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Charles Grashow: Keller's editorial is spot on. This increase is my breaking point. The WWE has effectively tripled the number of PPV's from the classic four they used to have while the price has steadily increased from $14.95 to $44.95. I, for one, CANNOT afford this increase and I will NOT pay it. This from someone who has watched PPVs since 1984 when I would go to church basements to see them on closed circuit. NO MORE. It was nice while it lasted, but all good things must come to an end. To the WWE - cut the number of PPVs to six per year otherwise this will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Mark Zigarovich of Irwin, Pa.: Wade Keller is absolutely right. WWE's PPV price increase will do nothing but turn fans away. Simply put, the PPVs just aren't special enough to warrant the current price, let alone justify a $5 price increase. I took my 9-year old son to the recent Bragging Rights PPV in Pittsburgh. While it was special for him because it was his first-ever wrestling event - let alone a PPV - the show itself was really nothing great. A run-of-the-mill Raw was better than this show. Aside from the main event, there was a 14 man match where the two main Raw performers (Hunter and Shawn Michaels) barely performed. The day has long passed since you actually saw something special happen on a pay-per-view. Now they are going to ask us to pay more? $45 is half of most people's standard cable bill!! I used to get all of them. Recent years I just got Wrestlemania and two or three others. Now it will just be WrestleMania... if i feel like it.

McGivey: Wade, you're spot on with this assessment. The price doesn't even include the cost of the PPVs for an HD feed where it's $10 more!

Deel: No kidding, I stopped buying PPVs once I got my HDTV and got pissed off they're charging me $10 more on top of the price increases. I used to have a party for the big four and was happy to pay for the PPV. Now I'll just stick to the Super Bowl and occasional UFCs. Thanks.

Mat: Seriously? $44.95 is just crazy. Especially with this economy. You can go see three great films in IMAX for less than that price and get better quality entertainment, more of it, on a bigger screen. How they think they can justify a price tag of $44.95 totally baffles me. It's $20-$25 overpriced.

No wonder I haven't ordered a WWE PPV in years and why so many people are pirating it. The asking price is completely out of touch with their audience. They market to blue collar people then price their shows for white collar people. Get ready for a big loss in PPV revenue this year, WWE.

Dennis: $44.95=Tipping point. Time to look to the pirates... Or be satisfied with the 24 hours of WWE programming I get for free every month. Wait... 24 hours? Yeah, I don't need to see the PPV. I'm good. $44.95 is a price for addicts.

Brian Kettler: This is a stupid business move on WWE's part, and a slap in the face to their fans, even more so with the poor economy. I think WWE has been running like 15 or 16 PPVs a year the past few (so many I've lost count), and it sounds like they're going to cut it back to 13, I guess. I said yesterday that if they cut it down to either a year or something, then maybe I could see the price increase. But going from 15 to 13, is not a big enough drop in volume, to justify the price increase. I ordered every WWF PPV from the late-'80s until the early 2000s, but now I only order two per year - WrestleMania and Royal Rumble. They are the only two that have remained special. When WWE started going over 12 PPVs per year, I first cut back to the big four myself (WM, Rumble, SummerSlam, Survivor Series). Now I've cut back to what I consider the big two, WM and RR. I rarely even bother watching a pirate feed for the others, I just simply don't care. The point of having a PPV is because it should be the culmination of a long-running feud, that will finally be settled. That takes time. You can't force it every 3-4 weeks. I predict WWE's buyrates next year will be even lower, which is not a surprise because they keep getting lower every year. I doubt their buyrates will ever go up until they cut the number of annual events down into that 6-8 range per year. If they cut it back down to only four per year again, I might actually order all four, even if they charged $60 per event. Personally, I will only order a PPV if it seems special, which is the point of a PPV in the first place.

Dan: I just think it will be ironic that PPV buys will continue to go down and hit rock bottom, but it will be blamed on the $5 increase and not the piss-poor product for the last five years.

Michael: WWE thinks they can justify it because boxing charges that much for PPVs. What WWE doesn't understand is that there are three or possibly four big fights a year in boxing, not 13, idiots! The smartest move for TNA is to go to $24.95 starting in January!

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Send your thoughts on the price increase to pwtorch@gmail.com. Does this feel like a tipping point for you? Will this price increase change your purchasing habits? Will you seek out pirate feeds even if you hadn't before? Or is this a smart move for WWE because their core fans won't sweat a price increase that amounts to one fast food meal?

Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.

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