Since the start of The PG Era about a decade ago, The WWE’s ratings have slowly, but steadily declining week after week and year after year. There are several main reasons as to why The WWE has lost so many fans including myself over this past decade.
This past Monday’s episode of Monday Night Raw (which I don’t even watch WWE by the way) is the least watched episode of Raw in WWE history that drew a 2.35 rating which broke the previous record set by the July 9th episode of Raw which drew a 2.47 rating.
Here are several main reasons why The WWE is losing their audience.
1. The WWE’s Redundant Push Of Roman Reigns - Since 2014, Vince McMahon and The WWE have viciously tried to push Roman Reigns as “the face of The WWE”, but more than half of the fans continue to boo him and voice their disdain towards the clear lack of character that they claim Roman Reigns apparently has. Roman’s continued push by The WWE has not only turned many fans away from the product, but have also come to the detriment of other performers. An example of this happened recently on an episode of Raw where Braun Strowman was forced by WWE to turn heel because he was getting more over than their golden boy Roman Reigns and to desperately trying to get Roman Reigns over with the audience. If The WWE stop trying to force Roman Reigns onto the audience and let him turn heel, he will slowly, but surely get over on his own organically. I’m not a hater of Roman Reigns by any means as I do like how he’s greatly improved his in-ring and mic skills, but I absolutely dislike how The WWE continues to book him.
2. Three Hours Of Raw - When USA network gave WWE $50 million to extend Raw to a third hour back in 2012, at first the three hour format seemed like a good concept, but overtime it became quite clear to fans that they couldn’t stand watching through three hours of complete overkill that’s mostly filled with commercials, meaningless filler matches, scripted promos, and filler segments which is also one of the main reasons why The WWE continues to lose its audience.
3. Repeated Matches Every Week - One of the main reasons why The WWE continues to lose its audience is because they are so sick and tired of seeing the same old predictable meaningless filler matches happening almost every week on the main roster and specifically on Raw where matches this year such as Bayley/Sasha vs The Riott Squad, Ember Moon vs Liv Morgan, Finn Balor vs Baron Corbin, and Reigns/Lashley vs The Revival. Seeing the same matches every week not only takes away from the interest in seeing them on PPVs, but has also hurt the product to the point of many fans turning away from it.
4. Devalued Championships - Back in the day during The Attitude/Ruthless Agression Eras, winning a championship was special that meant something to a wrestler’s career like Shelton Benjamin winning The Intercontinental Title and Booker T winning The World Heavyweight Title, but nowadays the championships on Raw and Smackdown have been greatly devalued because The WWE often plays hot potato with the belts. An example of this is happened this year when Nia Jax won The Raw Women’s Title at WM 34 in April and held the belt for two months and then Alexa Bliss beat her at Money In The Bank in June to recapture The Raw Women’s Title until losing it to Ronda Rousey at Summerslam in a straight up squash. These frequent title changes not only stifles wrestler’s pushes, but also damages the credibility and prestige of the belts.
5. Better Alternatives To WWE - Even though the internet has taken a large chunk of mystique away from WWE, but on the flip side, the internet has definitely helped bring exposure to better alternatives like the indies to the current boring, garbage, and stale WWE product. The indies are hot right now because they have many amazingly talented wrestlers giving it their all in front of much smaller crowds during their shows because they can fully showcase their talents on the indie scene which is something that WWE heavily restricts its main roster performers from doing nowadays. There are many indie promotions out there like Ring Of Honor and House Of Glory that are definitely killing it on the indie scene right now and I see the indie scene growing and getting better in a few years.
6. 50/50 Booking - 50/50 Booking is the practice of wrestlers trading wins. Back in the New Generation/Attitude/Ruthless Agression Eras, wrestlers would trade wins to help build up storylines and feuds. But nowadays, the way that The WWE goes about it is downright atrocious. One example of how nobody gets over with 50/50 booking is when Ember Moon gets a win one week and then Liv Morgan gets back her win the next week. Another example of how 50/50 booking stifles the pushes of wrestlers is when Sasha Banks won The Raw Women’s Title last year at Summerslam, but then dropped it to Alexa Bliss the next week on Raw which brought an immediate halt to Sasha Banks’s push. Imagine how much of a star would Macho Man Randy Savage and Bret Hart would’ve been if they got over through 50/50 booking throughout their careers.
7. Former NXT Stars Getting Buried By Vince McMahon On The Main Roster - I wrote a previous article in which I explained some of the legitimate issues that I personally have with NXT and Vince’s vicious burials of them is among them. There have been many wrestlers such as Apollo Crews, Titus O’ Neil, Ascension, The Revival, Sanity, Adam Rose, Asuka, Sasha Banks, and Ember Moon have been severely buried by Vince on the main roster because he doesn’t think very highly of NXT only seeing them as a “developmental brand” and not a third brand. Also, another main reason as to why Vince viciously buries NXT Stars so often is because of his disdain for smaller guys like Cedric Alexander and Velveteen Dream who he sees as either not fitting the big muscular mold guy that he likes or doesn’t see them as future stars of the company. These burials hurt not only NXT, but have caused many fans to also lose interest in the product.
8. Scripted Promos - I am definitely a not a big fan of these scripted promos in WWE nowadays because not only do they stifle the wrestler’s creativity and character development, but they can’t even inject the character into their promos to connect with the fans. What’s even worse about the scripted promo issue is that the wrestlers can’t even come up with their own promos because they are given cookie cutter scripts to read from and memorize those meticulously scripted garbage lines that these garbage main roster writers feed them backstage.
The Conclusion - The billion dollar deal that WWE currently has with Fox Network is also contributing to the decline in WWE’s audience because The WWE has consistently shown that they don’t really listen to the fans because all they care about is the quantity over quality.
By Kwame Shakir
