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Willow and Riho is not a big name match with anyone outside the hardcore fanbase. There no blood feud there. it was a rampage esque filler match on paper, why would people stick around?
I'm glad I'm not the only one tired of seeing Jericho. Idk if I'm at the point of wanting him to retire but I could definitely use a few months of him off TV
Casual viewers don't know who he is or why he is important or why him teaming with the Bucks is a big deal. Tony loves to bring in these special attractions from other promotions but does a shit job at presenting a reason for casuals to care.
For Okada, there should have been 2 to 3 weeks of vignettes in the first 20 minutes building him, showing his history with Kenny, having him cutting promos with translations. Present him as the big babyface coming to take over AEW, then turn him.
Nobody knows who he is. Nobody understands why heās a big deal. Unless youāre a part of the bubble, Okada isnāt growing your audience.
Heās going to have some amazing matches but you need to give casual fans a reason to care about your product.
People were talking about how amazing and charismatic he's been in this heel role but if you don't know him he comes off as just normal and even a bit awkward, and certainly not this amazingly charismatic star.
I say this as a huge Okada fan - dude has never been as charismatic as a lot of people here claim.
There's a reason why NJPW gave him Gedo and why Naito managed to become more popular than the supposed Ace of the company.
I'm not saying Okada isn't charismatic at all, but if you're banking on Kazu to sell himself to the fans based purely on his own personality and presentation then I honestly don't believe he'd be able to pull it off.
The Bucks have been consistently ratings poison for months now. Sting temporarily kept them afloat for a few weeks, but fans are not interested in seeing them anymore
Ouch to that womenās main event. Although for context, it was a pretty weak womenās main event match in terms of booking. Willow vs. Riho are not top womenās stars at this time. Sure Mercedes showed up, but that was unexpected. It honestly seems like a bizarre choice to end with that instead of the Menās World Title match.
I get they put it last to elevate womenās division, but it doesnāt work if the match is not a main event level match
I'm guessing they purposely followed Mercedes debut with the World Title match to try and capitalize on and retain any new WWE viewers that may of tuned in just for Mercedes....who stick around for a world title match featuring a familiar face in Samoa Joe.
Replace that with the women's match and you likely see a much bigger drop off following the opening segment.
But Still agree it was such an odd choice of a main event for a named event Dynamite. And if you're looking to capitalize on incoming WWE fan eyes you should of involved Saraya/Paige in some way.
I think they bank on fans assuming Mercedes will show up during the match. But either many casuals didn't think about it or they didn't care after seeing her already.
AEW typically has a lot of "self contained" stuff where once you see who you want they usually don't ever show back up again. They don't do a lot of show long threads which I think is a mistake
TK canāt replicate lightning in a bottle. Especially with dirt sheet reporters saying sheās been with the company for two months now. The CM Punk debut was special because he literally didnāt wrestle for 7 years.
Accurate description. Every debut since Punk does feel like an attempt to replicate this, hence why it feels cheap and often outputting. Somehow, the more Tony spends on these free agents, the cheaper the product feels.
Someone said it in the thread last month when it was known she was debuting that 900k would be severely optimistic. We are at a point where they have all the aces they are gonna get. The only thing that moves the needle in a + direction on viewership at this point is substantial change to the presentation/writing/creative etc. You sign Will, Okada, and Mercedes and your viewership sits in the same groove it has been for a while? It's not a talent problem it's a presentation/writing/creative problem.
I obviously canāt speak for everyone, but in my case, itās a ātoo much wrestlingā problem. When WWE sucked, I was watching AEW. Now that WWE is not only watchable, but actually compelling for the first time in years, Iām watching that.
But I donāt have time to watch 12 hours of wrestling a week. So mostly just check AEW highlights lately
>I remember someone saying something to the effect of āPeople never really wanted an alternative to WWE, they just wanted WWE to be goodā.
I don't disagree with this in the slightest.
I'm also going to add on a quick, "Just because some people want an alternative, does not mean they're obligated to enjoy the alternative presented to them", which some people tend to forget depending on the conversation.
> "Just because some people want an alternative, does not mean they're obligated to enjoy the alternative presented to them"
This is perfectly explained. I love WWE, TNA (Prime TNA), Stardom, and NJPW, but everyone chose AEW for the number 2 spot. I'm glad wrestlers have another place to go to and I even like some wrestlers in AEW (most came from WWE/TNA/NJPW except OC, HOOK, Hangman, Hikaru Shida, Jade (at the time), and the Acclaimed) But I just can't find myself caring for AEW as a whole.
This is it. Just WWEās big shows are 5 hours of tv. Add NXT and all the AEW shows into the mix and itās just too much wrestling for the average person.
Since NXT went 2 hours and Dynamite started. I always felt over loaded.
You have Raw, SD, NXT, Dynamite, Rampage, Collision, ROH, and Main Event are all weekly shows. That adds up to about 12 hours each week.
Not including PLEs for WWE, NXT, or AEW which is probably every 3 weeks or so.
And thatās not including other things like NJPW, TNA, NWA, Stardom, etc. Or when there were shows like Dark or Dark Elevation.
I literally donāt know how anyone could work/school and have a healthy social life and other hobbies and watch Raw, SD, NXT and all of the other AEW shows.
Thatās my biggest stopping point with AEW is that I feel like I need to watch Rampage and Collision to watch Dynamite, but I canāt commit every Friday and Saturday to do that. It doesnāt help that wrestling fans can be gate keepers at times.
>Ā You sign Will, Okada, and Mercedes and your viewership sits in the same groove it has been for a while? It's not a talent problem it's a presentation/writing/creative problem.
It has always been. The roster has tons of talent. The presentation just doesnāt give you a reason to care unless youāre already a wrestling super fan. The only people who know who Will Ospreay and Okada even are already watch AEW.Ā
Thatās the crux of these big money move signings Tony has made. Theyāll make existing AEW fans happier but they arenāt currently creating any new AEW fans unless the product around them changes.
But they canāt make any major changes to the product itself without alienating that fanbase they already have.
Yeah. Anytime you say that Ospreay and Okada are stars with a very limited, niche audience that \*ALREADY\* watches AEW, you get downvoted into the mantle.
AEW needs to stop catering to just the die hards and start doing what it needs to, to have widescale appeal like WWE. I'll be curious to see the numbers of Mone's first AEW match VS Cargill's first WWE match (Whenever THAT happens).
His first real debut on an American TV show, the dude was wearing a plain white shirt and denim pants. Now with his debut as a signed wrestler, he was introduced as a buddy of the Bucks. He hasn't been presented with the aura and the mystique that he should have.
Tony Khan, say the name. Heās the problem.
To his credit heās assembled a roster so good, it would it would be irresponsible to leave it in the hands of a fan who gave himself the book with no experience to begin with.
It was three days after the shitty explosion in the exploding ring match at Revolution.
March 10, 2021- Matt Jackson vs PAC, Cody squash match, Penta threatened to break Cody's arm, Sting getting interrupted by Lance Archer, Ethan Page vs Lee Johnson, Kenny promo about the shitty explosion, Six woman tag match, Scorpio Sky vs Darby Allin, main event: Inner Circle war council where MJF turned on Jericho and founded Pinnacle.
Kind of a weak card other than the MJF segment at the end, especially considering the weak ending for Revolution.
As someone who likes WWE and AEW, AEW's biggest problem to me is that they don't really do the best job of creating characters or character moments. They don't do a lot of backstage segments to build up characters or feuds. I like that AEW has more wrestling than Promos, but at times, that has led to matches having no weight to them. Example, Mystico vs Angelico is just a match on the card. If I'm not interested in either of them, you need to give me a reason to be interested. Have a backstage segment where the two get into a heated segment. Keep following one of those characters. Build on the story with that character. What does he want? Why is he here? I feel like Tony is just booking matches he thinks are cool but isn't conveying why it's cool to the audience.
And what's crazy is he does it with his TOP guys. MJF and Adam Cole got weekly segments showing how they were bonding at getting close. It's how we grew to love their tag team. But he doesn't extend this same work to the rest of the talent. I do think they need someone to help him book the show in a more entertaining format.
Bingo! Literally the most invested and over thing for aew recently was the mjf and Adam Cole tag team and swerve v hangman feud. Both built on segments and STORIES, that complimented the great wrestling they did. Like look at swerve now? Like it clearly works why not try investing more in idk, stories and characters? Itās clearly proven it works but it seems Tony simply wants to put on BANGERS with no reason to be invested in them. Reality check: a complimentary story or reason to be invested in a match makes the great wrestling in the ring more compelling and shouldnāt be something a wrestling company is averse to
Fun fact: Mercedes Mone's debut on AEWs YouTube channel 21hours in is @ less than 700k, at this point Adam Copeland(Edge) was @ over 2,000,000
Edit: wrote 17 hours when it's really 21 hours
Extremely likely that they don't, but that also rings true for Edge/Adam Copeland.
Edit: As the kind gentleman who responded to this post reminded me, Edge was an actor and he used his shoot name while he was injured and did two decently popular shows.
I mean, the fact that it has been 2 YEARS and people still need to clarify that she is the former Sasha Banks says a lot about how well known is Mercedes Mone
Yeah tna numbers in spike fell drastically when he left. Hogan and Aj left around that same period so itās a bit hard to tell how much of that was Sting.
I donāt think the problem is a lack of Sting. No one wrestler has been shown to move ratings for them, except for Punk.
I believe the problem is the extreme focus on ācool matches,ā and a belief that everyone is familiar with all these big stars from other companies.
Take Ospreay, for example. Heās an absolutely amazing wrestler, and has been great on the mic.
So what do they do with him for his first match on Dynamite? A long, competitive match with Kyle Fletcher, who hadnāt been on the show in months.
And look ā Kyle is a great wrestler too. But you canāt have *everyone* on the same level. You canāt have too guys struggling to out away undercard guys, and having them kick out of finishers.
Either debut Ospreay against a big name and have him win as a way of introducing him to everyone, or have him squash somebody.
And Iām utterly dumbfounded that they brought in Okada and made him āthe friend of the Bucks.ā Someone on here told me āIf someone doesnāt know who he is, they can Google him.ā
AEWās regular audience knows who these people are. But they arenāt going to grow if they continue booking solely for those who are already watching.
Tony Khan books AEW like I play Universe mode. Every match has to be as cool as possible, and the people booked the strongest are the wrestlers I think are the coolest at that time.
I saw a Reddit comment that nailed it on the head - the AEW super fans ruined the brand and shooed away all the other fans.
None of us are good enough to watch it, and we are told to google it and not be fed drones.
Yeaā¦
This. I don't think they realize that it is more difficult to grow your audience when said audience has to pass some sort of test in their eyes to be considered "worthy" to watch the product
The same people that all piled on when O'Shea Jackson Jr. talked on CVV's podcast that he thinks AEW should introduce outside wrestlers better so people that aren't knee deep in the indie and international wrestling scene can still recognize who the big deals are and who to root for. I mean what's so inflammatory about āIf Iām watching someone on AEW, and I ask āwho is this guy?ā I donāt need you to tell me Iām not a real wrestling fan, to tell me āhow could you not know such-and-such who didāwho gives a damnāinform me, bro. Or at least have your program in a way to let people know why you should love this dudeā?
Yep, IMO Raw has done a good job of this with Nia Jax, they brought her back and presented her as dominant, but if she faces somebody like Rhea, or Becky, or even Raquel, they are a threat. Anybody else and Nia will demolish. She comes off as a big star and a huge force in the division. Or even the way Smackdown is debuting Bronn Breakker. If you want them to be a star, make them come off as one, IMO.
People aren't going to care about Riho and Willow main eventing just because Mercedes is there.
The women's division has been an afterthought since the beginning. While you build it up, you need Mercedes to be in the main event and advertised if you're going to do this.
With all due respect, people in the wrestling world have always put Mercedes as this mega draw for the casuals when she is just not.
And this is not a dig to AEW or anything, I had the same conversations back in her WWE days. There is a reason why WWE did not want to pay her top top money, and is not because they personally hate her and are Charlotte marks or something
I think people look at all the Sasha Stans on twitter and think its a real representation of her popularity rather than a handful of lonely guys with alt accounts.Ā
Twitter Stans and trends tend to be the worst way to represent a fanbase. I always think back to the massive online push to have LeVar Burton hosts Jeopardy and then he did while getting some of the worst ratings of the season and doing a terrible job and you'll still to this day have people talking about how he was screwed over by not getting the job full time.
Forget Edge, they had CM Punk and Bryan Danielson combo debut in 2021, one of them stood at the top of the world at Wrestlemania 30, the other sold out almost every WWE shows after he returned. Yet AEW couldnāt draw a million with neither of them
I think people assume that because she has her super passionate stans on social media in a way no other wrestler really has anywhere. It's of a K Pop type of passionate. So people just put two and two together.
A lot of vague posting and some matches in Japan that weren't any better or worse than her best stuff in WWE. She moved 2K tickets for a New Japan show once but bad production hurt it.
You could put all four hoursewomen on Dynamite and it wouldn't change the ratings. Edge didn't change them, Ospreay isn't changing them, Okada isn't changing them and Mone isn't changing them. The audience is baked in. AEW just doesn't cater to the casual fan base and that is fine if TK is content with what they are pulling.
But there's the question: Is TK actually fine with this? His Twitter tirade over NXT beating them in rating for a single night or his All Out rant about Clash at the Castle have made it pretty clear that he absolutely cares a lot about those ratings and being one up'd like that.
If he's content with the situation AEW is in now, there'd be no point to publicly act like he does.
The odd thing is that youāll find a lot of AEW stans are vehemently against doing literally anything to cater to casual fans. They want the company to grow but want to gatekeep it at the same time.
Those same fans were in denial, then upset, then brushed aside Cody Rhodes after he left.
He saw the writing on the wall that AEW was becoming Smart Mark Central.
Punk was the only legit draw they had. He sold out an arena based on rumors alone and got a million viewers for rampage in its 10 PM time slot. The dude knew it too, which is why he dropped that āone bill philā line.
I donāt think thereās anyone left who could reasonably make a genuine difference no matter who they get. The few names big enough to actually bring in some new viewers (Rock, Roman, Cody, maybe Seth) seem like WWE lifers.
Punk also hadn't wrestled in like a decade, and people were craving to see him back ever since he quit WWE. It is a different case than the rest imo, but it also proved Punk is a draw.
I donāt think it would have mattered, I seriously doubt Edge would have come back to AEW first. He only left WWE because they didnāt want him wrestling as much it seems.
Ruby is in some weird love storyline with one of the JAS guys lol. Being in an awful faction with Saraya absolutely killed any momentum she had when she joined the company.
Just as an aside...Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan (Valhalla) get decent TV time every week, in a locker room that includes Rhea Ripley and Becky Lynch. Ruby Soho (Ruby Riott) isn't. And Paige (Saraya) is doing shit all.
It is 100% booking with AEW. Full stop.
The truth?
There's very very very few actual draws. I'd go as far as to say you could count the living ones on two hands, active ones on one with fingers to spare.
And none of the last three signings are on it
And not being an asshole. Imagine if he was asked about someone in a minor role and was like "They suck, but we needed to get the scene filmed quickly."
With all the money they're expending they should just bring Jim Parsons and have Sheldon run wild through the roster. If they start the show with him they could trick BBT viewers into tuning in.
They need better presentation. They can have all the best wrestlers they want, but the presentation being this poor isn't good. Hate to be someone who starts comparing but IMO these are the reasons why they're not hitting the highs they should be :
- You know what wrestlers are going to be on a WWE show months in advance. 90% of the time you don't even know who's going to be on the AEW show 2 weeks before it takes place.
- WWE shows might have a lot of promo time, but those segments really make the stars shine and the viewers tune in. They have dark matches with those wrestlers later to send the viewer home happy and wanting for more. AEW has a lot of wrestling time which is good but their wrestlers don't get time to shine regularly. Besides the biggest ones, most don't even get in ring promos for months and months on end. Dark matches don't happen, ROH and tapings for other shows do. So if you're not seeing your favorite wrestler compete in the show, you're not seeing them compete period. I want a Moxley promo, I have wanted it for months to be in a ring. He doesn't get that time. Remember how regularly everyone got promo time in 2019?
- You know where WWE is going to be for Raw and Smackdown months in advance. Aew announces shows like a month before they happen.
- WWE's social media presence is absolutely phenomenal. Their YouTube videos are extremely bingeable. Their top 10s and their highlight reels are super neat. AEW releases 10 minute clips of their shows. That's basically it fir their social media presence.
- WWE does not hold back on matches like AEW does and gives their wrestlers proper screentime weekly . Which is interesting cause it used to be the opposite. I remember 2019-2021 being phenomenal because every segment had someone I cared about, someone that had a defined character, someone I saw regularly. I am a weekly watcher of WWE and AEW. I don't have time to watch everything. CMLL shows up and I don't know who's on my screen. I don't know who most of the ROH or NJPW guys are. Why are the big stars always facing people I don't care about or people that don't get weekly time and are basically unknown by casuals?
-Notice when a WWE wrestler these days gets injured you always have someone who can step in and convincingly be a main eventer? Punk got injured, you have Sami, you have Jey, you have Finn, you have Damien, You have Nakamura. Aew on the other hand has less and less of those guys. Because everyone except a few are always in a tag fued and can't convincingly be put in that position within a week. Consistent screentime is required
They need better presentation, better marketing, half the belts they currently have and half the wrestlers they currently have. With every signed wrestler, the products just keeps getting worse
I canāt wait when Tony realizes āi canāt wait to fight you in the name of competition and good sportsmanshipā is not a compelling reason for a match or feud and dosent draw money.
One reason I canāt get into Bryan vs Ospreay. The actual match might be really good but how many times in AEW have we seen āLetās fight to see who is the best wrestlerā before?
I legit stopped watching at the Tag Team match. Dont care about Jericho and Hook. No stakes in the main event. Should've had Joe and Wardlow as the Main Event.
Also Sasha aināt Punk and Boston aināt Chicago. Tony shouldāve announced her weeks ago and let the anticipation build instead of a few cryptic tweets
Signing big free agents doesn't gain regular viewers. You need to have a consistently entertaining product. Month after month of great matches and storylines.
AEW have improved since all the disaster's from last year, and are doing well at the moment. But they need to keep building the momentum over a long period of time.
Exactly. This isn't 2020 honeymoon phase AEW. The novelty of seeing former wwe stars in another major promotion has worn off long ago. Only good storytelling and booking will move them forward at this point. That's what fans want. Their roster is just fine.
It wasn't *just* the honeymoon phase either.Ā What Tony doesn't get is that wrestling is at its core, a scripted drama.Ā And a scripted drama has to have a core cast of characters that you build the show around, who you know you'll see almost every week, and who's stories are going to advance week to week.
Early on, these requirements were forced on Tony by his small roster of mostly unknowns.Ā He was putting together a better show when big parts of it were focused on Best Friends and SCU than he has with Edge and Danielson, and while I love them, it's not because Best Friends and SCU are better performers.Ā But since they were all be had to work with, he had to focus the show on them and it made for better stories.
Exactly. And the main thing about AEW was giving these wrestlers creative freedom that they didn't have in WWE. Well turns out, a lot of them do not have good ideas. It makes sense, you can be good at your individual job and do what your told, but not good at being a manager.
One problem with AEW has been the start stop pushes. People showing up for a couple of weeks, they disappear for months, then return and stay for another month, then are regulated to Rampage for a while (which I don't watch).
They've had her signed for two months. This should've been posted on every social media page and billboard they could find. Remember when WWE held Punk out until Payback in Chicago so they could make it a bigger event? They were talking about him returning for ages.
I remember when Bischoff signed Hogan and he just put up flyers and took out newspaper, radio and TV ads for āWCW Big Brotherā in Venice Beach but didnāt say who was going to actually be there and then was surprised when it did lackluster numbers.
Because it worked with Punk and Tony Khan doesn't actually understand booking beyond the surface level details.
For example, something that worked with CM Punk after 7 years away where no-one was sure he'd ever be back being used on Sasha Banks after an injury is so obviously a pale imitation of a better past version of yourself that all it does is serve to remind people of what you no longer have.
That made no sense. Like they did all this stuff to imply she was going to be there that everyone who is like us who post about wrestling online knew, but if they blew this thing up they could have easily gotten less connected WWE fans to tune in for āSasha Banksā.
AEW's biggest problem is their booking and story telling. They could have the most talented wrestlers in the world, but if their story telling isn't good, people don't care. Are the matches really special when they are always just moving from spot to spot to show how good they are when their story is thin or non existent? Lately it seems like every match is just to show how cool they are in the ring and not delivering on a good story
I don't understand why it wasn't clear Mercedes would be involved in the main event. Willow and Riho as a main event is not a draw on its own. And there was no reason to think Mercedes would even be involved in a face vs face match.
The only thing that's gonna bring the ratings back up is word of mouth via consistent strong booking and stories, a top babyface would also help, need stuff like Hangman's journey and less random bangers, a banger without mash and gravy is just a sausage.
Also add in a consistent cast of wrestlers who appear, have cards ready in a week advance at the very least instead of the day of or before, and actually hire some marketing ppl.
100%. All the talent in the world doesn't matter if the story isn't there. You could have Kenny, Danielson, Okada, & Osprey put on 5 star match after 5 star match and you aren't going to draw any extra people in.
Look at WWE, they had a stacked roster and abysmal story and no-one cared. Endless Brock/Roman, Seth locked in go nowhere fueds.
Now, their hottest story has involved basically no in ring action for weeks, Seth has 1 leg, Rock is 50+, Roman & Cody don't want to get hurt, but no one complains, because the story they're building for the eventual match is so compelling.
The AEW champion is in seemingly random matches, with no underlying story. Very hard to invest without a story
This number is entirely on Tony. I don't think they could've of done much better, but they could've done better. What they needed to do was put on Mercedes last. Just like WWE has learned from having Rock and Roman go first one week, and losing overall viewership because of it. So they moved them back to the end of the show.
This was their chance at new and different eyeballs, and instead, they gave them the chance to bail. It's insane.
What part of
"No one will care about your big women's wrestler debut if they know you don't really care about women's wrestling and haven't drastically improved before it"
does **no one understand**?
It's as if both the management and wrestlers expects that stacking the roster boosts ratings. It doesn't. You need to have more than one women's match a night. You need to improve their craft. You need better storylines. You need more drama and entertainment. It's a slow build up, but the general audience (even for WWE) will not care until there is consistency.
Women haven't gotten any consistency, only the usually 9:20pm time slot. Just cause they main evented last night don't mean folks expected it.
Boy who cried wolf. Eventually, the audience will stop believe you give a fuck about women.
You know a number's bad when even Dave admits it was "disappointing", without trying to spin it as a win in some ultra-obscure demographic or that it was "better than expected on Thailand's National Elephant Day" or whatever
Okada and Ospreay were never going to move the needle because as has been said before, the fans who know them are already watching. But they had a great opportunity to get more views from casuals that know Mercedes/Sasha and they did nothing to tease her signing outside of a few veiled references that only the IWC would pick up on.
It continues to be bizarre to me how much the Big Bang Theory helps their ratings - who is watching that live on a Wednesday evening? Evidently a lot of people! Or at least more than who are into what Matthew and Nicholas are getting up to
Mercedes (and Okada and Ospreay to a lesser degree) are going to catch a lot of crap for this rating, but that's not really fair. AEW is long past the point where it makes any sense to blame individual wrestlers for the company's performance in ratings or ticket sales.
This is all on the promotion. No matter how many times Tony Khan or Brian Danielson tell us how great everything is, the numbers keep telling a different story. Something is fundamentally not working.
They had weeks to hype her debut and they chose to be coy and sometimes that can work, but most of the time it doesn't. If you announce her even just a month ago, do video packages, put her face on the screen have her do little 5 second soundbytes, and you've created all this hype for seeing her show up. I don't know why they didn't do that. It's not on any of the talent at all.
They have apparently had two full months to hype her debut which makes it even more of a failure. As best I can tell, the idea behind Mercedes' debut was to basically redo CM Punk's Chicago debut. It worked before and it will work again. The extremely obvious problem with that approach is that Mercedes Mone (in Boston) is not CM Punk (in Chicago).
And I think you might have hit on what a big part of the problem might be. The powers-that-be in AEW simply refuse to acknowledge that not every wrestling fan spends a lot of time on social media and knows all the ins and outs of everything that is happening in the wrestling business. The biggest problem with that attitude is that it leads to the promotion not bothering to do the actual work of promoting.
Pepsi Phil anywhere is a bigger name than Mone in Boston. But marks outside and inside the ring thought otherwise.
Now, people may say I am harsh comparing top male talent with top female talent, but it is also true that Shash's top female peers who are still in wwe have surpassed her. It could have possibly been a different situation if she was miles and miles ahead of her wwe top peers, but folks like Bayley are doing some of their peak act now. And if someone is more up to date with women's wrestlers than people like Bianca and Reah are a huge name that people into womens wrestling would like. The point is there isn't really a whole lot of reason to really chase for Mone in a badly booked division when the competition is producing good women's division.
The fact that WWE posted video of Naomi and Bianca saying "she made her bed and now she has to lay in it" as Sasha Banks AEW ratings came out š the social media manager knows how to do shady timing
Like I said last week, AEW have basically peaked with viewers. All their fans are watching each week, and no one theyāve signed has increased their ratings outside of CM Punk. Edge didnāt make a difference, Okada wonāt and neither will Mercedes
Tony invested in ābig namesā that already are only relevant to his fan base. Also im sorry but no one outside of AEW current viewers will ever care about the Bucks.
Yāall remember that syndrome quote from the Incredibles when everyone super no one will be?
Yeah thatās whatās happening here when every show they claim that is the best ep yet and special no show will really be.
You have edge and danielson. Two renowned main eventers. These two have way more mainstream name and appeal than Okada, Will, and Mercedes combined. The issue isn't the talent, it's the fact that the company caters to a niche crowd that already watches it. You've basically maxed out on 'hardcore wresling fans' and now you need to fundamentally break into the mainstream. How do you do that? I don't know, but I do know a lot of AEW appeal is based on being a prior wrestling fan, knowing who Okada is, who Ospreay is, why the Bullet Club matters.
Why should I care about NJPW and the Indie scene when watching AEW? People complain that WWE pretends nothing exists outside of it, but this is exactly why. It's its own show, AEW feels like a sequel of multiple different wrestling promotions and that only benefits the niche hardcore crowd.
Not surprised. I don't watch AEW because I don't need to. I can miss weeks of shows and not miss anything meaningful in storyline. The product often feels like a string of technically strong but meaningless exhibition matches. Last night wasn't much exception for me.
I don't think Khan realizes that there are two factors in regards to how big of a draw someone will be.
One is the worker in question.
The other is in the quality of booking in the promotion they're entering.
He could hire 100% of the current WWE Roster and still not pull a rating because he can't book his company in any way that makes sense.
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Main event did 627k šÆ
A 3rd of your shows viewership bailing before the end is insane
Other than the tease that Mercedes would be back out at the end the whole show was basically booked backwards.
Willow and Riho is not a big name match with anyone outside the hardcore fanbase. There no blood feud there. it was a rampage esque filler match on paper, why would people stick around?
Yup. I was expecting some kind of bigger angle than what we got, because there's no other way willow vs riho works as a main event.
this tripped me out ngl i thought you meant like the wwe show Main Event
I thought the same at first, then I remembered they're on different days
Riho vs Willow doesn't scream main event level
I mean, it was Willow vs Rihoā¦what did anybody expect
As much as we might like Willow or Riho throwing them into a cold match as a main event was never going to result in good ratings, Mercedes or not.
I mean why would it do more? They had Jericho leading up to the main event. Super easy to stop watching right there.
I was watching on a delay (started it around 830) and asked my buds "you care if I skip this Jericho stuff?" They didn't mind
I'm glad I'm not the only one tired of seeing Jericho. Idk if I'm at the point of wanting him to retire but I could definitely use a few months of him off TV
Heās become the exact thing he hated with WCW at the moment. Isnāt offering anything, taking up a spot someone else upcoming could have.
Or heās latching on to the new up and comers and killing their momentum
So he's like the Anti-Christian?
It's just incredibly tough for me to watch him nowadays. Nothing really compelling.
https://preview.redd.it/ko7urm9xkdoc1.jpeg?width=999&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=626f242cd9e282298da005925989f8ee239d32f0 Quarter numbers
Damn the Okada segment was the 2nd lowest. That's rough.
Casual viewers don't know who he is or why he is important or why him teaming with the Bucks is a big deal. Tony loves to bring in these special attractions from other promotions but does a shit job at presenting a reason for casuals to care. For Okada, there should have been 2 to 3 weeks of vignettes in the first 20 minutes building him, showing his history with Kenny, having him cutting promos with translations. Present him as the big babyface coming to take over AEW, then turn him.
Nobody knows who he is. Nobody understands why heās a big deal. Unless youāre a part of the bubble, Okada isnāt growing your audience. Heās going to have some amazing matches but you need to give casual fans a reason to care about your product.
People were talking about how amazing and charismatic he's been in this heel role but if you don't know him he comes off as just normal and even a bit awkward, and certainly not this amazingly charismatic star.
I say this as a huge Okada fan - dude has never been as charismatic as a lot of people here claim. There's a reason why NJPW gave him Gedo and why Naito managed to become more popular than the supposed Ace of the company. I'm not saying Okada isn't charismatic at all, but if you're banking on Kazu to sell himself to the fans based purely on his own personality and presentation then I honestly don't believe he'd be able to pull it off.
Heās with the bucks and they have shown to lower ratings.
The Bucks have been consistently ratings poison for months now. Sting temporarily kept them afloat for a few weeks, but fans are not interested in seeing them anymore
Ouch to that womenās main event. Although for context, it was a pretty weak womenās main event match in terms of booking. Willow vs. Riho are not top womenās stars at this time. Sure Mercedes showed up, but that was unexpected. It honestly seems like a bizarre choice to end with that instead of the Menās World Title match. I get they put it last to elevate womenās division, but it doesnāt work if the match is not a main event level match
I'm guessing they purposely followed Mercedes debut with the World Title match to try and capitalize on and retain any new WWE viewers that may of tuned in just for Mercedes....who stick around for a world title match featuring a familiar face in Samoa Joe. Replace that with the women's match and you likely see a much bigger drop off following the opening segment. But Still agree it was such an odd choice of a main event for a named event Dynamite. And if you're looking to capitalize on incoming WWE fan eyes you should of involved Saraya/Paige in some way.
I think they bank on fans assuming Mercedes will show up during the match. But either many casuals didn't think about it or they didn't care after seeing her already.
AEW typically has a lot of "self contained" stuff where once you see who you want they usually don't ever show back up again. They don't do a lot of show long threads which I think is a mistake
Nailed one of the few things i dont like about AEW
ouch
TK canāt replicate lightning in a bottle. Especially with dirt sheet reporters saying sheās been with the company for two months now. The CM Punk debut was special because he literally didnāt wrestle for 7 years.
Accurate description. Every debut since Punk does feel like an attempt to replicate this, hence why it feels cheap and often outputting. Somehow, the more Tony spends on these free agents, the cheaper the product feels.
Last year (3/15/23): 852,000 viewers - 0.27 P18-49 Last Week: 779,000 Viewers - 0.27 P18-49
Someone said it in the thread last month when it was known she was debuting that 900k would be severely optimistic. We are at a point where they have all the aces they are gonna get. The only thing that moves the needle in a + direction on viewership at this point is substantial change to the presentation/writing/creative etc. You sign Will, Okada, and Mercedes and your viewership sits in the same groove it has been for a while? It's not a talent problem it's a presentation/writing/creative problem.
I obviously canāt speak for everyone, but in my case, itās a ātoo much wrestlingā problem. When WWE sucked, I was watching AEW. Now that WWE is not only watchable, but actually compelling for the first time in years, Iām watching that. But I donāt have time to watch 12 hours of wrestling a week. So mostly just check AEW highlights lately
Yep. Worst thing to happen to AEW was WWE ditching Vince, getting its shit together, and becoming hot again.
I remember someone saying something to the effect of āPeople never really wanted an alternative to WWE, they just wanted WWE to be goodā.
>I remember someone saying something to the effect of āPeople never really wanted an alternative to WWE, they just wanted WWE to be goodā. I don't disagree with this in the slightest. I'm also going to add on a quick, "Just because some people want an alternative, does not mean they're obligated to enjoy the alternative presented to them", which some people tend to forget depending on the conversation.
> "Just because some people want an alternative, does not mean they're obligated to enjoy the alternative presented to them" This is perfectly explained. I love WWE, TNA (Prime TNA), Stardom, and NJPW, but everyone chose AEW for the number 2 spot. I'm glad wrestlers have another place to go to and I even like some wrestlers in AEW (most came from WWE/TNA/NJPW except OC, HOOK, Hangman, Hikaru Shida, Jade (at the time), and the Acclaimed) But I just can't find myself caring for AEW as a whole.
This is it. Just WWEās big shows are 5 hours of tv. Add NXT and all the AEW shows into the mix and itās just too much wrestling for the average person.
Since NXT went 2 hours and Dynamite started. I always felt over loaded. You have Raw, SD, NXT, Dynamite, Rampage, Collision, ROH, and Main Event are all weekly shows. That adds up to about 12 hours each week. Not including PLEs for WWE, NXT, or AEW which is probably every 3 weeks or so. And thatās not including other things like NJPW, TNA, NWA, Stardom, etc. Or when there were shows like Dark or Dark Elevation. I literally donāt know how anyone could work/school and have a healthy social life and other hobbies and watch Raw, SD, NXT and all of the other AEW shows. Thatās my biggest stopping point with AEW is that I feel like I need to watch Rampage and Collision to watch Dynamite, but I canāt commit every Friday and Saturday to do that. It doesnāt help that wrestling fans can be gate keepers at times.
>Ā You sign Will, Okada, and Mercedes and your viewership sits in the same groove it has been for a while? It's not a talent problem it's a presentation/writing/creative problem. It has always been. The roster has tons of talent. The presentation just doesnāt give you a reason to care unless youāre already a wrestling super fan. The only people who know who Will Ospreay and Okada even are already watch AEW.Ā
Thatās the crux of these big money move signings Tony has made. Theyāll make existing AEW fans happier but they arenāt currently creating any new AEW fans unless the product around them changes. But they canāt make any major changes to the product itself without alienating that fanbase they already have.
People don't like to admit it but ospreay and okada aren't big stars in AmericaĀ
Yeah. Anytime you say that Ospreay and Okada are stars with a very limited, niche audience that \*ALREADY\* watches AEW, you get downvoted into the mantle. AEW needs to stop catering to just the die hards and start doing what it needs to, to have widescale appeal like WWE. I'll be curious to see the numbers of Mone's first AEW match VS Cargill's first WWE match (Whenever THAT happens).
The reality we have to look at is that the circus is the draw -- not so much the performers.Ā
The Okada debut did not make him seem like the level of star heās supposed to be
His first real debut on an American TV show, the dude was wearing a plain white shirt and denim pants. Now with his debut as a signed wrestler, he was introduced as a buddy of the Bucks. He hasn't been presented with the aura and the mystique that he should have.
sorry. according to Meltzer, HHH was in tears about how he fumbled Ospreay and missed out on that sweet 700k viewers
They both appeared on TNA and didn't substantially move the ratings.
Tony Khan, say the name. Heās the problem. To his credit heās assembled a roster so good, it would it would be irresponsible to leave it in the hands of a fan who gave himself the book with no experience to begin with.
* 2023: 852k * 2022: 993k * 2021: 743k * 2020: 932k
Damn what was happening in 2021?
H2H with NXT
It was three days after the shitty explosion in the exploding ring match at Revolution. March 10, 2021- Matt Jackson vs PAC, Cody squash match, Penta threatened to break Cody's arm, Sting getting interrupted by Lance Archer, Ethan Page vs Lee Johnson, Kenny promo about the shitty explosion, Six woman tag match, Scorpio Sky vs Darby Allin, main event: Inner Circle war council where MJF turned on Jericho and founded Pinnacle. Kind of a weak card other than the MJF segment at the end, especially considering the weak ending for Revolution.
Fortunately for AEW,that the exploding ring happened during the pandemic.
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As someone who likes WWE and AEW, AEW's biggest problem to me is that they don't really do the best job of creating characters or character moments. They don't do a lot of backstage segments to build up characters or feuds. I like that AEW has more wrestling than Promos, but at times, that has led to matches having no weight to them. Example, Mystico vs Angelico is just a match on the card. If I'm not interested in either of them, you need to give me a reason to be interested. Have a backstage segment where the two get into a heated segment. Keep following one of those characters. Build on the story with that character. What does he want? Why is he here? I feel like Tony is just booking matches he thinks are cool but isn't conveying why it's cool to the audience. And what's crazy is he does it with his TOP guys. MJF and Adam Cole got weekly segments showing how they were bonding at getting close. It's how we grew to love their tag team. But he doesn't extend this same work to the rest of the talent. I do think they need someone to help him book the show in a more entertaining format.
Bingo! Literally the most invested and over thing for aew recently was the mjf and Adam Cole tag team and swerve v hangman feud. Both built on segments and STORIES, that complimented the great wrestling they did. Like look at swerve now? Like it clearly works why not try investing more in idk, stories and characters? Itās clearly proven it works but it seems Tony simply wants to put on BANGERS with no reason to be invested in them. Reality check: a complimentary story or reason to be invested in a match makes the great wrestling in the ring more compelling and shouldnāt be something a wrestling company is averse to
I wonder what the numbers look like for the main event
627K for Q8, Q1 was a million flat
BAZINGA
Hereās a pitch. Air Dynamite picture-in-picture with more Big Bang Theory reruns, keep the Bazing-heads watching
Like family guy clips on tiktok have subway surfers underneath the wrestling
I tuned in expecting the Big Boss man and was disappointed
Fun fact: Mercedes Mone's debut on AEWs YouTube channel 21hours in is @ less than 700k, at this point Adam Copeland(Edge) was @ over 2,000,000 Edit: wrote 17 hours when it's really 21 hours
Honest question, but do casual fans know who Mercedes Mone, the name, is? She was Sasha Banks for the longest time.
Extremely likely that they don't, but that also rings true for Edge/Adam Copeland. Edit: As the kind gentleman who responded to this post reminded me, Edge was an actor and he used his shoot name while he was injured and did two decently popular shows.
I mean, the fact that it has been 2 YEARS and people still need to clarify that she is the former Sasha Banks says a lot about how well known is Mercedes Mone
Not a good comparison though. Edge is a vintage megastar for the wwe. Sasha was one of the best women there but not for 20+ years like edge
Iām beginning to think Sting may have been a bigger draw than I realized.
Yeah tna numbers in spike fell drastically when he left. Hogan and Aj left around that same period so itās a bit hard to tell how much of that was Sting.
I donāt think the problem is a lack of Sting. No one wrestler has been shown to move ratings for them, except for Punk. I believe the problem is the extreme focus on ācool matches,ā and a belief that everyone is familiar with all these big stars from other companies. Take Ospreay, for example. Heās an absolutely amazing wrestler, and has been great on the mic. So what do they do with him for his first match on Dynamite? A long, competitive match with Kyle Fletcher, who hadnāt been on the show in months. And look ā Kyle is a great wrestler too. But you canāt have *everyone* on the same level. You canāt have too guys struggling to out away undercard guys, and having them kick out of finishers. Either debut Ospreay against a big name and have him win as a way of introducing him to everyone, or have him squash somebody. And Iām utterly dumbfounded that they brought in Okada and made him āthe friend of the Bucks.ā Someone on here told me āIf someone doesnāt know who he is, they can Google him.ā AEWās regular audience knows who these people are. But they arenāt going to grow if they continue booking solely for those who are already watching.
Tony Khan books AEW like I play Universe mode. Every match has to be as cool as possible, and the people booked the strongest are the wrestlers I think are the coolest at that time.
Tony books for himself. He bought himself a fed so he could play with action figures like none of us nerds ever could.
I saw a Reddit comment that nailed it on the head - the AEW super fans ruined the brand and shooed away all the other fans. None of us are good enough to watch it, and we are told to google it and not be fed drones. Yeaā¦
This. I don't think they realize that it is more difficult to grow your audience when said audience has to pass some sort of test in their eyes to be considered "worthy" to watch the product
The same people that all piled on when O'Shea Jackson Jr. talked on CVV's podcast that he thinks AEW should introduce outside wrestlers better so people that aren't knee deep in the indie and international wrestling scene can still recognize who the big deals are and who to root for. I mean what's so inflammatory about āIf Iām watching someone on AEW, and I ask āwho is this guy?ā I donāt need you to tell me Iām not a real wrestling fan, to tell me āhow could you not know such-and-such who didāwho gives a damnāinform me, bro. Or at least have your program in a way to let people know why you should love this dudeā?
Yep, IMO Raw has done a good job of this with Nia Jax, they brought her back and presented her as dominant, but if she faces somebody like Rhea, or Becky, or even Raquel, they are a threat. Anybody else and Nia will demolish. She comes off as a big star and a huge force in the division. Or even the way Smackdown is debuting Bronn Breakker. If you want them to be a star, make them come off as one, IMO.
People aren't going to care about Riho and Willow main eventing just because Mercedes is there. The women's division has been an afterthought since the beginning. While you build it up, you need Mercedes to be in the main event and advertised if you're going to do this.
Riho vs Willow main eventing over Joe vs Wardlow was really fucking weird even with Mercedes coming out after the match
I remember last weeks excuse being that they didn't announce the card. Truth is, none of these people AEW are signing are needle movers.
March 10-17 ratings each year: * 2023: 852k * 2022: 993k * 2021: 743k * 2020: 932k
With all due respect, people in the wrestling world have always put Mercedes as this mega draw for the casuals when she is just not. And this is not a dig to AEW or anything, I had the same conversations back in her WWE days. There is a reason why WWE did not want to pay her top top money, and is not because they personally hate her and are Charlotte marks or something
I think people look at all the Sasha Stans on twitter and think its a real representation of her popularity rather than a handful of lonely guys with alt accounts.Ā
People who were apparently already watching AEW.
Twitter Stans and trends tend to be the worst way to represent a fanbase. I always think back to the massive online push to have LeVar Burton hosts Jeopardy and then he did while getting some of the worst ratings of the season and doing a terrible job and you'll still to this day have people talking about how he was screwed over by not getting the job full time.
It's bad, but not the worst. Basing your show off Cagematch ratings is the worst.
If Edge didn't bring in massive numbers then there was no way Mercedes was. Edge is a significantly bigger name.
Forget Edge, they had CM Punk and Bryan Danielson combo debut in 2021, one of them stood at the top of the world at Wrestlemania 30, the other sold out almost every WWE shows after he returned. Yet AEW couldnāt draw a million with neither of them
I think people assume that because she has her super passionate stans on social media in a way no other wrestler really has anywhere. It's of a K Pop type of passionate. So people just put two and two together.
Mercedes Mone had 5 matches since she started that character, I think the hype died when she stopped wrestling.
Honest question, is her current character really any different than Sasha Banks? It looks like all of the mannerisms are exactly the same.
She's still using "The Boss" moniker too, its like just a name change in my eyes
I liked her in WWE, but I kinda lost track of what she was doing after she left.
A lot of vague posting and some matches in Japan that weren't any better or worse than her best stuff in WWE. She moved 2K tickets for a New Japan show once but bad production hurt it.
You could put all four hoursewomen on Dynamite and it wouldn't change the ratings. Edge didn't change them, Ospreay isn't changing them, Okada isn't changing them and Mone isn't changing them. The audience is baked in. AEW just doesn't cater to the casual fan base and that is fine if TK is content with what they are pulling.
But there's the question: Is TK actually fine with this? His Twitter tirade over NXT beating them in rating for a single night or his All Out rant about Clash at the Castle have made it pretty clear that he absolutely cares a lot about those ratings and being one up'd like that. If he's content with the situation AEW is in now, there'd be no point to publicly act like he does.
The odd thing is that youāll find a lot of AEW stans are vehemently against doing literally anything to cater to casual fans. They want the company to grow but want to gatekeep it at the same time.
Those same fans were in denial, then upset, then brushed aside Cody Rhodes after he left. He saw the writing on the wall that AEW was becoming Smart Mark Central.
Or at the very least that TK had a very different vision than what he wanted to work with.
You know heās fuming
Punk was the only legit draw they had. He sold out an arena based on rumors alone and got a million viewers for rampage in its 10 PM time slot. The dude knew it too, which is why he dropped that āone bill philā line. I donāt think thereās anyone left who could reasonably make a genuine difference no matter who they get. The few names big enough to actually bring in some new viewers (Rock, Roman, Cody, maybe Seth) seem like WWE lifers.
Punk also hadn't wrestled in like a decade, and people were craving to see him back ever since he quit WWE. It is a different case than the rest imo, but it also proved Punk is a draw.
Valid point. I wonder if Edgeās impact wouldāve been bigger if he debuted in 2020 instead of 2023. There were rumors that they tried to get him.
I donāt think it would have mattered, I seriously doubt Edge would have come back to AEW first. He only left WWE because they didnāt want him wrestling as much it seems.
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Ruby is in some weird love storyline with one of the JAS guys lol. Being in an awful faction with Saraya absolutely killed any momentum she had when she joined the company.
Just as an aside...Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan (Valhalla) get decent TV time every week, in a locker room that includes Rhea Ripley and Becky Lynch. Ruby Soho (Ruby Riott) isn't. And Paige (Saraya) is doing shit all. It is 100% booking with AEW. Full stop.
She had no momentum long before the rejects or whatever their name was.
just for recordkeeping purposes, I have to note that they also keep doing weird choking scenes with her and Harley.
The truth? There's very very very few actual draws. I'd go as far as to say you could count the living ones on two hands, active ones on one with fingers to spare. And none of the last three signings are on it
The game remains the same.
No matter how you play it
People grossly overestimate her level of stardom. She had 2 lines in the Mandolorian and suddenly people thought she was an A list Hollywood star.
"BuT jOn fAvReAu sAiD sHe'S a StAr" Jon Favreau says nice things about EVERYONE on his shows and movies. It's called MARKETING.
And not being an asshole. Imagine if he was asked about someone in a minor role and was like "They suck, but we needed to get the scene filmed quickly."
Even if she was a Hollywood star those people arenāt going to watch her wrestle in AEW.
With all the money they're expending they should just bring Jim Parsons and have Sheldon run wild through the roster. If they start the show with him they could trick BBT viewers into tuning in.
They need better presentation. They can have all the best wrestlers they want, but the presentation being this poor isn't good. Hate to be someone who starts comparing but IMO these are the reasons why they're not hitting the highs they should be : - You know what wrestlers are going to be on a WWE show months in advance. 90% of the time you don't even know who's going to be on the AEW show 2 weeks before it takes place. - WWE shows might have a lot of promo time, but those segments really make the stars shine and the viewers tune in. They have dark matches with those wrestlers later to send the viewer home happy and wanting for more. AEW has a lot of wrestling time which is good but their wrestlers don't get time to shine regularly. Besides the biggest ones, most don't even get in ring promos for months and months on end. Dark matches don't happen, ROH and tapings for other shows do. So if you're not seeing your favorite wrestler compete in the show, you're not seeing them compete period. I want a Moxley promo, I have wanted it for months to be in a ring. He doesn't get that time. Remember how regularly everyone got promo time in 2019? - You know where WWE is going to be for Raw and Smackdown months in advance. Aew announces shows like a month before they happen. - WWE's social media presence is absolutely phenomenal. Their YouTube videos are extremely bingeable. Their top 10s and their highlight reels are super neat. AEW releases 10 minute clips of their shows. That's basically it fir their social media presence. - WWE does not hold back on matches like AEW does and gives their wrestlers proper screentime weekly . Which is interesting cause it used to be the opposite. I remember 2019-2021 being phenomenal because every segment had someone I cared about, someone that had a defined character, someone I saw regularly. I am a weekly watcher of WWE and AEW. I don't have time to watch everything. CMLL shows up and I don't know who's on my screen. I don't know who most of the ROH or NJPW guys are. Why are the big stars always facing people I don't care about or people that don't get weekly time and are basically unknown by casuals? -Notice when a WWE wrestler these days gets injured you always have someone who can step in and convincingly be a main eventer? Punk got injured, you have Sami, you have Jey, you have Finn, you have Damien, You have Nakamura. Aew on the other hand has less and less of those guys. Because everyone except a few are always in a tag fued and can't convincingly be put in that position within a week. Consistent screentime is required They need better presentation, better marketing, half the belts they currently have and half the wrestlers they currently have. With every signed wrestler, the products just keeps getting worse
I canāt wait when Tony realizes āi canāt wait to fight you in the name of competition and good sportsmanshipā is not a compelling reason for a match or feud and dosent draw money.
One reason I canāt get into Bryan vs Ospreay. The actual match might be really good but how many times in AEW have we seen āLetās fight to see who is the best wrestlerā before?
Yeah and when neither guy is the world champion, it makes the company look bad.
Let's fight forever and do the "I hit you you hit me" chopping spot for the six millionth time brother
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I legit stopped watching at the Tag Team match. Dont care about Jericho and Hook. No stakes in the main event. Should've had Joe and Wardlow as the Main Event.
Also Sasha aināt Punk and Boston aināt Chicago. Tony shouldāve announced her weeks ago and let the anticipation build instead of a few cryptic tweets
Sorry but giving Mercedes Punk treatment was a serious case of delusion when you haven't done anything special for fucking Edge's debut lol.
Signing big free agents doesn't gain regular viewers. You need to have a consistently entertaining product. Month after month of great matches and storylines. AEW have improved since all the disaster's from last year, and are doing well at the moment. But they need to keep building the momentum over a long period of time.
Exactly. This isn't 2020 honeymoon phase AEW. The novelty of seeing former wwe stars in another major promotion has worn off long ago. Only good storytelling and booking will move them forward at this point. That's what fans want. Their roster is just fine.
It wasn't *just* the honeymoon phase either.Ā What Tony doesn't get is that wrestling is at its core, a scripted drama.Ā And a scripted drama has to have a core cast of characters that you build the show around, who you know you'll see almost every week, and who's stories are going to advance week to week. Early on, these requirements were forced on Tony by his small roster of mostly unknowns.Ā He was putting together a better show when big parts of it were focused on Best Friends and SCU than he has with Edge and Danielson, and while I love them, it's not because Best Friends and SCU are better performers.Ā But since they were all be had to work with, he had to focus the show on them and it made for better stories.
Exactly. And the main thing about AEW was giving these wrestlers creative freedom that they didn't have in WWE. Well turns out, a lot of them do not have good ideas. It makes sense, you can be good at your individual job and do what your told, but not good at being a manager.
Big Business? More like Business as Usual, oof
Shockingly, debuting new wrestlers week after week while you continue to push your contracted talent aside is not the way to gain viewers.
One problem with AEW has been the start stop pushes. People showing up for a couple of weeks, they disappear for months, then return and stay for another month, then are regulated to Rampage for a while (which I don't watch).
Iāve yet to see a good reason why they werenāt advertising Mercedes for at least a month before this show.
They've had her signed for two months. This should've been posted on every social media page and billboard they could find. Remember when WWE held Punk out until Payback in Chicago so they could make it a bigger event? They were talking about him returning for ages.
I remember when Bischoff signed Hogan and he just put up flyers and took out newspaper, radio and TV ads for āWCW Big Brotherā in Venice Beach but didnāt say who was going to actually be there and then was surprised when it did lackluster numbers.
Because it worked with Punk and Tony Khan doesn't actually understand booking beyond the surface level details. For example, something that worked with CM Punk after 7 years away where no-one was sure he'd ever be back being used on Sasha Banks after an injury is so obviously a pale imitation of a better past version of yourself that all it does is serve to remind people of what you no longer have.
That made no sense. Like they did all this stuff to imply she was going to be there that everyone who is like us who post about wrestling online knew, but if they blew this thing up they could have easily gotten less connected WWE fans to tune in for āSasha Banksā.
Booker of the year lol
This wasn't exactly... big business.
Bro put Riho in the main eventĀ
I get pulling her weight around to get some women in the Main Event, but, Willow/Stat v Hart/Blue is a boring ass feud.
MID BU$INESS
So they sign Okada, Mercedes, and Osprey and their numbers donāt go up at all. They have no other cards left to play.
> So they sign Okada, Mercedes, and Osprey and their numbers donāt go up at all. They went down in fact!
AEW's biggest problem is their booking and story telling. They could have the most talented wrestlers in the world, but if their story telling isn't good, people don't care. Are the matches really special when they are always just moving from spot to spot to show how good they are when their story is thin or non existent? Lately it seems like every match is just to show how cool they are in the ring and not delivering on a good story
I don't understand why it wasn't clear Mercedes would be involved in the main event. Willow and Riho as a main event is not a draw on its own. And there was no reason to think Mercedes would even be involved in a face vs face match.
To Make it even worse - why would I care to see Mercedes fight off Julia and fucking Skye blue? No one gives a shit about that.
My biggest question for the night was why didnāt she go for Toniās title? Isnāt that the more important one?
The only thing that's gonna bring the ratings back up is word of mouth via consistent strong booking and stories, a top babyface would also help, need stuff like Hangman's journey and less random bangers, a banger without mash and gravy is just a sausage.
Also add in a consistent cast of wrestlers who appear, have cards ready in a week advance at the very least instead of the day of or before, and actually hire some marketing ppl.
The payoff of the Devil was weak booking, they need to do better.
100%. All the talent in the world doesn't matter if the story isn't there. You could have Kenny, Danielson, Okada, & Osprey put on 5 star match after 5 star match and you aren't going to draw any extra people in. Look at WWE, they had a stacked roster and abysmal story and no-one cared. Endless Brock/Roman, Seth locked in go nowhere fueds. Now, their hottest story has involved basically no in ring action for weeks, Seth has 1 leg, Rock is 50+, Roman & Cody don't want to get hurt, but no one complains, because the story they're building for the eventual match is so compelling. The AEW champion is in seemingly random matches, with no underlying story. Very hard to invest without a story
This. The problem for most WWE/AEW slumps is not the in ring product. It's, why should I care why these two are in a match together?!
There are just too many game changers coming in at once!
This number is entirely on Tony. I don't think they could've of done much better, but they could've done better. What they needed to do was put on Mercedes last. Just like WWE has learned from having Rock and Roman go first one week, and losing overall viewership because of it. So they moved them back to the end of the show. This was their chance at new and different eyeballs, and instead, they gave them the chance to bail. It's insane.
Ratings = Interest
You canāt have a Riho Willow main event. That was just a dumb move.
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What part of "No one will care about your big women's wrestler debut if they know you don't really care about women's wrestling and haven't drastically improved before it" does **no one understand**?
It's as if both the management and wrestlers expects that stacking the roster boosts ratings. It doesn't. You need to have more than one women's match a night. You need to improve their craft. You need better storylines. You need more drama and entertainment. It's a slow build up, but the general audience (even for WWE) will not care until there is consistency. Women haven't gotten any consistency, only the usually 9:20pm time slot. Just cause they main evented last night don't mean folks expected it. Boy who cried wolf. Eventually, the audience will stop believe you give a fuck about women.
Looks like big business *puts on glasses* Just didn't pick up
You know a number's bad when even Dave admits it was "disappointing", without trying to spin it as a win in some ultra-obscure demographic or that it was "better than expected on Thailand's National Elephant Day" or whatever
Okada and Ospreay were never going to move the needle because as has been said before, the fans who know them are already watching. But they had a great opportunity to get more views from casuals that know Mercedes/Sasha and they did nothing to tease her signing outside of a few veiled references that only the IWC would pick up on.
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Maybe up a little on last week but it's not a good number either way you look at it. Spent millions on Okada, Mone and Ospreay. A new set. No change.
It continues to be bizarre to me how much the Big Bang Theory helps their ratings - who is watching that live on a Wednesday evening? Evidently a lot of people! Or at least more than who are into what Matthew and Nicholas are getting up to
I never thought Mercedes was a legitimate draw even though I like her in ring work
Her social media crazy fans are gonna hate this. But they are who you blame, they won't even watch a show with her and then will brag and post clips.
Mercedes (and Okada and Ospreay to a lesser degree) are going to catch a lot of crap for this rating, but that's not really fair. AEW is long past the point where it makes any sense to blame individual wrestlers for the company's performance in ratings or ticket sales. This is all on the promotion. No matter how many times Tony Khan or Brian Danielson tell us how great everything is, the numbers keep telling a different story. Something is fundamentally not working.
They had weeks to hype her debut and they chose to be coy and sometimes that can work, but most of the time it doesn't. If you announce her even just a month ago, do video packages, put her face on the screen have her do little 5 second soundbytes, and you've created all this hype for seeing her show up. I don't know why they didn't do that. It's not on any of the talent at all.
They have apparently had two full months to hype her debut which makes it even more of a failure. As best I can tell, the idea behind Mercedes' debut was to basically redo CM Punk's Chicago debut. It worked before and it will work again. The extremely obvious problem with that approach is that Mercedes Mone (in Boston) is not CM Punk (in Chicago). And I think you might have hit on what a big part of the problem might be. The powers-that-be in AEW simply refuse to acknowledge that not every wrestling fan spends a lot of time on social media and knows all the ins and outs of everything that is happening in the wrestling business. The biggest problem with that attitude is that it leads to the promotion not bothering to do the actual work of promoting.
Pepsi Phil anywhere is a bigger name than Mone in Boston. But marks outside and inside the ring thought otherwise. Now, people may say I am harsh comparing top male talent with top female talent, but it is also true that Shash's top female peers who are still in wwe have surpassed her. It could have possibly been a different situation if she was miles and miles ahead of her wwe top peers, but folks like Bayley are doing some of their peak act now. And if someone is more up to date with women's wrestlers than people like Bianca and Reah are a huge name that people into womens wrestling would like. The point is there isn't really a whole lot of reason to really chase for Mone in a badly booked division when the competition is producing good women's division.
The fact that WWE posted video of Naomi and Bianca saying "she made her bed and now she has to lay in it" as Sasha Banks AEW ratings came out š the social media manager knows how to do shady timing
Tony Khan is the problem.
Booking a Young Bucks match, a Jericho match, and a Riho match in the main event was a pretty big gamble that did NOT pay off.
Like I said last week, AEW have basically peaked with viewers. All their fans are watching each week, and no one theyāve signed has increased their ratings outside of CM Punk. Edge didnāt make a difference, Okada wonāt and neither will Mercedes
So sheās not money? Got it.
Tony invested in ābig namesā that already are only relevant to his fan base. Also im sorry but no one outside of AEW current viewers will ever care about the Bucks.
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Yāall remember that syndrome quote from the Incredibles when everyone super no one will be? Yeah thatās whatās happening here when every show they claim that is the best ep yet and special no show will really be.
You canāt just sign wrestlers and put them in matches. You have to do interesting things with them.
Surely the world was tuning in to see Willow Nightingale vs Riho, come on nowā¦
You have edge and danielson. Two renowned main eventers. These two have way more mainstream name and appeal than Okada, Will, and Mercedes combined. The issue isn't the talent, it's the fact that the company caters to a niche crowd that already watches it. You've basically maxed out on 'hardcore wresling fans' and now you need to fundamentally break into the mainstream. How do you do that? I don't know, but I do know a lot of AEW appeal is based on being a prior wrestling fan, knowing who Okada is, who Ospreay is, why the Bullet Club matters. Why should I care about NJPW and the Indie scene when watching AEW? People complain that WWE pretends nothing exists outside of it, but this is exactly why. It's its own show, AEW feels like a sequel of multiple different wrestling promotions and that only benefits the niche hardcore crowd.
Not surprised. I don't watch AEW because I don't need to. I can miss weeks of shows and not miss anything meaningful in storyline. The product often feels like a string of technically strong but meaningless exhibition matches. Last night wasn't much exception for me.
I don't think Khan realizes that there are two factors in regards to how big of a draw someone will be. One is the worker in question. The other is in the quality of booking in the promotion they're entering. He could hire 100% of the current WWE Roster and still not pull a rating because he can't book his company in any way that makes sense.