The Great Ratings Debate

The story that has been on the lips of nearly the whole IWC’s lips for the past week is the drop in Raw’s viewer ratings. The amount of viewers Raw is getting has dropped to 2.7 since Randy Orton won the WWE Championship at Night of Champions, the lowest in around thirteen years. So the question is ‘What’s with this drop?’ Raw hasn’t suddenly got awful over night, though it has maintained mediocrity for the past few years, so what is the reason? I have a few suggestions behind the dip beginning with…

Lack of Decent Storylines

Its safe to say everyone has been moaning about the lack of creative talent in the WWE’s writing staff but are the storylines as bad now as they were last year. At the moment we have the Nexus/Cena story which although losing its fizzle a bit has been thoroughly entertaining over the past few months. The return of the classic Brothers of Destruction rivalry and of course the brilliant Miz/Daniel Bryan Feud. Whilst this time last year we had a pointless Undertaker v Punk match which didn’t go anywhere and the dire rejuvenation of DX. So it is safe to say that although good storylines are rare Raw is still far from nothing storyline wise.

Poor Wrestling Quality

This is a tough category to judge because the quality of wrestling within the WWE is split massively. Looking at the Divas division it is fair to say that it has hit an all time low with the only decent wrestlers being released or injured and matches only getting a maximum of 4 minutes a week. Then we have the dying Tag Teams of Raw which has been getting progressively worse since The Hart Dynasty won the titles. Now it seems that the division has gotten so bad that they have to give the titles to two wrestlers who aren’t even tag team partners. Though with these two negatives comes one positive of an increase in the singles matches shown on Raw every week. Both mid-card and main event matches have improved from what was shown over the past two years of ‘the longest running weekly episodic show’ (blar blar). Matches like the Orton/Cena tables match a few weeks ago and the amazing triple threat between Orton, Jericho and Edge for the number one contender at the SummerSlam PPV. Again although not great as it could be wrestling quality is nowhere near as bad as it could be. I mean it doesn’t have EV 2.0 isn’t that good enough?

Losing its Older Audience

WWE’s PG era has been in effect for what seems like an eternity already and some of the older fans must of eventually got fed up of this child friendly product. There is no doubt that today’s Raw is nothing compared to that of the ‘Raw is War’ during the WCW rating clash but it is being restricted beyond belief regulation wise. Professional wrestling is supposed to be violent and aggressive and by slapping a PG sticker on it you are taking away everything that makes WWE what it is. Though that being said when you can contrast this to TNA’s desperate attempt to make themselves look like the old attitude era you can see that WWE may not be as violent but it isn’t as pathetic.

Cenation

Truth be said Cena is the man WWE has invested all of its assets into making him the face of the company. Its safe to say that he will be there for a long time, maybe even as long as the Undertaker, though some people in the IWC will shudder at the thought. I am not a hater of the champ but neither am I lover, though I know that there is a huge majority of people who despise him. They hate his talk, they hate his walk, they hate his wrestling abilities and they hate his superman like powers. In fact, they hate him so much that some of them even go as far as to stop watching the show just so they don’t have to see him. Lets face it he is no The Rock or Stone Cold.

So here is just a few of reasons on why I believe that the ratings for Raw have dropped, though how to raise these ratings is a completely different matter. But for now I want to know why you believe the ratings have fallen or even why you have stopped watching the show.