Funnily, if this ridiculousness does pop the ratings, it will be CM Punk who does it.

Guess it is like WWE needing to get a real champ from AEW.

How's the butt today, does it hurt?

I'm shocked the AEW die-hards would be upset that Cody Rhodes went back to WWE and has become their champ, considering they were booing him out of the building while he was there. Shouldn't they be happy he isn't "ruining" AEW television?😂

Imagine having Cody... then losing Cody and then having to watch the last 2 years of WWE as he delivers a HOF worthy run...

Try to save all the anti-AEW/console wars posts for this thread.

Cody was not the right fit for AEW and it would have been to the dentriment of the entire business if Tony kept him under lock and key.

Anyone that isn't happy for Cody is fucking stupid. That's the long and short of it.

There's some truth to it, but I don't think every criticism is in bad faith. When a promotion is hot it generates this positive energy that makes it far more palatable. When business is down it affects everything and we saw that with WCW and TNA. Plenty of talent on both rosters, but it just wasn't connecting.

Everyone gets on Bischoff for being a grifter, but it was the management and the talent that kept comparing themselves to WCW in a favourable light. You can't get upset when you over-promise and under-deliver.

It's almost a " haters gunna hate " type justification for poor performance.

Whether people want to admit it, ratings and attendance are a key performance indicator. Anyone with half a brain understands that.

Even if it doesn't impact how a network or advertiser sees the brand, it measures how many people are watching and are how many people are engaged with the product.

If it's a full house and the ratings are at " CM Punk Returns " levels, it would then suggest the product is... wait for it, good.

If it's more a case of the ratings being terrible and the attendance low, it would indict something isn't working.

The worrying thing is AEW's potential.

They've proven they can draw good numbers. But what they're doing currently is having the opposite effect. And what is even more concerning is, if they fail to keep people interested.. well, maybe in a few years time, AEW isn't necessarily out of business, but simply irrelevant. It's TNA 2.0... but with cash. And it's doing little more than lining the pockets of a lot of guys unwilling to grind in the big leagues, or capable of it.

This was a company that was seeing 900,000 and every now and then, over a million viewers. But... With this past week being the biggest week in wrestling, perhaps ever. A week where everyone should be seeing the spoils of a hot top promotion... Dynamite records 752,000 viewers. By the second half, it was as low as 655,000 having lost viewers during the Will Ospreay match and Edge's promo. Two of the biggest eggs in AEW's basket and 100,000 people stopped watching. If that's not a indicator that something isn't working, and potentially AEW has misread the room and doesn't really understand their audience the way they thought they did, I don't know what is.

I want to see AEW grow it business, because it means the product is good. And if the product is good, that's great for everyone.

For proper context.

Once again, it's a little rich of SRS to justify the segment by arguing ratings and then getting pissy when somebody argues they should just create a more compelling product.

PW is not an SRS board after the way he went after RT.

I still am thinking he gets talked about of it and the Bucks do a total piss take on wrestling journalists with a dramatic reenactment. It is just so like them.

I am waiting to see the segment before judging it.  If they can use it to get Perry over as a new character, it is all worth it for me as they tried for like two or three years to move beyond Jungle Boy and just failed time and time again.

I think TV is the last of their problems. They’re still ranked in the top 3 every week and that’s enough to get them paid. Remember WWE for most of its history also had slowly declining ratings, but they kept on making more money because their decline, like other sports, was slower than the decline of everything else.

Live attendance is their big problem because it hurts perception. They really should ditch the second show. It’ll never happen because money but it hurts AEW as much as the third hour of Raw hurt WWE in the bad days.

Agree totally. Live attendance is becoming a problem. IMO not because of perception, but they make their money off that gate. Moreso merch sales at live events is a major problem. Some big shows get a special shirt, but seen countless pics of people at AEW where the sole merch is like two shirts at a wooden table. Sometimes cannot even buy anything from them. Unreal to me they are not running a full merch booth at every single show.

WBD is more than happy with the success of AEW and pushes them hard in their quarterly reports. Doubt they drop any show as they report the weekly aggregate to shareholders, which they claim is near 4 million in the recent press release.

wbd.com/warner-bros-discovery-claimed-five-nights-of-more-than-a-50-percent-share-of-primetime-cable-viewing-among-adults-during-first-quarter/

Apr 9, 2024 13:16:02 GMT Todd said:

I think TV is the last of their problems. They’re still ranked in the top 3 every week and that’s enough to get them paid. Remember WWE for most of its history also had slowly declining ratings, but they kept on making more money because their decline, like other sports, was slower than the decline of everything else.

Live attendance is their big problem because it hurts perception. They really should ditch the second show. It’ll never happen because money but it hurts AEW as much as the third hour of Raw hurt WWE in the bad days.

The issue is that when the WWE were after that Fox deal, they were able to buck the trend and boost SD's ratings and suckered Fox into that unbelievable deal. Meanwhile AEW are trying to increase their value and the ratings have only gone backwards in recent weeks despite investing heavily on new talent.

They do have MJF coming back so that should help. However outside of pushing Moxley into a more prominent role, they really need somebody to step up.

It's a big test for the Bucks this week. They've clearly hit their ceiling and they're not a big draw at this level - this could pop a rating, but can they sustain it? Also will the segment bomb and tank the rest of the show?

AEW need to get that streaming deal sorted pronto and find a way to package themselves. Whether that means more documentaries, behind the scenes, best of compilations etc. Whatever they can do to sell themselves, but also to promote their product and create a legacy. There's going to come a time in five years where people will talk about how good some obscure segment was and the only reason it's not really appreciated now is because it's always about the next show.

They need to worry less about Meltzer and blow their own horn.

Apr 9, 2024 13:06:41 GMT c said:

I still am thinking he gets talked about of it and the Bucks do a total piss take on wrestling journalists with a dramatic reenactment. It is just so like them.

I am waiting to see the segment before judging it.  If they can use it to get Perry over as a new character, it is all worth it for me as they tried for like two or three years to move beyond Jungle Boy and just failed time and time again.

Just curious, did they set this up on TV or was it just posted on social media? Busy weekend so haven't had a chance to watch Rampage or Collision.

Take it with a grain of salt.

Forbidden Door won’t be held in Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Andrew Zarian reported on his Beyond the Bell podcast that AEW’s annual Forbidden Door event with NJPW won’t be held in the New York City stadium this June. Fightful further reported that this was due to NJPW not wanting to split the costs with AEW when it comes to running the venue. However, Rocky Romero on X denied Fightful’s claim.

Apr 12, 2024 20:57:59 GMT c said:

Tony Schiavone saying contrary to what many are saying online, he was reacting in character on TV the way he always does to the Buck's nonsense and is in no way upset at AEW.

That's it Tony, big smile.

Apr 12, 2024 21:26:59 GMT NATH45 said:

Apr 12, 2024 20:57:59 GMT c said:

Tony Schiavone saying contrary to what many are saying online, he was reacting in character on TV the way he always does to the Buck's nonsense and is in no way upset at AEW.

That's it Tony, big smile.

I think it’s funny that the narrative for years was that Tony Khan is a pushover bitch then the second AEW staff started speaking their mind and saying things that didn’t fit the anti-AEW narrative it switched to “actually Tony Khan has a spine and is making them do this, I have never once said otherwise.”

The narrative is whatever they want it to be. Cornette and Bischoff will say whatever get them the most cash from people who watch wrestling to hate something. That is all they really have anymore, their small communities of miserable people who just want to see others suffer. The very people who trashed Punk just as little as two years ago now hold him up as a hero since they can use him to trash AEW.

I do love this did expose a gamergate like situation forming in pro-wrestling though and how much people are screaming that it is different and the hatred being shown is totally justified this.

A lot of the stupid bullshit on this forum regarding AEW is caused by two people with polar opposite views. If you cut that out, I think the general discourse on here is mostly fair.

When someone's consistency with the truth improves, and he's more aligned with reality, then I'll happily move on.

This week was a massive fumble by AEW, any defence here is null and void. They look like absolute idiots right now.

Shifting narratives first, then MAGA, now Cornette and Bischoff - it's not a minority or the right wing coming after AEW - it's almost universally accepted now that Tony and The Bucks came off looking like idiots.

You mean like Tony thinking he was back in WCW for being in character, Will and Bucks not wanting to do their promos when both were their ideas, Hook willing to hear an offer from WWE or AEW dying now?

I think I've said it a number of times in one way, shape or form, alluding to The Bucks and Will being just as much, if equally responsible for the bullshit this week as Tony is.

This is a company founded on spite, you can check my posts from 2019/2020 to confirm that.. I've been saying this for 4 years now, that this company is full of spiteful little boys and it was evident this past week, more so than ever before.

And AEW will never die, I've rarely said that. It will run as long as Papi Khan wants to keep putting money into it. It will fade into irrelevancy eventually if they don't fix a number of issues, continually plaguing AEW. Like, a lack of leadership.

Apr 12, 2024 23:40:39 GMT c said:

The narrative is whatever they want it to be. Cornette and Bischoff will say whatever get them the most cash from people who watch wrestling to hate something. That is all they really have anymore, their small communities of miserable people who just want to see others suffer. The very people who trashed Punk just as little as two years ago now hold him up as a hero since they can use him to trash AEW.

I do love this did expose a gamergate like situation forming in pro-wrestling though and how much people are screaming that it is different and the hatred being shown is totally justified this.

If you spend time to tell what is wrong with things and suggest ways you could change things you care about it somewhat. In the early days of AEW, when more people were watching some people who gave criticisms got shut down fast on other platform with they are new give them a chance. And most sites gave them a pass on a lot of their bad ideas. Cornette didn't suddenly hope on the hate bandwagon been saying most of the issues day one. Has people there he likes and some he doesn't. But he definitely cares less about them now. He run through it pretty fast because seem more bored with it lately.

The AEW tribalism is real.

It has been since day one. The AEW tragics on the socials are often obsessed to the point of hysterical blindness.

In 2018 when things were cooking for The Elite and then in 2019 when AEW launched, I agree wrestling needed fixing. WWE sucked. It was painful. It was like watching the same circus every week without any hint of reality. It didn't feel remotely real or genuine. Just terrible stuff.

But here's the thing, someone at WWE listened as things changed and they're better for it in 2024.

AEW fans believe AEW can do no wrong, because that's the mentality of the company figure heads. Despite all the evidence to suggest they're going backwards, ie; ratings, attendance, public perception, etc.

Most hardcore WWE marks will still point out its flaws today and happily make fun of them. But the AEW tragics can't and won't acknowledge any criticism of AEW to the point of ridiculousness. I've seen AEW marks getting trolled with the minimal of bait on socials, and the responses are akin to Charlie Kirk parking his lawn chair on the grass next to a pro-trans rally - absolute meltdowns.

And then you get guys like me - piss taking assholes, and it's a recipe for hilariousness, or disaster, but we don't care, because we think we're funny.

Apr 13, 2024 13:02:30 GMT NATH45 said:

The AEW tribalism is real.

It has been since day one. The AEW tragics on the socials are often obsessed to the point of hysterical blindness.

In 2018 when things were cooking for The Elite and then in 2019 when AEW launched, I agree wrestling needed fixing. WWE sucked. It was painful. It was like watching the same circus every week without any hint of reality. It didn't feel remotely real or genuine. Just terrible stuff.

But here's the thing, someone at WWE listened as things changed and they're better for it in 2024.

AEW fans believe AEW can do no wrong, because that's the mentality of the company figure heads. Despite all the evidence to suggest they're going backwards, ie; ratings, attendance, public perception, etc.

Most hardcore WWE marks will still point out its flaws today and happily make fun of them. But the AEW tragics can't and won't acknowledge any criticism of AEW to the point of ridiculousness. I've seen AEW marks getting trolled with the minimal of bait on socials, and the responses are akin to Charlie Kirk parking his lawn chair on the grass next to a pro-trans rally - absolute meltdowns.

And then you get guys like me - piss taking assholes, and it's a recipe for hilariousness, or disaster, but we don't care, because we think we're funny.

That's part of what makes the tribalism of AEW funny. 30 years ago, Meltzer called out Herb Abrams' UWF as being a terrible company. But now, we get "Abrams' UWF with money" (sorry Bully Ray, it's not ECW with money, since Khan doesn't have the creative and booking abilities of Heyman), and Meltzer and the AEW fans prop it up as the greatest wrestling ever, as though it's viewership and attendance aren't dropping year after year.

Had to delete some posts in this forum because it contained spoilers from the NJPW show. The main event result has been ruined for like the only guy on here that goes out of his way to avoid spoilers because he watches every major NJPW show.

Can we continue this argument without ruining people’s days please? I don’t care if you guys argue but I don’t want to have to start actually doing my job as a mod. I’m lazy.

This might be the most Canadian answer of all-time.

I was just coming to post that Big Pete

This is why fighting still exists in hockey. Omega basically summed up the reason. :lol:

I particularly liked the last minute or so where he basically says him and Punk were never on bad terms, he believes they could have worked things out if it weren’t for Ace Steel, and he doesn’t like airing grievances and fights publicly.

Omega has always been the more level-headed EVP and now I have to wonder if any of this week would have happened if he was there. He certainly doesn’t seem to agree with airing the footage. At least that’s my take on what he said.