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Welcome back to MR. TITO STRIKES BACK exclusively here at LordsofPain.net / WrestlingHeadlines.com. For the past 2-3 years, I feel like I've been on a crusade... WWE has tried and tried to push the wrestlers that *they* personally like and that has gone against the grain of what the fans have wanted. I have been one of the lone voices to have consistently speak out against those ridiculous pushes and there are days like this where vindication tastes so good... The Monday Night RAW ratings for May 29th, 2017 are in... 8pm Hour: 2,689,000 9pm Hour: 2,681,000 10pm Hour: 2,468,000 OUCH. And don't give me the "Memorial Day" excuse. Sorry, but most people work on the Tuesday following Memorial Day. Everybody is home by 8pm. Secondly, the ONLY competition is the NHL Playoffs. And is that really competition? Half of its games will be on NBC Sports Network... Seriously, the championship of a sports league is on Cable TV and this isn't ESPN we're talking about. This is "second banana" sports channel NBCSN. But for this edition of RAW, it was headlined by none other than Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins in the MAIN EVENT. Since the Shield broke up on June 1st, 2014 following the WWE Payback 2014 Pay Per View, the WWE has dumped loads of resources into the pushes of Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. And what has happened ever since? RAW went from consistently around 4.0 million viewers to now being below 3.0 million with an average of 2.5 million being a real threat. Loss of 1 million viewers. For ALL of the resources dumped into both of the singles careers for Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, what does the WWE have to show for it? Well, 200,000 fewer viewers from 9pm to 10pm on this week's edition of RAW. Rollins vs. Reigns, if they were both legitimate draws, should cause a ratings BOOM and not a BUST. This is a complete and utter indictment of both wrestlers not being top drawing Main Event caliber wrestlers. Fine midcarders, they could be, but headlining a wrestling promotion? Viewership is down and if you think that's just cord-cutting, then why is arena attendance down since 2014? RAW and Smackdown production crews are moving that entrance closer and closer to the ring while Houseshow attendance is looking rough. NUMBERS... DON'T... LIE. And don't be blaming this on Alexa Bliss's "This is Your Life" segment for Bayley. The FACT is that RAW was already well under 3.0 million viewers by he time that segment started. Not even Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor vs. Bray Wyatt could draw. That's another big Pay Per View like match! I actually applied scientific testing towards Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins in my October 16th, 2016 edition of "Mr. Tito Strikes Back". What I simply did was take the RAW ratings, dummy variables to indicate whether they were champion or not ("0" for not, "1" for champion), and applied them in a multiple regression model that was fully tested for errors, serial correlation, multicollinearity, etc. My main purpose of the column was to test how various wrestlers draw RAW ratings when they were World Champion. Roman and Seth were found to have statistically significant results of reducing RAW's ratings as World Champions. Here's what I wrote: ---------- Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns have the worst results of any wrestler from my model based on their 2015-2016 numbers. According to my model, just having Seth Rollins as WWE Champion can subtract 0.7 ratings points off RAW while Roman Reigns, GET THIS, could potentially subtract almost 1.0 points from RAW's rating if current trends held!!! 1.0! ---------- If you can do a better job at statistically testing the numbers, be my guest. The FACT remains that Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins during 10pm drew LESS THAN 2.5 million viewers for May 29th, 2017. Despite all of the time, energy, resources, and many wrestlers depushed... Roman & Rollins have shown NO growth for the business. They just don't have it. It's time to deconstruct the characters of Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins or depush them. It's over... The WWE has run their characters into the ground and tried to make both into stars. It has failed... Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn loved Roman based on his "look" while Seth Rollins has always been a favorite of Triple H/Stephanie. They've picked the WRONG guys... And think about this... At Wrestlemania 33, Seth Rollins defeated Triple H while Roman Reigns beat the Undertaker. ALL TIME LEGENDS. Yet, where is their momentum after Wrestlemania? Where is it? Beating the Undertaker at Wrestlemania is a BIG DEAL and Roman is only one of two wrestlers to accomplish such a feat. Better yet, he retired the Undertaker. Who cares? Nobody has cared about Roman since the day the singles MEGA PUSH officially began when he beat CM Punk on a fateful January day during 2014. Rollins is a good in-ring worker, but his character is confusing and inconsistent. Monday Night RAW is in deep, deep trouble... Summer is going to keep limping along and when the NFL rolls around again during the fall, we could go lower. Yikes! In my opinion, RAW has two "quick" fixes to cause some temporary interest in the product: (1) Sign Brock Lesnar to more dates. They need his star power, badly, as a Main Eventer. and/or (2) Reunite the Shield as a babyface stable. On the latter point, I've argued that the Shield should have been reunited for a while (I argued that it was a mistake to break them up when it happened!). Despite the WWE having Dean lose many high profile singles match-ups between 2014-2016, the guy still gets a good babyface reaction. Together, they have a BRAND NAME to market and under the Shield banner, it can greatly help with the reactions of Roman and Seth. I know, you're sick of me saying "reunite the Shield" as much as you've heard me preach "Ohio Valley Wrestling Class of 2002"... Based on the numerical facts presented above, you cannot deny that Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins are in trouble as Main Eventers. Headlining RAW with under 2.5 million viewers... Roman and Seth NEED HELP as does Dean Ambrose whom the Creative Team is confused how to use. It's great advice, folks... #ReuniteTheShield But... We're unlikely to be changing course. Reportedly, Vince McMahon has "Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar" at Wrestlemania 34 for Lesnar's possible send-off when his 3 year deal expires. ===================================================== Mr. Tito's PHAT WWE EXTREME RULES 2017 PREDICTIONS "If you'll excuse me as I plaster on a fake smile and plow through this crap one more time" -Bill Hicks What I just LOVE about the WWE Extreme Rules Pay Per View is the ridiculous fact that "HEY, IT'S JUNE... WE MUST WRESTLE EXTREME MATCHES!" Nobody says that! Just like nobody says "hey, it's October... Let's wrestle Hell in a Cell matches!" or better yet, "hey, it's December, let's wrestle TLC matches". Nobody should say that... Any no disqualification, cage, or TLC match should be spontaneous and only done to settle the score of a wrestling feud that a normal match couldn't resolve. But no, because the WWE Creative Team is EXTREMELY LAZY (see what I did there?), they rely on Pay Per View gimmicks to book matches a specific way. Like any wrestler wants to work dangerous bouts... Where's the psychology in that? ------------------- Mixed Tag: Rich Swann/Sasha Banks vs. Noam Dar/Alicia Fox Hulu's edits must be blocking me or this is appearing on 205 Live... Either way, no real opinion on this feud, nothing to add. WHO SHOULD WIN / WHO WILL WIN: Rich Swann & Sasha Banks ------------------- Women's Title: Alexa Bliss (c) vs. Bayley Talk about a BAD feud... Bayley has not been effective on the WWE main roster while Alexa Bliss seems a little out of place on RAW. Seems like Alexa has been getting the better of the feud but I also think that the WWE wants Nia Jax to begin to dominate. Nia Jax is not going to defeat Alexa but she will beat a babyface instead... Bayley wins and then immediately feuds with Nia. And why not? WHO SHOULD WIN: Alexa Bliss. WHO WILL WIN: Bayley ------------------- Tag Titles: Hardy Boyz vs. Sheamus/Cesaro We're on a rematch here... But I'll tell ya, the Hardys are over upon their return. What has hurt the RAW brand for the past year was a lackluster Tag Team division. With the Hardys back and hitting on all cylinders as champions, I could see the WWE keeping the titles on them for a while for maybe a rising team like the Revival to take the titles instead. In my opinion, the WWE needs Cesaro and Sheamus as singles wrestlers than tag. WHO SHOULD WIN / WHO WILL WIN: Hardy Boyz ------------------- Cruiserweight Title: Neville (c) vs. Austin Aries Third time is the charm... WHO SHOULD WIN/WHO WILL WIN: Austin Aries ------------------- Intercontinental Title: Dean Ambrose(c) vs. the Miz This IC Title feud feels so inferior because of how poorly both wrestlers have been used since the "Superstar Shake-Up". It's as if they've feuded on another brand recently over this title... Oh, they have? The fact that the WWE moved both wrestlers from another brand only to have them again is sad. Honestly, I don't know where the WWE is going with either wrestler... On one hand, Dean seems to be in the Creative doghouse while Miz has returned ot his midcard role. WHO SHOULD WIN: Dean Ambrose WHO WILL WIN: The Miz ------------------- Fatal 5-Way for #1 Contendership: Seth Rollins vs. Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor vs. Bray Wyatt I believe that you can rule out Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and Bray Wyatt. Bray Wyatt's WWE Title reign, though brief, was a disaster as was his feud with Randy Orton after they broke up. While the WWE production staff needs to own some of that blame, Bray will get the blame. Roman isn't wrestling Lesnar yet as that might wait until SummerSlam and/or Wrestlemania 34. Seth Rollins has had multiple chances against Brock Lesnar. I believe that the WWE wants to feed something new to Lesnar. They could get a high profile physical match-up between Joe and Brock, almost a dream like match... OR they could get Finn Balor bumping hard for Lesnar which could be a spectacle. With Joe running into some good health lately, they'll run with him. WHO SHOULD WIN / WHO WILL WIN: Samoa Joe SO JUST CHILL... 'TIL THE NEXT EPISODE! Comments and feedback are welcome. Follow and Tweet me @titowrestling or login in below to post comments. © Mr. Tito and LordsofPain.net/WrestlingHeadlines.com - 1998-2017
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