WWE RAW commentator Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler recently discussed the ‘lapsed’ fanbase for the company that seemingly has taken an even bigger hit over the past decade plus. Lawler was referring to a tweet from F4W’s Bryan Alvarez, who mentioned that WCW and WWE pulled a combined 8 million viewers around 19 years ago; and WCW went out of business shortly after. WWE is now ‘lucky’ if they manage to get 2.5 million viewers to watch RAW on a Monday.
Although the change of landscape for television always plays a factor, Jerry Lawler believes that the way to bring back these ‘lapsed’ fans is to sprinkle some older more established starts into the mix.
“At one time there were 8 million people watching, watching wrestling on a Monday night,” Jerry Lawler began. “And now you’re lucky if you have two and a half million. I think a lot of those fans that are not watching right now are fans of guys like Edge. And of course The Rock, Stone Cold [Steve Austin], those guys. I just think…if you brought some of them back?”
Lawler then discussed how ‘internet fans’ seemingly do not like the veterans in these prominent positions. “Here’s the crazy thing. You know, you got these internet fans that sit around there and do nothing but pick and criticise every single thing that happens on the show. Then you got the writers that read all this stuff from your critical fans and they try to go and kind of book by [it]. Then you know they’re the ones that go ‘they’re keeping some young talent from being from having their day in the sunshine.’ Well, some of that old talent are the ones that might make the difference.”
“They might come back if on occasion you brought some of these people back.” – Jerry Lawler
Jerry Lawler elaborated further, saying “that 5 million fans that aren’t watching anymore, you know. Though those 5 million fans were fans of these guys that aren’t on TV anymore. They might come back if on occasion you brought some of these people back.”
