CM Punk Update
The general consensus within the WWE is that CM Punk is not coming back. However, a few in the WWE believe that this past RAW will set him up to return, perhaps as soon as next week, due to the fact that they did not bury him Monday night.
Also, at one point before this past RAW, someone did pitch an idea for Bad News Barrett to come out and tell the crowd that Punk would not be here tonight.
Credit Bryan Alvarez, F4WOnline.com
RAW Ratings
Although slightly down in overall viewership from last week, this past RAW was able to maintain more of the audience than it has been lately.
http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-stories/96-wwe/35754-raw-ratings-notes
Today's WWE Network Schedule
http://www.wwe.com/inside/networkschedule
The general consensus within the WWE is that CM Punk is not coming back. However, a few in the WWE believe that this past RAW will set him up to return, perhaps as soon as next week, due to the fact that they did not bury him Monday night.
Also, at one point before this past RAW, someone did pitch an idea for Bad News Barrett to come out and tell the crowd that Punk would not be here tonight.
Credit Bryan Alvarez, F4WOnline.com
RAW Ratings
Although slightly down in overall viewership from last week, this past RAW was able to maintain more of the audience than it has been lately.
http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-stories/96-wwe/35754-raw-ratings-notes
Today's WWE Network Schedule
http://www.wwe.com/inside/networkschedule
"Also, at one point before this past RAW, someone did pitch an idea for Bad News Barrett to come out and tell the crowd that Punk would not be here tonight."
ReplyDeleteI said they should do this, then have Heyman cut him off and do the same schtick he did Monday. Would have been awesome
Punk is not coming back. Time for news sites to stop generating the hits. He's done for a bit.
ReplyDelete1. He ain't coming back. But WWE is smart, they know if they say nothing, the chants will die out eventually. Especially if they put on a good show to avoid hijacking. We'll see....
ReplyDelete2. Raw's ratings have been pretty much the same for years now.
They missed a GOLDEN opportunity to get Barrett crazy over in this gimmick, but than again that seems to be the trend....
ReplyDeletePunk isn't coming back in Memphis when he could've returned to the biggest pop ever in Chicago. It's over.
ReplyDeleteRe: ratings...
ReplyDelete3 hours is jusy way too long for a wrestling show. They'll always lose viewers in hour 3 or have less viewers in hour 1. To maintain a consistent 3 hour viewership number I don't think is realistic.
Easily could have cut an hour out on Monday and it would have been a fantastic show.
ReplyDeleteThe Punk thing never seemed like a work to me, he left didn't say anything, the reasons sounded legit and not "Storyline" and there has been no news since. It would be "awesome" to have him back apart from, he doesn't want to be back :(
ReplyDeleteI agree that Punk is done. He already proved to everyone who said he couldn't be a pro wrestler that he could. He accomplished everything that Vince will possibly let him. He knows they never let him be the top face or heel at Mania. The last part is really a shame as I feel we should have gotten a Cena - Punk Mania match. I think Punk will be very much like Jericho and try to use his C level celebrity status to try other projects like music and acting.
ReplyDelete3 hours and 15 minutes is way too long for a wrestling show.
ReplyDeleteIf Punk had any actual musical talent, he would never have become a pro wrestler first and acting requires way too much political game playing for Punk to ever be truly successful at it, not to mention his look pigeonholes him.
ReplyDeleteI think he'll sit in his palatial Chicago home, collect his rent from the tattoo shop on the first floor, bang AJ until he gets bored and finds local tang and read comic books between Cubs games and visits to the local BJJ gym. Not a bad life, really.
This. The only thing that seems to make the guy truly happy is Chicago. If he blew off the chance to return there, he's not returning.
ReplyDeleteI thought he played trumpet. You don't have to be very talented to start a punk band. That is not a knock on punk music, although not really my bag I do like a lot of modern tough guy hardcore.
ReplyDeletePunks only been gone, what, 4 weeks? It's way to early to say he's done for good. I still maintain hell be back, probably with a lighter schedule, at some point. I really believe he has the wrestling "itch". Once he gets over whatever he's upset about, hell be back
ReplyDeletePunk, IMO, will be a radio host or podast host within the year. He likes to talk and it fits him.
ReplyDeleteI could see that, especially since he can do it from home.
ReplyDeleteHeyman's promo on RAW should be required study material for aspiring wrestlers and managers. He kept the fan revolt to an absolute minimum and still managed to seamlessly tie it to the program he is working and didn't seem the least bit talked by the hostile crowd. I seriously doubt they have 5 people that could have handled that, and I'm not sure anyone could have handled it as well as he did.
ReplyDeleteI never heard the trumpet thing. If that's true, I stand corrected.
ReplyDeleteAs for acting, yeah, maybe. I just don't think he's got enough of an acting bug to fly to LA or NYC to do a one off bit part on a TV episode.
He'll hang with the Cubs and Blackhawks and be happy as can be.
ReplyDeleteA quickie tour of Japan would both make some nice coin and itch that scratch.
ReplyDeleteThis. Can we please start obsessing about Bryan again? Isn't it his turn?
ReplyDeleteCena and Vince are the only two I can think of
ReplyDeleteOn the current roster: Cena, Vince, HHH (maybe, he's seems to get rattled lately)
ReplyDeleteYea, that'd def be an option. As weird as it sounds in wouldn't be floored if he did like a few one offs for ROH down the road
ReplyDeleteIt would have been a funny segment, but I think it's smart that they went a more serious route with Heyman, and it tied in to a huge WM match.
ReplyDeleteThat was my analysis exactly. Vice and Cena for sure...and sometimes hhh...but I have seen him get legit annoyed by the crowd also so it's a coin flip.
ReplyDeleteYea, not only was it the delivery, but the crowd manipulation was perfect. I'm with Bayless, Vince could do it. Cena could also but not as well imo
ReplyDeleteI would love to Ishii beat the shit out of him.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if he plays the trumpet, but he's been playing a very good violin during the past month or 2.
ReplyDeleteI think it bothers HHH to no end that shows are getting hijacked. Its odd to see him thrown off his game. The Seattle Raw you could tell he was steaming inside
ReplyDeleteMaybe he will host a body building show. #trollhard
ReplyDeleteAm the only person who thinks Bad News Barrett is kind of a dumb gimmick? That's great he has gotten it over a bit but in reality once he gets in the ring it will be the same old Wade Barrett.
ReplyDeleteI said "Rumble 2015", and am keeping my dart there for CM Punk. In the end, Vince ALWAYS cuts a check for a nice crowd pop.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Triple H was pointed out by Konnan. He just can't help but to bury the talent. Otherwise he is very good.
ReplyDeleteHe better tell AJ if he itches.
ReplyDeleteStill can't wrap my head around the fact that Punk doesn't want to be a part of WM 30. I think he'll regret it when he looks back.
ReplyDeleteI don't care how much money he saved, that is a huge pay day to pass up.
ReplyDeleteJust like Simon Cowell, Dougie's approval means more to me than other people's approval does. It has to be earned.
ReplyDeleteWell played
ReplyDeleteI like how much fun he's having with it. that huge grin when he's about to deliver bad news. But yep, it's more of a comedy gimmick right now.
ReplyDeleteIt's way better than his fight club gimmick.
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty like I said above we should have had a Cena - Punk Wrestlemania main event at some point.
ReplyDeleteI think he'll come back, but not before WM - maybe in 6 months or a year. It's fairly similar to the Austin situation where it seems they have gone out of their way to not bury him (Rock promo aside) so he is at least somewhat in their good graces.
ReplyDeleteAustin had Cena on his podcast, and it was great! Ftw
ReplyDeleteI'm appalled this doesn't have more upvotes.
ReplyDeleteCena turned that crowd for him when they were completely against him. It was a thing of beauty
ReplyDeleteTHIS exactly. In fact they could have done the double troll on the crowd right at the top.
ReplyDeleteCult plays to start show, pop...Bad News Barret.
Barret delivers his bad news, soaks up the boos...and then Cult hits AGAIN. Wade looks terrified, thinks he's about to get his ass kicked, insane pop because this time the fans really buy it... Heyman comes out and delivers his same speech.
HHH is so iffy on this. I think he'd stray from message and let his emotions get the best of him, not in a productive "deliver the message" ttype of waym
ReplyDeleteToo much of a softball.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, they played with fire with the Heyman thing... to do it twice in a row... It worked for HBK in Montreal in 2005, but... That would have been dangerous.
ReplyDeleteCM Punk himself, maybe.
ReplyDeleteTotally. There's so many avenues that Punk can make some cash in and keep his name out there nowadays if he's so inclined. I'm sure the Nerdist network or Podcast One would give him a show in a heartbeat, he can create a webseries, get some hosting gig on a cable network covering MMA or horror movies or whatever.
ReplyDeleteBasically the Chris Jericho model.
The question is whether he'd ever get the itch/opportunity to get creative control over an ROH or TNA or start-up wrestling company. I could never see him going to work FOR a Dixie Carter, but if Spike ever gave him the chance to actually run a company, I could see that luring him back into wrestling.
Haters gonna hate
ReplyDeleteWell, if Punk really is gone for awhile (or for good), then the guy that I predict (hope) gets a bigger opportunity after mania is Dean Ambrose.
ReplyDeleteRemember, over the last few years they've leaned on Punk to fill a LOT of TV time with not just long matches but also engaging in-ring promos. Not a lot of the newer guys can immediately fill taht space. Bray sorta can, though his horror-movie villain stuff still works best in quick backstage pieces. Cesaro really can't, and even Bryan is still best in backstage stuff or doing his talking/connecting during matches.
Ambrose is the one guy who can really fill that Punk void on the mic, stirring things up with the crowd and going toe to toe with the top stars.
Plus just in general I think Ambrose is the guy who could immediately connect with the hardcore Punk fans, and sell some goddamn black hoodies.
Bryan can take Punk's spot as #2 face and they can push Reigns as a face and not miss a beat
ReplyDeleteTrue, but it also would have tired them out even more, which seemed to be the point of that first hour in general.
ReplyDeleteIt's just... what's the point of giving Barrett that type of gimmick unless you're actually gonna use him for something important? Has he actually delivered any real "bad news" to a crowd since the gimmick started?
You got it all wrong. Give Punks spot to Hogan brother.
ReplyDeleteAmbrose is a mechanic. Seth Rollins and roman Reigns are poised to break out, Ambrose will be a "good hand".
ReplyDeleteHAHAHA, true.
ReplyDeleteMan, is it just me or do you think overall this Hogan return is gonna bomb? I mean, I guess BOMB is strong since he won't be counted on for much, but I don't see the fans really giving much of a shit after the first few times. That Network shilling promo he did last week was just pathetic.
Or maybe it's just me hoping to see Hogan get "what'ed" and heckled by an audience sometime soon.
I love how the report says he will be back because he wasn't buried. Hysterical. I'm sure over the weekend Meltzer or someone will spot him in the town of RAW and verify his return - again. Anything to generate those clicks.
ReplyDeleteIf anything that's would I would have thought about Rollins, though he's been showing awesome babyface potential in the Wyatt feud.
ReplyDeleteWould definitely disagree about Ambrose being just a good hand. Nothing's guaranteed of course, but I'd say Ambrose has huge star potential just based on his mic skills. Dude has a chance to be a Punk or Piper-esque megaheel.
WWE seemingly has this dedication to making certain their shitty gimmicks remain shitty. They've missed a wealth of opportunities over the past two months to get surprising mileage out of Bad News Barrett and turn this lemon of a gimmick into a glass of Country Time.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that their best idea for using him was to have him come out for a series of asinine non-sequitur moments during the EC PPV tells you all you need to know about their borderline elegant incompetence.
How on earth is any of this difficult?!
I think the ONLY reason he's there is to pitch the network and host WM. I'll be shocked if he does anything other than network pitches and a few quick WM spots. If they keep it at that, I think he'll be ok.
ReplyDeleteIf they put him in any angles or other spots it'll be annoyning
I agree with that. Let him be gone, everyone move on and forget. Surprise return at Rumble with no leaks would be huge. Let him win it and main event 31. Dude did look severely burned out near the end of his run. I doubt he's retired for good and the bridge isn't burned. When he comes back it will be with WWE. I co sign that return after a solid year lay off.
ReplyDeleteOh Reigns is gonna be a monster for sure, but I don't see him cutting long promos. Hell, if they're smart, they just keep him to short threats and cool lines and then murdering people with superman punches. Once he starts heading into 20-minute "I love the fans and here's a poop joke" Cena/Sheamus territory, he's fucked.
ReplyDeleteBryan obviously, but remember he was already a major TV player for much of Punk's last few years, between the Hell No stuff and then the Yes run.
Basically, there's still a void (especially after Mania) of all the ring and promo time that Punk took up, and I think Ambrose can definitely fill a good portion of that too.
He sounds drunk when he talks. I'm not really that blown away. I went back and watched some of ROH promos, they were alright if not Foley rips off. I'm not sure why everyone has such an erection about this guy. Reigns and Rolliins are both getting over huge and are fun to watch.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure he wanted to, just not in a lower card spot. I really feel as if they were running Bryan and HHH regardless and Punk got bumped down to a match with Kane. I think that a top 3 match going over Paul clean wouldn't have been end of the world for him and he would have stayed for the payday even if it wasn't his ideal card spot.
ReplyDeleteTrue.
ReplyDeleteI just don't see what the draw of him hosting Wrestlemania is to anyone. He's basically already given us (Real American entrance, saying "brother" a lot) everything he could possibly do. Is Heath Slater running into Hulk's fist really a draw?
Man, Batista and Hulk are a piss poor replacement for The Rock this year.
Yep, they haven't used him beyond the "generic crowd insults" yet. Hopefully he gets more "Meta" with it eventually.
ReplyDeleteTotally understand if you don't dig his stuff, everyone has their own opinions. But it's pretty obvious that Ambrose is really over too, and the majority of the crowd is engaged in his promos.
ReplyDeleteLook at the build-up to Wyatts/Shield. Everything was about Ambrose and Bray having dueling promos (in which they both looked like equals), and then Bray & Roman teasing the physicality.
WWE knows that Ambrose on the mic is money.
It's not like there aren't plenty of opportunities anyway. He should basically be the personal ring announcer for Randy Orton.
ReplyDelete"Last night everyone wanted Daniel Bryan to win the Elimination Chamber. Well, I have some bad news. Here is your still reigning WWE champion, Randy Orton!"
Is it though? Supposedly the WWE Network is at somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 subscribers in the U.S. Last year's Mania did somewhere around 625,000 buys in the U.S. How much of that number has been siphoned into the Network?
ReplyDeleteI'm really surprised this hasn't been a bigger part of the story as the Network launches.
Wonder how much more leverage Punk would have had if the network wasn't starting up this year, and Wrestlemania was just a regular PPV. Because holy shit, if this year's Mania card was just being sold for $60 on the strength of the show (rather than you also get 5 other PPVs and the archive!), I think this shit would have been a historic bomb.
ReplyDeleteI mean, they basically replaced The Rock with Hogan (who can't do anything) and Batista (who fans hate.) Batista vs Orton is heel vs heel, HHH vs Bryan is a match that the fans don't particularly want, Undertaker vs Lesnar is way past it's sell-by date (Lesnar's buzz is really really diminished), Hogan as host won't mean anything, and Cena's in a midcard match that has had no long-term build. And the rest of the card is a mix and match of non-draws. If that shit was $60, it could have been a disaster.
anyone else enjoying the "Triple H can't even be bothered lacing up his boots to fight DB at wrestlemania so DB has to prove himself" angle?
ReplyDeleteI only follow the product through this blog, and my first thought when reading Andy's report was "why didn't Barrett deliver the 'bad news' about Punk not being there?" because otherwise why even give him the gimmick?
ReplyDeleteBarrett is just doomed, I think.
If WWE ends up at around 500,000 subscribers for the Network on the day after Mania, to me that seems like big trouble. Because when would the next influx of network subscribers ever be?
ReplyDeleteAnd how many of those 500,000 people will want to roll over into the next subscription, instead of just waiting til next year and resubscribing again before Mania 31?
*slow clap*
ReplyDeletehttp://www.411mania.com/wrestling/news/315300/Buff-Bagwell-Now-Working-As-a-Gigolo.htm
ReplyDeleteUmmm. Wow.
ReplyDelete