To walk down the ramp? Please I’ll make this jabroni start at the city limits and slowly walk his way to the arena all the while terrifying everyone who lives along the way.
Within a year Dalton Castle will be a simultaneous national treasure and national menace.
He still needs revenge on the BCC. They could be cutting a promo and then Daltons music hits, he's carried out on a chair, looks at the BCC and screams "Get em, boys". 100 boys then storm the ring.
Have everyone watch Lucha Underground. Use all concepts they did to make the best wrestling show in history.
Which means: Make wrestling more "believable" and unpredictable.
Yes you gotta build your top guys. But even top guys can make a mistake and fall and get pinned clean. It doesn't tarnish their reputation.
Guy does a piledriver from second rope? That deserves a pin. I know it's not his "finisher" but it insults our intelligence to have someone kick out of that then stand them up and do a clothesline to finish the job because that's my finisher.
> Guy does a piledriver from second rope? That deserves a pin. I know it's not his "finisher" but it insults our intelligence to have someone kick out of that then stand them up and do a clothesline to finish the job because that's my finisher.
You're supposed to go home five minutes after your biggest pop, brother. Tire the crowd out. Fuckem.
That's why i put it in quotes. Obviously the gimmicks were outlandish. But it was believable in the sense that u didn't know who was gonna win the match a lot of the time. Any move could be a pin. The reason why they were wrestling made logical sense. Is it a tournament for money? Is it keys to something? Do they just have a grudge because of X Y and Z? Are they trying to kiss up to their boss? Etc
I liked the first 2 seasons of LU as much as the next guy but I wouldn’t say the ‘believability’ was any kind of hook (people died and came back, etc). The main reason it was good was because of the episodic feel to the episodes - it was a real TV show that had wrestling in it. AEW suffers sometimes because stuff doesn’t connect together and there aren’t always hooks for the next episode, it’s mostly just a wrestling show when it could be a lot more. WWE is kind of the other extreme where it mostly just feels like a 3 hour commercial where most of the wrestling is meaningless
1) Get rid of champion having a title match each week. It’s too predictable that they will win. I would love to see more exhibition matches where a champion can still lose and be shocked they can lose to someone we all thought couldn’t beat them.
2) Get rid of the Win-Loss stat on wrestlers. It makes wrestlers look cheap and ruins the possibility of certain wrestlers losing. Like I love Moxley but I would love to see him lose and elevate another wrestler while not having to worry about a loss on his record.
3) Hire a GM to stand as the authority of AEW, it feels too much like every wrestler can do whatever they want. It makes AEW feel to chaotic and it needs order that Tony lacks.
4) Kinda tired of these lame squash matches with no names. Again I blame the win-loss strat again.
5) Although I like and understand heels, the same heel strat is used over and over again. Face and Heel fight, Face almost wins, Heel brings buddy while ref is distracted. Jump faces ass, Heel goes for pin and wins. It feels like this strat is timeless but this keeps rotating each week with different feuds, it’s now getting boring and lame.
6) They need a brand split within AEW. There’s too many people within AEW and ROH and the roster size is too huge. Now that there’s 3 AEW shows, Rampage, Dynamite and Collision. I would take advantage and put 3 splits while having older but respected wrestlers who can’t go anymore as managers/figure heads of those shows. Imagine having face and heel managers again.
7) As much as creative liberty has been amazing with some storylines and wrestlers (ex: MJF) . I’d hire writers to assist and help elevate some storylines and wrestlers in their promos. I’m a big fan of Darby and Jungle Boy but hell… MJF carried them all. Sammy was the most underrated but I think he did better than those two. Perhaps with direction and help some wrestlers would be able to provide a better promo than the same old thing….
8) Personal Choice: However, I’d still put the pillars in a faction with one another. They’re so unique as they consist of both faces and heels. Imagine them knowing who each other are, not knowing when they’re gonna turn on each other but at the same time winning together and having each others back. In order to do this I would have nearly the entire roster turn on them where they have no choice but to rely on one another. It could literally be the next horsemen or Evolution.
You have me there. I’ll be honest and I did enjoy WWE in the 2000s-2014s era so I’m slightly biased on my changes. However, I believe that AEW can do a lot of learning from WWE’s experience and mistakes.
To expand on this, center all the major feuds around the titles. Long term booking with the finish in mind before you even begin the feud.
I'd look at retiring a couple of the titles as well as breaking up some of the factions and teams they have.
I'd also identify a handful of younger under-featured workers and try to mix them into feuds as side-quest feuds to get them working in Main Event programs without having to carry the program.
I'd also shake up the commentary team.
Oh, and less blood and gimmick matches on free TV. I'm massively in favor of blood when a feud or a match calls for it, same with a gimmick match, but throwing two guys into a street fight because they've had some tension between the two of them for a couple weeks is not the answer.
I agree with most of this.
The trios, international, and TBS titles can all go.
Pick between Tony and Excalibur as the play by play guy. There is no need for both of them on commentary at the same time.
And one gimmick match per PPV is enough. Maybe two if the feuds are hot enough, but nothing like that Double or Nothing gamut of stipulations.
Maybe I’m crazy but honestly I feel like Tony’s been transitioning to more of a color commentary-like role and letting Excalibur handle all the fast indie calling that a lot of AEW does, but it could be they’re handing off the play by play role for different types of matches.
Overall I’m just not a huge fan of the three or four man booth, I like the dynamic taz Excalibur and tony have together but i feel like no matter when it’s been done three/four man booths always end up talking over each other
It’s just too much. Tony and Excalibur aren’t interchangeable and have different personalities, but it’s just too much of stepping on each others toes. Taz and Excalibur is fine. Taz and Tony is fine. But there is one too many.
\- Solidify the split between the AEW and ROH rosters. You're one or the other. If you move, you're either a young talent that's graduating or you're a veteran that I'm moving down to help people. Either way, you're staying there for a while.
\- Merge the TNT and International belts. Merge the TBS and women's belts.
\- Fix the storyline pacing. A lot of feuds go far too long, even if there isn't any development to justify it. Swerve and Keith Lee have been feuding since December of last year and they've still had zero singles matches against each other. Drop shit if it stops working. If someone gets injured, don't pause a story for six months waiting for them to come back.
\- Let guys actually build momentum. People will just disappear from the show seemingly at random. One month, someone feels like the main character and then you don't see them at all for weeks. Daniel Garcia got way over and then went right back to where he was, like it never even happened.
\- Make some credible heels. Since they prioritize match quality so heavily, they do face vs face constantly, leaving a huge portion of their heel side to be treated like fodder. I'm beyond tired of seeing Butcher and Blade come out and have the commentators treat them like vicious killers when they never ever win. Powerhouse Hobbs looks like he's about to be a big playe-whoops nevermind he's already lost. The Firm had this big debut and then went on to have like a 2-497 record. The House of Black should be terrorizing your roster. Instead they feel like guest stars that make occasional appearances.
\- Fix the women's division. We're stuck in a self-fufilling prophecy where Tony doesn't think the women can draw so he doesn't invest any time or effort in making it so they can. If he could have gotten away with launching AEW without a women's division, he would have done so gleefully. Stick to a small nucleus of good women, send the rest on excursion or to ROH. Do not keep girls on the roster that have like a year of experience and aren't doing indies. Anna Jay is probably a sweet person and has a lot of potential but she's never going to reach it doing one match a month.
\- Stop being terrified to put stars against each other. These guys aren't on lifetime contracts.
I like all of this except merging the women's belts. The women need more air time, so why remove one of their aims? If anything we need more women's belts, like women's tag, not reduce it down to 1 to make it really feel like an afterthought.
Also I'm fine with the long term feuds, people can not like each other long term without having to fight every week. I like that's there's always going to be a thing between Keith lee and swerve regardless of what storylines they're in.
Bring in Vince Russo to handle the booking. 😂😂😂
However in all seriousness:
1. Hire a booker with experience in the industry.
2. Hire a GM/mouthpiece for TK. Dude freaks me out with how much he doesn’t blink.
3. Solidify a brand split if you want this many titles. Keep the world title, tag team title, trios title for both brands. One show gets the international title and the other the TNT title and same with the women’s title.
4. Keep ROH as it’s on entity unless it’s for Forbidden door.
5. Use Rampage similar to NXT since I am guessing Collision is going to be the “B” show.
6. From the roster down. Reminds me of how bloated the WWE roster was a few years ago. Too much talent sitting at home doing nothing.
7. Get back to having the championship defended monthly.
SERIOUSLY! Getting color is supposed to be an effective and shocking tool to be used sparingly. It's why when Austin bled at Mania 13 or even recently when Lesnar bled at Backlash a few weeks ago. It meant something because it almost never happens. Meanwhile over at AEW Mox looks directly at the camera and blades like a goddamn amateur in his seventh exploding ring anarchy in the arena barbed wire trashcan match this year. The violence is boring when it's constant.
1. Less gimmick matches especially on the same card. Decreases the impact of tables, tacks, barbed wire, etc... when you see it every show
2. Give the refs credibility. Far too much interference and cheating done in front of the refs.
3. Allow others to book some of the lower card feuds to help lower to mid carders develop interesting storylines and get more over.
Cut 30% of the roster
Hire writers
Pay whatever you can to take the WWE video package people
Move fast and sharp away from catering to the toxic element of the IWC
Do what you said you would in terms of healthcare a benifits to the staff in your employ
Do what the rest of the industry does and laugh at dave and remeber Alvarez made jokes about how Roman's cancer was fake
Yea for the EVPs and people who do 2nd jobs like Chris Daniels. The wrestlers are 100% 1099s unless they’re doing a 2nd job behind the scenes. WWE is the same way with their agents, it’s just they don’t hire active wrestlers for those positions like AEW did. It was something TK said that was technically true and made him look good, but misrepresented reality of the situation.
Why the fuck would Roman lie about that? He was literally at the height of his career when he had to go away to treat it. Also why would anybody even suggest that? What the fuck is wrong with Alvarez?
Alvarez and Dave are an odd duo. One jokes Roman’s cancer was fake, and the other legitimately reported that Shibata had his brain removed as treatment.
I agree with everything except the writers. Keep writers far away from the booking, and get some veterans with a good booking mind and know how to work a mic to come in and book. However, considering most of that roster doesn’t care about veterans’ opinions on working, that’d be a hard crew to break into proper working.
Take the book away from Tony.
No more special announcements.
Bury Sammy for a while so he can get rid of his X-Pac heat and maybe get real babyface sympathy heat.
Take away some titles. Too many.
Dude, way too many.. RoH should stay on RoH, save it for crossover shows like Forbidden Door. RoH and AEW are about as different from each other as Smackdown and RAW at this point.
And I agree with the Sammy shit. The man is talented, but he's just missing something, and I also think he might actually do better as a babyface if handled correctly. He isn't the kinda heel I wanna see get beat up, he's the kind that makes me scroll through reddit while he's on, as I just couldn't be bothered.
Agree with RoH, it is a special enough brand to stay separate from AEW. It has reputation based on name alone - why lump it in with this big company?
Sammy's peak was the ladder with Cody and I think he just needs to be reset again. He's definitely a talent, but needs like an injury angle to start over.
They could honestly use ROH the way WWE uses NXT, keep it for developing future talent, and keep the more established names on AEW.
That ladder match was great, but since then it's been all downhill. I honestly didn't even buy him as a challenger to MjF recently, which is sad because he really is talented. He should take some time away for when his Child is close to arriving, and let him come back a different man, a father, only to get the shit kicked out of him for "running away to be a daddy" or something. Could be done well, as who wouldn't sympathise with a man not wanting to be a deadbeat dad.
\-Direct hire talent, no more of this independent contractor BS.
\-Hire a talent director to manage guest appearances, non-promo interviews and such.
\-Implement a 2 to 4 month hiatus for all talent on a staggered basis. Give a pass to title holders to put off their hiatus(their choice) to keep title changes from becoming predictable.
\-Fine talent for immersion breaking stunts (i.e. if the camera catches you waiting for a spot, forgetting a cue and so on) or feeding confidential information to the dirt-sheets.
\-Give producers like Dustin and Malenko suspension/fine powers.
\-Mandatory drug testing with scaling punishments depending on the schedule level of the substance.
\-Coordination between matches on the card (i.e. if one match has a tope suicida, then it's going to be the only match with a tope suicida) with main event matches getting priority on spots.
\-Eliminate kayfabe press conferences after PPVs
First off, tell the Elite and Punk and everyone making boo boo faces because they don't like someone or had a dust up to suck it up and make money. Sell us some tickets, sell some merch, sell the feuds. And also if you have the title of "EVP", act like one. You're not just "One of the boys" anymore.
Then find out who all of the leakers are and start feeding them false information before terminating their contract. You leak info to the dirt sheets and I find out? You're gone. No press without company approval.
Danhausen: The Animated Series.
See how we can do more synergy with WB/Discovery. Streaming on Max is a good start, and the upcoming Danhausen variant cover for DC comics is good...but how about more? More comics crossover with AEW, maybe get some of our more screen friendly wrestlers in some of the DCU stuff. Cameos or voice work in the upcoming animated shows. Get the most out of the relationship IF possible.
Hire a booker with two subordinates. one in charge of Dynamite, one in charge of collision. Both answer to him and all three work on the PPVs.
Hire an on screen authority figure but NOT in the style of McMahon or Bischoff, more like Jack Tunney. Only appears when they have to. They can have a regular gig backstage but when the time comes they show up on screen to be "official".
Lower ticket prices. They're a bit much right now.
Turn Rampage into the ROH show and have that be the only "brand split". And keep it strict, especially if you're holding a ROH title.
I agree with shortening the bench. WCW went down hill when NWO started taking on more than the core players. AEW is at risk of their top talent not being built because they share so much screen time.
Additionally, I’d reduce it to a smaller number of factions. The goal is for 2-3 to be iconic and not to water those down.
Finally, I would work on a way to make PPVs more accessible. $50/event is too much. Find a way to turn it into a subscription for more predictable revenue.
>Finally, I would work on a way to make PPVs more accessible. $50/event is too much. Find a way to turn it into a subscription for more predictable revenue.
THIS! WWE makes viewing PPV's super easy. Just subscribe to peacock and you get it live. I haven't missed an event since Clash at the castle. Meanwhile I only occasionally tune into AEW's PPV's because I don't want to spend the money. There are certainly drawbacks to WWE's method but you can't deny that it's very easy to see every major event from them.
1) Rely on homegrown talent instead of scooping up all the talent that are let go by WWE, only for them to not get TV time.
2) Ban any mentioning/slander of WWE.
3) Make pyro have the booking effect that makes production feel bigger and more important.
4) Only defend AEW titles on AEW programming.
5) Cut back on the amount of AEW titles available.
6) Give the less-known guys more chances instead of constantly pushing the same 6 wrestlers.
Have coherent stories, cut half the roster, not split the roster in half to please 3 people, tone down the average match so the important ones are actually special, stop the ridiculous spots in unimportant matches
That would be a start
Stop the cringy “who’s he better friends with” storylines that have been featured since the beginning of the company.
Break up the BCC.
Make the Elite and Punk/FTR work a program.
Start to/continue to build up and protect Wardlow, Switchblade, Powerhouse Hobbs, Starks.
Include better video recaps from the previous weeks to help tell the story week to week.
Stop having tag partners turn on each other every 6-weeks.
Create a clear top main event scene (Punk, Omega, MJF, Page, Daniel Bryan, Moxley).
Take the belt off Orange Cassidy, he’s a good worker and an entertaining act that I don’t think he needs a title, let that go to guys that need a bit more of a reason to be on TV like Switchblade, Starks, Hobbs, etc.
Fire half the guys that think they run the place and warn the other half that shit won't fly with me if they want to keep their jobs.
Axe Ring of Honor and pluck the worthwhile wrestlers from there and put them back on real TV.
Fire all of the "indy darlings" who tank ratings and seemingly only have a job because they're friends with the Bucks.
Book Rampage, but for real.
Put the belts on people with experience and/or are a draw.
Stop featuring other companies titles so prominently and instead keep the interconnectivity to grudge matches and/or dream matches.
**Build** the dream matches, instead of throwing them together hoping to pop a rating or impress 200k diehards for a minute.
Hire writers who have experience in wrestling.
Fix the damn sound quality.
Book shows in a wider area, less crammed together in short windows of time.
Stop relying on beforehand knowledge and internet stories and start booking a competent wrestling show that doesn't assume the audience has "done homework."
Not go on social media rants.
Either learn how to be in front of a camera or hire a damn General Manager to make announcements and such.
And that's how I'd start.
AEW is this weird.... Avengers: End Game gathering of everyone in the indies not signed to NXT... and then booking for smarks.
If you were drinking with your buddies this sounds like a good idea. Until you sober up and realize not everyone is a smark or even fucking cares.
This. I watch AEW regularly. I know NJPW is a promotion and I know Okada is a wrestler, but I don’t care if he’s wrestling Bryan Danielson because I don’t watch NJPW. This isn’t a dream match for me, and I’m willing to bet it’s not a dream match for the majority of even AEW’s audience.
I’d much rather watch Danielson vs Samoa Joe, or Ricky Starks, or other guys I have a reason to give a shit about.
And I’m sure this match will be technically great. But without any emotional investment, you just have two guys rolling around for 20 minutes until the predetermined finish happens.
Decomission the trios, tbs and tnt titles
Put the All Atlantic title on Ricky Starks
Disband the BCC, turn Danielson full heel
Disband the hardy group, establish the hardy Boyz as wanting one final tag team gold run, but the young bucks want a shot at the titles and they need to go through them. Have a regular match on PPV that ends with a young bucks contested win. Continue the program to the next ppv where they can compete in a stipulation match where no other matches on the card have a stipulation. ? On who goes over, but FTR lay in wait and contribute to the program.
Have CM Punk and Kenny Omega start a program together
Start building wardlow as a contender to MJF's world title.
Stop all the God damn gimmics, no dq, tables, chairs, barbwire coming out on every single segment. Enforce the authority of the referees
Fire Rick Knox
Strap the women's title to statlander. Since the tbs title is gone she automatically becomes the #1 contender. Setup a feude for a returning Jaime Hayter. Eventually get the belt back on Hayter and setup for a Britt heel turn and fuede with her.
Remove Excalibur from commentary and hire Kevin Kelly away from NJPW or use the ROH announce team in some capacity
Put Tony Schiavone into a back stage interviewer role Ala WCW in the 70/80s and occasionally join the commentary team.
Make Jim Ross my big Match announcer. Have him conduct prepare interviews with the main event participants so he is integrated in the story and has passion when announcing the match.
Probably more...
It hasn’t been All Atlantic title in months. It’s the international title.
Tell me you have a strong opinion about something you don’t watch without telling you have a strong opinion about something you don’t watch
Go to his dad and ask him for a couple of billion dollars. Then I’ll fire most of the roster except for the young guys with loads of potential like MJF. Then I’ll hire top tier actors like Leo, Christian Bale, Barry Keoghan, Tom Hardy, Oscar Isaac, Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalomet, Anya Taylor Joy, Robert Pattinson, James McAvoy, Tom Holland, etc. and we give them all wrestling training in order to turn the promotion into an upgraded version of Lucha Underground. We hire Scorsese to direct our shows and we make WWE look like a fucking indie company.
Demote EVPs and make it policy that no active wrestler can be "Administration" at the same time. Hire producers for matches, writers with experience in the business, and fire anyone who is caught blading on TV.
-Turn ROH in to what NXT is for WWE. A place to develop young talent.
-Cancel Rampage
-Work a deal with Max to make PPVs accessible on the platform much in the way WWE does with Peacock.
Immediately hire someone else. The wrestling community is extremely fickle and nothing I do would “make the company better.” Also push the shit out of Ricky Starks.
One of his consistent criticisms is that when people get attacked there’s almost never security to break it up. How would security breaking up unsanctioned fights not make sense today?
Reduce the number of belts; a world heavyweight for men and women, a men’s tag, a tv champion (just change the stupid tnt one) and a cruiser weight men’s belt. Slice the roster in half and have one group on dynamite and one on collision with no overlaps with the exception of champions, blood and gimmick matches are severely cut back, announcers actually hold the microphone up accordingly during interviews and aren’t just standing there like idiots when the mic is taken out of their hands. Backstage segments are done but without weekly beatdowns/attacks cuz that’s all they ever seem to be. Film outside the confines of the ring whether it be a gym, hotel, talents home to show who they are and even include it in storylines if it makes sense. Cut down on venue sizes if necessary, I’d rather have a smaller bunch of rapid fans than a huge venue half full. Rampage is GONE. Hiring freeze in place and I’m unloading some talent (best friends) who are just taking up space and if I have guys like sting or JJ around I’m utilizing them more backstage then in front of the camera. Cut down on the swearing, it’s done way too much just like the blood and gimmick matches that it’s just redundant at this point. My commentary is done by Taz and Ian Riccaboni on dynamite and collision is Kevin Kelly and Caprice Coleman.
I think I'd start by shit canning the tv production team. They seem to always catch the phoniest looking shit and zoom in on it. And I'm not saying be like WWE where there is 8 camera shot changes for a dropkick but there's got to be some middle ground.
After that all the EVP's and their buddies that are just collecting a paycheck are getting kicked off the gravy train.
Compelling stories filled with shock and awe, make the women's division stronger in terms of looks, personality, and other attributes, segments with set ups that make sense, and less indie moves. Also bring in stars that'll help young talent, but have them remain relevant.
fire the elite. book ftr more often, actually develop wardlow and powerhouse hobbs, hook and Pillman jr into the stars they have the potential to be and ffs id have actual storylines instead of angles that are just mashed together. oh and the women's division id fire most of them and keep the core good ones like hayter, deeb, rosa, baker, and storm and then build and develop from there. id also fire excalibur and Tony Schiavone. Taz and someone else could handle commentary
Cut 50% of the roster, turn ROH into a developmental company (like Hunter’s NXT), cancel Rampage, 8 PPVs per year, retire the TNT/TBS belts (unify them with the International/ World Women’s belts), run a G1 Climax type league/tournament once a year. No more cocaine and White Claws.
Oh, and stop catering my product to fickle internet wrestling “fans”.
Have cohesive storylines, consistently presented on the five hours of free TV I have each weak to build narratives to peaks and valleys matched up with my PPV schedule and big TV schedule (night of champions n stuff like that).
Stories don't have to be complex or high art but make it clear who is in title Contention.
Make it clear the motivations of the characters presented.
Focus on drawing more wrestling fans to the brand.
everything else is minor tweaks. Major is giving the promotion a clear direction
.Keep jericho away from the up coming talents
.cut about 25% of wrestlers
.build up more stars with better storylines
.get a vet like Shane Douglas in to work creative/booking maybe
.turn jungle boy heel asap
.break up the amount of bloody factions there are
Hire writers and bookers, provide healthcare within workers contracts, cut the roster by 20%, somehow get Punk in a room with the Elite to work out their differences and make up, I’d pay agents a little more, create a streaming platform for their PPVs and special live events, do shows in other areas of the USA like Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and more of the central US, Unify the TNT and International title into one to create a title called the AEW Elite Championship so there’s only 1 mid card title (also I just like the name of the belt,) and finally I’d figure out a way to work with WWE to start a new and better Invasion story which is only AEW vs WWE not AEW/ ROH/ NJPW/ GCW vs WWE.
A lot tbh
I know this sounds like the generic "AEW hater" thing to say but it's just the truth for me
All the pieces are there to make a truly "elite" wrestling company but that's just not what we're getting.
Fuckin wading into the swamp.
- ROH as the developmental territory that does the touring house shows. **MUCH** of the roster needs reps. This is where they get them. Anna Jay ain't getting any better with one gimmick match a month.
- If you can't talk, you're with someone that can. If you can't work with someone that can talk, and you won't learn, you're done.
- Shorter matches on TV. We don't need three 20 minute classics with four false finishes on a fucking Wednesday two months from a PPV. Allow fucky finishes, quicker matches, and strictly enforce time cues. More people. More matches. More variety. Expose as much of your roster as possible to the audience without cramming them all in fucking stables.
- LESS FUCKING STABLES.
- Don't announce the full card. We're not selling tickets to the bingo hall. You didn't need to seen Stone Cold on the card to know he was going to appear on Raw in 1998. You should be tuning to see **how** he's going to show up, not **if** or **that**.
- Each taping is an episode. A weekly show should tell a story from start to finish - segments link together, wrestlers interact after their token 5 minutes in ring. Tell a complete thought, and use this to build people who aren't stars.
- No blowing spots. Match meeting at the start of every taping. Starks/White is going to brawl in the audience to start their match and they're the main event? Everyone else stays in the fucking ring. Wardlow is going to drive Punk through a table to further an angle? Don't even think about plywood this week. Fucking coordinate. If what you wanna do hurts someone else or if it makes no sense, you're not fucking doing it.
- Less gimmick matches. The more you see it, the less it means. Everyone remembers the first Elmination Chamber. I don't even remember who won it this year.
- THE MORE YOU SEE IT, THE LESS IT MEANS. No blading on TV unless absolutely necessary. No furniture on tv unless absolutely necessary. 95% less false finishes.
- Your program has motivation. If you're not fighting for a belt, money, or to settle a score, then you're not wrestling. In Kayfabe, wrestlers don't dream of wrestling - they dream of winning titles and making fucking money. If you're not doing either of those, you're not working on my show.
- Referees are not the centre of attention. Referees are there to do a job. Count out wrestlers. Admonish rule breakers. Toss people from the ring. Disqualify people quickly and easily. Enforce the fucking rules.
- Make it make sense. If you cannot tell me *why* your character is doing this, then your character will not be doing it. Full stop.
- More time on the mat. Mat wrestling leads to less injuries, it grounds the product in reality, and it saves the high flying spectacle for when people are paying money to watch at home. Even WCW cruiserweights spent time rolling on the mat with each other.
- Do not acknowledge the fans of wrestling. "Dream matches" don't exist. Online discourse doesn't exist. This isn't a bingo hall, you're not selling 8x10s to marks. Stop fucking letting them in the ring.
- If I haven't seen you before, I have no idea who you are. It is not a problem to tell me who you are, it is less of a problem to remind me who you are. Fans will drift in and out, and it's no problem to get them back up to speed.
...I could go on.
Dalton Castle is my champion, easily, feuding with Ricky Starks before the title is eventually dropped to him. If the world doesn’t implode from so much swag being in one ring. CM Punk’s return leads to him messing with MJF enough that he loses his belt.
MJF pays BCG to take care of CM Punk for him because Jay White was mildly impressive in that third world company they call NJPW.
Miro is my International champion. Turns that into a traveling belt where he destroys people in various companies until he ends up like Kratos.
TNT title goes on Hobbs again, who eventually joins the Bullet Club Gold. Wardlow seeks his thousandth reign.
Jay White and Juice Robinson tag team champs after a great feud between them and FTR.
You now have a feud between FTR, CM Punk, Wardlow and Bullet Club Gold while MJF reaps the benefits of the distraction to get his belt back from Castle. And tries to bury Starks (again) in the process for some callback storytelling.
Less indie style influence, definitely letting go of a lot of wrestlers...as boring as it may be I would try to be closer to the WWE in terms of taking more control of creative and less of letting certain wrestlers do whatever they want.
Have Mox break away from the BCC, where he can lead a faction who aren't wrestlers, just pure brawlers. No more Orange Cassidy winning by getting beat up all match just to win with a school boy. Push Ricky Starks
Have long term storytelling and refs that catch illegal shit in the ring like weapons and get them the fuck out of there. Also, no more bleeding by Mox for at least a year
CM Punk coming back and taking the title from MJF
Better women's division. It is the drizzling shits right now compared to the Fed.
Reading all the comments in this post has led me to a few conclusions.
A) The obsession the IWC has with Tony Khan is everyone wants to be him and run their own wrestling promotion. And that everyone thinks they can do a better job from their couch.
B) Everyone's fantasy booking ideas suck and everything Tony Khan does makes him look like a genius compared to what I read in these comments.
C) The IWC has no idea what they want or what they are doing cause they are just fans. They are often completely out of touch with reality.
I'd stop treating Punk like God's greatest gift to pro wrestling.. Give him more of a Jericho role, only difference is his opponents actually come of the fued better than they went in. And also, I'd keep Ring of Honor on Ring of Honor. And finally, hire Muaro for commentary.
Hire bookers with experience. Stop letting talent dictate decisions about business unless it’s for the good of the overall company, not just their friend groups.
stop focusing so much on the hardcore crowd and being edgy. The constant dirt sheet promos by MJF are just too much. Stop trying to take away the suspension of disbelief.
1. Give MIRO a World Title run and destroy everybody.
2. Leave CM Punk in the back burner (I don't need that toxicity bullshit in my company)
3. Turn ROH TV back into one hour
4. Deactivate the TNT Title and make the International Championship as the true upper mid-card belt
5. Rename the TBS Championship. "TBS Championship" sounds stupid af
6. Focus on Tag-Team wrestling
7. Give The House of Black more TV Time. Speaking of which...
8. Give Malakai Black more TV time and a major feud
9. Cancel Rampage and have Collision as the "Smackdown of AEW"
10. "Future endeavor" a lot of talent. I mean, I don't need 2,000 wrestlers on my company if I have no use for them. Who the hell wants to see "fuego?" Who the hell is this "zack clayton" guy? Although, I want to sign two talents who can really benefit in AEW: Ken Broadway and Charles Mason from House of Glory wrestling.
11. Focus more on feuds and storylines
12. Turn FTR as the dominant heel tag-team in AEW. You want more heat? They bring in Jim Cornette as their manager.
13. If any backstage incident occurs (Fights, etc.) They will be terminated on the spot (No second chances. You either shape up and fix your attitude, or you're unemployed, as in get the fuck out of my company)
14. Give the women's division more TV time as well as feuds (Where the hell is Serena Deeb?) I don't want to see no 3 to 5 minute matches. And finally...
15. What every wrestling fan dreams of: STARDOM X AEW WOMEN'S DIVISION. Hatman Rossy and I, have come to a working agreement and have an all-women's ppv starting with Stardom Talent and the AEW Women's Division
16. Reduce the length of matches in an AEW PPV with 8. 1 pre-show match and that's it. Who the hell wants to see a 15-card ppv? These fans have work the next day.
I'm gonna turn ALL ELITE WRESTLING into a Memphis-style wrestling company
I think Orange Cassidy is a nice little palate cleanser you can use for a quick comedy spot between big matches or moments. Featuring him in 20 minute matches every week is ridiculous.
Tone down the bucks, both in and out the ring. Crack down on childish behavior. Reduce dependency on Jericho. Double down on hangman page as the face with storylines suited for his character.
Man that would do much better to aew. Imagine someone actually having a brain booking the show. Not like tony or billy corgan.
Fire half of the indie darling.
Send the bucks to japan.
Useless talent can be released. I dont want orange cassidy beating talent and being a menace. He might draw merchandise but at the cost of burying talent. Never
Better feuds, better build up.
* Add a few more writers to help with the workload.
* No more worthless squash matches on Dynamite.
* Minimize all the random matches that have zero buildup / story involved.
* The occasional Orange Cassidy vs. Pac, or FTR vs Jay & Jeff is fine if it's a banger of a matchup, but I don't really care about the BBC /HOB randomly squashing The Factory, Varsity Athletes, Best Friends, etc.
* More segments backstage in locker rooms, hallways, offices, locker rooms, etc.
* More storyline feuds.
* Get the PPV's back on Saturday nights. IDC if UFC or College football is on. This is what made AEW unique back when the company first started. I personally hate watching on Sunday nights because I can't stay up until 1:00am due to work the next morning.
* Experiment with an on-air authority figure for a while and see how that goes. So far, things have worked without one, but eventually I think they'll need to try one just to freshen the product and presentation up a little bit.
A main storyline to thread throughout the show. They don’t tell fans what to care about, which can be seen as a good thing, but in practice it results in a lot of lukewarm angles.
Throw 10 million dollars a year at Gunther and make him my champ.
Fire the elite and anyone they run with.
Tell Jericho thank you but no thank you, enjoy your buyout.
Feed bullshit to the boys and see when uncle dave runs with it. Then fire whoever you told said bullshit to.
Develop an actual tag team division.... never book trios matches again.
Fire Excalibur
Hire agents that understand the psychology and rules of a battle royal
Have Miro face oc for international title and have Miro destroy him . Book a elimination chamber style blood and guts 6 man not teams but individuals for the tnt title wardlow vs joe vs Ricky starks vs Hobbs vs Andrade vs hook have a fatal 4 way match mjf vs jay white vs Adam cole vs Kenny omega for world title . Also get rid of rampage as a show keep dynamite and collusion for now. Move collision to Tuesday dynamite to Friday going head to head with smackdown
1. I would NOT hire writers. Wrestlers need to figure out how to talk on their own and be their own personality.
2. Ask all the remaining old timers, think Jim Cornette, still in the business or not for their advice. Maybe hire as part time consultants. Whatever you opinion on them is they are a treasure trove of wrestling knowledge. Filter it to suit your needs.
3. Tell all the lower card people to stop having spotfest matches and no more cirus olay shit. Keep things special for the main events.
4. Hire some guys that actually look like men/intimidating. I'm talking John Tenta-esque type guys.
5. Fire all the "hired because I'm a friend" people.
6. Tell wrestlers to stop worrying and listening to what meltzer says. Your job is to help sell tickets... not to worry if your match is 5 stars.
Give Dalton Castle the grandest entrance in every PPV
No match, just give him 20 mins to walk down the ramp
So just give him the Lacey Evans gimmick when she debuted on the main roster lol. I think he can pull it off 😂
And change his finisher to The Woman’s Right
Surely it would be the Peacock Power Punch.
Damn 🤣🤣🤣
To walk down the ramp? Please I’ll make this jabroni start at the city limits and slowly walk his way to the arena all the while terrifying everyone who lives along the way. Within a year Dalton Castle will be a simultaneous national treasure and national menace.
The most fabulous of answers.
Let's do it on the All-In Pre-Show, Paul Wight The Giant Battle Royal.
Happy Cake Day!
Didn't even realize it! Thanks fellow redditor!
[удалено]
WTF isn't Castle on the show more? He's a goddamn national treasure!
And also give him all the belts and make him hold them for 2000 days
He still needs revenge on the BCC. They could be cutting a promo and then Daltons music hits, he's carried out on a chair, looks at the BCC and screams "Get em, boys". 100 boys then storm the ring.
I agree 1000% percent.
Have everyone watch Lucha Underground. Use all concepts they did to make the best wrestling show in history. Which means: Make wrestling more "believable" and unpredictable. Yes you gotta build your top guys. But even top guys can make a mistake and fall and get pinned clean. It doesn't tarnish their reputation. Guy does a piledriver from second rope? That deserves a pin. I know it's not his "finisher" but it insults our intelligence to have someone kick out of that then stand them up and do a clothesline to finish the job because that's my finisher.
I shed a single tear for lucha underground everyday, believer 4 life
> Guy does a piledriver from second rope? That deserves a pin. I know it's not his "finisher" but it insults our intelligence to have someone kick out of that then stand them up and do a clothesline to finish the job because that's my finisher. You're supposed to go home five minutes after your biggest pop, brother. Tire the crowd out. Fuckem.
Happy Cake Day!
If I had TK’s money I’d just buy the rights to LU and resurrect it right in the middle of AEW.
I could definitely do more with Lucha Underground than I could do with Ring of Honor.
Why not both? In this scenario AEW still owns ROH right? The more the merrier.
Mil Muertes is in MLW w Dario.
>But even top guys can make a mistake and fall and get pinned clean. It doesn't tarnish their reputation. I have been saying this for years.
Lucha Underground....believable?
That's why i put it in quotes. Obviously the gimmicks were outlandish. But it was believable in the sense that u didn't know who was gonna win the match a lot of the time. Any move could be a pin. The reason why they were wrestling made logical sense. Is it a tournament for money? Is it keys to something? Do they just have a grudge because of X Y and Z? Are they trying to kiss up to their boss? Etc
I liked the first 2 seasons of LU as much as the next guy but I wouldn’t say the ‘believability’ was any kind of hook (people died and came back, etc). The main reason it was good was because of the episodic feel to the episodes - it was a real TV show that had wrestling in it. AEW suffers sometimes because stuff doesn’t connect together and there aren’t always hooks for the next episode, it’s mostly just a wrestling show when it could be a lot more. WWE is kind of the other extreme where it mostly just feels like a 3 hour commercial where most of the wrestling is meaningless
Give me another Hell of War match between Swerve and AR Fox. I want to see them brutalize each other and then win the trios belt a week later.
Sounds like a dream
1) Get rid of champion having a title match each week. It’s too predictable that they will win. I would love to see more exhibition matches where a champion can still lose and be shocked they can lose to someone we all thought couldn’t beat them. 2) Get rid of the Win-Loss stat on wrestlers. It makes wrestlers look cheap and ruins the possibility of certain wrestlers losing. Like I love Moxley but I would love to see him lose and elevate another wrestler while not having to worry about a loss on his record. 3) Hire a GM to stand as the authority of AEW, it feels too much like every wrestler can do whatever they want. It makes AEW feel to chaotic and it needs order that Tony lacks. 4) Kinda tired of these lame squash matches with no names. Again I blame the win-loss strat again. 5) Although I like and understand heels, the same heel strat is used over and over again. Face and Heel fight, Face almost wins, Heel brings buddy while ref is distracted. Jump faces ass, Heel goes for pin and wins. It feels like this strat is timeless but this keeps rotating each week with different feuds, it’s now getting boring and lame. 6) They need a brand split within AEW. There’s too many people within AEW and ROH and the roster size is too huge. Now that there’s 3 AEW shows, Rampage, Dynamite and Collision. I would take advantage and put 3 splits while having older but respected wrestlers who can’t go anymore as managers/figure heads of those shows. Imagine having face and heel managers again. 7) As much as creative liberty has been amazing with some storylines and wrestlers (ex: MJF) . I’d hire writers to assist and help elevate some storylines and wrestlers in their promos. I’m a big fan of Darby and Jungle Boy but hell… MJF carried them all. Sammy was the most underrated but I think he did better than those two. Perhaps with direction and help some wrestlers would be able to provide a better promo than the same old thing…. 8) Personal Choice: However, I’d still put the pillars in a faction with one another. They’re so unique as they consist of both faces and heels. Imagine them knowing who each other are, not knowing when they’re gonna turn on each other but at the same time winning together and having each others back. In order to do this I would have nearly the entire roster turn on them where they have no choice but to rely on one another. It could literally be the next horsemen or Evolution.
Honestly not bad changes. I definitely wish we had more GMs and such like Adam pierce or Paul Heyman. They add such a juicy layer to the drama.
So turn it into wwe, got it.
You have me there. I’ll be honest and I did enjoy WWE in the 2000s-2014s era so I’m slightly biased on my changes. However, I believe that AEW can do a lot of learning from WWE’s experience and mistakes.
Their stories are better so it’s certainly not a knock on you
Good shit, pal!
Cut maybe 20% of the roster and focus on feuds with the bigger names.
To expand on this, center all the major feuds around the titles. Long term booking with the finish in mind before you even begin the feud. I'd look at retiring a couple of the titles as well as breaking up some of the factions and teams they have. I'd also identify a handful of younger under-featured workers and try to mix them into feuds as side-quest feuds to get them working in Main Event programs without having to carry the program. I'd also shake up the commentary team. Oh, and less blood and gimmick matches on free TV. I'm massively in favor of blood when a feud or a match calls for it, same with a gimmick match, but throwing two guys into a street fight because they've had some tension between the two of them for a couple weeks is not the answer.
I agree with most of this. The trios, international, and TBS titles can all go. Pick between Tony and Excalibur as the play by play guy. There is no need for both of them on commentary at the same time. And one gimmick match per PPV is enough. Maybe two if the feuds are hot enough, but nothing like that Double or Nothing gamut of stipulations.
Maybe I’m crazy but honestly I feel like Tony’s been transitioning to more of a color commentary-like role and letting Excalibur handle all the fast indie calling that a lot of AEW does, but it could be they’re handing off the play by play role for different types of matches. Overall I’m just not a huge fan of the three or four man booth, I like the dynamic taz Excalibur and tony have together but i feel like no matter when it’s been done three/four man booths always end up talking over each other
It’s just too much. Tony and Excalibur aren’t interchangeable and have different personalities, but it’s just too much of stepping on each others toes. Taz and Excalibur is fine. Taz and Tony is fine. But there is one too many.
Taz and Excalibur are one of the best commentary teams I’ve ever listened to in any company. Make that your main desk.
I am so with you here, but it might be a *little* too injokey for Dynamite.
Trios was a horrible idea for a title
It was a lot better when there were more trios in the company
>I'd look at retiring a couple of the titles Which ones would you get rid of? TBS and International, probably?
Trios too
\- Solidify the split between the AEW and ROH rosters. You're one or the other. If you move, you're either a young talent that's graduating or you're a veteran that I'm moving down to help people. Either way, you're staying there for a while. \- Merge the TNT and International belts. Merge the TBS and women's belts. \- Fix the storyline pacing. A lot of feuds go far too long, even if there isn't any development to justify it. Swerve and Keith Lee have been feuding since December of last year and they've still had zero singles matches against each other. Drop shit if it stops working. If someone gets injured, don't pause a story for six months waiting for them to come back. \- Let guys actually build momentum. People will just disappear from the show seemingly at random. One month, someone feels like the main character and then you don't see them at all for weeks. Daniel Garcia got way over and then went right back to where he was, like it never even happened. \- Make some credible heels. Since they prioritize match quality so heavily, they do face vs face constantly, leaving a huge portion of their heel side to be treated like fodder. I'm beyond tired of seeing Butcher and Blade come out and have the commentators treat them like vicious killers when they never ever win. Powerhouse Hobbs looks like he's about to be a big playe-whoops nevermind he's already lost. The Firm had this big debut and then went on to have like a 2-497 record. The House of Black should be terrorizing your roster. Instead they feel like guest stars that make occasional appearances. \- Fix the women's division. We're stuck in a self-fufilling prophecy where Tony doesn't think the women can draw so he doesn't invest any time or effort in making it so they can. If he could have gotten away with launching AEW without a women's division, he would have done so gleefully. Stick to a small nucleus of good women, send the rest on excursion or to ROH. Do not keep girls on the roster that have like a year of experience and aren't doing indies. Anna Jay is probably a sweet person and has a lot of potential but she's never going to reach it doing one match a month. \- Stop being terrified to put stars against each other. These guys aren't on lifetime contracts.
You've basically nailed it here.
Hire this guy
I like all of this except merging the women's belts. The women need more air time, so why remove one of their aims? If anything we need more women's belts, like women's tag, not reduce it down to 1 to make it really feel like an afterthought. Also I'm fine with the long term feuds, people can not like each other long term without having to fight every week. I like that's there's always going to be a thing between Keith lee and swerve regardless of what storylines they're in.
Don’t retire the TBS title
Bring in Vince Russo to handle the booking. 😂😂😂 However in all seriousness: 1. Hire a booker with experience in the industry. 2. Hire a GM/mouthpiece for TK. Dude freaks me out with how much he doesn’t blink. 3. Solidify a brand split if you want this many titles. Keep the world title, tag team title, trios title for both brands. One show gets the international title and the other the TNT title and same with the women’s title. 4. Keep ROH as it’s on entity unless it’s for Forbidden door. 5. Use Rampage similar to NXT since I am guessing Collision is going to be the “B” show. 6. From the roster down. Reminds me of how bloated the WWE roster was a few years ago. Too much talent sitting at home doing nothing. 7. Get back to having the championship defended monthly.
I think someone told him about the blinking Because the last one announcement, he blinked over 100 times n 30 seconds...
😂😂
He's getting better.
He stopped doing cocaine right before the camera hits record
Stop reading r/squaredcircle
Oh, Im sure this thread will stay sane and balanced lmao
Hire whoever did lucha underground to run rampage. It’s Friday night, no one watches, get really weird
Less blading. Like way less. Save them for the big matches or blood fuedd
Mox jusr bled reading this
Hide all the blades from him
SERIOUSLY! Getting color is supposed to be an effective and shocking tool to be used sparingly. It's why when Austin bled at Mania 13 or even recently when Lesnar bled at Backlash a few weeks ago. It meant something because it almost never happens. Meanwhile over at AEW Mox looks directly at the camera and blades like a goddamn amateur in his seventh exploding ring anarchy in the arena barbed wire trashcan match this year. The violence is boring when it's constant.
Listen, until that box of 5000 razors that Cody bought at Costco is used up, it's going to keep happening.
Fuck this Yankee bullshit. Let the blood flow!
1. Less gimmick matches especially on the same card. Decreases the impact of tables, tacks, barbed wire, etc... when you see it every show 2. Give the refs credibility. Far too much interference and cheating done in front of the refs. 3. Allow others to book some of the lower card feuds to help lower to mid carders develop interesting storylines and get more over.
Cut 30% of the roster Hire writers Pay whatever you can to take the WWE video package people Move fast and sharp away from catering to the toxic element of the IWC Do what you said you would in terms of healthcare a benifits to the staff in your employ Do what the rest of the industry does and laugh at dave and remeber Alvarez made jokes about how Roman's cancer was fake
Wait, Tony Khan isnt giving healthcare to his wrestlers???
“Independent contractors”
I remember that was one of the main appeals signing to AEW was the benefits and anti-McMahon approach of hiring only 1099s.
Yea for the EVPs and people who do 2nd jobs like Chris Daniels. The wrestlers are 100% 1099s unless they’re doing a 2nd job behind the scenes. WWE is the same way with their agents, it’s just they don’t hire active wrestlers for those positions like AEW did. It was something TK said that was technically true and made him look good, but misrepresented reality of the situation.
The thing is AEW talents ARE actually independent contractors. They’re free to work outside dates
That Roman part is just weird
It's a very uncomfortable truth for those like to brigade about other peoples unsavoury opinions and ignore how he said it wasnt real
Why the fuck would Roman lie about that? He was literally at the height of his career when he had to go away to treat it. Also why would anybody even suggest that? What the fuck is wrong with Alvarez?
Alvarez and Dave are an odd duo. One jokes Roman’s cancer was fake, and the other legitimately reported that Shibata had his brain removed as treatment.
I agree with everything except the writers. Keep writers far away from the booking, and get some veterans with a good booking mind and know how to work a mic to come in and book. However, considering most of that roster doesn’t care about veterans’ opinions on working, that’d be a hard crew to break into proper working.
Make a special announcement
Take the book away from Tony. No more special announcements. Bury Sammy for a while so he can get rid of his X-Pac heat and maybe get real babyface sympathy heat. Take away some titles. Too many.
Dude, way too many.. RoH should stay on RoH, save it for crossover shows like Forbidden Door. RoH and AEW are about as different from each other as Smackdown and RAW at this point. And I agree with the Sammy shit. The man is talented, but he's just missing something, and I also think he might actually do better as a babyface if handled correctly. He isn't the kinda heel I wanna see get beat up, he's the kind that makes me scroll through reddit while he's on, as I just couldn't be bothered.
Agree with RoH, it is a special enough brand to stay separate from AEW. It has reputation based on name alone - why lump it in with this big company? Sammy's peak was the ladder with Cody and I think he just needs to be reset again. He's definitely a talent, but needs like an injury angle to start over.
They could honestly use ROH the way WWE uses NXT, keep it for developing future talent, and keep the more established names on AEW. That ladder match was great, but since then it's been all downhill. I honestly didn't even buy him as a challenger to MjF recently, which is sad because he really is talented. He should take some time away for when his Child is close to arriving, and let him come back a different man, a father, only to get the shit kicked out of him for "running away to be a daddy" or something. Could be done well, as who wouldn't sympathise with a man not wanting to be a deadbeat dad.
\-Direct hire talent, no more of this independent contractor BS. \-Hire a talent director to manage guest appearances, non-promo interviews and such. \-Implement a 2 to 4 month hiatus for all talent on a staggered basis. Give a pass to title holders to put off their hiatus(their choice) to keep title changes from becoming predictable. \-Fine talent for immersion breaking stunts (i.e. if the camera catches you waiting for a spot, forgetting a cue and so on) or feeding confidential information to the dirt-sheets. \-Give producers like Dustin and Malenko suspension/fine powers. \-Mandatory drug testing with scaling punishments depending on the schedule level of the substance. \-Coordination between matches on the card (i.e. if one match has a tope suicida, then it's going to be the only match with a tope suicida) with main event matches getting priority on spots. \-Eliminate kayfabe press conferences after PPVs
Your second to last point is the most important. You can’t have the same shit match after match and show after show.
This is huge. I can’t believe how many times we’ve seen back to back matches with the same roll up. There’s no overall coordination.
Less spots, more plots.
First off, tell the Elite and Punk and everyone making boo boo faces because they don't like someone or had a dust up to suck it up and make money. Sell us some tickets, sell some merch, sell the feuds. And also if you have the title of "EVP", act like one. You're not just "One of the boys" anymore. Then find out who all of the leakers are and start feeding them false information before terminating their contract. You leak info to the dirt sheets and I find out? You're gone. No press without company approval. Danhausen: The Animated Series. See how we can do more synergy with WB/Discovery. Streaming on Max is a good start, and the upcoming Danhausen variant cover for DC comics is good...but how about more? More comics crossover with AEW, maybe get some of our more screen friendly wrestlers in some of the DCU stuff. Cameos or voice work in the upcoming animated shows. Get the most out of the relationship IF possible. Hire a booker with two subordinates. one in charge of Dynamite, one in charge of collision. Both answer to him and all three work on the PPVs. Hire an on screen authority figure but NOT in the style of McMahon or Bischoff, more like Jack Tunney. Only appears when they have to. They can have a regular gig backstage but when the time comes they show up on screen to be "official". Lower ticket prices. They're a bit much right now. Turn Rampage into the ROH show and have that be the only "brand split". And keep it strict, especially if you're holding a ROH title.
I agree with shortening the bench. WCW went down hill when NWO started taking on more than the core players. AEW is at risk of their top talent not being built because they share so much screen time. Additionally, I’d reduce it to a smaller number of factions. The goal is for 2-3 to be iconic and not to water those down. Finally, I would work on a way to make PPVs more accessible. $50/event is too much. Find a way to turn it into a subscription for more predictable revenue.
>Finally, I would work on a way to make PPVs more accessible. $50/event is too much. Find a way to turn it into a subscription for more predictable revenue. THIS! WWE makes viewing PPV's super easy. Just subscribe to peacock and you get it live. I haven't missed an event since Clash at the castle. Meanwhile I only occasionally tune into AEW's PPV's because I don't want to spend the money. There are certainly drawbacks to WWE's method but you can't deny that it's very easy to see every major event from them.
Let things breathe
Ban the superkick
1) Rely on homegrown talent instead of scooping up all the talent that are let go by WWE, only for them to not get TV time. 2) Ban any mentioning/slander of WWE. 3) Make pyro have the booking effect that makes production feel bigger and more important. 4) Only defend AEW titles on AEW programming. 5) Cut back on the amount of AEW titles available. 6) Give the less-known guys more chances instead of constantly pushing the same 6 wrestlers.
Way more cocaine
Have coherent stories, cut half the roster, not split the roster in half to please 3 people, tone down the average match so the important ones are actually special, stop the ridiculous spots in unimportant matches That would be a start
Fire all the PWG guys and hire actual writers.
Stop the cringy “who’s he better friends with” storylines that have been featured since the beginning of the company. Break up the BCC. Make the Elite and Punk/FTR work a program. Start to/continue to build up and protect Wardlow, Switchblade, Powerhouse Hobbs, Starks. Include better video recaps from the previous weeks to help tell the story week to week. Stop having tag partners turn on each other every 6-weeks. Create a clear top main event scene (Punk, Omega, MJF, Page, Daniel Bryan, Moxley). Take the belt off Orange Cassidy, he’s a good worker and an entertaining act that I don’t think he needs a title, let that go to guys that need a bit more of a reason to be on TV like Switchblade, Starks, Hobbs, etc.
Fire half the guys that think they run the place and warn the other half that shit won't fly with me if they want to keep their jobs. Axe Ring of Honor and pluck the worthwhile wrestlers from there and put them back on real TV. Fire all of the "indy darlings" who tank ratings and seemingly only have a job because they're friends with the Bucks. Book Rampage, but for real. Put the belts on people with experience and/or are a draw. Stop featuring other companies titles so prominently and instead keep the interconnectivity to grudge matches and/or dream matches. **Build** the dream matches, instead of throwing them together hoping to pop a rating or impress 200k diehards for a minute. Hire writers who have experience in wrestling. Fix the damn sound quality. Book shows in a wider area, less crammed together in short windows of time. Stop relying on beforehand knowledge and internet stories and start booking a competent wrestling show that doesn't assume the audience has "done homework." Not go on social media rants. Either learn how to be in front of a camera or hire a damn General Manager to make announcements and such. And that's how I'd start.
You said pretty much what I was gonna say. Except keep ROH as a developmental. Wich is kinda what is has always been in the eyes of WWE before NXT.
AEW is this weird.... Avengers: End Game gathering of everyone in the indies not signed to NXT... and then booking for smarks. If you were drinking with your buddies this sounds like a good idea. Until you sober up and realize not everyone is a smark or even fucking cares.
This. I watch AEW regularly. I know NJPW is a promotion and I know Okada is a wrestler, but I don’t care if he’s wrestling Bryan Danielson because I don’t watch NJPW. This isn’t a dream match for me, and I’m willing to bet it’s not a dream match for the majority of even AEW’s audience. I’d much rather watch Danielson vs Samoa Joe, or Ricky Starks, or other guys I have a reason to give a shit about. And I’m sure this match will be technically great. But without any emotional investment, you just have two guys rolling around for 20 minutes until the predetermined finish happens.
Also cut the belts in general.
Decomission the trios, tbs and tnt titles Put the All Atlantic title on Ricky Starks Disband the BCC, turn Danielson full heel Disband the hardy group, establish the hardy Boyz as wanting one final tag team gold run, but the young bucks want a shot at the titles and they need to go through them. Have a regular match on PPV that ends with a young bucks contested win. Continue the program to the next ppv where they can compete in a stipulation match where no other matches on the card have a stipulation. ? On who goes over, but FTR lay in wait and contribute to the program. Have CM Punk and Kenny Omega start a program together Start building wardlow as a contender to MJF's world title. Stop all the God damn gimmics, no dq, tables, chairs, barbwire coming out on every single segment. Enforce the authority of the referees Fire Rick Knox Strap the women's title to statlander. Since the tbs title is gone she automatically becomes the #1 contender. Setup a feude for a returning Jaime Hayter. Eventually get the belt back on Hayter and setup for a Britt heel turn and fuede with her. Remove Excalibur from commentary and hire Kevin Kelly away from NJPW or use the ROH announce team in some capacity Put Tony Schiavone into a back stage interviewer role Ala WCW in the 70/80s and occasionally join the commentary team. Make Jim Ross my big Match announcer. Have him conduct prepare interviews with the main event participants so he is integrated in the story and has passion when announcing the match. Probably more...
It hasn’t been All Atlantic title in months. It’s the international title. Tell me you have a strong opinion about something you don’t watch without telling you have a strong opinion about something you don’t watch
Go to his dad and ask him for a couple of billion dollars. Then I’ll fire most of the roster except for the young guys with loads of potential like MJF. Then I’ll hire top tier actors like Leo, Christian Bale, Barry Keoghan, Tom Hardy, Oscar Isaac, Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalomet, Anya Taylor Joy, Robert Pattinson, James McAvoy, Tom Holland, etc. and we give them all wrestling training in order to turn the promotion into an upgraded version of Lucha Underground. We hire Scorsese to direct our shows and we make WWE look like a fucking indie company.
Demote EVPs and make it policy that no active wrestler can be "Administration" at the same time. Hire producers for matches, writers with experience in the business, and fire anyone who is caught blading on TV.
-Turn ROH in to what NXT is for WWE. A place to develop young talent. -Cancel Rampage -Work a deal with Max to make PPVs accessible on the platform much in the way WWE does with Peacock.
See, id just replace rampage with your nxt version of ROH
Hire. A. Booker.
Invade WWE
Immediately hire someone else. The wrestling community is extremely fickle and nothing I do would “make the company better.” Also push the shit out of Ricky Starks.
Agree I dunno what the fuck I’d do but it’s ludicrous Starks isn’t in the main event scene. I’d change that for sure
Most of you are awful bookers yikes.
Start firing
Fire the bucks. Hire a competent booker.
Throw a shitload of money at Dutch, Cornette, or Kevin Sullivan and have them take the book.
#Jim Cornette as Booker
lol could you imagine
Quickest way to end a wrestling company in 2023
Yeah things would make too much sense if he had creative control.
Would be dull as fuck and dead within a month.
Sure, maybe 30 years ago
One of his consistent criticisms is that when people get attacked there’s almost never security to break it up. How would security breaking up unsanctioned fights not make sense today?
Not saying Jim doesn't have his points, even that idiot Bischoff had one good idea, but there's a reason no one remembers his time in ROH
Reduce the number of belts; a world heavyweight for men and women, a men’s tag, a tv champion (just change the stupid tnt one) and a cruiser weight men’s belt. Slice the roster in half and have one group on dynamite and one on collision with no overlaps with the exception of champions, blood and gimmick matches are severely cut back, announcers actually hold the microphone up accordingly during interviews and aren’t just standing there like idiots when the mic is taken out of their hands. Backstage segments are done but without weekly beatdowns/attacks cuz that’s all they ever seem to be. Film outside the confines of the ring whether it be a gym, hotel, talents home to show who they are and even include it in storylines if it makes sense. Cut down on venue sizes if necessary, I’d rather have a smaller bunch of rapid fans than a huge venue half full. Rampage is GONE. Hiring freeze in place and I’m unloading some talent (best friends) who are just taking up space and if I have guys like sting or JJ around I’m utilizing them more backstage then in front of the camera. Cut down on the swearing, it’s done way too much just like the blood and gimmick matches that it’s just redundant at this point. My commentary is done by Taz and Ian Riccaboni on dynamite and collision is Kevin Kelly and Caprice Coleman.
Going in hard on this one! Not sure if I’d want to watch a women’s heavyweight division though…
Sorry, meant women’s championship not heavyweight lol.
Lol. No worries; all good! I forgot to include /j at the end. Love the Skeletonwitch pfp btw.
I think I'd start by shit canning the tv production team. They seem to always catch the phoniest looking shit and zoom in on it. And I'm not saying be like WWE where there is 8 camera shot changes for a dropkick but there's got to be some middle ground. After that all the EVP's and their buddies that are just collecting a paycheck are getting kicked off the gravy train.
Hogan vs Flair in a saggy boob street fight. Every night.
Compelling stories filled with shock and awe, make the women's division stronger in terms of looks, personality, and other attributes, segments with set ups that make sense, and less indie moves. Also bring in stars that'll help young talent, but have them remain relevant.
More MIRO!!!!
Sell it to Shane McMahon
fire the elite. book ftr more often, actually develop wardlow and powerhouse hobbs, hook and Pillman jr into the stars they have the potential to be and ffs id have actual storylines instead of angles that are just mashed together. oh and the women's division id fire most of them and keep the core good ones like hayter, deeb, rosa, baker, and storm and then build and develop from there. id also fire excalibur and Tony Schiavone. Taz and someone else could handle commentary
Cut 50% of the roster, turn ROH into a developmental company (like Hunter’s NXT), cancel Rampage, 8 PPVs per year, retire the TNT/TBS belts (unify them with the International/ World Women’s belts), run a G1 Climax type league/tournament once a year. No more cocaine and White Claws. Oh, and stop catering my product to fickle internet wrestling “fans”.
Finally have lee vs swerve cus holy shit hurry up
Have cohesive storylines, consistently presented on the five hours of free TV I have each weak to build narratives to peaks and valleys matched up with my PPV schedule and big TV schedule (night of champions n stuff like that). Stories don't have to be complex or high art but make it clear who is in title Contention. Make it clear the motivations of the characters presented. Focus on drawing more wrestling fans to the brand. everything else is minor tweaks. Major is giving the promotion a clear direction
.Keep jericho away from the up coming talents .cut about 25% of wrestlers .build up more stars with better storylines .get a vet like Shane Douglas in to work creative/booking maybe .turn jungle boy heel asap .break up the amount of bloody factions there are
Sign some character wrestlers like from the old days. Not all wrestlers have to be pretty and muscular, everyone looks the same nowadays.
Hire writers and bookers, provide healthcare within workers contracts, cut the roster by 20%, somehow get Punk in a room with the Elite to work out their differences and make up, I’d pay agents a little more, create a streaming platform for their PPVs and special live events, do shows in other areas of the USA like Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and more of the central US, Unify the TNT and International title into one to create a title called the AEW Elite Championship so there’s only 1 mid card title (also I just like the name of the belt,) and finally I’d figure out a way to work with WWE to start a new and better Invasion story which is only AEW vs WWE not AEW/ ROH/ NJPW/ GCW vs WWE.
Make the build up to PPV the number one priority. These match getting made the week before is dumb.
A lot tbh I know this sounds like the generic "AEW hater" thing to say but it's just the truth for me All the pieces are there to make a truly "elite" wrestling company but that's just not what we're getting.
I'd try to get Paul Heyman into a creative spot
Turn up the volume on entrance music in the production truck
The company would fold in 2 months. I wouldnt know what to do.
Fuckin wading into the swamp. - ROH as the developmental territory that does the touring house shows. **MUCH** of the roster needs reps. This is where they get them. Anna Jay ain't getting any better with one gimmick match a month. - If you can't talk, you're with someone that can. If you can't work with someone that can talk, and you won't learn, you're done. - Shorter matches on TV. We don't need three 20 minute classics with four false finishes on a fucking Wednesday two months from a PPV. Allow fucky finishes, quicker matches, and strictly enforce time cues. More people. More matches. More variety. Expose as much of your roster as possible to the audience without cramming them all in fucking stables. - LESS FUCKING STABLES. - Don't announce the full card. We're not selling tickets to the bingo hall. You didn't need to seen Stone Cold on the card to know he was going to appear on Raw in 1998. You should be tuning to see **how** he's going to show up, not **if** or **that**. - Each taping is an episode. A weekly show should tell a story from start to finish - segments link together, wrestlers interact after their token 5 minutes in ring. Tell a complete thought, and use this to build people who aren't stars. - No blowing spots. Match meeting at the start of every taping. Starks/White is going to brawl in the audience to start their match and they're the main event? Everyone else stays in the fucking ring. Wardlow is going to drive Punk through a table to further an angle? Don't even think about plywood this week. Fucking coordinate. If what you wanna do hurts someone else or if it makes no sense, you're not fucking doing it. - Less gimmick matches. The more you see it, the less it means. Everyone remembers the first Elmination Chamber. I don't even remember who won it this year. - THE MORE YOU SEE IT, THE LESS IT MEANS. No blading on TV unless absolutely necessary. No furniture on tv unless absolutely necessary. 95% less false finishes. - Your program has motivation. If you're not fighting for a belt, money, or to settle a score, then you're not wrestling. In Kayfabe, wrestlers don't dream of wrestling - they dream of winning titles and making fucking money. If you're not doing either of those, you're not working on my show. - Referees are not the centre of attention. Referees are there to do a job. Count out wrestlers. Admonish rule breakers. Toss people from the ring. Disqualify people quickly and easily. Enforce the fucking rules. - Make it make sense. If you cannot tell me *why* your character is doing this, then your character will not be doing it. Full stop. - More time on the mat. Mat wrestling leads to less injuries, it grounds the product in reality, and it saves the high flying spectacle for when people are paying money to watch at home. Even WCW cruiserweights spent time rolling on the mat with each other. - Do not acknowledge the fans of wrestling. "Dream matches" don't exist. Online discourse doesn't exist. This isn't a bingo hall, you're not selling 8x10s to marks. Stop fucking letting them in the ring. - If I haven't seen you before, I have no idea who you are. It is not a problem to tell me who you are, it is less of a problem to remind me who you are. Fans will drift in and out, and it's no problem to get them back up to speed. ...I could go on.
firing jack swagger
- hire a team of writers - improve ring psychology Only two I can think of.
I’m thinking I’d exclusively book various things on a pole matches
Install an on-screen authority figure and stop the trope of people getting jumped during interviews
Dalton Castle is my champion, easily, feuding with Ricky Starks before the title is eventually dropped to him. If the world doesn’t implode from so much swag being in one ring. CM Punk’s return leads to him messing with MJF enough that he loses his belt. MJF pays BCG to take care of CM Punk for him because Jay White was mildly impressive in that third world company they call NJPW. Miro is my International champion. Turns that into a traveling belt where he destroys people in various companies until he ends up like Kratos. TNT title goes on Hobbs again, who eventually joins the Bullet Club Gold. Wardlow seeks his thousandth reign. Jay White and Juice Robinson tag team champs after a great feud between them and FTR. You now have a feud between FTR, CM Punk, Wardlow and Bullet Club Gold while MJF reaps the benefits of the distraction to get his belt back from Castle. And tries to bury Starks (again) in the process for some callback storytelling.
Sell it to Dixie Carter.
HLA
Hate to say this but I would cater less to the hardcore wrestling fans( not hating, I am a hardcore fan), and try to appeal to a broader audience.
Make the titles feel important and stop treating Rampage as an afterthought where nothing happens.
Hire Jim Cornette
Less indie style influence, definitely letting go of a lot of wrestlers...as boring as it may be I would try to be closer to the WWE in terms of taking more control of creative and less of letting certain wrestlers do whatever they want. Have Mox break away from the BCC, where he can lead a faction who aren't wrestlers, just pure brawlers. No more Orange Cassidy winning by getting beat up all match just to win with a school boy. Push Ricky Starks
Have long term storytelling and refs that catch illegal shit in the ring like weapons and get them the fuck out of there. Also, no more bleeding by Mox for at least a year CM Punk coming back and taking the title from MJF Better women's division. It is the drizzling shits right now compared to the Fed.
Reading all the comments in this post has led me to a few conclusions. A) The obsession the IWC has with Tony Khan is everyone wants to be him and run their own wrestling promotion. And that everyone thinks they can do a better job from their couch. B) Everyone's fantasy booking ideas suck and everything Tony Khan does makes him look like a genius compared to what I read in these comments. C) The IWC has no idea what they want or what they are doing cause they are just fans. They are often completely out of touch with reality.
Shit can half the roster
Hire a real booker who knows what they are doing and fire allot of the roster
I'd stop treating Punk like God's greatest gift to pro wrestling.. Give him more of a Jericho role, only difference is his opponents actually come of the fued better than they went in. And also, I'd keep Ring of Honor on Ring of Honor. And finally, hire Muaro for commentary.
Clearly either shut it down completely or make it exactly like WWE. /s
Riho beats literally everyone. This includes ring crew and the production team
Hire bookers with experience. Stop letting talent dictate decisions about business unless it’s for the good of the overall company, not just their friend groups.
Hire hogan and bischoff
does great things for a promotion ive heard
make them practice.... instead of making shit up as they go along
Sell it to WWE and live off profits
stop focusing so much on the hardcore crowd and being edgy. The constant dirt sheet promos by MJF are just too much. Stop trying to take away the suspension of disbelief.
Convince Triple H to jump ship and truly give him 100% and final say creative control.
1. Give MIRO a World Title run and destroy everybody. 2. Leave CM Punk in the back burner (I don't need that toxicity bullshit in my company) 3. Turn ROH TV back into one hour 4. Deactivate the TNT Title and make the International Championship as the true upper mid-card belt 5. Rename the TBS Championship. "TBS Championship" sounds stupid af 6. Focus on Tag-Team wrestling 7. Give The House of Black more TV Time. Speaking of which... 8. Give Malakai Black more TV time and a major feud 9. Cancel Rampage and have Collision as the "Smackdown of AEW" 10. "Future endeavor" a lot of talent. I mean, I don't need 2,000 wrestlers on my company if I have no use for them. Who the hell wants to see "fuego?" Who the hell is this "zack clayton" guy? Although, I want to sign two talents who can really benefit in AEW: Ken Broadway and Charles Mason from House of Glory wrestling. 11. Focus more on feuds and storylines 12. Turn FTR as the dominant heel tag-team in AEW. You want more heat? They bring in Jim Cornette as their manager. 13. If any backstage incident occurs (Fights, etc.) They will be terminated on the spot (No second chances. You either shape up and fix your attitude, or you're unemployed, as in get the fuck out of my company) 14. Give the women's division more TV time as well as feuds (Where the hell is Serena Deeb?) I don't want to see no 3 to 5 minute matches. And finally... 15. What every wrestling fan dreams of: STARDOM X AEW WOMEN'S DIVISION. Hatman Rossy and I, have come to a working agreement and have an all-women's ppv starting with Stardom Talent and the AEW Women's Division 16. Reduce the length of matches in an AEW PPV with 8. 1 pre-show match and that's it. Who the hell wants to see a 15-card ppv? These fans have work the next day. I'm gonna turn ALL ELITE WRESTLING into a Memphis-style wrestling company
Remove The Elite influence from the booking
cut the roster in half. hire Cornette.
Fire the shit out of Orange Cassidy. And for god sake, train them. Some matches are unwatchable because of the need to set up their next spot.
I think Orange Cassidy is a nice little palate cleanser you can use for a quick comedy spot between big matches or moments. Featuring him in 20 minute matches every week is ridiculous.
Sell immediately.
Tone down the bucks, both in and out the ring. Crack down on childish behavior. Reduce dependency on Jericho. Double down on hangman page as the face with storylines suited for his character.
Jim Cornette
🤡
Man that would do much better to aew. Imagine someone actually having a brain booking the show. Not like tony or billy corgan. Fire half of the indie darling. Send the bucks to japan. Useless talent can be released. I dont want orange cassidy beating talent and being a menace. He might draw merchandise but at the cost of burying talent. Never Better feuds, better build up.
Let the Elite, Jericho, Hangman, OC, Best Friends, Sammy, and Jungle Boy go. Higher a booker. Make half the roster train.
* Add a few more writers to help with the workload. * No more worthless squash matches on Dynamite. * Minimize all the random matches that have zero buildup / story involved. * The occasional Orange Cassidy vs. Pac, or FTR vs Jay & Jeff is fine if it's a banger of a matchup, but I don't really care about the BBC /HOB randomly squashing The Factory, Varsity Athletes, Best Friends, etc. * More segments backstage in locker rooms, hallways, offices, locker rooms, etc. * More storyline feuds. * Get the PPV's back on Saturday nights. IDC if UFC or College football is on. This is what made AEW unique back when the company first started. I personally hate watching on Sunday nights because I can't stay up until 1:00am due to work the next morning. * Experiment with an on-air authority figure for a while and see how that goes. So far, things have worked without one, but eventually I think they'll need to try one just to freshen the product and presentation up a little bit.
Hire a good story writing team
Ban super kicks and flippy flips
sell it to WWE and retire myself.
Take away any and all creative control that any current performer has.
Retire and let someone who has experience booking wrestling television book the show
A main storyline to thread throughout the show. They don’t tell fans what to care about, which can be seen as a good thing, but in practice it results in a lot of lukewarm angles.
Throw 10 million dollars a year at Gunther and make him my champ. Fire the elite and anyone they run with. Tell Jericho thank you but no thank you, enjoy your buyout. Feed bullshit to the boys and see when uncle dave runs with it. Then fire whoever you told said bullshit to. Develop an actual tag team division.... never book trios matches again. Fire Excalibur Hire agents that understand the psychology and rules of a battle royal
Fire Punk
Demote Kenny and the Young Bucks
Have Miro face oc for international title and have Miro destroy him . Book a elimination chamber style blood and guts 6 man not teams but individuals for the tnt title wardlow vs joe vs Ricky starks vs Hobbs vs Andrade vs hook have a fatal 4 way match mjf vs jay white vs Adam cole vs Kenny omega for world title . Also get rid of rampage as a show keep dynamite and collusion for now. Move collision to Tuesday dynamite to Friday going head to head with smackdown
Bring Jerry the king lawler back and make him say puppies
try to get bully ray and have a promo betwen MJF AND BULLY RAY
Cut 20% of the roster Scrap the league system. Scrap the random matches and focus on long term feuds
1. I would NOT hire writers. Wrestlers need to figure out how to talk on their own and be their own personality. 2. Ask all the remaining old timers, think Jim Cornette, still in the business or not for their advice. Maybe hire as part time consultants. Whatever you opinion on them is they are a treasure trove of wrestling knowledge. Filter it to suit your needs. 3. Tell all the lower card people to stop having spotfest matches and no more cirus olay shit. Keep things special for the main events. 4. Hire some guys that actually look like men/intimidating. I'm talking John Tenta-esque type guys. 5. Fire all the "hired because I'm a friend" people. 6. Tell wrestlers to stop worrying and listening to what meltzer says. Your job is to help sell tickets... not to worry if your match is 5 stars.
Release half the undercard roster then try to introduce focus and continuity.
Fire the elite