Kenny's story isn't clear and on first listen (back when the interview premiered) led me to believe 'the boss' was Tony Khan. If you were doing rehearsals, why wouldn't the pyro guy be present? Also why would Jerry Lynn care so much about the feelings of the pyro guy?

Maturity. Professionalism. Self awareness.

These are just a few of the things Tony Khan needs to find to be successful.

He's like Frankie Muniz and racing cars. The money got him there and the money will keep him there. As Punk said, AEW will exist as long as the money keeps getting pumped into it.

Ratings a few weeks ago were 16% down on the previous year and this episode included new signees Will & Banks making appearances. Attendance is down, interest is down. Hoots are not given anymore.

Punk is the least of AEW's concerns, right now, because we've heard bullshit before. If The Hardys leave, Matts going to talk. He'll talk all year long if you let him. And it won't be good. And it will further highlight the issues with AEW.

What's TK going to do, throw a NDA into every contract and specify you can't talk about your experience in AEW once you leave... because that's what it's going to take eventually.

Apr 2, 2024 16:46:51 GMT Big Pete said:

Kenny's story isn't clear and on first listen (back when the interview premiered) led me to believe 'the boss' was Tony Khan. If you were doing rehearsals, why wouldn't the pyro guy be present? Also why would Jerry Lynn care so much about the feelings of the pyro guy?

He meant the boss of the pyrotechnics company they hired.  Tony in an interview said they were so enraged at the incompentants of the boss he refused to pay them.  Different interviews Kenny said it looked good in rehearsal, but the last minute change gave you what we saw on TV.

For Lynn seemed like he thought Kenny would come to blows with the guy.  In other feds there would have fist thrown if you embarrassed someone that badly on a major event.  Tony made it seem like people were pissed off backstage when it happened.

Apr 2, 2024 23:32:45 GMT c said:

Apr 2, 2024 16:46:51 GMT Big Pete said:

Kenny's story isn't clear and on first listen (back when the interview premiered) led me to believe 'the boss' was Tony Khan. If you were doing rehearsals, why wouldn't the pyro guy be present? Also why would Jerry Lynn care so much about the feelings of the pyro guy?

He meant the boss of the pyrotechnics company they hired.  Tony in an interview said they were so enraged at the incompentants of the boss he refused to pay them.  Different interviews Kenny said it looked good in rehearsal, but the last minute change gave you what we saw on TV.

For Lynn seemed like he thought Kenny would come to blows with the guy.  In other feds there would have fist thrown if you embarrassed someone that badly on a major event.  Tony made it seem like people were pissed off backstage when it happened.

I can see that interpretation as well, but it's not really made clear and it's odd that Kenny ommitted Tony from the fall-out of the match.

Regardless, I think the point Todd was making was how unprofessional Tony came off when discussing the incident.

"I'll never let the non-wrestling people...I was trying to be too safe and I let the professionals handle the stuff and they are guys who don't understand wrestling. A professional pyrotechnic guy. They totally shit the bed. I ended up not paying them. It was like $100,000 they ended up refunding for all the expenses of the match. I ended up not paying for the (exploding) barbed wire deathmatch, which I shouldn't have. They screwed up royally. We put together something great. Kenny and Jon worked their asses off and all they had to do was set up the final explosion. This is because we used professional pyrotechnic people who are supposed to know. The next time we do this, and I will do it again because the match drew. Everything Jon and Kenny did up until that point was outstanding, it wasn't their fault it didn't go off. Long story short, it was a long time ago and we've bounced back since then. That was three months ago and everything has been pretty perfect and couldn't have gone much better. I was really grateful that the next pay-per-view was up and did a big number," he said.

No accountability, even reading that he comes across incredibly scatterbrained.

" I'll never let the non-wrestling people... " said Tony Khan, a man who bought his way into the business and who's experience as a booker is limited to fantasy booking on a message board and who's experience as a businessman is having a rich father.

Apr 3, 2024 8:24:47 GMT NATH45 said:

" I'll never let the non-wrestling people... " said Tony Khan, a man who bought his way into the business and who's experience as a booker is limited to fantasy booking on a message board and who's experience as a businessman is having a rich father.

People love to shit on Tony for this, but most bookers are just fans who had the means to start feds with no in ring experience. Some get in with other roles, some have limited wrestling experience, but few actually are straight out wrestlers.

The key is that they had some background in Pro Wrestling prior to becoming bookers and owners typically delegated the booking to others.

Tony is an outsider and it shows which is why he's criticised for booking his shows like EWR.

Most bookers have no locker room level experience. They start like Cornette did doing mark jobs like photography or working for free to help set-up shows.

People give Tony shit but he did not start the fed alone either, and had a ton of experience people around giving him advice.

His shows are booked no different than any other indy show either. The main complaint really is he is not booking WWE style shows.

By the time they have the book they have plenty of experience. Guys like Gedo, Excalibur, D'Amore don't immediately make themselves the booker after only being in the industry for a few months.

The main complaint is how scatterbrained his booking is, how nothing is properly paced, how segments are often over-booked and talent will just disappear right as they're getting over. That's largely because Tony does book like WWE where he favours certain individuals and works down the card. The main difference between Tony, the WWE or any promotion is that Tony hates jobbing his guys and will pull belts out of his ass or even make a new television show just to avoid conflict.

Apr 3, 2024 13:16:52 GMT Big Pete said:

By the time they have the book they have plenty of experience. Guys like Gedo, Excalibur, D'Amore don't immediately make themselves the booker after only being in the industry for a few months.

The main complaint is how scatterbrained his booking is, how nothing is properly paced, how segments are often over-booked and talent will just disappear right as they're getting over. That's largely because Tony does book like WWE where he favours certain individuals and works down the card. The main difference between Tony, the WWE or any promotion is that Tony hates jobbing his guys and will pull belts out of his ass or even make a new television show just to avoid conflict.

Not to mention that when said talent disappears or gets forgotten about, there is zero explanation, and you basically have to be an internet detective to figure out why they aren't on TV after being pushed for 3 weeks. WWE does a much better job of cycling their talent, utilizing their mid/lower card wrestlers, and will almost always provide an explanation for a disappearance, whether its kayfabe or not.

It's incredibly frustrating as a viewer when someone gets injured or takes time off or creative runs out of ideas, and that person is just gone. In the indies that doesn't matter because you aren't booking multiple weekly episodes of TV. It doesn't affect the live show being put on that day and there are rarely long-term storylines happening at indie shows. It matters when you want to be the WWE alternative and provide weekly entertainment. For some reason Tony hasn't grasped that and the drop in ratings is a direct result of that.

Will Ospreay vs. Katsuyori Shibata last week should have been a dead giveaway. Shibata got zero reaction from the crowd and that match actually had people changing the channel. THAT WAS YOUR OPENING MATCH. You're 5 minutes into an episode and you're losing viewers because most people watching at home don't know who the fuck these guys are, and you haven't given them a reason to want to know or care. If that wasn't the wake up call that is going to push booking in a more entertainment-based direction then I don't know what will be.

Curious why people believe Cody and the Elite were not booking the first year or so of AEW. People now keep saying Tony was the main booker from the start but that was never try. And was why the first shows felt like three different products mashed together.

Tony has his odd quirks but every booker does. Tony does not do long form storytelling well, but you get great matches on TV. WWE does the opposite, you get great storytelling, but almost no wrestling worth watching on TV itself as every match worth watching is held for PPVs with most TV matches being ultimately meaningless or merely to set up the PPV matches. 

And people consider that what Tony should strive for, ultimate a skippable TV product altogether that is just in ring promos or actions that setup PPV matches with stories that can be easily reduced to a single video package summarizing six weeks of events.  Sure Tony can do better promoting stuff, with packages and commentary pushing it, but he should not move to a style where everything worth watching only happens on the PPVs.

That would explain why the first year of AEW was so good.

I seem to remember more people being upset that people like Janela, Havoc or Marko Stunt were on TV than complain about the booking now. PAC being tied up with Chuck Taylor and Trent was also not liked by most. Then the same five or so people doing basically round robin matches against each other got old fast. This was all before people grew tired of the Cody show and the Black debut fell absolutely flat.

Apr 3, 2024 14:12:18 GMT c said:

Curious why people believe Cody and the Elite were not booking the first year or so of AEW. People now keep saying Tony was the main booker from the start but that was never try. And was why the first shows felt like three different products mashed together.

Technically you're right The EVPs were responsible for 2019, but Dynamite had only been running for a few months when that Dark Order segment hit and after tanking the fall-out saw Tony take over booking.

The issue with the early Dynamite episodes is that The Elite didn't want to be accused of being a vanity act so they booked themselves to lose and diminished their star quality. Considering how thin the roster was, they couldn't afford to have their biggest stars go through a form slump.

The show improved and that lead into Revolution 2020 was a highlight for the company. However they couldn't maintain that consistensy and the show has struggled to find it's footing ever since. The only time they were able to surpass it was when they signed the holy trinity of Punk, Danielson, Cole and we all saw how that played out.

That would explain why the first year of AEW was so good.

Having a year to map everything out helped as well. They largely knew who the core guys were, which guys were going to be pushed and who was going to be coming in from the WWE. So even with the pandemic dragging everything out, you knew Hangman would face off against Omega and AEW would have had their first certified guy who came to their company and became a star.

I always remember a quote Vince gave at one of the investment meetings where he pondered where AEW's talent was going to come from and then said that we could give them some more. Then the WWE really started to thin out their roster and that's when the AEW roster started becoming bloated and certain acts weren't used to their full potential. Clearly they didn't have the time to road-map their runs and think about the direction of the company like they did with that initial year of Dynamite.

Suggesting AEW fans " want great wrestling " is such a cop out.

Ratings (which are horrible... 16% down on last year for Dynamite the previous week.. ) and attendance (because they're horrible too) are down on previous years. So if hypothetically, they're delivering great wrestling... no one cares for it. Or where is it? I'm not seeing it.

But is the wrestling in AEW better than WWE though?

As an overall product end to end, from the start of the show until the main event, the WWE's in ring product is much more consistent, in fact it's better.

You can take a throw away match like JD v Ricochet, and it's better than 95% of all matches in AEW over the last 12 months. Including some of AEW main events.

Here's the thing with comparing the two companies, there's a magnitude of WWE guys who could do what AEW's finest do, and could do it better. Every time. Hands down. No doubts about it.

But there's very few guys in AEW who could do what the top WWE guys do.

Watch the crowd on RAW this past week, unless you're an empty headed fuck, there's absolutely no grounds to argue you'd rather " see great wrestling " over whatever put a 15,500 sell out crowd into that arena, eating sports entertainment up by the spoonful.

Even loyalists are fading away from the product, which is the one thing AEW had. Comb through the social media comments, there's not a lot of positivity towards AEW these days.

Apr 3, 2024 21:55:25 GMT NATH45 said:

Suggesting AEW fans " want great wrestling " is such a cop out.

Ratings (which are horrible... 16% down on last year for Dynamite the previous week.. ) and attendance (because they're horrible too) are down on previous years. So if hypothetically, they're delivering great wrestling... no one cares for it. Or where is it? I'm not seeing it.

This is certainly true.

Apr 3, 2024 21:55:25 GMT NATH45 said:

You can take a throw away match like JD v Ricochet, and it's better than 95% of all matches in AEW over the last 12 months. Including some of AEW main events.

This is certainly not true.

The core difference between WWE and AEW is that WWE primarily does builds on talking. AEW is more wrestling-focused. And that's fine. AEW isn't perfect, and WWE is obviously more successful, but all the naysayers are just saying that AEW should be WWE. Does AEW want to be WWE? I doubt it. What AEW does want to be is a separate question.

Ask anyone for their Mount Rushmore.

Hogan, Flair, Savage, Undertaker, Andre, Rock, Austin, Cena, etc.

What do all these guys have in common... they're all as far from Bret Hart, or Dean Malenko or Bryan Danielson as it gets.

Professional Wrestling, yes, Professional Wrestling is more than just the wrestling. It's context and motive and storytelling and emotion and everything that encompasses the psychology of the match.

Anyone who books or works, or watches purely for workrate is missing the point of Professional Wrestling.

Workrate is important, before the strawmen get emotional and try to suggest, I'm suggesting it's not. But it's only one part of the equation of what makes a great Professional Wrestler.

So, if you want to build a company around workrate as a justification for a lack of context, build, emotion and investment, then maybe this time next year the crowd size is 3,000 instead of the reported recently 4,000. And the ratings, 700,000 instead of the current 800,000. Don't expect engagement.

You have to give people a reason to invest in the product, no matter what genre you're pretending to play in.

Apr 3, 2024 22:24:27 GMT Emperor said:

Apr 3, 2024 21:55:25 GMT NATH45 said:

Suggesting AEW fans " want great wrestling " is such a cop out.

Ratings (which are horrible... 16% down on last year for Dynamite the previous week.. ) and attendance (because they're horrible too) are down on previous years. So if hypothetically, they're delivering great wrestling... no one cares for it. Or where is it? I'm not seeing it.

This is certainly true.

Apr 3, 2024 21:55:25 GMT NATH45 said:

You can take a throw away match like JD v Ricochet, and it's better than 95% of all matches in AEW over the last 12 months. Including some of AEW main events.

This is certainly not true.

The core difference between WWE and AEW is that WWE primarily does builds on talking. AEW is more wrestling-focused. And that's fine. AEW isn't perfect, and WWE is obviously more successful, but all the naysayers are just saying that AEW should be WWE. Does AEW want to be WWE? I doubt it. What AEW does want to be is a separate question.

I would worry that AEW has hit its cap if this is all it’s ever going to offer. At what point will the contracted talent ever be more talented at wrestling than it is now? We’ve seen the best AEW: pro wrestling based storylines has to offer and the fans are slowly tuning out. Meanwhile talking based storylines on its competitor is exploding. I don’t know anyone who has the capability of being the best, would willingly make decisions that would prevent them from ever being anything more than the second best.

Got to love the irony of people who do not watch WWE TV weekly telling people who do watch AEW TV weekly that the AEW TV product is not worth watching while the WWE TV one is.

Like AEW we do party threads.  Some weeks Raw or Smackdown airs and no one posts about it.

Apr 4, 2024 0:55:54 GMT NATH45 said:

Ask anyone for their Mount Rushmore.

Hogan, Flair, Savage, Undertaker, Andre, Rock, Austin, Cena, etc.

What do all these guys have in common... they're all as far from Bret Hart, or Dean Malenko or Bryan Danielson as it gets.

Bret Hart is 1000% on my Mount Rushmore, and I can safely say that he would be on a lot of other ones too.

He wasn't only dripping with natural charisma, he showed that being a technical wrestler can be entertaining as hell. He's your favourite wrestler's favourite wrestler.

There's a reason why CM Punk & FTR called themselves The Sons of The Hitman before Punk broke his foot and all hell broke loose.

Being focused on good wrestling is not AEW's problem and you're crazy if you think it is. Their problem is that they focus on good wrestling without giving the general audience a reason to care. Us nerds that post on discussion boards and have been watching religiously for 30+ years are going to be there when we know two good wrestlers are squaring off. The rest couldn't give less of a shit, which was my point in my last post about Ospreay/Shibata.

Yeah, we all know that match will probably be good. But someone that doesn't know who they are and has never watched or cared about a single NJPW match isn't going to tune in unless you give them a reason to. That is the problem.

I watch both and you do you, man. You watch what you want to watch; it’s not for me to tell you what you should watch. I would say that the spirit of what Nath and I posted wasn’t “stop watching AEW and start watching WWE.” It was more: if AEW doesn’t become more like WWE, you’ll probably find yourself in a smaller group of people who watch it because it’s trending downward.

Apr 4, 2024 2:29:22 GMT RT said:

Apr 4, 2024 0:55:54 GMT NATH45 said:

Ask anyone for their Mount Rushmore.

Hogan, Flair, Savage, Undertaker, Andre, Rock, Austin, Cena, etc.

What do all these guys have in common... they're all as far from Bret Hart, or Dean Malenko or Bryan Danielson as it gets.

Bret Hart is 1000% on my Mount Rushmore, and I can safely say that he would be on a lot of other ones too.

Beat me to it. I meant to post on this before getting distracted with power ballad posting. Bret wouldn't be on my Mt. Rushmore but I'm sure others in History of Wrestling on this very forum would place him on theirs.

There are also fans, mostly younger, who would have Danielson on their Mt. Rushmore. You don't have to agree, but these people do exist.

Apr 4, 2024 2:22:10 GMT c said:

Got to love the irony of people who do not watch WWE TV weekly telling people who do watch AEW TV weekly that the AEW TV product is not worth watching while the WWE TV one is.

Like AEW we do party threads.  Some weeks Raw or Smackdown airs and no one posts about it.

I watch Raw/Smackdown every week with my wife and kid. I’m not sacrificing my time with them to post on here. Lol.

I don’t even care about any of this tribalism bullshit but to say someone is not watching the shows because they aren’t posting nonstop on here is misguided.

Apr 4, 2024 2:29:22 GMT RT said:

Apr 4, 2024 0:55:54 GMT NATH45 said:

Ask anyone for their Mount Rushmore.

Hogan, Flair, Savage, Undertaker, Andre, Rock, Austin, Cena, etc.

What do all these guys have in common... they're all as far from Bret Hart, or Dean Malenko or Bryan Danielson as it gets.

Bret Hart is 1000% on my Mount Rushmore, and I can safely say that he would be on a lot of other ones too.

He wasn't only dripping with natural charisma, he showed that being a technical wrestler can be entertaining as hell. He's your favourite wrestler's favourite wrestler.

There's a reason why CM Punk & FTR called themselves The Sons of The Hitman before Punk broke his foot and all hell broke loose.

Being focused on good wrestling is not AEW's problem and you're crazy if you think it is. Their problem is that they focus on good wrestling without giving the general audience a reason to care. Us nerds that post on discussion boards and have been watching religiously for 30+ years are going to be there when we know two good wrestlers are squaring off. The rest couldn't give less of a shit, which was my point in my last post about Ospreay/Shibata.

Yeah, we all know that match will probably be good. But someone that doesn't know who they are and has never watched or cared about a single NJPW match isn't going to tune in unless you give them a reason to. That is the problem.

I like this post. Hart was my favorite wrestler for most of the 90’s but it wasn’t because he was a good wrestler. He was in my favorite stories: Yokozuna > Owen > Lawler. And then later his Hart Foundation Canada stuff. WWE was able to capitalize on two different fans with him: those like me who live good stories and character. And those like RT who love good wrestling. Same with Daniel Bryan WMXXX.

Apr 4, 2024 2:38:28 GMT @theshow said:

Apr 4, 2024 2:22:10 GMT c said:

Got to love the irony of people who do not watch WWE TV weekly telling people who do watch AEW TV weekly that the AEW TV product is not worth watching while the WWE TV one is.

Like AEW we do party threads.  Some weeks Raw or Smackdown airs and no one posts about it.

I watch Raw/Smackdown every week with my wife and kid. I’m not sacrificing my time with them to post on here. Lol.

I don’t even care about any of this tribalism bullshit but to say someone is not watching the shows because they aren’t posting nonstop on here is misguided.

I’m too busy acknowledging my tribal chief. I can’t type on my phone with one finger in the air.

Apr 4, 2024 2:41:01 GMT jTjohncenaGOAT said:

Apr 4, 2024 2:38:28 GMT @theshow said:

I watch Raw/Smackdown every week with my wife and kid. I’m not sacrificing my time with them to post on here. Lol.

I don’t even care about any of this tribalism bullshit but to say someone is not watching the shows because they aren’t posting nonstop on here is misguided.

I’m too busy acknowledging my tribal chief. I can’t type on my phone with one finger in the air.

I have this problem too. It happens automatically. Like I don't even want Roman to be champ anymore and I've been over him for a while but when his music hits my arm just slowly raises to the sky against my will. It's weird.

Apr 4, 2024 2:22:10 GMT c said:

Got to love the irony of people who do not watch WWE TV weekly telling people who do watch AEW TV weekly that the AEW TV product is not worth watching while the WWE TV one is.

Like AEW we do party threads.  Some weeks Raw or Smackdown airs and no one posts about it.

It's the same play in every thread - question the credibility of your opponent, and therefore they can't speak on the subject.

You can be an alternative all you want to WWE, but at the end of the day whether you're booking a MMA type show, a hardcore show, a lucha show, or whatever TK is doing, it is Professional Wrestling at the end of the day.

So, you can be the alternative and distance yourself as much as you want from WWE because it ain't " cool ".... apparently, but you'd be an absolute idiot to go completely against the WWE grain, when they're hotter than anyone else in Professional Wrestling right now.

Smug AEW fans were pulling their dicks a few months ago because Daniel Bryan was asked, while in WWE to watch AEW and tell the brass what they're missing in WWE. You want to truth, AEW should be looking at WWE and asking, why did they sell out 13 weeks in a row, set an attendance record for RAW and seem to be the hottest they've been in 2 decades... while AEW can't sell 4,000 tickets in Quebec while the March 27 episode of Dynamite barely drew 747k viewers? That's 200k less than the same week, last year.

So, if AEW is so great, why are people actively tuning out?

Apr 4, 2024 2:22:10 GMT c said:

Got to love the irony of people who do not watch WWE TV weekly telling people who do watch AEW TV weekly that the AEW TV product is not worth watching while the WWE TV one is.

Like AEW we do party threads.  Some weeks Raw or Smackdown airs and no one posts about it.

Friendship ended with Nielsen. PW forum party thread participants is my new friend.

People aren't saying AEW needs to copy WWE. They are saying AEW needs to use good storytelling which WWE uses but doesn't have a monopoly on. It in every form usually introduce your characters, create conflict, have some rises and falls with a climax at the end. The early days were definitely a few flavors mixed in Cody stuff (Codyverse), Jericho stuff (main event), Buck stuff (tag), Omega (womens), and probably Tony stuff everything else. So a little something for everyone.

While I know some people love long matches. Having everyone go about 20 minutes isn't fun probably for most people. Sometimes a fast dominating win against a high level opponent creates more excitement. Like if you wanto to compare to other combat sports when most popular the other care is where you say the technical long matches. The main event people wanted usually short matches with a lot of trash talk beforehand to build up hype. That not just WWE, that was boxing and mma in their glory days. Ospreay vs. Fletcher great match but should it have happened the way it did for as long as it did. People who already knew him knew it would be a good match. But people who he is being introduce to are thinking why is it taking so long for a new babyface to be a person who normally loses.