WWE Presidential Elections, RAW Overseas, etc...

[Eclipse 0]

As you may know, WWE held their 4th Quarter conference call today… I listened to the whole thing. Here are some main points that I took from the call..

 

-The WWE Raw Diva Search will conclude sometime in late September. The three casting calls (LA, Chicago, Detroit) will come down to 10 finalists. Every week on RAW for 10 weeks, the fans will have the opportunity to call in or vote online to vote people off the contests. 10 weeks later, the last DIVA standing will be the new RAW Diva involved in storylines and other WWE appearances.

 

-On October 11th, WWE will actually have RAW broadcast from overseas. RAW will be LIVE in Manchester, England. On October 12th, WWE will tape SmackDown! Overseas as well. After these two “pilot” events, WWE will try to do what they called “satellite” tours every 5-6 months.

 

-Around Election time, WWE will have a presidential election of their own. WWE fans will “vote” a new WWE overall president (of both shows). According to Linda McMahon, the WWE President is for television purposes only.

 

-The Rock will continue to be “in-and-out” of the WWE. He will make many random appearances in the next year that reflect on his movie schedules.

 

-Linda commented that Brock Lesnar is pursuing an NFL career while Stone Cold is busy in the movie world.

 

-Linda also commented that the McMahon family won’t be appearing on television as much. This is a method to help strengthen the individual brands.

 

-WWE will have continue to only have FOUR mixed brands pay-per-views (Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, Survivor Series). However, the brands will have the opportunity to compete with superstars on the other brand at WRESTLEMANIA ONLY.

 

CREDIT: RajahWWF.com

 

-Looks like there will be fan input for alot of the next WWE events coming up. How will the fans vote for a new WWE President?

 

-The Diva Search....CRAP. C'mon, this is gonna turn out to be like American Idol.

 

-RAW LIVE from Manchester, England? Wow, that's gonna be weird. Does that mean RAW will not air at 9pm?

 

-I still wonder how the whole Tuesday PPV thing is gonna work out. I say it's too much WWE at one time.

[AndrewTS 0]

"-The WWE Raw Diva Search will conclude sometime in late September. The three casting calls (LA, Chicago, Detroit) will come down to 10 finalists. Every week on RAW for 10 weeks, the fans will have the opportunity to call in or vote online to vote people off the contests. 10 weeks later, the last DIVA standing will be the new RAW Diva involved in storylines and other WWE appearances. "

 

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!

 

"-Around Election time, WWE will have a presidential election of their own. WWE fans will “vote” a new WWE overall president (of both shows). According to Linda McMahon, the WWE President is for television purposes only."

 

OH BOY!! ANOTHER PAIR OF FIGUREHEADS!!

[Jobber of the Week 0]

-Linda also commented that the McMahon family won’t be appearing on television as much.

 

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Didn't they also mention that Tough Enough would come back as a weekly segment on SD?

 

How much worse do they want to make SD?

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Ric Flair won the title of President of WCW for life at Uncensored 99 so he should be the President.

 

[The Mandarin 0]

-The WWE Raw Diva Search will conclude sometime in late September.

XFL

 

How do they plan to air RAW live?

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Here's the recap from the Observer:

Several future company plans were revealed today at the WWE's quarterly investors conference hosted by Linda McMahon and Phil Livingston.

For the year, the company took in $374.9 million, almost identical with last year's $374.3 million. However due to major cost cutting, as well as shutting down of The World, the profit this year was $48.2 million as compared to a $19.5 million loss last year.

Among the key plans for the next year include taping television events outside of North America. In October, Raw and Smackdown will tour the U.K. simultaneously, and each group will have a television taping during that week. Plans are to do that quarterly, alternating between Europe and the Pacific Rim (Japan, South Korea, Australia and other countries) for one week of shows and tapings of each show. Overall plans are to do 41 house shows outside North America over the next year

The conference was upbeat, because the last quarter was very strong, largely due to Wrestlemania and Royal Rumble, as well as huge sales for the Monday Night War DVD (118,000 units) and Wrestlemania XX DVD (114,000 units). For the quarter that ended on 4/30, the company took him $126.7 million in revenue and ended with a $19.7 million after-tax profit. That compares with $105.9 million in revenue and a $4.1 million loss last year. The key differences are last year's losses included a $10.3 million for the shutdown of The World, plus the DVD's, and a disappointing Mania as compared to a highly successful Mania. In addition, because of dates, the Royal Rumble was figured into quarter this year and it wasn't last year. This year's results also included a $7.9 million in income from litigation as compared to a $2.3 million loss last year for a lawsuit settlement with a former talent.

The weak performance of Judgment Day did come up, with Livingston trying to explain it by saying it was a Smackdown PPV and not a Raw show, like JD was last year, to explain why it fell so far in the past year. Linda McMahon talked about the Eddy Guerrero vs. John Bradshaw Layfield feud saying that it would get stronger as time went on. However, when asked, they would not offer predictions on how last week's Bad Blood show would do or next week's Bash.

Internally, there is tremendous concern about the Smackdown brand, but investors seemed happy that profitability was way up and sensed the current trends as a turnaround, even though a closer viewpoint is that Mania and Rumble were huge successes, but much of the key talent that drove the Mania buy rate are no longer performing regularly with the company.

In addition, there are major plans to boost television ratings of Raw and Smackdown. Smackdown, which was originally targeted for the Diva Search, but UPN turned it down feeling it was too close to its hit show, "America's Next Top Model," will be getting a revamped version of "Tough Enough" later this year. The "Tough Enough" show would become a weekly segment within Smackdown, thus cutting back on the wrestling portion of the show, leading to a final episode where wrestlers would get WWE contracts. In addition, in November, to coincide with the presidential election, they will have people running for president of Raw and president of Smackdown, with elections of each.

There will be a 7/15 Diva Search TV special on Spike at 10 p.m., leading to that as a regular segment on the Raw show for the next nine weeks.

McMahon also revealed that WWE and Spike TV are in negotiations to extend the current contract, which expires in September of 2005. When asked, she didn't believe the contract terms would be lowered even though ratings for Raw are considerably lower than when Spike made the deal in 2000. The current deal has Spike paying WWE $28 million per year for the rights to Raw and other programming.

She also said both movies that have begun preproduction work and may be filmed in Australia (where Joel Simon is currently searching out locations), an action-adventure movie as a vehicle for HHH, and a horror movie as a vehicle for Kane, are very close to theater distribution deals. The third planned movie, a vehicle for Steve Austin, has been dropped, as opposed to using another wrestler to take Austin's spot.

[Guest Choken One]

they couldn't even get SPIKE to give up 30 minutes for a full length tough enough?

[Silence 0]

Raw and Smackdown "Presidents" and Tough Enough cutting into Smackdown's wrestling time? Bleh. More examples of Vince McMahon not being able to get out of the sports-entertainment mentality that he's had since either 1997 or 1998.

[Scroby 0]

Ok i'm voting for Snow and Foley...j/k. So does this mean that Bischoff will lose his role of GM for Raw?

[Downhome 0]

I have a feeling that by years end, we wont be seeing much, if any, of Eric Bishoff anymore.

 

And I hate that so much.

[Guest Man Of 1,004 Modes]

Doesn't Bischoff's contract end next month?

 

 

<---Hopes someone has the brains to keep him around.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

The only thing good about sticking TE on Smackdown is that I should be one of the first to get spoilers for it. But to take up 1/2 hour for it out of Smackdown is really a stupid idea.

[Guest Man Of 1,004 Modes]

I'll just say realisticly, SD can't get any worse than it is now.

[Guest Anglesault]

Raw President Shane

 

Smackdown President Stephanie.

[CanadianChick 0]

Raw President Shane

 

Smackdown President Stephanie.

Oh don't be silly! WWE is about change!

 

Steph will run Raw, and Shane will run Smackdown. Can't insult the fan's intelligence by having Steph run Smackdown!

 

Anyways, why are other figureheads necessary? Do we need another Sheriff-ish role?

[Kizzo 0]

Doesn't Bischoff's contract end next month?

 

 

<---Hopes someone has the brains to keep him around.

I don't think Easy E is under contract....I think he gets paid per show....

 

Anywayz...if he is under contract...and it does expire...then he better get another contract..

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

Around Election time, WWE will have a presidential election of their own. WWE fans will “vote” a new WWE overall president (of both shows). According to Linda McMahon, the WWE President is for television purposes only.

 

and you do remember when they tried to run polls online, right?

 

let's just say that Test was predicted to be the 4th member of Evolution.. and then they dropped the polls.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

The polls for the President thing will be rigged just like the Diva Search polls will be.

[Guest Anglesault]

Raw President Shane

 

Smackdown President Stephanie.

Oh don't be silly! WWE is about change!

 

Steph will run Raw, and Shane will run Smackdown. Can't insult the fan's intelligence by having Steph run Smackdown!

 

Anyways, why are other figureheads necessary? Do we need another Sheriff-ish role?

But, Shane beating up SD! talent regularly isn't as impressive as beating up Raw talent.

[Rob E Dangerously 0]

The polls for the President thing will be rigged just like the Diva Search polls will be.

I remember the reaction when they announced the poll results about Test joining Evolution. It was a lot like this: "Um.. ok"

 

they better rig it.. like a real Presidental Election.

[Vanhalen 0]

I think taping Raw and Smackdown in the UK as a one off every so often is a great idea, you would get a packed building and a super super hot crowd, it would make things more special, hell Vince could probably do a Raw taping at Old Trafford(Capacity 77,000) and have it sell out in a day

[Art Sandusky 0]

Book one HUGE match or a couple of big matches, and make it look like an overseas show might actually be important. If WWE can convince the people on their overseas tours that stuff might actually happen, then I'm all for them having a massive Raw from Manchester. Shit, book a title change, if only for that night if international business is as important as they're trying to make it.

[Si82 0]

Doesn't Bischoff's contract end next month?

 

 

<---Hopes someone has the brains to keep him around.

RESIGN THE BISCH DAMNIT!

[Guest Trivia247]

You'd think they would have a Classic Survivor Series match between Raw vs Smackdown on SS.... YOU'D THINK!

 

I do like the concept though of both Brands fighting in the Rumble for the Right for Which Brand to gain the Main event Spot at a wrestlemania.

 

Now whats wrong with that Linda?

[Dark Age 0]

Raw in Manchester? FUCK YES. I am so there.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

Maybe Scott Steiner and Test will be the leaders of the "Presidency" race..and then Scott's brother can steal some votes for him.

[Guest Trivia247]

Maybe Scott Steiner and Test will be the leaders of the "Presidency" race..and then Scott's brother can steal some votes for him.

Suddenly hanging chads appears in Michigan

[redbaron29 0]

I thought it said that there would only be one "president" that would be effective for both brands?

[AndrewTS 0]

Anyways, why are other figureheads necessary? Do we need another Sheriff-ish role?

They aren't necessary, but they're GREAT for lazy writers. Otherwise they'd have to use just the wrestlers to tell the story.

 

Remember that McMahon vs. Austin made a lot of money! SO WE HAVE TO REPEAT THAT SAME ANGLE OVER AND OVER AGAIN FOR FOUR ****ING YEARS!!! EVEN THOUGH IT HASN'T BEEN WORKING FOR LORD KNOWS HOW LONG!!!

 

I also have a theory that Foley had his hands in a lot of the booking around the time of his angle with Orton, and now that the angle is over and presumably Foley is gone for a while, the writers have gotten into the same routine again.

 

I thought it said that there would only be one "president" that would be effective for both brands?

 

Me too, but that would make sense.