's the 31st of October. The Halloween episode.
00:31The go-home show for Saturday Night's main event.
00:33Fell below 1 million viewers for the first time in the show's history.
00:37When it hasn't been moved. In a regular time slot.
00:40It's been below a million before when it has moved to FS1.
00:44Or gone on a different night. Or gone on a different time slot.
00:47But in its regular slot. This is the first time it has ever in the show's 26 year? 25 year history?
00:53Right. Being below a million.
00:57933 hundred thousand people watched it across its two hours on USA Network.
01:04The 18 to 49 rating was a 0.2.
01:06Now the somewhat good news-ish is that this was still enough for it to top cable.
01:13Oh wow.
01:13It was the joint top on cable along with a college football game.
01:17It was not top on all shows.
01:20Because the thing that was top on all shows was the small matter of the World Series.
01:25Yeah. I have no idea about baseball. Even I know about this.
01:29Yeah. Game 6. Game 6.
01:31The Dodgers and the Blue Jays.
01:33Two of my favourite teams after the Phillies.
01:35I like the Padres. I like the uniforms.
01:39But yeah.
01:40Do you want to guess how many people watched the baseball on Friday?
01:43I saw this because I saw...
01:45It might not be this one. It might have been against Rola or whatever.
01:49And it was something like...
01:51You know the numbers that we played.
01:52It's like oh it's a 0.13.
01:54Oh it's a 0.08.
01:56And it was like 46 million or something.
01:59I have no idea.
02:0017 and a half million.
02:01It's a lot of people.
02:03It's a lot of people.
02:04That had an 18 to 49 rating of 3.52.
02:09What is this? The attitude?
02:10It's crazy.
02:11Yeah it's crazy.
02:12So obviously the competition is one of the reasons why Smackdown slumped this week.
02:19It's also Halloween.
02:21You'd imagine that some people are out and about...
02:23I was out trick or treating.
02:24I was out there.
02:24Trick or treating.
02:25First Eric is Paddington.
02:26But the scary ass Paddington.
02:28I'm scared of Paddington.
02:29Yeah that little bear.
02:31You don't know what's under his hat.
02:32I mean it's a sandwich.
02:33Did you see on Friday?
02:34I know you were off in Utrecht.
02:36Did you see the news on Friday?
02:37What's that?
02:38Well it was just like we had some...
02:40Sorry about this.
02:41Some sort of sad stories to report on.
02:42I was dressed as the devil.
02:44Oh no.
02:44It was like don't take this as relating to the story.
02:48He didn't like that.
02:49I dressed before I knew the stories.
02:51He dressed as MJF this guy.
02:53Yeah I was in Holland.
02:55The Netherlands sorry.
02:57We're in Utrecht.
02:57Nobody there gave about Halloween.
03:00Did they not just...
03:01I saw like five people in costumes.
03:03Nobody cared in Utrecht.
03:05But in America it's a different game isn't it?
03:07Yeah I'm not a Halloween person so I get it.
03:10I get it.
03:10Not a spoopy dude?
03:11No.
03:11No.
03:12No.
03:13It's like I'm 38.
03:14I don't think you walk around dressed up as a ghost.
03:17Young pop over here 37.
03:19Yeah that's the age limit.
03:21But yeah it's not for me.
03:22It's not my cup of tea.
03:23Why is my cup of tea?
03:24He's talking about pro wrestling business.
03:25So this is actually the fourth time this year that SmackDown has hit an all time low in
03:29it's regular time slot.
03:31The first one I believe was in September.
03:32It was like 1.14 million.
03:34We had it twice in early October.
03:36We've had it again and will we have it again before the end of the year?
03:40Well I don't know.
03:41Are they going to face this kind of competition again?
03:43World Series is finished now isn't it?
03:44World Series.
03:45It will finish on Saturday I believe.
03:47Yes.
03:47So they're probably not going to have to go up against the Colossal Baseball match but
03:52you know.
03:53Football.
03:53Maybe there's some hand egg.
03:54Yeah.
03:55Maybe there's some Tom Bradley football.
03:57My beloved Colts are looking good for the playoffs.
04:00Yeah.
04:00Going to lose to the Eagles.
04:03I chose the.
04:04When I'm choosing my NFL team I go with the team that has the most fans that piss the most
04:08people off.
04:09And in every situation that seems to be Philly.
04:11So I'm in.
04:12Let's go.
04:12Jalen Hurts.
04:13I don't know.
04:14I don't know.
04:16But yeah.
04:17Football Jones over here.
04:18But I think also and this isn't an excuse yet because it's across the board.
04:24This new way of measuring audiences is decimating wrestling viewership isn't it?
04:29It is.
04:30It is.
04:30You see NXT doing awful numbers.
04:34You see Dynamite.
04:35I know we have the.
04:37It's got half an hour.
04:39500.
04:39500.
04:41It never alters.
04:42It's exactly 500,000.
04:44They were doing.
04:44They were doing awfully off the moment.
04:47The moment this metric changed.
04:48Even Raw did.
04:49I think a bad number.
04:51I always forget which week it would have been.
04:53Raw's numbers have been bad since the Netflix premiere.
04:55Yeah.
04:55So it's it's it's one of those things where and I and it is this time of year.
04:59There's an also that part of it.
05:01And I think as much as people want to argue this on online.
05:06It's been a great year for wrestling.
05:07Has it?
05:07I don't think so.
05:08I don't think so.
05:09I think if you it depends on your taste and everything obviously.
05:13But like if you can find pockets of things you're super interested in good for you.
05:17I found it quite hard to emotionally attach to a lot of wrestling this year.
05:20I feel like a lot of it there's been a lot of synthetic inauthentic storytelling across both major companies that I've really struggled to invest in personally.
05:31And I'm not saying it's bad or anything like that.
05:33It's just that.
05:34Yeah.
05:34I'll be straight up.
05:38Smackdown gives me very little to hook me every week.
05:41Yeah.
05:41Right.
05:42I can't stand the MFT.
05:43I hate that stable.
05:44It's goofy.
05:46It's not what I enjoy.
05:47Goofy wrestling is death to me.
05:49Right.
05:50Like me and Simon Miller.
05:51We're opposite ends of the wrestling fandom.
05:54We like different things and that's totally OK.
05:55They can still be friends, guys.
05:58Yeah.
05:58You don't have to fight each other because you like different wrestling.
06:03Meanwhile over in AEW.
06:03In this room we like different wrestling.
06:05Exactly.
06:05Meanwhile over in AEW like Hangman Pigeons World Champion doesn't do anything for me.
06:09So you know I understand why people are not maybe as hooked as they have been at certain times in their fandom.
06:15It's an interesting thing to consider.
06:17I mean we're at a time as well where WWE's attendance.
06:20This has flown under the radar a little bit but their attendances are kind of dropping off quite a bit as well.
06:25I think.
06:26That'll happen when you see those ticket prices.
06:28If you look at the Smackdown Arena and like previous times they've been to different cities it's usually down across the board.
06:35And again that's probably a ticket price issue as much as it is a creative issue or anything like that.
06:41We got that report for a few weeks ago.
06:44Utterly hilarious report where it was like WWE understands that the product is not great at the moment and they are making steps to make it better.
06:53They're going to improve it.
06:54And it's like.
06:55How many times are we going to do this?
06:56It's their flipping fault if it's you know it's like just make it better in that case like yeah if you think it sucks ass make it suck less ass.
07:04Isn't that if I was oh I am if I was even worse at presenting the news than I am and I just turn around to you and go I don't know what's going on over here Andy I'm sorry about this mate.
07:13Yeah yeah.
07:13Like just say the words that you've been told to say it's not difficult.
07:17Yeah yeah it's one of those things where it's weird as well because like me and Hamlet in recent weeks I'd say the last four weeks because we've been going head to head with that Man United fan who wants to cut his hair.
07:27We've said like the last four weeks of Smackdown I think and we think subjectively again have been an improvement and I don't think anyone would argue that the best thing on Smackdown right now is the United States Open Challenge and I'd include Cody Rhodes in that I really like him as world champion.
07:42I think that's the best thing in WWE it's it's it's it's been great from the moment it was instigated by Sami Zayn I think Ilya Dragunov has continued it that match with Nathan Fraser on Friday was was really really enjoyable so it's one of those things that sometimes subjectively this is how wrestling works sometimes you see an episode and you go god that was trash and you go online and you go oh everyone loved it yeah conversely the other thing happens obviously as well it's fine you don't have to be told you know if you like something even if
08:12gets five viewers for example you don't have to be like oh no one else likes this I guess I don't get to like it that's fine works the other way as well yeah you don't have to follow the crowd but yeah in terms of a business metric concerning across the board for wrestling yeah for sure uh the tv market is not what it was uh numbers wise uh or what it has been for the past five six seven eight nine years the the tv rights fee boom that enabled for example the existence of AEW
08:40it appears like it's maybe coming down that man mobile might be bursting absolutely absolutely I don't know if the rights fees are going to be the value of these tv contracts that promotions have is going to be the same when it comes to
08:53just inside the TNA's deal yeah yeah it's so unlucky it's a really uh nasty uh market for them to be negotiating a deal in at the moment but I think it's going to get even nastier yeah absolutely and stuff and look you don't have to worry about existential threats
09:06the fact is that the WWE is incredibly popular uh profitable uh and they have the Netflix deal which
09:12you know is for a minimum of five years possibly 10 depending on the opt-out clause and AEW is literally
09:18run by a billionaire family guys like I mean they'll they're both future-proofed aren't they yeah exactly
09:23exactly CM Punk was dead right when he was on Ariel Helwani uh AEW will exist for as long as Tony Khan wants it to
09:30absolutely and WWE is not going to go out to a business either so you don't need you know you don't
09:34need to worry they're charging 10,000 pounds for a ticket to see John Cena's last week yeah I think
09:38they'll scrape by people are going to pay have paid it as well yeah absolutely you know but it's one of
09:44those things um but yeah that's a crap number no there's no way you can work around it and yeah it's
09:50impacted by the baseball obviously yeah um but it should provoke a bit of a creative inquest and it
09:55should provoke a bit of um an internal investigation into why yeah exactly because like I said it is a
10:01bad time of year for wrestling traditionally but it's not like it used to be certainly with WWE where
10:08they'd almost take post SummerSlam to Survivor Series off and they'd be like right should we start
10:13trying again in January yeah like they are doing stuff it just clearly isn't going through look
10:17end of the day we need the rock back so yes we need the big man back to cause some chaos the final boss
10:23ladies and gentlemen he's going to win the Royal Rumble he's going to win the Royal Rumble he's
10:26going to win an Oscar and then he's going to win the WWE title at Wrestlemania and that will be the
10:31happiest clam in the world I think he's going to win the Royal Rumble uh on Raw Challenge Cody the
10:35next night he's never going to appear again we're going to get to a week before Wrestlemania and he's
10:39going to decide he can't be asked has our talking heads that gone out yet I love that no but it will be
10:44very soon what we predict what did we call it predicting way too early Wrestlemania predictions that was it
10:49yeah it's good it's good stuff uh but yeah the Dwayner man he's gonna make it good
10:54I want him shouting at Cody's dog on Twitter and stuff 70 minutes what do you call him
11:01Friday night those videos that you should drop on a Friday night and be like oh I can't wait to get
11:05back into work to talk about this again and they were always flipping 17 minutes long he's like in a
11:10rodeo or something it's like what are you doing there Dwayne yeah it's just he's the best bring him
11:15home yeah bring yourself home Dwayne come on never mind this movie nonsense no you've got the Oscars in
11:21the bag for the smashing machine man don't worry what's better what's better Hollywood or the flipping
11:25Royal Rumble yeah that's my question Royal Rumble Scorsese yeah come on come on who writes better
11:31cinema don't answer that absolute ass dog ass content so what else is cinema though this morning's news
11:40video all kinds of stuff on there shooting hard like a water pistol see you later bye bye
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