RDS in Canada revealed that Wednesday night’s edition of AEW Dynamite was the final broadcast of the promotion on the station.

Dynamite premiered on RDS in August.

AEW Dynamite will continue to be available in English on TSN across the country, where it regularly airs on TSN 2 on Wednesday nights.

The stated reason for this was down to “budget constraints”.

Makes sense. Doing a French version of the show is costly to air only in one small area in Canada. They want a French broadcast the station should make it profitable.

The primarily French speaking, second most populated province and housing the second most populated city (Montreal) in Canada... I'd come up with the short change to get the show in French if I'm TK, just to meet the audience half way.

Then he can sell that program onto the French-French. France has a population twice the size of Canada.

If we recall the numerous discussions we've endured about the falling American Television ratings post-Attitude Era, the one thing that grew rapidly during the 2000s was WWE's reach globally. As a result, WWE claims a world wide viewership of over 1 Billion - a week.

It's time to get out of the sandbox and make some global plays. These guys don't even have an Australian TV deal, and this country saw a Wrestlemania magnitude event 4 years ago - there's a market here.

Feds trying to expand too fast is why WWE has so little competition. Every fed that tried it had their entire TV deals collapse due to skyrocketing costs. Being an American fed for now is where he should be really.

AEW just seems to be useless on TV anywhere outside of America.

When they got the UK TV deal with ITV, Cody was going on about it being THE BEST UK TV deal - better than WWE and whatever.

If it was actually on ITV (and live), it would have been impressive, but it's on ITV4 - a channel no one even knew existed, filled with stuff like Magnum PI, Minder, The Sweeney and replays of football matches from the 80s. Sometimes they go wild and show movies like Spartacus or The Longest Day. In short: it's a channel for old men who would absolutely hate "American wrestling".

Dynamite is on Friday nights (or sometimes Saturday morning). Sometimes it gets delayed an hour because cycling or darts runs on for too long. Sometimes they just cut whole matches out for no apparent reason.

They used to show PPVs, but then they shut their PPV business down.

They made an official Twitter account to promote their AEW shows (@itvwrestling) then totally abandoned it in December 2019.

Khan was excited about 210k people watching it a few weeks ago, but the latest figures have it below Van Helsing (2004), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Assassins (1995) and Junk & Disorderly ("Vintage restorers Henry Cole and his mechanical genius of a best mate Sam Lovegrove are going to scour the country, challenging themselves to make money out of buying and selling other people's automotive junk and classic collectibles").

Rampage has less than 50k people watching it a lot of weeks.

I have to wonder how many of AEW's ITV "viewers" are old men staggering home from the pub on a Friday night, throwing on a movie from the 60s and just falling asleep in front of the TV.

AEW product isn't in any stores. I could go out tomorrow and see WWE DVDs, toys, books, shirts, whatever. Absolutely nothing for AEW. Figures used to be available in toy stores but they totally tanked and now the stores won't touch them.

Yeah, it's watched by more people than WWE (on account of being on a free channel - WWE is on a pretty expensive pay package), but so was TNA and the last Impact TV deal lasted two months before it got dropped.

If the best way to watch your product is via third party streaming service (Fite), alongside shit like GCW, you really need to sort yourself out.

TKs worth what... $8 Billion?

I imagine the boy has spent more on K-Pop merchandise than most regular people would pay for their first house.

I think he's good for some cash. And this company is about to turn 4 years old and undoubtedly there's never been a company in a better position than AEW to make a global impact - privately owned, the booker/the boss is the moneyman. AEW is in a better position now than WWF was in 1983 and with a bit of ruthless aggression could actually achieve big things.

I see AEW action figures every time I go to a Walmart or Target - both here in Austin and where I used to live near San Diego 5 months ago. Maybe it's only certain areas that stopped buying them.

Or they are just so unpopular that they've just been sitting on the shelves so long.

Anyway, I agree that they could achieve big things. Will they though? I'm not so sure. They've made a lot of questionable decisions over the years. But hey, WWE made it and they were even more incompetent. So you never know.

Dec 31, 2022 21:23:44 GMT c said:

Feds trying to expand too fast is why WWE has so little competition. Every fed that tried it had their entire TV deals collapse due to skyrocketing costs. Being an American fed for now is where he should be really.

Expanding too fast was attempting to produce a video game straight out of the gate.

This is a company seeing less than a million a week watching across the United States and perhaps not a lot more world wide. Fight Forever will drop in markets where there is little, if any brand awareness for AEW. File it next to TNA Impact.

The old guard in wrestling will talk about AEW failing to attract an audience outside of its 'core fans' and usually the rebuttal is an " ok boomer " type response. But you're not selling a million copies of this game if less than a million people are watching, and even then you're putting trust in the notion of that million, everyone of them is a gamer or is likely to purchase the game.

So, what do you do?

Grow your audience.

Yeah, I don't see any reason not to expand outside of the US. Whatever is most cost effective to gain the widest audience. Just be smart about it. If they're spending way more to expand somewhere unknown without a good plan and barely get any viewers, maybe that money was better spent locally. But there are probably smart ways to gain wider audiences outside the states if done right. NJPW started really kicking ass when they went international and suddenly they were miles ahead of the competition. Or they were already ahead. I don't know my history well enough, but them going international being the key to success is how I heard it anyway.

The video game straight away was probably a bad choice if I were to guess. The numbers nath45 is talking about probably back that up.

I wouldn't go filing anything next to TNA just yet though. I've read that AEW already had higher PPV numbers by far than TNA ever did even in their prime, practically double. I actually just looked up their recent ratings compared to WWE and they are much better than I expected. Dynamite getting half the viewers of RAW or more is incredibly successful, I would assume. Unless I'm missing something.

Solid numbers. No doubt. If you missing anything Lionheart, it's the world-wide viewership - the global reach. Hence, the discussion turning to growing the international fanbase.

Jan 1, 2023 3:42:25 GMT Lionheart said:

Anyway, I agree that they could achieve big things. Will they though? I'm not so sure. They've made a lot of questionable decisions over the years. But hey, WWE made it and they were even more incompetent. So you never know.

I can't agree with that assessment. They've been resting on their laurels, but that's after they put themselves in a position to do so. Even before Jr took over, Sr was the most successful promoter and when Jr did take over and turned his attention to children he achieved unprecedented success in the industry. Then to prove it wasn't a fluke, he went for a slightly older audience in the late 90s and achieved even more success. That gave them a huge lead in and they've been able to take advantage of some very lucrative TV rights deals as a result.

Jan 1, 2023 3:42:25 GMT Lionheart said:

NJPW started really kicking ass when they went international and suddenly they were miles ahead of the competition.

The competition being NOAH, AJPW, Dragon Gate, DDT etc. right?

They'd actually been trying to go international for ages. At least since the early days of WCW all the way through till TNA and nothing stuck until the Global Force show. It was a combination of factors - NJPW World, younger more athletic talent, English commentary and the Bullet Club stable.

Even so, NJPW really only has a niche audience. That's a big improvement over a virtually non-existent international audience, but it's still not as popular as it was during the 80s-90s.

Jan 1, 2023 9:51:12 GMT Big Pete said:

Jan 1, 2023 3:42:25 GMT Lionheart said:

Anyway, I agree that they could achieve big things. Will they though? I'm not so sure. They've made a lot of questionable decisions over the years. But hey, WWE made it and they were even more incompetent. So you never know.

I can't agree with that assessment. They've been resting on their laurels, but that's after they put themselves in a position to do so. Even before Jr took over, Sr was the most successful promoter and when Jr did take over and turned his attention to children he achieved unprecedented success in the industry. Then to prove it wasn't a fluke, he went for a slightly older audience in the late 90s and achieved even more success. That gave them a huge lead in and they've been able to take advantage of some very lucrative TV rights deals as a result.

You can be a successful promoter and incompetent at the same time. Executing a good idea like targeting children just means you made a single good business decision. I was mostly talking about overall booking and consistent weekly choices. That said, I didn't watch WWE back then. I just assumed they've always made weird decisions since they've always got a lot of shit for it that I've seen. But maybe it wasn't like that back then. I hadn't really considered that.

Agreed on your NJPW comments. But yeah, niche or not, going international was clearly an improvement that has helped them a lot. I was thinking AEW could benefit from niche audiences elsewhere. Looking up subscriber counts, it seems NJPW World has 116k subscribers as of last year. That seems pathetically small at first, but it can't be compared to TV. At $10 a pop per month...that means it's pulling in over one million dollars every month!?!?!?

Jan 1, 2023 13:52:34 GMT Lionheart said:

You can be a successful promoter and incompetent at the same time. Executing a good idea like targeting children just means you made a single good business decision. I was mostly talking about overall booking and consistent weekly choices. That said, I didn't watch WWE back then. I just assumed they've always made weird decisions since they've always got a lot of shit for it that I've seen. But maybe it wasn't like that back then. I hadn't really considered that.

The product has changed a lot over the decades as you can imagine. It's only been in the past 25 years or so that TV took precedence over live events and under Sr it was all about appealing to New York and getting them to keep coming back. They had the biggest market to play to, but they also did an excellent job of playing towards it and were ahead of the curve over their contemporaries.

Weekly booking is really such small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. When it comes to overall business strategy, the WWE are far more competent than any other promotion around today or in the past it's not even funny.

My point on NJPW was that they didn't just go international. They were trying to go international for years and nothing took, so it ended up being a combination of factors. I'd be surprised if they kept or grew that number - January is their Wrestlemania season.

WWE are very competent in the two areas that actually matter in wrestling, making stars and putting on big events. Then on top of that their business competence as pertains to branding, social media, and building IP. This all matters infinitely more than whether the US title has a feud attached to it.

Also NJPW is really small potatoes. Big Pete made the point, but just to add, AEW dwarfs NJPW to a far greater extent even than WWE dwarfs AEW.

I really think a lot of the people who like NJPW now would stop liking it if it was more popular.

So many of them have that very gatekeeper/metalhead attitude where Japanese wrestling is some magical thing and everything else is awful.

If NJPW got more popular, they'd have to find something more obscure to be a hipster about, like blind Cambodian people wrestling in sewers or whatever.

I'm personally into the tic-tac toe Eastern European federations myself.

I don't think that necessarily holds true for all fans. Emperor has been dying to talk NJPW with somebody on here and nobody will indulge him outside of RT on occasion.

NJPW to its credit caters to fans looking for a sports-based product. The shows are booked logically and if you stick around long enough you're rewarded with a lot of long term storytelling where you watch guys learn from previous matches and apply different strategies as they go along.

It's also not a weekly product, so you can tune in every month get your fix and move on with your life. The only exception are the tournaments but even then there's only two per year worth tuning into and it's easy to adjust your calender to.

Also since the cards are laid out where all the best matches take place in the second half of the card, it's easy to skip the first two hours and just watch the marquee matches and have your fill that way.

I was never as into NJPW as others but there's more to it than just being a hipster league.

NJPW will never see international popularity on a level deemed worthy talking about. Simply, it is niche. Maybe it's the language barrier? Maybe it's the tedious work-style? Maybe it's the fact, it doesn't present well to western audiences - dimly lit arenas, production values from the 1990s, dead Japanese audiences. Arguably, it's popularity in recent years was due to Bullet Club, or more so, The Elite. And realistically if The Elite didn't leave for AEW, NJPW would have seen some sustained growth in the USA, but still limited.

And NJPW is a hard-sell. You put a NJPW main event on, it's 20 minutes of sizing each other up, running the ropes, ducking and weaving, rest holds before exchanging the most pathetic looking offence until someone falls over from boredom - maybe if they elbow each other 48 times, it will make up for how weak they look. It ain't exactly Stone Cold opening up a can of whoop-ass and maximising the minutes. 

How much NJPW have you actually watched nath?

They don't have a weekly television show for starters. They have AXS that replays big matches from recent events with English commentary but it's well behind the current product.

I was with you on 20 minutes sizing each other up but the finishes are the most over-the-top melodramatic affairs with ridiculous false falls and counters. When it comes to that stuff, they put classic NXT to shame which was already apeing the NJPW style.

Jan 1, 2023 21:19:47 GMT Big Pete said:

How much NJPW have you actually watched nath?

They don't have a weekly television show for starters. They have AXS that replays big matches from recent events with English commentary but it's well behind the current product.

I was with you on 20 minutes sizing each other up but the finishes are the most over-the-top melodramatic affairs with ridiculous false falls and counters. When it comes to that stuff, they put classic NXT to shame which was already apeing the NJPW style.

I came onboard when Styles went to NJPW, and tapped out when The Elite left. I find most of the mid-card reflects what I just said and realistically, I think there isn't a star in NJPW outside of Jay White that has any cross-over appeal in the US. Okada & Ospreay might get the NJPW/ROH/AEW faithful all hot and flustered, but these guys don't have a the chops as a " star " to attract new fans, hence why NJPW has seen little to no real viable impact since the departure of The Elite. 

In saying that, AEW. 

Were The Elite the right guys to build a company around when launching AEW? Sure, absolutely. But that was 2018/9. It's 2023. 

Expansion is viable, and we can talk about the nuts and bolts of promoting an international company from a business perspective all day long. But the missing ingredient is The Hulk Hogan, The Stone Cold, The Rock, The John Cena drawcard. AEW doesn't have a marquee name. A franchise player. It's not Omega. It sure as hell ain't Jericho - as much he'd think it was. Or Moxley. And it's not MJF either. These guys are ' Edges ' or ' Jerichos ' - they're not the top guys, but they work with them. 

You take Roman Reigns for example. The top guy in the entire business today. On any roster, in any company, here, there and everywhere - he's the man. No ifs, no buts. He's the top guy in any company he works for. There isn't a worker in the business today to rival Roman Reigns. Not a single worker today challenges Roman Reigns to that title, outside of Brock. AEW needs what WWE (and WCW) had with Hogan, Austin, Rock, Cena, Reigns etc.

Until they find that, they won't see growth. And won't see expansion. 

And I doubt they have the tools to actually make a new star of that level - the best bet would be signing a guy like John Cena for a tremendous amount of money and let him a work a 'Hollywood Hulk Hogan' type gimmick in a means to put over the next big thing. If Jericho was capable of removing his ego for a year, he might make a star out of someone, but therein lies the problem - they don't have a guy capable of being the next John Cena or even a Roman Reigns. 

Jan 1, 2023 21:19:47 GMT Big Pete said:

How much NJPW have you actually watched nath?

They don't have a weekly television show for starters. They have AXS that replays big matches from recent events with English commentary but it's well behind the current product.

I was with you on 20 minutes sizing each other up but the finishes are the most over-the-top melodramatic affairs with ridiculous false falls and counters. When it comes to that stuff, they put classic NXT to shame which was already apeing the NJPW style.

Emperor and I both strongly despise NXT "video game wrestling" and always have. Comparing NJPW to that is ludicrous. There is maybe one false finish in most big matches, and half the time the same finisher just gets done again and then it's a win. Very rarely is there any over-the-top stuff. Almost all near pinfalls are rollups, which makes sense. They're not hitting 7 finishers in a row like in an Adam Cole Gargano bullshit match.

I would even go so far as to say it is less like NXT than any other promotion. Even AEW was having Cody Rhodes instantly get up ten seconds after being sent through a table and be in perfect condition to win the match.

This is way off topic from where all these posts have now been moved to, but I HAD TO ADDRESS THAT.

The long periods of sizing each other up is a fair complaint though and I get why that puts a lot of people off. But there are a lot of matches over the years where that does not happen. It's just the usual way they go. Nothing wrong with it if you enjoy admiring their technical prowess on display.

I understand why NJPW has that reputation, even if it's inaccurate.

NJPW encompasses many different wrestling styles, but the main event singles match on a big show is the "NJPW epic" style, as I call it. A 30+ minute singles match. The final 10-15 minutes is almost guaranteed to be great, as Big Pete alluded to, but more often than not the first 10-15 minutes, or more, is irrelevant and just used to pad the match length, and may bore some viewers so much that they care less about the finish. Even some of the Omega vs Okada matches fall short in this regard. On the flipside, these matches more often than not are a culmination of an engrossing long term story, with callbacks to previous matches or events. Very rewarding for invested fans of the product, perhaps not so for casual fans.

Under the surface there's a slew of different styles. Tag team, trios, strong style sprints, junior heavyweight contests, American style, Zack Sabre Jr. style, and hybrids of all the above. The G1 Climax matches have a 30 minute time limit and most go a lot less than that, some of the best matches ever have come from this tournament. Recently NJPW introduced a 15-minute time limit championship tournament which some high profile names participated in.

The problem is, the majority of NJPW matches that get pimped for outside fans are the NJPW epics, which as I've described, aren't necessarily the most accessible or most exciting.

"Emperor and I both strongly"

<_< I bet.

Not to mention 27 superkicks in one minute Bucks absurdity Rey Phoenix Ciero Miero 0 whatever ladder to Hell matches where they kick out of the most brutal shit imaginable every 2 seconds. AEW is far more like NXT.

Maybe people just think a single finisher being hit in NJPW feels like an over-the-top insane ridiculous moment after 20 minutes straight of mat wrestling to start the match bored them out of their minds.

Complaints can also apply to WWE main events. They have the same feeling out process, with the classic WWE style sequences that been used since the 80's, followed by long stalling sequences of applying holds, to a finish that is just hitting finishers back and forth for false finishes.

Also feel more like people are talking about King's Road style from the 90's and presuming that is how most NJPW is done today, which it clearly is not, since NJPW uses Strong Style. And sure they have their own style, but every single fed over times gets a signature style and most this boils down to essentially everyone should work WWE style.

I just told ChatGPT to write an essay on this topic and it explained it perfectly:

New Japan Pro-Wrestling, or NJPW, is widely regarded as one of the premier professional wrestling organizations in the world. While it may not have the same level of mainstream recognition as American promotions like All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), it consistently delivers high-quality matches and storylines that keep fans coming back for more.

One reason NJPW stands out is its strong emphasis on in-ring action. The wrestlers in NJPW are known for their technical skills and ability to tell a story through their movements in the ring. This allows for matches that are not only exciting to watch, but also feel genuine and authentic. In contrast, WWE and AEW tend to prioritize flashy spectacle and drama over the actual wrestling, which can often lead to a less satisfying viewing experience.

In addition to its focus on wrestling, NJPW also has a deep and talented roster of wrestlers. Many of the top wrestlers in the world have made their names in NJPW, and the promotion has a reputation for building and nurturing up-and-coming talent. This leads to a consistently strong and diverse pool of wrestlers, who are able to deliver exciting matches and compelling storylines.

Overall, NJPW is a superior professional wrestling promotion to WWE and AEW. Its commitment to in-ring action and deep roster of talented wrestlers make it a must-watch for any fans of the sport.

@aaron's gatekeeper alarm just got triggered.

Dec 31, 2022 21:49:02 GMT @aaron said:

AEW just seems to be useless on TV anywhere outside of America.

When they got the UK TV deal with ITV, Cody was going on about it being THE BEST UK TV deal - better than WWE and whatever.

If it was actually on ITV (and live), it would have been impressive, but it's on ITV4 - a channel no one even knew existed, filled with stuff like Magnum PI, Minder, The Sweeney and replays of football matches from the 80s. Sometimes they go wild and show movies like Spartacus or The Longest Day. In short: it's a channel for old men who would absolutely hate "American wrestling".

Dynamite is on Friday nights (or sometimes Saturday morning). Sometimes it gets delayed an hour because cycling or darts runs on for too long. Sometimes they just cut whole matches out for no apparent reason.

They used to show PPVs, but then they shut their PPV business down.

They made an official Twitter account to promote their AEW shows (@itvwrestling) then totally abandoned it in December 2019.

Khan was excited about 210k people watching it a few weeks ago, but the latest figures have it below Van Helsing (2004), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Assassins (1995) and Junk & Disorderly ("Vintage restorers Henry Cole and his mechanical genius of a best mate Sam Lovegrove are going to scour the country, challenging themselves to make money out of buying and selling other people's automotive junk and classic collectibles").

Rampage has less than 50k people watching it a lot of weeks.

I have to wonder how many of AEW's ITV "viewers" are old men staggering home from the pub on a Friday night, throwing on a movie from the 60s and just falling asleep in front of the TV.

AEW product isn't in any stores. I could go out tomorrow and see WWE DVDs, toys, books, shirts, whatever. Absolutely nothing for AEW. Figures used to be available in toy stores but they totally tanked and now the stores won't touch them.

Yeah, it's watched by more people than WWE (on account of being on a free channel - WWE is on a pretty expensive pay package), but so was TNA and the last Impact TV deal lasted two months before it got dropped.

If the best way to watch your product is via third party streaming service (Fite), alongside shit like GCW, you really need to sort yourself out.

Assassins is such a disappointing 90's action movie, Stallone and Banderas you would think it would be much better than it is. Instead it's such a lame story and Stallone puts in about the worst, laziest performance almost like he wanted to sandbag the whole movie on purpose. 

Jan 2, 2023 0:37:26 GMT Emperor said:

@aaron 's gatekeeper alarm just got triggered.

Jan 2, 2023 0:37:26 GMT Emperor said:

@aaron 's gatekeeper alarm just got triggered.

I'll check on @aaron to make sure he's OK.

Jan 2, 2023 1:05:46 GMT Lionheart said:

Emperor and I both strongly despise NXT "video game wrestling" and always have. Comparing NJPW to that is ludicrous. There is maybe one false finish in most big matches, and half the time the same finisher just gets done again and then it's a win. Very rarely is there any over-the-top stuff. Almost all near pinfalls are rollups, which makes sense. They're not hitting 7 finishers in a row like in an Adam Cole Gargano bullshit match.

That wasn't the case when I was watching, take Omega/Okada for example and the amount of false finishes in that. Sure, the story was that Kenny couldn't hit the OWA but he hit damn near every other move for a pinfall attempt only to assume the seated position like he was waking up from a bad dream. It clearly influenced NXT to the point where they just straight up signed Finn Balor, Shinsuke Nakamura, Ricochet, Kota Ibushi and Zack Sabre Jr (albeit the last two were on short term deals).

Otherwise, poor ol' Okada could only rely on the Rainmaker after he hit it three times. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't enough at the height of NJPW excess. From what I understand Okada eventually went down a different route and tried to use a different finish only to bring the Rainmaker back and now it's being protected...until it won't be.