TR's Thoughts #5

In this weekly column, I will comment on the past week's goings-on in WOW, and whatever else it occurs to me to discuss :-) I also hope that a big part of the column will be printing and responding to your e-mails. So please send them in (the address is thatthing35@yahoo.com)!

For commentary on the events of the latest WOW episode, you can look at this recap of the updates I posted to the various character pages.

3/7/2001: Where's That Panic Button?

I have to level with y'all: If we get any more writing on the wall, we're gonna need to build an extension to the house. Let's recap all the ways WOW can make money, ok?

• Admissions from paid events - First of all, let's keep in mind that WOW attendance has not been overwhelming. In a recent radio interview, Lana Star said that the PPV taping drew 8,000 fans. So, you figure a typical taping draws a couple thousand. That'd be great if they were in a converted bingo hall like ECW used to be...but they're in the Great Western Forum, which seats 17,505 and has gotta cost a lot to rent.
  
  Regardless of what the exact details of the box office are, no one can deny that it's hard to draw fans to events when there are no events. WOW seems to have postponed all live shows indefinitely. The reason given for the cancellation of the first scheduled show was to "give the girls a rest". This seemed reasonable at the time, especially since one of the star attractions, Summer, had gotten injured at the PPV, and Jungle Grrrl was lucky not to be injured. However, it seems clear now that the next live show will be in late April at the earliest. (That date was given by Lana in the same interview.) That's nearly three months after the Feb. 4 PPV -- definitely far too long a time to take between shows if the real reason is just to "give the girls a rest." It's hard not to connect the lack of any live shows since the PPV with the next item...
• Purchases of pay-per-view events - The scuttlebutt from Pro Wrestling Torch is that the "WOW Unleashed" PPV only got 6,000 buys, a buyrate of 0.014. For their part, 1Wrestling reports "between 4,000 and 8,000." These would replace earlier estimates of 20,000.
  
  Even if the 20,000 is somehow correct, it's still very doubtful whether that would be enough to allow WOW to keep doing PPVs. For one thing, 20,000 buys is a buyrate of 0.046, which is still pretty darn microscopic. Also, we know that a lot of people complained to their cable/satellite companies about the show, which led to mass cancellation of replays. If the carriers didn't want to show the replays, what are the chances they would want to show another PPV from the same people?
• Television advertising - The scuttlebutt from Pro Wrestling Torch is that WOW is going to lose about half of its affiliate stations very soon. (Wrestleline, which has been by far the most pro-WOW of the major wrestling sites, echoed this story, although I don't know if they verified it independently or are just paraphrasing the Torch.) This is difficult to reconcile with the reports from WOW saying that they are adding 100 to 200 new stations in October. The fact that WOW has been dropped by WNYW in New York City has to give at least some support to the more pessimistic report. KCOP in Los Angeles is refusing to comment on whether they've cancelled WOW or not.
• Merchandising - I have no idea where this stands.

Things just don't look that good, gang. And the saddest thing is that there very well might not be a damn thing we can do about it. I suspect there is a good chance that WOW is pretty much out of money already, and is just refusing to own up to the inevitable, much like ECW is currently doing.

But, let's try to do what we can to help the cause. It can't hurt, and it might help. If a station in your area shows WOW, write to them and tell them how much you like the show, and how disappointed you'd be if it were canceled. If you don't get WOW in your area, identify some stations that might carry it, and tell them about the show. And if you care about WOW at all, if somehow there is another PPV, make absolutely sure to buy it...at least once.

Let's dip into the mailbag. Xenophobe asks:

"Given all the negative response from the old WOW site for Selina Majors, it seems as if McLane might think she has a better place as a heel. At the moment, it doesn't seem like people care about that either. If no one really likes Selina as a major character, what should McLane do with her? Keep spotlighting her and see if the fans warm up? Bump her down to midcard status? Make her a manager? Or maybe restrict her time to training and re-training the entire roster?"

I think it's too early to say that Selina cannot go over as a heel. I would give that more of a shot before reducing her role. Laying out Terri (twice now) is the only heelish thing she's done. We don't know why she did it; really, the angle hasn't even gotten started. So, I think we need to see what the storyline is, and how convincing Selina can make it, before we can make a call on this.

Please e-mail me with your thoughts about this article!
(e-mail: thatthing35@yahoo.com)

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