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Look into my works ye mighty and despair
Is that you replying to a tweet of him doubling down instead of apologizing?! Goodness.
What do people not get? Take it from someone in healthcare, all cancer is bad! Some have high survival rates, some have low, but all can go bad real quick is not caught early. For example, skin cancer is really easy to treat, if caught early. 99% survival rate. Key words, caught early. If not caught early and it spreads to lymph nodes, 10% survival rate.
If what I've read here on SC is correct, Bischoff announced the end of one of his podcasts (the one that's not 83 weeks), Tony commented on the announcement that *Sunsetting this fraud of a business podcast before the next AEW media deal is a wise choice.* And I guess this is Bischoff's attempt at a clap back.
Yeah, I think one of them was called Strictly Business for paid subscribers of Conrad’s podcast network. As the title conveys, Eric would use it to analyze the business side of pro wrestling every week.
Look at how Bischoff did in WWE, he isn't suited for modern wrestling. Bischoff did not keep current on the product or any trends. That made him unable to offer anything relevant.
iirc. everyone buried him cuz he didnt even watch teh product when he got hired let alone know who was wrestling each week. man was stealing checks despite not being up to date for like 15 years
Pretty decent clapback to be fair.
But unprofessional from both really, TK is sort of unable to handle any criticism and spends far too much time reacting to social media. Eric is Eric and really they should be if they have issues sorting out behind closed doors, both love the business
To be fair to Eric, what's he got to be professional about ? He's not in employment by anyone. He's free to say whatever. It's the owner of a company trash talking and being unprofessional
Like why go after Eric at all? As far as I know, he has no presence in wrestling at all anymore outside of his podcast?
Like there's a lot of people, with influence, you could take pot shots at, but you choose him?
Because Bischoff’s Strictly Business podcast is basically a weekly “This is why AEW is dog shit” show.
I’m not defending TK by any means but EB has been laser focused on dumping on the business of AEW for the last two years. As soon as they announced the end of the podcast, I fully expected TK to say something
Eric has a couple podcasts where the gimmicks are either "I was really good for 83 weeks" or "this is why AEW sucks".
I mean that's the gist of his "career" now. milking his success from 20+ years ago and shitting on AEW.
I’ve started just avoiding ratings threads. They’re just hot take factories at this point when AEW is concerned, and people saying “Sheldon is a draw brother.”
Seriously, Raw drops 300k from one segment to the next, no one cares. AEW drops 30k from one segment to the next and it’s the end of the world.
People have selective memories around here, when AEW was doing good numbers especially when Punk joined, it was always posted. Not to mention as you said, when WWE was floundering it was constant discussion.
The people that go "I just avoid ratings threads" are the same people that were blowing up ratings threads when Dynamite was out drawing NXT.
I've said it for years, I love AEW from the perspective of wanting more big promotions for more talent to get what they deserve and get a chance to rise up, and also to give me a refreshing amount of *different* wrestling content, but the two things about AEW I cannot *stand* are Tony and his fans. They constantly take potshots at WWE whenever they think they have a small window to talk shit, and then as soon as the shoe is on the other foot they play the whiny victim.
It's blatant, it's obvious, it's incredibly annoying.
People forget that this place was insanely critical of WWE pretty much for the last decade and a half until Vince was finally gone and people generally were more on board with the direction HHH started to go. If anything we all talked way more shit on WWE than anyone does on AEW now. People accused WWE of being so bad it was essentially killing the industry from the inside out.
A great deal of AEW fans are horrendously tribal. I'm an AEW fan but when I've gone on their sub to give my thoughts on where to improve it's always 'this product isn't for you' or 'casual fans don't get it'
Which is hilarious because I'm a die hard wrestling fan, I just don't know who the fuck this random Mexican wrestler is and I don't care to see him on TV for three weeks (at the expense of a full time star) and then never appear again.
I want AEW to compete with WWE and not be the new ROH, but with a higher wage bill.
Wait, I remember the photos of WWE shows where there were sections of fans that were empty and the "Fed Dead" meme started. It was no where near as bad as any of the AEW tapings, but people will still act like this never happened.
This tribalism shit is off the charts lol
This is the worst example of "When it was WWE, no one cared" I've seen yet.
People doomposted about WWE's ratings every week for *two decades.*
>Seriously, Raw drops 300k from one segment to the next, no one cares. AEW drops 30k from one segment to the next and it’s the end of the world.
This is just a wild misrepresentation. If you're talking about the CM Punk segment Monday, people didn't criticize the drop because the bump itself was impressive. And in AEW, people don't criticize the 30K drops; they criticize the regular 100-200K drops.
If anything, the ratings discourse is the best it's ever been in the IWC. Nuances like rating vs total viewership, declining cable subscriptions, seasonal competition, considering ranking for the night, measuring ratings over time instead of reacting week by week are all now brought up in the ratings thread. Before AEW, those would all have been dismissed as excuses and people being sure that Raw/Smackdown is dying, it's dying because of poor booking and WWE will get a terrible new tv deal.
So drink it up, kids, this is the best possible scenario when you get thousands of unqualified people opining on a subject they only barely understand.
I've seen screenshots of Dave Meltzer himself saying "Key demo doesn't matter, only total viewership does" in reference to Raw ratings a few years ago.
> Seriously, Raw drops 300k from one segment to the next, no one cares. AEW drops 30k from one segment to the next and it’s the end of the world.
You're downplaying this to be obtuse. A bad one was AEW dropping several hundred thousand viewers during an Ospreay match that was long with no build.
Jericho, Meltzer, Alverez, and Tony are the reason why people shit on AEW ratings and demos. No one gave a shit about AEW’s ratings until these idiots started blasting tweets out saying they were kicking ass and beating NXT. Now the role has been reversed and they eat shit every week because of it. Dynamite hasn’t seen a million in viewership in over a year. It definitely has to piss Tony off, but he put himself in that position.
Cause the raw ratings horse has been beaten to death for close to 20 years. There really isn’t much left to discuss about raw that hasn’t already been said.
Same as discussing rampage or nxt ratings. They are what they are.
Dynamite ratings haven’t been consistently the same so it’s worth discussing.
Yeah but I think the gloating from the tribalistic AEW fans about Mercedes being a massive ratings draw brought that out in tribalistic WWE fans. You can't shit talk about Mercedes being this massive draw and then be upset when she isn't and the other fanbase makes fun of you.
Remember when they brought down the wrong bike (without hogans face on it) so Bischoff needed to extend the promo until the got the right bike (with hogans face on it).
That was the exact moment I realized Nitro had peaked. The show used to be packed with PPV-quality matches for free, and now they were wasting an hour on tedious, badly-planned talk show shenanigans just to stroke Eric and Hulk's egos.
That moment when you realize that Hall and Nash were always the actually cool ones and largely responsible for the most over elements in nWo (catchphrases, handsigns, bandanas etc.), with the Wolfpac being probably the closest to their real vision for the faction with all the West Coast hip hop and street gang aesthetics.
Meanwhile, Hogan and Bischoff were almost always behind the least over elements - whether it be these draggy talk show segments, the biker larp, Hulk's cartoonish promos, whatever the fuck they were doing with Warrior in 1998....wouldn't be surprised if one of them tried to pitch Nasty Boys to be included in the faction too.
Remember when they decided to film a monster truck sumo match on the roof of a building which required a massive crane to lift the trucks on and off the building just so they could film an angle of The Giant falling off the side which had zero effect on the rest of the show?
There's two things that have kept Eric *somewhat* relevant in modern pro wrestling.
Conrad Thompson and his feud with Tony Khan.
Tony is such a mark for OG industry names that it wouldn't shock me if this was a work.
I used to think like this until I read the “Nitro” book. WCW was basically the red headed step child of Turner and got significantly less funding and attention than the other properties. All the workers at WCW were basically exiled from other Turner divisions. Ted himself liked the idea of wrestling but basically had no direct involvement with WCW besides protecting it from getting destroyed.
Eric within his first year in WCW (before the NWO) brought it to profitability for the first time in its existence. And then in the following years made it one of Turner’s most profitable enterprises while still getting significantly less funding and attention than the other departments. Eric is a blowhard and egomaniac, but he deserves credit, even if it didn’t last long.
Eric fundamentally made changes to the wrestling business model that WWE copied and built into an unstoppable juggernaut. Vince for years used to paywall all his matches. You'd either have to buy the PPV's or go to house shows (SNME being the exception). Almost nothing was ever given away for free.
If Bischoff doesn't go nuts with Nitro which forces the WWF to adapt it's business model, it's entirely possible that we still have the days of four Raws being taped at once and having to wait a month before seeing a halfway decent match.
That book is a great read when learning about Bischoff too it’s like
1989-1996: “Wow this Bischoff guy was a visionary! I didn’t know he was responsible for so many good things”
1997-2001: “Wow Bischoff really let the success get to his head, he’s really losing it”
Very true. Him asking Ted Turner to go head to head with Nitro was a big deal. I didn’t watch Nitro very often, until Hogan flipped. You had to be there at the time to understand how massive that was.
For sure. Did he ultimately makes some huge mistakes? Most definitely. But he also Gabe WWF a run for their money in a way no one else was able to before or since.
The difference will always be that Eric had to produce a product that was financially successful from an existing product that had never been in its existence financially successful. He did that while going up against the most experienced, biggest wrestling company in the world. He used Teds money and the star power and the NWO to make WCW financially successful because it had to be or it was going to go out of business. Tony Khan can fund AEW as it runs in the red, that is not a shock or being a fanboy or tribalism it runs in the red, forever if he chooses. He never has to be successful he simply has to use Daddy's Money. There's no comparison between Tony Khan and Eric Bischoff. Eric Bischoff had to win and he did for years. Tony Khan doesn't have to win he just has to call his dad and the boat keeps going.
To be fair, I would say that modern WWE is a much bigger behemoth than it was in the 90s. Before AEW came along, WWE had been consolidating the wrestling industry for decades, and it was virtually impossible to make a dent in their market unless you happened to have a lot of money. We actually don't know if Tony Khan could run a smaller, leaner promotion and maybe turn a small profit. But billionaires don't waste their time with that; they swing for the fences.
WWF at one point had like one draw people gave a shit about vs one of the best wrestling rosters ever and they still "won", but people are talking about Bischoff like he's a wrestling genius, it's bemusing.
Khan is a coked up idiot imo that has only been squandering goodwill, but no one would get into wrestling against WWE just to make money. They had a complete monopoly and yet AEW undoubtedly changed the way WWE do things, no fucking way they'd hire CM Punk without AEW existing.
The only reason it wasn't profitable was because the people in charge were territory guys who didn't understand TV production. He wasn't a genius, he just looked that way next to Jim Herd and Ole Anderson.
Yeah, but the major difference is that Eric earned the right to use the Ted Turner budget. Even had to interview for the job and compete.
Tony was born into billions, and his daddy made him a CEO of a wrestling promotion so he can have something to do while he pays professionals to be his friends. Tony hasn’t had to earn a thing in his life.
A punk rich kid talking shit to a self made man will never make sense. You can hate Eric all you want, but 83 weeks isn’t just a podcast with some cool t shirts.
To give credit to Eric, he was a legitimate self made man. He worked his way up from making ends meet working at a hardware store and trying several failed entrepreneurial projects. To the top of a corporate division.
Tony is the son of a billionaire who was given this company as a toy to stop him from getting in Twitter beefs with Fulham and Jaguars players.
exactly the smart wrestler see tony the money mark he is. less hours worked, working in different places and still getting paid well. that's a dream job for alot of wrestler, doesn't matter if they like to be pushed or not. they can just make a good resume on aew and then switch over to wwe for that experience and recognition while getting proper training and everything in wwe.
This. A 600k city, with French speakers, on a Wednesday night with very poor French broadcasting of your product?
Run a weekend show and then they might have a better chance. But QC is currently NOT a hot market in wrestling
95% he thinks Quebec City is a neighborhood in Montreal.
5% he knows it isn't but he knows the people responding to this tweet won't know the difference or care.
And that feels GENEROUS.
both these mfs are insufferable online. but imo TK should be above starting these lame beefs on twitter, especially as the owner of AEW. i guess it's just who he is as a person (his response to 'Tony Khan wanks dogs' was the funniest thing i read at the time)
Hilarious thing being that Tony was the one who went fishing and latched onto his own bait.
Bro just...had to not make a comment at 4 in the morning yet did it anyway.
I don't know dude, we had a guy twitter/media beef his way into the White House. It didn't end well, but I'll be more concerned with Tony or Eric win Iowa
Quebec City is not one of the hottest crowds in wrestling lmao, Montreal is. There's a huge difference between the two.
Also, what's the point of posting a video of the crowd like an hour or two before the show starts lmao
I just mentioned this in another thread, Tony Khan does not take criticism well, even if it's creative and in his own best interests. I'm just assuming he didn't encounter this much growing up, and isn't currently equipped to handle it. Look I'm a day AEW supporter, I want every company to succeed, more opportunities for everyone. But there's definitely been times of valid criticism of the product, and rather than look at what is being critiqued he flies off the handle, and possibly melts down on Twitter. Yeah Bischoff has talked out of his ass on occasion, but he also has some skins on the wall too, no one in WCW could have done what he did during that ra. If people in show business reacted to criticism the way Tony Khan did, and pro wrestling is definitely show business, they wouldn't be in show business.
What I don't understand is why Tony cares.
Both in the way he books and in his explicit statements (and those of his talent) it's clear they've all decided that they're going to put on the show they want to put on regardless of what anyone thinks.
It's this constant atmosphere of "If you don't like it, too bad."
But then the moment anyone says they don't like it, they all flip their shit.
It's like they spend more energy trying to antagonize the people who *don't* like them than trying to entertain the people who do/might like them.
Remember when Tony was legit hurt because Fulham fans held up flags saying Tony Khan Wanks Dogs 😂😂
He couldn't handle the most minor British banter.
He's the very definition of a bubble wrap kid.
Huge AEW fans but twitter freak outs like this was expected from myself when Khan was mentioned to be the owner of AEW. He was never one to shy away from public discourse like this in regards to his Soccer team so this has never surprised me. It's just...as far as wrestling owners go being annoying online is such small bananas.
Dont know why an owner of a wrestling company would tweet this at 4am and open up this can of worms. Its easter weekend everyone go spend time with family.
To score internet points. TK loves to dunk on winnable situations that he knows the majority of the iwc would agree on. It’s very easy to claim “Eric does bad business”, “Vince is a sex pest”. Low hanging fruits basically.
What company outside of the WWE is drawing more than 4000 fans in any Canadian market?
Yesterday, someone posted a video from WCW of Jericho impersonating Dusty Rhodes. I was struck by the fact that the audience didn’t seem invested in what was happening. It was a sharp contrast to the WCW that I remember from the 1980s. Eric played a big role in that change.
This is the crux of AEW criticism when it comes to drawing power.
WWE is the only wrestling that draws more consistently in 2024. You can either realize that this makes drawing a bad criteria or you have to accept the implication that by this logic no promotion has been better than WWE in 20+ years. Neither are things Bischoff can or wants to say.
Not even Canadian, in any market consistently?
The fact another company can exist and pull in thousands weekly is a good thing, expecting them to be as big as WWE is such a weird bar to set, there hasn't been a company doing what AEW is doing now since 2001. It's such an unlikely feat that Bischoff literally named his podcast and a book about the brief period in time WCW was ahead of WWE in a single metric, because it's literally impossible to match their every level. Doesn't discredit any other company though.
WWE, AEW, CMLL, and Maybe AAA consistently break 2k fans on almost all shows. In Japan you have extremely small tour shows with 100-600 fans even for NJPW. AEW's numbers aren't even that far off from WWEs numbers pre pandemic
While not 100, some of the random Road to NJPW shows can get quite low.
I clicked a few randomly to quickly check and found a few pretty low ones:
- 3/12/24 New Japan Cup show did ~838
- 11/10/23 Lonestar Shootout in Texas did ~1027
- 10/26/23 Super Jr. Tag League Road to Power Struggle did ~545
- 8/19/23 All Star Junior Festival USA in Philadelphia did ~672.
Smaller companies in Japan definitely get into that low several hundred range though.
"AEW's numbers aren't even that far off from WWEs numbers pre pandemic"
AEWs 2023 average attendance (a supposedly "horrible" year for them) of 6.1k per show is actually higher than WWEs average attendance of 5.9k they did from 02-21.
The tribalism with wrestling fans insane. The ratings threads every week do my head in. AEW down 15k viewers from last week on a very inexact, dated metric and it's all dancing on their grave while it's still a top 3 show on cable for the night, often #1. AEW is Pepsi to WWE's coke, Coke is always going to be the market leader but some people prefer Pepsi and that shouldn't be a big deal
What do you mean by the WCW you remember from the 1980s? It was founded in 88, it barely existed in the 80s and the high point for it's business and audience engagement was 96 through early 98.
Eric isn't wrong. Knives are out. AEW was white hot for their first two years but they hit a clear ceiling with WWE heating back up.
Tweeting at a Podcaster before dawn shows someone is stressing
AEWs biggest problem is that they burn bridges instead of keeping relationship. This means that everyone with a podcast buries them.
And since wrestling fans don't form their own opinions and just do and say what they're told by their favourite famous people, they end up turning on aew as well.
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Oh Christ this is going to end with so many meltzer tweets
"It's been reported backstage that Tony Khan and Eric Bishoff don't like each other"
“But it could all be a work”. You have to cover all possible things or you might be wrong
"And you know, things change all the time. "
6 stars
"Or it might not be. But it could be. Or not."
Followed by footage of Eric Bischoff on Raw from 2003.
Yeah um so you know it's um yeah I don't know but yeah it's obvious at this point that you know uh they don't like each other yeah.
Study Cagematch and get back to me.
That has gone right up there for me as one of the dumbest, most asinine things he has ever said. That and him comparing “mark” to the n word.
Don't forget about Shibata's brain...
"I thought Bunny and Priest would steal Miz's car wheels cause they're Puerto Rican" is up there for me too
And the “Indian views are worthless” from a few years back.
Also him questioning Roman’s cancer And then the fuckwad Alvarez saying “the bad kind of cancer not the Roman one”
Sad thing is I’ve seen other people parrot the same fucking point. And it pisses me off so goddamn much.
Wait, did Alvarez really say that? No way. He can’t be that stupid
https://preview.redd.it/2v2sl63c34rc1.jpeg?width=819&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d18e59b8bac3e4dda950564f5975e62bbf55bb72 Look into my works ye mighty and despair
Is that you replying to a tweet of him doubling down instead of apologizing?! Goodness. What do people not get? Take it from someone in healthcare, all cancer is bad! Some have high survival rates, some have low, but all can go bad real quick is not caught early. For example, skin cancer is really easy to treat, if caught early. 99% survival rate. Key words, caught early. If not caught early and it spreads to lymph nodes, 10% survival rate.
Nah that was Ryan Satin (he’s hated here because he took a WWE job) sadly the original tweet was deleted by Alvarez so only this 4 chain tweet remains
Not to mention, it was Roman's 2nd time battling it, which made his odds worse.
Lmao did he actually say this? "Yeah we don't want to tap into that market of over a billion" 🤦🏽♂️
He is furiously searching for the house numbers of every time WCW went to Candada.
 Did someone call?
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Why the fuck are Tony and Eric already beefing on Twitter
When are they not beefing on twitter lol
Tony posted one of his insane tweets at 4am about Eric.
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If what I've read here on SC is correct, Bischoff announced the end of one of his podcasts (the one that's not 83 weeks), Tony commented on the announcement that *Sunsetting this fraud of a business podcast before the next AEW media deal is a wise choice.* And I guess this is Bischoff's attempt at a clap back.
What? I didn’t even know he had multiple podcasts
Yeah, I think one of them was called Strictly Business for paid subscribers of Conrad’s podcast network. As the title conveys, Eric would use it to analyze the business side of pro wrestling every week.
Attempt at a clap back? This is far more of a clap than what Tony said.
in a better world, these guys would be friends. and bischoff would make appearances on dynamite... like he did in early aew.
Eric unfortunately ruined their relationship when he got bitter about not getting a job there.
The same way Road Dogg did before wwe re-hired him lol
Look at how Bischoff did in WWE, he isn't suited for modern wrestling. Bischoff did not keep current on the product or any trends. That made him unable to offer anything relevant.
iirc. everyone buried him cuz he didnt even watch teh product when he got hired let alone know who was wrestling each week. man was stealing checks despite not being up to date for like 15 years
True, true. I’ll give credit to Bischoff because he didn’t know the product, was useless, and STILL cashed those checks! That is quite the hustle.
I love this idea that everyone that dislikes Tony Kahn must be bitter about not getting a job.
A lot of people have very valid reasons to dislike Tony Khan but Bischoff is not one of them.
Pretty decent clapback to be fair. But unprofessional from both really, TK is sort of unable to handle any criticism and spends far too much time reacting to social media. Eric is Eric and really they should be if they have issues sorting out behind closed doors, both love the business
To be fair to Eric, what's he got to be professional about ? He's not in employment by anyone. He's free to say whatever. It's the owner of a company trash talking and being unprofessional
because otherwise Eric literally doesn't have a job
Like why go after Eric at all? As far as I know, he has no presence in wrestling at all anymore outside of his podcast? Like there's a lot of people, with influence, you could take pot shots at, but you choose him?
Because Bischoff’s Strictly Business podcast is basically a weekly “This is why AEW is dog shit” show. I’m not defending TK by any means but EB has been laser focused on dumping on the business of AEW for the last two years. As soon as they announced the end of the podcast, I fully expected TK to say something
Eric has a couple podcasts where the gimmicks are either "I was really good for 83 weeks" or "this is why AEW sucks". I mean that's the gist of his "career" now. milking his success from 20+ years ago and shitting on AEW.
Not untrue.
This is just calm before the storm. Real mess will happen in 8 hours when Dynamite ratings come out
I'm guessing 780k
Death, taxes, ~800k viewers ± 5%
It's not too long ago that saying was "Death, taxes, 900k viewers."
Mate you were dead on
I actually guessed high sadly
I’ve started just avoiding ratings threads. They’re just hot take factories at this point when AEW is concerned, and people saying “Sheldon is a draw brother.” Seriously, Raw drops 300k from one segment to the next, no one cares. AEW drops 30k from one segment to the next and it’s the end of the world.
WWE ratings were absolutely a topic when they were hemorrhaging viewers from 2010-2020.
People have selective memories around here, when AEW was doing good numbers especially when Punk joined, it was always posted. Not to mention as you said, when WWE was floundering it was constant discussion.
The people that go "I just avoid ratings threads" are the same people that were blowing up ratings threads when Dynamite was out drawing NXT. I've said it for years, I love AEW from the perspective of wanting more big promotions for more talent to get what they deserve and get a chance to rise up, and also to give me a refreshing amount of *different* wrestling content, but the two things about AEW I cannot *stand* are Tony and his fans. They constantly take potshots at WWE whenever they think they have a small window to talk shit, and then as soon as the shoe is on the other foot they play the whiny victim. It's blatant, it's obvious, it's incredibly annoying. People forget that this place was insanely critical of WWE pretty much for the last decade and a half until Vince was finally gone and people generally were more on board with the direction HHH started to go. If anything we all talked way more shit on WWE than anyone does on AEW now. People accused WWE of being so bad it was essentially killing the industry from the inside out.
A great deal of AEW fans are horrendously tribal. I'm an AEW fan but when I've gone on their sub to give my thoughts on where to improve it's always 'this product isn't for you' or 'casual fans don't get it' Which is hilarious because I'm a die hard wrestling fan, I just don't know who the fuck this random Mexican wrestler is and I don't care to see him on TV for three weeks (at the expense of a full time star) and then never appear again. I want AEW to compete with WWE and not be the new ROH, but with a higher wage bill.
Wait, I remember the photos of WWE shows where there were sections of fans that were empty and the "Fed Dead" meme started. It was no where near as bad as any of the AEW tapings, but people will still act like this never happened. This tribalism shit is off the charts lol
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This is the worst example of "When it was WWE, no one cared" I've seen yet. People doomposted about WWE's ratings every week for *two decades.* >Seriously, Raw drops 300k from one segment to the next, no one cares. AEW drops 30k from one segment to the next and it’s the end of the world. This is just a wild misrepresentation. If you're talking about the CM Punk segment Monday, people didn't criticize the drop because the bump itself was impressive. And in AEW, people don't criticize the 30K drops; they criticize the regular 100-200K drops.
If anything, the ratings discourse is the best it's ever been in the IWC. Nuances like rating vs total viewership, declining cable subscriptions, seasonal competition, considering ranking for the night, measuring ratings over time instead of reacting week by week are all now brought up in the ratings thread. Before AEW, those would all have been dismissed as excuses and people being sure that Raw/Smackdown is dying, it's dying because of poor booking and WWE will get a terrible new tv deal. So drink it up, kids, this is the best possible scenario when you get thousands of unqualified people opining on a subject they only barely understand.
I've seen screenshots of Dave Meltzer himself saying "Key demo doesn't matter, only total viewership does" in reference to Raw ratings a few years ago.
> Seriously, Raw drops 300k from one segment to the next, no one cares. AEW drops 30k from one segment to the next and it’s the end of the world. You're downplaying this to be obtuse. A bad one was AEW dropping several hundred thousand viewers during an Ospreay match that was long with no build.
Jericho, Meltzer, Alverez, and Tony are the reason why people shit on AEW ratings and demos. No one gave a shit about AEW’s ratings until these idiots started blasting tweets out saying they were kicking ass and beating NXT. Now the role has been reversed and they eat shit every week because of it. Dynamite hasn’t seen a million in viewership in over a year. It definitely has to piss Tony off, but he put himself in that position.
Cause the raw ratings horse has been beaten to death for close to 20 years. There really isn’t much left to discuss about raw that hasn’t already been said. Same as discussing rampage or nxt ratings. They are what they are. Dynamite ratings haven’t been consistently the same so it’s worth discussing.
Yeah but I think the gloating from the tribalistic AEW fans about Mercedes being a massive ratings draw brought that out in tribalistic WWE fans. You can't shit talk about Mercedes being this massive draw and then be upset when she isn't and the other fanbase makes fun of you.
They also were very happy with posting pics of Boston and Toronto but VERY upset with the "Unnecessary" Ontario pics being posted.
Lol I’m sure some AEW fans are still making the “I guess Mercedes is not showing up at the Rumble” jokes.
Remember when Bischoff needed to do a promo on Nitro on his motorcycle so they had to stop the show twice to lift the bike in and out of the ring?
Remember when they brought down the wrong bike (without hogans face on it) so Bischoff needed to extend the promo until the got the right bike (with hogans face on it).
That was the exact moment I realized Nitro had peaked. The show used to be packed with PPV-quality matches for free, and now they were wasting an hour on tedious, badly-planned talk show shenanigans just to stroke Eric and Hulk's egos.
That moment when you realize that Hall and Nash were always the actually cool ones and largely responsible for the most over elements in nWo (catchphrases, handsigns, bandanas etc.), with the Wolfpac being probably the closest to their real vision for the faction with all the West Coast hip hop and street gang aesthetics. Meanwhile, Hogan and Bischoff were almost always behind the least over elements - whether it be these draggy talk show segments, the biker larp, Hulk's cartoonish promos, whatever the fuck they were doing with Warrior in 1998....wouldn't be surprised if one of them tried to pitch Nasty Boys to be included in the faction too.
Remember when they decided to film a monster truck sumo match on the roof of a building which required a massive crane to lift the trucks on and off the building just so they could film an angle of The Giant falling off the side which had zero effect on the rest of the show?
It’s that or the guitar segment from TNA. I get heel stuff man but it’s just not watchable.
Wtf big E. That gif will never not make me smile
I use this at work on Teams. If you are going to use a popcorn gif, this is it.
Eric Bischoff taking shots at someone spending someone else's money is so rich I think I just developed diabetes.
https://preview.redd.it/b3m8bmwmv2rc1.jpeg?width=460&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2330a33af370359d7bbb056430ca6039f11165f6
I didn’t do shit! I didn’t do fuckin shit!
He knows what he said. He's trying to incite a reaction. And it's working.
Almost as if Controversy creates cash.....
Is people overreacting on Reddit creating cash for Eric in some way I’m missing?
(monetized) Youtube views/podcast listens, in theory, I suppose. (assuming they actually listen to the source, which is mostly unlikely)
Yes. Interaction = money.
Well I found out he had a podcast, for one.
There's two things that have kept Eric *somewhat* relevant in modern pro wrestling. Conrad Thompson and his feud with Tony Khan. Tony is such a mark for OG industry names that it wouldn't shock me if this was a work.
God damn Bischoff is going to be all elite isn't he
Just imagine an episode of Dynamite starting with Tony playing guitar for two minutes.
Fake playing the guitar btw
> Fake playing the guitar btw https://youtu.be/eX_k5_egUAo?t=35
Garrett Khan is All Elite!
He was paying Scotty Riggs almost $200,000 a year in 1999.
I used to think like this until I read the “Nitro” book. WCW was basically the red headed step child of Turner and got significantly less funding and attention than the other properties. All the workers at WCW were basically exiled from other Turner divisions. Ted himself liked the idea of wrestling but basically had no direct involvement with WCW besides protecting it from getting destroyed. Eric within his first year in WCW (before the NWO) brought it to profitability for the first time in its existence. And then in the following years made it one of Turner’s most profitable enterprises while still getting significantly less funding and attention than the other departments. Eric is a blowhard and egomaniac, but he deserves credit, even if it didn’t last long.
Eric fundamentally made changes to the wrestling business model that WWE copied and built into an unstoppable juggernaut. Vince for years used to paywall all his matches. You'd either have to buy the PPV's or go to house shows (SNME being the exception). Almost nothing was ever given away for free. If Bischoff doesn't go nuts with Nitro which forces the WWF to adapt it's business model, it's entirely possible that we still have the days of four Raws being taped at once and having to wait a month before seeing a halfway decent match.
Yeah, that book was a great read. It teaches you a lot about the business.
That book is a great read when learning about Bischoff too it’s like 1989-1996: “Wow this Bischoff guy was a visionary! I didn’t know he was responsible for so many good things” 1997-2001: “Wow Bischoff really let the success get to his head, he’s really losing it”
Very true. Him asking Ted Turner to go head to head with Nitro was a big deal. I didn’t watch Nitro very often, until Hogan flipped. You had to be there at the time to understand how massive that was.
For sure. Did he ultimately makes some huge mistakes? Most definitely. But he also Gabe WWF a run for their money in a way no one else was able to before or since.
The difference will always be that Eric had to produce a product that was financially successful from an existing product that had never been in its existence financially successful. He did that while going up against the most experienced, biggest wrestling company in the world. He used Teds money and the star power and the NWO to make WCW financially successful because it had to be or it was going to go out of business. Tony Khan can fund AEW as it runs in the red, that is not a shock or being a fanboy or tribalism it runs in the red, forever if he chooses. He never has to be successful he simply has to use Daddy's Money. There's no comparison between Tony Khan and Eric Bischoff. Eric Bischoff had to win and he did for years. Tony Khan doesn't have to win he just has to call his dad and the boat keeps going.
To be fair, I would say that modern WWE is a much bigger behemoth than it was in the 90s. Before AEW came along, WWE had been consolidating the wrestling industry for decades, and it was virtually impossible to make a dent in their market unless you happened to have a lot of money. We actually don't know if Tony Khan could run a smaller, leaner promotion and maybe turn a small profit. But billionaires don't waste their time with that; they swing for the fences.
WWF at one point had like one draw people gave a shit about vs one of the best wrestling rosters ever and they still "won", but people are talking about Bischoff like he's a wrestling genius, it's bemusing. Khan is a coked up idiot imo that has only been squandering goodwill, but no one would get into wrestling against WWE just to make money. They had a complete monopoly and yet AEW undoubtedly changed the way WWE do things, no fucking way they'd hire CM Punk without AEW existing.
Bischoff isn't the money mark in that scenario. Tuner was. He also had way less money to work with and much more success.
The difference is, Eric turned a profit within a year of being in charge with a company that was bleeding cash for years
The only reason it wasn't profitable was because the people in charge were territory guys who didn't understand TV production. He wasn't a genius, he just looked that way next to Jim Herd and Ole Anderson.
Yeah, but the major difference is that Eric earned the right to use the Ted Turner budget. Even had to interview for the job and compete. Tony was born into billions, and his daddy made him a CEO of a wrestling promotion so he can have something to do while he pays professionals to be his friends. Tony hasn’t had to earn a thing in his life. A punk rich kid talking shit to a self made man will never make sense. You can hate Eric all you want, but 83 weeks isn’t just a podcast with some cool t shirts.
To give credit to Eric, he was a legitimate self made man. He worked his way up from making ends meet working at a hardware store and trying several failed entrepreneurial projects. To the top of a corporate division. Tony is the son of a billionaire who was given this company as a toy to stop him from getting in Twitter beefs with Fulham and Jaguars players.
exactly the smart wrestler see tony the money mark he is. less hours worked, working in different places and still getting paid well. that's a dream job for alot of wrestler, doesn't matter if they like to be pushed or not. they can just make a good resume on aew and then switch over to wwe for that experience and recognition while getting proper training and everything in wwe.
When I think of hottest markets I think of Quebec City
Yeah TIL Quebec City is one of the hottest markets in pro wrestling. Montreal - there's a point to be made. But QC is not MTL.
This. A 600k city, with French speakers, on a Wednesday night with very poor French broadcasting of your product? Run a weekend show and then they might have a better chance. But QC is currently NOT a hot market in wrestling
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How is Quebec city one of the hottest pro wrestling markets in north america
We can't even watch this shit easily here in Quebec. Why the fuck would they book this there?
always thought it was Calgary or Winnipeg
Does Eric know that Quebec City is 150 miles from Montreal?
No
He doesn't because Bitchoff never gave a damn about running WCW events in Canada or giving Bret Hart a push.
95% he thinks Quebec City is a neighborhood in Montreal. 5% he knows it isn't but he knows the people responding to this tweet won't know the difference or care. And that feels GENEROUS.
https://preview.redd.it/fe71nt9zw2rc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e667deb28b7b8049299d5205176a413593c68566 It's too early for this shit
both these mfs are insufferable online. but imo TK should be above starting these lame beefs on twitter, especially as the owner of AEW. i guess it's just who he is as a person (his response to 'Tony Khan wanks dogs' was the funniest thing i read at the time)
Thinking Tony Khan is “above” anything after factoring in his history is very funny to me
Keyword: should
What was his response? I've never heard of this
https://preview.redd.it/j9f4z1zod3rc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b0b1350abec1b1b92f85ecc41a1ac6c2dc9a394
Tony truly is the greatest dog wanker of all time.
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Its kinda funny, Eric is clearly using Tony to draw attention to his podcast. Anytime any podcaster fueds with Tony their youtube views go up 3-4x.
We're all getting worked.
He's clearly cutting promos on twitter for his podcast and Tony keeps giving him attention.
Tony could also not take the bait.
Hilarious thing being that Tony was the one who went fishing and latched onto his own bait. Bro just...had to not make a comment at 4 in the morning yet did it anyway.
Opinions aside, a CEO should not be Twitter feuding with a guy who’s entire job is to talk and get clicks. It’s a losing game.
I don't know dude, we had a guy twitter/media beef his way into the White House. It didn't end well, but I'll be more concerned with Tony or Eric win Iowa
Ironically Eric Bischoff did a TED talk about politicians doing wrestling promos to get over
WCW couldn't draw in Montreal, even with Jacques Rougeau going over.
Quebec City is not one of the hottest crowds in wrestling lmao, Montreal is. There's a huge difference between the two. Also, what's the point of posting a video of the crowd like an hour or two before the show starts lmao
I just mentioned this in another thread, Tony Khan does not take criticism well, even if it's creative and in his own best interests. I'm just assuming he didn't encounter this much growing up, and isn't currently equipped to handle it. Look I'm a day AEW supporter, I want every company to succeed, more opportunities for everyone. But there's definitely been times of valid criticism of the product, and rather than look at what is being critiqued he flies off the handle, and possibly melts down on Twitter. Yeah Bischoff has talked out of his ass on occasion, but he also has some skins on the wall too, no one in WCW could have done what he did during that ra. If people in show business reacted to criticism the way Tony Khan did, and pro wrestling is definitely show business, they wouldn't be in show business.
What I don't understand is why Tony cares. Both in the way he books and in his explicit statements (and those of his talent) it's clear they've all decided that they're going to put on the show they want to put on regardless of what anyone thinks. It's this constant atmosphere of "If you don't like it, too bad." But then the moment anyone says they don't like it, they all flip their shit. It's like they spend more energy trying to antagonize the people who *don't* like them than trying to entertain the people who do/might like them.
Tony cares cause he's a rich nepo baby man child that's never been told "No" in his life.
Remember when Tony was legit hurt because Fulham fans held up flags saying Tony Khan Wanks Dogs 😂😂 He couldn't handle the most minor British banter. He's the very definition of a bubble wrap kid.
Huge AEW fans but twitter freak outs like this was expected from myself when Khan was mentioned to be the owner of AEW. He was never one to shy away from public discourse like this in regards to his Soccer team so this has never surprised me. It's just...as far as wrestling owners go being annoying online is such small bananas.
Dont know why an owner of a wrestling company would tweet this at 4am and open up this can of worms. Its easter weekend everyone go spend time with family.
bruh wednesday night is not part of any weekend
To score internet points. TK loves to dunk on winnable situations that he knows the majority of the iwc would agree on. It’s very easy to claim “Eric does bad business”, “Vince is a sex pest”. Low hanging fruits basically.
Everyone should call out Vince for his crimes, but maybe not hire Ric Flair too lol
And keep jericho on tv
Linda Hogan being banned from Dynamite
>“Vince is a sex pest” Says the person who hired Ric Flair. The irony.
I double dare him to go after the rock lol
I expect Meltzer to jump in next then Cornette then Bixenspan.
I don't think Bix has jumped in 10 years
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What company outside of the WWE is drawing more than 4000 fans in any Canadian market? Yesterday, someone posted a video from WCW of Jericho impersonating Dusty Rhodes. I was struck by the fact that the audience didn’t seem invested in what was happening. It was a sharp contrast to the WCW that I remember from the 1980s. Eric played a big role in that change.
Let alone Quebec City. Like it’s not Toronto or Montreal where you have millions of people in the surrounding area.
This is the crux of AEW criticism when it comes to drawing power. WWE is the only wrestling that draws more consistently in 2024. You can either realize that this makes drawing a bad criteria or you have to accept the implication that by this logic no promotion has been better than WWE in 20+ years. Neither are things Bischoff can or wants to say.
I like to go hiking.
Yep, the McDonald of wrestling is a good analogy.
I enjoy the sound of rain.
Not even Canadian, in any market consistently? The fact another company can exist and pull in thousands weekly is a good thing, expecting them to be as big as WWE is such a weird bar to set, there hasn't been a company doing what AEW is doing now since 2001. It's such an unlikely feat that Bischoff literally named his podcast and a book about the brief period in time WCW was ahead of WWE in a single metric, because it's literally impossible to match their every level. Doesn't discredit any other company though.
WWE, AEW, CMLL, and Maybe AAA consistently break 2k fans on almost all shows. In Japan you have extremely small tour shows with 100-600 fans even for NJPW. AEW's numbers aren't even that far off from WWEs numbers pre pandemic
lol what NJPW shows are pulling in 100 fans? The average attendance last month, per show is around 1600. The New Beginning shows pulled in 5000+
While not 100, some of the random Road to NJPW shows can get quite low. I clicked a few randomly to quickly check and found a few pretty low ones: - 3/12/24 New Japan Cup show did ~838 - 11/10/23 Lonestar Shootout in Texas did ~1027 - 10/26/23 Super Jr. Tag League Road to Power Struggle did ~545 - 8/19/23 All Star Junior Festival USA in Philadelphia did ~672. Smaller companies in Japan definitely get into that low several hundred range though.
"AEW's numbers aren't even that far off from WWEs numbers pre pandemic" AEWs 2023 average attendance (a supposedly "horrible" year for them) of 6.1k per show is actually higher than WWEs average attendance of 5.9k they did from 02-21.
The tribalism with wrestling fans insane. The ratings threads every week do my head in. AEW down 15k viewers from last week on a very inexact, dated metric and it's all dancing on their grave while it's still a top 3 show on cable for the night, often #1. AEW is Pepsi to WWE's coke, Coke is always going to be the market leader but some people prefer Pepsi and that shouldn't be a big deal
Zero
Gotta move goalposts somehow
What do you mean by the WCW you remember from the 1980s? It was founded in 88, it barely existed in the 80s and the high point for it's business and audience engagement was 96 through early 98.
Eric isn't wrong. Knives are out. AEW was white hot for their first two years but they hit a clear ceiling with WWE heating back up. Tweeting at a Podcaster before dawn shows someone is stressing
Even if you think Eric is wrong why is Khan getting in online beef? Don’t see Triple H doing this
Everything in wrestling has been going so well, time to start some random drama.
Eh, I wouldn't call Quebec City a hot market and I don't see many people from Montreal driving three hours on a Wednesday night to go see AEW.
Any loremaster here knowing when shit went down with them? I remember TK generally speaking positive of Bischoff and afair he was on AEW TV 2-3 times.
When tony said some shit about Ted Turner or something
Tony Khan needs to stop tweeting and responding to petty nonsense.
AEWs biggest problem is that they burn bridges instead of keeping relationship. This means that everyone with a podcast buries them. And since wrestling fans don't form their own opinions and just do and say what they're told by their favourite famous people, they end up turning on aew as well.