Speaking of TNA going to Monday... did Homicide ever get out of the dome?

As mentioned, 1.7 million for RAW this week, and the fast national ratings are off for Dynamite... 809,000. -17.78% from the previous weeks viewership.

Smackdown this week, reportedly drew 1.96 million. And it's expecting to be approx. 2.08 Million according to the dirt sheets when the dust settles.

That's the A Shows... now, NXT 2.0 is said to have drawn 625,000 this week. Which beat the November 19 episode of Rampage, which did 556,000. In fact, the previous episode of NXT 2.0 beat AEW Rampage that week too, by 1,000.

A wins, a win.

Reportedly 403,000 for Rampage...



Pick one. 

Nov 29, 2021 2:44:43 GMT NATH45 said:

Reportedly 403,000 for Rampage...



Pick one. 

You're fixation with ratings and looking at them as a metric for success is fascinating to me. You take so much glee from it. As if AEW will fold in 6 months because of low viewership.

Nov 29, 2021 3:13:18 GMT Ed said:

Nov 29, 2021 2:44:43 GMT NATH45 said:

Reportedly 403,000 for Rampage...



Pick one. 

You're fixation with ratings and looking at them as a metric for success is fascinating to me. You take so much glee from it. As if AEW will fold in 6 months because of low viewership.

Geez..... imagine using KPIs to measure something.

Well, the flipside was... when AEW got within lick of WWE, the sky was allegedly falling for Vince and it was 'war'

I never was a part of the segment of fans clamoring for a wrestling war. :ugh:  

Ed is a filthy casual who eats whatever is served.

PICK A SIDE.

Nov 29, 2021 21:08:42 GMT @ness said:

Ed is a filthy casual who eats whatever is served.

PICK A SIDE.

Wrestling is a buffet. I eat what I want.

Nov 29, 2021 21:23:38 GMT Ed said:

Nov 29, 2021 21:08:42 GMT @ness said:

Ed is a filthy casual who eats whatever is served.

PICK A SIDE.

Wrestling is a buffet. I eat what I want.

Nov 28, 2021 12:04:29 GMT NATH45 said:

As mentioned, 1.7 million for RAW this week, and the fast national ratings are off for Dynamite... 809,000. -17.78% from the previous weeks viewership.

Smackdown this week, reportedly drew 1.96 million. And it's expecting to be approx. 2.08 Million according to the dirt sheets when the dust settles.

That's the A Shows... now, NXT 2.0 is said to have drawn 625,000 this week. Which beat the November 19 episode of Rampage, which did 556,000. In fact, the previous episode of NXT 2.0 beat AEW Rampage that week too, by 1,000.

A wins, a win.

You do realise the fast nationals for dynamite are only leaked when they benefit wwe right? And you have to pay for fast national ratings. And also the actual rating was higher than the incorrect fast national.

Sure dynamite ia still less than raw. But you should at least be factual in your data usage when doing this gimmick youve got going

AEW got smashed, that's the truth.

There's no conspiracy.

AEW def effected WWE already though. WWE is going much leaner than expected because they now have competition. Some of the talent also stepped up a lot since the competition started. E and Wood never looked better, and Reigns streamlined into a well oiled machine. Never liked him but this last year changed that, as he is just so damn good now in the ring at what he does and seems to be filling the Cena role.  Part of streamlining is the top guys likely get more time since they are not arbitrarily rotated off TV anymore. For many of us, this is all we wanted from a rating war. WWE to step up. Creative still needs a big house cleaning and change up, but the guys now having options are stepping up their game. Or just wrestling for fucking lives as WWE makes these cuts now quarterly it seems and are nowhere near as lean as they likely want to be.

Curious AEW's plans to deal with bloat, as they are going to grab about another dozen guys in the near future that were all top talent. Lee, Nitro, Steen, Gargano, ect are all likely going to have bids made for them. Nitro and Lee TNA will do doubt want on their brand, so AEW may pass on them, but can't keep adding guys at the top and expect to have room for everyone. But they also cannot really pass on Steen and Gargano, or Lee and Nitro if they can get them.

c, John Morrison is not a big deal. He's not thought in the same way as the other guys you mentioned.

Remember when Aries no sold his title win? LOL.

Nov 30, 2021 20:25:43 GMT @ness said:

Remember when Aries no sold his title win? LOL.

I do! Aries is such a jerk.

Nov 30, 2021 19:53:09 GMT Ed said:

c , John Morrison is not a big deal. He's not thought in the same way as the other guys you mentioned.

Former TNA champion, multi-time WWE champion and the only pro-wrestler to make it to the merge on Survivor.  He is a pretty big deal.  It took two idols and a betrayal for his soft minority alliance to remove him from Survivor.   He was one of Jeff Probst favorite Survivor players too as he was amazed at how classy he was after getting voted off.  

In seriousness, he is a damn good high flyer that AEW should greatly benefit from having.  He is known by WWE fans and Impact fans, will likely be mixed in again in AAA as he is a mega heel down there and could find his way to Japan.  I think Survivor will try to get him back on too, which would be some good cross-promotion stuff.  He is like at the top of the list for 1 time players fans want back.  So yeah dude is just a good value guy to have.  Even if he is not working on TV for you, he will be mixing it up in other markets on his off weeks, getting you exposure.  

Nov 30, 2021 20:58:36 GMT Ed said:

Nov 30, 2021 20:25:43 GMT @ness said:

Remember when Aries no sold his title win? LOL.

I do! Aries is such a jerk.

I loved Aries but he got such a rep for being an asshole by the time he was in WWE I just could not get into him.  When be pulled this shit, it was not really a surprised, just expected.  I know a bunch of feds now that will not work with him as they simply have more guys who do not want him to appear than support him.  

John Morrison is only a former WWE Champion if you're spladle125, c.

If I was AEW, I'd be very careful about signing these free agents. With Owens, Zayn, O'Reilly, Gargano coming in the near future they're going to find it difficult to fit everyone in with the three hours of television they put on each week. I also think it's important that while you bring in these guys and let them establish themselves outside of a WWE environment you also have to have room to sign up and coming independent talent like Dante Martin.

So outside the female talent like Mia Yim, Ember Moon and Tegan Nox the only talent I'd consider is Keith Lee.

I'd much rather see Morrison in a company like MLW, NWA or even NJPW USA. Otherwise I know he'll come to AEW as Johnny Dynamite paired up with Taya and they'll likely get caught up in some silly feud with Cody and Brandi which will be the major storyline of Rhodes To The Top Season 2.

In the interest of this thread, AEW potentially needs to look at who is going to put them on that next level.

As the long term impact of not seeing growth, is not capturing new fans. Dynamite - the flagship show is doing just over 800,000k. Rampage is being beaten by NXT. So even with Adam Cole, Bryan Danielson and CM Punk... the dial hasn't moved.

So which free agent is going to make people change the channel? Who is AEW's Ring Master waiting for his Stone Cold opportunity?

You can pay Morrison a few hundred k, and there won't be a sole who gives a shit. Gargano may be one of the best in the world, but he's a Danielson-lite who is only ever going to be a second tier player in AEW. They need an Austin or Rock level player to elevate the company otherwise they'll spend the next 10 years jerking each other off and giving their buddies the rub.

No way Morrison gets a few hundred K. And he does not need it since AEW will allow him to take outside bookings. They can pay him a fraction of what WWE did, and he will still take home more house after indy bookings and AAA.

And WWE need a Rock / Austin level person right now. But they come once a generation and so far. Last ones we got were Brock and Cena but neither of them really reached Rock or Austin's level. They were more Mankind or Bret levels.

Page may be the Ring Master of AEW though. Cowboy shit is getting over pretty big. No clue if he can still grow from here or not, but his title reign so far is going better than I thought it would.

///

Hate to say it, but AEW really should be cleaning house and half the roster can really be let go. Whole lot of guys do not really add much and when they get stronger talent, some of the weaker guys should be let go. Many of the people who they started the fed with, kind of no longer are needed.

///

For moving the needle, I do not think AEW can move it further. I think they are saturated with wrestling fans. This is why adding Daniels after Punk did not love the needle. They got all they are likely to get. Vince has been bleeding fans for years and even he is struggle with his numbers. For AEW to match WWE with the superior advising they can do is not going to happen. Punk and Dragon I think are showing the upper reasonable limit for AEW without another wrestling boom. Vince going lean though means a wrestling boom is not likely to happen as he does not plan to build new stars really anymore.

There is one thing AEW can do to grow though, and that is break into the latino markets.  They have a few top guys already, and can expand.  Many of the guys have ties to the west coast, which is a huge latino market right now, and expanding into Mexico would get in a lot of new fans who may not give a shit about AEW at all.  Vince offers these guys very, very little.  Will need more than the Lucha Bros though to do it.

Side note: What is interesting c, (because I like numbers) is the majority of Top 10 highest drawing PPVs, came during the John Cena era.

www.thesportster.com/wrestling/wwe-highest-grossing-ppv-buyrate/amp/

But the point remains, every highly successful era has a central character or two that transcends Monday Nights (for example) and attracts the casual base. And for AEW to be more than a come back tour for ex-WWE talent, they need a real player that takes viewers away from that near 5 million that watch WWE in the US each week.

There is a ceiling on AEW unless they change their style, there's no question about that. The produce a product that serves hardcore fans. At times I'm a little confused by Tony Khan's approach. If his ultimate goal is to carve out a niche that WWE doesn't serve and to serve it and profit, then mission accomplished. But when you see him going off on Twitter you wonder if he really think he has a chance to become the biggest wrestling promotion. Perhaps he's just promoting his brand and I'm reading too much into it.

Btw, CM Punk has undoubtedly moved the needle. YouTube subscribers are up, Google is trending upwards, ticket sales have been very good, PPV buys have been record-setting. Television is very tough, if not impossible, to trend upwards on. Even Brock Lesnar comes back to Raw and the rating doesn't move. The last time the Rock, one of the world's most famous people, was on SmackDown, the rating went up a bit. This is an outdated metric to judge a show's appeal, especially one like Dynamite which has a very young-skewing audience, because the fact is that those people are less likely to watch live TV and sit through commercials anyway.

Now, does that mean that Tony Khan has done a stellar job promoting Punk? No, because he hasn't. I don't understand the strategy of putting Punk against these nobodies week-after-week. Each time he does it, he erodes at Punk's special attraction appeal, and it hasn't benefitted anyone in return. Folks might disagree with me on this, but I honestly feel like he's made a mess of Punk a little bit.

In any event, the big picture is that AEW are doing very well. But they need more soap opera and more broadly appealing stars to take the next jump. And that won't happen because their fans won't accept it. They should be happy being number two.

So I found out today that apparently subscribers to the WWE network can watch NXT for free the day after it airs in the States. Can somebody confirm if this is true? I find it remarkable that this detail has not been mentioned throughout the ratings war, surely it represents a huge disadvantage for NXT. If somebody in the US could confirm that would be great.

I also looked at my beloved Google Trends which suggested that during the war NXT’s relevance outpaced Dynamite’s by about 4:1. Knowing how people consume WWE, I’m not surprised that NXT is in front but by that margin I am surprised. Was Triple H judged too harshly? If the show was available on demand the following day, what chance did he stand?

It is true, you can watch NXT on the Network a day after it airs in the states. At least for Australian subscribers.

It looks like the Nov. 24 episode of Dynamite did 898,000 approx. viewers.

However, Cody giving himself third degree burns actually did nothing for them. Reportedly finishing with an average overnight audience of 861,000 viewers. Down on the previous week.

Developmental territory, NXT featuring a cast of relatively unknowns did 637,000 for its War Games go-home episode.

RAW nearly doubled AEW Dynamite with 1.68 million.

Dec 1, 2021 9:48:03 GMT NATH45 said:

Side note: What is interesting c , (because I like numbers) is the majority of Top 10 highest drawing PPVs, came during the John Cena era.

www.thesportster.com/wrestling/wwe-highest-grossing-ppv-buyrate/amp/

But the point remains, every highly successful era has a central character or two that transcends Monday Nights (for example) and attracts the casual base. And for AEW to be more than a come back tour for ex-WWE talent, they need a real player that takes viewers away from that near 5 million that watch WWE in the US each week.

PPV buy rates were limited by availability.  Cena era was when most cable provided allowed PPV access, so more sales.  Pre-Cena era most of the US could not order a PPV.  Really was the tail end of the attitude era that PPV access became near universal.  

Do not need to take the WWE fans.  Two million fans will beat most WWE shows.  I mean Vince is getting beat by MSNC and Fox News most weeks.  Kyle Rittenhouse drew 5.05 million for Fox.  He outdraws Brock and even the Rock.  NCIS pulls in 5 times what WWE does.  

Dec 3, 2021 0:18:25 GMT NATH45 said:

It looks like the Nov. 24 episode of Dynamite did 898,000 approx. viewers.

However, Cody giving himself third degree burns actually did nothing for them. Reportedly finishing with an average overnight audience of 861,000 viewers. Down on the previous week.

Developmental territory, NXT featuring a cast of relatively unknowns did 637,000 for its War Games go-home episode.

RAW nearly doubled AEW Dynamite with 1.68 million.

Cody barely did anything to his back.  This is what a third degree burn looks like.  Kudo liquidized a nice chuck of her shoulder when her costume melted in the flame.  



This is what it takes for 3rd degree burns from a table spot.  This is grill started, identified by the black smoke and not lighter fluid.  See that back?  It is not pick, it is bubbling and melting off.  Spot at 5:20 since it will not embed.





Cody had at best mild first degree burns.

Another third degree burn spot, the old flaming senton now retired for obvious reasons.  3:40 since embed is blocked.  To this day the worst fire injury in wrestling.  

So I see c is apparently loving the non-invitation to start bombarding the thread with gore porn.