Happy New Year to everyone! Hopefully, everyone was safe & had no run ins with law enforcement this season....
WWE finished up 2010 with a series of house shows in the Baltimore/DC area, events that were, based on reports, rather underattended, with a estimated 5,000 people in Baltimore this past Wednesday night.
Due to the injury to John Cena, that is apparently a "day to day" situation in regards to a return date, his place in the main event was taken by BIg Show, who upended Wade Barrett in the Steel Cage finale.
There are strengths & weaknesses to presenting wrestling as a Circus of the Stars or Ice Capades type presentation; the strength is you draw your crowds off of your brand name, without needing to focus too strongly on the personalities involved; the weakness is, without focusing on the talent or the current direction of tv, people are less inclined to believe that the local card is something they just can't afford to miss.
The nature of tv is alot different in 2011 than in 1981. For instance: 30 years ago,all the shows were distributed in syndication, in some cases to small stations ( easy definition: tv time bought from a local station, with advertising revenues during that time going directly to the station ; sometimes, a percentage of the local event revenue went to the station as well)
Localized interviews, plugging the upcoming card, and its matches, were a staple during this era; while the exact same show would be broadcast in all the markets, every town would not get the exact same live event. As such, getting "over" what 1) happened last card,when applicable & 2) what was gonna take place on the upcoming card, where of utmost importance.
References to local happenings & culture always enhanced these interviews; I remember Captain Lou Albano,Freddie Blassie, Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan, Etc making reference to various area tv stars & so on during their promo time- it gave you the idea they knew all of the goings-on, and in my opinion, made you believe you just couldn't miss wrestling when it came back to town.
I particularly remember Piper doing an entire interview based around the recently departed Baltimore Colts, which was a real hot button issue in this area for years ( and remained that way until the Ravens moved to Baltimore, which gave it quite the shelf life)
A Clip from "last time" was a frequently used tactic, that likely helped the house; In the aforementioned interview, Piper knocked Baltimore,the Colts,Etc then went to a clip where The Rowdy One assaulted Junkyard Dog during a live Pipers Pit, which was the set up for their one on one battle at the Arena (then Baltimore Civic Center)
These days, with the product almost exclusively on cable, its considerably harder to plug local events, other than a quick commercial consideration- certainly, theres almost no value to plugging a match in Washington,DC to an audience watching nationwide, unless it s a PPV event.....
Another big miss for me is that, even when you see tv commercials or event posters, no actual matches are mentioned! Why? You can use the "things change" excuse, but thats always been the case- I was taught that the term "card subject to change" covers any unforseen events ( injury,travel issues,etc)
Fast forward to last week: I wasn't even aware WWE was running the area until about a week before! This would have been a no brainer Xmas gift for the kids; the last time WWE ran the week after Xmas back in '07, I bought the kids tickets ( just like I did this year for TNA in Hagerstown later this month) & went- its a great gift for a family that loves wrestling.....And a do recall a small push on local tv for 2 big matches that night....and not surprisingly, they building was packed- 11,000 strong to see Edge vs. Batista & a super heavyweight tag team tilt that featured Big Daddy V & The Great Khali vs. Kane & The Undertaker!
If John Cena is truly the biggest star in WWE, how could the live gate NOT be helped by advertising him locally in a STEEL CAGE match of all things, against Wade Barrett, whom his been his principal advesary since the summer?! Instead, the Circus formula was used....to mediorce results.
Now, I'm not implying that every event that happened in the past was a guaranteed sellout- but at least every measure was taken to insure that the building drew at much as possible, given the direction & the stars involved,local promotion,stronger interviews,etc.- which I don't feel they do today.
Obviously, based on the sparse attendence, I wasn't the only person who was unaware of the card....perhaps running on a Wednesday hampered them ( I'm not so sure).....perhaps its the overall direction...in any event, WWE certainly came up a bit short this past week in what was has been a traditionally strong wrestling market- & localized promos wouldn't have save them for sure, but I can't see how that, with overall better presentation of the product, it would not have helped.
As always, your questions & comments are always welcome! Please chime in!
Maybe more later....until then
SSS
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