The Wrestling Sandwich 11.12.11

The Wrestling Sandwich Factor is ON!

We’ll be discussing the weekly ratings and how TNA once again delivered a great showing despite people panning the show as not being entertaining…how can that be when the numbers don’t back it up?

The Sandwich investigates just how successful WrestleMania is… and how eBay profiteers are benefiting!

The disturbing trend of the 2002-2011 ratings for RAW and SmackDown is exposed for the first time in graph form so nobody can dispute the numbers…but will people agree on what caused them?

Kurt Angle is not found guilty of a DUI… we’ll find out what actually happened in the trial and if justice was served!

All this and more in the first yearly edition of The Wrestling Sandwich Factor!

The Death of the Boom-Bust Period

That is the subject of this year’s talking points. The boom/bust period has been in effect for many years, and is most pronounced from the 1970’s until 2002. However, in the past ten years we’ve had no boom period and instead, ratings have crumbled from where they used to be. WWE RAW used to regularly draw higher ratings than it has been getting, but people often cite that back then the rating system was different. So the Sandwich went and combined four different websites worth of RAW ratings to give you a chart that shows, indeed, it is losing viewers over the past nine years.

These numbers show clearly that the last time RAW averaged a rating of 4 or above was in the year 2002, and ever since then the yearly average of shows has been abysmal. For all the people speaking out about how great WWE ratings are, taking a look at that chart might make you a little nauseous. No year since 2002 has ever topped the 2002 average or come decently close to it, and 2010 ratings have dropped from 2009 ratings. 2011 is not over yet but I’d expect to find 2011 around the same yearly average as 2010 considering the number of low 3’s and high 2’s the shows have been doing.

The reasons for the death of the boom/bust period are several in nature and you must understand that this is the FIRST TIME IN FORTY YEARS we have had no boom period in the last decade. The 1970’s boomed with Sammartino’s title reign in the Northeastern US, 1980’s became huge thanks to Hulkamania and the Rock’N’Wrestling Connection, the 1990’s almost died off until the Attitude Era and the nWo jumpstart, and after that boom period ended in 2001 the ratings have never been the same since Vince purchased both WCW and ECW. What caused it?

1. Broader Viewing Options. Before the last ten years, fans were unable to watch WWE on the Internet and had a very strict limit of options on their television. Cable providers usually gave very few channels compared to what we have today and the average viewer had about 30 channels in the 70’s and around 60 in the 1980’s, which blossomed to over 2,000 today. Today the average person can watch the show on TV, DVR the show instead for a later date, watch it online, or pay a show or movie instantly On Demand using the various VOD options.

2. The Rise of the UFC. Combined with boxing, UFC PPV’s have surged upwards in the last nine years to destroy the WWE nearly every month. Boxing continues to draw over WrestleMania’s high numbers and UFC can do so as well with the right card, although the fact remains that wrestling has been revealed to the masses as “fake” even though that isn’t the correct term and the little company that WWF used to push on RAW and have some interpromotional work with in the Attitude Era has outgrown the WWE. The public perception is that wrestling is fake and lame, and UFC is a real sport with legitimate fighting.

3. Stagnant competition. In the 1970’s the WWWF was competing against the AWA, NWA, and various territories throughout the country. In the 1980’s, NWA and AWA continued to be an issue along with WCCW, UWF, and any territory surviving the McMahon destruction. The 1990’s saw the heat rising between WWF and WCW with smaller contributions from ECW and then after 2001 nothing existed in the major leagues beyond WWF. Now, TNA is trying to survive and draw a crowd but at this time, they are only in striking distance of WWE Smackdown and RAW is out of their range of growth in the short-term. Basically, since 2001 Vince has been the only game in town and people were told to either watch his wrestling product or not. Most of them chose the second option. In America, competition breeds innovation. To be the best in your field is what everybody strives for, and in the WWE’s case when they had competition they were forced to actually think outside their comfort zone and adjust to the changing audience. Thus far, they have no reason to do so.

4. Overall dilution of the product. The characters and gimmicks aren’t as good as they used to be, and the matches can be decent at times but for the most part are easily forgettable. With PG ratings in place, wrestlers are not able to bleed, curse, utilize the chairshot over the skull (also due to Wellness and concussion research) or have any significant sexual or violent speech. Unfortunately, all the other shows on the air can! Most people will remember who Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair are in 2011, even over John Cena and Randy Orton. If you ask anybody under 18, they will say Cena and Orton are most familiar, but every other demographic will fondly recall Hogan and Flair during their glory days. Simply put, the product is so stale they have no real reason to watch anymore outside of hoping the show is as good as it used to be.

The recession didn’t help things and the fact that right now we seem to be entering a double-dip recession only makes the economy worse and our options quite limited. People who had that extra amount of money to blow on a WWE event can’t make their bill payments anymore. Worse yet, WWE has done nothing to account for the significant impact economically the recession has had and RAISED their ticket prices and their PPV prices, which has been met with lower ratings, lower buyrates, and lower attendance overseas as shown in the Q3 financials.

The best solution to the end of the boom/bust cycle is to add competition against the company and hope for the best, but there is no guarantee that it will bring it back. Even if a billionaire bought out TNA and put the show on FOX or another network that has great viewing numbers in the top 5 cable networks each week the fact remains that both shows may end up suffering head-to-head or even on separate days. The perception is that wrestling is fake, boxing and UFC are legit and much better to watch and discuss, and overall things look grim, as the economic situation seems to be worsening rather than improving. The only thing we can do now as fans is support our federation of choice and hope they can make it through like they always seem to. And that’s the memo!

Top Stories of the Week!

1. Weekly Ratings Roundup

TNA Impact – 1.29 rating, 1.70 million viewers – up overall and up 23% in the 18-49 male demographic. Hour 1 was 1.35 and hour 2 was 1.22
WWE Smackdown – 2.19 rating, 3.2 million viewers – Up from last week
WWE RAW – 2.88 rating, 4.02 million viewers overall – second-lowest rated show of the year. Hour 1 drew 4.17 million viewers and hour 2 received 3.86 million viewers, the eighth week of eleven weeks that the second hour dropped.

Nothing here is really surprising. TNA Impact has gone right up to the edge of its top general ratings despite a small drop in Hour #2 for Impact and is drawing well in the most coveted demographic. Smackdown is consistently drawing around a 2.0 average for the year and up from last week, but RAW took a massive hit. People will talk about the show being taped and the NFL game but the fact is people did tune in the first hour and… Then they mostly tuned out. Over 300,000 viewers turned the channel on Monday night to something else or stopped watching TV and that is a bad sign for a “must see” television product. Yes, it’ll probably rise next week but why even put yourself in this position? WWE need to have more live shows on Mondays during the football season, not less!

We finally have some new UK ratings posted!

UK And Ireland Ratings – Week of October 23, 2011

TNA Bound For Glory PPV airing – 186,000 viewers
TNA Impact – 147,000 viewers
WWE RAW – 130,000 viewers
WWE Smackdown – 93,000 viewers

Australian Pay TV Ratings are not available as of press time. The Pay TV ratings haven’t been posted on the Australian television ratings website since October for some reason but I will keep you informed when I find anything.

2. WrestleMania Record Setting Ticket Sales – The TRUE Story!

Obviously, I wanted to look into what I viewed as a questionable claim of record sales, so I decided to peek around and see what we could find. First thing I did early Tuesday morning was decide to check and see how many tickets are left for WrestleMania. Rock vs. Cena, the big dream match right? So I took a look at how many tickets were available and where those tickets were found:

All the areas in gray are obviously sold out, anything in blue has seating available. As you can see for yourself the middle seems to be filled out but several places by the ring have tickets remaining, including the giant blue area in 30. The deeper the blue, the more tickets that is available. So, I decided to keep going and see how many premium tickets are left that are reserved for the true hardcore fan:

49 double seating Platinum tickets were available, for a total of 98 PREMIUM seats. These are the most expensive because you basically are sitting in the absolute best location with all the amenities and then some. You thought they sold out? Uh, no. In fact, speaking of selling out I decided to go and find out how many people were just plain selling the tickets to make a profit on eBay:

1,461 tickets (one or more) were listed as available. In fact, the entire page was for $1,000 to $2,000 tickets being sold! All those super great seats that were non-premium and sold out on Ticketmaster? You can find them on eBay right now! People just bought the tickets to sell them and make a good profit, which was a smart thing to do.

Hmm, but you are probably saying that it can’t POSSIBLY be the expensive seats right? People are keeping those and not selling them, RIGHT?

Wrong. 116 listings from eBay contained ticket prices of a minimum $900.00 per ticket. This included quantities of one or multiple tickets available.

So there you have it. WrestleMania only made a record because people jacked up the prices of the tickets, and then scalpers bought all the best tickets and threw ’em on eBay for even higher prices so people have to pay through the nose to sit five rows away from the ring to watch John Cena for four hours. WWE raised ticket prices this year, and the ringside seats of $1500 a pop were the main reason ticket sales were so high. Scalpers bought them and then raised the price to make a profit off their eBay deal! And it isn’t limited to just eBay, there are tickets out there to be found in many locations. This isn’t counting comp tickets, contest tickets, giveaways, and future ticket releases either. The majority of premium seats at WrestleMania were purchased for sale purposes at a profit, not because people actually flew all the way to Miami to watch the so-called dream match that STILL didn’t sell out despite being promoted since April of this year! The Sandwich investigation shows you the truth, hate me for it or not.

3. Kurt Angle Court Case Ends

Kurt Angle’s reckless driving case has come to an end. The full details are available Here although the short version is that Angle’s attorney pleaded No Contest to reckless driving, and Angle was fined $1,500 and that was it. The maximum was one year in jail and a $2,500 dollar fine. Good news for the Olympic Champion who has been vindicated that he was not driving over the legal limit for alcohol and therefore can continue to rehabilitate and train for the 2012 Olympics!

Smartest Thing of the Week: The Rebirth of Gail Kim

For over a year, Gail Kim was simply a random WWE Diva who was to take part in some crappy storylines and job out to anybody the WWE actually thought would bring them ratings. It got to the point that in her final appearance she simply rolled out of the ring in a battle royal and eliminated herself and nobody noticed! Gail took that fact with her to TNA and pulled out all the stops on her return in the ring and on the mic and showed she’s a formidable force to be reckoned with. This week, she got a pinfall over the reigning Knockouts Champion while retaining her newly won Knockouts Tag Championship and has proven that if you want to be treated like you matter, come to TNA! A nice touch was one of the matches people looking forward to seeing on Twitter was Gail Kim vs. Velvet Sky as the fan mentioned it was good to have Gail back in real women’s wrestling. This rebirth of her career is exactly what can influence people that TNA is where female wrestlers belong because your wrestling matters here.

Dumbest Thing of the Week: JR vs. Michael Cole STILL Not Settled!

Okay, so putting the Michael Cole challenge out to begin with was something stupid and with JR out of the booth didn’t need to be done. Postponing it once while JR was in the building and claiming he never made it to RAW was stupid and offensive but still, understandable because of time constraints. But now it is postponed AGAIN? First off, the guy is in no possible way able to put on a classic wrestling match with his recent surgeries and conditions and Cole is just about as anti-athletic as it gets for a skinnyish guy. But now we’re giving no details on the challenge and just postponing it and even worse taking segment time to talk about JR’s anal issues to hype the challenge and that it is postponed? I thought we have a lack of time yet it seems to be getting promoted often enough! Maybe this is a sign that nobody wants to see it, so leave well enough alone already!

OLD SCHOOL WRESTLER OF THE WEEK

Big John Studd

The story of Big John Studd is unfortunately a short one with a tragic ending, but ultimately we will remember the “true giant” of professional wrestling for his work in the ring and the memories he created for all of us.

John Studd was trained by Killer Kowalski for the ring and even teamed with him to win the WWWF tag team championship. Studd was only 6’8 and 320 lbs but billed as 6’10 and 364 lbs inside the ring. His original years included appearances under various names and also a mask as Chuck O’Connor, Captain USA, and The Masked Superstar II. By the time 1982 rolled around he had drawn some interest from a certain Northeastern wrestling promotion.

On his newest arrival to the WWF, he was put under the tutelage of “Classy” Freddie Blassie and would bring a stretcher to the ring, destroying his opponents so badly they ended up leaving on it. In 1983, Blassie and Studd issued the first Body Slam Challenge in which $10,000 would be given to whoever could scoop up and slam Studd, although everybody who tried ended up failing. However, Andre the Giant attempted to and Blassie attacked Andre while Studd held the ropes and the two ended up feuding, and Andre would even slam him during his matches although he insisted he hadn’t been slammed and the WWF still played it up that he was unable to be slammed.

In 1984 he also took on Hulk Hogan and a new manager to help him out, namely Bobby “The Brain” Heenan. The alliance with Heenan and Ken Patera resulted in the destruction of Andre the Giant and a public haircut in the ring of the Giant after knocking him unconscious. The next Body Slam Challenge was issued for the original WrestleMania and the stipulation was that if Andre slammed Studd, he would receive $15,000 but if he could not slam him or if Studd slammed Andre, Andre would retire from wrestling. Andre, of course, won and slammed Studd before Heenan grabbed the money bag from Andre and ran.

Studd would ally himself with King Kong Bundy and injure Andre the Giant in 1985, and feud with Andre and various tag team partners such as Hulk Hogan, Junkyard Dog, and Tony Atlas to assist him. In the second WrestleMania, Studd took part in the historic NFL vs. WWF battle royal in which Studd eliminated William “The Refrigerator” Perry and then Perry asked to shake his hand. When Studd accepted, Perry pulled him from the outside out of the ring!

Andre’s health problems began causing issues with his feud with Studd, now having to compete in the Machines angle, as he didn’t show up for a televised match against Studd and Bundy. The Heenan Family was unable to unmask Andre and prove that he was the Giant Machine although everybody already knew he was. Studd’s last tag team match ended with him and Bundy arguing with each other and he was seemingly gone for good.

However, things changed in 1988 when Big John Studd made his comeback on the Brother Love show. Heenan attempted to welcome Studd back into the family, and this time Studd sent Heenan running and turned face by doing so. For the first time, Andre and Studd were now in the opposite roles they had in their original feud. Unfortunately, Studd had some health issues of his own and he wasn’t able to stick around as long as he’d hoped. He did manage to win the first Royal Rumble on PPV in January 1989 but that was pretty much his only achievement that year outside of being the guest referee for Jake Roberts vs. Andre the Giant at WrestleMania V. By the second week of June 1989, Studd was gone.

Big John also had some acting credits to his name. He participated in Micki and Maude as himself, in The Protector movie as “Huge Hood”, Double Agent as Igor, and Hyper Space as “Psycho” and his biggest credit was “Jack Daniels” in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. He would also be on several shows such as the A-Team where he played himself, and Beauty and the Beast as “Erlick” in the “To Reign In Hell” episode.

Big John Studd died on March 20, 1995 from liver cancer and Hodgkin’s Disease, although a son who also took part in Tough Enough for the WWE in 2004 succeeds him. He is also referenced in the Limp Bizkit song “N 2gether Now” and was inducted in the WCW Hall of Fame in 1995 and the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004.

Studd also had some charisma for a big man, and unfortunately didn’t get to show it off much in the WWF. Here’s a segment from Tuesday Night Titans in which Big John Studd assists Bobby Heenan and Ken Patera in giving somebody a haircut they will never forget!

Take 5

Wrestler To Watch: Abyss

On Impact, the Monster was unleashed again as Abyss joined up with Jeff Hardy and Mr. Anderson to combat their former group Immortal and boy was the Monster instrumental in doing some damage! After Shock Treatment was delivered to Jarrett, Abyss delivered a Black Hole Slam and put away Scott Steiner and showed that he was definitely somebody you don’t want to screw with. The look on Bully Ray’s face when Abyss was revealed as the partner for Hardy and Anderson was priceless, and helped sell the fear that Immortal must be going through now that Abyss, like Hardy and Anderson, have joined forces after being thrown out of Immortal and are going after the quickly crumbling faction with everything they have. Abyss will definitely be somebody to keep your eye on in the next few months on TNA Impact!

Promo of the Week: Shawn Michaels Imitates Hulk Hogan

As a heel, Shawn Michaels pulled off one of the funniest skits in WWE when he was parodying Hulk Hogan and pulled out all the stops to make Hogan look like an idiot. Despite the fact HBK was a heel, a lot of fans cheered for him and this promo explained how easily HBK could manipulate the fans to either despise him or love him. Shawn decided if he couldn’t get more than one match from Hogan he was at least going to humiliate him as much as possible, and after this promo went on to oversell comically at SummerSlam and make Hogan look worse despite winning!

Babe To Watch: Rosita

Some have called her a Latina Trish Stratus; others have called her one of the most fiery female wrestlers in TNA today. Rosita, one-fourth of Mexican America, gives a special Pillow Talk interview to So Cal Val several months ago about her career and various other questions that fans wanted to know. So take a look at the stunning Rosita as she takes on her first Pillow Talk segment!

Match of the Week To Watch: TNA Championship: Kurt Angle vs. Christian Cage vs. Samoa Joe

For the TNA Championship title at No Surrender 2008, we get to see the Christian that WWE allowed to slip through their fingers and continue to use as a jobber to the stars to this day. However, at one time he was more than just that annoying skinny guy fighting for a championship; Christian was a true star. And sadly, this is probably the only time most of you will ever see Christian portrayed as a true main eventer.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4 and FINAL:

Mystery Section to Watch: Finisher of the Week!

Mike Quackenbush is one of the more talented wrestlers in the indy circuits. Unfortunately, nobody has bothered to hire the guy although with moves like this you have to wonder why. This is the Lightning Lock original version that Quackenbush innovated, so take a look at this very interesting submission hold as our official finisher of the week!

WWE 3rd Quarter Financials

First, we’ll talk over the important numbers from the YTD and quarterly postings. After that, we’ll discuss the conference call’s best and worst statements as far as I’m concerned for the future of the WWE.

The most important thing everybody wants to know is if WWE did better in 2010 or 2011. So, let’s find out:

Total Net Revenues for 2011 Q3: $108.5 million
Total Net Revenues for 2010 Q3: $109.6 million

Live and Televised Entertainment rose by nearly five million, but consumer products and WWE Studios dropped. Digital Media rose only $0.1 million from $6.8 to $6.9 million. Compared to last year, the numbers are down and comparing last year to 2009, the numbers are down yet again. This should not at this time be of much concern as the numbers are still very high but WWE might want to make a few changes to increase interest and possibly prepare to axe divisions that aren’t drawing money and have been losing it for years.

North American attendance on average decreased 6% to 4,900 although later, Vince McMahon said average attendance was actually 4,100 per event. The average ticket price had increased from $41.07 to $41.34, which should make those people barely able to scrape by happy, right? Internationally revenues dropped by $0.2 million to $8.8 million. International attendance increased from 6,700 to 7,200 and the average ticket prices there is a whopping $80.08, which is DOWN from $86.07 in the prior year quarter, which means they cut the prices for the international fans and hosed the American ones.

PPV Revenue for the quarter was up from last year’s quarterly figures by $2.8 million dollars. However, two out of the three events on PPV dropped in buyrates. MITB was 195K compared to 165K, gaining 30,000 viewers. SummerSlam was the second worst buyrate in WWE history with 296,000 buys, losing 54,000 viewers from last year’s event. Night of Champions decreased 4,000 from 165k to 161k in buys. Obviously the product isn’t gaining any viewers overall, and continues to do poorly as people have pointed out that there are just too many PPV’s for far too much money right now.

Venue Merchandise declined compared to the prior year quarter, which raises some questions about just how much merchandise CM Punk really did move. $3.6 million was the number, whereas last year it was $3.8 million and this was during the “Summer of Punk” in the WWE. This was also the case despite an 8% increase in the purchase price of merchandise!

The scariest number for WWE would be the WWE Magazine sales, which dropped like a brick from $2.6 million to $1.9 million. As said before in the Sandwich, WWE needs to go digital and continue WWE Magazine in the digital edition like that special 99 cent version they released some time ago. At some point they are going to have to make a decision about the magazine run.

WWE Studios continues to do worse every year, this time reflecting a $5.5 million decline in viewers from the prior year quarter for the movies Inside Out, Chaperone, and Knucklehead. Neither John Cena nor Randy Orton have been able to keep the Studios doing well either, and in this case the heir to the WWE throne Triple H was unable to persuade people to see his films, and Big Show’s film also fell flat. But then, anybody who watched one minute of the shot footage could have told you that would happen… in fact, the Sandwich did tell you this division would continue to drop.

EBITDA was approximately $19.5 million compared to $23.5 million the prior year quarter, which is not very good. The more money you have before taxation and depreciation, the better. Amortization and interest obviously will also help raise the final number but to come into it under $20 million for a three-month period is not good. Also important is that WWE’s corporate tax rate was decreased this quarter from 34% to 32% and still yielded poor results.

Taking a look at the Year-To-Date or YTD finances we find the following:

EBITDA took a steep dive from the nine months of last year, dropping from $76.3 million to $61 million. Adjusted net income was down as well, from $44.4 million to $41.1 million. Total revenues increased 4% to $371 million for the year although that didn’t help the net income compared to last year even with a lower tax rate.

WWE’s only loss in the regional net revenues was Latin America, as every other section gained. However, YTD live events dropped $0.2 million to $77.8 million while PPV climbed to $63.7 million. Venue merchandise lost $0.3 million compared to the prior year, and television advertising was only $0.7 million the past nine months compared to $4.5 million last year. WWE Classics On Demand lost again with a decline from $3.5 million to $3.4 million for the entire year thus far. WWE Studios reported a $14.6 million loss in film profits due to the fact pretty much nobody rents, buys, or pays a ticket to see them. Net revenue less cost of revenue dropped as well from $156.6 million to $144.4 million. WWE blamed NXT and Superstars losses for that, although they were cancelled DUE to unacceptably low ratings for the networks.

Going to CNBC’s financials section on WWE, we can conclude a few other numbers. In 2007, WWE had $135 million in cash on hand whereas by the end of 2010 they only had $69.8 million. Total assets in 2010 were $415.7 million vs. $455.9 million in 2007. Total liabilities increased from $72.5 million to $98.9 million.

Speaking solely on the Q3, WWE has declined considerably. In QE 2007, they had $179.7 in assets whereas this year they have $162.7 million. Liabilities in total actually dropped from $94.4 million to $72.1 million for the quarters in 2007 and 2011 respectively, but when you combine the shareholder equity to the liabilities, WWE has dropped from $422.7 in 2007 Q3 to $384.7 in 2011 Q3. WWE’s 3rd quarter earnings met the consensus of $0.14 EPS and then comes the really bad news.

According to the growth forecasts, WWE is expected to drop in the next 3-5 years for its earnings per share to -1.3% in total. The outlook for the next 3-5 years for consumer services is an 11.6% growth rate in comparison. The Thomson Financial Solutions score for WWE stock is 2.86, which amounts to a “HOLD” rating. Only one analyst says to buy WWE stock, six others say to hold. 6 months earlier, 4 analysts said to buy with two saying a strong buy and 9 to hold. The number of analysts studying WWE has dropped considerably, and WWE shares show that more people are selling than buying WWE stock, at the tune of 10.4 million shares sold vs. 7.4 million shares bought. Over the last 12 months, insiders purchased 1,023 shares and sold 64,228 shares!

Overall, the numbers are showing more and more people are turning away from the product and those that are there are spending less in other countries and more in North America. PPV’s are suffering lower buys and attendance is dropping across the country, as well as majorly in Latin America for the year. While it is not time to sound the “WWE is dying” horn, it is time to keep an eye on things with the WWE Network as a failure to deliver there could cost the company a very large amount of money. To the conference call highlights!

Conference Call Highlights:

Vince McMahon started out the call, noting that they grew 5% in profits attributed to home video and PPV, offset by an impairment from WWE Studios, television sales of about two hours and licensing.

What profits they did make on home video and PPV buys were lost thanks to the WWE Studios experiment.

Average attendance per event is 4,100. Ratings remained flat, which they seemed happy with. He also noted that PPV numbers were down.

Nothing to add here other than what the hell do you expect?

Vince stated that they are in a good place as far as the WWE Network goes, and that they expect expenditures between $4-6 million for construction, staffing and such. He also said that they should have a big announcement for the network soon.

Hopefully that announcement is cancellation of the plans after reviewing these numbers.

They noted they were down in TV revenue due to their choice not to place NXT and Superstars with partners domestically. They explained that this was a “strategic decision for the long term good of the brand.”

…Choice? What choice did they have? The networks cancelled the shows for poor performance!

Magazine sales continued to drop.

…As the Sandwich said.

WWE Films profits declined $5.5 million from this time last year due to lower video sales and theatrical grosses

No surprise whatsoever.

Q&A:

It was brought up that things picked up creatively in the build to Money in the Bank and then settled back down. Vince stated that he did not understand what they were asking, and that they still have buzz around the brand and will continue to build on that. Vince says they have been doing this for 50-years and that he is very optimistic.

OKAY STOP EVERYTHING. You mean to tell me you didn’t notice a difference from July to November? When everybody was talking about CM Punk and people were genuinely interested in what was going on? Vince McMahon may have been doing this for decades but if you can’t tell when people are excited and when people are apathetic about a product that’s a sign it might be time to hand over control to somebody else. The problem is Vince doesn’t think there is anything wrong with the creative side because he has FULL CONTROL over everything and vetoes anything he doesn’t like, and nobody is able to tell him differently.

They were asked about their talent pool, and noted that they have over 100 talents under contract. When asked if there was another “Rock” on the horizon, he stated that 99-100% of their FCW roster could be the next Rock. There was audible laughing on the call at that point.

This is further proof of a massively out of touch McMahon who has no clue that most of those guys will never get so far as to be worthy of jobbing to The Rock on PPV. The WWE has built NO NEW MAINSTREAM CROSSOVER STARS since The Rock, as John Cena has failed in his movies and RAW ratings. This is the first time in thirty years there are no mainstream stars whatsoever from the current generation.

Ultimately, these two points just go to what all of us here have been saying for a long time: There is a problem, and as you know you have to acknowledge there is a problem before it can be fixed. As long as McMahon continues to be happily unaware of the apathy and even scorn of his product, he will never change it and we’ll never get those must-see events we did for years. Bottom line, if McMahon is checking out somebody has to check in and get things under control or we’ll be seeing WWE hit the skids over the next few years.

Results from Impact Matches:
1. Crimson defeated The Pope with the Red Sky. *
2. Garrett Bischoff defeated Gunner via DQ when Flair interfered. DUD
3. Jesse Sorensen defeated Zema Ion with the Reign of Terror neckbreaker **
4. Knockouts Tag Titles: Gail Kim and Madison Rayne retained over Mickie James and Velvet Sky when Gail pinned Velvet after an Eat Defeat. **1/4
5. Ronnie and Eric Young beat Robbie E and Robbie T after Ronnie splashed Robbie E *1/2
6. AJ Styles defeated Christopher Daniels with the Styles Clash ***1/4
7. Mr. Anderson, Jeff Hardy, and Abyss defeated Immortal when Abyss pinned Scott Steiner after the Black Hole Slam. ***
8. TNA World Championship: Robert Roode retained over James Storm by rolling up an unconscious Storm for the pinfall. N/R

Best Booking Decision of the Show: Letting AJ and Daniels have some time

Worst Booking Decision of the Show: Putting the Robbies as opponents to a non-wrestler and a comedy wrestler

Leading up into Turning Point, everything got some sort of time on the broadcast. We saw Roode and Storm continuing their rivalry and AJ Styles winning a very good match to earn a title shot in Storm’s place while he recuperates. Crimson continues his winning ways and showed Morgan he can take you out at any time in a match. Gail Kim scored a pinfall on Velvet to show her she can beat her in the ring, while Sorensen, Kid Kash, and Austin Aries made their three-way dance official after Sorensen’s latest victory. By the way, the reason I call his finisher the Reign of Terror is because Luther Reigns used that particular move by that name in the WWE years ago. Unlike a Cross Rhodes/Roll of the Dice, you turn the opponent away from you when you drop backwards rather than roll into them. Mexican America and Ink Inc got into a brawl backstage, and Daniels was stopped from using a screwdriver by RVD to add more fuel to their fire at Turning Point since that distraction basically cost him the match. Of course, Sunday that weapon is completely legal.

Two three-star matches tonight, which was pretty damn good. The bad part would be Garrett Bischoff and Gunner basically having a non-match that was just a couple of moves and then Garrett running out to win the match when Flair attacked, and the main event which was also just a storyline using a short match to accomplish a point. The Bischoff situation will likely mean Sting starts humiliating Bischoff considerably although I still think Garrett will betray Sting and Dixie Carter during an important match. Roode/Storm was not rated because it was basically just an injured Storm getting a few shots in, collapsing, and then getting rolled up after the doctor was called to put over Roode being a complete asshole. The segments did their job, however. AJ/Daniels and the six-man tag were good enough to carry the entire show on their own.

Next week, the fallout from Turning Point will dominate Impact! Who will be the world heavyweight champion? Will Daniels get revenge on Van Dam? Did Gail Kim walk out with two titles? What role, if any, will the Bischoffs play in the event? Tune in next week as always to find out!

The Good, The Bad, and The… WTF?

The Good

“Another good sammich.

A few thoughts:

1. On the Smackdown ratings front, I never understood the recent boost. Mark Henry is a solid monster but not top draw material, the wrestling is better than Raw but character wise inconsistent. Plus there’s the commentary, good god are Cole and Booker horrifying. And to think people used to think Don West was bad. I’d happily take a solo broadcast with Don West over SD’s team any day of the week.

I actually tried to see what all the hype was about because I don’t watch Smackdown or any WWE programming since about the beginning of August but I tried a youtube episode of the first super Smackdown but turned it off after 5 minutes as it featured a crap Cena promo.

2. Mania Direction:

At this point I almost don’t even care about Cena-Rock. I’d prefer a bait and switch with Cena-Taker and you give Rock to Punk and put Austin in there as a guest ref.

Although a Cena heel turn could work, if he were to turn on the people and say they’re not supportive enough. He works so hard for them, yet the Rock abandons them and yet the Rock get’s the heroes welcome. Even bring Vince into it by referencing his Rock ass kissing video from Rock Raw.

3. Internet lies:

Meltzer is full of crap, I remember Disco Inferno back when he was working for TNA as an agent saying he works for the company and he didn’t even know the buyrate info so how could Meltzer. BTW, how about Disco Inferno for a superstar highlight.

Less PPV’s a good idea:

Good call with less PPV’s Wes, I mean back when money was flush you could get a way with monthly PPV’s from multiple companies or in TNA’s original Nashville days even Weekly but money is tighter than ever maybe go back to the 4 big shows a year for all involved. It may not only help out the main company itself but the business in general with more money available maybe those hardcore fans would give TNA a second look on PPV and see usually TNA puts on the better monthly show.

Lastly looking forward to next week’s column with the WWE report, the one part of the conference with Vince that really bothered me was when someone out and out asking about the lack of buzz since the summer when they dropped the ball on Punk and Vince pretending not to understand the question and saying they still had a buzz. What a liar!

A nice contrast could be posting your thoughts on Dixie Carter’s recent Q & A on TNA’s website.

Take care Wes, Kirk Nation Stand Up!

Posted By: Mister Mike (Guest) on November 05, 2011 at 12:40 AM”

Mike, always good to have you writing in!

Smackdown’s ratings went up because of the recent intermingling between brands, which gives a short-term boost in ratings. If they kept RAW and Smackdown rosters separate, then advertised them coming together for “one night only” you would notice the rating for that show rise and probably stay up somewhat for a week or two afterward. The problem is by combining the rosters every Monday, the “new” effect of seeing all the guys on the weekly show will wear off what boost it gave them. Smackdown has had a few crossovers and they seem to have boosted the ratings but as time goes on, it is back to business as usual. Listening to Cole and Booker is one of the reasons I turn on Fringe at 9 pm because I can only take so much! Plus, Walter’s one hilarious character if you are familiar with the show.

Actually I did think of a Cena heel turn scenario. Remember that top 50 WWE Superstars DVD that came out a while ago? Cena was ranked pretty poorly in there as number 16. My idea would involve Cena not turning heel because fans boo him, but because the company he busted his ass for turns around and gives the older generations the top billing over him and won’t even say he’s top 10 material. It could start with The Rock getting inducted in the HOF and mocking Cena about his place in the DVD, followed up by legends stopping by and snubbing Cena for the older wrestlers or the hottest new guy like Zack Ryder, and eventually Cena snaps and turns on the top face of the company at the time leaving them in a bloody mess which would be allowed just for this turn. Easy money right there with replays of the incident and his interview explaining why he did it. Or it could not involve The Rock since frankly he’s almost never around to begin with.

Meltzer seems like a very reliable source but he also said MITB was going to hit over 250k, didn’t he? And it was 195k. If he was wrong by that much on a WWE PPV and it is a public company where buyrates are public knowledge I don’t take anything he says about TNA to heart in terms of finances and buyrates. I seem to recall him raising a stink about TNA losing a fortune and on the edge of going out of business…in 2009.

I think dropping to 10-12 PPV’s would be an excellent idea right now, for both companies. Drop the price by $10-$20 for the smaller events, $10-$15 for the big ones, and in the time in between have a special live RAW or Impact with a few PPV quality matches like Impact did last year to replace Hardcore Justice when it turned into the Philly Regional Bingo Hall Exposition.

I don’t think Vince was pretending anything at all: That’s the scary part! He really has no clue why anybody would want to see people like Steve Austin and CM Punk fight against him and his family and badmouth them to hell. Yet, when it happens their careers skyrocketed and merchandise went through the roof. As a lifelong millionaire, Vince doesn’t understand the audience is comprised of a lot of people who want to see the “evil rich guy” get his, because they are pissed off they can’t be rich themselves. I know this because of all the people who hate me for being successful and rich when they can’t manage a lemonade stand, never mind a checkbook. As far as Dixie goes, sounds like a good idea for next week or the week after, perhaps. Disco Inferno will probably someday be in the Old School section but right now I’m focusing on 1980’s wrestlers, in time the 90’s will sadly become “old” as well.

“Totally agree that the Roode booking makes perfect sense. He got screwed out of his rematch. Storm should have taken the higher ground and supported his partner by declining the shot. He was selfish. Makes sense to me. Only gripe I have is that I would’ve liked to see them go at it a few times first. Maybe a TV time limit draw once or twice while Roode is “heeling” it up more and more. Then finally goes full-on heel by using the bottle for the win. But I prefer the slow burn (and I’m not talking about the kind of burn Cook gets when urinating).

Honestly, I’d have to say that last week was a good week of Wrestling TV. I enjoyed Raw, Impact, and SD last week. I’d like to have more weeks like that.

And love Punk all you want but he can’t rock that shirt like Jack Burton can. I wonder if Jericho will call him out for ripping off Kurt Russel to?

Posted By: The Big Fat F*g (Guest) on November 07, 2011 at 11:01 AM”

Larry always discusses how the best heels believe they are doing the right thing with their actions, and Roode is definitely believing what he did was the right thing for himself and his family. As far as it goes, Roode and Storm will likely have some good matches and possibly even a legitimate five-star classic, depending how well things go and if Storm will be cleared to wrestle in the near future after his concussion. It would have been cool to have more build but at this point, I dig how they decided to do it. If you remember, cameras focused for a while on that look on Roode’s face when Angle cheated and won so it was somewhat foreshadowing what was to come.

Aw, taking a shot at my former 411 pro? Right out of the book he taught me, so go ahead! Steve, in all seriousness, will be back later this year for our Best Of edition of the Sandwich.

Jericho, sadly, is becoming bitter and hating the fact that “his moves” and “his phrases” were being used over the past five years. I didn’t see Ultimo Dragon bitching about the “Lionsault” or British Bulldog going after him for a delayed vertical suplex. In wrestling things get recycled all the time although that doesn’t mean it is right, but Jericho needs to just relax. And as far as it goes, don’t worry about that because if Jack Burton doesn’t like what CM Punk did, Jack Burton will go and kick his ass himself. That’s a man who took out a 3,000 year old Chinese demon and his entire army! Poor Lo Pan, his one desire fulfilled was his undoing.

“Thank you for putting up that great video of Gail Kim. She is one of my favorite wrestlers.

Posted By: The Fuj (Guest) on November 07, 2011 at 09:07 AM”

Anytime Fuj. I will try and find more highlight videos featuring in-ring and on location photo shoots and spotlighted maneuvers for our Babe to Watch segment in the future!

“A question to end my comment, since you love to call anybody who is a WWE fan even if they know they have problems an “Etard”, should we call you a “TNAtard”?

What a stupid comment. Wes is just calling out the bias of the internet wrestling dweebs/dorks just like calling out the obvious bias of the liberal media. Typical internet dweeb wrestling fan. Wes Kirk is the man and deserves the proper respect. I look forward to this column every saturday and really enjoy it. keep up the good work!

Posted By: guest (Guest) on November 05, 2011 at 12:33 PM”

Thank you very much, and yes I do call out the bias of most WWE fans. And anybody who thinks the mainstream media isn’t biased need to go buy a clue.

The Bad

“The column was good this week but there is a small mistake I have to point out because you would do the same if someone made this typje of mistake with TNA

“Remember that rumor about MITB hitting a higher than last year buyrate and then it turned out it was false and the show did worse?”

“Money In The Bank rose from 165,000 to 195,000 in July”

Both of these quotes came from this week’s column.

Posted By: gpjunk (Guest) on November 05, 2011 at 02:38 AM”

Ah, actually that was intended just as it was written gpjunk. When the initial estimates came out, MITB was rumored to be over 250k in buyrates and all of that was attributed to CM Punk and Cena feuding. The actual buyrate number ended up as you can see fewer than 200k, although it was higher than last year. The “show did worse” part was meant to reflect a comparison to the original estimate and I should have clarified that, my apologies. It is because of these “estimates” that are often vastly wrong that I prefer not to take any comments about TNA’s BFG PPV seriously unless they can be backed up with solid proof.

“You’re calling Layla an “ugly dog”?

Dude, I know what you look like. You’d be lucky to even get the late Bertha Faye to give you a second glance.

Posted By: SRTMD (Guest) on November 05, 2011 at 09:44 AM”

No, you don’t. I have no Facebook, no Twitter, and none of that social media crap. Anybody on there who claims to be me is just a fake, what else is new? I’m not dumb enough to post personal info or my picture on the Internet! And I can say all I want about Layla, remember the end of Diva Search 2006? She looked like an aging crack whore with an electric shock frizzy hairstyle and couldn’t even pronounce “Diva” correctly. Jen England was the right call and to the Sandwich still is the right woman for the job.

“Are you not the same guy who in an earlier column who dissed people for complaining about ppv prices, as you make so much money. Why the change?

Posted By: Guest#3939 (Guest) on November 06, 2011 at 08:48 AM”

It’s November, and therefore the holiday season is upon us and I happen to be kinder to people during the holidays because they only come once a year. Yes, I can afford the events just fine but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand that GOOD BUSINESS comes from listening to people who have issues with the price in our current economic hell. As somebody who does good business, it would be the right thing to cut a few events and drop the price as a gesture of goodwill towards their loyal fans. And being the holiday season, I’m inclined to be a bit nicer anyway as a conservative who enters the holiday season not with anger and disgust over the showing of faith and celebration, but with happiness and fond nostalgia. And if they try and tell me I can’t call it a Christmas tree, I’ll shove that CHRISTMAS TREE right up their stuck up ass!

“I’ll admit I only read this column just to see Wes Kirk spew his pro-TNA/anti-WWE viewpoints. But I felt that this week I just had to comment on some of the things that he talks about. First, the WWE ratings from this past week. While I’ll admit that the ratings that the WWE is getting aren’t great for RAW, a cable channel like USA has to be happy to get numbers that high. I mean they may not be great and they may not have been as great as they were 10-15 years ago but the WWE doesn’t really have a legitimate competition that they fear on a week-to-week basis. I know as a TNA mark this must upset you to hear this but it’s true. The only time that WWE has ever taken TNA seriously is when TNA decided to move to Mondays and we saw how well that all worked out.

Secondly, you mention the tapings schedule for this week. While it is not great that RAW and Smackdown will be taped this week in the UK, and this may hurt the ratings slightly there’s nothing that the WWE can do about it. Now I do get where you’re coming from on how Smackdown being taped hurts it ratings but I would argue the fact that they are on Friday nights hurts the WWE more. I believe that Smackdown would be better served being on Thursday nights as they previously were because even with the show being taped you will still have people that will want to watch it and will not have as many things pulling people away as they potentially would on Friday nights.

My final comment will be on the WWE quarterly numbers that came out this week. Now while some will have the Chicken Little like belief that the sky is falling, with the WWE it isn’t. Look, I’ll agree that they’re clearly down in some areas (like PPV buy rates, the film division, etc.), and deservingly so, but they are still making a profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars and are in better shape than TNA. We can criticize the WWE product all we want (and a lot of us do) but people will still pay for WWE PPVs, tickets to live events, and different merchandise. And besides, if you wanna look at which company is in worse shape look at the attendance numbers and PPV buy rates between the WWE and TNA since let’s say April. Now while WWE has been down in terms of PPV buys and attendance numbers I’m sure it’s nowhere near as bad as TNA even with the given that TNA will do shows in smaller arenas than the WWE.

Posted By: The Hodge (Guest) on November 05, 2011 at 01:46 AM”

Hodge, honestly your comment isn’t “bad” but I don’t have anywhere else to put it. Anyway…

USA is probably not all that pleased as the number thrown around often as the “advertiser minimum” is either 2.7 or 2.8, in which advertisers are promised at least that particular rating every week. Several times this year, WWE has dropped under that number. WWE is basically only a few decimals of a point away from being unable to meet their advertiser’s minimum rating needs and that would drastically change the deals they have in place. Yeah, TNA can’t compete in the US with WWE at this time but they only ran against them last year to figure out how much of a dent they can put in WWE’s ratings. At this point, obviously TNA should aim to match and exceed Smackdown ratings first.

Friday night is home to a lot more than WWE, such as one of my favorite shows Fringe that isn’t the highest rated show of the night but it does decently enough to have four seasons and I believe a fifth on the way. The reason Smackdown was moved to Friday nights was because their original network wasn’t happy with the numbers Thursday Smackdown was drawing and they put it on Friday. SyFy simply picked it up and WWE already had been talking about Friday nights and Smackdown being related so they kept it on. Ratings haven’t been as high since the move, if you’ve seen the graph from Talking Points.

Actually they aren’t making a profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Hodge. Revenue isn’t the same as profit, as all the money that WWE makes must be subjected to various taxes, investments, depreciations, and amortization. EBITDA, or Earnings Before Interest, Taxation, Depreciation, and Amortization is the acronym for a formula that figures out a company’s gross revenue before all of those things. Right now, the land WWE paid for in Connecticut is worth considerably less than it was years ago due to the real estate market being in the dumps and with land actually dropping in value the capital gains value will drop as well. Imagine owning a $10 million dollar building that drops to $7 million, for example. That’s 30% loss in your investment, is it not? Accumulated depreciation in their property, plant, and equipment weighs in at $94 million dollars currently according to CNBC Financials section on the WWE stock, up from 2010 Q3, which had only $86.7 million dollars in depreciation. WWE’s biggest losers as pointed out in the last two financial analysis columns were WWE Studios, magazine sales, and oddly enough WWE Classics On Demand, which bodes badly for the WWE Network since this “network” prototype is losing customers every quarter and it costs LESS than the WWE Network will a month. TNA actually might surprise you given that they are now going to other cities and probably getting paid for the tickets they sell there for attendance, and to be clear I think TNA should ALWAYS charge for tickets and not give them away free.

The actual amount of net income (profit) the WWE has made in the last three months? $10.5 million dollars out of $108.5 million in sales and revenue. Don’t kid yourself my friend, they are feeling the recession!

“Anybody care to explain to me how “Wes Kirk” all of the sudden got SO popular that his name is brought up in the comments in almost EVERY wrestling related post? He just seems like a guy with an opinion, get over it IWC and just don’t give him the clicks! He’s obviously one of the many “we need a real man cough*REPUBLICAN* cough” type guy who is just butt hurt that Obama won the 08 election and will win it again in ’12…. To bad, so sad, suck a dick Wes Kirk!

Posted By: Guest#0602 (Guest) on November 05, 2011 at 11:59 AM”

I can explain! The fact is, since your Pseudo-President got in the White House people began realizing what I have said for years: All those Ivy League degrees and ideas don’t account for shit in the real world and people began looking to actual BUSINESS LEADERS to solve the problems in a business world. So people now like to listen up to those who know what they are talking about. I’m proud to be one of the 46% that voted for McCain because we have had the first right to laugh at all the rest of you for your choice every time the next scandal breaks or cabinet member resigns in disgrace. We told you! The reason people bring me up is because the Etards hate me, the TNAtion loves me, and regardless of either they know I’m going to shoot facts behind every opinion. What are your facts that Obama will win re-election after Karl Rove showed those horrible statistics regarding Obama? 43% approval, over 70% of the public thinking America is going in the wrong direction, consumer confidence index under 61, etc etc. In 2012, Obama is going one place and one place only and it is the one place he wanted to go: VACATION! Except it’ll be permanent! I wasn’t butt hurt as I always make money off the belief that you can never go broke underestimating the stupidity of the human race. Your comment proves that more than anything.

The WTF

“Only 35 comments? Looks like people are growing bored of Wes’s shitty fake troll gimmick.

Posted By: Guest#3422 (Guest) on November 06, 2011 at 10:45 AM”

…Did you fail math? Look again idiot.

Sforcina has the answers, all you need to do is Ask 411 Wrestling and he will hook you up.

Check out Steve Cook posting pictures of various scantily clad wrestling babes in News From Cook’s Cornerand try not to drool on the keyboard.

Greg DeMarco doesn’t need a link considering he has the top news report on 411 but visit him anyway by checking out The Wrestling 5&1 because I told you so.

I was going to link to Randle but he’s off spending all his more valuable Canadian dollars down here so I’ll link to him next week and to his substitute this week in the Substitute Wrestling News Experience

That pretty much ends things here for the Sandwich. If writing, remember to include 411 in the e-mail subject or else it goes in the junk pile and when you do decide to write or leave comments try your absolute best not to be gormless when writing! I’ll let you Google that and figure it out yourself. See you next week when the Sandwich resumes the normal issues again! Oh, and one final thing: