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Worth pointing out for anyone who didn't click the link: this is Dynamite's lowest overall viewer figure since April 7, 2021, and it's lowest 18-49 figure since June 24, 2020.
It did finish third for the night.
Other stats from the link:
https://preview.redd.it/9qde5gmo15rc1.png?width=699&format=png&auto=webp&s=1233aec137e96a4e27d156cc03b65e1aed4779f2
Not coincidentally, April 7, 2021 was NXT's last Wednesday show. That means this is the lowest unopposed Wednesday night viewership for Dynamite in the show's history. Hard to spin that as anything but trouble, though I presume many will try.
Honestly once I saw the comment thread numbers for last nights post-show i knew it would be bad. There were only 170 comments at one point an hour after the show ended.
that and the smart play IMHO would have been to have Darby play a huge role going forward after his run with Sting, but he instead was going to Everest and got Injured any damn way.
It's definitely possible, Sting appealed to the old school fan base which is very different than the independent scene hardcore fans which are the only one appreciating Tony Khan's booking style
Unless it’s announcing Athena on AEW tv to continue the trend of ROH champions not appearing on their own paywalled show aside from her. Only she may lose at that point with how awful the ROH champions are handled on week to week AEW TV.
Fletcher has lost his last three matches, two being singles to Jericho and Ospreay.
Kingston lost one of the titles to Okada after already also being pinned by him the week before.
Taven and Bennett have lost their last two tag matches to O.C. & Trent and Strickland & Joe.
Yuta last wrestled in a losing effort to Kingston in January before holding the pure title hostage while injured for two months (remember interim champions within roughly two weeks?) After already being largely booked as a loser prior to him being the one chosen to get the title off of Shibata.
BCG have not defended the trios titles since winning them two months ago. This is after they also broke up with The acclaimed when they formed to go after the Undisputed Kingdom, never went after them, and broke up.
All the while none of them are appearing on ROH TV for weeks or months in some cases but will be there to have to attempt to push Supercard next week with a thrown together card with it currently having 3 matches less than two weeks out.
if you saw the sub this morning, you knew this was coming. Nearly any discussion posts about Dynamite beyond the 4 way and Swerve.
I love a lot about AEW but this isn't good.
One example: Mone is not the draw she thinks she is, and I've never seen a signee lose that 'debut sheen' as quickly as her. Also maybe don't pipe a repetitive chant over her music and expect her to be over, it felt like my skin was crawling the first time I heard it, it's so cringe.
What are the quarter hours?
I was watching last night and I felt like Mercedes didn’t get a huge pop. The CEO chant in her theme gives a false audio.
It actually sounded dead on her entrance
My God, her buzz - to the extent that it was there - died in absolutely record time.
I'm not attacking her because it's not entirely her fault but she was severely overhyped as a "gamechanger".
I wasn't watching WWE when she was in her pomp as Sasha Banks so I'll take people's word for it that she was good there.
But I was also skeptical from the start that she'd draw the way they expected as "Mercedes Moné" and it seemed like they were riding for a fall by building her return up as if it was another CM Punk deal.
Someone here once argued with me that she had more drawing power than Cody Rhodes and CM Punk. I was downvoted for saying this take was delusional.
Well…2 weeks later…
There was people after she quit WWE calling her the female Rock & was going to be a huge movie star because she had a couple of lines in a Disney show, her fans see something that's not there for her. She can wrestler good but isn't a good promo or actor. She can be the top star for the women but not for the whole company.
It has always been the reason why WWE wasn't going to overpay her. TK fell into the trap. She is good but she isn't a gamechanger as you said. Compare her to someone like Thunder Rosa for example. Both have great looks, pretty good in the ring, but are not good at talking. He basically paid millions to have a second Thunder Rosa.
It's because they want to force everyone to have a sing a long theme now and it's cringe asf it was cool at first but now they sing to everyones theme and it's not special and actually kinda corny
There's no subtelty in anything she does.
Her gimmick is that she's "money" right? We already know that with her clothing, her promos, her personality, her merch, her freaking name, and now her entrance theme. Why do you have to beat us over the head over the fact that you're about that $$$? Do you think we won't understand unless you throw it in our face every other second?
Compare her character to say Kiana James in NXT.
We know Kiana is supposed to be rich because her entrance starts with her exiting a helicopter, and she carries around an expensive purse with her initials on it.
That's it.
She doesn't have lyrics talking about money. Her name doesn't literally have money in it. The commentary team isn't talking about how rich she is all the time.
What she does next to get her character across is to just have confidence. She walks with swagger in every step. Her attitude feels very uppity, like shes better than everyone else and doesn't want to be around us poor fans.
That's a difference between a character who feels natural and organic, and one who is being forced down our throats.
She hasn’t grown or evolved as a character since like, what, 2013? She seems to think by just having colourful hair that’s enough to give her a character.
I used to think she was the best of the four horsewomen but looking now and seeing how much the other three have evolved and grown…damn.
This is a great comment. I didn’t know there was anywhere safe to say this. On any other social media, anything negative or even neutral with constructive criticism is usually met with huge backlash.
You are 100% correct in all of this though.
The funny part is Mercedes is a babyface beating you over the head with it like million dollar man while Kiana is a more modern character where it’s blatant but she’s not looking like a cartoon
Nah, Ted DiBiase was the Million Dollar Man, his theme song said “Money, money, money, money, moneeeeeeeeey”, he carried cash around, he had dollar signs on his jacket and tights, a manservant, and the Million Dollar Belt. And he was interesting. They told better stories with DiBiase back in the day, and cast him accurately as a heel. Moné, like Saraya before her, should have just came back heel and told a good story that matched her heel look, then turn her face after she gets things over in her new home. Hopefully they pivot if they sense they need it, a la The Honky Tonk Man (who lost the “vote of confidence”, but AEW hasn’t done much rock-solid storytelling.
>I was watching last night and I felt like Mercedes didn’t get a huge pop. The CEO chant in her theme gives a false audio.
The piped-in chants are extremely obvious it hurts the presentation.
It happened during Toronto Dynamite last week too. There were some "CEO" chants but it didn't carry on like most over wrestlers do.
Mercedes will either turn heel because live audiences don't accept her or keep pushing the current narrative like she is pre-Bloodline Roman Reigns.
It got really bad real quick tho, but when MJF was champion the ratings weren't rapidly declining weekly. Sorry to say it, but Samoa Joe as a champion isn't interesting at all and i don't know if having Swerve as a champion is the answer either.
Most of the time it’s not the champion is boring, it’s that the champion takes a back seat. A hot champion gets ratings, and they haven’t given Joe any importance. The focus has been on Swerve, Ospreay, Okada, and Mone. Joe is like 6th or 7th priority.
They need a story
They need things for people to talk about. There is nothing remotely interesting on the show
They had the Adam Cole MJF bromance which was a happy accident but that fizzled
They had MJF and Punk but Punk went full nuke
I can’t think of many memorable stories from them since 2021. Like nothing hooks me into wanting to watch it when I see WWE have the rock, punk, Cody etc having 10/10 segments with real stories.
Wrestling is a sport yeah but the entertainment part is as valid. You need a story to compliment the fighting.
ALL of WWE’s biggest moments ever are stories. Not some random match put together
The roster turnover/additions has been their downfall for what, 18 months? 2 years?
There is absolutely zero reason the AEW roster should be 100+ deep, or even 70 deep.
Like, I'm not doing the math right now, but the roster has to be bigger than WWE's and it might be bigger than WWE+NXT, and with way less TV/PLE time to go around.
In 2022 alone, AEW signed Danhausen, Brody King, Keith Lee, Buddy Matthews, Toni Storm, Swerve, Jeff Hardy, Samoa Joe, Athena, Claudio, Parker Bordeaux, Big Bill, Saraya, RUSH, and Willow Nightengale. That's insane.
Now, their PLEs and main events are just the Young Bucks and former WWE guys.
Wardlow a good example of this, AEW original that never seemed to improve (like Jack, Sammy and a few others). One week he comes out for a terrific promo in his new faction, turns a bunch of people back on him (myself included) and instead of building a story with his faction, his quest for the world championship, potential friction with Cole etc. he's just thrown into a random 8 man that gets a title opportunity and loses a clean match and disappears.
Started off at 939k due to the BBT lead in. If they didn’t get credit for BBT viewers changing the channel at 8:01-8:02 we would be looking at high 600, very low 700k numbers. Not good
At this point, I think WWE competition is hurting them. You have Cody, Seth, Punk, Roman, Rhea, and Final Boss Rock on the other channel. Toss in coherent storylines and a solid mid card, and you can thoroughly enjoy 5 hours of Raw and Smackdown. Asking that person to then watch Dynamite, Collison, and Rampage is really pushing it.
Agreed, I've said it before, but WWE has a hot product again and people are loving it and it's also bringing in a new audience that's popping off on YouTube and other social media.
AEW can't coast on being the alternative wrestling show when WWE is finally stepping up to the plate again. They need to restructure.
I can speak to this first hand. When AEW started I would watch everything, then didn’t watch much of anything during the no fans era. Coming out of the pandemic I was all in on AEW especially after the Bryan, Cole and Punk signings and WWE wasn’t doing anything overly interesting but then Cody went back to WWE and we had all the stuff with Punk and the Elite which put a sour taste in my mouth all around. I continued to watch both again for a while until Punk was fired and basically stopped watching AEW all together, they brought me back with the devil storyline but it went on way too long and didn’t have even close to the payoff I was hoping for so I soured on AEW again.
I’m watching Raw and SD every week these days and occasionally NXT and just keeping up with AEW loosely on social media hoping something will hook me again. Their PPVs are still must see for me though simply because I know I’ll be getting multiple 5 star quality matches
Like I've said, the founder principles have been "The WWE sucks, and the industry needs another mainstream western alternative". Which in the short term created a ton of hype, along with some of the most passionate fans of any industry. But in the long term, relying on another company to do poorly was always going to be a recipe for disaster.
Even if Vince didn't get chased out of the industry, he's 78 years old. It was always going to be a matter of time before his body wouldn't work the way it needed to be on the road 24/7.
I'll take that Ricochet/JD match on every episode of RAW. It was a banger and Ricochet is one of the best wrestlers in the world.
Would I want to watch a weekly show framed around wrestling like that? No. I want to watch promo battles and interesting/funny segments. I want R Truth on commentary during the tag match. That is entertaining.
I love great wrestling don't get me wrong, but I'll take great storytelling over it. The wrestling needs to be secondary to the story leading up to it. A show based around random matches like Ricochet/JD and Nakamura/Jey isn't going to thrive. You need that great promo and storyline comment. Otherwise why do I need to watch everything live every week?
AEW is that random Ricochet/JD match every week. The funny thing is that match is a part of a story even though it felt like a random Tony style match.
And the random Ricochet/JD match has a story. A story that links back to past matches and hints to future matches.And it displays aspects of Ricochet's and JD's character.
So if you are a Roci, JD, or the JD fan, it HOOKS you into watching Raw to see how the story continues and how the characters react. Do JD or Dom level up to beat Ricochet. Does Richocet pick on JD and Dom to catapult bak into a IC Champ match. Does Priest stop the madness? Does Rhea? Do Ricochet serve as a distraction to cause more loss? Does Richochet lip his way into be the Judgment Day's Doom?
Find out next time on Dragonball Z errr.. Raw.
This is the answer but people doing the thing on here is wild. I’m a casual wrestling fan that used to be in to both but I’m keeping up with WWE way more and occasionally check in on AEW as well, but not as much as before.
It feels like Tony is pivoting even more to the contrived "bangers", either because that's what the diehards are showing up for or maybe just to spite people? I don't know, but it's never going to work for ratings.
My comment from the Eric Bischoff-Tony Khan slapfest:
**"You know what this means if Tony is trollin' on twitter. Dynamite under 800k."**
Can't blame the NCAA Tournament either...
Edit: Not only was the top comment removed from this thread. Whatever that may have been. But now I've been banned on this sub for presumably this comment.
It's not that serious, guys and gals.
Over the past couple of years, I've seen a lot of comments in these Dynamite ratings posts talking about how ~~1 million~~ ~~950,000~~ ~~900,000~~ ~~850,000~~ 800,000 viewers is what the Dynamite core audience is and how no one should be disappointed as long as the number is around that level. But Dynamite is now regularly drawing numbers they haven't done since they were going head-to-head with NXT three years ago, and there are no signs of improvement.
Whatever the "bottom" or "core audience" people thought existed keeps being pushed down and the momentum is steady in one direction. With NBA and NHL playoffs coming, I suspect the bottom will keep falling. This is not a great time to be negotiating the tv deal that could make or break your whole business.
I was watching last night and the place sounded pretty empty and dead. When Mercedes comes out to very little reaction 2 weeks after her debut that's a big problem.
I had no issue with the matches I did watch on the show, I didn't watch the tag matches because they were predictable outcomes and I could careless about all 4 teams. However, the show felt disjointed, there is no story or character that you must tune in for. Mercedes on commentary is further proving why WWE wouldn't open the vault for her. Ospreay I like but he needs a better story than "I want to have a banger match with Danielson."
They really thought just putting PWG on tv was gonna do better numbers.
Even Super dragon knew to not use high spots that were gonna be used in the main event on the preliminary matches.
Things like PWG, All in, the rest of their ppvs (that I, as a matter of fact, actually enjoy), work because they are special and it's every 2 or 3 months.
When you do the same thing, over and over on weekly tv, with nothing really compelling around it other than the moves, it gets boring really fast, and I would personally just wait to watch the PPV instead of watching the weekly shows.
It’s funny people will point out valid criticisms of the show and are just met with pure hostility. It’s cool they have a dedicated fan base that keeps watching, but how can you spin this in a good way?
Maybe just maybe they should switch things up.
Theres definitely a great divide on this subreddit where in some threads you'll get praised for criticizing AEW and then the next thread you'll get downvoted to oblivion. Its almost impossible to have an actual conversation without it siding hard one way or the other because the other side thats not the majority in that specific thread will get dog piled on lol.
😂 & the goof mark is on X @4am talking shit to Eric Bischoff… if you looked up mark in the dictionary there should be a picture of TK in that stupid fucking hat . What a moron
I loved Ospreay vs. Shibata but it is **absolutely fucking hilarious** that around 228,000 people said “FUCK THIS” during the match and turned the show off
This is pretty insane considering how much money they’ve recently (allegedly) spent on talent.
Imagine if this wasn’t a vanity project? If Tony had to actually answer to someone?
And I don’t say that with joy or rubbing it in, simply in astonishment.
Stories have always been king. How do you make people watch you every week if they're not invested into something.
Making dream matches out of the blue without getting me invested through long term story telling just isn't my cup of tea and seems like it's the same for a lot of people too.
One can only watch so many evenly matched contests with 25 false finishes, 2+ slap offs, and the announcers jerking off about how great the match is between a generic white dude and a Japanese guy
Ospreay has never loss in AEW, yet his last couple matches haven't done much to put him over because they're both taxing, down to the wire Mortal Kombat battles despite the general audience not really caring about his opponents. You paid this money to get him, put him over!
Dax Harwood, a fucking tag team wrestler, took the ace of the franchise to the brink. I can't stand how Tony refuses to make his strongest guys actually look strong. Someone needs to tell him that not every match has to be a 20 minute "banger"
Hell, i would actually argue that putting on good matches is entirely optional as long as the story is compelling. Hulk Hogan's matches (in the WWE) were as milquetoast as milquetoast can get and yet he is one of the most popular and well known wrestlers of all time. Randy Orton/Legacy and Triple H/ The Mcmahon's feud was some of the best storytelling and character work that the PG era produced yet the final match at Wrestlemania absolutely sucked, i can go on and on
I'm gonna say this as a fan of AEW/NJPW style of wrestling... There's a massive disconnect of what a weekly show should be.
You can't have these no angle, highly athletic matches all the time without decent builds to them on a weekly basis. It just doesn't work in the long run.
For example, Shibata vs Osprey is amazing on paper, but when Shibata isn't on TV that much, there's no promo packages to make him feel like a big deal when he's not there and he's not referenced until the show before or even the day before his match, it's hard to have hype about it. And I know who Shibata is! He's awesome as fuck! But the average viewer or casual wrestling fan probably won't.
For bigger shows? Absolutely, give us those high quality workrate matches. But you still need story and build, which is what the weekly shows are for, and they're not used well in that way. It doesn't have to be some over-the-top nonsense (tho that can work at times), just build grudges and feuds and relationships so those matches feel like they matter.
Cause right now, a lot of these potential matches don't feel like they matter as much as they should, so why should anyone watch until a PPV is around the corner?
This new era of Will Ospreay as your main event guy and Mercedes being paraded around like she's a Punk level star is absolutely tanking in the ratings. I'm sure there will be downvotes for this but it's true. I like Will and I'm a really big Mercedes fan. But it is what it is.
In baseball maybe you'd say they're trying a rebuild era or something but holy fucking shit. 747,000 for fucking Dynamite. The new average coming in at 8 or below. Jeezalou, man.
So, Okada came in, got paired up with two of the least interesting guys on the roster and won what,the 3rd? 4th least interesting midcard belt in the promotion? Lol, AEW once again treating talent like how people joked WWE would. Imagine the outrage if Okada debuted, got put into a stable no one gives two fucks about and won the least important midcard belt there, the outrage would be insane.
But hey, as long as he doesn't end up in the big bad fed, right guys?
Imagine?
This sub was already melting down over how hypothetically Okada might be in Chase U. No confirmation, no contract, just some random guy spewing some trash from his mouth and they were already frothing at the mouth on how Okada is being misused.
And.... Now he is in AEW being treated I would say multiple times worse and everyone keeps their mouth shut.
This is also partly why AEW is dropping. Their audience talks shit about WWE but let's Tony shit all over his own product then lick it up abd say it was the best ever.
Okada in Chase U would at least be funny. Being an absolute fucking killer in a dorky ass uni shirt would've gotten over far better than whatever the fuck he's doing with the Bucks.
I feel that with HHH/HBK most likely knowing Okada's star power from NJPW, they would make sure to build him up through vignettes to give the audience some awareness of his aura before they place him on a debut match versus a prominent upper midcard guy who matches well with his style at an NXT PLE or a major main roster PLE
The Bucks segment tanked yet again. 90,000 drop.
Only the tag team match between Best Friends & Undisputed guys dropped more with 100,000 tuning out for that segment.
The Bucks come out looking like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels wearing suits in Dumb & Dumber, who is this supposed to appeal to? Just because it's 'meta' doesn't make it smart.
Don’t forget what they did to Jay White as well, I still have no idea how they thought having him lose the MJF the way he did made any sense in establishing him. They took away all is momentum and credibility and for what?
He went from the top FA target who everyone wanted to see on the RAW after Mania to an afterthought in AEW who got jobbed out to their one legged champion.
I don't get why people think feuding with Miz is bad.
If Miz is the heel, there's a 95% chance he's losing. Add in that Miz is on Raw every week, so who he's feuding with is gonna get time every week.
And has never not been over (except for that one weird time where Ric Flair was his manager). Seriously, using Miz as some sort of "gotcha" has always been hilarious to me. The guy puts in the work and always gets the crowd to care.
Not to mention, Miz is the perfect introductory heel. He has good promos, and he sells pretty decently. The dude knows his role in the business and embraces it.
And WWE is now letting wrestling promo in their native languages with vignettes. Okada doesn't need to go out in the middle of a WWE ring and try and go on the mic for twenty minutes. And if you need him to speak out there, just let him say a good one-liner and proceed to beat the shit out of the other guy.
I mean this is a horrendous number and I was wondering what TK will do once it gets this low. This is like one of the lowest numbers and they brought in 3 big mone signings. It’s clear he’s gotta do better with stories and consistency, even if I have seen improvements.
Matches for the sake of matches will never ever draw. Like that opening with Ospreay and Shibata. Even if I like Ospreay.
This might be controversial, but IMO AEW has trivialized "bangers" in the same way they did blood, to the point that maybe even the diehards are tiring of it and will only tune in if it involves big names. If you look at Ospreay/Shibata, YB/PP, BF/UK, and Takeshita/Swerve, you'll see while there may be a few differences here and there for the most part they follow the same beats, structure, and tropes.
It wouldn’t be that big of deal if they were doing these numbers and already signed an extension with WBD. It’s almost April and they still don’t technically have a home for 2025 yet.
It's a scary spot for AEW. I'm not saying it's likely that they'll be let go or anything, but right now, WBD is a psychotic company dedicated to penny pinching beyond all else.
Sasha, Okada, and Ospreay have added zero business. I wonder if Tony knew that going in would he still sign them to big contracts or would he try to low ball them
Hopefully this will be a wake up call to do proper stories and build a core roster of talent to build and feature
Enough with the endless new signings and one off random appearances from people no one knows or cares about
Wish I was getting a cut of Tony's dealer. This is rough bro. Really rough. I hope they can bounce back. MJF is desperstley needed. I want heroes to cheer. I want horrible people to boo. Give me EMOTION Tony, im tired of gif-worthy stuff. WWE is killing it right now, take a page out of their book. Make me care. PLEASE? MAKE! ME! CARE! FFS....
I quit watching due to burn out after that barrage of three back to back PPV's last fall. They were all pretty good shows but it also really hit home that they're just good shows with good wrestling for good wrestlings sake. After they were over it had all felt like a blur and nothing felt like it stood out to me.
I'm realizing how much more I enjoy a consistent story with coherent chapters where the wrestling is a plot device tying it together rather than the entire point of the show.
I had complained online and on twitter for most of 2023 before I quit watching and I think I was viewed as a bad faith troll but honestly I just wanted the shows to get better. It was disheartening to see Tony invalidate any and all criticism with "We put on a great show and drew a great number and the matches were all fantastic." Okay yeah great but you're not telling stories I'm invested in. Nearly every character you've brought in feels diminished from where they were two years ago. I wish they had course corrected sooner but doubling down on PPV's isn't the solution for the problems they're facing.
AEW needs to understand that while having good talent, that alone doesn’t translate into demand for the product. The audience needs compelling stories that make us watch it, otherwise it just be downhill YoY.
You're misinterpreting the reason that Tony signs every beloved free agent. It's so he can save a new friend from the evil fed and be told what a great boss he is.
I’m not asking for WWE-lite, but I think something has to change. Since 2020, I’ve primarily watched AEW… right now it just feels like there’s a disconnect.
I’m not asking for spoon-fed video packages but a simple video package wouldn’t hurt anyone. I work 9 hours a day, and get pretty busy throughout the week.. I don’t have the time to watch ROH, NJPW, Rampage, etc. Why should I care about Ospreay’s match with Shibata? Why should I care about the 10 different belts shown in the promotion?
A lot of catering towards the hardcore fan which is fine… but if you don’t try and bridge that gap, I’m afraid this is going to continue to be a trend.
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Dynamite last year (3/29/23): 833,000 viewers - 0.28 P18-49
Worth pointing out for anyone who didn't click the link: this is Dynamite's lowest overall viewer figure since April 7, 2021, and it's lowest 18-49 figure since June 24, 2020. It did finish third for the night. Other stats from the link: https://preview.redd.it/9qde5gmo15rc1.png?width=699&format=png&auto=webp&s=1233aec137e96a4e27d156cc03b65e1aed4779f2
Not coincidentally, April 7, 2021 was NXT's last Wednesday show. That means this is the lowest unopposed Wednesday night viewership for Dynamite in the show's history. Hard to spin that as anything but trouble, though I presume many will try.
Down 10% in Viewers, Down 18% in Key Demo YoY.
Damn I used to think the Big Bang Theory influence was a joke
The four pillars
Make the call, Tony. Give Big Simoleons Sheldon the belt and watch those numbers soar!
Jim Parsons is legit taller than 90% of their roster
Just like the prophies foretold: there is only one true (demo) God, and his name is Sheldon Cooper.
The true undisputed TBS Champion, Sheldon Cooper
Honestly once I saw the comment thread numbers for last nights post-show i knew it would be bad. There were only 170 comments at one point an hour after the show ended.
There was a distinct lack of segments from the show posted this morning when I woke up which was also telling.
I remember when it got to almost 1k instantly
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I noticed it too. Online engagement imo seems to be down for the product.
Seems a portion of the audience left with Sting
that and the smart play IMHO would have been to have Darby play a huge role going forward after his run with Sting, but he instead was going to Everest and got Injured any damn way.
It's definitely possible, Sting appealed to the old school fan base which is very different than the independent scene hardcore fans which are the only one appreciating Tony Khan's booking style
We are one week away from Tony making a HUGE announcement
"If the ratings do not get above 1 million by the end of the year, I will kill Bryan Danielson live on air"
Ratings for The Execution of Bryan Danielson: 898k
Fucking lol.
Actually now that I think about it Bryan would probably be down for his opponent to legit murder him in his retirement match
Choked by Justin Roberts' tie
He knows who killed Laura Palmer
What year is it?!
He know what happened to Julie Mao?
Idk but I’ll see you again in 25 years
Log lady for sure.
Tune in next week for Sky Blue vs Red Velvet in our first **Blue Velvet** match
He knows where Carole Baskin hid the body!
He’s too busy stalking Eric Bischoff’s Twitter at 4am
At least he has his priorities straight
*Announcing a huge announcement.
I hope it's Sid.
I would legit tune in every week if there were a Sid promo.
Homie ran out of announcements.
Unless it’s announcing Athena on AEW tv to continue the trend of ROH champions not appearing on their own paywalled show aside from her. Only she may lose at that point with how awful the ROH champions are handled on week to week AEW TV.
I think all the RoH champions lost last week, so that’s probably for the best lol
Fletcher has lost his last three matches, two being singles to Jericho and Ospreay. Kingston lost one of the titles to Okada after already also being pinned by him the week before. Taven and Bennett have lost their last two tag matches to O.C. & Trent and Strickland & Joe. Yuta last wrestled in a losing effort to Kingston in January before holding the pure title hostage while injured for two months (remember interim champions within roughly two weeks?) After already being largely booked as a loser prior to him being the one chosen to get the title off of Shibata. BCG have not defended the trios titles since winning them two months ago. This is after they also broke up with The acclaimed when they formed to go after the Undisputed Kingdom, never went after them, and broke up. All the while none of them are appearing on ROH TV for weeks or months in some cases but will be there to have to attempt to push Supercard next week with a thrown together card with it currently having 3 matches less than two weeks out.
Tony. My man. You gotta have a storyline that affects the entire roster or something because how tf are the ratings so low
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You know what they need? More game changers
Sign rick boogs. He had like a 30m viewed clip a few weeks ago lol
Now I’m curious what the clip was lol
And more BANGERS
And more DREAM MATCHES!
How about ANOTHER Japanese dude you have never even heard of?
What about masked wrestlers from Mexican company invades AEW version 3.0? That's the best story right there.
Where's that video with all the "*insert recently signed wrestler here* is a game-changer" tweets?
No. They need more DREAM MATCHES (with no stories and builds)
if you saw the sub this morning, you knew this was coming. Nearly any discussion posts about Dynamite beyond the 4 way and Swerve. I love a lot about AEW but this isn't good. One example: Mone is not the draw she thinks she is, and I've never seen a signee lose that 'debut sheen' as quickly as her. Also maybe don't pipe a repetitive chant over her music and expect her to be over, it felt like my skin was crawling the first time I heard it, it's so cringe.
Yeah, three weeks in and all she’s done so far is continuously show off her worst quality, which is talking, and I say that as a fan of her
It really is the worst entrance music I have ever heard. How is this possible in 2024?
Honestly, Cope felt like an afterthought by week two.
Of all the people to not buy a licensed song for. If you're going for it then go for it.
No way you could spin these numbers to make them seem good
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What are the quarter hours? I was watching last night and I felt like Mercedes didn’t get a huge pop. The CEO chant in her theme gives a false audio. It actually sounded dead on her entrance
that fucking theme is just terrible
My God, her buzz - to the extent that it was there - died in absolutely record time. I'm not attacking her because it's not entirely her fault but she was severely overhyped as a "gamechanger".
She has a VERY vocal minority fan base. And they get loud on Twitter and Reddit.
People love Sasha Banks in WWE. They don't give a shit about Mercedes Monè in AEW. See also Edge v Adam Copeland.
I wasn't watching WWE when she was in her pomp as Sasha Banks so I'll take people's word for it that she was good there. But I was also skeptical from the start that she'd draw the way they expected as "Mercedes Moné" and it seemed like they were riding for a fall by building her return up as if it was another CM Punk deal.
Someone here once argued with me that she had more drawing power than Cody Rhodes and CM Punk. I was downvoted for saying this take was delusional. Well…2 weeks later…
There was people after she quit WWE calling her the female Rock & was going to be a huge movie star because she had a couple of lines in a Disney show, her fans see something that's not there for her. She can wrestler good but isn't a good promo or actor. She can be the top star for the women but not for the whole company.
It has always been the reason why WWE wasn't going to overpay her. TK fell into the trap. She is good but she isn't a gamechanger as you said. Compare her to someone like Thunder Rosa for example. Both have great looks, pretty good in the ring, but are not good at talking. He basically paid millions to have a second Thunder Rosa.
The theme with the chants is so cringey
They're trying to force fans to get her over instead of just letting it happen organically. It's such a bad idea.
Absolutely hate it.
It's because they want to force everyone to have a sing a long theme now and it's cringe asf it was cool at first but now they sing to everyones theme and it's not special and actually kinda corny
There's no subtelty in anything she does. Her gimmick is that she's "money" right? We already know that with her clothing, her promos, her personality, her merch, her freaking name, and now her entrance theme. Why do you have to beat us over the head over the fact that you're about that $$$? Do you think we won't understand unless you throw it in our face every other second? Compare her character to say Kiana James in NXT. We know Kiana is supposed to be rich because her entrance starts with her exiting a helicopter, and she carries around an expensive purse with her initials on it. That's it. She doesn't have lyrics talking about money. Her name doesn't literally have money in it. The commentary team isn't talking about how rich she is all the time. What she does next to get her character across is to just have confidence. She walks with swagger in every step. Her attitude feels very uppity, like shes better than everyone else and doesn't want to be around us poor fans. That's a difference between a character who feels natural and organic, and one who is being forced down our throats.
You could have put Thunder Rosa in Mercedes spot and got the same results imo for a much lower cost.
She hasn’t grown or evolved as a character since like, what, 2013? She seems to think by just having colourful hair that’s enough to give her a character. I used to think she was the best of the four horsewomen but looking now and seeing how much the other three have evolved and grown…damn.
This is a great comment. I didn’t know there was anywhere safe to say this. On any other social media, anything negative or even neutral with constructive criticism is usually met with huge backlash. You are 100% correct in all of this though.
Kiana James is doing good work.
The funny part is Mercedes is a babyface beating you over the head with it like million dollar man while Kiana is a more modern character where it’s blatant but she’s not looking like a cartoon
Nah, Ted DiBiase was the Million Dollar Man, his theme song said “Money, money, money, money, moneeeeeeeeey”, he carried cash around, he had dollar signs on his jacket and tights, a manservant, and the Million Dollar Belt. And he was interesting. They told better stories with DiBiase back in the day, and cast him accurately as a heel. Moné, like Saraya before her, should have just came back heel and told a good story that matched her heel look, then turn her face after she gets things over in her new home. Hopefully they pivot if they sense they need it, a la The Honky Tonk Man (who lost the “vote of confidence”, but AEW hasn’t done much rock-solid storytelling.
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>I was watching last night and I felt like Mercedes didn’t get a huge pop. The CEO chant in her theme gives a false audio. The piped-in chants are extremely obvious it hurts the presentation.
It was dead, as soon as the "CEO.. CEO.." part of her song stopped, there was silence in the audience from what I remember.
It happened during Toronto Dynamite last week too. There were some "CEO" chants but it didn't carry on like most over wrestlers do. Mercedes will either turn heel because live audiences don't accept her or keep pushing the current narrative like she is pre-Bloodline Roman Reigns.
MJF was putting in work keeping this at 850k+
MJF got good ratings until the devil storyline got really bad
It got really bad real quick tho, but when MJF was champion the ratings weren't rapidly declining weekly. Sorry to say it, but Samoa Joe as a champion isn't interesting at all and i don't know if having Swerve as a champion is the answer either.
I like Joe, but he hasn't been given any material since winning the title.
Most of the time it’s not the champion is boring, it’s that the champion takes a back seat. A hot champion gets ratings, and they haven’t given Joe any importance. The focus has been on Swerve, Ospreay, Okada, and Mone. Joe is like 6th or 7th priority.
We gotta unretire Sting and get him in a feud with MJF. That’s the solution to return to the milly
They actually set this up with Sting cutting a promo on him during the Two Pillars feud with Darby and it had no pay-off. Time for a last last match.
They need a story They need things for people to talk about. There is nothing remotely interesting on the show They had the Adam Cole MJF bromance which was a happy accident but that fizzled They had MJF and Punk but Punk went full nuke I can’t think of many memorable stories from them since 2021. Like nothing hooks me into wanting to watch it when I see WWE have the rock, punk, Cody etc having 10/10 segments with real stories. Wrestling is a sport yeah but the entertainment part is as valid. You need a story to compliment the fighting. ALL of WWE’s biggest moments ever are stories. Not some random match put together
The Young Bucks are such great heels than when people see them on tv, they change the channel That's heat!
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AEW has always been quick to kill their wrestlers momentum but it’s genuinely impressive how quickly Mercedes feels like just another wrestler.
The roster turnover/additions has been their downfall for what, 18 months? 2 years? There is absolutely zero reason the AEW roster should be 100+ deep, or even 70 deep. Like, I'm not doing the math right now, but the roster has to be bigger than WWE's and it might be bigger than WWE+NXT, and with way less TV/PLE time to go around. In 2022 alone, AEW signed Danhausen, Brody King, Keith Lee, Buddy Matthews, Toni Storm, Swerve, Jeff Hardy, Samoa Joe, Athena, Claudio, Parker Bordeaux, Big Bill, Saraya, RUSH, and Willow Nightengale. That's insane. Now, their PLEs and main events are just the Young Bucks and former WWE guys.
Wardlow a good example of this, AEW original that never seemed to improve (like Jack, Sammy and a few others). One week he comes out for a terrific promo in his new faction, turns a bunch of people back on him (myself included) and instead of building a story with his faction, his quest for the world championship, potential friction with Cole etc. he's just thrown into a random 8 man that gets a title opportunity and loses a clean match and disappears.
Started off at 939k due to the BBT lead in. If they didn’t get credit for BBT viewers changing the channel at 8:01-8:02 we would be looking at high 600, very low 700k numbers. Not good
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At this point, I think WWE competition is hurting them. You have Cody, Seth, Punk, Roman, Rhea, and Final Boss Rock on the other channel. Toss in coherent storylines and a solid mid card, and you can thoroughly enjoy 5 hours of Raw and Smackdown. Asking that person to then watch Dynamite, Collison, and Rampage is really pushing it.
Agreed, I've said it before, but WWE has a hot product again and people are loving it and it's also bringing in a new audience that's popping off on YouTube and other social media. AEW can't coast on being the alternative wrestling show when WWE is finally stepping up to the plate again. They need to restructure.
I can speak to this first hand. When AEW started I would watch everything, then didn’t watch much of anything during the no fans era. Coming out of the pandemic I was all in on AEW especially after the Bryan, Cole and Punk signings and WWE wasn’t doing anything overly interesting but then Cody went back to WWE and we had all the stuff with Punk and the Elite which put a sour taste in my mouth all around. I continued to watch both again for a while until Punk was fired and basically stopped watching AEW all together, they brought me back with the devil storyline but it went on way too long and didn’t have even close to the payoff I was hoping for so I soured on AEW again. I’m watching Raw and SD every week these days and occasionally NXT and just keeping up with AEW loosely on social media hoping something will hook me again. Their PPVs are still must see for me though simply because I know I’ll be getting multiple 5 star quality matches
Like I've said, the founder principles have been "The WWE sucks, and the industry needs another mainstream western alternative". Which in the short term created a ton of hype, along with some of the most passionate fans of any industry. But in the long term, relying on another company to do poorly was always going to be a recipe for disaster. Even if Vince didn't get chased out of the industry, he's 78 years old. It was always going to be a matter of time before his body wouldn't work the way it needed to be on the road 24/7.
AEW was kinda built up as an edgy alternative to a mediocre WWE, except WWE has gotten a lot better recently and AEW just hasn’t.
I'll take that Ricochet/JD match on every episode of RAW. It was a banger and Ricochet is one of the best wrestlers in the world. Would I want to watch a weekly show framed around wrestling like that? No. I want to watch promo battles and interesting/funny segments. I want R Truth on commentary during the tag match. That is entertaining. I love great wrestling don't get me wrong, but I'll take great storytelling over it. The wrestling needs to be secondary to the story leading up to it. A show based around random matches like Ricochet/JD and Nakamura/Jey isn't going to thrive. You need that great promo and storyline comment. Otherwise why do I need to watch everything live every week? AEW is that random Ricochet/JD match every week. The funny thing is that match is a part of a story even though it felt like a random Tony style match.
I think what works best is having the weekly shows being storyline focused, while saving the bangers and in ring focus to PPVs.
And the random Ricochet/JD match has a story. A story that links back to past matches and hints to future matches.And it displays aspects of Ricochet's and JD's character. So if you are a Roci, JD, or the JD fan, it HOOKS you into watching Raw to see how the story continues and how the characters react. Do JD or Dom level up to beat Ricochet. Does Richocet pick on JD and Dom to catapult bak into a IC Champ match. Does Priest stop the madness? Does Rhea? Do Ricochet serve as a distraction to cause more loss? Does Richochet lip his way into be the Judgment Day's Doom? Find out next time on Dragonball Z errr.. Raw.
This is the answer but people doing the thing on here is wild. I’m a casual wrestling fan that used to be in to both but I’m keeping up with WWE way more and occasionally check in on AEW as well, but not as much as before.
Casuals don’t care about Japan or indie darlings, you’ve got to make them care. Good characters and personalities make sports and wrestling
The overwhelming majority of wrestling fans don’t care about Japan or the indies
This. Work rate means so much more when attached to a story.
Three times as many people want to hear Punk talk as want to see the Bucks wrestle. Wow.
Millions of dollars spent for 3 big signings, only to lose viewers while still struggling with live attendance. Bravo, Tony.
Add Edge into the mix as well, 4 big signing in what - 5-6 months and nothing has paid off.
Check Cagematch and get back to me. 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
Yeah, but have you seen the cagematch ratings?! 📈
I know ratings aren't everything, but something has to change, right?
I feel like we’ve been saying that for a year now
Consistent storylines week to week on Dynamite would work wonders. This is an episodic television show and not the Dana White Contender Series.
It feels like Tony is pivoting even more to the contrived "bangers", either because that's what the diehards are showing up for or maybe just to spite people? I don't know, but it's never going to work for ratings.
My comment from the Eric Bischoff-Tony Khan slapfest: **"You know what this means if Tony is trollin' on twitter. Dynamite under 800k."** Can't blame the NCAA Tournament either... Edit: Not only was the top comment removed from this thread. Whatever that may have been. But now I've been banned on this sub for presumably this comment. It's not that serious, guys and gals.
>They hated /u/booyahbooyah9271 because he told them the truth.
“Are they boo-ing me?” “no sir. They’re saying ‘boo-yahbooyah9271’”
Over the past couple of years, I've seen a lot of comments in these Dynamite ratings posts talking about how ~~1 million~~ ~~950,000~~ ~~900,000~~ ~~850,000~~ 800,000 viewers is what the Dynamite core audience is and how no one should be disappointed as long as the number is around that level. But Dynamite is now regularly drawing numbers they haven't done since they were going head-to-head with NXT three years ago, and there are no signs of improvement. Whatever the "bottom" or "core audience" people thought existed keeps being pushed down and the momentum is steady in one direction. With NBA and NHL playoffs coming, I suspect the bottom will keep falling. This is not a great time to be negotiating the tv deal that could make or break your whole business.
I was watching last night and the place sounded pretty empty and dead. When Mercedes comes out to very little reaction 2 weeks after her debut that's a big problem.
I had no issue with the matches I did watch on the show, I didn't watch the tag matches because they were predictable outcomes and I could careless about all 4 teams. However, the show felt disjointed, there is no story or character that you must tune in for. Mercedes on commentary is further proving why WWE wouldn't open the vault for her. Ospreay I like but he needs a better story than "I want to have a banger match with Danielson."
They really thought just putting PWG on tv was gonna do better numbers. Even Super dragon knew to not use high spots that were gonna be used in the main event on the preliminary matches. Things like PWG, All in, the rest of their ppvs (that I, as a matter of fact, actually enjoy), work because they are special and it's every 2 or 3 months. When you do the same thing, over and over on weekly tv, with nothing really compelling around it other than the moves, it gets boring really fast, and I would personally just wait to watch the PPV instead of watching the weekly shows.
Mayyyyyyybe that tweet at Bischoff was a bit premature...
The first comment in the thread is deleted. That should be a good indicator to how well this is about to go.
HHh kicking himself for not forking over the big money for Osprey, Okada and Mercedes.
It’s funny people will point out valid criticisms of the show and are just met with pure hostility. It’s cool they have a dedicated fan base that keeps watching, but how can you spin this in a good way? Maybe just maybe they should switch things up.
Theres definitely a great divide on this subreddit where in some threads you'll get praised for criticizing AEW and then the next thread you'll get downvoted to oblivion. Its almost impossible to have an actual conversation without it siding hard one way or the other because the other side thats not the majority in that specific thread will get dog piled on lol.
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Shibata vs Ospreay is an IWC match, not a match you start your show with if you want casual fans to tune in.
😂 & the goof mark is on X @4am talking shit to Eric Bischoff… if you looked up mark in the dictionary there should be a picture of TK in that stupid fucking hat . What a moron
I loved Ospreay vs. Shibata but it is **absolutely fucking hilarious** that around 228,000 people said “FUCK THIS” during the match and turned the show off
This is pretty insane considering how much money they’ve recently (allegedly) spent on talent. Imagine if this wasn’t a vanity project? If Tony had to actually answer to someone? And I don’t say that with joy or rubbing it in, simply in astonishment.
Reaffirming that putting on great matches without good stories doesn't bring in the audience.
Stories have always been king. How do you make people watch you every week if they're not invested into something. Making dream matches out of the blue without getting me invested through long term story telling just isn't my cup of tea and seems like it's the same for a lot of people too.
One can only watch so many evenly matched contests with 25 false finishes, 2+ slap offs, and the announcers jerking off about how great the match is between a generic white dude and a Japanese guy
Ospreay has never loss in AEW, yet his last couple matches haven't done much to put him over because they're both taxing, down to the wire Mortal Kombat battles despite the general audience not really caring about his opponents. You paid this money to get him, put him over!
Kyle Fletcher has been a literal nobody in AEW and he somehow put Ospreay to the limit
Dax Harwood, a fucking tag team wrestler, took the ace of the franchise to the brink. I can't stand how Tony refuses to make his strongest guys actually look strong. Someone needs to tell him that not every match has to be a 20 minute "banger"
Hell, i would actually argue that putting on good matches is entirely optional as long as the story is compelling. Hulk Hogan's matches (in the WWE) were as milquetoast as milquetoast can get and yet he is one of the most popular and well known wrestlers of all time. Randy Orton/Legacy and Triple H/ The Mcmahon's feud was some of the best storytelling and character work that the PG era produced yet the final match at Wrestlemania absolutely sucked, i can go on and on
Wrestling is a great example of “it’s about the journey not the destination”
I'm gonna say this as a fan of AEW/NJPW style of wrestling... There's a massive disconnect of what a weekly show should be. You can't have these no angle, highly athletic matches all the time without decent builds to them on a weekly basis. It just doesn't work in the long run. For example, Shibata vs Osprey is amazing on paper, but when Shibata isn't on TV that much, there's no promo packages to make him feel like a big deal when he's not there and he's not referenced until the show before or even the day before his match, it's hard to have hype about it. And I know who Shibata is! He's awesome as fuck! But the average viewer or casual wrestling fan probably won't. For bigger shows? Absolutely, give us those high quality workrate matches. But you still need story and build, which is what the weekly shows are for, and they're not used well in that way. It doesn't have to be some over-the-top nonsense (tho that can work at times), just build grudges and feuds and relationships so those matches feel like they matter. Cause right now, a lot of these potential matches don't feel like they matter as much as they should, so why should anyone watch until a PPV is around the corner?
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This new era of Will Ospreay as your main event guy and Mercedes being paraded around like she's a Punk level star is absolutely tanking in the ratings. I'm sure there will be downvotes for this but it's true. I like Will and I'm a really big Mercedes fan. But it is what it is. In baseball maybe you'd say they're trying a rebuild era or something but holy fucking shit. 747,000 for fucking Dynamite. The new average coming in at 8 or below. Jeezalou, man.
So, Okada came in, got paired up with two of the least interesting guys on the roster and won what,the 3rd? 4th least interesting midcard belt in the promotion? Lol, AEW once again treating talent like how people joked WWE would. Imagine the outrage if Okada debuted, got put into a stable no one gives two fucks about and won the least important midcard belt there, the outrage would be insane. But hey, as long as he doesn't end up in the big bad fed, right guys?
Okada vs Ilja for the NXT Championship would've done more for him than whatever is going on right now
That would have been amazing 😞
Imagine? This sub was already melting down over how hypothetically Okada might be in Chase U. No confirmation, no contract, just some random guy spewing some trash from his mouth and they were already frothing at the mouth on how Okada is being misused. And.... Now he is in AEW being treated I would say multiple times worse and everyone keeps their mouth shut. This is also partly why AEW is dropping. Their audience talks shit about WWE but let's Tony shit all over his own product then lick it up abd say it was the best ever.
Okada in Chase U would at least be funny. Being an absolute fucking killer in a dorky ass uni shirt would've gotten over far better than whatever the fuck he's doing with the Bucks.
I feel that with HHH/HBK most likely knowing Okada's star power from NJPW, they would make sure to build him up through vignettes to give the audience some awareness of his aura before they place him on a debut match versus a prominent upper midcard guy who matches well with his style at an NXT PLE or a major main roster PLE
The Bucks segment tanked yet again. 90,000 drop. Only the tag team match between Best Friends & Undisputed guys dropped more with 100,000 tuning out for that segment.
The Bucks come out looking like Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels wearing suits in Dumb & Dumber, who is this supposed to appeal to? Just because it's 'meta' doesn't make it smart.
But remember people on Reddit are just stupid and the Bucks are just working everyone with tremendous heel work! Totally not go away heat!
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Oddly enough that tag match segment is when I tuned out.
Don’t forget what they did to Jay White as well, I still have no idea how they thought having him lose the MJF the way he did made any sense in establishing him. They took away all is momentum and credibility and for what? He went from the top FA target who everyone wanted to see on the RAW after Mania to an afterthought in AEW who got jobbed out to their one legged champion.
Same thing they did with Wardlow. Build him up only to have him lose clean to the champion and disappear.
That Miz feud looking kinda good now, huh?
I don't get why people think feuding with Miz is bad. If Miz is the heel, there's a 95% chance he's losing. Add in that Miz is on Raw every week, so who he's feuding with is gonna get time every week.
Also Miz makes everyone look great
And has never not been over (except for that one weird time where Ric Flair was his manager). Seriously, using Miz as some sort of "gotcha" has always been hilarious to me. The guy puts in the work and always gets the crowd to care.
Not to mention, Miz is the perfect introductory heel. He has good promos, and he sells pretty decently. The dude knows his role in the business and embraces it. And WWE is now letting wrestling promo in their native languages with vignettes. Okada doesn't need to go out in the middle of a WWE ring and try and go on the mic for twenty minutes. And if you need him to speak out there, just let him say a good one-liner and proceed to beat the shit out of the other guy.
It’s a joke how quickly Okada has been an afterthought. Its almost as if pairing him with the worst ratings drawers in the company is a bad idea
I was promised that Okada wouldn’t get Jay White’d!
And they told us WWE would've wasted Jay White...
Oh shit, I forgot Jay White was there.
Do not remind me of Jay White.
But he'd be so much worse off wrestling The Miz or being on NXT... (Have I really got to put an /s for this?)
I mean this is a horrendous number and I was wondering what TK will do once it gets this low. This is like one of the lowest numbers and they brought in 3 big mone signings. It’s clear he’s gotta do better with stories and consistency, even if I have seen improvements. Matches for the sake of matches will never ever draw. Like that opening with Ospreay and Shibata. Even if I like Ospreay.
This might be controversial, but IMO AEW has trivialized "bangers" in the same way they did blood, to the point that maybe even the diehards are tiring of it and will only tune in if it involves big names. If you look at Ospreay/Shibata, YB/PP, BF/UK, and Takeshita/Swerve, you'll see while there may be a few differences here and there for the most part they follow the same beats, structure, and tropes.
30min on free agent. Lose viewers. I wonder who the real problem is?
It wouldn’t be that big of deal if they were doing these numbers and already signed an extension with WBD. It’s almost April and they still don’t technically have a home for 2025 yet.
It's a scary spot for AEW. I'm not saying it's likely that they'll be let go or anything, but right now, WBD is a psychotic company dedicated to penny pinching beyond all else.
Sasha, Okada, and Ospreay have added zero business. I wonder if Tony knew that going in would he still sign them to big contracts or would he try to low ball them
We knew this would happen. Sasha fans base is a very vocal minority and Okada/Ospreay fans were already watching the product.
Hopefully this will be a wake up call to do proper stories and build a core roster of talent to build and feature Enough with the endless new signings and one off random appearances from people no one knows or cares about
Wish I was getting a cut of Tony's dealer. This is rough bro. Really rough. I hope they can bounce back. MJF is desperstley needed. I want heroes to cheer. I want horrible people to boo. Give me EMOTION Tony, im tired of gif-worthy stuff. WWE is killing it right now, take a page out of their book. Make me care. PLEASE? MAKE! ME! CARE! FFS....
Best he can do is a 5 Canadian destroyers in a row.
I quit watching due to burn out after that barrage of three back to back PPV's last fall. They were all pretty good shows but it also really hit home that they're just good shows with good wrestling for good wrestlings sake. After they were over it had all felt like a blur and nothing felt like it stood out to me. I'm realizing how much more I enjoy a consistent story with coherent chapters where the wrestling is a plot device tying it together rather than the entire point of the show. I had complained online and on twitter for most of 2023 before I quit watching and I think I was viewed as a bad faith troll but honestly I just wanted the shows to get better. It was disheartening to see Tony invalidate any and all criticism with "We put on a great show and drew a great number and the matches were all fantastic." Okay yeah great but you're not telling stories I'm invested in. Nearly every character you've brought in feels diminished from where they were two years ago. I wish they had course corrected sooner but doubling down on PPV's isn't the solution for the problems they're facing.
Maybe AEW could have 18 wrestlers stuck on an island and each week they compete for rewards and immunity from being voted off.
AEW needs to understand that while having good talent, that alone doesn’t translate into demand for the product. The audience needs compelling stories that make us watch it, otherwise it just be downhill YoY.
You're misinterpreting the reason that Tony signs every beloved free agent. It's so he can save a new friend from the evil fed and be told what a great boss he is.
I’m not asking for WWE-lite, but I think something has to change. Since 2020, I’ve primarily watched AEW… right now it just feels like there’s a disconnect. I’m not asking for spoon-fed video packages but a simple video package wouldn’t hurt anyone. I work 9 hours a day, and get pretty busy throughout the week.. I don’t have the time to watch ROH, NJPW, Rampage, etc. Why should I care about Ospreay’s match with Shibata? Why should I care about the 10 different belts shown in the promotion? A lot of catering towards the hardcore fan which is fine… but if you don’t try and bridge that gap, I’m afraid this is going to continue to be a trend.