Welcome to another edition of the pro wrestling post where he cover some business headlines from the world of pro wrestling.
WWE and “Deadliest Catch” team up for show premiere
The Discovery Channel’s “The Deadliest Catch” and the WWE have teamed up where WWE stars are promoting the show’s premiere. The debut promo occurred during the Wrestlemania PPV two weeks ago.
According to a Discovery Channel press release, “We could have just bought an ad, but to have an opportunity to bring these two brands together and really engage the fans with our content was really important to us,” said Discovery’s Chief Marketing Officer David Shackley.
Running through mid-April for the 100th episode of the popular Discovery show, WWE will post exclusive videos with WWE Superstars and Divas promoting Deadliest Catch, homepage takeovers, Facebook alerts from WWE talent and live events presence.
Payout Take: An interesting partner for the reality show although it’s likely that the demos crossover a bit.
Tito Ortiz to the WWE?
Cageside Seats via an interview with MMA Heat’s Karyn Bryant states that the Huntington Beach Bad Boy may be thinking of a run in the WWE after his MMA finale with Forrest Griffin this summer. As most know, Ortiz changed his nickname to “The People’s Champ.” Not sure if paperwork was actually filed to do this although I’m sure he consulted with Sean Combs aka Puff Daddy aka Diddy (j/k).
Payout Take: Ortiz actually participated as a ref with the TNA organization in 2005 so a run in pro wrestling is not out of the question. He definitely would have the persona and attitude for sports entertainment.
WWE Raw ratings drop slightly despite Lesnar’s second appearance
PW Torch reports that the April 9th edition of Raw ratings dropped by 10 percent as it received a 3.1 rating down from the preceding week’s 3.4. It averaged 4.29 million viewers for Lesnar’s second appearance back with the WWE as opposed to 5 million for the April 2nd edition of Raw.
Payout Take: Television by Numbers reports that Raw was second to “Pawn Stars” for highest rated cable show for April 9th. The WWE announcers promoted (and Lesnar used in his promo) his UFC background. He also delivered a real blow to John Cena which busted Cena’s face (not sure if it was scripted or not). Wonder if the transition from real to fake may actually be hard to do?
Wrestlemania 28 buy rate
The Wrestling Observer reports that the initial buy rate for the WWE’s biggest show of the year scored 1.1 million buys which is off from the ambitious prediction of 1.9 million. Last year, WM 27 scored 1,059,000 buys with the Rock playing a minor role at the show.
Payout Take: This could be seen as disappointing considering the year long build-up for The Rock vs. Cena matchup. It will be interesting to see what the WWE does with the build-up for Lesnar in the main event in New Jersey next year. Already, the WWE will have Lesnar in the arena more than The Rock which should help.
Hall arrested again
For those that watched the E:60 piece on Scott Hall late last year, you would think that he was trying to turn around his life of addiction. Looks like it has not. Hall was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence. TMZ reports that he had been “drinking for days.”
Payout Take: No real take hear except the fact that it’s a sad look at the many issues with pro wrestlers. Most of us grew up watching Razor Ramon and to see him deteriorate right before our eyes is depressing.
For a lot of the noobs out there. Tito actually was close to leaving MMA years ago. BUt in the end decided not to claiming he looked into it and didnt want to work 300 days a year and the toll it takes on the body. But Tito is an attention whore who has tried to get out of fighting for a long time now. So since he cant fight im sure he will do everything he can to get into wrestling.
How the hell do people report 2 mill buys when in reality it only did 1.1 mill buys for the WWE PPV?
800k buys off, wow talk about pathetic.
And those buys are shit, it did what it did last year despite the Rock being in a major role and a year long buildup.
Its now being reported that WM did 1.3 million buys according to Chiappeta.
“Tito is an attention whore”
Uh, no. He’s a guy trying to make money in entertainment. If he can get a good contract from the WWE, ESPN, the UFC or wherever then good for him. To suggest that he does it just for the attention misses the point entirely. He draws the attention so he can monetize it. So far he’s been better than average at it.
It’s possible 1.1M and 1.3M are both correct. Meltzer usually just gives the numbers for North America, and the WWE numbers could incorporate other markets, hence the extra 200k.
Chris,
The 1.9 million was just an optomistic estimate, not a reported number after the fact.
I guess the 2 million was purported by an ESPN employee. Anything involving both ESPN and sports business numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.