Dec 3, 2020 3:54:21 GMT c said:

Damn... AEW certainly delivered on the hype.

I hope AEW makes Kenny so obnoxious that heels can work face against him.

Make a lot sense for TNA and AEW to have a working relation.  Get enough companies to agree to work together like this can you can mimic the territory system constantly bringing in big names, without having to keep them after the angles.

They started this by having Thunder Rosa on the show almost constantly and I'm holding out hope that Nick Aldis and others will also make appearances. Dark and Powerrr could really really benefit from sharing talent and being free on YouTube.

Now we got Impact in the mix. ROH could join the fold as well, which gets us ever closer to opening The Forbidden Door....

NJPW USA would be fucking amazing if it had a working relationship with these guys.

Dec 3, 2020 2:06:03 GMT CM Punk'd said:

IT'S STING!!!

Sting??




But who side is he on?













Sorry couldn't help myself 

mmmkay I see you wrestling

Why would you want to recreate the territory system? How backwards is that? I can understand back in the day RoH, CZW, etc doing it because they were all in the same boat. AEW is a far bigger company than TNA, and this is a lot more than a talent share. They're going to use their champion to boost ratings on the other show. This is an enormous, ridiculous gamble from Khan who is essentially playing FirePro.

Hey, this is great for the fans, so I'll get that in there before people cry about it, but I really doubt this guy's business sense.

Actually it is genius. Right now AEW has more talent than they can use but they sign people so they do not go off to Japan, back to WWE or simply retire. With TNA, NWA and other feds in the area, now people have a financial incentive to stay around and work multiple shows. So Khan now does not need to sign everyone, only the absolute best. The rest he can offer small short term deals to. Also Khan will likely want a stream of fresh guys he can do short term angles with and not have to book afterwards, so he can draw the best rising guys form these other feds to AEW.

Each fed will have their own exclusive talent, but letting say Kenny work TNA, shows that feds do not have to sign talent exclusively either, which costs more. So Khan likely also saves money this way. Sting, Miro, Jericho, Moxley get exclusive contracts with the option of approved dates elsewhere, but guys like Matt Hardy, Chris Daniels, and others in the future will not need these more costly contracts if feds are not gunning to get everyone signed exclusively. Basically ends the contract arms race.

The side effect of all this is the smaller feds can all likely rise up together, creating more demand overall for wrestling helping everyone generate more profit. Simply put more feds, mean more fans and potential fans. Loaning talent out also means if you cannot book a guy on TV one week due to not having space on a card, he can still get exposure elsewhere.

There really is no downside here outside of the off chance of an injury in another fed taking a guy out of action, but that happens so rarely to book around it would be stupid since it could also happen in your fed.

I'm not against the idea of sharing talent or allowing them a degree of freedom, but this is more than that. It's cross-promotion which is something that benefits companies if they get increased exposure. There is no increased exposure here for AEW. Everybody that watches Impact knows about and likely watches AEW. All you are doing is creating competition in the wrestling industry.

Also, the idea that lapsed fans are going to come crawling out of the woodwork, or that new fans are going to be created, by Kenny Omega appearing on Impact is laughable. I don't get this from an AEW standpoint. But, like I said, tremendous for the hardcore fans that will eat this up.

Orange Cassidy's Superman Punch has to be one of the worst moves on the roster. Britt Baker still does the Sling Blade, so it's not THE worst, but it's close.

Sting is interesting. Dude certainly still has a presence. An aura. Not sure what his role is, though.

Omega vs Moxley definitely had a big match feel, but in my opinion the match failed to deliver. Although it was given 30 minutes of TV time, it still felt like a relatively ordinary match. Couple of cool moments but a bunch of spots that didn't make much sense either or were not executed very well. Last few minutes were cool, and Don Callis/Impact offers some intrigue. Great that Kenny won, but overall a slight disappointment.

Now Moxley's reign feels subpar. He wins against a collection of underqualified competition (except Jericho) and then loses it to the first challenger with real credibility. Let's see where Moxley goes from here.

I actually liked the finish creatively. A big positive of Khan never really running finishes like that is the shock when some shenanigans do actually take place. Callis was great, and the run through the arena and the car speeding off was fantastic. Really exciting stuff. I enjoyed the Sting thing too, he instantly has the 2nd best AEW theme btw.

AEW may have pulled me back in.

Yeah dug the finish a lot as well. I liked the little touch of Kenny needing to use the corner to set up the One Winged Angel.

I'm down for cross promotion, especially if it means getting The North/FTR, would be such a dope match up.

I'm not against the idea of sharing talent or allowing them a degree of freedom, but this is more than that. It's cross-promotion which is something that benefits companies if they get increased exposure. There is no increased exposure here for AEW. Everybody that watches Impact knows about and likely watches AEW. All you are doing is creating competition in the wrestling industry.

I don't mind it in the sense that it's another way for AEW to stand out from the WWE and give their promotion some depth. With a young promotion, it helps to acknowledge the world of Pro Wrestling and even bring in other stars for a big cross-promotion match. There's certainly talent in TNA that's better than a lot of mainstays on the AEW roster, the women's division in particular is very solid.

The issue I have is that you're expecting a lot out of your fans. Not only do you want them to watch your supplemental material which is now close to the three hour market in BTE and Dark, but you want fans to tune into another two hour television show? Is the show even accessible on television? How many people actually tune into a TNA livestream? Aren't we talking 10,000s? It's just time and energy that could be spent better fleshing out your promotion instead of resorting to a cross-promotion storyline that had next to no build. Why should fans care about TNA? Or even Don Callis for that matter? AEW already struggles to get a lot of their talent on the show on a weekly basis, throwing in another promotion isn't going to help solve it.

It's not the worst idea in the world, but there's a level of trepadation about it and I don't trust AEW to make it as compelling as it could be. I think it will be like the Tyson deal where you look back and go 'remember when that happened?' and it didn't go anywhere or do anything to establish their characters.

AEW is playing a dangerous game because roster wise Impact probably has a better one. Impact two main problems is advertising which AEW may help and being on a station most people don't get.

But the twitch version isn't bad if you can get past the host on her $10 webcam.

For all we know, it's a working relationship between two companies bought together due to the relationship between Cyrus, Jericho and Omega. 

Tony Kahn mentioned, the goal was to improve all independent companies in the wake of WWE's monopoly on the business. If you were to really flesh out the idea and nail it - it would be to create a modern territory system ie; champions/top guys working different territories, etc and eventually ALL IN and alike becoming the Wrestlemania style showcase. AEW, Impact, NWA and eventually ROH. 

But everyone has access to everything... how is it in the slightest bit like a territory system? Cross-promotion in territories worked because fans got to see wrestlers they could never see before in their area. If I want to watch any wrestlers in those promotions you named, I can find them in seconds on the internet.

This will not lead to new fans. Nobody watches RoH, NWA or Impact, relative to AEW. I can understand from the smaller promotions point of view, this is great publicity for them. But if I'm head of TNT and Tony Khan runs an angle where Omega appears on Impact but not on Dynamite, I'm asking serious questions.

I'm not trying to shit on fans' enthusiasm for it. I'm excited for it myself.

That main event felt like they were killing time until the finish which is a very disappointing way to finish Moxley’s reign. I’m with Todd, in thinking this is a weird business move for AEW, but as a wrestling fan it’s interesting and exciting.

I think we're overanalyzing the negatives here, as we tend to do. They're really not doing any harm in having Omega appear on Impact on Tuesday because most fans watch the Twitch stream. AEW Dark streams on YouTube on the same night, so all this does is put more eyes on the Twitch stream that many will be watching at the same time in a separate window.

Todd's point about Omega appearing on Impact and not Dynamite is a good one, but that remains to be seen. TNT seems to have a lot of faith in Tony Khan so it might happen, but unless there's a big payoff in the near future (which I doubt), this could very easily blow up in his face if that's the road he's taking. On the flip side though, how many times did Moxley appear on Dynamite as champion between spring and now? He didn't make live appearances every week, and sometimes we didn't even get a video promo from him. If Omega doesn't appear on every episode of Dynamite, well, that's kind of how they do things and we can't really fault them for it since a precedent has been set with Moxley's run.

Overall I love that they have taken this gamble and are working together. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't make sense for one company to try and take on the WWE by themselves. Yeah, Dynamite beats NXT on Wednesdays every now and then, but aside from that, they aren't competitive at all. Why be the 2nd biggest fish in the pond with a bunch of smaller enemies when you could help everyone else get a little bigger and gang up on the biggest fish together?

We're probably getting a little ahead of ourselves. At this point, Callis is going to cut a promo on TNA and it'll likely advance the story they're telling with Omega. Anything else is all just speculation.

What I will say is that I'm happy we didn't have to wait until Revolution for this. I think you were right there with me RT in regards to their Anniversary show and how underwhelming I found it. It was a 'fine' show but it was an incredibly safe show where nothing of any significant consequence took place. This was more like it with the big title change and the shock of the TNA cross-promotion. I don't expect premium television when I watch Pro Wrestling, I just expect an entertaining easy to watch show that helps drive a conversation. Whether it works or not, it's that water cooler discussion that Pro Wrestling needs more of.

As far as Moxley, they've been telling the story for awhile that his days as champion are numbered. Little by little he was falling closer to losing the title and eventually somebody was going to get him. We were just deprived that moment of a truly great wrestler toppling him fair and square, which is where the heat is with Omega.

That's gonna be the story going forward with Moxley too. Omega couldn't beat him fair and square and broke their gentleman's agreement. Moxley will disappear for a little bit then come back seeking revenge, only to find he can't get his hands on Omega or the AEW title. And I don't want to be the guy that he decides to take out his frustrations on.

Also, Moxley is still IWGP United States Champion. We need to be talking about that more, I think. Wrestle Kingdom is in a month. Moxley won the title a year ago and it's been forgotten because of COVID. Is he going to defend it against KENTA? Was Tony Khan being truthful when he said Moxley wouldn't be at Wrestle Kingdom? Is Moxley going to vacate the title for a second time? How is that going to affect him? 2 titles to 0 in 30 days.

What if Moxley was attacked by The Good Brothers as a hit by KENTA? Then Omega steals the title? #4Life