Cena/Lesnar at NFL's Halftime: Brilliant or Desperate?

[George Steele's Barber]

Wtf? I get the reason why you try to draw your audience that becomes MNF's audience back during their longest break, but why even remind your audience that your biggest competition is on?

It seems like suicide. If people want to see Cena confront Lesnar or Cena pound Heyman they will flip back and forth occasionally or they will record the program. Maybe they will stick around to see if Nikki's boob pops out. Telling your audience that they don't have to worry about missing anything and they can go watch the football game for the next hour and a half seems counter productive. Plus a lot of fans hear Cena mention halftime and probably just get confused (e.g. international fans).

Am I right or are going to see Raw pop a good number?

 

[closet_fan]

I figured when Cena was talking about beating up Heyman at "halftime," they meant the MNF game's halftime show between the Eagles and Colts.

The biggest spot of the night was Lesnar coming out to save Heyman during, you guessed it, ESPN's halftime show. Not sure if this is simply a brilliant move on WWE's part to drag over those who don't watch the halftime show and keep them, or just a desperate attempt to get some sort of attention against a giant like the NFL, who the WWE will never truly beat on Monday nights.

Are the WWE smart by making their best segment come at a time when NFL fans are least likely to tune into ESPN, or is it just another desperate maneuver on the WWE's part to garner ratings? One has to wonder if they will continue to do it.

It could work if/when the game gets out of hand before the half, but last night's game was actually good.

 

[klunderbunker]

It may not be brilliant but it's certainly smart.

As you said, WWE isn't going to beat Monday Night Football. It's just not going to happen. Therefore, why should they try? I don't take a swing at an alert Brock Lesnar because he could remove every bone from my body without breaking the skin. If I had to go after him, I'd do it when he's asleep or distracted. The same is true here: why would WWE be stupid enough to try to go toe to toe with Monday Night Football and waste their big segment?

WWE needs to get the biggest audience possible for Night of Champions and their best bet is to get people to want to see the main event. However, if they tried to hype it up at the beginning or end of the show, it's going to bomb. By putting it at the time when the NFL is taking a break, it maximizes the potential audience by avoiding the big dragon in the room.

This is the same theory behind TNA moving to Wednesdays over the threat of Smackdown: if you can't beat them, run from them and take another path.

 

[justinsayne]

I was watching football, so I didn't even know this was going to happen at halftime, so when halftime came around I took care of other stuff like feeding my cat, taking a shit, getting some food, etc. I figure Cena/Brock would close the show, so I switched over to RAW with about 15-20 mins. left only to see Mark Henry close the show?! WTF?! Why is a segment for a midcard feud closing the show & not a segment for the biggest match on the card?! I didn't care enough to find out & switched back to football before Henry even got to the ring, I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of other people did the same.

 

[wwefangrrl]

The only way it would have worked is if after the Cena/Lesnar spot they would have kept the viewers interested. I'm sorry but Naomi/Cameron just isn't going to do it.

 

[closet_fan]

The only way it would have worked is if after the Cena/Lesnar spot they would have kept the viewers interested. I'm sorry but Naomi/Cameron just isn't going to do it.

Good point. If you're going to push the biggest storyline during the half time show of MNF, you have to do something as interesting afterwards to KEEP THE AUDIENCE FROM SWITCHING BACK!!

Don't throw a crap match right after thinking people will stay. If it's a good game, they won't.

I'll be interested to see what the number was before, during and after the Cena/Lesnar brawl.

 

[LegendKiller_RKO]

It was just business. Plain and simple. An old textbook business strategy and nothing more. Monday Night Football blows WWE out of the water. I am an avid WWE fan but guess what I'm doing during football season? Not watching Monday Night Raw! I'm watching football. But during half time I did switch to Raw, right into Cena and Lesnars segment! They caught my attention and instead of watching the half time report I stayed and watched Raw until the game was back on. So it worked on me. I'm sure it worked on others the same as well. Good call WWE especially going into NOC.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I'm leaning more towards KB's position.

WWE isn't going to beat Monday Night Football, that's just simply how it is. To be perfectly honest, I'm curious to see what sort of impact The Big Bang Theory airing on Mondays will have in the ratings on both Raw and Monday Night Football. At any rate, MNF is a ratings juggernaut, always has been and always will be. However, that also doesn't mean that WWE should just roll over and die without doing what they can to possibly steal some viewers from Monday Night Football during halftime.

Night of Champions is this Sunday and just about everyone, to one degree or another, is interested in Cena vs. Lesnar. WWE's audience is usually at its highest during the second hour and since that's also when MNF goes to halftime, they thought they'd try something different in order to see if they could score some additional viewers by putting the biggest storyline they've got, strategically, in the middle of the show. I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it brilliant, but I do think it's a smart idea. After all, against Monday Night Football, it's not gonna hurt to think outside the traditional box when it comes to jacking up numbers.

I don't see it as a move of desperation at all. A few years back against Monday Night Football, Raw was pulling some of the worst numbers since the mid 90s. While they didn't exactly do fantastic during the same time last year, they did do better than the year before. Last week's "season premiere" was against MNF's season premiere and Raw actually increased in viewership and ratings over the previous week. WWE officials had to feel encouraged, so they came up with this little gimmick to see if they could garner improved numbers. The season literally just started last week and while Raw's numbers weren't great, they also weren't horrible and were better than most people were expecting. As a result, there's no reason for WWE to be desperate right now. Also, it's not as if WWE didn't let people know at the beginning of the show that Cena and Lesnar would confront each other about the middle of the show. Cena said as much, so can't really blame WWE if some people didn't listen.

Is it a strategy that'll pay off? Probably not because there's not a whole lot going on right now that more casual fans are gonna be super interested in. CM Punk's gone, Daniel Bryan's out injured, Dean Ambrose has been gone for almost a month shooting a movie, Roman Reigns just isn't demonstrated that "it" factor that connects with people, the mid-card and tag team title feuds strike me as placeholder feuds for the moment, etc.

 

[ajdb]

This is very desperate from WWE. They sacrificed the format of their show because they aren't creative enough to draw people away from football. With the new "network booking" this is what the future will be. Main events whenever they can.

WWE more than likely has the game on in their production truck to monitor when the main event stuff can happen. Sadly, the "main event" will rarely be a match because "network" booking doesn't allow that.

This is very desperate. The writing is to blame here. Everything they produce I very stale. There's nothing unexpected about it. There's no characters, it's just people filling the parts.

I recently saw an Attitude Era script next to one of the scripts that was recently leaked. It wasn't night and day. It was last century to this century. Start letting people be themselves and make people want to turn the channel. WWE shouldn't be reacting to the competition.

 

[rbv13]

Hell the E should just buy some air time on ESPN during the first half of MNF and start advertising the Halftime Main Event. Go as far as to bring Attitude Era guys in as the special host for the thirty minutes and maybe confuse a few people who used to be fans.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

From WZ:

Hour 1 - 3.900m viewers
Hour 2 - 3.949m viewers
Hour 3 - 6 viewers, and 2 were epileptic cats

OK, I may have made that third hour number up but the real number isn't much better. The total viewer ship was pretty bad not hitting four million at any point. The halftime mention seems like it falls somewhere between pointless and small mistake or in wrestling terms somewhere between a Cameron match and not quite Cameron trying to pin Naomi back side up.

 

[No Count Pup]

So WWE sees MNF as competition. This is where the PG stuff hurts. MNF is hokey, Raw is hokey. People will always pick hokey football over hokey wrestling. If WWE wants to force some channel surfing, it's time to make the second and third hour TV-14. There's a portion of the bloodlust MNF crowd that would switch over to a crimson Sheamus. They're certainly not leaving the game for Slater Gator.

 

[Mudlup50]

I don't see the problem at all, we complain that the WWE is formulaic and yet they try to change the order up and lets be mad at them for being desperate? Was there even a WWE insider who said that's why they arranged it the way they did? Or is it just an assumption? Because very well they could see Mark Henry v Rusev as the bigger pop match. Maybe Mark Henry retires after losing the match? The show might close on that? I think we're all just getting a bit too mad because the WWE aired promos throughout building to the middle of the card. I mean on the first Raw didn't they do a sketch throughout the night where someone was trying to get in to watch Raw?(sorry I'm hazy on the details, didn't watch the first Raw)

So they're trying to gain viewers during the boring part of a Football game, what's the big deal? The one thing I definitely agree with was how stupid it was to put Naomi v Cameron on after that -.- why not put the big 6 Man Tag on after that?

Regardless, making the second and third hour bloody doesn't help, I'm assuming that was a joking post. WWE should just try to make the last hour a bit better, but I'm biased..I don't care for the Ex Funkadactyls or Mark Henry or Rusev.

 

[Navi]

I don't see it as being either desperate or smart. Viewers who watch football religiously are going to tune into the game regardless of what happens on RAW. And people like myself who don't watch football, will be watching RAW.

They might tune in during the halftime show, but then they're back to the game, and the WWE didn't really give them anything to keep watching. I myself am not a channel surfer, never do it, cause I'm too scared I forget the time and miss something. During a hockey game for example, I just leave it on during the intermission and go off and make coffee, have a smoke and other stuff like that. So a viewer like me wouldn't tune in during halftime in a football game anyone.

Here in Toronto, we get RAW on Sportsnet 360 and they replay it at midnight. So if there is a Blue Jay or Leaf game on earlier, we just watch that and catch RAW later. I imagine most wrestling fans do something similar.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

I don't see it as being either desperate or smart. Viewers who watch football religiously are going to tune into the game regardless of what happens on RAW. And people like myself who don't watch football, will be watching RAW.

They might tune in during the halftime show, but then they're back to the game, and the WWE didn't really give them anything to keep watching. I myself am not a channel surfer, never do it, cause I'm too scared I forget the time and miss something. During a hockey game for example, I just leave it on during the intermission and go off and make coffee, have a smoke and other stuff like that. So a viewer like me wouldn't tune in during halftime in a football game anyone.

Here in Toronto, we get RAW on Sportsnet 360 and they replay it at midnight. So if there is a Blue Jay or Leaf game on earlier, we just watch that and catch RAW later. I imagine most wrestling fans do something similar.

You have to admit that it is pretty pathetic to have John Cena in the ring with Paul Heyman telling him that he is going to beat him up at "halftime". It basically sounds like Cena (WWE's golden boy/hardest worker/totally devoted to pro wrestling) is more interested in watching MNF than paying attention to his own show.

And I wouldn't call it desperate (that was someone else's thread title that got merged with my thread) but it is pretty sad and embarrassing.

And stop smoking, Canadian cigarettes are ridiculously expensive. Oh, and bad for your health.

 

[No Count Pup]

I am not a big advocate of WWE going TV-14. But if WWE wants to lure viewers away from MNF they may not have a choice.

NFL fans have to wait a long time to see their football. From February to September they wait patiently for the season to begin. Football fans won't leave MNF for Raw without a compelling reason. What attracts eyeballs? Violence, sad to say. Some will argue it's not that simple. But it kind of is.

If I'm wrong, fine. Maybe TV-14 and violence isn't the answer. I suppose WWE could adopt the Bischoff philosophy. Get the casual fans questioning, "Was that real? I know that wasn't supposed to happen." That takes creativity, and I'm just not sure the writing team can pull it off.

 

[CrucifiedRaven]

I am not a big advocate of WWE going TV-14. But if WWE wants to lure viewers away from MNF they may not have a choice.

NFL fans have to wait a long time to see their football. From February to September they wait patiently for the season to begin. Football fans won't leave MNF for Raw without a compelling reason. What attracts eyeballs? Violence, sad to say. Some will argue it's not that simple. But it kind of is.

If I'm wrong, fine. Maybe TV-14 and violence isn't the answer. I suppose WWE could adopt the Bischoff philosophy. Get the casual fans questioning, "Was that real? I know that wasn't supposed to happen." That takes creativity, and I'm just not sure the writing team can pull it off.

When it comes to their time slot, 8pm - 11pm, there is so much better, mature content on premium television shows during this time slot. I don't think they need to go TV-14, I'm sure they can accomplish a lot within the PG-13 rating. But at least turn down the cheese and up the maturity from 10-11pm. Replay the kid friendly version on Saturday mornings during their recap shows... Because at that time at night, there are far better options on television, drawing big numbers.

I like that WWE actually sees the NFL as their competition. It will force them to start trying new things and better their overall product. Hardcore NFL fans won't change the channel, just like most hardcore WCW fans didn't change the channel. But there are a lot of people in the middle who are switching back and forth.

If the game ended up being a landslide at the half, you could have seen RAW numbers increase instead of decrease. My main issue though is that they didn't use the "halftime" spot to promote anything else later on in the show. They basically said their third hour wasn't worth watching. They should have used it to set up more Lesnar in the main event. Then people may have stuck around on RAW, especially if let's say next week the game isn't as close.

 

[Navi]

You have to admit that it is pretty pathetic to have John Cena in the ring with Paul Heyman telling him that he is going to beat him up at "halftime". It basically sounds like Cena (WWE's golden boy/hardest worker/totally devoted to pro wrestling) is more interested in watching MNF than paying attention to his own show.

And I wouldn't call it desperate (that was someone else's thread title that got merged with my thread) but it is pretty sad and embarrassing.

And stop smoking, Canadian cigarettes are ridiculously expensive. Oh, and bad for your health.

Oh I agree it's pathetic when you thing about it. To tell you the truth though, I thought he was talking about halfway through RAW not the football game. Yes bit ******ed here on this end. That's why I couldn't understand why nothing happened at 9:30 and was waiting for this blowup between the two.

The football game didn't even enter my mind until someone mentioned it on the RAW LD thread, and I went, oh shit there's a football game. LOL

And you're totally right about the price of cigarettes here, enough to make you quit. And I'm trying.