The Wrestling Observer Yearbook '97: The Last Time WWF Was Number Two

by Dave Meltzer

  With any system, there are flaws. The two key ones right now are the 9 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. quarter hour on Nitro. With the start of the NFL and the start of Raw, you are almost guaranteed to drop at least a few rating points. The other key position is on Raw, during that unpredictable period somewhere between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. when Nitro finally goes off the air. In theory, Raw should pick up viewers during that quarter, although as we’ve discussed, the reality is that isn’t always the case, but in theory that should be a good period for Raw. Aside from that, this system is pretty well fair and fool-proof.

  Wrestlers in the first quarter hour, since the show is just starting and there is no plus or minus to figure from, aren’t figured into the equation, although the pattern right now for both shows has been to start the show with interviews with the biggest stars.

  And before getting into anymore analysis, we’ll just present the data as it exists. The only names listed are those who since the start of September, have contributed to at least a .5 plus or minus rating. Wrestlers who aren’t listed, and these are the majority, are basically ones that over the course of between 9/1 and 10/13 (the 10/20 shows aren’t included in these numbers) have really made no ratings difference.

  The Big Winners

  +16 - Disco Inferno (wcw)

  +14 - Roddy Piper (wcw)

  +12 - Chris Jericho (wcw)

  +9 - Steve Austin (wwf), Alex Wright (wcw)

  +8 - Syxx (wcw)

  +7 - Hugh Morrus (wcw), Mortis (wcw)

  +6 - Ric Flair (wcw), Bill Goldberg (wcw),

  Brian Pillman (wwf), Vader (wwf)

  +5 - Rey Misterio Jr. (wcw), Legion of Doom (wwf),

  Steve Regal (wcw), Max Mini (wwf)

  The Big Losers

  -25 - Scott Hall (wcw)

  -18 - Head Bangers (wwf)

  -12 - Jeff Jarrett (wcw), Steiners (wcw), Steve McMichael (wcw)

  -9 - Curt Hennig (wcw), Konnan (wcw), Ultimo Dragon (wcw)

  -8 - The Godwinns (wwf)

  -7 - Hector Garza (wwf)

  -6 - Lex Luger (wcw), Scott Norton (wcw),

  Los Boricuas (wwf), Raven (wcw)

  -5 - Stevie Richards (wcw), Randy Savage (wcw),

  Bret Hart (wwf), Ahmed Johnson (wwf)

  Just looking over the list, the very first impression is that for the most part, it shows that it isn’t the personalities that draw the ratings, it’s the television show itself, the promotion and the positioning. Keep that in mind not only when it comes to television ratings, but crowd reactions, and really every aspect of this business. How “over” and to what degree is more a matter of positioning than any sort of ability either in the ring or on the mic. If someone is put in the same “group” as the stars and positioned as a star, they become a star, even if they don’t draw, flop in their role, or whatever. Once they are positioned to that point, most people to a degree, take it like they are on that level.

  This should weaken a lot of leverage of a lot of wrestlers when it comes to contract negotiations because of what they mean to the ratings, when in fact, as individuals, for the most part (the exception being the short-term boost when a guy like a Roddy Piper, or potentially an Ultimate Warrior that were major stars that disappear for a few months and come back) they mean very little. Bret Hart’s numbers were negative. Shawn Michaels was only a +2. Hulk Hogan was a +4. Sting was a -1, although based on the last six months since WCW used to do those phenomenal final quarters, I’m sure his numbers would have been as impressive as anyone’s up until the last month or two, and that probably does say something about how they’ve crossed the boundary of going too long with his angle to where it is beginning to erode in interest.

  Scott Hall’s numbers speak for themselves. Now to a point, based on a different type of positioning (he’s done a lot of matches in the 9 p.m. quarter), Hall has simply been the wrong guy at the wrong time. Although the fact is that out of his eight quarters where he has been the focal point, six of them saw the ratings drop from the previous quarter and not all of them can be explained by simply being at the 9 p.m. quarter because some were in more advantageous time slots. And no matter where they’ve been placed in the show, the ratings have increased significantly ever time Disco Inferno has done a match and every time but once that Roddy Piper has appeared on television on this run.

  The single most overlooked aspect of Raw vs. Nitro is if you ask people “on the street” so to speak. Raw seems more popular among the so-called hardcores and Internet types, but those are also largely the teenage and early 20s males that don’t make up the bulk of the television audience. Nitro’s dominant position has from the start been because of attracting a new audience that hadn’t been watching WWF wrestling on Monday nights, largely late 20s and older, which is where the bulk of the population fits. That audience grew up with Hulk Hogan, Roddy Piper, Randy Savage, Ric Flair and the rest, and no doubt that’s a big part of it. But I can also say the main response when I’ve been to places where people ask me about wrestling and bring up the two shows, that 80% of the time people say they watch Nitro ahead of Raw, usually more out of habit than what is on either show, and the first reason they’ll bring up is the most simple reason that nobody has been able to grasp but I hear it every time.

  The wrestling on Raw is so slow, or its corollary, the wrestlers on Nitro are so much better. For all the desperation tactics Raw throws out, how many times it trots out Steve Austin, how many interviews Shawn Michaels does, it’s biggest weakness is the pace of its matches and its excitement level of those matches to the audience in comparison to its competition.

  And speaking of ratings, 10/20 was another record setter for both WCW Nitro and pro wrestling in general.

  Nitro drew its largest audience ever for an opposed show, doing a 4.54 (4.65 first hour; 4.47 second hour) rating and 6.98 share, breaking the competitive record of a 4.34 set for the 8/4 Nitro from Auburn Hills, MI with the Hulk Hogan vs. Lex Luger main event. On 8/25 and 9/1, with Raw preempted, Nitro both weeks drew a larger audience than this past week at 4.97 and 4.73 respectively (the former with no football competition, the latter against the NFL Monday season opener). Even more impressive is the record was set with competition during the second hour from Monday Night Football, even though the game drew only a 12.0 rating as opposed to the usual 15-16 level, which was probably a contributing factor in the Nitro record rating. In addition, the Nitro replay drew a near record 2.24 rating (the record is 2.31 also set for the 8/4 show) and 4.69 share.

  With Raw drawing a healthy 2.96 (2.88 first hour; 3.05 second hour) rating and 4.59 share, it means that the combined ratings for the six head-to-head segments was a 7.39 and a 11.03 share or a total audience watching both shows of 5,398,000 homes. This breaks the record combined audience at 7.11 (which was an 11.86 share since fewer people are watching television as a whole on a Monday night in August as opposed to October) and 5,065,000 homes also set on 8/4.

  In a counter-programming move, the USA network and WWF have scheduled a Survivor Series flashback show on 10/28, airing both at 8 p.m. and again at 11 p.m. Eastern time, the same two starting times as the TNT produced “Escape from Devil’s Island” premiere movie starring Hulk Hogan and Carl Weathers. The flashback show is being heavily pushed as the night of 100 stars, including Hogan, Savage, Flair, Hennig, Diesel, Razor, and other WCW names featured prominently in the ad, which will be headlined by a match from November 28, 1991 where Undertaker pinned Hogan to win the WWF title.

  WWF drew a tremendous 3.8 rating when they did the same type of a special before SummerSlam and should be favored to win a rare wrestling ratings victory against the TNT movie debut. Bischoff in particular showed that the USA network’s counter-programming got to him as he made three television references to Vince McMahon being scared of Hogan’s movie during the 10/20 Nitro show.

  44 – Supercard Summary

  WWF Royal Rumble

  After some worries going in, the World Wrestling Federation ended up drawing the second largest paid
attendance in the history of pro wrestling in the United States for its Royal Rumble PPV show on 1/19 at the Alamo Dome in San Antonio.

  While the show fell short of the 71,000 mark bandied about in all the pre-match publicity, the total in the building was 60,525 fans (it was announced on the PPV show as 60,477 but a later compilation revealed the slightly higher number), with 48,014 paying $480,013, all figures topping even optimistic company expectations a few days before the show. In the final few days they sold 20,000 tickets, mainly at $5 and $7 with discount coupons from Taco Bell that according to locals were being picked up as fast as they were printed.

  The only larger paid attendance for a show in the United States was the famous Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant match on March 29, 1987 at the Pontiac Silverdome which drew approximately 78,000 fans legitimately and about 75,800 paid. The WWF has also topped the 48,000 paid mark (actually topped the 64,000 paid mark) on at least three other occasions outside the United States, two events in Canada (Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff and Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior in Toronto) and one in England (Warrior vs. Randy Savage and Bret Hart vs. Davey Boy Smith double main event at London’s Wembley Stadium).

  The 1992 WrestleMania at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis with a Hulk Hogan vs. Sid and Ric Flair vs. Savage double main event drew 62,167 fans, which was slightly more than the Alamo Dome show, but the paid attendance was less as that show was substantially papered. Tickets were scaled much higher at the Hoosier Dome and the gate was nearly triple the Alamo Dome gate.

  The large attendance was fueled by numerous fans getting in as cheap late walk-up buys, which wasn’t the case at similar attended shows around the world (bottom price at the New Japan Tokyo Dome shows now is $50 although for years it was $30, while even in 1987 the bottom price at the Silverdome was $9). The actual gate wasn’t even in the top echelon even for the United States and actually trailed live gates that several major offices routinely do for major indoor arena shows.

  The gate still broke the all-time Texas state record set on May 6, 1984 for the Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich title change at Texas Stadium that drew 32,123 fans (previous state record attendance) and $402,000. Considering how much money was spent in advertising on those two respective shows, this was a long way from being the most profitable house show ever in Texas. By any account, the paid and total crowd were huge successes for the WWF, which by all accounts did perhaps its best job ever when it comes to local promotion of a show.

  The attendance was the story of the show and the saving of the show, which saw Shawn Michaels capture the WWF title from Sid in the main event and Steve Austin win the Royal Rumble in a late swerve. Those at Titan believed too many fans knew the original plan of Bret Hart winning and were concerned, perhaps overly so, that Vic Venum (Vince Russo) had “given it away” (he predicted it ala a Mark Madden gimmick where he knows a planned finish and then predicts it to get himself over) to make himself look smart on their own Live Wire television in the early days of the promotion of this show (Venum later came back the next week after getting heat and said nobody could predict a winner of a bout like a Royal Rumble).

  It was the classic case of reactive booking instead of pro-active booking. The problem with reactive booking means those who are supposed to be in control are no longer in control and they are reacting to forces rather than creating and controlling the forces. This is not meant as a knock on it because if the end result is still Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart at WrestleMania, the long-term battle plan has changed along the way but has the same ultimate destination.

  The change in Rumble plans changed the four corners match on the 2/16 Chattanooga PPV from having the supposed top four in the WWF—Sid, Shawn Michaels, Austin and Bret Hart, to the final four in the Rumble—Bret Hart, Austin, Vader and Undertaker with the title shot at Michaels at WrestleMania being at stake to the winner.

  From a match quality standpoint, this wasn’t a good show. The Rumble match was a one-man show with nobody else even making a dent. Michaels, bothered by the flu, had his worst PPV match in several years, although in his home town with a crowd that had come largely to see only one match, it came off well as a spectacle and to many hid the workrate. Sid may also have not been at 100% due to having an auto accident nine days earlier—although he had worked three house show dates in the interim—as he did almost nothing.

  The crowd shots and generally strong production were the highlights of a show that contained average to fair wrestling. The booking was way below par as only one match, a Mexican trios match that nobody cared about, had a finish that didn’t involve either a referee screw-up or outside interference.

  I enjoyed the show based on the atmosphere, because the size of the crowd and the heat and emotion in the title match is something that even the best matches on the biggest shows of the year can’t duplicate. But if any two other wrestlers in front of that crowd, or those two wrestlers in front of any other crowd, or for that matter any other two wrestlers in front of any other crowd, had move-for-move the same match, it would be a one-star match and people would be vehement about how awful a world title change match it was.

  A few other show notes:

  Vince McMahon repeatedly called the crowd “capacity” even after they gave the number during the show at 60,477 and they had been hyping 71,000 for two months.

  After several years, they finally got Jim Ross in the black cowboy hat as a full-time gimmick. Ross was fired a few years back by WWF for among other things, an interview in Pro Wrestling Torch newsletter and because he wouldn’t agree to be portrayed as “Good ol’ J.R.” wearing a black cowboy hat.

  Legendary Montreal wrestler Jacques Rougeau Jr., the father of Raymond, (WWF promoter) Jo Ann and (WCW wrestler) Jacques Jr. did the French language broadcast with his son Ray.

  They had an ad during the show for the Sugar Ray Leonard-Hector Camacho fight which Vince McMahon and Titan Sports are promoting on PPV in March. Expect a lot more hype for that fight as weeks go on.

  The second consecutive last minute “surprise” on a WWF PPV show turned out to be a dud, as the late entrant in the Royal Rumble turned out to be Jerry Lawler, who had been advertised all along in print but never on TV.

  From live reports, the show was generally panned by those there. Reports were that fans leaving the building were happy because the home town wrestler won the title but not happy with the show as a whole.

  Although the crowd in attendance was heavily Mexican and many spoke only Spanish, it appeared almost nobody knew or cared about any of the AAA wrestlers although reports were that the wrestlers in the two dark matches blew everyone else on the show away when it came to performance.

  This show was heavily promoted in all the Mexican wrestling magazines

  The local San Antonio Express News, which was one of the sponsors of the show, ran several stories leading up to the event and ran the next-day coverage of the event with a large color photo on the front page. As far as I’m concerned, no matter what someone may think of pro wrestling, any time an entertainment event can come to a city the size of San Antonio and draw 60,000 people, it should be front page news.

  WCW/NWO Souled Out

  You may call it the night that the NWO gimmick was fully exposed. Maybe it’ll even go down as a turning point in an ever changing wrestling war at the very worst. At best, it was one real bad night, lucky if only for the fact that one bad show doesn’t change the face of wrestling and that the majority of the television viewing wrestling fans don’t order PPV and thus didn’t see it. Problem is, most of the television viewing wrestling fans who actually spend money on pro wrestling, thus basically keep the wrestling economy going, do order PPV events.

  NWO Souled Out—what came off to outsiders as the brainchild of someone intoxicated by his own success to the point of all perspective being lost—was the single worst PPV show in the history of pro wrestling. There have been shows where the quality of the matches were worse, although this would be a bad show by that criterion. There have bee
n shows with less heat and worse atmosphere, although this would be a bad show by those criteria as well. But there has never been a show with such poor announcing and outside wrestling skits, and combined with the bad wrestling, lack of heat and bad atmosphere made it the night the Baltimore Bash and the Philadelphia Halloween Havoc were no longer thought of as the bottom of the PPV barrel.

  It was like WCW copied the worst aspects of the first two weeks of Shotgun Saturday Night, and then tried to go even farther to the point it looked like a bar show put on by a person whose brain was so fried by acid that only they knew what world they were in and it had only a semblance of resemblance to the pro wrestling show they were attempting to put together. It was even more amazing coming from a company that was on its biggest roll in its history and is loaded when it comes to talent depth, neither of which were apparent.

  The only signs of the success of WCW were the sellout at the Five Seasons Center in Cedar Rapids, IA of 5,120 paying $68,209 who largely felt as ripped off as those at home did that spent $27.95 on this mess. And it will likely turn out to be a fairly significant buy rate for the show since NWO was the in thing in wrestling.

  This show, based on crowd reactions, in that an NWO show in a sea of NWO t-shirts saw the NWO wrestlers get booed, or in many cases, ignored in nearly every match sans Scott Hall & Kevin Nash’s tag team match. While the name NWO is over, the NWO name can’t get anyone over. The NWO’s popularity is Hall & Nash. Hogan, trying to play heel and rogue babyface at the same time, is still both a big drawing card based on his past and an obnoxious bore based on his present. The rest of the guys are guys who weren’t over, dressed up with the same cool t-shirts as those in the crowd, but still couldn’t get over. While Hall & Nash can get away with the teenage lingo or just about anything else in their late 30s because when you’re over you can almost do no wrong, both Eric Bischoff and especially Ted DiBiase come off as pitiful trying to act like teenagers in the parking lot during class breaks while in their 40s. Sweet? Not!