Dumb Marks Part ONE ***Spoiler Warning***
Wednesday, August 20, 2008, 01:53 AM EST
[General]
Dumb Marks Part ONE
***Spoiler Warning***
I've come to realise there's a diference between knowing how something happens and knowing why something happens.
That ladies & gentleman's the what it comes down to when you look at the emergence of the I.W.C (Internet Wrestling Community).Alot of guys who work in wrestling have complained that the internet has ruined wrestling.Their argument was that stuff like spoilers had well, uh, spoiled wrestling and that all the "mystery" has been taken out.
It is partly true that the internet has taken alot out of the WWE experince especially.Spoilers or no spoilers, TNA's will always cop a 0.9 rating,so i'll leave it out of my argument for now.
But let's look at a show like SD!,there have been times when spoilers (made by WWE.com for that matter) have actually helped to up the rating.Take for example in June 2005 when Batista was drafted to SD! and what about the May 2007 edition when Edge cashed in Money-In-The-Bank on Taker.However this tends to be exception rather than the rule.I actually don't think spoilers adversely affect ratings.If the show is good,people will still watch it.Spoilers on hurt TV ratings when we read that Mike Knox vs. Snisky was the mainevent of the show.Then people feel like they can skip the show.Its kinda how bad movie reviews make people avoid a movie no matter how much the studio hyped it.
The biggest gripe I have with spoilers will never have a better case study than last years botched Jericho return.The way that info leaked on the internet tainted Chris on two fronts.First,it took away from the actual November 19 return because it stopped being "Let's see who is going to Save us?",and ended up being, "Okay,what time during RAW will Y2J walk out".Some people will dispute and say that it was "obvious" that it was Chris,but bear in mind for quite some time people actually thought it was HBK returning.It could also could easily have been a Christian Cage or Sting making the jump from B-grade show'sVille to the big leagues or a returning star like RVD.
Secondly,it put way to much pressure on Chris to actually "Save Us" i.e miraculosly up RAW's rating from 3.1 to a 5.1 overnight.IWC marks say that his return boomed,when in actual fact it couldn't have
been better.What screwed it up was the skewed perception's people had because of internet rumors.My first encounter with how
spoilers can ruin a show for a real fan was the infamous post-Wrestlemania episode of RAW in 2003.To hear fans chanting "Goldberg,Goldberg" long before he was scheduled to come out freakin' ruined what was meant to be a classic RAW moment.
What amazes me though is how pissed IWC marks get when the WWE outsmarts them.Cena's Royal Rumble return got a jaded reaction from the IWC.Granted John has his "issues" when it come to the fans,but that was simply used as an excuse by IWC marks
to avoid admitting they got outsmarted by Vince & creative.
One of the oddest this is how alot of times "spoiler& rumors" put out on the internet actually end up being false.Yet none of these Phanton Bookers ever take responsibilty when the go online,blatanlty lie & then claim that WWE did a "swerve".
I don't know what you guys feel about this whole issue? Have spoilers ruined you WWE experince,or is WWE the one to blame for the declining interest amongst viewers over the years? Fell free to leave comments or send me messages.
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