Dr. Darin Davis

From July 2009 through June of 2010, I collected some stats on the WWE Monday Night Raw, WWE Smackdown, and TNA wrestling products (and ECW until their shutdown on 2/19/2010). I was measuring the quality of the matches on each program by giving each one a “Thumb” rating. A great match gets one Thumb Up, an outstanding “match-of-the-year” candidate gets two Thumbs Up, and everything else gets zero (I was also giving Thumbs Down- more on that later).

When I recorded the Thumb Rating, I also happened to write down the names of the wrestlers that were involved in the matches. Since I had the data, I decided to total these up for each wrestler involved. All participants in the match got the same number of points.

You can read all the details and a bit of analysis on the Wrestler Match Ratings page, including a link to the spreadsheet so you can see the numbers for yourself.

I’m providing a quick summary below.

Top 15 in WWE and TNA

For the WWE, I used the combined data from the Raw, Smackdown, and ECW programming to calculate the rankings. I assigned one point per Thumb, so the scoring should be obvious.

WWE Top 15

Here are the Top 15 wrestlers under the WWE brands:

TNA Top 15

For TNA, there is only one program available that I was tracking (TNA Impact).

Here are the Top 15 wrestlers under the TNA brand:

Take a look at all the details and a link to the spreadsheet on the Wrestler Match Ratings page.

I rarely talk about movies here (in fact the only other time I can think of was when I recommended Lipstick & Dynamite), but I watched a film last weekend that I thought would be of interest of the readers of this site.

The movie is a documentary called Bigger Stronger Faster* (2008). It deals with the use, abuse, and propaganda of steroids, while examining the root problem of why someone would want to take them. You can read the review from Roger Ebert (3.5 out of 4 stars) or IMDB (7.7 / 10) for a synopsis– I’ll just touch on a few more points below.

The film’s main characters are three brothers: Chris, Mark, and Mike Bell. Chris is the director, interviewer, and narrator. All three brothers had tried anabolic steroids, and two  (Mark & Mike) were still on them at the time of the documentary. One of the motivations for them to give steroids a try were there heroes, including Hulk Hogan, Schwarzenegger, and Sylvester Stalone. All of whom would either admit to using steroids (Hogan and Schwarzenegger), or be caught with them in later life (Stallone with growth hormone).

All of the bodybuilders and professional athletes shown in interviews (like Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds,  Olympian Ben Johnson) said they took performance enhancing substances because they had to– everyone else was doing them. That was one of the central themes of the movie. They didn’t do it to get ahead… they did it to keep up. To keep up with the idea that America has to be the biggest, strongest, and fastest country in the world.

On one hand we spend an extraordinary about of political and media attention on: steroids in the WWE, steroids in baseball, “roid rage” in the media (Chris Benoit), but at the same time we reward and admire those that are faster or larger than life and we look the other way. The U.S. Olympic Committee spends most of its time looking for loopholes for U.S. athletes to exploit (or they work with the officials to change the rules), according to one of the interviewees.

While everyone is focused on steroids, the supplement industry is pulling in over $27 billion dollars a year (PDF), and is virtually unregulated thanks to tons of legislation from Utah senator Orrin Hatch. Not coincidentally, about 10% of the supplement business resides in Utah.Which leads to shenanigans like the photographer who admitted that many of the “before and after” shots he has done for supplement companies were taken the same day, thanks to the use of lighting, makeup, and a bit of Photoshop. No rules against it, and everyone else is doing it so why can’t I?

The picture below was a set of shots the photographer took the same day to show how it is done. The six pack was airbrushed on. Not airbrushed on the image, but on the guy (Chris Bell).

For those of you that recognize the name Mike Bell, you may remember his work as a jobber for WWE and ECW. During the time of the documentary, he was still working the independents and sending tapes into the WWE. They kept telling him that he was “too old”.

Toward the end of the film there were very candid discussions of Mike Bell’s problems with drugs, and his inability to cope with not being a “success” in pro wrestling and life. His father said he was worried Mike was going to end up dead. Up until that point in the movie I had a feeling that there was something about the name Mike Bell that I couldn’t quite remember. After that line, I thought of it– Didn’t this guy end up dying?

After I watched the end of the film and didn’t see any mention in the credits, a minute with Google confirmed it. Mike Bell died a few months after the film came out (but possibly years after those scenes were filmed). The coroner eventually concluded it was from the “accidental” inhalation of a chemical used in a “household maintenance product”.

This documentary is definitely worth a rental (it’s also available on Instant Watch from Netflix). You don’t have to be a wrestling fan or a sports fan to enjoy it. The director does a great job of presenting the facts without taking sides. I would be surprised if you can watch this and not have your perspective change, regardless of what side of the discussion you started out on. It is definitely not black and white.

Photos: imdb

Back in July of 2008, I decided to keep track of my viewing time of WWE Monday Night Raw, ECW, TNA, and WWE Smackdown to see if I would be able to tell anything about the direction of the quality of the programming. This is assuming that if the quality (in my opinion) is better, I will watch more, and if the quality drops (again based on my tastes), I will watch less.

I tracked all four shows for a year before deciding to change things up and measure them differently (you can find the results of the that year-long experiment, including the charts and data, on the TV Viewership Stats page).

In July of 2009, I started collecting some different data about the same wrestling programming. What I was measuring this time was the number of matches per hour, and the quality of those matches as judged by a simple rating system.

The rating system I used was not one to five stars. It was closer to how I rate programming using my TiVo (Thumbs Up/2 Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down).

Since the WWE decided to shut down the ECW promotion, I stopped reporting on ECW and just did the other three.

The Final Results

After 52 weeks of collecting data from July 7th 2009 to July 9th 2010, here is a summary of the rating results. If you want to see more details, take a look at the TV Match Ratings page.

Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down Rating Totals

For each of the three brands, the thumb ratings have been totaled since I started collecting data the week of July 7th, 2009. Just to be clear, each “One Thumb Up” rating counts as one point, each “Two Thumbs Up” rating counts as two, and each “Thumb Down” rating counts as negative one (which subtracts from the total).

Here are the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down ratings for the three programs:

Total Thumbs Up Ratings

Despite all of the negative press it gets, TNA pulled out ahead of Smackdown and way ahead of Raw in the quality of the matches (in my opinion). TNA would have been even farther ahead on positive ratings, except that they have had so many bad matches since Hogan and company showed up that it pulled their total down (remember a really bad match gets a Thumbs Down which reduces the total by one).

Avg Ratings Over Time

One other thing of note was the average ratings per match over time for each brand.

Avg Thumb Rating Per Match

The Raw guest host format has certainly affected the WWE programming. They are consistently at the bottom, even though it is supposedly the WWE’s “flagship” program. About 1 in 20 Raw matches is considered great.

If you take a look at the trend of TNA, you can see the damage Hulk Hogan and his cronies inflicted after the first of the year (about the midpoint of the charts). The average rating of each TNA match was climbing until Hogan took over. At its peak about 1 in 3 matches was great. It has been steadily falling since then, up until the last few weeks where it leveled out.

Smackdown has been fairly consistent over time, equaling TNA in the last couple of months. About 1 in 5 matches are considered great.

Take a look at all the stats and my “brilliant” conclusions over on the TV Match Ratings Page

Has TNA started their own “Attitude” era? Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a few changes to the programming that by themselves seem pretty insignificant, but combined seem to indicate an actual company direction. I know, I’m making the assumption that TNA Management actually has a plan. Or even that they have the idea that they need a plan.

With the turn of Abyss and a more serious Jay Lethal, there aren’t any “cartoonish” characters left. On top of that, they’ve gone from bleeping the word “ass” on the broadcast, to allowing the word a**hole to be said multiple times per episode. It’s even part of Mr. Anderson‘s gimmick. Add the bit with Angelina Love‘s backstage camera shot and you’ve got the start of a more “adult” TNA.

Back in 1998, the WWE started running more edgy angles, violence, and swearing to compete with WCW. TNA has dipped their toes in the deep end a little bit with some hardcore thumbtack matches and flaming tables (I’m not going to comment on the “glass” this time). Now it looks like they’ve got their whole foot in.

Will it be the start of something good, or just another attempt of TNA copying what was successful in the past and keeping their fingers crossed?

I wrote a couple of months ago (TNA Towel: 2, Believability: 0) about the TNA Bloody Towel ™ making another appearance on the Thursday night TNA Impact! program. Well, good ole’ “BT” was seen again on the broadcast last week after Mr. Anderson got Black Hole Slammed on a big pile of (candy) glass.

See the TNA Bloody Towel ™ in all its glory at about the 2:08 mark:

Since the towel has now gotten more air time than TNA president Dixie Carter, I figure TNA should just add the thing to their official roster.

Think of the marketing potential for this. Since they just signed with Jakks Pacific to have a line of action figures made, now is the perfect time to add it. And I don’t mean as just a wrestler accessory, I mean as a thing a kid could play around with.

I’d stand in a fairly short line to buy one.

If the action figure route doesn’t pan out, they could always hire the ShamWow guy hawk it on late night TV.

“Look’it the way this thing soaks up the fake blood.“

“Are you gettin’ this camera guy?“

Interesting ending to the 3-hour June 7th Monday Night Raw episode. The NXT rookies wreaked havoc on John Cena, the commentary crew, the announce table (including the announcer), and the ring itself. Not sure where they’re going with this,other than an nWo angle. Probably the best and most unexpected thing I’ve seen happen in the last couple of years. At least as far as storylines go, which I don’t care too much for to begin with.

Also interesting to see that the WWE ring is built the same way most of the wrestling rings are on the independents. Sheets of foam board insulation with their edges duct taped together, on top of 2″ x 12″ planks, on top of a steel frame (one of our earlier rings used 4 x 8 foot sheets of plywood instead of the planks).

On the same program, however, was one of the most embarrassingly awful series of skits the WWE has put on with the actors from the new A-Team movie. For all the flack TNA gets, they haven’t put on anything rivaling the WCW appearance of RoboCop.

Okay, I’ll admit I watched the A-Team as a kid. But if I saw Mr. T break out of handcuffs on the Tonight Show, I’d call B.S. (not B.A.)

If the A-Team movie is really “the biggest blockbuster of the summer” as they kept boasting, Hollywood has a lot worse problems than piracy. In fact, they may have just created the perfect pirate-proof product. Actually, most pirates just download stuff because they can, not because they actually intend to watch it, so I take that back.

Please, please WWE, get rid of the Raw guest host crap. You’ve got a general manager now. You don’t need to turn every show into a two hour product placement.

I pity the fool that keeps milking the guest host gimmick.

I surrender!

TNA IMPACT! is moving back to their previous Thursday night time slot after trying to directly compete with the WWE on Monday nights for the past two months.

I haven’t followed the whole ratings game for quite awhile, but I’m assuming this means that the ratings dropped. If the ratings didn’t increase at all, or didn’t increase as much as they had hoped, it doesn’t seem like reason alone to move. I don’t think there is added cost for airing a taped show on Mondays instead of Thursdays (I think they would normally tape on Mondays anyway). When they were live it was probably a bigger deal. Probably more of an issue for SpikeTV, since they’re the ones that had to shuffle the rest of their schedule around.

Some would say that TNA is “waving the white flag” and surrendering. Others would say… okay, everyone is saying that. Including me.

I didn’t think it was a good idea to begin with, so it’s pretty easy for me to say, “Told ya so“. But to be honest, I didn’t really know that it wouldn’t increase ratings. I was probably not on board when Bischoff decided to go head-to-head against the WWE on Monday back in the mid ’90s (although I was at the first WCW Monday Nitro at the Mall of America). That turned out to be a huge success, with WCW beating the WWE in the ratings for 84 consecutive weeks.

But that was a different time, and a different set of rules. WCW was able to beat WWE by taking away part of their viewership. People had to choose between one program or another. There weren’t many options to watch both, except for putting a tape in your VCR or flipping between channels.

Fast forward to today, where we can watch TNA at any time of day (delayed by a week) using Hulu or TNA’s own web site. Or using their DVR (TiVo, DirectTV, etc.). People no longer have to choose between watching one over the other. They don’t have to worry about missing something, because they can always watch it later. There is no scarcity here (manufactured or otherwise).

Hopefully for TNA, they won’t lose more viewership due to people not knowing when the hell they’re on.

Last Monday night on TNA Impact, we got to see the TNA BloodyTowel ™ used again on a broadcast. Nearly two years ago was the first time I remember TNA using the towel. Christian was powerbombed through a “glass” table. While laying on his back, the medical team came into the ring with a couple of white towels. Well, they were white on one side at least. The handheld camera happened to catch the fact that at least one of the towels was already bloody (or had some kind of pouch of blood) before they even made contact with Christian. Maybe they need to hire an out-of-work magician’s assistant next time to pull that off.

You can see it in this video from 2008, around the 2:20 mark.

On last Monday’s show, the towel got used again in a match where RVD got hit over the head with a beer bottle. This time one of the towels was firmly planted to RVD’s forehead, but I was watching closely to see if it would accidentally fall off and reveal that there was no cut.

Come on TNA, either do it all the way or don’t do it at all. I get why you (thought you) had to do in in Christian’s case with it being his back, but why with RVD? Does he have a “no blood” clause in his contract? If you would have reordered the matches to have Rob Terry go first, you could have soaked that towel with some of the real stuff from the gusher on the top of his head. I’d feel a little better about that.

The worst part is that now I have to add another clause to the footnote of my answer of one of the most often asked question by casual or non-wrestling fans: Is the blood real?

I got asked this a month ago by the daughter of a friend of mine. I told her it was real. She said her dad told her it wasn’t real. I said, “Your dad told you that so that you wouldn’t get upset. ”

So is the blood in wrestling real? Yes*

*Except for the cases where the wrestler is bleeding from the mouth AND it’s part of the storyline, OR when it happens before the cameras are rolling like a backstage interview segment where the guy is already face down, OR if they are using the TNA BloodyTowel ™.

Since the WWE decided to shut down the ECW promotion, it didn’t make sense to continue to include the ECW numbers with the Raw, Smackdown, and TNA brands on my TV Match Ratings page. Comparing things like “Total Matches with ‘Thumbs Up’ Ratings” between a promotion that is producing new content every week and one that isn’t is like comparing (bruised) apples to (squashed) oranges.

So I took a snapshot of the match ratings up through the the last week of ECW and moved them to a separate page. You can find the ratings from 7/7/2009 to 2/19/2010 on the TV Match Ratings Including ECW page.