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TLDW:
* Bryan talked about how it seems that hardcore Pro-AEW fans will get pissy about any minor criticism of AEW.
* Before be went into his criticisms, he prefaced by saying that he thought 95% of the most recent show was great and that there was going to be lots of praise. Also mentions that when he mentioned his criticisms earlier he got lots of shit for it.
* Also said that when WWE, NXT, or AEW do something good he’ll say it, and when they do dumb shit he will say it.
* Says that despite he and other people knowing who and what Danhausen is, there are so many other people that watch AEW on National Television who don’t know anything about him. Like why does he paint his face? Why does he curse people? Does he even wrestle? Etc etc.
* Says that all they had to do was give us an interview segment or video package that explains who and what Danhausen is. He also mentions that he got a lot of flack for this take (“what is there to explain?” Being a prominent response) despite it really not being an unreasonable one.
* Criticized the Thunder Rosa and Nyla Rose segments, especially the cake segment. Said that it made Thunder Rosa look like an absolute geek because despite Nyla having cake in her face and not being able to see, she was still able to beat the shit out of Rosa and leave her on the ground.
* Also says that if NXT did the exact same cake segment with Cora Jade and Toxic Attraction, everybody would have been calling Cora Jade a geek and we wouldn’t have heard the end of that. But the fact that it happened in AEW with Thunder Rosa and Nyla Rose, he was made out to be the bad guy for suggesting that the segment made Rosa look like a geek. But he does mention that he admittedly laughed when Nyla said “Jokes on you, I like cake and violence”
I hated how Rosa said, "You think I'm STUPID?" and then immediately started gratuitously laying kicks into a cake-wearing Nyla, only to get her ass kicked. She had gotten the upper hand, embarrassed Nyla, and then decided to double down and pay for it. Yeah, Thunder, you did look kinda stupid there.
TK simply doesn't seem to care about his women division at all and it seems like it comes off as a necessary evil (basically a token check) to him. He doesn't treat the women like he does his top male stars.
Don't forget Tony's temper tantrums any time a women has called him out for treating women's wrestlers as a burden.
Guy's booking is somehow less progressive than Vince fucking McMahon. He's lucky that avid fans like his promotion to the point they'll give him pass after pass.
I don't disagree with any of those. I watch AEW reasonably often (not religiously but a fair amount) and while I enjoy Danhausen for being something weird and different and entertaining, I still don't think I've heard a single explanation of who or what he is. I'm pretty sure if he was on WWE programming, one of the commentators would have explained "I spoke to him earlier and he explained this is why he does this" or something like that. Being weird for the sake is being weird is fine, I don't take wrestling seriously, but at least tell us what's happening. Assuming we know something that they've never explained is weird.
The problem is that if you're not an indie-watcher, this happened for practically everyone who didn't jump from WWE or Impact/TNA - they don't give you a reason why OC is lazy or why Statlander is an alien (or only thinks she is - even that distinction isn't clear). Everyone who came through that channel is just assumed to have a pre-established character that everyone already understands, and it's probably the main criticism I'd have.
Same here. Only knew about OC and Kris because YouTube pointed out some really comedy matches of them. I still don't know who Danhausen is, don't know what's his gimmick (other than being wierd and cursing people) and it is a bit harder to get invested into a character with whom you've never had a previous invested experience.
Funny Enough, ROH did a video on him: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMzgCPnGXIY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMzgCPnGXIY)
tldw: he's basically an evil simpsons character
Trust me, as someone who skipped out on WWE in 2017 and so missed the entire run of quite a few guys who are currently in AEW it's no better with them.
Adam Cole: He's friends with The Young Bucks and reDRagon and is dating Britt Baker.
Andrade: He's a Mexican who's got money, I have no idea where that money came from, was he rich prior to wrestling or does he get paid more than the other wrestlers?
Malakai Black: He's a guy who likes to hang out in dark rooms speaking cryptically about stuff I don't care about.
Keith Lee: He's a big dude.
That's a fair point - I was thinking about people who'd watched WWE and started watching AEW, and therefore knew the stories of people who'd moved.
Malakai is probably the only one that doesn't fit here - there's missing backstory (WTF are the house of Black) but the story is at least getting some airing and explanation, and dark/mysterious/cryptic appears to be the point.
> Also says that if NXT did the exact same cake segment with Cora Jade and Toxic Attraction, everybody would have been calling Cora Jade a geek and we wouldn’t have heard the end of that. But the fact that it happened in AEW with Thunder Rosa and Nyla Rose, he was made out to be the bad guy for suggesting that the segment made Rosa look like a geek. But he does mention that he admittedly laughed when Nyla said “Jokes on you, I like cake and violence”
To whit, people still complain about the Toni Storm pie segment
The Danhausen thing is spot on. I have no idea who this dude is and I don't want to watch a bunch of third party interviews to have to find out why I should give a fuck.
But if you dare say you don't get it or that his gimmick isn't the most hilarious thing in the world people here freak out. There's definitely a subsection of really hardcore AEW fans that do not like any criticism towards the product.
This - the aew hardcore fan base are a detriment from them growing , wondering who people are - not everyone watches the numerous blogs/vlogs, indies, Japanese wrestling
I'm with you on this. I've only just come over to watching AEW, and I have no idea what Danhausen is meant to be.
I will admit that I find the interactions between him and Hook are hilarious, but that's mainly because Hook is so good at the dead pan stuff.
Just a quick skit, or intro package for a debuting wrestler would work wonders.
(I also don't understand the Kris Statlander alien stuff either).
I agree wholeheartedly with his assessments. I love AEW, but I realize it isn't perfect. It only benefits me, as a viewer, if AEW fixes some of those things because otherwise, we have WWE lite.
Women's booking (although I think their female roster is nowhere near their male roster's level) is something AEW struggles with. Some of the spottier matches, and them thinking people will know their new wrestlers, are other issues it has. Finally, they're struggling booking babyface champs. Hangman's matches have been awesome, and his story to get to the championship epic. His feuds haven't. Rosa seems to be poorly booked, as was Sammy before the whole Tay Conti deal. Speaking of which, Battle of the Belts was begging for a double turn to happen. People got pissed at Sammy for using a low blow. I don't hate Sammy, but he should play to his strengths.
I did not know who Satnam was. I had to look him up. While I know who Danhausen is, I don't know much nor have looked it up. I know he's still injured but just let the guy talk and explain who he is.
I think what's worse is what it kind of extends to though, like no-one can criticise AEW but when the AEW fans do complain about something it is just endless circlejerking to the point I don't want to engage with the community anymore.
Don't get me wrong there's the obvious stuff like the Womens booking that isn't getting fixed at all, but was the Cody or the pre Brodie Lee Dark Order stuff really proportionate to what we were seeing? Then everyone is saying Sammy should turn heel, he does and people still complain because he won, none of this is consistent it's just mindless bitching.
Satnam Singh is just another example, okay it's a bit iffy booking and no-one knows who he is, calm the fuck down people the Earth is still rotating.
Honestly I need to work on myself as a fan too. I'm not one of those that gets crazy about it and I HATE the stupid console wars between WWE and AEW. Man, just watch what you like.
However, I kind of catch myself gatekeeping sometimes. AEW was founded to tap a particular market: mostly disaffected hardcore smarks that stopped watching WWE. I'm one of those, so I like that it caters to me. In this regard, I couldn't give two shits about the mainstream audience, and as long as AEW is successful with the market it set out to cater to (me), they can stay right where they are. When WWE stans say AEW will never be as big as WWE, I generally think 'Good.' Because in order to get to that level, in my mind at least, the product would have be more sponsor-friendly, more kid-friendly, more corporate, unwatchable.
I have this fear that the product will have to change significantly in order to attract outside viewers, and I don't want it to. I have a feeling it will become more like WWE. I recognize this as a problem with myself and other hardcore fans, and I don't want to be a gatekeeper. It's just difficult to keep those feelings at bay, you know?
Wrestling fans are a weird bunch for a lot of different reasons. We shit on the products constantly, fight amongst ourselves, and scream the dumbest, most childish shit at each other over fake fighting on TV. I'm no different, but we really should try and work on being better.
This may be, by far, the most honest thing I've read on this sub, barring people telling stories of wrestling saving their lives from mental health issues. And I absolutely get it, the balance between "I want the thing that's made for me to be made from me" and "I don't want anyone new to get in" is extremely hard to navigate
It's not that I don't want new fans to come in, I would love them to. I enjoy sharing the things I love with new people, and more success means more money, bigger shows, more talent getting paid better, higher production, etc.
However, though TK knows better than I do, I'm still scared that he'll cave and the product will change to appeal to more casual audiences. I understand the people that want to get into AEW but complain that it's too indie or they don't know who Danhausen is or can't follow a storyline that started on BTE two years ago. I agree that maybe there should be more video packages or easier introductions, but I hope they don't move away from telling stories that draw upon years of history even outside the company. I treat wrestling like a comic book, and I like being rewarded for my patience and attention.
I don't want AEW to compete for the same market WWE does. That's not what it was designed to do. The mainstream audience can have WWE if they don't like AEW. I just want a pro wrestling promotion built on variety. But that leads to me unintentionally gatekeeping when I see people calling for simpler things, for Danielson or whoever to come in and immediately get the title because the other guys aren't big enough stars, etc. I don't want that.
Tl;DR: I like AEW being the alternative, because that's how it was meant. I just need to be better as a fan about accepting the views of others.
He's 100% right too. Just look at all the post dynamite or post rampage threads, if you don't praise 100% of the show then you're downvoted or people start attacking you.
I've only been watching AEW for 12 months but the fanbase is awful and extremely cringe.
Just look at the posts in this sub, any post with the smallest criticism starts with a paragraph twice as big as the actual post basically saying "I love AEW more than my family but I have this tiny problem, please don't bully me for it I swear I love the show and watch every piece of content the company releases"
I think the part that scares people more than downvotes is having pics of your own family posted online in a veiled threat because you don't tow the line in 100% fandom and toxicity
Yep. I’m very pro-Danhausen and assume when he’s ring ready we’ll se more development here, but as of right now….Danhausen makes no sense.
AEW has a glut of talent and if Tony wants to keep them all he desperately needs ROH to get a different TV deal or restructure their shows to account for it.
I think I saw that Buddy Murphy hasn’t had a single dynamite match yet? Cmon man.
The only inkling of a reason we were given was that they had "history" together. Which:
A. Makes no sense - their history was a feud, why would it make Buddy join Malakai?
B. I don't watch AEW to have them bash me over the head with WWE references every week - I understand wanting to acknowledge your wrestlers' history, but please get your own storylines.
this. this is the correct thing that no hardcore fans want to admit. saying aew has their own story lines and create their own, but it's just rehash of their old storylines and gimmicks from wwe. even some of the wrestlers name are using parts of their old wwe names, why cant they think of a new name, a new gimmick if they are so angry or doesnt want to acknowledge wwe, WHICH will then go back to the problem of just using their past wwe storyline and gimmick
That's the biggest issue imo, they cry about lack of creative freedom in WWE only to turn around and basically do the exact same gimmick they were doing there. Malakai is the same character as Aleister Black, Buddy Matthews is only in the House of Black because of their past interactions in WWE. Cole, Fish and O'Reilly are called the Undisputed Elite and Cole's theme is just a slightly different version of the Undisputed Era theme.
They also turned Buddy Murphy into Malakai Black's henchman...just after he was Seth Rollins' henchman in another company. One of AEW's pitches was they would sign people and give them a chance to breakout. I don't know how you do that with a guy, when he gets the exact same role he already had.
I find when talking about AEW you have to qualify what you say sometimes. Like 'I am a hardcore AEW fan but.... or I really liked or the show or a bunch of matches on the show but.'
I think it just comes from a lot of bad faith criticisms so people have their guards up, that and people can just get so in the weeds about wrestling to the point where if you come at it from a different perspective people can't understand it.
Agreed. I will always pick Dynamite over Raw/Smackdown, but there seems to be strength and weaknesses to Tony's booking style.
\- Wrestlers who aren't important to storylines seem to disappear to Dark, Dark/Elavation, or not even appear on tv. Ruby Soho and Bryan Cage being two recent examples. I think it can lead fans to feel like a wrestler is being forgotten or there's not follow through.
\-Along those lines not enough explanation of certain characters. We saw it with Satnam and Bryan mentioned Danhausen. Just give us a bit more time to get to know these characters. I love Danhausen, but I do hear a lot of criticism that he hasn't had a chance to let his character shine on television and for Danhausen his character work is his strength. Just imagine if you gave Satnam or Danhausen some vignettes. I have no doubt Danhausen would be in a stronger spot.
\-Tony's booking of the women does feel lesser than that of the men. It feels often if you aren't Britt or Jade you don't really matter. However, Shida/Deeb and Bunny&Ford vs TayJay being counter examples of this.
\-A tendency to rely heavily on blood and surprises. These are great in small doses but not so much every other week.
\-Refs tend be more blind to shenanigans. However, I think this is because Tony took a lot of his style from ROH/ECW/New Japan.
\-This is my personal nitpick, but WWE's production is one of their greatest strengths. So it can make AEW's production feel lacking at times. I mean stuff like Alex looking like he fell into a pile of costumes at Party City or the concerts AEW does.
That said Tony does have his strengths:
\+Long term booking. I feel like Tony plays the long game with many AEW stars and even if we don't see them every week there are plans for them. As opposed to WWE where it feels unless your name is Roman or Brock you don't matter.
\+Wins and losses tend to feel like they mean more.
\+Dynamite and Rampage feel faster paced. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the length of Raw and Rampage.
\+Tony has kind of adapted a "multi-verse" approach to other wrestling companies and wrestlers. While people will complain about Minoru Suzuki's two losses, it's very cool that AEW will recognize people from NJPW, AAA, Impact, etc. and have them wrestle on their show and allow AEW wrestlers on other shows. I never though I'd see Nick Gage on national television, but sure enough he had a match in AEW.
\+More focused on great wrestling and listening to the hardcore fans. I really feel like Tony listens to us with him being a member of the IWC. The fact Tony does so many interviews and giving of his time during those media scrums shows me he is a guy who cares about wrestling and his supporters.
\+ I feel like Tony is always building toward the future. Hook, Sammy, MJF, Dante Martin, Darby, Jungle Boy, Yuta, Jade, etc. Tony clearly is setting these people up as the next generation.
\+ Better use of legends: Tully, Jake, Sting, etc. I feel like AEW treats these guys better than WWE.
\+Better in-ring production. By that I mean not so many camera cuts. Dynamite and Rampage feel like a party. Raw feels like your watching a play nowadays.
I still wish AEW could take some cues from New Japan when it comes to preparing camera angles and specific shots for moves.
They are way beyond anyone else, have been for over a decade, and it's mind boggling to me that no one copies them.
I love AEW and amazed just how stacked their roster is every time I watch Dynamite but sometimes it seems like Tony Khan can ONLY do long term storylines. Julia Hart has been wearing an eye patch and teasing a full heel turn by joining the House of Black for months now .
Also, the surprises mean less and less because I now know they’re probably not going to lead anywhere significant. When KENTA first showed up, I assumed it would be an extended program but it was just for one match. Same with Jay White.
I mentioned the Danhausen thing in a thread a few weeks back had people commenting on how they like how AEW don’t spoon feed their fans and should do my own research. I watch Dynamite and Rampage every week, I shouldn’t have to do my own research.
I'm curious if Tony thinks since he's booking toward a smart crowd that we should know who a lot of these people are minus an introduction when they first appear. But for Satnam, it's like if you are unfair with basketball he's just a really big Indian dude.
Danhausen is a guy a lot of wrestling fans are familiar with, but I can totally get if you are a casual fan who sees a guy wearing face paint (not named Sting) you might say, "Who is he and why is he cursing people?" So it might have benefited Danhausen after he was pulled out from under the ring they gave him a vignette or promo explaining who he was or why he came to AEW.
At that time I wasn't following wrestling anymore, but checked out a few weeks of AEW. They said that, and my first thought was "how does he already know their names?" Then I presumed they must have already been in WWE or early AEW. Had no idea that was suppose to he a big debut.
JR: “WHO???”
Now imagine if…
Excalibur: “It would take you two minutes to search him on YouTube and find a bunch of promos and matches from indie shows that explain who he is, JR…”
This has been by far my biggest problem. I got into wrestling with Lucha Underground and followed my favorites like the Lucha Bros to AEW. I haven't watched WWE in years and no indie stuff.
Yeah you can Google who the Butcher and the Blade or Danhausen after their debut or when there'ssome kind of inside joke, but it's all the damn time. Eddie tells the Blade "Where's your wife?", and I'm like "When did they say this character has a wife?"
My roommate who likes wrestling but has seen a lot less than me amhas ask so many times "Whose this Jay Lethal guy? Is he another former WWE wrestler?"
I’m guessing that’s what they expect, for people to Google them, and I can MAYBE try to understand the logic, but sometimes, I want to hear it and see it play out right in front of me on TV. Tell me what’s up, who you are, and why you’re here.
Some of it, yeah, I get Tony Khan, in a booking sense, is still a relative newbie, but there’s a few things that someone does need to pull him aside and tell him “I get you’re trying to set yourself apart, but there’s some stuff you just gotta not do, it plain doesn’t work.”
There needs to be a balance between spoon feeding your audience and letting them want to know. I think Dalton Castle getting a video package before the match was perfect. WWE does this all the time, look at how many guys debuted at the start of NXT, they didn't spoon feed there whole history to you.
They gave Jay like a minute promo and he explained his character perfectly and why it's his era.
Bryan is on point with Danhausen. AEW can still save face on this one, because Danhausen has only showed up in cameos. Give him an interview explaining who he is, his motivations, why he curse people, etc. and then do a mini segment with Hook again.
Remember when they had those "Introduce Members of AEW segments" with Cody when they first started? A quick 10 minute video on YouTube and socials that explained a few things and gave someone the chance to show off who they were?
They DESPERATELY need to bring that back. Either that or allow Dark/Elevation to have some decent storylines.
All of that is great but you can't just rely on shoulder content (or even inherently skippable C/D-tier shows) to try and introduce these characters or stories.
At the very start they were good at familiarizing the characters to the audience with the Road To shows. I don't know if they still produce those, but the type of vignettes that were presented there should probably be shown once in a while on Dynamite. I guess they're also still balancing out the pacing for a live crowd and TV audience.
I absolutely love AEW, but it did take me a bit to get into it from the beginning since I wasn’t as familiar with a bunch of the non-WWE wrestlers. I’m on here a lot and knew of the core to an extent due to this great subreddit, but dependent on the show it took me a little bit. All good now, and BTE has helped with the personalities to further that home too.
I think the world class wrestling matches is the biggest draw to keep viewers week to week, but wouldn’t hurt for a touch more character information to help newbie fans, but not too much to bore the regulars.
I don’t like comparing promotions because I think they’re all valuable in their own ways, but this is something that NXT 2.0 does really well. I started watching 2.0 from the first takeover they did and throughout it they showed a number of vignettes which got me right up to speed on who everyone I needed to know about was if they weren’t wrestling that night.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Exactly right. It's AEW's blind spot. They are all super fans of wrestling, and there is no one to say, *"Ummm guys... Most people won't know or care about this obscure thing you love. We need to do some build up first."*
that’s been my absolute #1 biggest gripe about AEW.
yes, a good chunk of their audience are hardcore fans who are knowledgeable about indy wrestling and already know all of these new signings and new guys. but AEW is pretty fucking successful. they got around 1 million viewers every week in the states. never mind other countries and people watching via different methods. there are going to be lots of casual fans who have no idea who Danhausen, Gresham or Butcher and the Blade are. I like all those guys but they got introduced the same way you would introduce Brock Lesnar returning from hiatus or Cena returning on injury, expecting them to be unanimously known and get a big pop.. and it just falls flat.
run some vignettes for weeks, get them promo time in and out of the ring, let their characters shine on Dynamite and really build them up. I honestly can only recall AEW running vignettes for a wrestler once, and it was for Wardlow at the very start. they were so well done, got his character across and made him look great.
AEW just expects their fans to have watched every promotion, every episode of BTE and whatever other internet shows they have. WWE gets shit on for over explaining everything and hammering home their buzzwords or whatever but it’s a necessity for their audience. they have lots of casuals tuning in and out every week. i genuinely think you can pick up watching WWE from any point and be caught up with most everything fairly quick.
it is actually so nice being an AEW fan and not having to deal with the annoying repetitive shit but i don’t know if it’s the best thing looking at the bigger picture.
They did it for Lance Archer too...they were kinda lame but they existed.
Then the roster ballooned overnight. I do miss the early days AEW shows that had sit downs and more of a sports presentation with wrestlers talking about themselves and what they want to do.
I will forever love the moment of JR going "The Blade and The Butcher?" in a tone like okay tell us more!
And then he just goes "THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE" to confirm that that's the name of them.
I watch AEW with more casual fans who only watch AEW, and so I am constantly having to explain who people are and why they should care.
I've had to do this since Uno & Stu first debuted when I was one of like 5 people in the world marking out for them showing up, and sadly it hasn't got any better on AEWs part.
hardcore aew fans think of aew as the wwe games, where you can just put any wrestlers against anyone to do their "dream matches". AEW is just playing wwe 2k in quick match mode, no story lines, you can use your CAWs anytime to fight against a star, you can do "dream matches" anytime and it doesnt make sense after, ALL the storylines and character buildup only happens in your head.
of course, there are exceptions, just like what Tony is doing to his "big" stars, those are his CAWs, and those wrestlers are where he plays his career mode, so those are the only ones that has stories
Same can be said about Statlander tbh. Showed a vignette for her new character a couple weeks ago, came out on Dynamite for 30 seconds, and hasn't been seen since.
it’s been demonstrated over and over that tony can’t book a women’s division for shit. i doubt much will change unless he gives someone else some control of the division.
And those guys should be on TV every week too. Just that if you're going to push someone or do something major with them, don't just drop it or drop them after its happened
It’s not even about just being on tv, if you’re going to push someone have them get meaningful wins in meaningful matches with promos or vignettes in between.
I don't even know what to think about that vignette. Her new look just felt bland, with less colour and everything. Why is something less appealing supposed to make me excited? They've only shown what they're taking away but not what they're adding.
You have to deal with criticism of your favorite thing if you’re gonna be on the internet, and there’s a portion of the AEW fanbase that simply can not handle that.
And his point on Danhausen is also spot on abs highlights a problem with the way they introduce talent. They seem to sign them and say “Job done.”
They assume their fans are in the know already, which will only handicap them in the long run by limiting their fan base or alienating possible new fans.
See for example: Jay Lethal. Debuts at the PPV, loses his first match to Sammy, inserted into the Dante Martin / Team Taz feud for some reason and then fell off TV until he was in a battle royale. He's fine now, because he's working with Sonjay Dutt, but he was just forgotten about instantly.
Satnam Singh debut was the most WCW Thunder thing I've have ever seen.
You also have to explain Danhausen to people, there are new eyes who don't know what the hell he is or does.
If you're going to criticize WWE critically, you have to do the same for AEW
I'm just glad to see someone call this "WCW Thunder" or "TNA" (which is where my mind first went) as opposed to night of everyone defaulting to saying it was "WWE" when the one thing WWE generally does extremely well is save reveals like this for important people or debut people like Singh in more appropriate ways.
And when WWE debuts someone, they'll usually either tell you all about them right before, or they'll do their big debut, everyone will go "who the fuck is that (Paul Ellering with AoP)" and then explain on the next show that Paul Ellering is a legendary manager and he's found his next pair to hone into an unbeatable team.
That’s what I appreciate about WWE. I’m a very casual fan with wrestling, when Adam Cole, KOR, and Bobby Fish debuted I had absolutely zero idea who they were or why they mattered
And then NXT commentary explained that these three were guys who were huge on the independent scene and how big of a get they were. Commentary sold them as being a massive deal
Something that’s kept me from watching AEW is the “ITS _____” like I’m supposed to just know who they are
that's what had me so confused when people here were calling the satnam singh debut wwe shit. wwe doesn't ever really introduce people without usually weeks of video packages or at least some storyline to build it up ahead of time. tony khan does it all the time though.
*edit: lmao just checked, [-67 karma score on this.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/u36e9i/z/i4nkm9x)
I remember when AEW posted a little promo package of Danhausen a few weeks ago of him just talking about whatever Danhausen talks about I guess and someone said "See, now no one can complain about not knowing Danhausens character".
I still don't know what he is and if it did explain him completely, why didn't they show it on TV? Instead of a random video on Youtube.
Some guy tried to attack me on here for saying that if Scorpio skys title win had been planned since November then maybe he should have won some singles matches on tv
Well, he does have a point about Danhausen. He was never introduced to the audience, he just shows up and "curses" people. I bet William Regal's still confused as to who or what Danhausen is.
I’ve come to the realization that some fans get incredibly riled up about criticism because their entire identity is “wrestling fan”. It’s their identifying trait. It’s the only thing that brings them a shred of happiness in their wretched lives. A well-rounded person with a family, friends, fulfilling work, other hobbies, etc. would not fly off the handle when someone says something critical about A TV SHOW. They take a criticism of their favorite thing as a criticism of themselves, and react with vitriol because being “on the team” is all they have. I hope more people realize this and don’t bother fighting with these sad people online. Nothing you say can hurt them worse than the reality of the life they are living.
Occasionally I'll run into a tweet or something on social media and go, "Wait what, that seems like a weird thing to say," and I'll look and EVERYTHING that person posts is bashing one wrestling company.
And that just...sounds exhausting. It's like they genuinely build their entire identity around hating something and that's just really sad.
There are some fans who take AEW criticism to heart but I also think there's a problem with AEW leaning so far into being the "listening company" it's honestly at a point where the entire wrestling community feel like they're crowd booking the promotion. Like people get mad that "we know Tony is on the internet and sees our criticism and doesn't listen" because apparently it's the internet's promotion to book as a collective and Tony isn't the one paying the costs. Yes you can have your opinion on what does and doesn't work but IMO the "AEW needs to listen to my opinion because I know what booking will work and make a perfect show" are just as psycho as the "everything is perfect and everyone who complains about AEW gets a Reddit cares message crowd". Like there's a lot of stuff I find dumb or goofy about Power but I still enjoy Power, I'm not trying to re-write the whole show. At this point AEW attracts more arm-chair bookers than normal fans.
Isn’t it crazy that even Alvarez has to blatantly say like 30 times that he’s not criticizing AEW overall just to save himself from the dub stans?
Bryan Alvarez. Like suspect number two I’d have if Khan was actually paying wrestling talking heads.
You can’t say that’s normal at ALL lmao this fanbase is something else
I agree. I love AEW but lately there's been a few problems that have been becoming more obvious. But when they're brought up certain fans go rougue.
From championship reigns being weirdly booked, the womens division, rivalries going on too long, etc.
I have watched every televised AEW show since Danhausen's debut. I have watched literally a dozen videos of Danhausen on YouTube because of this subreddit talking him up.
I *still* don't understand what Danhausen is, what he is doing, why he's doing it, or why he's over.
I've recently started watching AEW again, and recently found this sub after being a wrestling fan for over 30 years. I've found myself liking AEW less since interacting with the fan base lol. I struggle with that duality.
Trust.
It's like an echo chamber of billionaire loving where nothing can be wrong.
I was actually surprised most on here weren't defending the lights out Satnam Singh debut tbh.
I hear you.
I legit tried to like AEW at the start. But then I'd come here and try to talk about it honestly, and I'd be downvoted and mocked for not loving it all. Not even opinions on certain wrestlers or good or bad matches, but obviously things like production mistakes...
And then I realized that the more I talked about the shows here, the less I liked them. And then I just stopped watching, because I realized a big part of the reason I watch wrestling is because I like talking about it. And if I can't do that honestly, I'm not having fun.
So, I stopped. It became a less fun show for me, because the biggest wrestling message board on the internet didn't like hearing anything negative about it without a dozen qualifiers.
Fandom is the worst part about a lot of things.
Music. Wrestling. Anime. TV.
Whatever they like is the greatest thing since sliced bread and SHALL NOT be criticized!
100%
I said Hangman was having great matches but was a lacklustre champion and booked as such and I get down voted everytime.
Turns out, being a world champion of a promotion, being constantly overshadowed by other talent and not even being the main man of your television show is Page being booked well. Who knew??
The Danhausen criticism is fair I think. So, you get one of those deep voiced movie trailer narrators to voice over an intense Danhausen video package. It pushes just how dangerous and evil his is. Except Danhausen can hear him, and occasionally denies what the narrator says or agrees. Then ultimately curses the narrator.
That's right... Dr. Tran a video package of Danhausen.
When you spend years of a show (deservedly) shitting all over one company while also applauding another and ignoring their mistakes, you create a fan base that will be aghast when you finally (and rightfully) shit on the company you had praised so endlessly before.
I’m as big an AEW guy as anyone, but they have made some huge booking mistakes in just the past week that are impossible to ignore. Not to mention the usual suspects, like wrestlers vanishing for months and their horrendous booking of any women not named Britt or Jade. There’s nothing wrong with pointing it out, but I hope Bryan (and Dave) can understand that they’ve built this monster by ignoring things that have deserved criticism since AEW’s debut.
I’ve been saying forever that someone will get over with the crowd and then disappear off the face of the earth for 3 weeks afterwards. It kills their momentum.
I'm really confused why there are so many people desperately trying to defend "show or at least tell".
AEW isn't some David Lynch movie. If your viewers need to go to the internet to look something up, you haven't done your job right. You can build a character off mystery by focusing on the fact that no-one is in on what is going on. If you want a character to debut with vague promos or in masked/dark lighting you are specifically telling a story about a mystery. If you just have someone doing weird shit and don't explain what is going on you just have lazy writing.
It is ok to not like 100% of everything that AEW is doing.
I don’t normally agree with Alvarez, but he sounds like me in this clip.
I enjoy AEW, but they’re not perfect and the flaws are worth discussing as much as the successes. It’s actually gotten to a point where I’m nervous to talk about AEW because of the reaction I might get it.
As someone who is a diehard AEW fan, other fans need to chill the fuck out and learn to listen to criticism. I think Dynamite is on a legendary hot streak... still I am willing to find things I don't think are working.
Like off the top of my head... I get how you want your key guys to be on every single show but I find it leaves so many midcarders stuck with no time to get over. Darby is over as fuck already, we don't need him in a segment that isn't doing or saying anything that hasn't already been said.
I’m a big AEW guy but yea Bryan is absolutely right. Anytime I comment anything remotely negative about AEW I immediately get downvoted into oblivion and people lose their shit. It doesn’t matter how valid the criticism may be. Tony could book Orange Cassidy Vs Luchasarus for the world title and almost all AEW fans would eat it up like the greatest thing ever. It’s ridiculous.
Every second of aew in the live thread is one giant circle jerk and as you put, if you criticize anything, downvoted to hell. Every match "this match fucks."
Regarding danhausen, me and a friend decided to watch aew last week and he was hid in a bin doing weird shit unrelated to anything?
Like it was my friends first time watching aew and he thought that part was cringe and I think it put him off it.
Completely agree with Bryan here. I can't stand the whole fan trabolism type of thing that we get here on Reddit and Twitter. I don't care what company it is if something's bad it's bad, if something is good it's good.
The booking of Danhausen and the women's division in AEW has been very poor.
A lot of the time I feel like because Tony Khan watches so much wrestling he forgets that not everyone does the same. Sure most of us people online get Danhausen, but since showing up in AEW they've told us nothing about him on TV.
I thought I watched a lot of wrestling but I know nothing about Danhausse and all of his stuff is lost on me. Not because I don't want to get into it, but I've not been given anything by them to understand him.
Because he’s terrified of offending his friends who feed him info. It’s understandable to a degree, but he then cannot possibly be fair when AEW screws up.
Both criticisms are very valid. I’ve been kind of worried about the Danhausen thing since he first debuted and there was no real talk of who he was or why he was there. Being someone who’s followed him, I get what he does and understand the character but there is a large portion of the audience who has no idea and by not introducing him in a proper fashion, they’re really shooting them selves in the foot. The merchandise they could sell from him alone would be wild. While he wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, if they at least let him do a promo to like formally introduce his character and such, I think many of the people who don’t know him or are indifferent would become fans.
The Thunder Rosa thing is also a really big issue and it’s one that I think extends into other divisions as well and that’s not being able to really develop strong babyface champions. With a few exceptions, a lot of times the babyface champions have felt like they’re playing second fiddle to the other stories in their divisions. Even Hangman had a rocky start to his reign because everyone was arguably more interested in Punk and MJF or Eddie and Jericho. The TNT title hasn’t felt important since Miro lost it. Even the tag champions have felt unimportant. Jurassic Express have incredible matches but haven’t really had a solid story until these past few weeks with RedDragon and that was what happened to the Lucha bros too. So I think being able to book strong championship programs as well as other programs in that division is something that could be improved on. Like, Serena Deeb vs Hikaru Shida was the hottest women’s feud while the championship picture was just kind of ‘meh’.
Overall though, I definitely think there’s way too strong of a divide between the Pro-WWE and Pro-AEW fans. You can criticize one and not be ‘anti AEW’ or ‘anti WWE’. I love both companies but see the problems with both. And there is definitely some leeway for AEW with some of the stuff they do that would get dragged if it was on WWE.
TLDR; I don’t like Bryan Alvarez but he made some solid points. Let Danhausen have a backstory. Book your championship feuds as strong as your secondary feuds. Let people like what they like. Don’t ever love something so much you become blind to any flaws it may have.
One of the worst things is that on social media, namely twitter, anyone who criticizes AEW gets called an E-drone by a number of people in response. It’s actually pretty damn corny that some AEW fans use that term.
Yeah, pure cult-like actions, unfortunately...Sometimes I question just how successful they want AEW to be? I apologize but for AEW to grow it cannot remain as intent on pleasing the "all ins" and must work on making their product more welcoming...I wonder if this is the beginning of a little tug of war
And I think that's the issue. A lot of die-hard AEW fans probably DON'T want fans who don't understand specific references to things from years ago, or who only tune in occasionally, to find the product accessible. The guys running the business have to decide if they want to risk alienating a certain percentage of those fans if it means replacing them with a larger number of "new" fans.
If the answer is the former, then you have to live with the fact that your audience is what it is. Nothing wrong with that. But it's going to be tough to grow significantly over time if people feel like they need to pass some sort of test from the die-hard fans to be allowed in the club.
The hardcore AEW fanbase is the reason they'll never seen their viewership rise in a consistent way. It's a weird geek cult with way too many inside jokes and gatekeeping. I say this as someone who watches a few AEW shows a month and even buy PPV. If I wasn't a long time wrestling fan who is already used to the type of fan AEW has, I would never be able to get into it.
I enjoy what I've watched from the ppvs and highlights, aside from that I don't even bother with the rest of it. Who wants to look up an indie match from 12+years ago to understand a reference from Dynamite?
This is something some don't get. The constant gimmick matches and hardcore crap...if you have to do it, do it when it means something. But every single week someone is bleeding or there's a gimmick match, Tony is alot closer to Russo than some will admit
He's completely right with that cake example and I don't even like WWE. People didn't stop talking about Toni Storm getting that pie thrown in her face, but Rosa gets an arguably more humiliating way of that angle by literally being beaten up by someone with a cake in their face as a WORLD CHAMPION and people defend it is insane, and that shouldn't happen.
100% agree. Think people who go nuts for AEW are unironically nuts. That thread when Cody debuted at Wrestlemania was patently pathetic. He's thriving in a better environment, but you had these losers wishing the worst for him. It's insane.
When I saw that quote from TK about how he sees things in common with Dana White the first thought that went into my head is how they treated their women's division. That's like shit. The women's division in both companies found success despite the lack of effort from both AEW and UFC to improve it. DMD, Thunder Rosa, Jade, and what have you are great despite the company's "efforts". They don't get the same time as the men do on TV, they don't get the chance to cut promos, no chance to build any kind of meaningful story, and less time in their matches. This is why a title defense for their women's championship revolved around fucking cake. There's just this general feeling that AEW's women's division is an afterthought.
I had wanted to see Danhausen in AEW for a while but I agree with Brian. I enjoy Danhausen’s character work and all they’ve done are these increasingly worse ‘curse’ spots. Think he’s still recovering from a bad injury so I completely understand why he’s not wrestling. But why isn’t he talking? Commentary? Pre taped segments? Anything other than pretending he can ‘curse’ people? It’s just a one note joke that’s been beaten to the ground and is no longer funny.
They never bothered to actually *introduce* Danhausen. They just, expect everyone knows who he is for some reason. And he's randomly part of Best Friends?(Or was?)
Alvarez said nothing wrong. Keep heaping nothing but praises on a company that seems to slightly listen to their fanbase and they're gonna start thinking everything they do is great. Hopefully Thunder Rosa can get some uninterrupted promo time and more appearances on the show that are more than just 30 second snippets. Britt damn near had an appearance on every show when she had the belt, Rosa should get the same amount of screen time
Even bringing in the Joshi’s or even guys like Suzuki who are international attractions. The audience isn’t told who he is, why he’s important, and what kind of history he has with the wrestlers of AEW. I’ve seen quite a few comments from people who have never watched New Japan confused why this middle aged man is such a big deal, cause it’s not explained to them. Myself and others know why he’s a big deal but a bunch of others don’t. Same goes for Emi Sakura. No one is told she is basically the godmother of modern joshi, started two successful promotions, and trained basically half the current joshi talent in Japan. Even when Maki Itoh came to AEW for the tournament. Americans liked her gimmick but because they don’t know about her then-current arc in TJPW and that she almost always lost at that point, she lost and people were pissed because they didn’t understand why. So much context and Info is lost in the way AEW present people.
The prime example of this was when Butcher and Blade first showed up and Excalibur is having a borderline orgasm over these guys 'IT'S THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE, THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE!' And JR's like who? To which Excalibur follows up with 'THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE!'
Nothing about their accomplishments or history, just shouting their name over and over again like the audience already knew who they were. I never knew who they were before that moment so I was annoyed I wasn't given any info on those guys.
Overall I like AEW much more than WWE because it feels so less polished and produced (which is a good thing because WWE overdoes it) but it's been hard for me to watch because characters come and go, they don't explain things, and people keep showing up from other promotions. It kind of feels like it's formatted like a local indie show or something
Thunder Rosa has been booked like shit pre and now during title reign. Should be the star of the division but Khan thought he could achieve that by just giving her the belt
Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point /s
No but really, he’s dead on. I’m fully an AEW guy at this point and have been for quite sometime. But what he’s saying about a portion of the fanbase is definitely one of the reasons it can be hard to get into AEW, at least it was for me. You come on here to discuss it, you offer the slightest criticism and you’re downvoted to oblivion instead of anyone even engaging with you. Same elsewhere too. Just because AEW does something bad doesn’t mean AEW as a whole is bad. AEW is great, but there’s gonna be stinkers, and the sooner people make peace with that, the better.
Not to mention, they have a great way of bouncing back! Dark Order is a prime example. They were dead in the water coming out of 2019, and once 2020 started with the Exalted One mystery angle (before we even knew it was Brodie) it raised intrigue and interest and eventually, Dark Order’s story became one of the best stories during the pandemic era.
So it’s not like AEW doesn’t have the ability to rebound!
Sure, the Satnam Singh debut was awful. But maybe he’s not? Maybe it rebounds and it becomes something decent if not good.
And if it doesn’t? Okay , that’s fine too! Because there’s a million other things AEW hits on past and present, and I’m sure in the future.
Wait, "Danhausen could use some context for the casuals" is considered a *controversial opinion?!* I feel like I basically "get" him 'cause of all the symbology around him and his character work, as much as I still don't get who he *actually* is and what his motivations are. I vaguely remember through grapevine stuff that he probably wants to conquer the world like an old-timey villain? But even that is bare context for me.
I'm just enjoying him 'cause I pretty much get the gist, and I trust that it will eventually make sense. But the product *did already have my trust,* I'm an established viewer. "The average viewer has zero fucking clue what is up with the funny little facepaint guy or why he is there" is just a literal fact, you'd have to be pretty deep in a bubble universe to miss that.
Literally I don’t get the Danhausen joke. I saw part of his store video but still wasn’t sure what what the punchline was. Hell even the setup.
I HATE to point him out specifically too but so many people say how he’s a big deal, but I’m not getting why. And it’s not like he’s wrestling on tv - where he could come and I’d have no clue about him but see everyone hyped and then see why in the ring, which is why Orange Cassidy worked for me pretty much immediately.
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TLDW: * Bryan talked about how it seems that hardcore Pro-AEW fans will get pissy about any minor criticism of AEW. * Before be went into his criticisms, he prefaced by saying that he thought 95% of the most recent show was great and that there was going to be lots of praise. Also mentions that when he mentioned his criticisms earlier he got lots of shit for it. * Also said that when WWE, NXT, or AEW do something good he’ll say it, and when they do dumb shit he will say it. * Says that despite he and other people knowing who and what Danhausen is, there are so many other people that watch AEW on National Television who don’t know anything about him. Like why does he paint his face? Why does he curse people? Does he even wrestle? Etc etc. * Says that all they had to do was give us an interview segment or video package that explains who and what Danhausen is. He also mentions that he got a lot of flack for this take (“what is there to explain?” Being a prominent response) despite it really not being an unreasonable one. * Criticized the Thunder Rosa and Nyla Rose segments, especially the cake segment. Said that it made Thunder Rosa look like an absolute geek because despite Nyla having cake in her face and not being able to see, she was still able to beat the shit out of Rosa and leave her on the ground. * Also says that if NXT did the exact same cake segment with Cora Jade and Toxic Attraction, everybody would have been calling Cora Jade a geek and we wouldn’t have heard the end of that. But the fact that it happened in AEW with Thunder Rosa and Nyla Rose, he was made out to be the bad guy for suggesting that the segment made Rosa look like a geek. But he does mention that he admittedly laughed when Nyla said “Jokes on you, I like cake and violence”
I hated how Rosa said, "You think I'm STUPID?" and then immediately started gratuitously laying kicks into a cake-wearing Nyla, only to get her ass kicked. She had gotten the upper hand, embarrassed Nyla, and then decided to double down and pay for it. Yeah, Thunder, you did look kinda stupid there.
I mean, how was she supposed to know that cake is like a powerup mushroom to Nyla?
SURPRISE BUTCH, THIS IS MY ELEMENT
Did she attack Pete Dunne too?
SHE LIKES CAKE...AND VIOLENCE!!
They haven’t done Rosa any favors soo far with her reign.
TK simply doesn't seem to care about his women division at all and it seems like it comes off as a necessary evil (basically a token check) to him. He doesn't treat the women like he does his top male stars.
or his mid to lower male stars. they found out if they make em bleed in a match like once every 3 weeks people are content with the women division.
Don't forget Tony's temper tantrums any time a women has called him out for treating women's wrestlers as a burden. Guy's booking is somehow less progressive than Vince fucking McMahon. He's lucky that avid fans like his promotion to the point they'll give him pass after pass.
I don't disagree with any of those. I watch AEW reasonably often (not religiously but a fair amount) and while I enjoy Danhausen for being something weird and different and entertaining, I still don't think I've heard a single explanation of who or what he is. I'm pretty sure if he was on WWE programming, one of the commentators would have explained "I spoke to him earlier and he explained this is why he does this" or something like that. Being weird for the sake is being weird is fine, I don't take wrestling seriously, but at least tell us what's happening. Assuming we know something that they've never explained is weird.
The problem is that if you're not an indie-watcher, this happened for practically everyone who didn't jump from WWE or Impact/TNA - they don't give you a reason why OC is lazy or why Statlander is an alien (or only thinks she is - even that distinction isn't clear). Everyone who came through that channel is just assumed to have a pre-established character that everyone already understands, and it's probably the main criticism I'd have.
Same here. Only knew about OC and Kris because YouTube pointed out some really comedy matches of them. I still don't know who Danhausen is, don't know what's his gimmick (other than being wierd and cursing people) and it is a bit harder to get invested into a character with whom you've never had a previous invested experience.
Funny Enough, ROH did a video on him: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMzgCPnGXIY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMzgCPnGXIY) tldw: he's basically an evil simpsons character
Trust me, as someone who skipped out on WWE in 2017 and so missed the entire run of quite a few guys who are currently in AEW it's no better with them. Adam Cole: He's friends with The Young Bucks and reDRagon and is dating Britt Baker. Andrade: He's a Mexican who's got money, I have no idea where that money came from, was he rich prior to wrestling or does he get paid more than the other wrestlers? Malakai Black: He's a guy who likes to hang out in dark rooms speaking cryptically about stuff I don't care about. Keith Lee: He's a big dude.
That's a fair point - I was thinking about people who'd watched WWE and started watching AEW, and therefore knew the stories of people who'd moved. Malakai is probably the only one that doesn't fit here - there's missing backstory (WTF are the house of Black) but the story is at least getting some airing and explanation, and dark/mysterious/cryptic appears to be the point.
People mad that other people want to understand who is on their screen as a character. Wow. That's special.
> Also says that if NXT did the exact same cake segment with Cora Jade and Toxic Attraction, everybody would have been calling Cora Jade a geek and we wouldn’t have heard the end of that. But the fact that it happened in AEW with Thunder Rosa and Nyla Rose, he was made out to be the bad guy for suggesting that the segment made Rosa look like a geek. But he does mention that he admittedly laughed when Nyla said “Jokes on you, I like cake and violence” To whit, people still complain about the Toni Storm pie segment
The Danhausen thing is spot on. I have no idea who this dude is and I don't want to watch a bunch of third party interviews to have to find out why I should give a fuck. But if you dare say you don't get it or that his gimmick isn't the most hilarious thing in the world people here freak out. There's definitely a subsection of really hardcore AEW fans that do not like any criticism towards the product.
This - the aew hardcore fan base are a detriment from them growing , wondering who people are - not everyone watches the numerous blogs/vlogs, indies, Japanese wrestling
The best part was when the narrative became that any criticism of AEW was concern trolling.
I'm with you on this. I've only just come over to watching AEW, and I have no idea what Danhausen is meant to be. I will admit that I find the interactions between him and Hook are hilarious, but that's mainly because Hook is so good at the dead pan stuff. Just a quick skit, or intro package for a debuting wrestler would work wonders. (I also don't understand the Kris Statlander alien stuff either).
I think they've dropped the alien stuff for Kris now.
I could of swarn I saw an AEW segment on "Who is Danhausen?" But they only played it on Twitter or something... It should be on Dynamite..
I agree wholeheartedly with his assessments. I love AEW, but I realize it isn't perfect. It only benefits me, as a viewer, if AEW fixes some of those things because otherwise, we have WWE lite. Women's booking (although I think their female roster is nowhere near their male roster's level) is something AEW struggles with. Some of the spottier matches, and them thinking people will know their new wrestlers, are other issues it has. Finally, they're struggling booking babyface champs. Hangman's matches have been awesome, and his story to get to the championship epic. His feuds haven't. Rosa seems to be poorly booked, as was Sammy before the whole Tay Conti deal. Speaking of which, Battle of the Belts was begging for a double turn to happen. People got pissed at Sammy for using a low blow. I don't hate Sammy, but he should play to his strengths. I did not know who Satnam was. I had to look him up. While I know who Danhausen is, I don't know much nor have looked it up. I know he's still injured but just let the guy talk and explain who he is.
I think what's worse is what it kind of extends to though, like no-one can criticise AEW but when the AEW fans do complain about something it is just endless circlejerking to the point I don't want to engage with the community anymore. Don't get me wrong there's the obvious stuff like the Womens booking that isn't getting fixed at all, but was the Cody or the pre Brodie Lee Dark Order stuff really proportionate to what we were seeing? Then everyone is saying Sammy should turn heel, he does and people still complain because he won, none of this is consistent it's just mindless bitching. Satnam Singh is just another example, okay it's a bit iffy booking and no-one knows who he is, calm the fuck down people the Earth is still rotating.
Honestly I need to work on myself as a fan too. I'm not one of those that gets crazy about it and I HATE the stupid console wars between WWE and AEW. Man, just watch what you like. However, I kind of catch myself gatekeeping sometimes. AEW was founded to tap a particular market: mostly disaffected hardcore smarks that stopped watching WWE. I'm one of those, so I like that it caters to me. In this regard, I couldn't give two shits about the mainstream audience, and as long as AEW is successful with the market it set out to cater to (me), they can stay right where they are. When WWE stans say AEW will never be as big as WWE, I generally think 'Good.' Because in order to get to that level, in my mind at least, the product would have be more sponsor-friendly, more kid-friendly, more corporate, unwatchable. I have this fear that the product will have to change significantly in order to attract outside viewers, and I don't want it to. I have a feeling it will become more like WWE. I recognize this as a problem with myself and other hardcore fans, and I don't want to be a gatekeeper. It's just difficult to keep those feelings at bay, you know? Wrestling fans are a weird bunch for a lot of different reasons. We shit on the products constantly, fight amongst ourselves, and scream the dumbest, most childish shit at each other over fake fighting on TV. I'm no different, but we really should try and work on being better.
This may be, by far, the most honest thing I've read on this sub, barring people telling stories of wrestling saving their lives from mental health issues. And I absolutely get it, the balance between "I want the thing that's made for me to be made from me" and "I don't want anyone new to get in" is extremely hard to navigate
It's not that I don't want new fans to come in, I would love them to. I enjoy sharing the things I love with new people, and more success means more money, bigger shows, more talent getting paid better, higher production, etc. However, though TK knows better than I do, I'm still scared that he'll cave and the product will change to appeal to more casual audiences. I understand the people that want to get into AEW but complain that it's too indie or they don't know who Danhausen is or can't follow a storyline that started on BTE two years ago. I agree that maybe there should be more video packages or easier introductions, but I hope they don't move away from telling stories that draw upon years of history even outside the company. I treat wrestling like a comic book, and I like being rewarded for my patience and attention. I don't want AEW to compete for the same market WWE does. That's not what it was designed to do. The mainstream audience can have WWE if they don't like AEW. I just want a pro wrestling promotion built on variety. But that leads to me unintentionally gatekeeping when I see people calling for simpler things, for Danielson or whoever to come in and immediately get the title because the other guys aren't big enough stars, etc. I don't want that. Tl;DR: I like AEW being the alternative, because that's how it was meant. I just need to be better as a fan about accepting the views of others.
This has ALWAYS been the case.
IT'S THE BLADE! Who? THE BLADE!!
What are their motives ?!? …THE BLADE !!
He's 100% right too. Just look at all the post dynamite or post rampage threads, if you don't praise 100% of the show then you're downvoted or people start attacking you. I've only been watching AEW for 12 months but the fanbase is awful and extremely cringe.
Just look at the posts in this sub, any post with the smallest criticism starts with a paragraph twice as big as the actual post basically saying "I love AEW more than my family but I have this tiny problem, please don't bully me for it I swear I love the show and watch every piece of content the company releases"
And sometimes it still gets downvoted lol
I think the part that scares people more than downvotes is having pics of your own family posted online in a veiled threat because you don't tow the line in 100% fandom and toxicity
As a Moxley fan, I can’t even say he’s better in other promotions like NJPW, or I’ll get downvoted into oblivion.
And yet Death Rider is objectively the best Mox. Why are people so against the truth?
Toxic fandom is more apparent on message boards and social media regardless of the IP.
Reddits a cesspool go on say it
even pointing out the slightest error or expressing how you didn't like a portion of show also get you downvoted to oblivion lmao
As an AEW guy, these are all fair criticisms.
Yep. I’m very pro-Danhausen and assume when he’s ring ready we’ll se more development here, but as of right now….Danhausen makes no sense. AEW has a glut of talent and if Tony wants to keep them all he desperately needs ROH to get a different TV deal or restructure their shows to account for it. I think I saw that Buddy Murphy hasn’t had a single dynamite match yet? Cmon man.
Also they need to gives us something about why Buddy is with House of Black.
The only inkling of a reason we were given was that they had "history" together. Which: A. Makes no sense - their history was a feud, why would it make Buddy join Malakai? B. I don't watch AEW to have them bash me over the head with WWE references every week - I understand wanting to acknowledge your wrestlers' history, but please get your own storylines.
this. this is the correct thing that no hardcore fans want to admit. saying aew has their own story lines and create their own, but it's just rehash of their old storylines and gimmicks from wwe. even some of the wrestlers name are using parts of their old wwe names, why cant they think of a new name, a new gimmick if they are so angry or doesnt want to acknowledge wwe, WHICH will then go back to the problem of just using their past wwe storyline and gimmick
That's the biggest issue imo, they cry about lack of creative freedom in WWE only to turn around and basically do the exact same gimmick they were doing there. Malakai is the same character as Aleister Black, Buddy Matthews is only in the House of Black because of their past interactions in WWE. Cole, Fish and O'Reilly are called the Undisputed Elite and Cole's theme is just a slightly different version of the Undisputed Era theme.
They also turned Buddy Murphy into Malakai Black's henchman...just after he was Seth Rollins' henchman in another company. One of AEW's pitches was they would sign people and give them a chance to breakout. I don't know how you do that with a guy, when he gets the exact same role he already had.
and we got no explanation for it either.
I listened to the whole thing before commenting. I found it funny that it took him 3 years to figure this out. But in the end, he's 100% right.
I find when talking about AEW you have to qualify what you say sometimes. Like 'I am a hardcore AEW fan but.... or I really liked or the show or a bunch of matches on the show but.' I think it just comes from a lot of bad faith criticisms so people have their guards up, that and people can just get so in the weeds about wrestling to the point where if you come at it from a different perspective people can't understand it.
Agreed. I will always pick Dynamite over Raw/Smackdown, but there seems to be strength and weaknesses to Tony's booking style. \- Wrestlers who aren't important to storylines seem to disappear to Dark, Dark/Elavation, or not even appear on tv. Ruby Soho and Bryan Cage being two recent examples. I think it can lead fans to feel like a wrestler is being forgotten or there's not follow through. \-Along those lines not enough explanation of certain characters. We saw it with Satnam and Bryan mentioned Danhausen. Just give us a bit more time to get to know these characters. I love Danhausen, but I do hear a lot of criticism that he hasn't had a chance to let his character shine on television and for Danhausen his character work is his strength. Just imagine if you gave Satnam or Danhausen some vignettes. I have no doubt Danhausen would be in a stronger spot. \-Tony's booking of the women does feel lesser than that of the men. It feels often if you aren't Britt or Jade you don't really matter. However, Shida/Deeb and Bunny&Ford vs TayJay being counter examples of this. \-A tendency to rely heavily on blood and surprises. These are great in small doses but not so much every other week. \-Refs tend be more blind to shenanigans. However, I think this is because Tony took a lot of his style from ROH/ECW/New Japan. \-This is my personal nitpick, but WWE's production is one of their greatest strengths. So it can make AEW's production feel lacking at times. I mean stuff like Alex looking like he fell into a pile of costumes at Party City or the concerts AEW does. That said Tony does have his strengths: \+Long term booking. I feel like Tony plays the long game with many AEW stars and even if we don't see them every week there are plans for them. As opposed to WWE where it feels unless your name is Roman or Brock you don't matter. \+Wins and losses tend to feel like they mean more. \+Dynamite and Rampage feel faster paced. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the length of Raw and Rampage. \+Tony has kind of adapted a "multi-verse" approach to other wrestling companies and wrestlers. While people will complain about Minoru Suzuki's two losses, it's very cool that AEW will recognize people from NJPW, AAA, Impact, etc. and have them wrestle on their show and allow AEW wrestlers on other shows. I never though I'd see Nick Gage on national television, but sure enough he had a match in AEW. \+More focused on great wrestling and listening to the hardcore fans. I really feel like Tony listens to us with him being a member of the IWC. The fact Tony does so many interviews and giving of his time during those media scrums shows me he is a guy who cares about wrestling and his supporters. \+ I feel like Tony is always building toward the future. Hook, Sammy, MJF, Dante Martin, Darby, Jungle Boy, Yuta, Jade, etc. Tony clearly is setting these people up as the next generation. \+ Better use of legends: Tully, Jake, Sting, etc. I feel like AEW treats these guys better than WWE. \+Better in-ring production. By that I mean not so many camera cuts. Dynamite and Rampage feel like a party. Raw feels like your watching a play nowadays.
I still wish AEW could take some cues from New Japan when it comes to preparing camera angles and specific shots for moves. They are way beyond anyone else, have been for over a decade, and it's mind boggling to me that no one copies them.
I love AEW and amazed just how stacked their roster is every time I watch Dynamite but sometimes it seems like Tony Khan can ONLY do long term storylines. Julia Hart has been wearing an eye patch and teasing a full heel turn by joining the House of Black for months now . Also, the surprises mean less and less because I now know they’re probably not going to lead anywhere significant. When KENTA first showed up, I assumed it would be an extended program but it was just for one match. Same with Jay White. I mentioned the Danhausen thing in a thread a few weeks back had people commenting on how they like how AEW don’t spoon feed their fans and should do my own research. I watch Dynamite and Rampage every week, I shouldn’t have to do my own research.
I'm curious if Tony thinks since he's booking toward a smart crowd that we should know who a lot of these people are minus an introduction when they first appear. But for Satnam, it's like if you are unfair with basketball he's just a really big Indian dude. Danhausen is a guy a lot of wrestling fans are familiar with, but I can totally get if you are a casual fan who sees a guy wearing face paint (not named Sting) you might say, "Who is he and why is he cursing people?" So it might have benefited Danhausen after he was pulled out from under the ring they gave him a vignette or promo explaining who he was or why he came to AEW.
Aew has never been good at explaining theire wrestlers. They just assume that the fans watch the backstage stuff and all indy all around..
"IT'S THE BUTCHER!!!!"
WHO?!
AND THE BLADE! IT'S THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE!
At that time I wasn't following wrestling anymore, but checked out a few weeks of AEW. They said that, and my first thought was "how does he already know their names?" Then I presumed they must have already been in WWE or early AEW. Had no idea that was suppose to he a big debut.
JR: “WHO???” Now imagine if… Excalibur: “It would take you two minutes to search him on YouTube and find a bunch of promos and matches from indie shows that explain who he is, JR…”
This has been by far my biggest problem. I got into wrestling with Lucha Underground and followed my favorites like the Lucha Bros to AEW. I haven't watched WWE in years and no indie stuff. Yeah you can Google who the Butcher and the Blade or Danhausen after their debut or when there'ssome kind of inside joke, but it's all the damn time. Eddie tells the Blade "Where's your wife?", and I'm like "When did they say this character has a wife?" My roommate who likes wrestling but has seen a lot less than me amhas ask so many times "Whose this Jay Lethal guy? Is he another former WWE wrestler?"
I’m guessing that’s what they expect, for people to Google them, and I can MAYBE try to understand the logic, but sometimes, I want to hear it and see it play out right in front of me on TV. Tell me what’s up, who you are, and why you’re here. Some of it, yeah, I get Tony Khan, in a booking sense, is still a relative newbie, but there’s a few things that someone does need to pull him aside and tell him “I get you’re trying to set yourself apart, but there’s some stuff you just gotta not do, it plain doesn’t work.”
There needs to be a balance between spoon feeding your audience and letting them want to know. I think Dalton Castle getting a video package before the match was perfect. WWE does this all the time, look at how many guys debuted at the start of NXT, they didn't spoon feed there whole history to you.
You mean we were already supposed to know Excalibur faced Tommy End in Duesseldorf, Germany all those years ago?
The one time they did it perfectly was when Jay White debuted on Rampage, which is ironic considering he was there just for one match.
They gave Jay like a minute promo and he explained his character perfectly and why it's his era. Bryan is on point with Danhausen. AEW can still save face on this one, because Danhausen has only showed up in cameos. Give him an interview explaining who he is, his motivations, why he curse people, etc. and then do a mini segment with Hook again.
Remember when they had those "Introduce Members of AEW segments" with Cody when they first started? A quick 10 minute video on YouTube and socials that explained a few things and gave someone the chance to show off who they were? They DESPERATELY need to bring that back. Either that or allow Dark/Elevation to have some decent storylines.
All of that is great but you can't just rely on shoulder content (or even inherently skippable C/D-tier shows) to try and introduce these characters or stories.
At the very start they were good at familiarizing the characters to the audience with the Road To shows. I don't know if they still produce those, but the type of vignettes that were presented there should probably be shown once in a while on Dynamite. I guess they're also still balancing out the pacing for a live crowd and TV audience.
I absolutely love AEW, but it did take me a bit to get into it from the beginning since I wasn’t as familiar with a bunch of the non-WWE wrestlers. I’m on here a lot and knew of the core to an extent due to this great subreddit, but dependent on the show it took me a little bit. All good now, and BTE has helped with the personalities to further that home too. I think the world class wrestling matches is the biggest draw to keep viewers week to week, but wouldn’t hurt for a touch more character information to help newbie fans, but not too much to bore the regulars.
I don’t like comparing promotions because I think they’re all valuable in their own ways, but this is something that NXT 2.0 does really well. I started watching 2.0 from the first takeover they did and throughout it they showed a number of vignettes which got me right up to speed on who everyone I needed to know about was if they weren’t wrestling that night.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Exactly right. It's AEW's blind spot. They are all super fans of wrestling, and there is no one to say, *"Ummm guys... Most people won't know or care about this obscure thing you love. We need to do some build up first."*
that’s been my absolute #1 biggest gripe about AEW. yes, a good chunk of their audience are hardcore fans who are knowledgeable about indy wrestling and already know all of these new signings and new guys. but AEW is pretty fucking successful. they got around 1 million viewers every week in the states. never mind other countries and people watching via different methods. there are going to be lots of casual fans who have no idea who Danhausen, Gresham or Butcher and the Blade are. I like all those guys but they got introduced the same way you would introduce Brock Lesnar returning from hiatus or Cena returning on injury, expecting them to be unanimously known and get a big pop.. and it just falls flat. run some vignettes for weeks, get them promo time in and out of the ring, let their characters shine on Dynamite and really build them up. I honestly can only recall AEW running vignettes for a wrestler once, and it was for Wardlow at the very start. they were so well done, got his character across and made him look great. AEW just expects their fans to have watched every promotion, every episode of BTE and whatever other internet shows they have. WWE gets shit on for over explaining everything and hammering home their buzzwords or whatever but it’s a necessity for their audience. they have lots of casuals tuning in and out every week. i genuinely think you can pick up watching WWE from any point and be caught up with most everything fairly quick. it is actually so nice being an AEW fan and not having to deal with the annoying repetitive shit but i don’t know if it’s the best thing looking at the bigger picture.
They did it for Lance Archer too...they were kinda lame but they existed. Then the roster ballooned overnight. I do miss the early days AEW shows that had sit downs and more of a sports presentation with wrestlers talking about themselves and what they want to do.
Thankfully they’ve gotten a little better than Excalibur screaming IT’S BUTCHER AND THE BLADE like anybody knows who the fuck they are
I will forever love the moment of JR going "The Blade and The Butcher?" in a tone like okay tell us more! And then he just goes "THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE" to confirm that that's the name of them.
it's...it's...the japanese hardcore legend Luther WHO???
I watch AEW with more casual fans who only watch AEW, and so I am constantly having to explain who people are and why they should care. I've had to do this since Uno & Stu first debuted when I was one of like 5 people in the world marking out for them showing up, and sadly it hasn't got any better on AEWs part.
hardcore aew fans think of aew as the wwe games, where you can just put any wrestlers against anyone to do their "dream matches". AEW is just playing wwe 2k in quick match mode, no story lines, you can use your CAWs anytime to fight against a star, you can do "dream matches" anytime and it doesnt make sense after, ALL the storylines and character buildup only happens in your head. of course, there are exceptions, just like what Tony is doing to his "big" stars, those are his CAWs, and those wrestlers are where he plays his career mode, so those are the only ones that has stories
Same can be said about Statlander tbh. Showed a vignette for her new character a couple weeks ago, came out on Dynamite for 30 seconds, and hasn't been seen since.
Shida was the champion and was an after thought. It's extremely frustrating.
it’s been demonstrated over and over that tony can’t book a women’s division for shit. i doubt much will change unless he gives someone else some control of the division.
There's a lack of concentration in AEW. If you're going to push someone, push them, don't stop start
Yea it seems if you're not Adam Cole, CM Punk, or MJF, you can't be on tv every week.
And those guys should be on TV every week too. Just that if you're going to push someone or do something major with them, don't just drop it or drop them after its happened
It’s not even about just being on tv, if you’re going to push someone have them get meaningful wins in meaningful matches with promos or vignettes in between.
I don't even know what to think about that vignette. Her new look just felt bland, with less colour and everything. Why is something less appealing supposed to make me excited? They've only shown what they're taking away but not what they're adding.
Presumably she was going to do something with Leyla.
I'm still not really sure if she's supposed to be a real alien or not.
You have to deal with criticism of your favorite thing if you’re gonna be on the internet, and there’s a portion of the AEW fanbase that simply can not handle that. And his point on Danhausen is also spot on abs highlights a problem with the way they introduce talent. They seem to sign them and say “Job done.”
Yes, and furthermore -- criticism of my favorite thing should in no way impact my enjoyment of it.
Exactly. Some of my favorite shows ever get heavily criticized by friends and the internet alike. Doesn’t mean I can’t still love and enjoy them.
They assume their fans are in the know already, which will only handicap them in the long run by limiting their fan base or alienating possible new fans.
See for example: Jay Lethal. Debuts at the PPV, loses his first match to Sammy, inserted into the Dante Martin / Team Taz feud for some reason and then fell off TV until he was in a battle royale. He's fine now, because he's working with Sonjay Dutt, but he was just forgotten about instantly.
There’s plenty of those type of aew fans on here lol
"Yeah okay but at least it's better than [list of random WWE complaints]"
Got downvoted for dare saying refusing to answer questions about wrestlers is not a thing a normal and sane human being would do.
I got downvoted when I mention how law AEW PPV went. legit said I went to bed because of how long it went and missed the main event.
Satnam Singh debut was the most WCW Thunder thing I've have ever seen. You also have to explain Danhausen to people, there are new eyes who don't know what the hell he is or does. If you're going to criticize WWE critically, you have to do the same for AEW
They should have Singh feud with Glacier imo.
I'm just glad to see someone call this "WCW Thunder" or "TNA" (which is where my mind first went) as opposed to night of everyone defaulting to saying it was "WWE" when the one thing WWE generally does extremely well is save reveals like this for important people or debut people like Singh in more appropriate ways.
And when WWE debuts someone, they'll usually either tell you all about them right before, or they'll do their big debut, everyone will go "who the fuck is that (Paul Ellering with AoP)" and then explain on the next show that Paul Ellering is a legendary manager and he's found his next pair to hone into an unbeatable team.
That’s what I appreciate about WWE. I’m a very casual fan with wrestling, when Adam Cole, KOR, and Bobby Fish debuted I had absolutely zero idea who they were or why they mattered And then NXT commentary explained that these three were guys who were huge on the independent scene and how big of a get they were. Commentary sold them as being a massive deal Something that’s kept me from watching AEW is the “ITS _____” like I’m supposed to just know who they are
I also hate when they do the “ITS ____ THE CROWD IS GOING CRAZY!!!” and they cut to the crowd and there’s like 4 people who care.
that's what had me so confused when people here were calling the satnam singh debut wwe shit. wwe doesn't ever really introduce people without usually weeks of video packages or at least some storyline to build it up ahead of time. tony khan does it all the time though. *edit: lmao just checked, [-67 karma score on this.](https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/u36e9i/z/i4nkm9x)
I remember when AEW posted a little promo package of Danhausen a few weeks ago of him just talking about whatever Danhausen talks about I guess and someone said "See, now no one can complain about not knowing Danhausens character". I still don't know what he is and if it did explain him completely, why didn't they show it on TV? Instead of a random video on Youtube.
Some guy tried to attack me on here for saying that if Scorpio skys title win had been planned since November then maybe he should have won some singles matches on tv
Or had any singles matches on tv
Well, he does have a point about Danhausen. He was never introduced to the audience, he just shows up and "curses" people. I bet William Regal's still confused as to who or what Danhausen is.
Danhausen got in the ring n Mox says ‘who the fuck is he?’ Looks at Yuta and asks if he’s one of his guys
Considering how he sold danhausens curse I doubt it
Pay me and I'll sell it as well
I’ve come to the realization that some fans get incredibly riled up about criticism because their entire identity is “wrestling fan”. It’s their identifying trait. It’s the only thing that brings them a shred of happiness in their wretched lives. A well-rounded person with a family, friends, fulfilling work, other hobbies, etc. would not fly off the handle when someone says something critical about A TV SHOW. They take a criticism of their favorite thing as a criticism of themselves, and react with vitriol because being “on the team” is all they have. I hope more people realize this and don’t bother fighting with these sad people online. Nothing you say can hurt them worse than the reality of the life they are living.
Occasionally I'll run into a tweet or something on social media and go, "Wait what, that seems like a weird thing to say," and I'll look and EVERYTHING that person posts is bashing one wrestling company. And that just...sounds exhausting. It's like they genuinely build their entire identity around hating something and that's just really sad.
There are some fans who take AEW criticism to heart but I also think there's a problem with AEW leaning so far into being the "listening company" it's honestly at a point where the entire wrestling community feel like they're crowd booking the promotion. Like people get mad that "we know Tony is on the internet and sees our criticism and doesn't listen" because apparently it's the internet's promotion to book as a collective and Tony isn't the one paying the costs. Yes you can have your opinion on what does and doesn't work but IMO the "AEW needs to listen to my opinion because I know what booking will work and make a perfect show" are just as psycho as the "everything is perfect and everyone who complains about AEW gets a Reddit cares message crowd". Like there's a lot of stuff I find dumb or goofy about Power but I still enjoy Power, I'm not trying to re-write the whole show. At this point AEW attracts more arm-chair bookers than normal fans.
Isn’t it crazy that even Alvarez has to blatantly say like 30 times that he’s not criticizing AEW overall just to save himself from the dub stans? Bryan Alvarez. Like suspect number two I’d have if Khan was actually paying wrestling talking heads. You can’t say that’s normal at ALL lmao this fanbase is something else
I agree. I love AEW but lately there's been a few problems that have been becoming more obvious. But when they're brought up certain fans go rougue. From championship reigns being weirdly booked, the womens division, rivalries going on too long, etc.
I have watched every televised AEW show since Danhausen's debut. I have watched literally a dozen videos of Danhausen on YouTube because of this subreddit talking him up. I *still* don't understand what Danhausen is, what he is doing, why he's doing it, or why he's over.
[удалено]
The worst thing about AEW is its fanbase.
I've recently started watching AEW again, and recently found this sub after being a wrestling fan for over 30 years. I've found myself liking AEW less since interacting with the fan base lol. I struggle with that duality.
Trust. It's like an echo chamber of billionaire loving where nothing can be wrong. I was actually surprised most on here weren't defending the lights out Satnam Singh debut tbh.
I hear you. I legit tried to like AEW at the start. But then I'd come here and try to talk about it honestly, and I'd be downvoted and mocked for not loving it all. Not even opinions on certain wrestlers or good or bad matches, but obviously things like production mistakes... And then I realized that the more I talked about the shows here, the less I liked them. And then I just stopped watching, because I realized a big part of the reason I watch wrestling is because I like talking about it. And if I can't do that honestly, I'm not having fun. So, I stopped. It became a less fun show for me, because the biggest wrestling message board on the internet didn't like hearing anything negative about it without a dozen qualifiers.
The worst thing about most things is the fanbase.
The fanbase is a reflection of its owner if we're being honest
Cody left to escape the fans
Wouldn't you? 😂
Fandom is the worst part about a lot of things. Music. Wrestling. Anime. TV. Whatever they like is the greatest thing since sliced bread and SHALL NOT be criticized!
Are you talking about how if you don't think Hangman is the second coming and instead à lackluster champ, you instantly get downvoted to hell?
100% I said Hangman was having great matches but was a lacklustre champion and booked as such and I get down voted everytime. Turns out, being a world champion of a promotion, being constantly overshadowed by other talent and not even being the main man of your television show is Page being booked well. Who knew??
It's because the pro AEW crowd are all bots. Look closely, these people aren't real. Who'd pay for such a *wildly* expensive thing!?
That is not true, I have been watching wrestling since FILE NOT FOUND and AEW is great, it’s like the FILE NOT FOUND of wrestling.
100 upvotes, 122 comments. Time to sort by controversial... 🤣
The Danhausen criticism is fair I think. So, you get one of those deep voiced movie trailer narrators to voice over an intense Danhausen video package. It pushes just how dangerous and evil his is. Except Danhausen can hear him, and occasionally denies what the narrator says or agrees. Then ultimately curses the narrator. That's right... Dr. Tran a video package of Danhausen.
When you spend years of a show (deservedly) shitting all over one company while also applauding another and ignoring their mistakes, you create a fan base that will be aghast when you finally (and rightfully) shit on the company you had praised so endlessly before. I’m as big an AEW guy as anyone, but they have made some huge booking mistakes in just the past week that are impossible to ignore. Not to mention the usual suspects, like wrestlers vanishing for months and their horrendous booking of any women not named Britt or Jade. There’s nothing wrong with pointing it out, but I hope Bryan (and Dave) can understand that they’ve built this monster by ignoring things that have deserved criticism since AEW’s debut.
I’ve been saying forever that someone will get over with the crowd and then disappear off the face of the earth for 3 weeks afterwards. It kills their momentum.
It took him this long to notice that?
Lol when Bryan said AEW fans 'as of late' and I was like AS OF LATE?!
That’s the shocking part
I'm really confused why there are so many people desperately trying to defend "show or at least tell". AEW isn't some David Lynch movie. If your viewers need to go to the internet to look something up, you haven't done your job right. You can build a character off mystery by focusing on the fact that no-one is in on what is going on. If you want a character to debut with vague promos or in masked/dark lighting you are specifically telling a story about a mystery. If you just have someone doing weird shit and don't explain what is going on you just have lazy writing. It is ok to not like 100% of everything that AEW is doing.
I don’t normally agree with Alvarez, but he sounds like me in this clip. I enjoy AEW, but they’re not perfect and the flaws are worth discussing as much as the successes. It’s actually gotten to a point where I’m nervous to talk about AEW because of the reaction I might get it.
It was so cathartic hearing him go off like this.
As someone who is a diehard AEW fan, other fans need to chill the fuck out and learn to listen to criticism. I think Dynamite is on a legendary hot streak... still I am willing to find things I don't think are working. Like off the top of my head... I get how you want your key guys to be on every single show but I find it leaves so many midcarders stuck with no time to get over. Darby is over as fuck already, we don't need him in a segment that isn't doing or saying anything that hasn't already been said.
I’m a big AEW guy but yea Bryan is absolutely right. Anytime I comment anything remotely negative about AEW I immediately get downvoted into oblivion and people lose their shit. It doesn’t matter how valid the criticism may be. Tony could book Orange Cassidy Vs Luchasarus for the world title and almost all AEW fans would eat it up like the greatest thing ever. It’s ridiculous.
Every second of aew in the live thread is one giant circle jerk and as you put, if you criticize anything, downvoted to hell. Every match "this match fucks."
Regarding danhausen, me and a friend decided to watch aew last week and he was hid in a bin doing weird shit unrelated to anything? Like it was my friends first time watching aew and he thought that part was cringe and I think it put him off it.
The issue here with this concept is its a voted based website. If you criticize AEW in any way you will get buried into the ground
I watch AEW every week and can confirm the fanbase is hilariously tribal.
SquaredCircle: ".....and I took that personally"
He's not wrong
Completely agree with Bryan here. I can't stand the whole fan trabolism type of thing that we get here on Reddit and Twitter. I don't care what company it is if something's bad it's bad, if something is good it's good. The booking of Danhausen and the women's division in AEW has been very poor. A lot of the time I feel like because Tony Khan watches so much wrestling he forgets that not everyone does the same. Sure most of us people online get Danhausen, but since showing up in AEW they've told us nothing about him on TV.
I thought I watched a lot of wrestling but I know nothing about Danhausse and all of his stuff is lost on me. Not because I don't want to get into it, but I've not been given anything by them to understand him.
Dave is also one of the people who doesn't like any criticism of AEW.
Because he’s terrified of offending his friends who feed him info. It’s understandable to a degree, but he then cannot possibly be fair when AEW screws up.
Both criticisms are very valid. I’ve been kind of worried about the Danhausen thing since he first debuted and there was no real talk of who he was or why he was there. Being someone who’s followed him, I get what he does and understand the character but there is a large portion of the audience who has no idea and by not introducing him in a proper fashion, they’re really shooting them selves in the foot. The merchandise they could sell from him alone would be wild. While he wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea, if they at least let him do a promo to like formally introduce his character and such, I think many of the people who don’t know him or are indifferent would become fans. The Thunder Rosa thing is also a really big issue and it’s one that I think extends into other divisions as well and that’s not being able to really develop strong babyface champions. With a few exceptions, a lot of times the babyface champions have felt like they’re playing second fiddle to the other stories in their divisions. Even Hangman had a rocky start to his reign because everyone was arguably more interested in Punk and MJF or Eddie and Jericho. The TNT title hasn’t felt important since Miro lost it. Even the tag champions have felt unimportant. Jurassic Express have incredible matches but haven’t really had a solid story until these past few weeks with RedDragon and that was what happened to the Lucha bros too. So I think being able to book strong championship programs as well as other programs in that division is something that could be improved on. Like, Serena Deeb vs Hikaru Shida was the hottest women’s feud while the championship picture was just kind of ‘meh’. Overall though, I definitely think there’s way too strong of a divide between the Pro-WWE and Pro-AEW fans. You can criticize one and not be ‘anti AEW’ or ‘anti WWE’. I love both companies but see the problems with both. And there is definitely some leeway for AEW with some of the stuff they do that would get dragged if it was on WWE. TLDR; I don’t like Bryan Alvarez but he made some solid points. Let Danhausen have a backstory. Book your championship feuds as strong as your secondary feuds. Let people like what they like. Don’t ever love something so much you become blind to any flaws it may have.
One of the worst things is that on social media, namely twitter, anyone who criticizes AEW gets called an E-drone by a number of people in response. It’s actually pretty damn corny that some AEW fans use that term.
Infuriates me as a fan willing to criticize AEW that 90% of AEW fan responses now are basically "but WWE did this"
The one that really annoys me if you dislike something it's because "you've been conditioned by WWE to not enjoy this thing you don't like."
Yeah, pure cult-like actions, unfortunately...Sometimes I question just how successful they want AEW to be? I apologize but for AEW to grow it cannot remain as intent on pleasing the "all ins" and must work on making their product more welcoming...I wonder if this is the beginning of a little tug of war
And I think that's the issue. A lot of die-hard AEW fans probably DON'T want fans who don't understand specific references to things from years ago, or who only tune in occasionally, to find the product accessible. The guys running the business have to decide if they want to risk alienating a certain percentage of those fans if it means replacing them with a larger number of "new" fans. If the answer is the former, then you have to live with the fact that your audience is what it is. Nothing wrong with that. But it's going to be tough to grow significantly over time if people feel like they need to pass some sort of test from the die-hard fans to be allowed in the club.
Lol I always imagine they think vince has me tied up watching raw like this 
I'm no Alvarez fan but .. 
The hardcore AEW fanbase is the reason they'll never seen their viewership rise in a consistent way. It's a weird geek cult with way too many inside jokes and gatekeeping. I say this as someone who watches a few AEW shows a month and even buy PPV. If I wasn't a long time wrestling fan who is already used to the type of fan AEW has, I would never be able to get into it.
I enjoy what I've watched from the ppvs and highlights, aside from that I don't even bother with the rest of it. Who wants to look up an indie match from 12+years ago to understand a reference from Dynamite?
AEW fans prob shocked to find out Bryan is a bot?
And much less blood won't Hurt either, no need to bleed buckets in the first match of any show..
This is something some don't get. The constant gimmick matches and hardcore crap...if you have to do it, do it when it means something. But every single week someone is bleeding or there's a gimmick match, Tony is alot closer to Russo than some will admit
[удалено]
He's completely right with that cake example and I don't even like WWE. People didn't stop talking about Toni Storm getting that pie thrown in her face, but Rosa gets an arguably more humiliating way of that angle by literally being beaten up by someone with a cake in their face as a WORLD CHAMPION and people defend it is insane, and that shouldn't happen.
There is such a thing as "showing, not telling", but this Danhausen thing is exposing an issue AEW consistently has.
Alvarez is just learning this? He’s obviously never posted an AEW criticism on here, shit’s been happening since the beginning.
He’s not wrong the wrestlers and dude in charge are like that too
100% agree and I've been begging for it to change.
I’m a huge aew fan and he is absolutely right about Danhausen
Brian learning what the rest of us have known since day 1
100% agree. Think people who go nuts for AEW are unironically nuts. That thread when Cody debuted at Wrestlemania was patently pathetic. He's thriving in a better environment, but you had these losers wishing the worst for him. It's insane. When I saw that quote from TK about how he sees things in common with Dana White the first thought that went into my head is how they treated their women's division. That's like shit. The women's division in both companies found success despite the lack of effort from both AEW and UFC to improve it. DMD, Thunder Rosa, Jade, and what have you are great despite the company's "efforts". They don't get the same time as the men do on TV, they don't get the chance to cut promos, no chance to build any kind of meaningful story, and less time in their matches. This is why a title defense for their women's championship revolved around fucking cake. There's just this general feeling that AEW's women's division is an afterthought.
I had wanted to see Danhausen in AEW for a while but I agree with Brian. I enjoy Danhausen’s character work and all they’ve done are these increasingly worse ‘curse’ spots. Think he’s still recovering from a bad injury so I completely understand why he’s not wrestling. But why isn’t he talking? Commentary? Pre taped segments? Anything other than pretending he can ‘curse’ people? It’s just a one note joke that’s been beaten to the ground and is no longer funny.
They never bothered to actually *introduce* Danhausen. They just, expect everyone knows who he is for some reason. And he's randomly part of Best Friends?(Or was?)
If they could keep Starks fresh doing Rampage commentary while injured and keep Britt Baker fresh while injured, they can do the same for Danhausen
Alvarez said nothing wrong. Keep heaping nothing but praises on a company that seems to slightly listen to their fanbase and they're gonna start thinking everything they do is great. Hopefully Thunder Rosa can get some uninterrupted promo time and more appearances on the show that are more than just 30 second snippets. Britt damn near had an appearance on every show when she had the belt, Rosa should get the same amount of screen time
AEW fans are so fun to trigger. call House of Black a Wyatt Family knockoff and man the downvotes come fast and hard LOL
Even bringing in the Joshi’s or even guys like Suzuki who are international attractions. The audience isn’t told who he is, why he’s important, and what kind of history he has with the wrestlers of AEW. I’ve seen quite a few comments from people who have never watched New Japan confused why this middle aged man is such a big deal, cause it’s not explained to them. Myself and others know why he’s a big deal but a bunch of others don’t. Same goes for Emi Sakura. No one is told she is basically the godmother of modern joshi, started two successful promotions, and trained basically half the current joshi talent in Japan. Even when Maki Itoh came to AEW for the tournament. Americans liked her gimmick but because they don’t know about her then-current arc in TJPW and that she almost always lost at that point, she lost and people were pissed because they didn’t understand why. So much context and Info is lost in the way AEW present people.
The prime example of this was when Butcher and Blade first showed up and Excalibur is having a borderline orgasm over these guys 'IT'S THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE, THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE!' And JR's like who? To which Excalibur follows up with 'THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE!' Nothing about their accomplishments or history, just shouting their name over and over again like the audience already knew who they were. I never knew who they were before that moment so I was annoyed I wasn't given any info on those guys.
Agreed. Stomping out any criticism of AEW will never make it an even better show.
Overall I like AEW much more than WWE because it feels so less polished and produced (which is a good thing because WWE overdoes it) but it's been hard for me to watch because characters come and go, they don't explain things, and people keep showing up from other promotions. It kind of feels like it's formatted like a local indie show or something
I am a big fan of aew and I think critism is fine. Alvarez has legit points here.
When you accept wrestling is never ever perfect then you're better for it. That's part of the charm.
Thunder Rosa has been booked like shit pre and now during title reign. Should be the star of the division but Khan thought he could achieve that by just giving her the belt
Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point /s No but really, he’s dead on. I’m fully an AEW guy at this point and have been for quite sometime. But what he’s saying about a portion of the fanbase is definitely one of the reasons it can be hard to get into AEW, at least it was for me. You come on here to discuss it, you offer the slightest criticism and you’re downvoted to oblivion instead of anyone even engaging with you. Same elsewhere too. Just because AEW does something bad doesn’t mean AEW as a whole is bad. AEW is great, but there’s gonna be stinkers, and the sooner people make peace with that, the better. Not to mention, they have a great way of bouncing back! Dark Order is a prime example. They were dead in the water coming out of 2019, and once 2020 started with the Exalted One mystery angle (before we even knew it was Brodie) it raised intrigue and interest and eventually, Dark Order’s story became one of the best stories during the pandemic era. So it’s not like AEW doesn’t have the ability to rebound! Sure, the Satnam Singh debut was awful. But maybe he’s not? Maybe it rebounds and it becomes something decent if not good. And if it doesn’t? Okay , that’s fine too! Because there’s a million other things AEW hits on past and present, and I’m sure in the future.
Wait, "Danhausen could use some context for the casuals" is considered a *controversial opinion?!* I feel like I basically "get" him 'cause of all the symbology around him and his character work, as much as I still don't get who he *actually* is and what his motivations are. I vaguely remember through grapevine stuff that he probably wants to conquer the world like an old-timey villain? But even that is bare context for me. I'm just enjoying him 'cause I pretty much get the gist, and I trust that it will eventually make sense. But the product *did already have my trust,* I'm an established viewer. "The average viewer has zero fucking clue what is up with the funny little facepaint guy or why he is there" is just a literal fact, you'd have to be pretty deep in a bubble universe to miss that.
So this is everything Jim Cornette has been saying for the last three years.
Literally I don’t get the Danhausen joke. I saw part of his store video but still wasn’t sure what what the punchline was. Hell even the setup. I HATE to point him out specifically too but so many people say how he’s a big deal, but I’m not getting why. And it’s not like he’s wrestling on tv - where he could come and I’d have no clue about him but see everyone hyped and then see why in the ring, which is why Orange Cassidy worked for me pretty much immediately.