Official WWE/ECW/WCW/TNA talk, or whatever v2

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

***** match. Absolutely incredible stuff. Both are immensely talented, and I think MJF's in-ring work is underrated. MJF is top three in the world right now. One small gripe is that I wish they'd fine tune them leaving the ring for 2-3 minutes without reason. That seems to happen in all of their big matches, that the ref doesn't count them out.

It was insane to give that match away for free with only one week of build up. That should have closed (or opened) All Out. I know they're trying to boost the rating for Dynamite. Maybe it'll work this week? Otherwise that's the match everyone wanted to see, and would have paid for it.

Honestly its one of the things that killed WCW, Bishoff got obsessed with beating WWF, and he always wanted to be able to go to the Turner executives and show the refs. So he would constantly hotshot PPV quality matches with next to no build and give them away for free.


Sure he sold out the Georgia Dome for a Nitro with Goldberg versus Hogan, and putting Goldberg over, but at the end of the day the executives were extremely pissed that they gave away millions in buy rates to do it.


People will pay lots of money if its a well built angle between two stars on a PPV. But you give it away, and a later PPV angle means less, the fans have seen it.


And I agree with you all about MJF, he's an amazing worker and character worker, but it might be a benefit to AEW to actually see a bit less of him.

[SuperMatt18]

AEW always puts on great matches, that's never really a question, and MJF-Ospreay was unreal (as expected).

But it's also where the AEW title picture is weird right now...

MJF was a former champion...who lost his title (Which in kayfabe meant the world to him)...and he's weirdly seemed to not care about that title at all since his return which is very out of character for him since he was obsessed with that title for most of his AEW career.

It's almost like they are trying to have the AEW Title (Swerve), International Title (MJF), and Continental Title (Okada) be held as the same importance and I'm not sure that is working for AEW.

I think an interesting angle would have actually been to have have Hangman cost Swerve the title in a match against MJF...would really show just how much Hangman hates Swerve...that he was even willing to cost Swerve the win at MJFs expense...and MJF could have really played that up too.

[TheIronMaiden]

You can #### on WWE for being to formulaic all you like, but there is hardly a Wrestler on TV where you don't know exactly what they want and why they want it.

Raw is pure chaos and feels alive. So many things going on, but they're all built slowly and have simple stories so it is easy to follow.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

but at the end of the day the executives were extremely pissed that they gave away millions in buy rates to do it..

I don't think that's accurate. I think most of the Turner execs had no idea about what was given up there. They loved the ratings way of thinking. It's why WCW went off the rails so hard when it did. None of the Turner execs knew enough about wrestling to make it work and couldn't find anyone who was worth their salt who was willing to come in and fix it.

I loved the match. I think a lot of people would have paid to see it and are unlikely to pay to see a rematch that you know the outcome of (Ospreay cannot win and must move on to the World Title scene) and will likely be unable to live up to the hype of this match. Both of those facts take nothing away from the fact that this is a moty candidate. Just such a "That's so AEW" thing that its on a random Summer Dynamite.

[trackercowe]

With only two weeks of build they gave away their biggest match (by far) on free television. It just doesn't make any logical sense. Yet on the women's side they're doing a proper build with Toni Storm and Mariah May (and Baker/Mone to a lesser extent).

Why they gave this one away on a random Dynamite with a small crowd is baffling.

[rubecube]

They did the same thing with Omega/MJF. That one was even worse because MJF already had a PPV match booked, making the outcome completely predictable.

[Blaster86]

I think we all agree and are just kicking the can around. Match was fantastic. Timing and giving it away is confusing and also on brand.

that said, selfishly, I am unlikely to pay for an AEW PPV so that I got to see it makes me quite happy.

[albertGQ]

Originally Posted by Muta

I'm waiting for a drop too - let's keep tabs in this thread if we see one - I want two tickets, but I'm cheap AF haha.

Ha ha. Me too

well, more poor than cheap but I do want to go.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Have none of you heard of IPTV?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

I think we all agree and are just kicking the can around. Match was fantastic. Timing and giving it away is confusing and also on brand.

that said, selfishly, I am unlikely to pay for an AEW PPV so that I got to see it makes me quite happy.

I think that's the takeaway. If TK wants to make business blunders, that's on him. We as fans are the winners.

[SuperMatt18]

And for AEW at this point they are in a lot of a different situation than WCW was at the time of Hogan - Goldberg.

WCW had strong TV ratings, were selling out arenas, and had good live gate performance at that time...but had just started losing the ratings Wars to the WWF consistently for the first time in over 2 years...so they were trying to pop a rating just to "win" the ratings war and actually threw away some long term booking for Goldberg, Sting, Hart, and Hogan and money that came from PPV buys to do that. Which was a mistake in hindsight.

AEW is in a very different spot right now.

TV ratings are struggling, live attendance / gate revenue is struggling even more, and they really don't have any issues with putting on strong PPVs...no matter who is in the match generally.

They are putting more and more of these big matchups on TV to try and help get more exposure to their stars (especially since AEW tends to have their stars available less than WWE on a week to week basis), in order to try to help build the attendance and TV ratings up again...which for them is probably more critical than PPV buys at this point. Especially since based on the stats I've seen their core fanbase continues to buy PPVs and the casual fanbase never really has.

[trackercowe]

Let's see if this does anything for the ratings. The fact that NXT is competing (sometimes surpassing) Dynamite in the ratings is not a good sign. AEW has a loyal fanbase, but even that fanbase seems to be decreasing. I don't bother with NXT, although the TNA crossover experiment seems to have been a benefit. Is Joe Hendry that big of a talent?

I still think Sting was their biggest draw all along, as the ratings began to decline upon his retirement. Tony should try and tempt him back into a managerial role of some kind. Back when Sting did retire he left a door open into returning in that capacity.

[TheIronMaiden]

Yeah AEW has some of the best matches in the world right now.

That said,

In the Digital Age I can watch good wrestling whenever I want. I can watch any of the greatest matches of all time. I can watch any of the best PPV's with or without comedians laughing and cracking jokes.

The WWE in general has boring matches week to week, but the motivation behind those matches lately and any of the other stuff surrounding them has been very entertaining and folks are rewarded for following and paying close attention.

The result is, I don't want to miss RAW, I pick and choose which AEW matches I'd like to check out.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

The WWE in general has boring matches week to week, but the motivation behind those matches lately and any of the other stuff surrounding them has been very entertaining and folks are rewarded for following and paying close attention.

It's more that everything is formulaic. We know the structure of the show is going to be some callout/beatdown between faces and heels in parallel feuds, leading to a multi-man tag main event, or babyface champ puts title on the line to prove they're a fighting champion. Most of the mid-card matches will be predictable or have screwy non-finishes to protect the participants for the upcoming PLE.

AEW has a similar problem where they have champs putting the belt on the line when they already have a PPV match booked against an opponent. But then you also have matches like last night where I was sure Ospreay was going to win or there'd be a time-limit draw and they completely subverted expectations.

I don't really care for the WWE formula, so I really only stick to watching Royal Rumble, Mania, MitB, and Summerslam. That said, I'm at the point with AEW where I'm only watching Dynamite when the card looks good. Collision and Rampage aren't worth wasting weekend evenings to watch.

[trackercowe]

Jesus, Linda McMahon has had so much work done....

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by rubecube

It's more that everything is formulaic. We know the structure of the show is going to be some callout/beatdown between faces and heels in parallel feuds, leading to a multi-man tag main event, or babyface champ puts title on the line to prove they're a fighting champion. Most of the mid-card matches will be predictable or have screwy non-finishes to protect the participants for the upcoming PLE.

AEW has a similar problem where they have champs putting the belt on the line when they already have a PPV match booked against an opponent. But then you also have matches like last night where I was sure Ospreay was going to win or there'd be a time-limit draw and they completely subverted expectations.

I don't really care for the WWE formula, so I really only stick to watching Royal Rumble, Mania, MitB, and Summerslam. That said, I'm at the point with AEW where I'm only watching Dynamite when the card looks good. Collision and Rampage aren't worth wasting weekend evenings to watch.

I think Ultimately I benefit because I quit watching WWE regularity from 2015 until about 2023 with some exceptions. I missed a lot of awful TV.

These days lots of WWE is still the same old formula. We know that Rhea is going to rip Liv to shreds at some point. But who knows does Dom and the Judegment day turn on Rhea first?

Does Rollins come out a sewer Punk at summer slam?

But that aside. I don't care if its a surprise, I care if it is entertaining. I love One Piece, but I know with very few exceptions they are going to split the party and then Monky D Luffy is going to show up at the end and win. The structure of most stories is what it is, but its the moments that fill up that structure matter.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

Let's see if this does anything for the ratings. The fact that NXT is competing (sometimes surpassing) Dynamite in the ratings is not a good sign. AEW has a loyal fanbase, but even that fanbase seems to be decreasing. I don't bother with NXT, although the TNA crossover experiment seems to have been a benefit. Is Joe Hendry that big of a talent?

I still think Sting was their biggest draw all along, as the ratings began to decline upon his retirement. Tony should try and tempt him back into a managerial role of some kind. Back when Sting did retire he left a door open into returning in that capacity.

https://www.cagesideseats.com/aew/20...se-mjf-ospreay

They're still down from where they were a year ago, but it's a nice bump for them. The article also notes they had competition from the RNC and a Caitlin Clark WNBA games (words I never thought I'd see written).

EDIT: The quarter hours are interesting. Looks like they maintained viewers throughout the Ospreay/MJF match, and then slowly bled them as the show went along. The good news is, that shows people will stick around after the BBT lead-in if the show is worth watching. The bad news is, they don't seem to have any other people who can draw outside of MJF.

To be fair, I turned it off for a bit after that atrocious Elite/Mone segment where they almost murdered Okada's aura, and then turned it back on for the main event.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1814056162301513752

[trackercowe]

Yeah that's a good sized bump. Now let's see if they can maintain that viewership. It was a loaded show with multiple title matches. Next week is Blood and Guts featuring the Bucks vs. a thrown together Team AEW.

Will they be able to keep that momentum going? In the end this is all Khan wanting a better offer from Warner's. Yet with all the financial problems within Warner's he probably should take that 110 million dollar offer and run with it.

Edit: I also don't think it helped to have the Jericho stuff right after the opening match. Jericho drives off viewers. He needs to go. Yet with the deal Khan gave Jericho he'll be a feature player for many years to come.

You're right about MJF as well. He's the biggest draw in the company right now. Credit to him for surviving the 'Devil storyline' unscathed. They just need to make sure he stays healthy. I wonder how they'll book him next? Can they maintain a feud with Ospreay going into Wembley? If not it might be Pac, since he won that title shot the week before... Yet booking MJF with a mid card title just doesn't feel right... Part of me wonders if they bring back a face Wardlow at some point in an attempt to build him back up.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

Yeah that's a good sized bump. Now let's see if they can maintain that viewership. It was a loaded show with multiple title matches. Next week is Blood and Guts featuring the Bucks vs. a thrown together Team AEW.

Yeah, I'm expecting a drop next week. If they open the show with B&G, they might be able to maintain the lead-in but I feel like unless they stack the card, they'll bleed viewers as usual.

It also really seems like Swerve isn't a draw as champ. I tend to think it's because he's been super boring as a babyface. His promos just aren't interesting anymore.

[SuperMatt18]

They need to get Okada away from the Bucks and The Elite...he was the best wrestler in the world by most accounts and he just feels like a wasted asset right now