5 Ups & 5 Downs From Last Night's WWE Backstage (Jan 7)
Big Miztake?
It was Shawn Michaels - of all people - that once glibly noted during a WWE documentary on the Monday Night Wars that he didn’t recall talent caring too much about the ratings, even when they were in the toilet.
It felt a bit rich coming from a man that was emotionally and physically swallowed whole by WCW’s commercial dominance in 1996, but the overarching point ‘HBK’ presumably attempted to male was that Neilsen numbers couldn’t ever compare to the ones on the payslips at the end of the week. Of course, Michaels was a top guy back then - the two may not have been mutually exclusive if you were working The Goon in the openers back then.
In 2019 though, ratings made a comeback almost as big as WWE’s occasional host CM Punk - and he certainly caught people's attention at the start of 2020 too. This show’s FS1 numbers became almost as intriguing as those from Wednesday nights, and the very fact that they've has become fascinating again is fascinating in itself, and lends a certain heft to even the fluffiest of shows.
And this week’s Backstage (viewer number yet to be released) was high as a kite on f*cking fluff...