F4W/WON WWE Notes - September 9th - 15th

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

The WWE title has always lacked the "World" word...but that's kind of the point. People can't grant themselves world title status.

 

They certainly don't treat the ECW title like the other two top titles. It's never in consideration for headlinging WrestleMania (as the other two have both done) or any pay per view for that matter. It's 6 second matches at Mania and SummerSlam. It's the top title of the TV show it's named after. It doesn't have its own house shows for it to be at the top of. It is always defended in the midcard of the big shows. Like a...title...that is...of...the midcard... I know there's a proper name for that but it escapes me at the moment.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

Actually...screw all that. Any decision that leads to people actually believing that Chavo Guerrero is a former World Champion is just plain wrong on principle.

[The Niggardly King 0]

Actually...screw all that. Any decision that leads to people actually believing that Chavo Guerrero is a former World Champion is just 1000% right on principle.

 

I fixed that one for ya.

[King Cucaracha 0]

The WWE title has always lacked the "World" word...but that's kind of the point. People can't grant themselves world title status.

 

So, who is this grand council who dictates who's title is a World Title and who isn't exactly? PWI? Meltzler?

 

And on a less sarcastic note, what's your criteria for a World Title if you're going to say certain 'World Titles' are phony?

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

This is all about the ECW title. A title that doesn't get booked like a top title by the company like the WWE or World do. I just scratch my head where people say that even the WWE sees it as a World title. Because it's the top title on the C show? That's like saying if there had been a Heat Title it would have been on par with the big two.

[King Cucaracha 0]

See, I don't consider the ECW title a World Title. But only because WWE rarely if ever refers to it as such. It's the brand's championship, not a World's Championship.

 

But, if they called it the ECW World Championship and they defended it outside of the US, what grounds would there be for disagreeing? Just because it'd be a bad World Title wouldn't mean it wasn't a World Title.

[Brett Favre 0]

I think Edge taking Punk's place and winning the title would have been much better.

 

I thought that was going to happen. Makes perfect sense since Punk won it off of him when he was hurt.

[dubq 0]

The WWE title has always lacked the "World" word...but that's kind of the point. People can't grant themselves world title status.

 

I'm trying to remember the exact timing that they dropped "World" from it's name. I think it was when they first introduced the Undisputed version of the title, no?

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

See, I don't consider the ECW title a World Title. But only because WWE rarely if ever refers to it as such. It's the brand's championship, not a World's Championship.

 

But, if they called it the ECW World Championship and they defended it outside of the US, what grounds would there be for disagreeing? Just because it'd be a bad World Title wouldn't mean it wasn't a World Title.

 

 

Well...they don't do any of that. It's an afterthought title that no ppvs are built around. It's always defended in the midcard (sometimes lower midcard) and it's held most of the time...by midcarders. It's existence would come to an end if they decided to dump the TV show.

[The Truthiness 0]

I think Edge taking Punk's place and winning the title would have been much better.

 

I thought that was going to happen. Makes perfect sense since Punk won it off of him when he was hurt.

 

I really don't want too see Edge as the Champ for a while.

[Brett Favre 0]

I think Edge taking Punk's place and winning the title would have been much better.

 

I thought that was going to happen. Makes perfect sense since Punk won it off of him when he was hurt.

 

I really don't want too see Edge as the Champ for a while.

 

It would make sense for him though to get away from Smackdown! I think he's run his course there.

[King Cucaracha 0]

See, I don't consider the ECW title a World Title. But only because WWE rarely if ever refers to it as such. It's the brand's championship, not a World's Championship.

 

But, if they called it the ECW World Championship and they defended it outside of the US, what grounds would there be for disagreeing? Just because it'd be a bad World Title wouldn't mean it wasn't a World Title.

 

 

Well...they don't do any of that. It's an afterthought title that no ppvs are built around. It's always defended in the midcard (sometimes lower midcard) and it's held most of the time...by midcarders. It's existence would come to an end if they decided to dump the TV show.

 

I know they don't do any of it. I think I kinda made point in the first paragraph. I'm saying, IF they did, none of what you said would matter, it'd be a World Title regardless.

 

WCW called their Cruiserweight Title a World Title, I don't remember that being the selling point of any PPVs. Ditto for the Tag Titles.

[The Truthiness 0]

I think Edge taking Punk's place and winning the title would have been much better.

 

I thought that was going to happen. Makes perfect sense since Punk won it off of him when he was hurt.

 

I really don't want too see Edge as the Champ for a while.

 

It would make sense for him though to get away from Smackdown! I think he's run his course there.

 

Yeah, but he doesn't need to come and just steal the championship on Raw, he's been doing that for 2 years now.

 

That has also ran it's course.

 

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I've been pretty busy with work and other committments (many just entertaining myself offline) so if another subscriber wishes to pass along some notes this week (otherwise it will be a wait for a very untimely update from me) please go ahead.

 

Thanks.

[Twisted Intestine 0]

Hey, Mr. Wrestling, you're dropping the ball.

 

Whenever they make somebody a mod of the wrestling folders they suddenly become "too busy" for it.

 

Now when you wake up in the morning, scratch your ass, and come check TSM before going to crash infront of the tube - type up those damn notes!

[Noah Fentz 0]

The WWE title has always lacked the "World" word...but that's kind of the point. People can't grant themselves world title status.

 

I'm trying to remember the exact timing that they dropped "World" from it's name. I think it was when they first introduced the Undisputed version of the title, no?

 

No, that was "The Undisputed World Title".

 

I'm fairly certain it was when the WWE bought WCW and brought the "Real" World Title over.

[cabbageboy 0]

Thing is, WWE already has World in it so if you said "This match is for the World Wrestling Entertainment World Heavyweight Championship" then it sounds really goofy. That's probably why World isn't mentioned much, it's already inferred.

[Noah Fentz 0]

The WWF/WWE title was ALWAYS referred to as the WWF/WWE WORLD Title, until they had the two major singles titles.

 

I'm just glad that silly "spinner" belt wasn't referred to as the World Title. That would have been a travesty.

[Slickster 0]

WWE has referred to the "World Wrestling Federation Championship" since circa 1987, without any 'World' or 'Heavyweight' descriptor needed. I'm sure that's partly because WWE has been reticent to acknowledge pro wrestling outside of their own universe, which would kind of make the 'World' descriptor redundant.

 

ECW only referred to their title as a World title for marketing purposes, since it was defended almost exclusively in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts for many years.

 

I'm pretty sure the World Heavyweight Championship is referred to as such solely to further distinguish it from its WWE and ECW counterparts.

 

In WWE logic, since the Royal Rumble winner can choose to challenge for the WWE, World, or ECW Championship at WrestleMania, they are considered to be on equal footing.

 

The "World title = defended worldwide" argument is a hollow one since there are about zero promotions in the world who allow anyone (contracted talent or not) to get a shot at the title.

[Noah Fentz 0]

The most thorough listing I could find contained the following information about this...

 

World Wide Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Title ( 1963/04 - 1971 )

World Wide Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Title ( 1971 - 1979/03 )

World Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Title ( 1979/03 - 1983 )

World Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Title ( 1983 - 2002/05 )

World Wrestling Entertainment Title ( 2002/05 - )

 

...and it's very much in line with my recollection.

[cabbageboy 0]

I recall Gorilla Monsoon being the main one who used to refer to Hogan as the "World Heavyweight Champion" a lot. But by the 1990s I never recall them referring to the WWF title as being the world title, just as the "WWF title." I think what Noah refers to is the whole PWI deal with recognitions of world titles, as in when the WWWF was an NWA member then the belt was a regional title secondary to the NWA World title.

 

I could open up Pandora's Box and say that the current World title in WWE is the same as the WCW World title. Keep in mind that for a very brief time The Rock held the WCW title and it was renamed the World title after the Invasion ended. Jericho unified the WWF and World titles in Dec. 2001 and the belts were unified until Lesnar left for Smackdown in Aug. 2002 and was thus only recognized as the WWE champion, thus splitting the belts. HHH as top contender was named World champion since Lesnar had no plans to defend against him. There's really no other logical way to look at it, since the current WWE title on SD isn't the unified title.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Really late notes from the September 10th (15th) Observer:

 

If it was still print only, these would be quite timely... also this is a really heavy MMA-content issue due to Evan Tanner's death and the UFC PPV, so I wasn't in a big rush for this. Last week's classic issue is really good though... too good for me to even attempt to sumamrize!

 

Unforgiven 2008:

Thumbs Up: 38

Thumbs Down: 18

Thumbs in the Middle: 43

 

So yes, Dave received feedback from exactly 99 people on this show. Traditionally, that bodes terribly for the buyrate.

ECW Scramble: **1/4

Priceless vs. Cryme Tyme: **1/4

Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho: ****1/4

SmackDown Scramble: ***1/4

McCool vs. Maryse: *1/4

Raw Scramble: **3/4

Buyrates:

 

The Great American Bash is currently estimated as doing 195,000 worldwide buys, barely edging out One Night Stand (194,000 buys) and currently stands as the 2nd lowest drawing PPV of 2008. The domestic buyrate is currently estimated as only 122,000 buys. The show was the first after the draft, had CM Punk going in for his first title defense, had another saga of the Jericho/Michaels feud (though it as this show and beyond that picked up the pace of that feud), and had the first PPV singles match between HHH and Edge. On paper, it should have done some buys but current estimates seem to say it did not. The number is also down 22% from last year's show (250,000 worldwide buys) headlined by Cena vs. Lashley. This year's GAB PPV took place just 3 weeks after Night of Champions, which itself was only a few weeks after One Night Stand, and some of you may recall that whole weekend was a big nightmare for Dave and Bryan due to the amount of MMA (Affliction PPV debut, I think some UFC special on TV) going on as well.

 

Raw Ratings:

While most are blaming the 2.95 rating for the 9/1 show on Labor Day, the Labor Day 07 show did a 3.64 rating. But maybe it was nicer family BBQ weather all over America this year. I'm not going to go quarter by quarter, but noteworthy ratinga gains were the Marella/D`Lo segment gaining 341,000 viewers (paired in the same quarter as Six-Diva tag match) and Jericho/Michaels having the best ratings gain in several weeks with a pick-up of 929,000 viewers.

 

Other Notes:

 

* DVDs: WWE shipped 276,000 DVD order [What does this mean? This week? Month? Quarter?], the majority of them being The Rock's DVD. WrestleMania XXIV has sold 303,000 copies to date, but this is considered a let down due to the 4 hour plus HOF ceremony included with the set. Internally, it was expected to be the best selling DVD in company history, but it does not seem it will surpass Mania XXII's sales (426,000). Dave notes that "Floyd Mayweather appears to have meant nothing for DVD sales". Other top sellers are HHH's most recent DVD (236,000), Austin's DVD (225,000), and Rock's DVD (191,000). No info on Flair's DVD sales yet.

 

* FCW: The last No-TV taping drew a whopping 60 people (and here I thought TNA drawing 500 people to a 4,500 seat arena was bad). Joe Hennig sounds like he's coming along and he uses the Perfectplex as a finisher.

 

 

 

 

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

60 people? Nice.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

39 less than the number of people that gave Unforgiven feedback!

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

Is that 60 paid? Or just 60.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I don't know if people pay to attend these tapings.

 

The exact line: "The Florida Championship Wrestling Thursday night tapings are dying on the vine. The 9/4 show only drew around 60 people. Most of the tapings have been good but this was dead."

[Jaxxson Mayhem 0]

I know at OVW you had to pay to get in.

[Scroby 0]

FCW needs to start promoting. How many can they normally sit?

[Thanks for the Fish 0]

FCW needs to get on television. Fans can follow along and get involved, and I think some folks get a kick out of seeing themselves on television in the crowd. You get on TV, you get on youtube and you start getting fans from across the country.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

FCW needs to get on television. Fans can follow along and get involved, and I think some folks get a kick out of seeing themselves on television in the crowd. You get on TV, you get on youtube and you start getting fans from across the country.

While I agree with the point that folks get a kick out of seeing themselves on TV (as I get a kick every time I watch my Royal Rumble 2004 DVD and see myself in the back-left corner when they zoom the the empty chair that Foley was suppossed to be in)...I don't think FCW on TV would be happening anytime soon.

 

Isn't it true that most times, WWE doesn't even bother to acknowledge their development programs...like on DVDs and such (note that I haven't gotten either the Lesnar or Cena DVDs, so I may be purely wrong on that.)