Twice it’s been in that slot and pulled below 500k. Either it’s a bad slot or they’re suffering because it’s been moved around. It’s a disappointment either way, especially with the main event that was advertised.

Apr 18, 2022 9:48:32 GMT Todd said:

Well, well, Bryan Alvarez has just gone off on the toxicity of AEW’s fanbase. Interested to see people's thoughts on this because this has been my number one bugbear with the company for the longest time, being unable to criticize anything they do without qualifying ‘I love AEW but’. Even Alvarez does it in his rant.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just incomplete. I've seen WWE fans that hate AEW because it's NOT WWE. There are shitty fans on both sides of the street. I love AEW but I can't stand Meltzer or The Young Bucks. There are many different kinds of fans. Twitter represents a small fraction of any fanbase.

Apr 18, 2022 21:39:47 GMT Todd said:

Twice it’s been in that slot and pulled below 500k. Either it’s a bad slot or they’re suffering because it’s been moved around. It’s a disappointment either way, especially with the main event that was advertised.

There's gotta be something influencing this number, as to why less than 500,000 households are watching.

AEW has an engaged fanbase, so why is Dynamite pulling the million, and Rampage not? We've previously established both TNT and TBS are available in 85+% of households.

The ratings don't matter, is what they say. It's the demo. WWE has been hitting 0.5 and 0.6 recently, over doubling Rampage's viewership in the key demo.

So, is the quick and rapid, zero build booking not engaging the audience? How invested are fans in Adam Page v Adam Cole if the moneyshot has already been blown within a month?

I always loved the metal shit. The smaller the band the more the gatekeeping. Meanwhile go see Ozzy and the former Hell's Angels would pass you whatever you they are smoking just to be polite. Not sure if you ever got into hardcore, but it was far, far worse with shows in the 90's in the NYC area being likely to have two bands play before the Dock Martian Skins and Youth Code would turn the shows into riots. Like what the fuck, you assholes fighting means no one gets to see Agnostic Front on their reunion show dicks.

This shit was every single fucking show in CT with these guys.

That's such a disappointing rating. I can appreciate the attempt to make Rampage more alluring but the longer it goes on the show just seems beyond saving as a television brand. Ordinarily an extra hour of television wouldn't hurt but the issue is that Dynamite often suffers because they have to dedicate a handful of segments to promote the show and they're usually the weakest parts of the show.

I don't think it helps Hangman at all. His biggest issue as champion is how often he gets over-shadowed on the show and only half the regular audience actually saw him put an end to a 5 month program which was a continuation of Hangman's long-term storyline.

Personally, Hangman Page shouldn't be World Champion.

He'd make a great TNT Champion - a worker's worker, similarly to the IC work-horses of previous generations. But he ain't putting asses in seats. 

I have mixed feelings on Page as champion.

I wrote a revisionist post over in one of pi's What If threads that had the championship go from Omega --> Danielson but I understand the intention behind Hangman's title push. He's somebody who got his first superstar push in AEW and it's important to present your own home-grown talent as stars otherwise you run the risk of being a Reject Promotion (which is a concern fans have of AEW's hiring process of late). He's over with that audience and benefits more from carrying the title - meanwhile Punk and Danielson really don't need it right now.

What AEW needs to do is come up with another major angle. They've been telling the Hangman/Elite storyline for nearly 3 years now, it's time for the next chapter. The thing is they've been pushing a lot of these acts like House of Black and The Blackpool Combat Club but we haven't really had that catalyst yet that sparks a major feud. They also need to come up with something better than...

Can I help you X-zero ?!!! -_- Can't you see I'm writing a post? Oh you want to go? How about we go to Pittsburgh and settle this!

Apr 19, 2022 12:04:17 GMT Big Pete said:

I have mixed feelings on Page as champion.

I wrote a revisionist post over in one of pi's What If threads that had the championship go from Omega --> Danielson but I understand the intention behind Hangman's title push. He's somebody who got his first superstar push in AEW and it's important to present your own home-grown talent as stars otherwise you run the risk of being a Reject Promotion (which is a concern fans have of AEW's hiring process of late). He's over with that audience and benefits more from carrying the title - meanwhile Punk and Danielson really don't need it right now.

What AEW needs to do is come up with another major angle. They've been telling the Hangman/Elite storyline for nearly 3 years now, it's time for the next chapter. The thing is they've been pushing a lot of these acts like House of Black and The Blackpool Combat Club but we haven't really had that catalyst yet that sparks a major feud. They also need to come up with something better than...

Can I help you X-zero ?!!! -_- Can't you see I'm writing a post? Oh you want to go? How about we go to Pittsburgh and settle this!

And since we are in Pittsburgh why don't we make it a Pittsburgh Pool Hall match?

There's a lot of quick " wouldn't it be cool, if... " booking.

You're telling me you couldn't build Samoa Joe v Minoru Suzuki over the course of 6 weeks or so. As good of a match, or any match has the potential to be.. you still need to engage the audience, and seek their investment.

Following up on Alvarez' rant...

They actually did have Danhausen interrupt Hook and explain his gimmick on Rampage on the April Fools edition of Rampage. He basically gave a quick summary which was as follows:

- Very nice, very evil (but he's never said it!!! - Alvarez)
- Here to take over the airwaves, take over the humans and make lots of moneys
- He's also going to curse all your favourite wrestlers

He's explained everything there needs to be explained about the character.

So there's two problems here...

To beat a dead horse it happened on Rampage and we've established half the audience doesn't watch the show. Apparently Alvarez was pretty poor at his job in this situation considering it's his job to watch the show and report on it to his listener base.

The whole 'curse' gimmick just isn't connecting and is a bridge too far even for this audience.

Alvarez has been caught out complaining about something that didn’t happen before. It does make you wonder.

I’m going to preface the shit posting tonight. Dynamite will suffer going against the huge Boston/Brooklyn basketball game. It will probably be a shit rating and it’s nothing to panic about.

I find it interesting that NATH45 doesn’t post WWE ratings when they are down. Raw had a big drop in viewership this week and NXT had their second lowest rated show ever. At least be consistent.

1.648 million viewers on the USA Network, according to Nielsen via Showbuzz Daily and 0.47 rating in the 18-49 key demographic.

Or... like 60% more than last week’s Dynamite. And like 1.2 million more than Rampage.



You have to feel for TK, he's literally blowing his booking load every week.. and no one cares enough to watch.

So I just found that Brandon Thurston, the Wrestlenomics guy who does the spreadsheets supposedly telling us about the health of WWE and AEW, works for Chris Harrington who is senior Vice President of Business Strategy at AEW. 😂

So Nath is posting AEW propaganda?

And Tucker had 5.5 mil talking about tanning your balls.  Looks like nobody's watching WWE either.  And it makes sense.  Those are clearly not ball tanners.

Apr 21, 2022 17:58:54 GMT c said:

So Nath is posting AEW propaganda?

You don’t see a conflict of interest for Thurston?

Not really. He is running a twitter account graphing publicly available information. Anyone can do what he does with Google Sheets. And it is not like he is projecting AEW is the more successful. He is pretty much just graphing the data as is.  If AEW had a problem they would tell him to stop, but he stops, someone else will take it over.

Looking it up Chris Harrington used to run Wrestlenomics but turned it over to Brandon Thurston when he went to work for AEW. Brandon Thurston does not work for AEW.

So not sure where the conflict is?

Apr 21, 2022 18:31:45 GMT c said:

Looking it up Chris Harrington used to run Wrestlenomics but turned it over to Brandon Thurston when he went to work for AEW. Brandon Thurston does not work for AEW.

So not sure where the conflict is?

Oh come on

A conflict of interest would be if Bradon worked for AEW. He does not though. Just because someone he used to work for now works for AEW does not mean there is a conflict of interest. That is not how conflicts of interest work...

Apr 21, 2022 18:46:50 GMT c said:

A conflict of interest would be if Bradon worked for AEW. He does not though. Just because someone he used to work for now works for AEW does not mean there is a conflict of interest. That is not how conflicts of interest work...

A conflict of interest occurs when an individual's personal interests – family, friendships, financial, or social factors – could compromise his or her judgment, decisions, or actions in the workplace.

You guys decide.

Where is the financial gain?

Financial gain would be one of many different influences that could compromise his judgement. Read this carefully.. a friendship or a positive professional relationship could similarly be an influence that could comprise his judgement. Much like Dave Meltzer who I'm sure gets his choice of Young Buck once a month in exchange for exaggerated puff-pieces. If Thurston has a good experience or enjoys speaking with Harrington, as their is likely a friendship - his reporting could potentially be shewed. He may potentially spin the data a little to make it look positive. ie " AEW won the demo " ( which they aren't at the moment vs WWE )

Similarly, if I'm giving financial advice online or on television and a former colleague of mine is an accountant, I might tell people he's the most ethical accountant in town. Which might not be true.

Look, I don't think it's factor. His relationship with someone in AEW that is - Wrestlenomics posts plenty of content on Youtube for example highlighting the shit ratings. TK can buy off guys like Uncle Dave, WhatCulture, etc but it's doing nothing really. There's a ceiling for an alternative to the WWE - and I think AEW has hit it.

But Thurston has no stake in AEW. For a conflict of interest he would need to personally and directly benefit from gains or losses in these companies. Commentary and analysis would not cause him to be directly benefiting in the sense of ethics unless he somehow had inside knowledge he was applying in the commentary and analysis.

Cocaine Cowboy, TK can't leave it alone:

In an interview with TVInsider.com, Khan talked more about the matter…

“What I’ve seen was a lot of anti-AEW accounts that are really focused on the things they don’t like,” Khan said. “A lot of those are legitimate things. Some of those points I’m trying to address. Some of them I don’t agree with, but the point is a lot of these are the same people. There are a handful of accounts that are being run by a few people running a lot of accounts. Those are real people.”

“A lot of their engagement, their retweets, likes, people responding, and signal boosting for what they are saying, those are bots. You got a network of a few people with a lot of identities powered by a bunch of bots. I’m not making this up. I have hired IT experts that put together a much more sophisticated explanation than I’m capable of giving.”

Apr 20, 2022 20:54:52 GMT Todd said:

Alvarez has been caught out complaining about something that didn’t happen before. It does make you wonder.

I’m going to preface the shit posting tonight. Dynamite will suffer going against the huge Boston/Brooklyn basketball game. It will probably be a shit rating and it’s nothing to panic about.

930K

Considering the card, that's actually a pretty solid number.

I'm sure there's a push from Thurston to portray AEW in the best light possible but there's only so much you can do with raw data.

Yes, he's bias

Hmmm, 3 guesses at who he's criticising here

But I don't see the harm yet. Until he flat out misrepresents the data I think he's fine.

Not wrong most of my wrestling consumption is just talk.

Maybe Vince was ahead of the curve 🍧

Guessing I am just not seeing the phrase for the week to week WWE product that would counter that post. From what I seen for the past 15 years fans have been mostly negative on the week to week WWE product with more vocally disliking it than enjoying it and the vast majority of fans disengaging entirely with the product over that time.

If you looked at professional wrestling, particularly WWE similarly to financial planning...

We're far beyond the 'Accumulation' stage - that being a time, when the business was in it's prime, not so much financially (for the sake of this post) but culturally. In terms of significance, innovation, historical moments, etc. However it builds the foundations for financial success.

We're in sort of a 'Preservation' stage or have been for a while. I'll rework the definition - we have the history to talk about now. Hence the rise of podcasts, older content is readily available, workers are talking and writing about their experiences, etc. It's about preserving the business, ensuring its value. Or adding to it. Content is big money in 2022.

Now WWE is entering something of a 'Distribution' stage, everything has paid off. It's more successful today, despite the contemporary content not being great.

But it's only really in that first stage is life really exciting.