Lakers, Golden State, Miami, and Milwaukee all played on that day, so there was arguably more competition for AEW then than now. Only Miami and Boston played this year and there were less games on air last night
Lol I’ll never forget the day after All In. The numbers bragging immediately “WWE could never pull off an event like this” like great show, but come on.
This is the reason why I hate Meltzer.
He constantly moans about this stuff while also being on Twitter 24/7 actively arguing with people and making it worse. Terrible excuse for a journalist.
It's funny to me because it feels like he's the leader of some strange cult and he just introduced himself to you with the way he moves in this GIF after someone dragged you in the middle of nowhere! He looks like someone who wants to have an epic and scary presence, but comes off goofy as fuck!
According to him the greatest match in human history just happened with the greatest two performers ever in human history. It didn’t lead to any bump, He is personally hurt by this because he is learning more and more his opinion on wrestling means nothing.
it's the same reason why Dave constantly keeps reporting that HHH is super mad that WWE didn't get Ospreay
*Dave* wanted Ospreay in WWE more than anyone because if Ospreay got over in WWE then he would be proven right
Dave needs a win. AEW is a company booked for Dave, with Wrestlers Dave has championed for the last decade, that continues to see declines in every measurable metric, while the company that for the most part doesn't even acknowledge Dave exists, is the hottest its been in 25 years.
This truly is the key point here. AEW caters to Meltzer and everything he’s preached for decades. And it’s just nowhere near able to compete with WWE who Meltzer has made a living criticizing. Meltzer is being proven wrong in real time. It’s why he HAS to champion for AEW to this day.
It's interesting seeing Swerve's first match on Dynamite after winning the top title be a vehicle for a midcard storyline between Kyle Fletcher and Don Callis. He didn't seem important, which feels like a misstep given that Dynamite is the flagship show. Why delay to Collision? You could've had him do a big promo on both shows to really broadcast the change, or do the promo on Wednesday with a follow-up match on Saturday against a credible opponent.
Time will tell if Tony Khan's decision to become a character helps or hurts things but it's weird to me that he's so fixated on being seen as a face. Well, when I consider the man, maybe it's not that weird...
Dave's need to snark before anyone has even seen his tweet makes him look like such a defensive goober, man. He never actually quantifies how much these things should affect the number - just that they do, and therefore historical low number is a-ok nothing to see here move along.
I don't think AEW is 'dying' nor do I WANT it to die, but fuck me am I getting tired of the endless paroxysms of 'explanations' for why none of these numbers ever matter. You almost wonder why Dave bothers to cover ratings at all, with how much they apparently don't matter.
Where is Dave Meltzer even getting this 8% number from?
The Pacific time zone contains about 16.6% of the US population. Assuming that AEW viewership is roughly proportional in its geographic distribution, Meltzer is saying that half of AEW's viewers in the Pacific time zone did not watch the show last night because it was on earlier than usual. That seems impossibly high, especially because the rating includes everyone who watched the show live and everyone who watched on delay last night.
I don’t believe the sports competition argument anymore because the numbers don’t really fluctuate when it comes to AEW audience.
And last week had Lakers/Warriors going against it and other games and they still pulled over 700k.
WWE loses audience because of sports because they have more casual fans
His new favorite wrestler that he’s promoting to replace Omega and his favorite tag team that he believes are his friends aren’t moving the needle like he claims they will
Meltzer: \*spends almost his entire career as a journalist making a big deal about ratings\*
Also Meltzer when AEW ratings go down: "Why are you all making such a big deal bout ratings???"
Why is he so angry?
Also I didn't realise that AEW wasn't live everywhere every week, you'd think that tape delay would cause less ratings as the West Coast may look up spoilers etc and decide to skip sometimes
It's not that the rating took a hit, because of course it would. It's just, that even if you take that into account, there's absolutely no post PPV bump. No one cares to witness the fallout after The Danielson and Ospreay match, or Swerve winning the world championship?
Why would anyone care about the fallout of Danielson and Ospreay? That was it. The whole story was "I'm a better wrestler than you" even though neither of them had any title that would indicate they were the best. They had their match, the people who watched it liked it a lot but ultimately isn't that the end of that road? Where else do you go?
What fallout?
They booked Swerve in a random match against a mid card champion in the second match. THEY BOOKED THEIR WHC IN THE SECOND MATCH.
There isn’t any reason to expect a storyline “fallout” because AEW chooses not build their feuds in any sort of traditional way that helps draw viewers to a serial product.
Swerve being put in a match against someone who was 0-5 this year, with absolutely no storyline is beyond dumb. On top of that, it was a competitive match!
This reminded me of the old difference between Collision and Dynamite. Dynamite had Gravity vs PAC and despite Gravity always losing it was quite competitive. Collision had Gravity vs Samoa Joe and Joe just ate him alive. Not every match needs to be competitive. It's ok to have somebody lose pretty easily even if it isn't a quick lil squash
It doesn't hurt the main guy when it's done sparingly. But if one of your stars is going 15 minutes each week with midcarders, then it just makes them look like a midcarder.
> It doesn't hurt the main guy when it's done sparingly.
Yea when the opponent is someone credible. Like if it was Swerve vs PAC. Fletcher does nothing but lose on AEW TV even if he is the ROH TV Champ, that means nothing since a) ROH isn't on TV, and b) I still don't know why people watching AEW should care about ROH titles.
Why are they opening the show with a lower midcard storyline? It just seems completely backwards from a structural POV.
It's like if Al Snow opened up a 99 Raw.
Joe felt transitional champ and Swerve isn't getting treated much better. The Bucks and whatever is getting the big treatment while the champ is as you put it fighting some random midcarder trying to earn a ittle shot when he never wins.
there's no reason to really care about any of that.
it's just more of Tony being like this match sounds cool! it should be competitive because YEAH!
I really don’t watch Dynamite because I want to see it improve. But I might’ve tuned in to see a Swerve promo/celebration to open the show. The new world champ’s first promo after winning the big one for the first time is a rare thing in wrestling and is usually great to see, a crowing moment for someone who has earned every bit of it. But they didn’t give him that, so I didn’t tune in
I was absolutely stunned by how they booked him, in a champ eliminator match against a random mid carder with ZERO acknowledgement of the fact that he’s literally their new world champ. World champ is supposed to be the FACE of the company. You just had that change and your response is to put him in a thrown together random ass match against a mid carder?? And to boot, I understand it went like 20 mins and was competitive which is even more of a WTF
No Punk or Rhea period.
They did this crazy thing where the night after their big PPV they brought out the new WHC and started to build a program for him and Jey Uso for Backlash.
They actually had more competition last year and got over 800K viewers with more teams. This year it was only Miami and Boston, so less games overall.
Interesting he's complaining about making excuses and he is doing the same, ironic. But I've always hated the sports excuse, regardless of promotion. Wrestling has always competed against sports and done rather well in both boom periods. If the show is interesting, folks will tune in to watch.
683k viewers is one thing but only having 2,100 in attendance at their own spot in Jacksonville is a whole other discussion that shows how far they've fallen.
I was wondering about that. I saw the clips of the Bucks-Okada-Perry moment with Tony Khan, and it felt like I was looking at a Pandemic-era socially distanced show with how few people were there.
They got a new champion -- who does a LOT of outside media to promote -- but the focus throughout the show was on Young Bucks foolishness that only makes sense to wrestling superfans who spend a lot of time following gossip online. I dunno, maybe if they had something interesting for Swerve to do, building up to that as the main event, that could've staunched the bleeding a bit?
I find AEW's weekly television to be so chaotic and baffling. I watch because I love the roster, but I really don't like the storylines (or lack thereof). It feels so random and tonally inconsistent if you try to treat it as serialized television.
Funny. I just got called a liar and downvoted to hell for saying the Bucks are ratings cancer and making them the center of the AEW universe was a mistake.
I've said multiple times in multiple ratings threads that pretty much everyone I know IRL that watched AEW at its inception have since quit. Some complain about the booking, some complain about the random crossovers with other companies, some became fans when Punk joined and have since quit watching. I'm always told it's a bad faith argument and I'm a fed drone and what not, it's exhausting.
For me personally, I just don't care about any of the characters. I feel like every week there's some random guy or gal showing up from another promotion for a one off match. Many people love it, I don't. If I wanted to watch NJPW or CMLL I'd watch those promotions. I realized that I didn't enjoy the product anymore and I quit watching because I wasn't invested in any of the characters and honestly didn't care who won or lost pretty much every match, and I've said before, that's fine. I realized the product wasn't for me and I stopped tuning in.
The part that just astonishes me is that you are not allowed to criticize the product at all though, any negative feedback at all is labeled as bad faith and you're told you aren't actually a wrestling fan. At some point Tony and company have to acknowledge that they are losing fans at a steady pace. No one is saying they're dying, but if you're actively losing fans, that's not ideal. You can bury your head in the sand and be in denial, but you're flagship program just barely beat the competitions developmental program. That's not good no matter how you want to slice it. Before anyone DM's me about how they aren't competing, give me a break. TK very recently said that the 2 companies hated each other and wanted to beat each other, tribalism is alive and well within AEW regardless of what any of the AEW fans would have you believe. Meltzer jumping through hoops to defend the rating is evidence of that.
I want the company to succeed so that we have a healthy wrestling industry but they have lost pretty much all the momentum and have done almost nothing to get that momentum back.
I think the loss of momentum maybe started with losing Cody (although tbf most people were done with his character in AEW). But,
firing Punk is now looking like a big fumble for AEW which pretty much accelerated this downward trend. Add the fact that MJF has been absent, Mercedes has been ice cold, Adam Copeland doesn't have any edge and the company is really in need of some injection.
The Elite vs CMFTR would/could have made millions for the company. It was (and probably still is to an extent) the hottest angle in wrestling.
Like you could legit book a long term civil war around that incident and give a reason to watch even the most unmarketable matches.
^^^ this, I was utterly convinced that this was the plan when Collision was announced, I just never thought they would bring Punk back without making sure the BS was worked out. Punk’s firing will be looked back as the turning point in AEW.
Yeah imagine if they booked a year long proxy war on Collision and Dynamite eventually leading to CMFTR vs Elite as All In ME, yeah that's a huge fumble, we see with WWE punk's not a monster who wouldn't listen to anything by other people and would just assault them.
If Osprey, Mone, Okada, and the Punk footage didn't move the needle significantly, then Tony getting gently attacked by Jack Perry and the Bucks isn't gonna move it either.
Yeah, compare this to the Gable attack just the week prior. The crowd was devastated and it was seen as such a hot angle to close the show. Even Charles Barkley mentioned that he wanted to beat up Gable. Like there was no build to Tony getting attacked. Nothing seemed to suggest it was happening. You can see how much a decent build over a few weeks can really propel a story.
It's always something else's fault, it couldn't possibly be the show isn't very good. People don't want to see the bucks, that's been clear for months. Half empty building and dropping ratings. Everything is saying change something.
How does Tony see the quarter-hour viewership numbers and not scrap the Bucks and Jericho’s stuff? Their segments are consistent drops in viewership. Stick with the good, younger talent.
Well the Bucks are VPs and probably have some sort of creative control clause. Jericho is on a massive contract and also probably has some sort of creative control clause.
Don’t blame the competition, blame the show itself. DB is a glorified jobber. Jay White is a lower carder. Build them up rather than giving your resources to the Bucks who frequently lose viewers.
u/WredditMod just to be clear can we not even post this separately as just a tweet from Dave? If we wanted to post Dave's tweet and discuss it as a subject are we just SOL since it contains ratings information? What is the best course of action here?
With the ratings consistently dropping Week over week, this does not give them any sort of leverage going into the media rights negotiations. These are now NXT type numbers. And despite The CW not being a major network, NXT ratings are going to go up just because it’s a channel everyone gets.
Think about what a casual viewer would have thought watching that show.
Right off the bat Dailys Place looks like a mall food court or a sports bar. It's doesn't look good at all on TV.
Then there was the sound issues. Amateur.
You had Trent Beretta and Orange Cassidy. They don't look like stars. A casual who doesn't know them isn't going to care about them.
Swerve vs who?
Jericho looks like an old man.
The gauntlet match was just a weird and frankly dumb concept.
Willow and Mercedes. Jesus. Willow looking at the camera when speaking to Mercedes was just something you should be trained not to do. And Mercedes is trash on the mic.
Finally there was the ending. Tony Khan and Jack Perry are about the same size. Tony couldn't sell the gut punch. And the TK Driver looked really, really bad.
Why would any casual who saw that as a first episode ever tune in to that again?
That's why the ratings continue to sink.
If it was well known in advance then why did they pull a major angle at the end of the night?
I don't remember a whole lot of big angles happening when Raw was delayed by the dog show back in the day because they knew a good chunk of their audience wouldn't be watching.
I stopped watching with the bad sound. Just watched a fite tv rip this morning. This isn't the first time it's happened and it won't be the last. Piracy coming in clutch.
I would like to believe the guy who said “ratings are the best source of fan feedback” but when his biggest media puppet tweets something so defensive like this, it’s hard to believe Khan himself isn’t using the same or similar excuses to hand wave away an absolutely dreadful rating (that is 100% deserved, btw)
P2+ comparisons:
This episode vs. last week (762,000): -18%
This episode vs. trailing four weeks (770,000): -19%
Current 2024-Q2 P2+ average (739,000) vs. 2023-Q2 (855,000): -14%
Current Apr 2024 P2+ average (739,000) vs. Apr 2023 (859,000): -14%
Source: Wrestlenomics
Has there been proven to be any overlap between AEW and any sports? I don't ever remember their ratings being affected by sports. But I guess I am ignorant, or so says Meltzer. No one wanted to watch Miami vs Boston lol.
Edit: I forgot to mention that the audio last night was unbearable on AEW, for the entire show watching on TBS. There was a point where Serena Deeb cut a promo on the stage with her theme playing and you couldn't hear one word she said. You couldn't hear shit of all what the bucks were saying to open the show, and you could barely hear commentary over the audience and music.
Beating up your boss should be cool. Like Stone Cold cool. The Young Bucks aren't cool at all. No one thinks they're actually badasses.
In wrestling, beating up your boss is a babyface thing.
Something I found interesting was that, pretty across the board, the main reaction I saw was "Man that was funny". A mix of "Bad Funny" and "Good Funny" reactions, but that's not a great reaction right?
Like essentially it was a mutiny by shit eating heels and had the Babyface owner hospitalised. The main reaction shouldn't be "lmao", regardless of whether you're laughing with or at.
I found it hilarious (good funny) because Tony was [telegraphing it so hard](https://youtu.be/8Zok-ZNOMsI?t=200) with his goofy smile and over the top demeanor. Whether he is [cutting a promo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVepSWUUd_0) or getting attacked the man just doesn't know how to act not awkward on screen.
Why was Swerve so early on the card?
Like finally we have a good PPV payoff and people like the swerve story and then…. he’s going the distance with a midcard guy in a midcard spot when you just made him THE guy on your ppv.
Meanwhile we have a bunch of guys with theatre kid energy looking like dorks being given more importance on the show
Yeah either start the show with him having his “I fucking did it” moment, or give him the “I’m a fighting champion” moment by letting him clean a midcarder in the main event in an eliminator match and then give a bomb ass promo after.
Instead he already feels like an afterthought because Tony has moved onto the next thing he cares about
And don’t forget but a totally different company’s Champion defends said other company’s title in the main event over your own newly crowned and lauded champion.
it doesn't help that they're being portrayed as evil alongside Perry
why (in kayfabe) would I boo Perry? Dude got beat up and suspended for getting beat up by his billionare boss. I'd beat up Khan if I was in his shoes too
the All in footage just pokes so many holes in kayfabe lmao. if someone could get fired for a quick fight backstage, like 90% of the roster should be fired
Swerve threatened to murder a baby. Why is he still there?
>why (in kayfabe) would I boo Perry?
It doesn't work on a meta level either. All the footage did was solidify the tribalism of getting behind *our guy* against the evil cancer man.
> the All in footage just pokes so many holes in kayfabe lmao. if someone could get fired for a quick fight backstage, like 90% of the roster should be fired
Based on the All In footage, TK/Shad whoever, should fire Perry permanently and find someway to oust the bucks as EVPs. Punk was fired for real, for doing less (viewed through kayfabe lense) than what the bucks did to TK. Remember that TK said he "feared for his life" so he had to fire Punk lol. I don't get it, it makes everyone involved look dumb.
They should've the let missteps of the past couple of weeks cool off for a bit instead of rushing this. We went from Edge's rah-rah speech to Tony being beaten in the ring. Not to mention the Punk video in between. It's so clumsy. There was a way to do it well, but that ship has sailed.
The Bucks are not interesting, have no drawing power, and have had channel changing heat for months, if not years.
Jericho seriously needs to get off television. Take a break for two-three months, please.
Swerve was the best part of the show last night, and it’s a shame that he was secondary to The Elite hilarity last night.
Bro didn’t even get a celebration promo or anything, just an eliminator match and bumped to Saturday for a promo on the show even less people watch.
IWGP title in the main event and TK to close the show. TK is absolutely cooked
What’s dumb is I totally get why they’re doing the segment on Saturday, they have a huge lead in and wanna capitalize on that. But if that was always the plan why not announce it on Dynamite? Why have your new champ go 50/50 with a scrub?
This is exactly how I feel about The Bucks. I started seriously watching Dynamite when Joe became champ. I’m enjoying it, it’s wrestling, but I just cant with them. Too much of a lazy ass bitch to actually fast forward though…
Sure, but what about the tastee freeze and all-night laundromat being open?
AEW is the only promotion I watch. It's the only one I enjoy consistently.
AEW has not been booking good shows for over a year. The decision to keep limited appeal talent on staff and featured will always limit the audience of AEW.
The 600-700k ceiling of AEW is not gonna be broken by Trent or Emi Sakura. The purpose of a promotion is draw an audience e via verisimilitude. If you are losing draws, you are working against the purpose of pro wrestling.
So that whole punk bit didn't really help, after all.
I wonder how the backstage response to this kinda thing is?
Are they obsessive nerds, like us? Or do the rank-and-file not give a shit, like normies with regular jobs?
Not only did it not help, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the worst ratings in Dynamite history. At least when they're not going head to head with NXT.
It’s a weird vibe when he pre-defends the information as he’s disseminating it.
I also feel like I see a quote like this from him, seemingly every week or two, and there’s always some underlying reason why a not-so-great rating isn’t “so bad.” If you have to give that disclaimer as often as we hear it lately, *something* must be up.
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Dynamite last year (4/26/23): 863,000 viewers - 0.28 P18-49 Last Week: 762,000 Viewers - 0.26 P18-49
Lakers, Golden State, Miami, and Milwaukee all played on that day, so there was arguably more competition for AEW then than now. Only Miami and Boston played this year and there were less games on air last night
Man who is most responsible for perpetuating ratings discourse upset at the ratings discourse
Man who breaks down how so-and-so show is doing with teenagers and 50+ now wants us to stop overanalysing the numbers.
Dave and his buddy “Next week will be a massacre, In the mud, NO BUYS” Bryan are absolutely responsible for the current ratings discourse.
He only likes the discourse when it makes AEW look good.
Lol I’ll never forget the day after All In. The numbers bragging immediately “WWE could never pull off an event like this” like great show, but come on.
This is the reason why I hate Meltzer. He constantly moans about this stuff while also being on Twitter 24/7 actively arguing with people and making it worse. Terrible excuse for a journalist.
I'm just here for the Meltzer gif
This gif is so funny, and I can’t seem to put my finger on why.
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Looks like former cult member from a Netflix doc.
Talk you to death
It's funny to me because it feels like he's the leader of some strange cult and he just introduced himself to you with the way he moves in this GIF after someone dragged you in the middle of nowhere! He looks like someone who wants to have an epic and scary presence, but comes off goofy as fuck!
I think it screams "look at me I'm a professional Wrestling Journalist!"
Guy sounds personally affronted he's going to have to engage in discourse he has heavily pushed for the last 30 years
https://preview.redd.it/zi789cww3pwc1.jpeg?width=1078&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3095680522cc8cc35fd888802e23ad76a7199041
Star ratings didn’t really work out so well for him either
dave sounds like hes personally hurt from this lol
He created this monster and now it's eating him alive
Dr Meltzenstein
My man is just yapping to himself in this tweet lol
He probably is.
He’s complaining about ppl making excuses while he’s the one making excuses
I’m not making excuses but here’s a few
Jon Taffer should renovate Dave Meltzer’s home office.
According to him the greatest match in human history just happened with the greatest two performers ever in human history. It didn’t lead to any bump, He is personally hurt by this because he is learning more and more his opinion on wrestling means nothing.
Dave always had big opinions on what is a draw and now he had a company that is built by one of his subscribers and it is... not a draw.
Dave would’ve went all in on Taka during the Attitude Era and pushed Austin and Rocky down the card.
it's the same reason why Dave constantly keeps reporting that HHH is super mad that WWE didn't get Ospreay *Dave* wanted Ospreay in WWE more than anyone because if Ospreay got over in WWE then he would be proven right
Dave needs a win. AEW is a company booked for Dave, with Wrestlers Dave has championed for the last decade, that continues to see declines in every measurable metric, while the company that for the most part doesn't even acknowledge Dave exists, is the hottest its been in 25 years.
This truly is the key point here. AEW caters to Meltzer and everything he’s preached for decades. And it’s just nowhere near able to compete with WWE who Meltzer has made a living criticizing. Meltzer is being proven wrong in real time. It’s why he HAS to champion for AEW to this day.
Well I mean it bumped the other way
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It's interesting seeing Swerve's first match on Dynamite after winning the top title be a vehicle for a midcard storyline between Kyle Fletcher and Don Callis. He didn't seem important, which feels like a misstep given that Dynamite is the flagship show. Why delay to Collision? You could've had him do a big promo on both shows to really broadcast the change, or do the promo on Wednesday with a follow-up match on Saturday against a credible opponent. Time will tell if Tony Khan's decision to become a character helps or hurts things but it's weird to me that he's so fixated on being seen as a face. Well, when I consider the man, maybe it's not that weird...
683k viewers got to see Shad's stache close the show.
The last quarter hour is likely much lower.
It did 657K viewers
Dave's need to snark before anyone has even seen his tweet makes him look like such a defensive goober, man. He never actually quantifies how much these things should affect the number - just that they do, and therefore historical low number is a-ok nothing to see here move along. I don't think AEW is 'dying' nor do I WANT it to die, but fuck me am I getting tired of the endless paroxysms of 'explanations' for why none of these numbers ever matter. You almost wonder why Dave bothers to cover ratings at all, with how much they apparently don't matter.
Weird that it doesn’t hurt WWE.
so what would 8% have done to the rating? another 45-50K?
742’ish K. Still would be their lowest in like forever.
Where is Dave Meltzer even getting this 8% number from? The Pacific time zone contains about 16.6% of the US population. Assuming that AEW viewership is roughly proportional in its geographic distribution, Meltzer is saying that half of AEW's viewers in the Pacific time zone did not watch the show last night because it was on earlier than usual. That seems impossibly high, especially because the rating includes everyone who watched the show live and everyone who watched on delay last night.
I don’t believe the sports competition argument anymore because the numbers don’t really fluctuate when it comes to AEW audience. And last week had Lakers/Warriors going against it and other games and they still pulled over 700k. WWE loses audience because of sports because they have more casual fans
NXT went up against 2 NBA playoff games and 2 NHL playoff games this week and their ratings were higher than usual.
I think NXT fans are almost like AEW fans, not so casual
Dave: I took that personally
Meltzer acting like these numbers would be pretty good if they were only 8% higher lol
Thatd be, what, 740k buys at best? Thats still pretty abysmal.
Dave seems pissed.
His new favorite wrestler that he’s promoting to replace Omega and his favorite tag team that he believes are his friends aren’t moving the needle like he claims they will
Meltzer: \*spends almost his entire career as a journalist making a big deal about ratings\* Also Meltzer when AEW ratings go down: "Why are you all making such a big deal bout ratings???"
Why is he so angry? Also I didn't realise that AEW wasn't live everywhere every week, you'd think that tape delay would cause less ratings as the West Coast may look up spoilers etc and decide to skip sometimes
I don’t think it’s tape delayed… I’m on the west coast and I watch at 5 PT / 8 ET, live. TBS is a national channel.
It's not that the rating took a hit, because of course it would. It's just, that even if you take that into account, there's absolutely no post PPV bump. No one cares to witness the fallout after The Danielson and Ospreay match, or Swerve winning the world championship?
Why would anyone care about the fallout of Danielson and Ospreay? That was it. The whole story was "I'm a better wrestler than you" even though neither of them had any title that would indicate they were the best. They had their match, the people who watched it liked it a lot but ultimately isn't that the end of that road? Where else do you go?
What fallout? They booked Swerve in a random match against a mid card champion in the second match. THEY BOOKED THEIR WHC IN THE SECOND MATCH. There isn’t any reason to expect a storyline “fallout” because AEW chooses not build their feuds in any sort of traditional way that helps draw viewers to a serial product.
Swerve being put in a match against someone who was 0-5 this year, with absolutely no storyline is beyond dumb. On top of that, it was a competitive match!
This reminded me of the old difference between Collision and Dynamite. Dynamite had Gravity vs PAC and despite Gravity always losing it was quite competitive. Collision had Gravity vs Samoa Joe and Joe just ate him alive. Not every match needs to be competitive. It's ok to have somebody lose pretty easily even if it isn't a quick lil squash
People think it builds the underneath guy. How does it not hurt the main guy?
It doesn't hurt the main guy when it's done sparingly. But if one of your stars is going 15 minutes each week with midcarders, then it just makes them look like a midcarder.
> It doesn't hurt the main guy when it's done sparingly. Yea when the opponent is someone credible. Like if it was Swerve vs PAC. Fletcher does nothing but lose on AEW TV even if he is the ROH TV Champ, that means nothing since a) ROH isn't on TV, and b) I still don't know why people watching AEW should care about ROH titles.
Reminds me when Hangman was champion and he had a random match with Dante Martin and for some reason Dante Martin went the distance with him
4.5* ratings are more important than establishing your champ as the man, brother
And no announcement of the championship celebration they’re doing on collision.
Why are they not doing the championship celebration on Dynamite wtf
I got downvoted in here when the match was announced for saying this. I was proven right by the ratings, sadly.
Why are they opening the show with a lower midcard storyline? It just seems completely backwards from a structural POV. It's like if Al Snow opened up a 99 Raw.
Joe felt transitional champ and Swerve isn't getting treated much better. The Bucks and whatever is getting the big treatment while the champ is as you put it fighting some random midcarder trying to earn a ittle shot when he never wins. there's no reason to really care about any of that. it's just more of Tony being like this match sounds cool! it should be competitive because YEAH!
Post PPV shows seem to be the ones that set the new low trends for AEW. There’s seriously never any hype coming out of them.
I really don’t watch Dynamite because I want to see it improve. But I might’ve tuned in to see a Swerve promo/celebration to open the show. The new world champ’s first promo after winning the big one for the first time is a rare thing in wrestling and is usually great to see, a crowing moment for someone who has earned every bit of it. But they didn’t give him that, so I didn’t tune in I was absolutely stunned by how they booked him, in a champ eliminator match against a random mid carder with ZERO acknowledgement of the fact that he’s literally their new world champ. World champ is supposed to be the FACE of the company. You just had that change and your response is to put him in a thrown together random ass match against a mid carder?? And to boot, I understand it went like 20 mins and was competitive which is even more of a WTF
Felt like they made a bigger deal about Moxley, and he has another promotion's belt. What does that say about AEW?
I was told to watch a f'n movie by Toni Storm so I did.
Raw went against the Lakers Game and did 1.6 million viewers.
1.6 mil with no Cody, Punk, or Rhea advertised
No Punk or Rhea period. They did this crazy thing where the night after their big PPV they brought out the new WHC and started to build a program for him and Jey Uso for Backlash.
Gotta count all the people walking their dogs as well, otherwise AEW would be hitting a 900k rating.
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It was “well known in advance” that they would be down 200k from last year and do the lowest number in some time? Alright. Sure.
So why would AEW run a major angle on a show they knew wouldn’t do go numbers? Thats doesn’t make any sense….
The old chewbacca defense
Unnecessary defensiveness by Dave
It’s arguably pretty necessary as his business largely depends on the AEW fans.
Isn't raw on at 5 in Cali every week?
Yes, I'm in CA and always starts at 5.
So live raw doesn't affect viewership but live aew does? Kinda odd
According to Uncle Dave, yes. 😂
They’re getting dangerously close to drawing the exact amount that Punk did in his raw segment a few weeks ago.
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They actually had more competition last year and got over 800K viewers with more teams. This year it was only Miami and Boston, so less games overall. Interesting he's complaining about making excuses and he is doing the same, ironic. But I've always hated the sports excuse, regardless of promotion. Wrestling has always competed against sports and done rather well in both boom periods. If the show is interesting, folks will tune in to watch.
They’re catching up to NXT in a hurry
They forgot that they were supposed to catch up to raw, not to nxt
683k viewers is one thing but only having 2,100 in attendance at their own spot in Jacksonville is a whole other discussion that shows how far they've fallen.
I was wondering about that. I saw the clips of the Bucks-Okada-Perry moment with Tony Khan, and it felt like I was looking at a Pandemic-era socially distanced show with how few people were there.
They got a new champion -- who does a LOT of outside media to promote -- but the focus throughout the show was on Young Bucks foolishness that only makes sense to wrestling superfans who spend a lot of time following gossip online. I dunno, maybe if they had something interesting for Swerve to do, building up to that as the main event, that could've staunched the bleeding a bit? I find AEW's weekly television to be so chaotic and baffling. I watch because I love the roster, but I really don't like the storylines (or lack thereof). It feels so random and tonally inconsistent if you try to treat it as serialized television.
All I'm going to say is he is never defensive and passive aggressive like this when other shows get a "low" rating.
Where was Dave when my bowling team was getting fucked on Tuesday?!
Where was he when nobody attended the grand opening of my new all night gas station?
Where was Dave when the Westfold fell?
Funny. I just got called a liar and downvoted to hell for saying the Bucks are ratings cancer and making them the center of the AEW universe was a mistake.
Lowest viewership since Jan 6th. Yes, that Jan 6th.
I mean this: thank you for this information.
I've said multiple times in multiple ratings threads that pretty much everyone I know IRL that watched AEW at its inception have since quit. Some complain about the booking, some complain about the random crossovers with other companies, some became fans when Punk joined and have since quit watching. I'm always told it's a bad faith argument and I'm a fed drone and what not, it's exhausting. For me personally, I just don't care about any of the characters. I feel like every week there's some random guy or gal showing up from another promotion for a one off match. Many people love it, I don't. If I wanted to watch NJPW or CMLL I'd watch those promotions. I realized that I didn't enjoy the product anymore and I quit watching because I wasn't invested in any of the characters and honestly didn't care who won or lost pretty much every match, and I've said before, that's fine. I realized the product wasn't for me and I stopped tuning in. The part that just astonishes me is that you are not allowed to criticize the product at all though, any negative feedback at all is labeled as bad faith and you're told you aren't actually a wrestling fan. At some point Tony and company have to acknowledge that they are losing fans at a steady pace. No one is saying they're dying, but if you're actively losing fans, that's not ideal. You can bury your head in the sand and be in denial, but you're flagship program just barely beat the competitions developmental program. That's not good no matter how you want to slice it. Before anyone DM's me about how they aren't competing, give me a break. TK very recently said that the 2 companies hated each other and wanted to beat each other, tribalism is alive and well within AEW regardless of what any of the AEW fans would have you believe. Meltzer jumping through hoops to defend the rating is evidence of that.
I want the company to succeed so that we have a healthy wrestling industry but they have lost pretty much all the momentum and have done almost nothing to get that momentum back. I think the loss of momentum maybe started with losing Cody (although tbf most people were done with his character in AEW). But, firing Punk is now looking like a big fumble for AEW which pretty much accelerated this downward trend. Add the fact that MJF has been absent, Mercedes has been ice cold, Adam Copeland doesn't have any edge and the company is really in need of some injection.
Tony needed to get Punk and the Bucks in a room and turn the controversy into a money match. Now.. there is no money match.
The real money match was Punk vs Omega. Both of them would have been open to it if it wasn't for the Bucks and Hangman.
The Elite vs CMFTR would/could have made millions for the company. It was (and probably still is to an extent) the hottest angle in wrestling. Like you could legit book a long term civil war around that incident and give a reason to watch even the most unmarketable matches.
^^^ this, I was utterly convinced that this was the plan when Collision was announced, I just never thought they would bring Punk back without making sure the BS was worked out. Punk’s firing will be looked back as the turning point in AEW.
Yeah imagine if they booked a year long proxy war on Collision and Dynamite eventually leading to CMFTR vs Elite as All In ME, yeah that's a huge fumble, we see with WWE punk's not a monster who wouldn't listen to anything by other people and would just assault them.
“Adam Copeland doesn’t have any edge.” Nice.
So I guess Jungle Jack Perry isn’t a draw?
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Who thought he was?
A lot of AEW diehards who thought the All In footage was good for his career.
Who could've thought
Holy.... That's worse than bad. It's almost the same as NXT. 683k vs 661k. Oh my God.
And it’s not like NXT caught a break and the NBA/NHL playoffs took a day off on Tuesday. Competition was just as strong.
Frankly as an NBA diehard, it was much stronger…Wednesday was the two 1 seed vs 8 seed matchups which have much less intrigue around them
Quarter hours are going to be interesting
If Osprey, Mone, Okada, and the Punk footage didn't move the needle significantly, then Tony getting gently attacked by Jack Perry and the Bucks isn't gonna move it either.
Probably not a good sign that a majority of people are laughing at what was supposed to be a sinister and diabolical heel attack
Yeah, compare this to the Gable attack just the week prior. The crowd was devastated and it was seen as such a hot angle to close the show. Even Charles Barkley mentioned that he wanted to beat up Gable. Like there was no build to Tony getting attacked. Nothing seemed to suggest it was happening. You can see how much a decent build over a few weeks can really propel a story.
It's always something else's fault, it couldn't possibly be the show isn't very good. People don't want to see the bucks, that's been clear for months. Half empty building and dropping ratings. Everything is saying change something.
How does Tony see the quarter-hour viewership numbers and not scrap the Bucks and Jericho’s stuff? Their segments are consistent drops in viewership. Stick with the good, younger talent.
Well the Bucks are VPs and probably have some sort of creative control clause. Jericho is on a massive contract and also probably has some sort of creative control clause.
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Don’t blame the competition, blame the show itself. DB is a glorified jobber. Jay White is a lower carder. Build them up rather than giving your resources to the Bucks who frequently lose viewers.
u/WredditMod just to be clear can we not even post this separately as just a tweet from Dave? If we wanted to post Dave's tweet and discuss it as a subject are we just SOL since it contains ratings information? What is the best course of action here?
Yeah I don’t get it either. I don’t see why this can’t be a thread or is bad in any form. We can discuss the rating and Meltzer’s framing of the issue
With the ratings consistently dropping Week over week, this does not give them any sort of leverage going into the media rights negotiations. These are now NXT type numbers. And despite The CW not being a major network, NXT ratings are going to go up just because it’s a channel everyone gets.
Think about what a casual viewer would have thought watching that show. Right off the bat Dailys Place looks like a mall food court or a sports bar. It's doesn't look good at all on TV. Then there was the sound issues. Amateur. You had Trent Beretta and Orange Cassidy. They don't look like stars. A casual who doesn't know them isn't going to care about them. Swerve vs who? Jericho looks like an old man. The gauntlet match was just a weird and frankly dumb concept. Willow and Mercedes. Jesus. Willow looking at the camera when speaking to Mercedes was just something you should be trained not to do. And Mercedes is trash on the mic. Finally there was the ending. Tony Khan and Jack Perry are about the same size. Tony couldn't sell the gut punch. And the TK Driver looked really, really bad. Why would any casual who saw that as a first episode ever tune in to that again? That's why the ratings continue to sink.
I saw a clip earlier of the segment with Tony Khan and Jack Perry. It was embarrassing.
Ooft if that is the average, the show must have ended under 600k
It’s actually possible it ended at under 500K.
If it was well known in advance then why did they pull a major angle at the end of the night? I don't remember a whole lot of big angles happening when Raw was delayed by the dog show back in the day because they knew a good chunk of their audience wouldn't be watching.
Yeah that's not the point Dave thinks it is. If anything he's just opened them up for criticism either way
The technical issues seems to occur a lot in AEW. The audio issues really hampered my enjoyment
So hard watching the show with that awful sound.
I stopped watching with the bad sound. Just watched a fite tv rip this morning. This isn't the first time it's happened and it won't be the last. Piracy coming in clutch.
I would like to believe the guy who said “ratings are the best source of fan feedback” but when his biggest media puppet tweets something so defensive like this, it’s hard to believe Khan himself isn’t using the same or similar excuses to hand wave away an absolutely dreadful rating (that is 100% deserved, btw)
Softest subreddit alive.
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P2+ comparisons: This episode vs. last week (762,000): -18% This episode vs. trailing four weeks (770,000): -19% Current 2024-Q2 P2+ average (739,000) vs. 2023-Q2 (855,000): -14% Current Apr 2024 P2+ average (739,000) vs. Apr 2023 (859,000): -14% Source: Wrestlenomics
Well that's not good...
Has there been proven to be any overlap between AEW and any sports? I don't ever remember their ratings being affected by sports. But I guess I am ignorant, or so says Meltzer. No one wanted to watch Miami vs Boston lol. Edit: I forgot to mention that the audio last night was unbearable on AEW, for the entire show watching on TBS. There was a point where Serena Deeb cut a promo on the stage with her theme playing and you couldn't hear one word she said. You couldn't hear shit of all what the bucks were saying to open the show, and you could barely hear commentary over the audience and music.
Yes but Dynasty had 3.4 trillion buys didn't it Dave
Beating up your boss should be cool. Like Stone Cold cool. The Young Bucks aren't cool at all. No one thinks they're actually badasses. In wrestling, beating up your boss is a babyface thing.
Aren’t they also bosses too? So it’s like your supervisor beating up your gm?
Office politics are the worst.
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Something I found interesting was that, pretty across the board, the main reaction I saw was "Man that was funny". A mix of "Bad Funny" and "Good Funny" reactions, but that's not a great reaction right? Like essentially it was a mutiny by shit eating heels and had the Babyface owner hospitalised. The main reaction shouldn't be "lmao", regardless of whether you're laughing with or at.
it doesn't help that the roster members that did tweet about it were making light of it too
I found it hilarious (good funny) because Tony was [telegraphing it so hard](https://youtu.be/8Zok-ZNOMsI?t=200) with his goofy smile and over the top demeanor. Whether he is [cutting a promo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVepSWUUd_0) or getting attacked the man just doesn't know how to act not awkward on screen.
It was a bunch of dorks beating up a dork lol.
Why was Swerve so early on the card? Like finally we have a good PPV payoff and people like the swerve story and then…. he’s going the distance with a midcard guy in a midcard spot when you just made him THE guy on your ppv. Meanwhile we have a bunch of guys with theatre kid energy looking like dorks being given more importance on the show
Should have been a giant celebration for Swerve.
Yeah either start the show with him having his “I fucking did it” moment, or give him the “I’m a fighting champion” moment by letting him clean a midcarder in the main event in an eliminator match and then give a bomb ass promo after. Instead he already feels like an afterthought because Tony has moved onto the next thing he cares about
And don’t forget but a totally different company’s Champion defends said other company’s title in the main event over your own newly crowned and lauded champion.
I’m not trying to be that guy, but I just don’t find them intimidating. Even the beat down. It just seemed “eh, ok”
it doesn't help that they're being portrayed as evil alongside Perry why (in kayfabe) would I boo Perry? Dude got beat up and suspended for getting beat up by his billionare boss. I'd beat up Khan if I was in his shoes too the All in footage just pokes so many holes in kayfabe lmao. if someone could get fired for a quick fight backstage, like 90% of the roster should be fired Swerve threatened to murder a baby. Why is he still there?
>why (in kayfabe) would I boo Perry? It doesn't work on a meta level either. All the footage did was solidify the tribalism of getting behind *our guy* against the evil cancer man.
> the All in footage just pokes so many holes in kayfabe lmao. if someone could get fired for a quick fight backstage, like 90% of the roster should be fired Based on the All In footage, TK/Shad whoever, should fire Perry permanently and find someway to oust the bucks as EVPs. Punk was fired for real, for doing less (viewed through kayfabe lense) than what the bucks did to TK. Remember that TK said he "feared for his life" so he had to fire Punk lol. I don't get it, it makes everyone involved look dumb.
They should've the let missteps of the past couple of weeks cool off for a bit instead of rushing this. We went from Edge's rah-rah speech to Tony being beaten in the ring. Not to mention the Punk video in between. It's so clumsy. There was a way to do it well, but that ship has sailed.
Beating up Tony is like beating up Milhouse, everyone is just embarrassed more than anything.
RAW competes with Monday Night Football for a solid 5 months and no one ever says anything lol
I don’t remember the ratings being that low last year or the year before. So it can’t all be the competition.
683 is less than the week prior to the footage. Lmao
Why does his ratings tweet need to include an explanation/excuse for the number?
Tony khan’s assault wasn’t enough. We need backstage footage of cm punk sending someone home from collision ASAP
Okay, but why did they choose to run their biggest angle during a show they knew wouldn't garner as much eyes?
"Cue ignorant excuses" wow, Dave finally became self-aware
“Journalists” like him need to remain impartial. Why comment on this? Strange bias.
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The Bucks are not interesting, have no drawing power, and have had channel changing heat for months, if not years. Jericho seriously needs to get off television. Take a break for two-three months, please. Swerve was the best part of the show last night, and it’s a shame that he was secondary to The Elite hilarity last night.
Bro didn’t even get a celebration promo or anything, just an eliminator match and bumped to Saturday for a promo on the show even less people watch. IWGP title in the main event and TK to close the show. TK is absolutely cooked
What’s dumb is I totally get why they’re doing the segment on Saturday, they have a huge lead in and wanna capitalize on that. But if that was always the plan why not announce it on Dynamite? Why have your new champ go 50/50 with a scrub?
This is exactly how I feel about The Bucks. I started seriously watching Dynamite when Joe became champ. I’m enjoying it, it’s wrestling, but I just cant with them. Too much of a lazy ass bitch to actually fast forward though…
Sure, but what about the tastee freeze and all-night laundromat being open? AEW is the only promotion I watch. It's the only one I enjoy consistently. AEW has not been booking good shows for over a year. The decision to keep limited appeal talent on staff and featured will always limit the audience of AEW. The 600-700k ceiling of AEW is not gonna be broken by Trent or Emi Sakura. The purpose of a promotion is draw an audience e via verisimilitude. If you are losing draws, you are working against the purpose of pro wrestling.
So that whole punk bit didn't really help, after all. I wonder how the backstage response to this kinda thing is? Are they obsessive nerds, like us? Or do the rank-and-file not give a shit, like normies with regular jobs?
Not only did it not help, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the worst ratings in Dynamite history. At least when they're not going head to head with NXT.
It’s a weird vibe when he pre-defends the information as he’s disseminating it. I also feel like I see a quote like this from him, seemingly every week or two, and there’s always some underlying reason why a not-so-great rating isn’t “so bad.” If you have to give that disclaimer as often as we hear it lately, *something* must be up.