What happened to WWE Superstars?

[Fuel The Fire]

- Thursday night's TNA Impact replay scored a 0.9 rating.

- Thursday night's edition of WWE Superstars scored a 0.8 rating.

Ok, so this may not what you people are expecting. But I had to laugh at that.
Im not sure exactly what happened to WWE Superstars. I remember when they first brought back Superstars.
It had Undertaker on the first episode and it was something new and exciting with top stars.

I Continued to watch this show and think that this may help younger stars get involved into story lines with
raw or smackdown"No wait, thats what E.C.W is for"But I really thought that they would tie in story lines for raw or smackdown for they younger superstars.

For Example. Have the Undertaker have a match on Superstars and then the Hart Dynasty could come out and beat the undertaker up for a D.Q. THey could pull that story line into smackdown and I think it would help out
younger stars.
So what's the purpose of wwe superstars if its not that? Now keep in mind people I stopped watching this show
because it started to remind me of sunday night heat. So I dont know exactly what is going on in this show now but I cant
imagine that its much different how it is any different.

I really think that the only purpose of wwe superstars is to get the live fans excited for raw or smackdown ,
"for the real show". That way they are pumped and it will look better for smackdown or raw.I understand if I remember correctly that TBS wanted their show on their channel to help them out so vince made this show

In all reality guys, this show is not costing them much. Basicly it is all dark matches before raw or smackdown. Like I said
"its to get the live fans excited for raw or smackdown"


But seriously, how can a replay of TNA be a higher rating then a first run show of superstars?
I guess this would be because of the type of show it is. I give them credit for that, it has Hulk Hogan, Jeff Hardy , the ummm "why" the nasty boys and the come back of the W.C.W clique "N.W.O".

What are they going to do with this show in the future if a replay of T.N.A can beat them?
Does Vince really care about this show?

Your thoughts..

 

[Dysturbed]

The purpose is probably to be an additional show for the sake of having it and like you said for the sake of giving the people in attendence a reason to find meaning in what otherwise would be a dark match and therefore hopefully get excited for the show. I don't think that it was ever intended to be much of a companion show (like Heat was to Raw when Heat first started). I think that it's reasonable to assume that only reason that someone like Taker was on the first week was to assure that the initial show was watched as opposed to it being intended to set the tone for what to expect. With that in mind, and I could be wrong, I don't think that WWE will have much reason to care too much that a TNA repeat beat it in ratings. Also TNA may be on cable meaning that not everyone gets it but at the same time not everyone gets WGN in their areas. Not only that but despite WGN being a Chicago based station, Superstars doesn't even air in that market until Sunday mornings so that's at least one place where people can't watch it right away. In fact it'll be on in about 30 minutes here. That may apply in some other areas too. Ratings are never fully accurate. As you know a sample of people is used to determine who actually watches, not who would watch if they could.

Also TNA was a big show on Monday. Maybe some people missed and maybe others were excited to see it play out again. If people wanted their tna fix on that night or want it in general they know that Impact has been their Thursday night option. If people want a WWE fix they know that they have the option of seeing WWE (in general) twice before Thursday and also the night after. There are a lot of wrestling fans but as we know not everyone of them revolves their viewing around it so Superstars isn’t top priority for a lot of people. If someone likes both companies, they’re likely to choose the one that they can see less frequently even if it's a repeat, especially if it's a "historic" repeat.

I could be wrong and you did bring up some good points.

 

[Aversion]

The problem is that there are no superstars that are used ONLY for that show. WWE Superstars is usually full of rematches from last weeks Smackdown!, RAW, or ECW. It is for the one who wasn't meant to win (e.g.: Veterans pushing new stars, crappy wrestlers) to win. For example, a few months ago, we had Goldust beat Sheamus clean. The ECW and RAW announcers completely forgot about it and said that Sheamus is undefeated in singles competition.

The other problem is that no one has the channel. I live in Brooklyn, NYC, NY (most populous city in the country), and I have DirecTV. DirecTV does not receive the WGN channel, so no one watches it. This explains why the ratings are so low.

 

[thepalaceprince]

Superstars is a chance to give guys that arent currently working a storyline or a feud to get some tv time. And I dont get whats funny about the ratings you listed if anything its laughable that tna can barely outdraw ecw and superstars yet they expect to become the wwe's rival.

 

[MR.JP94]

My veiw on this is that TNA is slowly starting to sign wwe's top people for example jeff hardy.
I like TNA but ive grown up watching wwe and have herd alot of rumours about RVD AND BOOKER -T SO IF anyone knows anything let me no

 

[vertigolowe]

First of all I agree with thepalaceprince about the ratings. It's more of a negative statement about TNA than WWE.

TNA generally draws somewhere in the neighborhood of a 1.0 most weeks. WWE Superstars never goes head to head with Impact (at least in my area) Superstars is on from 8-9 and Impact is on from 9-11. That means that most of the hardcore fans who watch every minute of wrestling every week can watch both shows without having to choose. This week TNA would have likely drawn a higher rating but I'm sure a lot of people watched TNA (or enough of it) on Monday night so they didn't need to watch on Thursday. Also the College Football National Championship game was on most of the night.

As for Superstars, the idea originally was advertised as a show featuring all 3 brands and interpromotional matches. They have moved past that to have (as described by fuel) what amount to televised dark matches.

The positives of Superstars are pretty good though. The show generally has 1 or 2 names that are worth watching for (even if they are fighting some bum) and then for the most part matches with guys you don't see too much on Raw/SD/ECW. There aren't a lot of promos and you tend to get more actual wrestling.

There is no reason why WWE would change much about this show. They get good ratings on a network that a bunch of people don't have. They don't pay much for the show (in terms of arenas & sets) and as mentioned above, pumps up the live crowd by seeing wrestling. This part also helps fans get through the common 15 minute promo to start Raw. It also gives exposure to whoever they put on the show and gives a little more chance for those featured to show off some wrestling skills.

 

[Decarow]

My belief is that Superstars is for the people who aren't shown on the other shows for that week. In example: Swagger, MVP, Carlito, etc. It is for the middle-card figures who aren't currently in story-lines to have a match to please the fans. Sure, they've had main-eventers on the show, but that's just them trying to get ratings. It's just another Velocity or Heat. Also, it's a pure wrestling show. Like the IWC has been wanting from WWE.

 

[CabanaBoomBoom514]

Seriously, i thought they were doing the show to showcase all the brands facing EACH OTHER. I thought when they showed the split faces graphic that they were gonna put unusual dream matchups together i.e. (christian vs. triple H, Punk vs. Yoshi, Orton vs. Morrison) but i guess it was just another useless show showing matches we already seen a few days before.

 

[Mr_billy]

Even more reason the ratings are low, is WGN is also the CW in chicago, the city WGN is from, so superstars is not shown until 11 am on Sundays, so reading this thread, we know 2 of the largest markets in the country do not even get the show.

 

[AMH]

I don't really see the point of this. Everyone who watches WWE knows that Superstars was always meant as sort of an extra show. As a matter of fact, when I heard Superstars was coming back, I knew exactly what it going to be. And as for the storyline aspect. The reason Superstars used to be that way was because there were no other shows besides Raw. There was no Smackdown or ECW, so Superstars was NEEDED to push storylines. Now adays, not so much. And it is funny how week after week TNA, the supposed "competition" barely beats out Superstars in the weekly ratings. Whoever started this post, sort of shot themselves in the foot with that one. "But look at what happened Monday." Get over it, it was mega hyped and Hogan's debut. They'll go back to normal eventually. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm starting to get somewhat irritated by the constant "Bash WWE" posts that pollute this website. And if you say I'm wrong, look at the topics from the last two days. They're totally pro TNA. And as for WGN, I have DirectTV and get the channel. But I live in Minnesota, and I believe WGN is based out of Chicago. So it could depend on where you live in terms of receiving the channel.

 

[y2hitman]

Even more reason the ratings are low, is WGN is also the CW in chicago, the city WGN is from, so superstars is not shown until 11 am on Sundays, so reading this thread, we know 2 of the largest markets in the country do not even get the show.

actually your semi right on WGN!! There are two different versions, WGN CW9 out of chicago is Cw and shows Cw shows and there is WGN America which shows WWE superstar's and reruns of ALF !!

 

[Shanks18]

Superstars has actually just started to air in the UK. Alongside WWE Expereince (recap) it's the only WWE programming that doesn't require Sky Sports upgrade, so it's more wrestling for those who don't have Sky Sports.

I like the idea, it's doesn't exactly feature the who's who of the Job Squad like Heat or Velocity did, but it still showcases some decents bouts. This weeks main event was actually really good, Ted Dibiase and Chris Masters going at it and actually getting some TV time to flex their talent (and pecs) and show what they can do given a some what decent amount of time and a clena pin.

 

[shafe_41]

Easy. The difference of the ratings was .1. .1. Let me make sure you see that again. .1. This was also the biggest episode of Impact in TNA History. THE BIGGEST. It also aired in its regular slot on SpikeTV on Thursday night. People wanted to watch Raw Monday night. So they did that. They knew they could catch Impact on Thursday without flipping back and forth from Impact and Raw on Monday night. So they did that. You're looking way too much into this. Plus, all the Thursday night shows on network TV were re-runs as far as I know so nobody was missing The Office, Community, Grey's Anatomy, etc...

Bottom line is this. It took Impact's biggest episode ever to beat the WWE's 4th rate show in a week where all the network shows were repeats. TNA had very little competition on Thursday night. It really shouldn't come as a shock to you at all or make you laugh. It's pretty much what I expected to happen.

 

[latinoheat8979]

Being a Chicago resident we here in the Windy City don't get to watch Superstars on Thursdays which might attribute to the lower ratings coming from a big city. On Thursday's they air some CW show's so we get to watch Superstars on Sunday morning at 11am Central time. Basically we get to watch WWE backwards with SD on Friday then Superstars on Sunday. WGN is based in Chicago along Western Ave and Addision Street.

 

[XgringolocoX]

Superstars just seems to be an afterthought show. Basicly some match ups from same brand guys not currently in a feud with eachother or continuing a feud.

Funny enough, when this show was originally being advertised I didn't like the notion that it'd be a lot of interpromo match ups or "dream matchups" from guys on different brands. The reason is that if you draft someone to another show there's no new feuds. If Jericho was wrestling a bunch of Raw guys on superstars then...wait, bad example... OK, if Christian were to wrestle a bunch of RAW guys on superstars then where would the excitement be if he gets traded to RAW? In the shitter that's where. Keep the brands separate so that when there's trades and whatnot we get "new" feuds with wrestlers that either haven't fought each other, or haven't for a long time. Just my op.

 

[VintageWWE]

WWE has the show Superstars for the sake of having another show. Financially it can't hurt them as the WWE will have dark matches anyway. They don't have to use that much money to air an extra show. I for one don't see what is so sad about Superstars getting a 0.8 rating. What's sad is seeing WWE's "rival" TNA only get ratings somewhere around WWE's C and D shows. If you look at TNA's ratings they have always been at the same area as ECW and Superstars. TNA thinking they can rival WWE is what's sad.

 

[Sean Valjean]

That's because Superstars is basically a televised house show. It's just a bunch of matches that have little to no meaning and nothing noteworthy ever happens in terms of storylines. Title's are rarely if ever defended, and never change hands. I really don't understand the point of even having the show. The few interesting things that do occur is always replayed on the other shows anway, so you're really not missing anything.

I watched Superstars for the first few weeks and it was okay. Some pretty decent matches, that's about it. But it got boring pretty fast and I often forget it even exist until it's mentioned on tv.

 

[Krundell]

I think that Superstars at the moment is basically a show that say's 'yeah we still have these guys under contract'. After about a month of it being on it just went downhill. Now its basically there just because WWE can have it there. I'll admit that every now and then they have a great match on. But it's basically there for the sake of being there.

 

[BladeRunner]

Superstars is missing storylines. That's it's biggest problem. It's only matches. And that's it.

They could do so much with it. Especially with some of the younger guys.

But instead they just roll some dice and put on matches between whoever came up.

At the least, try to intertwine it with the bigger storylines going on in the other shows.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Im not sure exactly what happened to WWE Superstars. I remember when they first brought back Superstars.
It had Undertaker on the first episode and it was something new and exciting with top stars.

Of course, they needed to grab viewers for the first few episodes. Guys like Taker were on the first show so that the viewers would look at it and say "hey, this is cool!" and then keep watching it afterwards. I doubt that they ever intended for Superstars to be anything more than a modern equivalent of what Heat and Velocity were, the guys who Raw and Smackdown didn't have time for that week.

In all reality guys, this show is not costing them much. Basicly it is all dark matches before raw or smackdown. Like I said
"its to get the live fans excited for raw or smackdown"

Pretty much. It's nothing more than a better version of Heat followed immediately by a better version of Velocity, to make one "show". That's the way I see it.

But seriously, how can a replay of TNA be a higher rating then a first run show of superstars?
I guess this would be because of the type of show it is. I give them credit for that, it has Hulk Hogan, Jeff Hardy , the ummm "why" the nasty boys and the come back of the W.C.W clique "N.W.O".

You basically answered your own question. Everyone who didn't get to see TNA Impact on monday got a chance to watch it during the rerun on thursday, and some people thought it was good enough to watch a second time. Plus, TNA Impact is an established show, whereas Superstars isn't and probably never will be (by WWE standards anyway) because it's a show for jobbers and the guys who didn't make it onto Raw/Smackdown that week.

What are they going to do with this show in the future if a replay of T.N.A can beat them?
Does Vince really care about this show?

Nothing. It's doing fine as it is because the "Superstars tapings" are like an added extra for those in attendance for a Raw or Smackdown taping. There's rarely any "important" matches on the show, so TNA beating it in ratings should be expected. I do think that Vince cares about the show though because it gets tv time for the guys who are not able to get tv time during Raw/Smackdown. It's easily the worst of WWE's shows, but it does its job and I don't think that WWE really needs to change anything about Superstars because the current format is working pretty well.

 

[zone3og]

Thas what they do with all the C shows. ECW, Velocity, and Heat. They debut them big and then a month later its a shell of its former self. I think I watched the first two episodes of Superstars and I was done.