A London Wrestlemania

[fouldsy91]

I Googled "EPL racist chants" and the number of articles was surprisingly long.

I go to Premier League matches, and even though I'd be lying that no one is racist, it is a very small fraction of the 30,000 - 70,000 each game gets every week. If you do it, your own fans will tell the stewards which results in a lifetime football ban, and a prison sentence. Chelsea have had 28 arrests this year for racist chants, which even though is wrong, is a very small fraction of the 40,000 they get every week.

Not to defend PeterSellersSTL. Vince can book Mania anywhere he wants for all I care. He is just going where the money is. If it made sense for him to book it at Wembley he would. I'm sure he has a full staff of people who run numbers and have knowledge no one on this Forum has a clue about. If those numbers justified a UK Mania Vince would love to have added it to his legacy just like the Silverdome, NYC, and Dallas next year. It is clearly more than just "time zones". Not that the WWE Network exactly fixes that issue.

The thing is I get why they don't do an English Mania, it's just the fact he obviously took it so badly that I felt the need to argue the postives of it. It was more than the business with him, it was obviously personal that he didn't want the UK to get Mania.

 

[Navi]

from Jim Ross' thoughts on RAWLondon

http://www.jrsbarbq.com/blog/hbk-ro...e-wwe-network-2k-sports-happy-50th-cac-london

So that's Cesaro, and now JR that aren't completely in love with the London crowd. And Brockie I haven't stereotyped anything British. You people are just very insecure when someone gets to talking about how great a job America has done growing its wrestling industry over these decades.

I'd trade Wrestlemania for a UPKWWrestleFest one time. You people really need to get over your insecurities.

First of all who gives a rats ass about how Jim Ross feels about the London crowd, it's his own personal opinion and is worth about as much as your's is.

I watched the show and the crowd was rowdy as they normally are there. Are you seriously going to tell me that the crowds in St. Louis sit on their hands and say nothing? Because if you are I have the network and will go back myself and look at some of the recent PPV's that you've had. If they are anywhere near as loud and chanting anything like London did then you have no leg to stand on.

The WWE will ultimately decide if it will take Mania overseas, and if they money is there they will do it. What you say about it doesn't matter a damm to them, just know that.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Will never happen, for various obvious reasons.


I can, however see you guys getting a SummerSlam, and there is honestly no reason not to. I have long said I don't understand why they don't make SummerSlam into the other great mega-show by going international with it. As long as you are in this hemisphere, it opens up pretty much every European and Canadian mega-stadium there is, and based upon the international aspect, they are likely to sell out.

Tape delay or a bit of an odd time setting really shouldn't be a huge concern. Doesn't effect business as much as most people seem to think.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

Just to reinforce the earlier point about the roof: it only covers about half of the stadium, most of the playing area (where the ring and floor seats would be located) are permanently uncovered.

With regards to spoilers due to delays, it's really not hard to avoid spoilers if you really want to. Every year I watch the Royal Rumble ppv at my brother's house, usually on the Monday after the event. This means I usually have my phone switched off until I've watched the event, only a matter of hours, but it doesn't bother me. That way, I can't check social media in case I see the result, I can't get any texts from anyone telling me who won, and I can't get the annoying WWE App text updates that ruined the WWEWHC unification match at TLC '13 for me. Not difficult. Just like living in the 1980s again...

Now, into the biggest farce of a stadium ever built, Wembley. Alongside the roof, and the ridiculous corporate tier which seperates the upper and lower levels, thus damaging the atmosphere, there is a stupid caveat on the use of the stadium. Believe it or not, the whole stadium is only allowed to be used 35 times a year!!

Consider that it is the home of the England national football team, who average 6 home games a year, plus the FA Cup, Football League Cup, Football League Trophy, Football League Divisional playoff finals (x3), Football Conference play off final, FA Trophy and FA Vase finals, and the Community Shield match (an annual exhibition match between the previous year's league and FA Cup winners which opens the season) and that is 16 football (soccer) games alone (though they may get around this with 3 or 4 of them depending on the clubs involved, meaning they may not have to open the upper tier, so they won't count towards the 35 events)

Then the Rugby Football League holds its Challenge Cup final at Wembley, and Saracens Rugby Union Football Club, based in nearby Hendon, play about 4 of their biggest matches at Wembley every year, that takes it to around 20, before the summer season of concerts and megastar gigs gets taken into account.

Point is, there are various other reasons why WWE may not hold an event at Wembley for a while, as it would potentially require VERY advanced planning (gigs tend to be booked a couple of years in advance, for example).

As for Cardiff, whilst I think the Millenium Stadium is the best in the UK, Cardiff's lack of an intercontinental airport means that it won't happen. The only two cities in the UK that could host WM are London and Manchester, for the airport reason alone.

 

[Loveless]

I'm not going to read this entire thread but I saw someone mention the loss of buyrates in the US due to the timezone difference. Those buyrates losses, which I'm betting would be minimal anyway, would be completely wiped out by the timezone advantages here. Lose a 100,000 on the West Coast? You'd have a huge increase in European (not just UK) buyrates because we wouldn't be getting Wrestlemania at 1am on Monday morning.

 

[rge2010]

There seems to be a rumor on twitter that the crowd chanted the n-word at Naomi. If that's true, smh, what a bunch of pieces of shit. I wouldn't surprised considering how some soccer crowds are over there.
Indefensible man, every country has real racism but to bring into a fictional product or sports - grow the fuck up. How embarrassing, as a black man, I really hope it isn't true. I know it's fun to be edgy for smark crowds but crap like that is too far.

I despise the world 'soccer'. Association Football is the biggest, most played and most popular sport on the planet. You guys should really change the name of the NFL to the NHBL...National Hand Ball League as NHL is already taken. You don't even use your feet!

As for racist chants, the Football Association has done a lot to remove racism from our national game and they have made great strides. It will never ever completely die out but as someone has already said the average attendance of an 'EPL' (its is actually BPL - Barclays) game is around 35,000 people every single week. These are isolated instances.

 

[HORRORHOLIC]

I'm from Canada and as much as I would love Wrestlemania to come back to Toronto I think London deserves it the most. The fans are always the best there and it would be huge.

 

[FlairFan2003]

The time difference is the problem.....what time would it be in London when WM is airing live in the states at 8PM ? In 1992 when WWE staged S-Slam there PPV was going strong but the Internet was not so you could count on US fans buying the PPV even though with the time difference the matches had already been decided. Today, with Internet capability more widespread than ever, it would be impossible for WWE to stage the event over seas at a normal time for the live fans in attendance and show it live at a time friendly for the US audience (such as prime time viewing hours, 7PM -11PM).

Losing that revenue (and the US is still the biggest market by far for WWE) would be hard, even with the WWE app guaranteeing PPV accessibility (again, what is the time difference, Im not watching a PPV on my phone at 3AM!!!!).

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

It's 5 hours time difference, most of the year, between London and EST, so a 7pm start at Wembley would be a 2pm start in NYC and a 10am start in LA, for example

 

[Loveless]

L.A. is 8 hours behind the UK, so an 8pm start is midday Sunday for West Coast

"I'm not going to watch Wrestlemania at midday on a Sunday"

This statement has less credibility than those "I'll never watch WWE ever again cause my favourite isn't champ" claims. It's midday, on a Sunday, what the hell else are you going to be doing?
And just incase my last post on this wasn't clear. The population of Europe is well over 700mil. 700mil people with kids who love the WWE, but who never get to watch it live because it starts at 1 or 2am. That massive increase in business would smash any West Coast losses into the dust.
I'm firmly believe that now the WWE Network exists, it's a matter of time before PPV's return to Europe. The internet killed them off and now it'll be the reason they return.

 

[PeterSellersSTL]

I'm from Canada and as much as I would love Wrestlemania to come back to Toronto I think London deserves it the most. The fans are always the best there and it would be huge.

deserves it the most based on what? How can cities that have never hosted Wrestlemania that are #2 in attendance and merchandise sales that have supported RAW after Smackdown after PPV be less deserving than London? Cities that have played an integral part in growing professional wrestling stateside for there ever to be an opportunity for it to reach the global heights that it has now? If it weren't for cities like St. Louis WWE would not be touring globally.

How???

How is London more deserving than St. Louis? What are the metrics?

I understand being starved of WWE but the other side of the coin is a city that has poured a ton of money into supporting WWE and has never received a Wrestlemania.

I'm not blowing hot smoke when I say St. Louis is a top 5 wrestling city historically and presently. In the world. The numbers prove that out. The decades prove that out.

How is London more deserving? Scratch that, how is London the most deserving??

 

[Navi]

deserves it the most based on what? How can cities that have never hosted Wrestlemania that are #2 in attendance and merchandise sales that have supported RAW after Smackdown after PPV be less deserving than London? Cities that have played an integral part in growing professional wrestling stateside for there ever to be an opportunity for it to reach the global heights that it has now? If it weren't for cities like St. Louis WWE would not be touring globally.

How???

How is London more deserving than St. Louis? What are the metrics?

I understand being starved of WWE but the other side of the coin is a city that has poured a ton of money into supporting WWE and has never received a Wrestlemania.

I'm not blowing hot smoke when I say St. Louis is a top 5 wrestling city historically and presently. In the world. The numbers prove that out. The decades prove that out.

How is London more deserving? Scratch that, how is London the most deserving??

It sounds to me like your are just more butthurt that St. Louis has never hosted a Wrestlemania, than anything else. And that's something you should be taking up with the WWE than insulting a good portion of the posters on this forum.

Might be that St. Louis isn't a world class city and could host an event of this magnitude like a Dallas, Toronto, New York or even oh God London.

Another poster made a good point. Do you think it would only be the citizens that live in the UK that would make the trip to London? No you'd have the French, Swiss, German, you know the other millions of people that make up the European fanbase going. Not to mention the Indian and Middle East fans who wouldn't have to spend thousands of dollars making the trip to the US every year.

A Wrestlemania anywhere in Europe would have probably the fastest sell out rate of any yet, and the WWE would make a fortune off of it. It's not like they don't have the stadiums to hold it or the fans to support it. I think that one day it will happen, and it will start with either the Rumble or Summerslam going there. Once Vince sees that the money is there I can see him taking a Mania there. It would be the biggest thing to hit Europe wrestling wise in decades.

 

[fouldsy91]

deserves it the most based on what? How can cities that have never hosted Wrestlemania that are #2 in attendance and merchandise sales that have supported RAW after Smackdown after PPV be less deserving than London? Cities that have played an integral part in growing professional wrestling stateside for there ever to be an opportunity for it to reach the global heights that it has now? If it weren't for cities like St. Louis WWE would not be touring globally.

How???

How is London more deserving than St. Louis? What are the metrics?

I understand being starved of WWE but the other side of the coin is a city that has poured a ton of money into supporting WWE and has never received a Wrestlemania.

I'm not blowing hot smoke when I say St. Louis is a top 5 wrestling city historically and presently. In the world. The numbers prove that out. The decades prove that out.

How is London more deserving? Scratch that, how is London the most deserving?

You've basically summed up what I've been trying to explain to people about you. You aren't bothered about the business side, you are taking this much more personally than anyone should, it's quite pathetic.

I will use your example of "business" of why St Louis doesn't deserve a WrestleMania. It is because no-one would know where it is. It's like when WWE had 29 in New Jersey, but advertised it as New York/New Jersey. People who come to WrestleMania go for the sights and much more. St Louis sounds a lot less appealing than New York, Dallas, Toronto, London, because most people don't know where it is, which they will take as meaning "nothing good is there."

I live in the North-East of England and we have two stadiums around 50,000 seaters and I'm saying London which is about 5 hours away from me, because no-one would really want to come to WrestleMania for the sights in Sunderland and Newcastle lol.

 

[Mighty NorCal]

Buyrates really shouldn't be a factor, since the vast, vast majority of people will have the Network, not buying over PPV. I also don't think spoilers make near as much of an impact as folks on here seem to feel they do.

The main concerns are weather at Wembley in late march/early April, and holding the show off the continent of your primary fan base.



As I said, SummerSlam rectifies both issues, while also raising the profile of the show considerabley.