January 10, 2025 • 26 mins
New Year... No Gimmicks. Let's discuss the Netflix debut of Monday Night Raw. Did it live up to the hype? What does the numbers say about wrestling's fanbase globally? Let's break this down. But first, we gotta address the elephant in the room...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Woman (00:02):
We are the DFPN. Always question the answers.
Blak Makk (00:58):
What is up, everybody? Welcome back to the
no gimmicks podcast here on theDFPN. New year. Welcome to 2025.
New show.
Welcome to the new show. Beforewe get into that, if you read
the description, if you paidattention to what we're posting,
(01:20):
we have to address another thingin the room. So, normally, when
we do a show, it's myself and mycohost, the fabulous one, Frank
Dee. Frank decided to take ahiatus from podcasting. So going
forward, the show will be justme.
(01:43):
You'll begin just me, but haveno fear. I have decided to
reformat the show. It probablywould help if I had my mic
close-up on me. But, yeah, we mymy cohost, the fabulous one,
Frankie d, he is he is going tobe taking a hiatus. What's
(02:08):
number love, man?
It's it's number love. I hopeyou come back to the show. But
if not, man, it's been real.Again, number love. Take your
time.
Do what you gotta do. And thedoor is always open, my brother.
You know what I mean? So withthat being said, we we did
(02:28):
format the show a littledifferently now, since it is
gonna be a one man show for thetime being. We will be having
some guests on, you know,hopefully, some reoccurring
guests.
We'll have those guys on andtalking some stuff. One of my
big things that we're gonna bedoing for the year is diving
(02:52):
back into the indies because itwas something it was kind of a
passion project for me, that Ikinda got away from is
interviewing the indie talentand starting up the ground
floor, working my way up. If youguys really do follow me on all
social media platforms, I don'twanna plug myself. I'm so
terrible about I'm terribleabout that. But if you follow
(03:15):
me, I did an interview withHardee's over at BCP Plus.
Shout out to BCP Plus for beingso gracious and, handing me that
opportunity. But I ended upinterviewing them, and that kind
of reinvigorated my love for,you know, just interviewing and
going back to the ground floor,looking at some of these guys
(03:37):
that we've had on the showbefore because they've grown. I
wanna I wanna reconnect to thoseguys and repump that, back in
that bloodline, that that notbloodline, but that lifeline
that we had back into the show.I thought we were on to
something there, and the love isstill there from the community.
(03:57):
Shout out to Metropolexwrestling, MPX.
We did test a couple things outover the Christmas holiday, and
I liked it. So we're gonna begoing back to that. And on top
of everything else that we'vedone, you'll be we'll we'll be
sticking strictly into the worldof wrestling for a minute
because I want there's so muchhappening that I have to talk
(04:20):
about it. So we'll talk aboutit. And that's gonna lead me
into the show, man.
Welcome. We got a good one foryou tonight. What I wanted to
do, we had 2 big debuts. We hadthe debut of AEW on Max, which
they haven't come out and saidnumbers yet. So once they do,
(04:41):
we'll break those down too.
But we did have another debut.Netflix, WWE Monday night Raw is
now it's it's home is officiallyon Netflix. Big debut. Lot of
action. Lot of people talkingabout it.
Let's break this down. Let'sbreak down the numbers. Let's
get into the show. Welcome tothe, you know, gimmicks. Again,
(05:03):
we don't keep it a 100% real,baby, a 100% of the time.
So with that being said, let'sdive in. Alright. So we get we
get the Netflix debut. They cameout and they dropped the numbers
(05:26):
on Thursday, January 9th.4,900,000 people globally.
2.6 average within the US. Let'sbreak down what these numbers
mean. Now 4,900,000 peopleglobally is a great number,
especially if you're with WWE.We're not used to seeing these
(05:47):
numbers anymore. Right?
Globally, we're we're not usedto seeing any numbers, but
4,900,000, we're going back tothe attitude error with these
numbers. Right? Or or so youwould think. But if you look at
this in the grand scheme ofthings, what really threw me off
is they threw the US numbers. Ifthey would have stuck with
(06:08):
4,900,000 globally, I probablywouldn't be looking at this any
other way than the success.
But this speaks to where we areas wrestling fans. It really
does. 4,900,000 globally out of287, sorry, 287,000,000 people,
(06:29):
that is a discrepancy. That's 1%of the total subscriber rate for
Netflix. But, again, it's juststarting.
4,900,000 people is a strongnumber. Even Netflix said that
this is a strong number forthem. Do they expect this to
(06:49):
increase or decrease? 1, we'llwe'll know next week. Right?
Because one thing's for sure,two things for certain. It's
gonna come on next week. Thosenumbers have to get reported
again. What I would have likedbefore we dive into where we are
as a fan base, what I would haveliked personally is them not
(07:10):
reporting it. If you look atwhat AEW's done and you you can
make up your own speculation ifit was gonna be good, if it was
gonna be bad, if it was gonna beindifferent.
They haven't reported thosenumbers. Right? They reported
the television numbers. TheNielsen rating came out, and it
was a little bit higher thanwhere they normally would
(07:32):
function. Right?
So there's an increase on thetelevision side, but the numbers
on Max have not really beenrewarded yet. And so if you look
at this number and compare it towhat I'm about to say about WWE
and what people like EricBischoff have come out and said,
Nielsen rating should not beapplying to the Netflix rating.
(07:57):
So you kinda have to get rid ofthis archaic ancient kind of
format. Because if you put intothe fact that Nielsen accounted
for 2,500,000, sorry, 2.5 perpeople for household, then those
numbers grow exponentially ifyou try to multiply them with
(08:20):
what you're seeing on Netflix.So 2.5 people per household, is
that going to account for a asubscription?
No. It doesn't. Because rulenumber 1, right, and this is
just how I look at it. Rulenumber 1 is you can't count 2.5
people per account when you canobviously make multiple accounts
(08:44):
on a Netflix account. Right?
So you can within that oneaccount, you can have about 6
subaccounts because mom has 1,dad has 1. If you have 3 kids,
they each have 1. That's atleast 5 accounts. So if
anybody's watching raw on thoseaccounts, should that number
really count, or are we going tothe overall? These are some of
the questions that I have.
(09:05):
And Nielsen's not tracking thisstuff because they're not
tracking the streaming numbers.Who's reporting that? The
company. And if you're gonnatake the company at their word,
then you have to take intoaccount that they they looked at
all these accounts. Who'swatching Monday Night Raw on
these accounts?
And is it trust? Is it the trustsystem? Right? They're they're
(09:28):
impressed with it, so theyreported it. If that's the trust
system, alright, these numbersare the numbers.
We don't have to refute them.You can bump them up. Again, you
can you can boost them. Youcannot. Right?
But you gotta take the companyat its word. They reported
4,900,000 globally. They have287,000,000 subscribers. And in
(09:50):
that, you have a possibility forlet's multiply that number times
5. Right?
So 287,000,000 times 5 is ashitload of accounts possible.
Right? There's no way that all287,000,000 accounts are just
one person. That's that's that'sludicrous because I, myself,
(10:11):
have me, my wife, and my kids.So you have the account for that
some way.
So if my kid who doesn't evenlive here is watching Monday
Night Raw, which he did at hishouse, right, then does my
account track his number? That'sthat's the big question. Sorry.
(10:32):
This may sound confusing ifyou're look if if you're
listening. This may sound reallyconfusing.
But that just goes to say, whatare we actually tracking? And
4,900,000 people globally, thisis where my concern may lie.
Right? So the wrestling fan baseis very divided in America, and
(10:58):
we'll take that US number,2,600,000, which people have
tried to boost it already andsay that's at least 6,000,000.
No.
It's 2,600,000. The companyreported it. You have to go with
that. You can't boost it. Youcan't say anything else other
than 2,600,000.
Right? And then that 2,600,000,that's only that's only maybe
(11:21):
double what they did normallyfor 2024. So they average about
1.2 in 2024. So on this Netflixdebut, it only doubled your
audience. When in the UnitedStates, you know there's a lot
of people with Netflix accounts.
(11:41):
Are people just not tuning in?Did they forget that it was
gonna be on Netflix, which ishighly it's it's likely, but
it's also highly not likelybecause it's impossible to even
log on Netflix and not see it.If you have a Netflix account,
they've put this thing on thefront row. They did a lot of
hype for it. I'm probably gonnaget a lot of shit for this one,
(12:01):
but it it's fine.
But that that's what I'm saying.It's like, you did a lot of
hype. 2,600,000 in America, itdoubled your audience. Yes.
That's great.
But you also doubled that forwhen The Rock came back. You
know what I mean? Like, you hadyou had a 2 point mil you had
2,000,000 viewers when The Rockcame back. He was doing this
(12:24):
whole thing, building himself upto WrestleMania. And 2,600,000
is kind of it's kind of a lownumber in the grand scheme of
things, but that lets you knowwhere we are as a fan base.
The wrestling fan base hasshrunk. It has. It just has. And
(12:46):
we're further dividing ourselvesby this AEW, WWE thing. I wrote
an article about this a longtime ago that I never published
because I it was just it was toomuch.
But looking at these numbers,the American audience is petty,
and it's not as big as peoplethink. There is no win in just
(13:10):
2,600,000 viewers. When JakePaul and Mike Tyson globally has
60,000,000, they made it aspectacle. Right? And that's
where that's where it comesfrom.
The NFL did big numbers. Theweek before, they did big
numbers, which kudos to them.I'll I'll jump into the
(13:35):
production side of of WWE onNetflix. It was wonderful. No
buffering issues.
Stream was crispy the wholetime. They they did a whole
bunch of good things with thiswith this production. It was not
a bad show. But where thenumbers don't indicate if going
(13:58):
into the show, what I would havesaid about Monday Night Raw is
anything less than 5,000,000people globally, I would have
counted that as a failure. I'mI'm leaning away from that now
because 4.6 is like you can it'sthere.
(14:22):
The numbers are there for you tobuild on. Definitely. Is it a
great number? Not really. Butyou have something that you can
build on.
Now out of that 4,600,000, who'sgonna go in back and tell
someone to watch Monday NightRaw? That's the that's the
indicator. And that's what I'msaying. Like, next week is gonna
(14:44):
be really, really big for them.So we're we're building up to
the Royal Rumble.
We're getting ready to ramp upto WrestleMania season. You
threw a lot at this debut inwhich that's another issue. You
threw so much at us. It has somany celebrities. What's gonna
(15:08):
happen when those celebritiesare not there?
Right? What's gonna happen whenyou don't have a rock? Cena's
back, but is he gonna be backevery week? Hogan, we're we're
not gonna talk about Hogan. Weare not gonna talk about Hogan.
Yeah. Undertaker there. The onlyperson really you didn't have
(15:28):
there that added so much historyto Monday Night Raw was the one
you could've replaced him withHulk Hogan. Right? You could've
replaced Stone Cold Steve Austinfor Hogan.
You know? So it's it's apples toapples, the conversation, but,
again, these types of things aregonna affect. Am I gonna tune in
(15:50):
for the nostalgia? Did I getenough out of this debut for me
to wanna tune in? And that'sreally up to the people that
watch because you had 3 hours oftelevision, and you have 4
matches and a lot of fluffaround it.
Right? Am I going to tune in?You have PLE level matches, but
(16:13):
is that going to be enough forme to tune in next week? You
have punk versus Rollins, arivalry match in which
Centimeters Punk came outvictorious. I don't know if I
woulda did that on thatparticular show.
Why? Because it makes it seemlike the feud is over. If I
(16:33):
wanted someone to tune in nextweek, then I need a cliffhanger
for the show. There were thingsthere were things that I would
have done differently. Iwould've I would've put some
history in there, but, also, Ineed to build towards the
future.
And we had tribal combat. We hadRoman Reigns. They brought all
(16:56):
of their big guns to the show.But it also reminded me of what
AEW was like back in the day.They threw all of their big guns
into the show.
And I remember someone sayingthis is a marathon. It's not a
sprint. Well, we kinda sprintedout the gate Monday night. Now
(17:22):
there's something in place thatthey've built on. They they can
continue forward.
They can keep our interest with.That is very much probably the
case. They probably ended a lotof stuff so they can build some
new stuff. Right? But was thisenough for people to want to
(17:43):
come back?
That is going to be the bigquestion. I keep saying that,
but it's the absolute truth.What is going to be the outcome
of this week? And that, ladiesand gentlemen, is your WWE news.
Now before we get out of here,I'm gonna try not to keep you
guys long, especially on this onthis first run.
(18:08):
But let's get into AEW. We gotsome things we need to talk
about there too. One second.Alright. AW.
(18:30):
They also kinda sprinted out thegate with theirs. They they what
they did, I liked for their Maxdebut. They brought stories.
They left me on cliffhangers.They also announced that Kenny
Omega was gonna be coming back.
We had a pay per view, was inthat led us out of, that that
(18:51):
show led us out of as the maxdebut. We have people returning
that were gonna be a part ofthis show. I think for all
intents and purposes, they arestarting already to build
towards July in Arlington,Texas. I do think that. But one
(19:12):
thing that got announced todayhas me really concerned of where
we are gonna be in 2025.
Looks like we're gonna startlosing people in 2025 because
what they announced to or whatit wasn't really them that
announced it. Sean Ross Sapp ofFight For announced that Malachi
Black's contract may have beenup. And we've seen on dynamite
(19:35):
that, Buddy Matthews wrestledWill Osprey. Will Osprey won.
And then they went to this wholepromo about if you need a guy,
you don't need Malachi Blackleading you guys.
You guys could be tag teamchampions. Blah blah blah. It
looks like we're gonna be inthat year where they're gonna be
(19:56):
losing people. Now we knowMalachi Black is is really a WWE
guy. We know that.
But who else in dub in AEW isgonna be walking out the door?
Right? And we've I talked aboutthis on a on a earlier podcast.
What do we do with the peoplethat are in AEW and they are
(20:21):
unhappy? You gotta let theseguys go, and that's being nice.
You can't keep these guys on theroster. And if they're unhappy,
if they're not being productive,like, this should be the year
that contracts get get, you knownot I don't wanna say
(20:44):
terminated, but, you know, it ityou get an amical in on both
sides to contracts. You justhave to because you're building
up to all in. You you prettymuch have an I or should. You
should have an idea of what allin is gonna look like, who you
(21:04):
want to be in those events, andyou should start building
towards that.
Just like WWE is buildingtowards WrestleMania.
WrestleMania is in April.They're building toward they've
been building towards us sincesurvivor series. You gotta start
putting these blocks in in aplace and taking people on the
ride. You know?
(21:26):
It it needs to be it needs to betransparent, and I don't I don't
feel like it it has been. Andthat piece of news just let me
know, like, you know, it's 2025is probably gonna be a year to
where we lose a couple people.Malachi Black's won. We may lose
(21:50):
Britt Baker. Who knows?
There's a there's a bunch ofpeople that, you know, may be on
they may be on their way out.Ricky Starks. If they come to an
a a conclusion. We already knowthat Pence is gonna make his
debut. He didn't make his debut,last week, due to time
(22:11):
constraints on the show, whichthat is insane, but we know he's
there.
We know that his tag teampartner should be on his way out
later this year. Right? So weshould be approaching some of
these these endings,particularly with the people
that are unhappy and theyhaven't been doing anything
(22:34):
with. And I hope that continuesto be the case. I know Tony
doesn't wanna be that type ofguy, but if there's any year
that you need to start doingthat, it's this year.
You just renewed a TV rightsdeal. You are building towards
something that you haven't donebefore, which is a stadium show
(22:55):
in the United States. You needto start building goodwill with
the fans in the United States.The way you do that is give them
the best show as possible, andyou cut out the outside noise.
Doing these moves, it may stinga little bit at first, but it
(23:15):
will in the in the end, it'llcut out a lot of the outside
noise because people people arefickle.
Let's just face it. They'llthey're fickle. They'll get over
it. They will get over it. But,you know, it's it's gonna be
(23:36):
interesting.
We're gonna be in interestingtimes because both companies are
figuring out the streamingthing. Max is building up their
library for AEW, which is it'sgonna be a very interesting year
for both companies to see wherewe are. And I, for 1, plan on
sticking around and, you know,seeing what the fuss is about.
(24:01):
Oh, man. But before we get outof here, I mentioned that we're
gonna be working with theIndies.
I am going to be working moreclosely with Metroplex
Wrestling. Shout out to them andall of their wrestlers, and
shout out to the brand new MPXchampion. Kari Jai Wright. He
won it again. I'm gonna try toget him back on the show.
(24:23):
Let's go over some things thatwe may have missed along the
way, because we've been busy.We've been busy. But on the
network side of things, and thisis gonna be your final shots and
thoughts, ladies and gentlemen.On the network side of things,
we are ramping back up for 2025.The smoke pit's coming back.
(24:45):
We're gonna be recording soon,and those episodes will be
dropping again. This episodewill be on the No Chemics
YouTube. So please like andsubscribe to at no gimmicks d f
p n on youtube,youtube.com/atnotegimmicksd f p
(25:06):
n. The podcast episodes in audioform will be on, YouTube as
well. Also on the website, thiswill be on the website.
So tap in, tune in, guys. We gotwe got so much coming this year.
I am ready to get back to work.I'm ready to get, back in, into
(25:28):
shape, if you will, inpodcasting shape. So tune in.
Thank you guys for listening.Thank you guys for liking. Thank
you guys for subscribing. Untilnext time. You guys be peaceful,
and enjoy what you wanna enjoy.
My guy ain't here, so I'm a haveto say it for you. Go get your
(25:48):
pet spayed and neutered. It'swintertime. We got a big winter
storm. Take care of your dogs.
Take care of your cats. Takecare of your animals. If you're
not, please have your dog spayedor neutered and get them
somewhere where they can becared for properly. Until next
time, guys. Peace.
We are the DFPN. Always question the answers.
Blak Makk (00:58):
What is up, everybody? Welcome back to the
no gimmicks podcast here on theDFPN. New year. Welcome to 2025.
New show.
Welcome to the new show. Beforewe get into that, if you read
the description, if you paidattention to what we're posting,
(01:20):
we have to address another thingin the room. So, normally, when
we do a show, it's myself and mycohost, the fabulous one, Frank
Dee. Frank decided to take ahiatus from podcasting. So going
forward, the show will be justme.
(01:43):
You'll begin just me, but haveno fear. I have decided to
reformat the show. It probablywould help if I had my mic
close-up on me. But, yeah, we mymy cohost, the fabulous one,
Frankie d, he is he is going tobe taking a hiatus. What's
(02:08):
number love, man?
It's it's number love. I hopeyou come back to the show. But
if not, man, it's been real.Again, number love. Take your
time.
Do what you gotta do. And thedoor is always open, my brother.
You know what I mean? So withthat being said, we we did
(02:28):
format the show a littledifferently now, since it is
gonna be a one man show for thetime being. We will be having
some guests on, you know,hopefully, some reoccurring
guests.
We'll have those guys on andtalking some stuff. One of my
big things that we're gonna bedoing for the year is diving
(02:52):
back into the indies because itwas something it was kind of a
passion project for me, that Ikinda got away from is
interviewing the indie talentand starting up the ground
floor, working my way up. If youguys really do follow me on all
social media platforms, I don'twanna plug myself. I'm so
terrible about I'm terribleabout that. But if you follow
(03:15):
me, I did an interview withHardee's over at BCP Plus.
Shout out to BCP Plus for beingso gracious and, handing me that
opportunity. But I ended upinterviewing them, and that kind
of reinvigorated my love for,you know, just interviewing and
going back to the ground floor,looking at some of these guys
(03:37):
that we've had on the showbefore because they've grown. I
wanna I wanna reconnect to thoseguys and repump that, back in
that bloodline, that that notbloodline, but that lifeline
that we had back into the show.I thought we were on to
something there, and the love isstill there from the community.
(03:57):
Shout out to Metropolexwrestling, MPX.
We did test a couple things outover the Christmas holiday, and
I liked it. So we're gonna begoing back to that. And on top
of everything else that we'vedone, you'll be we'll we'll be
sticking strictly into the worldof wrestling for a minute
because I want there's so muchhappening that I have to talk
(04:20):
about it. So we'll talk aboutit. And that's gonna lead me
into the show, man.
Welcome. We got a good one foryou tonight. What I wanted to
do, we had 2 big debuts. We hadthe debut of AEW on Max, which
they haven't come out and saidnumbers yet. So once they do,
(04:41):
we'll break those down too.
But we did have another debut.Netflix, WWE Monday night Raw is
now it's it's home is officiallyon Netflix. Big debut. Lot of
action. Lot of people talkingabout it.
Let's break this down. Let'sbreak down the numbers. Let's
get into the show. Welcome tothe, you know, gimmicks. Again,
(05:03):
we don't keep it a 100% real,baby, a 100% of the time.
So with that being said, let'sdive in. Alright. So we get we
get the Netflix debut. They cameout and they dropped the numbers
(05:26):
on Thursday, January 9th.4,900,000 people globally.
2.6 average within the US. Let'sbreak down what these numbers
mean. Now 4,900,000 peopleglobally is a great number,
especially if you're with WWE.We're not used to seeing these
(05:47):
numbers anymore. Right?
Globally, we're we're not usedto seeing any numbers, but
4,900,000, we're going back tothe attitude error with these
numbers. Right? Or or so youwould think. But if you look at
this in the grand scheme ofthings, what really threw me off
is they threw the US numbers. Ifthey would have stuck with
(06:08):
4,900,000 globally, I probablywouldn't be looking at this any
other way than the success.
But this speaks to where we areas wrestling fans. It really
does. 4,900,000 globally out of287, sorry, 287,000,000 people,
(06:29):
that is a discrepancy. That's 1%of the total subscriber rate for
Netflix. But, again, it's juststarting.
4,900,000 people is a strongnumber. Even Netflix said that
this is a strong number forthem. Do they expect this to
(06:49):
increase or decrease? 1, we'llwe'll know next week. Right?
Because one thing's for sure,two things for certain. It's
gonna come on next week. Thosenumbers have to get reported
again. What I would have likedbefore we dive into where we are
as a fan base, what I would haveliked personally is them not
(07:10):
reporting it. If you look atwhat AEW's done and you you can
make up your own speculation ifit was gonna be good, if it was
gonna be bad, if it was gonna beindifferent.
They haven't reported thosenumbers. Right? They reported
the television numbers. TheNielsen rating came out, and it
was a little bit higher thanwhere they normally would
(07:32):
function. Right?
So there's an increase on thetelevision side, but the numbers
on Max have not really beenrewarded yet. And so if you look
at this number and compare it towhat I'm about to say about WWE
and what people like EricBischoff have come out and said,
Nielsen rating should not beapplying to the Netflix rating.
(07:57):
So you kinda have to get rid ofthis archaic ancient kind of
format. Because if you put intothe fact that Nielsen accounted
for 2,500,000, sorry, 2.5 perpeople for household, then those
numbers grow exponentially ifyou try to multiply them with
(08:20):
what you're seeing on Netflix.So 2.5 people per household, is
that going to account for a asubscription?
No. It doesn't. Because rulenumber 1, right, and this is
just how I look at it. Rulenumber 1 is you can't count 2.5
people per account when you canobviously make multiple accounts
(08:44):
on a Netflix account. Right?
So you can within that oneaccount, you can have about 6
subaccounts because mom has 1,dad has 1. If you have 3 kids,
they each have 1. That's atleast 5 accounts. So if
anybody's watching raw on thoseaccounts, should that number
really count, or are we going tothe overall? These are some of
the questions that I have.
(09:05):
And Nielsen's not tracking thisstuff because they're not
tracking the streaming numbers.Who's reporting that? The
company. And if you're gonnatake the company at their word,
then you have to take intoaccount that they they looked at
all these accounts. Who'swatching Monday Night Raw on
these accounts?
And is it trust? Is it the trustsystem? Right? They're they're
(09:28):
impressed with it, so theyreported it. If that's the trust
system, alright, these numbersare the numbers.
We don't have to refute them.You can bump them up. Again, you
can you can boost them. Youcannot. Right?
But you gotta take the companyat its word. They reported
4,900,000 globally. They have287,000,000 subscribers. And in
(09:50):
that, you have a possibility forlet's multiply that number times
5. Right?
So 287,000,000 times 5 is ashitload of accounts possible.
Right? There's no way that all287,000,000 accounts are just
one person. That's that's that'sludicrous because I, myself,
(10:11):
have me, my wife, and my kids.So you have the account for that
some way.
So if my kid who doesn't evenlive here is watching Monday
Night Raw, which he did at hishouse, right, then does my
account track his number? That'sthat's the big question. Sorry.
(10:32):
This may sound confusing ifyou're look if if you're
listening. This may sound reallyconfusing.
But that just goes to say, whatare we actually tracking? And
4,900,000 people globally, thisis where my concern may lie.
Right? So the wrestling fan baseis very divided in America, and
(10:58):
we'll take that US number,2,600,000, which people have
tried to boost it already andsay that's at least 6,000,000.
No.
It's 2,600,000. The companyreported it. You have to go with
that. You can't boost it. Youcan't say anything else other
than 2,600,000.
Right? And then that 2,600,000,that's only that's only maybe
(11:21):
double what they did normallyfor 2024. So they average about
1.2 in 2024. So on this Netflixdebut, it only doubled your
audience. When in the UnitedStates, you know there's a lot
of people with Netflix accounts.
(11:41):
Are people just not tuning in?Did they forget that it was
gonna be on Netflix, which ishighly it's it's likely, but
it's also highly not likelybecause it's impossible to even
log on Netflix and not see it.If you have a Netflix account,
they've put this thing on thefront row. They did a lot of
hype for it. I'm probably gonnaget a lot of shit for this one,
(12:01):
but it it's fine.
But that that's what I'm saying.It's like, you did a lot of
hype. 2,600,000 in America, itdoubled your audience. Yes.
That's great.
But you also doubled that forwhen The Rock came back. You
know what I mean? Like, you hadyou had a 2 point mil you had
2,000,000 viewers when The Rockcame back. He was doing this
(12:24):
whole thing, building himself upto WrestleMania. And 2,600,000
is kind of it's kind of a lownumber in the grand scheme of
things, but that lets you knowwhere we are as a fan base.
The wrestling fan base hasshrunk. It has. It just has. And
(12:46):
we're further dividing ourselvesby this AEW, WWE thing. I wrote
an article about this a longtime ago that I never published
because I it was just it was toomuch.
But looking at these numbers,the American audience is petty,
and it's not as big as peoplethink. There is no win in just
(13:10):
2,600,000 viewers. When JakePaul and Mike Tyson globally has
60,000,000, they made it aspectacle. Right? And that's
where that's where it comesfrom.
The NFL did big numbers. Theweek before, they did big
numbers, which kudos to them.I'll I'll jump into the
(13:35):
production side of of WWE onNetflix. It was wonderful. No
buffering issues.
Stream was crispy the wholetime. They they did a whole
bunch of good things with thiswith this production. It was not
a bad show. But where thenumbers don't indicate if going
(13:58):
into the show, what I would havesaid about Monday Night Raw is
anything less than 5,000,000people globally, I would have
counted that as a failure. I'mI'm leaning away from that now
because 4.6 is like you can it'sthere.
(14:22):
The numbers are there for you tobuild on. Definitely. Is it a
great number? Not really. Butyou have something that you can
build on.
Now out of that 4,600,000, who'sgonna go in back and tell
someone to watch Monday NightRaw? That's the that's the
indicator. And that's what I'msaying. Like, next week is gonna
(14:44):
be really, really big for them.So we're we're building up to
the Royal Rumble.
We're getting ready to ramp upto WrestleMania season. You
threw a lot at this debut inwhich that's another issue. You
threw so much at us. It has somany celebrities. What's gonna
(15:08):
happen when those celebritiesare not there?
Right? What's gonna happen whenyou don't have a rock? Cena's
back, but is he gonna be backevery week? Hogan, we're we're
not gonna talk about Hogan. Weare not gonna talk about Hogan.
Yeah. Undertaker there. The onlyperson really you didn't have
(15:28):
there that added so much historyto Monday Night Raw was the one
you could've replaced him withHulk Hogan. Right? You could've
replaced Stone Cold Steve Austinfor Hogan.
You know? So it's it's apples toapples, the conversation, but,
again, these types of things aregonna affect. Am I gonna tune in
(15:50):
for the nostalgia? Did I getenough out of this debut for me
to wanna tune in? And that'sreally up to the people that
watch because you had 3 hours oftelevision, and you have 4
matches and a lot of fluffaround it.
Right? Am I going to tune in?You have PLE level matches, but
(16:13):
is that going to be enough forme to tune in next week? You
have punk versus Rollins, arivalry match in which
Centimeters Punk came outvictorious. I don't know if I
woulda did that on thatparticular show.
Why? Because it makes it seemlike the feud is over. If I
(16:33):
wanted someone to tune in nextweek, then I need a cliffhanger
for the show. There were thingsthere were things that I would
have done differently. Iwould've I would've put some
history in there, but, also, Ineed to build towards the
future.
And we had tribal combat. We hadRoman Reigns. They brought all
(16:56):
of their big guns to the show.But it also reminded me of what
AEW was like back in the day.They threw all of their big guns
into the show.
And I remember someone sayingthis is a marathon. It's not a
sprint. Well, we kinda sprintedout the gate Monday night. Now
(17:22):
there's something in place thatthey've built on. They they can
continue forward.
They can keep our interest with.That is very much probably the
case. They probably ended a lotof stuff so they can build some
new stuff. Right? But was thisenough for people to want to
(17:43):
come back?
That is going to be the bigquestion. I keep saying that,
but it's the absolute truth.What is going to be the outcome
of this week? And that, ladiesand gentlemen, is your WWE news.
Now before we get out of here,I'm gonna try not to keep you
guys long, especially on this onthis first run.
(18:08):
But let's get into AEW. We gotsome things we need to talk
about there too. One second.Alright. AW.
(18:30):
They also kinda sprinted out thegate with theirs. They they what
they did, I liked for their Maxdebut. They brought stories.
They left me on cliffhangers.They also announced that Kenny
Omega was gonna be coming back.
We had a pay per view, was inthat led us out of, that that
(18:51):
show led us out of as the maxdebut. We have people returning
that were gonna be a part ofthis show. I think for all
intents and purposes, they arestarting already to build
towards July in Arlington,Texas. I do think that. But one
(19:12):
thing that got announced todayhas me really concerned of where
we are gonna be in 2025.
Looks like we're gonna startlosing people in 2025 because
what they announced to or whatit wasn't really them that
announced it. Sean Ross Sapp ofFight For announced that Malachi
Black's contract may have beenup. And we've seen on dynamite
(19:35):
that, Buddy Matthews wrestledWill Osprey. Will Osprey won.
And then they went to this wholepromo about if you need a guy,
you don't need Malachi Blackleading you guys.
You guys could be tag teamchampions. Blah blah blah. It
looks like we're gonna be inthat year where they're gonna be
(19:56):
losing people. Now we knowMalachi Black is is really a WWE
guy. We know that.
But who else in dub in AEW isgonna be walking out the door?
Right? And we've I talked aboutthis on a on a earlier podcast.
What do we do with the peoplethat are in AEW and they are
(20:21):
unhappy? You gotta let theseguys go, and that's being nice.
You can't keep these guys on theroster. And if they're unhappy,
if they're not being productive,like, this should be the year
that contracts get get, you knownot I don't wanna say
(20:44):
terminated, but, you know, it ityou get an amical in on both
sides to contracts. You justhave to because you're building
up to all in. You you prettymuch have an I or should. You
should have an idea of what allin is gonna look like, who you
(21:04):
want to be in those events, andyou should start building
towards that.
Just like WWE is buildingtowards WrestleMania.
WrestleMania is in April.They're building toward they've
been building towards us sincesurvivor series. You gotta start
putting these blocks in in aplace and taking people on the
ride. You know?
(21:26):
It it needs to be it needs to betransparent, and I don't I don't
feel like it it has been. Andthat piece of news just let me
know, like, you know, it's 2025is probably gonna be a year to
where we lose a couple people.Malachi Black's won. We may lose
(21:50):
Britt Baker. Who knows?
There's a there's a bunch ofpeople that, you know, may be on
they may be on their way out.Ricky Starks. If they come to an
a a conclusion. We already knowthat Pence is gonna make his
debut. He didn't make his debut,last week, due to time
(22:11):
constraints on the show, whichthat is insane, but we know he's
there.
We know that his tag teampartner should be on his way out
later this year. Right? So weshould be approaching some of
these these endings,particularly with the people
that are unhappy and theyhaven't been doing anything
(22:34):
with. And I hope that continuesto be the case. I know Tony
doesn't wanna be that type ofguy, but if there's any year
that you need to start doingthat, it's this year.
You just renewed a TV rightsdeal. You are building towards
something that you haven't donebefore, which is a stadium show
(22:55):
in the United States. You needto start building goodwill with
the fans in the United States.The way you do that is give them
the best show as possible, andyou cut out the outside noise.
Doing these moves, it may stinga little bit at first, but it
(23:15):
will in the in the end, it'llcut out a lot of the outside
noise because people people arefickle.
Let's just face it. They'llthey're fickle. They'll get over
it. They will get over it. But,you know, it's it's gonna be
(23:36):
interesting.
We're gonna be in interestingtimes because both companies are
figuring out the streamingthing. Max is building up their
library for AEW, which is it'sgonna be a very interesting year
for both companies to see wherewe are. And I, for 1, plan on
sticking around and, you know,seeing what the fuss is about.
(24:01):
Oh, man. But before we get outof here, I mentioned that we're
gonna be working with theIndies.
I am going to be working moreclosely with Metroplex
Wrestling. Shout out to them andall of their wrestlers, and
shout out to the brand new MPXchampion. Kari Jai Wright. He
won it again. I'm gonna try toget him back on the show.
(24:23):
Let's go over some things thatwe may have missed along the
way, because we've been busy.We've been busy. But on the
network side of things, and thisis gonna be your final shots and
thoughts, ladies and gentlemen.On the network side of things,
we are ramping back up for 2025.The smoke pit's coming back.
(24:45):
We're gonna be recording soon,and those episodes will be
dropping again. This episodewill be on the No Chemics
YouTube. So please like andsubscribe to at no gimmicks d f
p n on youtube,youtube.com/atnotegimmicksd f p
(25:06):
n. The podcast episodes in audioform will be on, YouTube as
well. Also on the website, thiswill be on the website.
So tap in, tune in, guys. We gotwe got so much coming this year.
I am ready to get back to work.I'm ready to get, back in, into
(25:28):
shape, if you will, inpodcasting shape. So tune in.
Thank you guys for listening.Thank you guys for liking. Thank
you guys for subscribing. Untilnext time. You guys be peaceful,
and enjoy what you wanna enjoy.
My guy ain't here, so I'm a haveto say it for you. Go get your
(25:48):
pet spayed and neutered. It'swintertime. We got a big winter
storm. Take care of your dogs.
Take care of your cats. Takecare of your animals. If you're
not, please have your dog spayedor neutered and get them
somewhere where they can becared for properly. Until next
time, guys. Peace.
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