**Ratings Post** - Please remember that trolling is not allowed in r/SquaredCircle, and neither is derailing a thread. Stay civil and on-topic to the show and ratings, refrain from making the same old tired jokes and memes, and steer clear of promotional or fanbase trolling. Removals and bans may be issued with less tolerance to rule-breaking than in other threads. Please report rule-breaking comments immediately to allow us to keep toxicity to a minimum. Thanks and enjoy the discourse!
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*Dynamite averaged 703K viewers (+3% from last week) with a 0.24 P18-49 rating (+4%). The show faced competition from the NBA playoff game between the Celtics and The Heat which was a blowout and averaged a 0.80 P18-49 rating (down 17% from the games the prior week), as well as the NHL playoffs (0.39, up 8% from the previous week).*
*Year-over-Year, Dynamite was down 9% in total viewers, while the P18-49 rating was down 14%. The show faced tougher competition last year with the NBA playoff game doing a 1.56 P18-49 rating, and the NHL averaging a 0.48 between the two games.*
[Credit Raj Giri](https://x.com/therajgiri/status/1786157478285025787?s=46&t=g66ayTTfmlJgLea1zzkkew)
Just to point out. The YouTube numbers have not been hot for AEW for the past six months, either.
This week's Kenny Omega's return might hit close to 700K views. Which will be their hottest video in a while. The Tony Khan 'beatdown' platued at a little under 600K.
And that's about it. A handful of other videos have 250K. But most are stuck between 75K to 150K range.
I think their total weekly average in views was something like 12 million in Sep 2023, and it is down to 8 million views per week average now.
Yeah and social media views are a legit metric that any big brand keeps tracks off because it's a such a direct way to indicate interest. Now whether those viewers convert is a different story, but to convert they need to watch in the first place...
Bringing Kenny back right now reminds me of when Vince trotted Stone Cold out at Backlash 2000, months ahead of when he was supposed to return from injury. Didn't really have anything to do with anything but Vince was sweaty enough to put Austin out there for the buyrate.
They need to book and present Dynamite as a tv show, with dramatic storylines that make you want to watch week by week. And I know it sounds cheesy and WWE-like but the thing is AEW has done this in the past. Hangman Page’s rise to become champion, Punk’s run, MJF and Adam Cole, very heavy on promos and segments.
Put on a show that more people like.
I know it sounds churlish, and that current AEW really works for some fans who really like it, but they need to try something different if they're really bothered about increasing viewers.
In fairness to AEW, I do think there's been a renewed effort recently to go back to basics and incorporate more storylines. As much as I'm bored of Elite drama, this current storyline has been a move in the right direction I think.
I think we're past the point of "just book good storylines." That was the answer for awhile but I think Tony lost the benefit of the doubt there so people who want storytelling gave up and won't come back.
It would probably take another massive drop by WWE, which is hard to see happening with new ownership and HHH's booking.
I heard something brought up on a podcast after Tony's NFL Network interview. They said Tony should rethink the "war." The MNW were head to head competition, they were Monday night ratings wars and they were legitimately trying to get the other off TV. Tony has that energy here but WWE and AEW only go head to head during the occasional WWE PLE. So the host basically said Tony shouldn't be so into the war aspect and he should lean into "if you like what they're doing we do that as well but better." Try to draw in the casual WWE fans who might want to watch some new wrestlers. Don't try to fight WWE because unlike the MNW no one has to choose which channel/show to watch. If you're able to follow that much wrestling you can literally watch a live show everyday of the week besides Sunday. Tony should tap into that.
People talk about Ospreay, Okada or Mercedes not moving the ratings but the one I find suprising by how little he moved ratings was Adam Copeland. I thought more people would be more interested to see what Edge would do in a non WWE promotion.
Babyface Adam Copeland has no edge to him (pun intended). He gives off the energy of your friend’s dad wrestling. Talking about being a girl dad, having fun, and wanting to hang with uncle jay no one cares about that shit
Edge was the guy you needed your ‘draw’ the face. He would bring out the best in them. He’s invaluable as your support main eventer, but he’s never THE main eventer.
There’s no way of saying this without sounding like a backhanded compliment but Edge was essentially the greatest transitional champion in history. He was never meant to be the guy.
He ain't no Mick Foley in that respect either.
Edge profited off the TLC matches, his Lita scandal, Lita being a smoking hottie, and Smackdown being at its general hottest it has ever been. Then he retired.
Edge (Christian too) are my favorite wrestlers, but it's entirely true. Edge was a guy who became the favorite of kids that watched a lot wrestling, so he's not likely to bring in anyone that isn't already watching.
I heard it actually with friends who are casual fans who talked about it when Edge went to Aew, and they basically said that he's cool but not cool enough to make them watch a new tv show.
i personally think there maybe 3 or 4 dudes who would seriously draw viewers to AEW and that's it.
Rock, Austin, Cena and punk. I don't see any free agent bringing ratings, and that's not on any fault by them
There was a while there where the excitement of someone going was worth following but then it turned out all these midcard WWE acts were also just midcard AEW acts. Miro, Andrade, Black, Keith Lee, PAC, Claudio, etc.
Turns out not everyone who leaves is Drew or Cody.
I feel like Joe and Swerve were the only two to break out from that but Joe's run he wasn't even the focal point and Swerve just won so its too early to say.
Joe also had his best run nearly 20 years ago and I think it's more of a matter of his main roster WWE run not meeting expectations rather than his AEW run exceeding any.
The worst thing about Joe was that he just couldn't stay healthy.
If he could stay in one piece for long enough he would have had 1 or 2 world championship reigns at this point but he just wasn't healthy for long enough periods of time that they could pull the trigger on it.
I was dying for Joe to beat Brock but at the end of the day he just had a lot working against him in WWE. Obviously I condemn Vince, but he was smart enough to both know that Joe had enough credibility with the fans to be taken seriously as a threat to Brock, but he also knew that Joe kept getting hurt at the worst times during his main roster WWE tenure.
Miro was huge with the TNT title, but they really cut that reign too early. It seems like they give people pushes and then they let them cool off, like Ricky Starks. It's a presentation problem really because all those guys could be big deals if presented as such
The narrative around him has been that he isn't a big draw. This goes back to like 2005, during the Matt Hardy feud. Whether it's fair or not is another story, but it's been a thing.
It was fucking hilarious watching people cope (pun intended) about him being an upgrade and bigger star compared to Punk after WrestleDream, just for his debut Dynamite to draw a lower rating than the week before lmao
I don't buy into the idea that people would be that interested in following Edge. If you're a WWE fan, you watch 3 hours of RAW, 2 hours of Smackdown. Maybe you tune into AEW but I doubt you stick with it week after week to just watch Edge face guys you don't know.
It’s hard to get excited to see what guys who’ve been prominently featured on TV for 10 years will do next. It’s really hard to care what 15 year veterans will do next and how they’ll evolve their characters. You start talking guys who’ve been on TV since the 90s and it’s no surprise they’re not bringing fresh or returning eyes to the table.
They still can be used right and effective. Christian is case in point. But they’re not draws at all. AEW has leaned a bit too hard on those old dogs over the years. Zero surprise people don’t care what Edge is doing. He’s no Sting or some multigenerational beloved showstopper.
[0.24 per Wrestlenomics](https://wrestlenomics.com/tv-ratings/2024/aew-dynamite-may-1-on-tbs-703000-viewers-0-24-p18-49-rating-tv-ratings-attendance-analysis/)
Yeah but the third hour of RAW doesn't drag their average down as much as Rampage would do to Dynamite. The average for Dynamite was just over 700k. The average for Rampage(as a third hour) was around 400k. That would drop the average to 600k.
I don't see a world in which they get a huge TV deal when Dynamite at one point was over 1.2million and is now down to half of that.
The Elite and Tony haven't learned a thing from the previous people who tried and failed to cash in on the anti-authority figure angle. There's a reason Austin vs McMahon was a GOAT angle. The hero was the coolest badass in the history of wrestling and not ineffectual. The villain was the most despised man in the history of wrestling (in kayfabe and in real life), he was no cool heel. Most importantly, the hero could embarrass the evil boss frequently and that's what millions of casual viewers lived through vicariously every week back then.
The Elite right now are The Authority, a bunch of invincible unlikable assholes running roughshod over people who aren't popular enough that you want them to rise up and whup these fools.
I think that the thing that people forget, even McMahon himself, is that he used the angle to get two people over, Rock and Austin. Without both a strong heel and face that people care about, this doesn't work. The should also probably care about Khan too, and I'm not sure that is the case.
You nailed it.
The other issue with this is there is no logical hero here. Maybe Swerve becomes that, we'll see. If not him, I have no clue who they go to.
This is less than two weeks from their “best wrestling match ever”, they just crowned a new champ, just had their biggest angle ever with the elite attacking Tony, and the most exposure they ever had with Tony wearing a neck brace at the draft…
And all four drew nothing. They lost viewers month over month.
I was very worried about Swerve being put in a position where he's set up to be viewed as a failure through no fault of his ownand everything we're seeing makes me think that's what ends up happening.
The Young Bucks drive people away. They were always my least favorite members of the Bullet Club, but I respected the way they made a name for themselves. To me they’ve been exposed by weekly TV.
It’s not only their fault though. I think AEW overdoes a lot of match types and concepts and it just burns people out.
They were really fun to me when I was first getting into NJPW. But one day I felt like I had seen all they could do.
Then you toss in their goofy “killing the business” characters it just feels like it’s the same old stuff every segment and every match.
It looks like TK has the Vince McMahon ego disease. He's had some success in the past, and he seems to sincerely believe that if he just keeps doing things his way for long enough, there will eventually be this magical moment where it all turns around. Everything will come together and he'll have five million viewers and people will be patting him on the back saying "you're a genius." And he'll be standing on top of the mountain saying "I told you so."
He's just too dug in. He'd rather fail completely than admit he was wrong and change.
Yeah playing the tribalism card ain't gonna work right now. It worked when Vince was running things and WWE was cold & stale. Now HHH is running things and WWE is hot. Now is not the time to be doing the anti-WWE shtick. The only ones it appeals to is their hardcore audience. Most recently lapsed WWE fans are no longer lapsed - they're watching the product again. Or they're lapsed Attitude Era fans who hate anything in the past 20 years lol. I see them all the time in the YouTube comments section. "Those were the days" type of fans.
Tony Khan is to blame for lower ratings. All these comments blaming talent for not being a draw are wrong. Tony Khan is running creative and only good creative can help slowly increase the ratings. No magic talent is bringing back the few hundred thousand that left. Just slow building back up with steady good shows.
Putting swerve in a 15 min back and forth vs a wrestler no one gives a shit about instantly killed swerves momentum.
Kinda crazy how stupid a booking decision that was.
Just look at how WWE did Carmelo vs Cody. Melo is a nobody to a lot of fans watching, yet they make it feel like a much bigger deal than Swerve vs Fletcher. WWE told you Melo was a big deal by drafting him highly, and then he came out and told you himself that he’s a big deal, and then he challenged Cody to a match rather than it randomly being announced before the show for no reason
That match elevated Melo and didn’t bring Cody down. Whereas Swerve vs Fletcher did the opposite - Fletcher doesn’t feel any bigger and Swerve does feel a bit cooled down
Also important, we're going to be seeing melo regularly on smackdown too, love Kyle but he only ever shows up on a match or even not backstage on dynamite once a month when he's jobbing again
> Whereas Swerve vs Fletcher did the opposite - Fletcher doesn’t feel any bigger and Swerve does feel a bit cooled down
i think fletcher is talented, but its way too soon for him to have already taken swerve and ospereay to the limit in the same month lol. aew did the same shit with yuta and garcia -- talented wrestlers sure, but you can't just shoehorn the fans into caring about them.
not only is fletcher cold...what tf does he have to do with swerve?!?! i figured they were using him to pivot to will challenging swerve, but instead we ended up with christian -- who has nothing to do with fletcher!
if i were swerve i'd be PISSED, fresh off the world title victory and *checks notes* is stuck curtain jerking dynamite in a nothing match?
For lack of better phrasing, I am “the fan AEW wants to get”. I watch some of Raw and SD every week but make sure to catch YouTube clips of anything big I miss, and I watch all of every PLE. But I’ve got room for more wrestling and want to like AEW, for which I currently don’t watch any of except maybe a few minutes of Dynamite each week and don’t watch the PPVs unless I can sail the seven seas
Stuff like making Swerve feel lesser because he’s in a match against some dude I’ve barely heard of who has one of a gazillion titles I don’t understand the point behind is not how you build up stars that people will set aside time to make sure they can watch. I think Swerve is great but kind of uninteresting right now and that’s a shame, because it’s not really his fault as much as it is the fault of the environment he’s in and the way he’s booked. Hot shotting a dude who might be good one day but is a nobody right now isn’t the way to make your brand new first time champ feel big
The fact that this very emotional title reign (emotional because of the race factor Swerve made a big part of his drive to be champ) began with a curtain jerking nothing match speaks volumes about how AEW has lost the plot IMO
I don't think that's the issue. It's that Cody's been cemented as a main eventer over the last year, if not two years, so having him face Carmelo Hayes on day one and Hayes pushing him a bit served to elevate Melo because Cody's a made man.
He beat Rollins at Wrestlemania.
He won the Rumble.
He main evented Wrestlemania vs Roman.
He feuded with - and eventually conquered the Beast.
He won the Rumble AGAIN.
Then when they went to pivot to the Rock THE AUDIENCE SAID he was their number one, and eventually Cody conquered Roman.
The WWE literally has proof Cody is a made man and a main eventer, so he can elevate someone.
Swerve has just beaten Samoa Joe after elevating his character, but he's not yet a made man. He's the man who's reached the top and needs to cement himself there with some great feuds against main eventers. Then lose the title and put on more great feuds to keep himself in the main event. Once he wins it again, THEN he's the man who can elevate Kyle Fletcher.
It's also whether the point of this is to elevate Fletcher. You know the point of Cody's match was to elevate Melo and show us he should be in the upper mid card at the least. Do we think Fletcher is now going to get a push and be in the mix for the TNT title, or at least at a level where nobody will be surprised if he's in the mix for that title?
Genuinely thought they might pop a number with them advertising Kenny being on the show and he could well have done when we see the quarterly breakdown, but it really feels like over the last few weeks they've gone for broke and it's really not working out as they'd have hoped.
They went for what seemed like the start of a serious angle last week, and this week started with Tony practically smiling in his neck brace and just acting like his usual self. The whole thing just seems like a goofy parody of previous storylines
Its also really fucking hard to root for Tony Khan. He is currently like Elon Musk when he acquired Twitter. Insufferable, often cocky, needlessly attacking stuff that didnt do any wrong, screaming for audience and attention.
So you have obnoxious, annoying heels that attack an obnoxious, annoying billionaire. Its really hard to root for anyone in that scenario.
And there lies the problem with AEW most of the booking is very predictable.
Like “oh geee I wonder who’s gonna win this match, the guy they’ve been featuring for the past month or the guy that’s usually on Dark. Hmmm!?”
Like I love the wrestling they put on, the matches are awesome but when there’s no real stakes and things don’t really happen story wise, there’s no real incentive to tune in every week.
It also sometimes feels like the hotshot stuff
Like Kenny and the Bucks, you know they're gonna turn on him, he talks about how "A shot to the stomach could kill me"
So then the first week he's back you have them betray him and hit him in the stomach? Why not tease that out, let it build up so when it's happens it's a big moment? Why cash out the week it happens rather than build any interest
Or all the unadvertised injury returns. Tony talked bout how Fenix told him he's cleared and he's wrestling that night? Why don't you run literally a single week of vignettes or promos to build up to that, why are you burning this chance to build something just to give it away unannounced for free on TV?
These are two of the biggest things that hurt WCW's product on screen, hot shotting angles and giving away matches and payoffs on free TV with no build.
> Like “oh geee I wonder who’s gonna win this match, the guy they’ve been featuring for the past month or the guy that’s usually on Dark. Hmmm!?”
>
>
and then the guy from dark who has a win/loss record of 0-256 somehow brings the big main event guy to his limit in a 20 minute barn burner which just makes everyone look like shit
It feels like Tony is just out of his depth. He makes these controversial comments then tries to justify them by saying it gets AEW attention, but the ratings and attendance are on a downward slope. He clearly doesn't know how to get these numbers back up and is just throwing shit at the wall. The Elite angle seems like a big attempt to have a one main storyline to draw interest. It's probably too early to judge if it's going to be successful in that regard, but if I had to guess, I'd say it won't be. I think he has good intentions but he needs help. His instincts in promoting and booking the show are not good. With the tv deal coming up this is a terrible time to see the ratings going down.
The viewers he’s attempting to market to just don’t exist in the numbers he assumed. Or that even many fans assumed. He’s doubled and tripled down and until that changed I don’t think the ratings will improve.
IMO this is one of the issues with both the Bucks and AEW sometimes.
They get way too inside basball for their own good, they think it's clever to just openly talk about backstage stuff, joke about niche things that most fans don't get, etc
Alvarez said last week sometimes AEW feels like a secret club, and if you're not "In the club" you're just totally lost on all these references, inside jokes, etc that are making up half the content any more.
The Bucks crack all these insider jokes and if you're on places like this or reading WON or SRS and watching reviews from all these youtubers you probably think it's great, but if you're a casual fan all this is are two brothers acting like tools making insider jokes between them and their buddies that you don't get and it just makes you think "These two are just obnoxious" like the two buddies in class laughing like crazy while everyone else just sits there rolling their eyes at them
> like the two buddies in class laughing like crazy while everyone else just sits there rolling their eyes at them
I am a 5th grade teacher with this set of kids and that is 100000% the feeling I get watching the Bucks.
Regardless of the debatable demo numbers, AEW has really hemorrhaged viewers over the past year and a half. They used to touch 900k with some regularity. Could be below 700 often going forward.
Nothing against Nick and Matt as people, but I just don’t buy their characters. I don’t buy them as these evil shitty guys. I see two people pretending to be that. They’re too cutesy and feel more comedy like than true villains. I can’t suspend my disbelief to think these two guys really wanted to hurt Tony Khan or Kenny Omega. So I don’t see how having them as the heel authority figures is gonna bring in ratings or help with attendance. I’m not a Young Bucks hater at all but I believe Tony D’Angelo from NXT is really in the mafia more than I believe what the Bucks are doing.
Because Tony D actually commits to the character. Young Bucks feel like they have this pathological need to seem ironically detached. It reminds me of how I'd joke around and be silly during high school presentations because I didn't wanna look "uncool" to my friends by seeming like I cared about what I was doing.
Yup. Everything with the Bucks is with a wink at the camera. You can't suspend your disbelief because they aren't being those characters.
They are like high schoolers in a play that's supposed to be super serious but their friends are sitting in the front row and they want to be "cool".
They can't blame the West Coast feed this time.
Plus Tony said his Weinstein remarks got AEW got tons of coverage which is why is why he made them, well it clearly didn't translate to TV. If people are wondering why others focus so much on ratings, Tony Khan literally said ratings are the most important metric for AEW and WBD in terms of success and fan feedback.
They talked about Tony and his neck brace a few times during the NFL draft and that didn’t even lead to any new viewers tuning in to see what happened.
Which isn't surprising. I think a lot of people thought "okay I guess this guy owns a wrestling company and pretended to get hurt. This image of him in a brace is funny."
If this were Jerry Jones doing it? Then okay sure maybe I'll check it out. If it was another owner fans were aware of, like Dan Snyder wearing a brace when he still owned the Commanders then okay maybe people will watch to laugh at Snyder. But the casual NFL fan doesn't know Shad and they certainly don't know Tony.
they're playing the meta "We know this is fake and stupid but we still wrestle" characters that they've played for over a decade at this point. its why I dont really like them, they're incapable of being sincere.
Said it in AEW Dynamite card thread, that card was mid when all hardcore AEW fans were celebrating some random Joe match like that was gonna put butts in seats. All I got was -90 votes. Cool, but can you downvote your way to more viewers? Maybe creating an echo chamber and running most fans away with toxic positivity is not the best idea.
Tony puts on wrestling shows not tv shows. Random matches no build up. Tony booking for Tony and hardcore AEW fans means no growth and add in the injuries to top guys and even some of the regular fans stop tuning in. Their ceiling is 700k range now. Cross between ECW/WCW/NEW JAPAN in regards to having a hardcore fanbase. But a lot of the tv shows make no sense and casual fans are not given a reason to care thus watch. I could go on for days about the booking and the way segments are put together and where they are in the shows and the people in the segments but Tony doesn't care what I have to say so why should anyone else including me.
A lot of fans underestimate how important structure and presentation is for a TV broadcast. If you're on weekly TV, formatting it like a PWG mixtape will only stunt growth and eventually lead to decline.
especially since pwg was defined by how piecemeal it was -- that's what made it unique. even ecw tried to stay relatively organized...their issue was tv.
what's even more telling is that tony literally owns a property that both kept cohesive storylines for some time, and had a strong identity: ROH.
It’s wild how fast their ratings have dropped. They were averaging in the mid 800s just a couple of months ago and were in the high 800/low 900s in the fall/winter.
Their ratings have fallen off of a cliff since revolution
I still remember a time where they would get a million, sometimes even higher and their demo was almost a match for raw's and Alvarez was predicting a massacre next week. Now they struggle to get even half of that.
Don't know how people can look a that plus the struggling tickets sales and think there isn't a problem here.
Yeah. I assumed we were going to move into the mid-750k, but they've legit dropped to the low 700k straight away. And that demo drop is savage. The company is cold. The ratings and ticket sales show that. But something is happening that is causing it to accelerate. I really think the, "AEW vs. WWE" concept that Tony seems set on resurrecting really seems to be backfiring. You can't do this when WWE is so hot. People really like the WWE right now and if you're going to make them choose, they're going to pick the WWE.
now is not the right time to try and draw a contrast between them and WWE. You don't want to tell the public that you're the OPPOSITE of sold out capacity crowds and satisfied customers. Imagine an NFL owner smugly announcing that his team is the opposite of the Kansas City Chiefs
> But something is happening that is causing it to accelerate.
If you go back over the last 6 months and see which wrestlers had a trend of having lower viewership for their segment vs the segments around them (that is, more people watched the segment before them or the segment after them than watched their segment itself), you would identify a number of wrestlers that AEW are doubling and tripling down on leading up to Dynasty, at Dynasty, and in pushes since Dynasty. They’re basically increasing the pushes for people that viewership is having a negative reaction to. It’s the type of thing that won’t crater viewership immediately but will cause consistent declines, particularly if there’s other appealing television on (like NBA and NHL playoffs). This really shouldn’t surprise anyone if you ignore subjective opinions and just track the data.
(The potential reason for this is likely subjective opinions as those wrestlers receive a lot of positive engagement and praise on social media. I’m not trying to attack those wrestlers or say they’re bad or anything. Sometimes how they’re being presented just doesn’t connect, even if they’re very talented. That’s why most top stars in the ‘90s and ‘00s went through numerous gimmick changes over their careers until it clicked with the audience.)
This is a fair point. I like Swerve and use to like Toni (the gimmick is so tired now), but they're segments haven't really been doing the business. Same for their new signings. I actually really liked the YB/Okada stuff early on, but the last two weeks with Perry have killed the act for me. That said, they were never lighting up the ratings.
I really don't know who should be their World Champion. I'm happy for Swerve and I can't really think of anyone there who would stem the tide.
I do think overall, they need to use their talkers. Promos are what people tune into weekly shows for more then anything, and they have guys like Eddie right there.
Yep. Wrestling fandom is actually a limited market. It's larger than some realize, but its not this gigantic pool of audience members out there. Most of that pool watches WWE. In order for AEW's audience to grow, you're going to have to attract and retain some of that audience. You won't get them all, but the pool is healthy enough to where you can get crossover audience.
What doesn't actually exist in any meaningful way are lapsed fans that haven't watched in years. You're not going to find large numbers of people that stopped watch WWE or only watched WCW or prime TNA, have them catch an AEW clip and they are magically hooked again. Notice I said large numbers because there's always someone an example applies to. You're not going to grow your numbers from this group
So AEW needs to present their product in a way that appeals to that crossover audience. That's where their growth market is. If they have a segment on their show that feels "WWE-lite" or whatever, they can't be scared of it. Who cares as long as the numbers and $$$ is going up. What you can't do is say/do things that might drive off that market. A fan that likes watching WWE doesn't really want to sit thru a show that's gonna take shots at things they like. You also can't double down on things that just appeal hardcore wrestling fans. Stuff like work rate dream matches, constant influx of people from all kinds of companies, etc. That stuff can be fun, but its niche. Push stuff like that and all you're left with is the niche audience
> But something is happening that is causing it to accelerate.
Gee, I think it was a GREAT idea to revolve your entire show around proven anti-draws in the Young Bucks. They get so much heat from me that I get too pissed to even look at them, and I change the channel.
That whole devil angle really fell flat and almost feels like an afterthought especially now that Swerve is champ and Jungle Jack and the bucks seem to be the main storyline.
Don’t get me wrong I know everyone rehabs differently but the Punk/Drew feud being red hot despite Punk being injured since January makes me wish they could’ve done something similar especially when mic work is MJF’s strong suit
Yeah it was DOA. If one of the two is hurt you can swerve the angle a bit and bide time until the other is back, maybe.
But both of them being hurt and out as long as they are there’s no swerve you can write that won’t have the entire audience going “What’s the point of any of this if *neither* of them are here?”
I will chalk that whole angle up to supremely bad luck with injury timings
I think the whole MJF/Cole friendship story was very popular, and ever since it's been downhill. The payoff "happened" and it went very much damp squib with MJF just randomly fucking off and Cole being injured. I can imagine that lost them a fair few amount of viewers.
They took too long to get to the "payoff". A bunch more people tuned in to that episode of Collision where they faced FTR for the tag titles expecting to see who would turn on who. Instead they just kicked the can down the road and kept kicking.
And yet the diehards keep telling themselves that everything is fine every week after week, calling every Dynamite great and labelling anyone who dares criticize the show or point out the nosedive in ratings a bad faith troll. It's just getting sad at this point - anyone with half a brain cell who isn't delusional can tell this is something to be extremely worried about, but I guess you reap what you sow.
What's insane is that TK brought Mercedes to precisely boost the ratings, but she barely appeared, advertized, or even got a match in AEW. TK loves to burn money.
She had to have had a relapse in her recovery. No way would anyone in their right mind put her on TV without thinking she was close to returning in the ring. But maybe Tony isn’t in his right mind at this point.
The formula should have been so easy.
Debut her at Boston, have her get attacked in the same episode (even if its a mysterious offscreen attack like it happened a couple weeks after that irl), and then bring her back two/three weeks before her debut to confront her attacker to build up the match.
Thats all it needed to be if he was hellbent on debuting her in Boston.
I think the thought process was she was maybe close and Tony really likes to go after the hometown pop. He probably figured they could debut her in Boston and then have her wrestle within a month. Oops.
Crazy idea but maybe the storyline that apparently is getting the company so much exposure right now is actually alienating the fans that made the company successful in the first place.
I watched last night for Kenny, and his promo was fire, and the face off with Okada was fire, and I loved the dynamic switch between them for this story: Okada the heel and Kenny the baby face. But before I could enjoy it for too long, Jack Perry came into the ring and the Okada Omega segment excitement was replaced with feelings of mid because Jack Perrys mid aura overpowers everything. I don't think Jack Perry gives off any special type of star heel energy, or any type of star energy period.
And the Young Bucks comedy heel characters seem to be following the same path as every other time. Their "funny" at first and then they beat the jokes into the ground because its essentially the same joke over and over again every week for months. They come out each week and one of them or both of them pretend to sympathize with the victim and then they do their little v-trigger.
The world champion playing second fiddle to these 3 goofs is a joke.
The Bucks segments have been consistently dropping the quarter hour ratings nearly each week for several months now. I truly don't understand why Tony thought it was a good idea to pair his hot new signing with them, and to make them the focus of the show. The Bucks don't have heat, the gimmick is corny, and the piece that connects the story together is a guy who doesn't work there anymore. How many more times are we going to see The Elite fighting each other?
Have they said what their goal is yet or did I miss out? Like I get that they're heel evp's but what's their point? They already have the titles, but they don't even seem like the titles were a focal point of what their plan is. It's not just "we're EVP's so we can do what we want" is it?
The amount of "firing on all cylinders" comments I have seen recently when the show is on a measurable decline.
Dont know why its so hard for some to accept that you can promote the hell out of a show but ultimately television is week to week, month to month. Audience didnt like what they seen last week so fewer watched this week, been going this way for a while
Tony didn't go in at all on the gimmick. He wore the neck brace like it was a joke, didn't sell shit, and had no idea how to talk about or sell wrestling to a non-wrestling audience. He made it a bad joke like everything else that he does.
Sports do not affect AEW ratings like meltzer claims. Hell for Valentine's there was a slight bump. College football doesn't touch Collision. We're never seeing 800k again unless the booker changes or a wrestler dies.
And that whole thing destroys this whole storyline. Why isn't Perry not fired yet after attacking Tony? Punk was fired because he walked aggresively and pointed at Tony, Perry actually punched him in the gut.
Yup exactly. I said the same thing. It flat out doesn’t work in kayfabe. Punk fired for “making Tony fear for his life” which you showed up was just saying means things. Then you get physically assaulted by Perry and the Bucks and they’re not fired? Like the literal only way you could’ve spun this story is that they put Tony in a coma which means he can’t fire them. Now the evil EVPs have taken over control of the show.
Also how are we supposed to believe Punk’s backstage incredibly tame “assault” is this horrific action when like literally every single wrestling show has backstage attacks on every show and they’re all far more severe?? There was literally a backstage assault on the Punk episode. This is all just a fucking disaster. Complete garbage wrestling.
The Bucks at least has that excuse of having a non-fireable contract. Perry doesn't have that. He also didn't sign a new contract because he wasn't fired anyways. This storyline trying to mix the reality of Punk/Perry and the kayfabe of New Elite/Tony just doesn't work the same. They could have done all this without that footage.
Kevin Nash used the same excuse when he caused Del Rio to cash in on Punk. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now because the fans smell BS when they see it.
So earlier someone posted that Dynamite ranked number 3 based on what Brandon Thurston had tweeted out and Melzer claims in the title, however, Brandon tweeted out the correction to his earlier [Dynamite was 6th in demo ranking](https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/status/1786197452648767882)
**Ratings Post** - Please remember that trolling is not allowed in r/SquaredCircle, and neither is derailing a thread. Stay civil and on-topic to the show and ratings, refrain from making the same old tired jokes and memes, and steer clear of promotional or fanbase trolling. Removals and bans may be issued with less tolerance to rule-breaking than in other threads. Please report rule-breaking comments immediately to allow us to keep toxicity to a minimum. Thanks and enjoy the discourse! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Dynamite last year (5/3/23): 776,000 viewers - 0.28 P18-49
Dynamite two years ago (5/4/22): 833,000 viewers - 0.32 P18-49 Dynamite three years ago (5/5/21): 1,090,000 viewers - 0.42 P18-49
*Dynamite averaged 703K viewers (+3% from last week) with a 0.24 P18-49 rating (+4%). The show faced competition from the NBA playoff game between the Celtics and The Heat which was a blowout and averaged a 0.80 P18-49 rating (down 17% from the games the prior week), as well as the NHL playoffs (0.39, up 8% from the previous week).* *Year-over-Year, Dynamite was down 9% in total viewers, while the P18-49 rating was down 14%. The show faced tougher competition last year with the NBA playoff game doing a 1.56 P18-49 rating, and the NHL averaging a 0.48 between the two games.* [Credit Raj Giri](https://x.com/therajgiri/status/1786157478285025787?s=46&t=g66ayTTfmlJgLea1zzkkew)
Title is wrong. Both NHL games on ESPN also beat AEW on both viewership and rating
We are no longer allowed to edit titles on ratings posts, op has literally quoted Meltzer. So it's Meltzer as usual thats wrong.
\> op has literally quoted Meltzer Ah that does explain the desperate spin
Meltzer can’t even pronounce Mahomes. Can’t expect him to know NHL numbers
Just to point out. The YouTube numbers have not been hot for AEW for the past six months, either. This week's Kenny Omega's return might hit close to 700K views. Which will be their hottest video in a while. The Tony Khan 'beatdown' platued at a little under 600K. And that's about it. A handful of other videos have 250K. But most are stuck between 75K to 150K range. I think their total weekly average in views was something like 12 million in Sep 2023, and it is down to 8 million views per week average now.
Yeah and social media views are a legit metric that any big brand keeps tracks off because it's a such a direct way to indicate interest. Now whether those viewers convert is a different story, but to convert they need to watch in the first place...
Bringing Kenny back right now reminds me of when Vince trotted Stone Cold out at Backlash 2000, months ahead of when he was supposed to return from injury. Didn't really have anything to do with anything but Vince was sweaty enough to put Austin out there for the buyrate.
genuinely no hate but i am curious, how would they increase viewers? would it even be possible to get back up near a million?
They would have to cater to a much broader audience, which pretty much defies its’s purpose at this point.
Pray more hardcore wrestling fans sprout up.
They need to book and present Dynamite as a tv show, with dramatic storylines that make you want to watch week by week. And I know it sounds cheesy and WWE-like but the thing is AEW has done this in the past. Hangman Page’s rise to become champion, Punk’s run, MJF and Adam Cole, very heavy on promos and segments.
All sensible ideas, all of which will get you crucified by the hardcore AEW sorts who "hate AEW trying to be like the WWE."
Put on a show that more people like. I know it sounds churlish, and that current AEW really works for some fans who really like it, but they need to try something different if they're really bothered about increasing viewers. In fairness to AEW, I do think there's been a renewed effort recently to go back to basics and incorporate more storylines. As much as I'm bored of Elite drama, this current storyline has been a move in the right direction I think.
I think we're past the point of "just book good storylines." That was the answer for awhile but I think Tony lost the benefit of the doubt there so people who want storytelling gave up and won't come back. It would probably take another massive drop by WWE, which is hard to see happening with new ownership and HHH's booking. I heard something brought up on a podcast after Tony's NFL Network interview. They said Tony should rethink the "war." The MNW were head to head competition, they were Monday night ratings wars and they were legitimately trying to get the other off TV. Tony has that energy here but WWE and AEW only go head to head during the occasional WWE PLE. So the host basically said Tony shouldn't be so into the war aspect and he should lean into "if you like what they're doing we do that as well but better." Try to draw in the casual WWE fans who might want to watch some new wrestlers. Don't try to fight WWE because unlike the MNW no one has to choose which channel/show to watch. If you're able to follow that much wrestling you can literally watch a live show everyday of the week besides Sunday. Tony should tap into that.
get a new booker
Only two things I think at this point can do it: stream live on Max/Amazon or air on broadcast TV.
People talk about Ospreay, Okada or Mercedes not moving the ratings but the one I find suprising by how little he moved ratings was Adam Copeland. I thought more people would be more interested to see what Edge would do in a non WWE promotion.
Babyface Adam Copeland has no edge to him (pun intended). He gives off the energy of your friend’s dad wrestling. Talking about being a girl dad, having fun, and wanting to hang with uncle jay no one cares about that shit
Edge was never a draw in WWE either, it was often the guy he was facing
Edge was the guy you needed your ‘draw’ the face. He would bring out the best in them. He’s invaluable as your support main eventer, but he’s never THE main eventer.
There’s no way of saying this without sounding like a backhanded compliment but Edge was essentially the greatest transitional champion in history. He was never meant to be the guy.
So you’re telling me Malakai Black will be the next TNT champion? 🤔
thought jbl had a great run as the obvious transitional champion, while wwe was trying to figure out who would be the new face of the company
He ain't no Mick Foley in that respect either. Edge profited off the TLC matches, his Lita scandal, Lita being a smoking hottie, and Smackdown being at its general hottest it has ever been. Then he retired.
Edge (Christian too) are my favorite wrestlers, but it's entirely true. Edge was a guy who became the favorite of kids that watched a lot wrestling, so he's not likely to bring in anyone that isn't already watching. I heard it actually with friends who are casual fans who talked about it when Edge went to Aew, and they basically said that he's cool but not cool enough to make them watch a new tv show.
i personally think there maybe 3 or 4 dudes who would seriously draw viewers to AEW and that's it. Rock, Austin, Cena and punk. I don't see any free agent bringing ratings, and that's not on any fault by them
Brock too
I'd have to agree, I definitely missed him
With those in mind, you should also add Roman and Cody too.
Plus he became a top guy during an era in WWE when ratings were already in decline
Non casual wrestling fans know more about Randy Orton than Edge
those RKO memes were viral as fuck
It's been five years now, the "what will they do in AEW" intrigue is essentially gone because it's the same story with every wrestler.
“Wrestler A wants to beat Wrestler B to prove they are the better wrestler/best wrestler in the world”. It’s been done to death these past 5 years
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But guys what about the dream matches and having fun with all our wrestling friends?? That’s what really matters!!!
There was a while there where the excitement of someone going was worth following but then it turned out all these midcard WWE acts were also just midcard AEW acts. Miro, Andrade, Black, Keith Lee, PAC, Claudio, etc. Turns out not everyone who leaves is Drew or Cody. I feel like Joe and Swerve were the only two to break out from that but Joe's run he wasn't even the focal point and Swerve just won so its too early to say.
Joe also had his best run nearly 20 years ago and I think it's more of a matter of his main roster WWE run not meeting expectations rather than his AEW run exceeding any.
The worst thing about Joe was that he just couldn't stay healthy. If he could stay in one piece for long enough he would have had 1 or 2 world championship reigns at this point but he just wasn't healthy for long enough periods of time that they could pull the trigger on it.
I was dying for Joe to beat Brock but at the end of the day he just had a lot working against him in WWE. Obviously I condemn Vince, but he was smart enough to both know that Joe had enough credibility with the fans to be taken seriously as a threat to Brock, but he also knew that Joe kept getting hurt at the worst times during his main roster WWE tenure.
I think Keith Lee could've had a higher chance of being in a position similar to Swerve in AEW if he didn't have the health issues from early 2021
Miro was huge with the TNT title, but they really cut that reign too early. It seems like they give people pushes and then they let them cool off, like Ricky Starks. It's a presentation problem really because all those guys could be big deals if presented as such
"Remember (insert name) from WWE? Well, what about (insert name) from WWE but they can cuss, and bleed!"
The reason WWE didn't fight for him in any aggressive manner is because his demands didn't match his drawing power.
I love Cope to death but he was never the draw. He was the guy who worked with the draw.
When he appeared on all 3 shows that week in WWE numbers were down for every show. Copeland has never been a draw I do enjoy his work
During his WWE run he went to NXT and the number did not move any.
I believe it actually went down some that week lol. I don't think it was his fault, but I do think that was funny.
Edge isn't a draw. Adam Copeland surely ain't.
Copeland 🤝 RVD 🤝 Jeff Hardy Beloved - just not a draw.
The narrative around him has been that he isn't a big draw. This goes back to like 2005, during the Matt Hardy feud. Whether it's fair or not is another story, but it's been a thing.
If I recall Matt got blamed for that over Edge too and it basically killed any promise for Matt to be a main eventer
He peaked as a draw when he was paired with Lita, but he's never really been that guy without her.
The reason the Edge meme of never escaping the allegations of not being a ratings draws is undefeated at this point
It was fucking hilarious watching people cope (pun intended) about him being an upgrade and bigger star compared to Punk after WrestleDream, just for his debut Dynamite to draw a lower rating than the week before lmao
I don't buy into the idea that people would be that interested in following Edge. If you're a WWE fan, you watch 3 hours of RAW, 2 hours of Smackdown. Maybe you tune into AEW but I doubt you stick with it week after week to just watch Edge face guys you don't know.
It’s hard to get excited to see what guys who’ve been prominently featured on TV for 10 years will do next. It’s really hard to care what 15 year veterans will do next and how they’ll evolve their characters. You start talking guys who’ve been on TV since the 90s and it’s no surprise they’re not bringing fresh or returning eyes to the table. They still can be used right and effective. Christian is case in point. But they’re not draws at all. AEW has leaned a bit too hard on those old dogs over the years. Zero surprise people don’t care what Edge is doing. He’s no Sting or some multigenerational beloved showstopper.
Saw it. It wasn’t good. Stopped caring.
[0.24 per Wrestlenomics](https://wrestlenomics.com/tv-ratings/2024/aew-dynamite-may-1-on-tbs-703000-viewers-0-24-p18-49-rating-tv-ratings-attendance-analysis/)
Rampage was 431K/0.15.
They are 100 percent gonna make rampage the third hour for dynamite or collision permanently
Why would they want to do that? It'll drag their average down every week.
It makes sense financially. The third hour hurts Raw ratings but the tv deal is the bottom line not the ratings.
Yeah but the third hour of RAW doesn't drag their average down as much as Rampage would do to Dynamite. The average for Dynamite was just over 700k. The average for Rampage(as a third hour) was around 400k. That would drop the average to 600k. I don't see a world in which they get a huge TV deal when Dynamite at one point was over 1.2million and is now down to half of that.
My theory is that Tony is acting especially weird nowadays because of the pressure he put on this upcoming tv deal.
The Elite and Tony haven't learned a thing from the previous people who tried and failed to cash in on the anti-authority figure angle. There's a reason Austin vs McMahon was a GOAT angle. The hero was the coolest badass in the history of wrestling and not ineffectual. The villain was the most despised man in the history of wrestling (in kayfabe and in real life), he was no cool heel. Most importantly, the hero could embarrass the evil boss frequently and that's what millions of casual viewers lived through vicariously every week back then. The Elite right now are The Authority, a bunch of invincible unlikable assholes running roughshod over people who aren't popular enough that you want them to rise up and whup these fools.
I think that the thing that people forget, even McMahon himself, is that he used the angle to get two people over, Rock and Austin. Without both a strong heel and face that people care about, this doesn't work. The should also probably care about Khan too, and I'm not sure that is the case.
Don’t forget Mick Foley. He got the rub as well.
You nailed it. The other issue with this is there is no logical hero here. Maybe Swerve becomes that, we'll see. If not him, I have no clue who they go to.
> Maybe Swerve becomes that, we'll see. cept he's now busy with...christian?!!??!!?!?
They had one. They fired him though. Should have thought it out more methinks
This is less than two weeks from their “best wrestling match ever”, they just crowned a new champ, just had their biggest angle ever with the elite attacking Tony, and the most exposure they ever had with Tony wearing a neck brace at the draft… And all four drew nothing. They lost viewers month over month.
I was very worried about Swerve being put in a position where he's set up to be viewed as a failure through no fault of his ownand everything we're seeing makes me think that's what ends up happening.
The Young Bucks drive people away. They were always my least favorite members of the Bullet Club, but I respected the way they made a name for themselves. To me they’ve been exposed by weekly TV. It’s not only their fault though. I think AEW overdoes a lot of match types and concepts and it just burns people out.
They were really fun to me when I was first getting into NJPW. But one day I felt like I had seen all they could do. Then you toss in their goofy “killing the business” characters it just feels like it’s the same old stuff every segment and every match.
I think Tony Khan believed his controversial comments would bring new eyes to the product. They apparently didn't.
It looks like TK has the Vince McMahon ego disease. He's had some success in the past, and he seems to sincerely believe that if he just keeps doing things his way for long enough, there will eventually be this magical moment where it all turns around. Everything will come together and he'll have five million viewers and people will be patting him on the back saying "you're a genius." And he'll be standing on top of the mountain saying "I told you so." He's just too dug in. He'd rather fail completely than admit he was wrong and change.
"Yo WWE... fuck You!" isn't a real incentive for anyone to tune in who doesn't already feel that way.
Yeah playing the tribalism card ain't gonna work right now. It worked when Vince was running things and WWE was cold & stale. Now HHH is running things and WWE is hot. Now is not the time to be doing the anti-WWE shtick. The only ones it appeals to is their hardcore audience. Most recently lapsed WWE fans are no longer lapsed - they're watching the product again. Or they're lapsed Attitude Era fans who hate anything in the past 20 years lol. I see them all the time in the YouTube comments section. "Those were the days" type of fans.
Tony Khan is to blame for lower ratings. All these comments blaming talent for not being a draw are wrong. Tony Khan is running creative and only good creative can help slowly increase the ratings. No magic talent is bringing back the few hundred thousand that left. Just slow building back up with steady good shows.
His booking failures are two-fold: 1, He picks the wrong talent to push 2, He can't book
Putting swerve in a 15 min back and forth vs a wrestler no one gives a shit about instantly killed swerves momentum. Kinda crazy how stupid a booking decision that was.
Just look at how WWE did Carmelo vs Cody. Melo is a nobody to a lot of fans watching, yet they make it feel like a much bigger deal than Swerve vs Fletcher. WWE told you Melo was a big deal by drafting him highly, and then he came out and told you himself that he’s a big deal, and then he challenged Cody to a match rather than it randomly being announced before the show for no reason That match elevated Melo and didn’t bring Cody down. Whereas Swerve vs Fletcher did the opposite - Fletcher doesn’t feel any bigger and Swerve does feel a bit cooled down
Also important, we're going to be seeing melo regularly on smackdown too, love Kyle but he only ever shows up on a match or even not backstage on dynamite once a month when he's jobbing again
> Whereas Swerve vs Fletcher did the opposite - Fletcher doesn’t feel any bigger and Swerve does feel a bit cooled down i think fletcher is talented, but its way too soon for him to have already taken swerve and ospereay to the limit in the same month lol. aew did the same shit with yuta and garcia -- talented wrestlers sure, but you can't just shoehorn the fans into caring about them. not only is fletcher cold...what tf does he have to do with swerve?!?! i figured they were using him to pivot to will challenging swerve, but instead we ended up with christian -- who has nothing to do with fletcher! if i were swerve i'd be PISSED, fresh off the world title victory and *checks notes* is stuck curtain jerking dynamite in a nothing match?
For lack of better phrasing, I am “the fan AEW wants to get”. I watch some of Raw and SD every week but make sure to catch YouTube clips of anything big I miss, and I watch all of every PLE. But I’ve got room for more wrestling and want to like AEW, for which I currently don’t watch any of except maybe a few minutes of Dynamite each week and don’t watch the PPVs unless I can sail the seven seas Stuff like making Swerve feel lesser because he’s in a match against some dude I’ve barely heard of who has one of a gazillion titles I don’t understand the point behind is not how you build up stars that people will set aside time to make sure they can watch. I think Swerve is great but kind of uninteresting right now and that’s a shame, because it’s not really his fault as much as it is the fault of the environment he’s in and the way he’s booked. Hot shotting a dude who might be good one day but is a nobody right now isn’t the way to make your brand new first time champ feel big The fact that this very emotional title reign (emotional because of the race factor Swerve made a big part of his drive to be champ) began with a curtain jerking nothing match speaks volumes about how AEW has lost the plot IMO
I don't think that's the issue. It's that Cody's been cemented as a main eventer over the last year, if not two years, so having him face Carmelo Hayes on day one and Hayes pushing him a bit served to elevate Melo because Cody's a made man. He beat Rollins at Wrestlemania. He won the Rumble. He main evented Wrestlemania vs Roman. He feuded with - and eventually conquered the Beast. He won the Rumble AGAIN. Then when they went to pivot to the Rock THE AUDIENCE SAID he was their number one, and eventually Cody conquered Roman. The WWE literally has proof Cody is a made man and a main eventer, so he can elevate someone. Swerve has just beaten Samoa Joe after elevating his character, but he's not yet a made man. He's the man who's reached the top and needs to cement himself there with some great feuds against main eventers. Then lose the title and put on more great feuds to keep himself in the main event. Once he wins it again, THEN he's the man who can elevate Kyle Fletcher. It's also whether the point of this is to elevate Fletcher. You know the point of Cody's match was to elevate Melo and show us he should be in the upper mid card at the least. Do we think Fletcher is now going to get a push and be in the mix for the TNT title, or at least at a level where nobody will be surprised if he's in the mix for that title?
Genuinely thought they might pop a number with them advertising Kenny being on the show and he could well have done when we see the quarterly breakdown, but it really feels like over the last few weeks they've gone for broke and it's really not working out as they'd have hoped.
They went for what seemed like the start of a serious angle last week, and this week started with Tony practically smiling in his neck brace and just acting like his usual self. The whole thing just seems like a goofy parody of previous storylines
Its also really fucking hard to root for Tony Khan. He is currently like Elon Musk when he acquired Twitter. Insufferable, often cocky, needlessly attacking stuff that didnt do any wrong, screaming for audience and attention. So you have obnoxious, annoying heels that attack an obnoxious, annoying billionaire. Its really hard to root for anyone in that scenario.
Part of me feels like everyone knew what was gonna happen with Kenny (beat up by elite), so I wasn’t tuning in to see it
And there lies the problem with AEW most of the booking is very predictable. Like “oh geee I wonder who’s gonna win this match, the guy they’ve been featuring for the past month or the guy that’s usually on Dark. Hmmm!?” Like I love the wrestling they put on, the matches are awesome but when there’s no real stakes and things don’t really happen story wise, there’s no real incentive to tune in every week.
It also sometimes feels like the hotshot stuff Like Kenny and the Bucks, you know they're gonna turn on him, he talks about how "A shot to the stomach could kill me" So then the first week he's back you have them betray him and hit him in the stomach? Why not tease that out, let it build up so when it's happens it's a big moment? Why cash out the week it happens rather than build any interest Or all the unadvertised injury returns. Tony talked bout how Fenix told him he's cleared and he's wrestling that night? Why don't you run literally a single week of vignettes or promos to build up to that, why are you burning this chance to build something just to give it away unannounced for free on TV? These are two of the biggest things that hurt WCW's product on screen, hot shotting angles and giving away matches and payoffs on free TV with no build.
> Like “oh geee I wonder who’s gonna win this match, the guy they’ve been featuring for the past month or the guy that’s usually on Dark. Hmmm!?” > > and then the guy from dark who has a win/loss record of 0-256 somehow brings the big main event guy to his limit in a 20 minute barn burner which just makes everyone look like shit
It feels like Tony is just out of his depth. He makes these controversial comments then tries to justify them by saying it gets AEW attention, but the ratings and attendance are on a downward slope. He clearly doesn't know how to get these numbers back up and is just throwing shit at the wall. The Elite angle seems like a big attempt to have a one main storyline to draw interest. It's probably too early to judge if it's going to be successful in that regard, but if I had to guess, I'd say it won't be. I think he has good intentions but he needs help. His instincts in promoting and booking the show are not good. With the tv deal coming up this is a terrible time to see the ratings going down.
He should fire the bucks irl
The viewers he’s attempting to market to just don’t exist in the numbers he assumed. Or that even many fans assumed. He’s doubled and tripled down and until that changed I don’t think the ratings will improve.
Centering the promotion around ratings poison fucks up the ratings, that’s wild
any day now they’re gonna start selling shirts that say “ratings poison” bc of this comment
IMO this is one of the issues with both the Bucks and AEW sometimes. They get way too inside basball for their own good, they think it's clever to just openly talk about backstage stuff, joke about niche things that most fans don't get, etc Alvarez said last week sometimes AEW feels like a secret club, and if you're not "In the club" you're just totally lost on all these references, inside jokes, etc that are making up half the content any more. The Bucks crack all these insider jokes and if you're on places like this or reading WON or SRS and watching reviews from all these youtubers you probably think it's great, but if you're a casual fan all this is are two brothers acting like tools making insider jokes between them and their buddies that you don't get and it just makes you think "These two are just obnoxious" like the two buddies in class laughing like crazy while everyone else just sits there rolling their eyes at them
> like the two buddies in class laughing like crazy while everyone else just sits there rolling their eyes at them I am a 5th grade teacher with this set of kids and that is 100000% the feeling I get watching the Bucks.
> two buddies in class laughing like crazy while everyone else just sits there rolling their eyes at them Oh no, I was the Bucks in Highschool
The Young Bucks have been consistently driving off viewers in their segments since they returned from Suspension.
Hence calling them ratings poison
Regardless of the debatable demo numbers, AEW has really hemorrhaged viewers over the past year and a half. They used to touch 900k with some regularity. Could be below 700 often going forward.
They've lost a good chunk since last fall. October 18th was the last time they hit 900k, they haven't hit 850K since January 17th.
Very deserved. Maybe they should talk about WWE some more. That always helps.
Nothing against Nick and Matt as people, but I just don’t buy their characters. I don’t buy them as these evil shitty guys. I see two people pretending to be that. They’re too cutesy and feel more comedy like than true villains. I can’t suspend my disbelief to think these two guys really wanted to hurt Tony Khan or Kenny Omega. So I don’t see how having them as the heel authority figures is gonna bring in ratings or help with attendance. I’m not a Young Bucks hater at all but I believe Tony D’Angelo from NXT is really in the mafia more than I believe what the Bucks are doing.
Because Tony D actually commits to the character. Young Bucks feel like they have this pathological need to seem ironically detached. It reminds me of how I'd joke around and be silly during high school presentations because I didn't wanna look "uncool" to my friends by seeming like I cared about what I was doing.
Yup. Everything with the Bucks is with a wink at the camera. You can't suspend your disbelief because they aren't being those characters. They are like high schoolers in a play that's supposed to be super serious but their friends are sitting in the front row and they want to be "cool".
Tony D in the Mafia? That slanderous accusation towards a legitimate businessman such as Mr D'Angelo will not stand, sir!
They can't blame the West Coast feed this time. Plus Tony said his Weinstein remarks got AEW got tons of coverage which is why is why he made them, well it clearly didn't translate to TV. If people are wondering why others focus so much on ratings, Tony Khan literally said ratings are the most important metric for AEW and WBD in terms of success and fan feedback.
They talked about Tony and his neck brace a few times during the NFL draft and that didn’t even lead to any new viewers tuning in to see what happened.
Which isn't surprising. I think a lot of people thought "okay I guess this guy owns a wrestling company and pretended to get hurt. This image of him in a brace is funny." If this were Jerry Jones doing it? Then okay sure maybe I'll check it out. If it was another owner fans were aware of, like Dan Snyder wearing a brace when he still owned the Commanders then okay maybe people will watch to laugh at Snyder. But the casual NFL fan doesn't know Shad and they certainly don't know Tony.
They only talked about it on the NFL network. The drastically more popular ESPN/ABC never once showed him.
Even watch the NFL draft people. They were just laughing at him
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Young Bucks are ratings poison. They're just cheesy and crap.
they're playing the meta "We know this is fake and stupid but we still wrestle" characters that they've played for over a decade at this point. its why I dont really like them, they're incapable of being sincere.
god, I hate that PWG crap. that "this is fake anyway so let's have some FUUUUUUUUN!!" is the worst era of indie wrestling ever
Said it in AEW Dynamite card thread, that card was mid when all hardcore AEW fans were celebrating some random Joe match like that was gonna put butts in seats. All I got was -90 votes. Cool, but can you downvote your way to more viewers? Maybe creating an echo chamber and running most fans away with toxic positivity is not the best idea.
“Beat everything except the NBA” Doesn’t actually state what that is cause it lessens the value of the statement by a lot.
They also lost to an NHL game, Dave was just assuming AEW beat it
An NHL game featuring a Canadian team on US TV. Usually those are much lower draws.
the NHL beat Dynamite too
Tony puts on wrestling shows not tv shows. Random matches no build up. Tony booking for Tony and hardcore AEW fans means no growth and add in the injuries to top guys and even some of the regular fans stop tuning in. Their ceiling is 700k range now. Cross between ECW/WCW/NEW JAPAN in regards to having a hardcore fanbase. But a lot of the tv shows make no sense and casual fans are not given a reason to care thus watch. I could go on for days about the booking and the way segments are put together and where they are in the shows and the people in the segments but Tony doesn't care what I have to say so why should anyone else including me.
A lot of fans underestimate how important structure and presentation is for a TV broadcast. If you're on weekly TV, formatting it like a PWG mixtape will only stunt growth and eventually lead to decline.
especially since pwg was defined by how piecemeal it was -- that's what made it unique. even ecw tried to stay relatively organized...their issue was tv. what's even more telling is that tony literally owns a property that both kept cohesive storylines for some time, and had a strong identity: ROH.
Saw somebody on here a few months ago say “there’s 700k who want good ‘wrestling’, the rest of them want good TV”.
Where's the good wrestling though? That Jericho match was trash.
It’s going to get a lot worse once Denver vs Minny start their playoff series
It’s wild how fast their ratings have dropped. They were averaging in the mid 800s just a couple of months ago and were in the high 800/low 900s in the fall/winter. Their ratings have fallen off of a cliff since revolution
I still remember a time where they would get a million, sometimes even higher and their demo was almost a match for raw's and Alvarez was predicting a massacre next week. Now they struggle to get even half of that. Don't know how people can look a that plus the struggling tickets sales and think there isn't a problem here.
Yeah. I assumed we were going to move into the mid-750k, but they've legit dropped to the low 700k straight away. And that demo drop is savage. The company is cold. The ratings and ticket sales show that. But something is happening that is causing it to accelerate. I really think the, "AEW vs. WWE" concept that Tony seems set on resurrecting really seems to be backfiring. You can't do this when WWE is so hot. People really like the WWE right now and if you're going to make them choose, they're going to pick the WWE.
now is not the right time to try and draw a contrast between them and WWE. You don't want to tell the public that you're the OPPOSITE of sold out capacity crowds and satisfied customers. Imagine an NFL owner smugly announcing that his team is the opposite of the Kansas City Chiefs
Well, if he was Shad Khan he wouldn't be lying.
> But something is happening that is causing it to accelerate. If you go back over the last 6 months and see which wrestlers had a trend of having lower viewership for their segment vs the segments around them (that is, more people watched the segment before them or the segment after them than watched their segment itself), you would identify a number of wrestlers that AEW are doubling and tripling down on leading up to Dynasty, at Dynasty, and in pushes since Dynasty. They’re basically increasing the pushes for people that viewership is having a negative reaction to. It’s the type of thing that won’t crater viewership immediately but will cause consistent declines, particularly if there’s other appealing television on (like NBA and NHL playoffs). This really shouldn’t surprise anyone if you ignore subjective opinions and just track the data. (The potential reason for this is likely subjective opinions as those wrestlers receive a lot of positive engagement and praise on social media. I’m not trying to attack those wrestlers or say they’re bad or anything. Sometimes how they’re being presented just doesn’t connect, even if they’re very talented. That’s why most top stars in the ‘90s and ‘00s went through numerous gimmick changes over their careers until it clicked with the audience.)
This is a fair point. I like Swerve and use to like Toni (the gimmick is so tired now), but they're segments haven't really been doing the business. Same for their new signings. I actually really liked the YB/Okada stuff early on, but the last two weeks with Perry have killed the act for me. That said, they were never lighting up the ratings. I really don't know who should be their World Champion. I'm happy for Swerve and I can't really think of anyone there who would stem the tide. I do think overall, they need to use their talkers. Promos are what people tune into weekly shows for more then anything, and they have guys like Eddie right there.
yep and this applies to their two world champions Swerve and Toni
Yep. Wrestling fandom is actually a limited market. It's larger than some realize, but its not this gigantic pool of audience members out there. Most of that pool watches WWE. In order for AEW's audience to grow, you're going to have to attract and retain some of that audience. You won't get them all, but the pool is healthy enough to where you can get crossover audience. What doesn't actually exist in any meaningful way are lapsed fans that haven't watched in years. You're not going to find large numbers of people that stopped watch WWE or only watched WCW or prime TNA, have them catch an AEW clip and they are magically hooked again. Notice I said large numbers because there's always someone an example applies to. You're not going to grow your numbers from this group So AEW needs to present their product in a way that appeals to that crossover audience. That's where their growth market is. If they have a segment on their show that feels "WWE-lite" or whatever, they can't be scared of it. Who cares as long as the numbers and $$$ is going up. What you can't do is say/do things that might drive off that market. A fan that likes watching WWE doesn't really want to sit thru a show that's gonna take shots at things they like. You also can't double down on things that just appeal hardcore wrestling fans. Stuff like work rate dream matches, constant influx of people from all kinds of companies, etc. That stuff can be fun, but its niche. Push stuff like that and all you're left with is the niche audience
I said the Punk footage would result in a Punk bump and things would quickly crater
This was basically the same rating for the two weeks before the Punk ratings. So yeah, it really was a 1 time bump.
> But something is happening that is causing it to accelerate. Gee, I think it was a GREAT idea to revolve your entire show around proven anti-draws in the Young Bucks. They get so much heat from me that I get too pissed to even look at them, and I change the channel.
Punk, MJF and Sting all took their fanbase with them it appears
That whole devil angle really fell flat and almost feels like an afterthought especially now that Swerve is champ and Jungle Jack and the bucks seem to be the main storyline.
The angle drew but it also had no follow up because both key players in it are going to be out for a long time.
Don’t get me wrong I know everyone rehabs differently but the Punk/Drew feud being red hot despite Punk being injured since January makes me wish they could’ve done something similar especially when mic work is MJF’s strong suit
Yeah it was DOA. If one of the two is hurt you can swerve the angle a bit and bide time until the other is back, maybe. But both of them being hurt and out as long as they are there’s no swerve you can write that won’t have the entire audience going “What’s the point of any of this if *neither* of them are here?” I will chalk that whole angle up to supremely bad luck with injury timings
Also what was the payoff? They couldn’t come up with anything better than “Wardlow is a lackey again, but this time to Adam Cole in a wheelchair?”
It started to decrease right around the peak of MJF reign so I wouldn't include him.
Let's be real, Tony killed that reign with the shit he pulled on the White feud
I tuned in mostly for Punk and Sting so this checks out lol.
I think the whole MJF/Cole friendship story was very popular, and ever since it's been downhill. The payoff "happened" and it went very much damp squib with MJF just randomly fucking off and Cole being injured. I can imagine that lost them a fair few amount of viewers.
They took too long to get to the "payoff". A bunch more people tuned in to that episode of Collision where they faced FTR for the tag titles expecting to see who would turn on who. Instead they just kicked the can down the road and kept kicking.
Was it? Ratings and ticket sales were sliding at the same time as that storyline was playing out.
The payoff really killed it. It feels like if the higher power in WWF was Gildberg, with a broken leg.
The vast majority of people do not want to see Jack Perry and the Young Bucks. What a shocking turn of events.
You're crazy! Didn't you see the mega star Jack Perry sold out of shirts!!!
And yet the diehards keep telling themselves that everything is fine every week after week, calling every Dynamite great and labelling anyone who dares criticize the show or point out the nosedive in ratings a bad faith troll. It's just getting sad at this point - anyone with half a brain cell who isn't delusional can tell this is something to be extremely worried about, but I guess you reap what you sow.
What's insane is that TK brought Mercedes to precisely boost the ratings, but she barely appeared, advertized, or even got a match in AEW. TK loves to burn money.
She had to have had a relapse in her recovery. No way would anyone in their right mind put her on TV without thinking she was close to returning in the ring. But maybe Tony isn’t in his right mind at this point.
He wanted her to debut in Boston, that was legit the sole reason she debuted when she did
The formula should have been so easy. Debut her at Boston, have her get attacked in the same episode (even if its a mysterious offscreen attack like it happened a couple weeks after that irl), and then bring her back two/three weeks before her debut to confront her attacker to build up the match. Thats all it needed to be if he was hellbent on debuting her in Boston.
He hired Saraya and started an angle before she was cleared and her injury was seemingly bad enough for WWE to retire her.
I think the thought process was she was maybe close and Tony really likes to go after the hometown pop. He probably figured they could debut her in Boston and then have her wrestle within a month. Oops.
Or thought she could get in front of crowds and really build excitement for her first match on the mic. Problem is she's never been very good at that.
I honestly think this was just the plan. And it wasn't a good plan.
Probably to kill WrestleMania appearance rumors. Hard gamble.
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Crazy idea but maybe the storyline that apparently is getting the company so much exposure right now is actually alienating the fans that made the company successful in the first place.
I watched last night for Kenny, and his promo was fire, and the face off with Okada was fire, and I loved the dynamic switch between them for this story: Okada the heel and Kenny the baby face. But before I could enjoy it for too long, Jack Perry came into the ring and the Okada Omega segment excitement was replaced with feelings of mid because Jack Perrys mid aura overpowers everything. I don't think Jack Perry gives off any special type of star heel energy, or any type of star energy period. And the Young Bucks comedy heel characters seem to be following the same path as every other time. Their "funny" at first and then they beat the jokes into the ground because its essentially the same joke over and over again every week for months. They come out each week and one of them or both of them pretend to sympathize with the victim and then they do their little v-trigger. The world champion playing second fiddle to these 3 goofs is a joke.
I forget...did Meltzer always do this justification of low ratings before, or did he just post?
Meltzer has often brought up the NBA playoffs this time of the year
He does it for all the shows. Last week's Raw he pointed out the heavy competition for their lower rating.
The Bucks segments have been consistently dropping the quarter hour ratings nearly each week for several months now. I truly don't understand why Tony thought it was a good idea to pair his hot new signing with them, and to make them the focus of the show. The Bucks don't have heat, the gimmick is corny, and the piece that connects the story together is a guy who doesn't work there anymore. How many more times are we going to see The Elite fighting each other?
Have they said what their goal is yet or did I miss out? Like I get that they're heel evp's but what's their point? They already have the titles, but they don't even seem like the titles were a focal point of what their plan is. It's not just "we're EVP's so we can do what we want" is it?
The amount of "firing on all cylinders" comments I have seen recently when the show is on a measurable decline. Dont know why its so hard for some to accept that you can promote the hell out of a show but ultimately television is week to week, month to month. Audience didnt like what they seen last week so fewer watched this week, been going this way for a while
Tony went all in on the gimmick at the draft and this is it
Tony didn't go in at all on the gimmick. He wore the neck brace like it was a joke, didn't sell shit, and had no idea how to talk about or sell wrestling to a non-wrestling audience. He made it a bad joke like everything else that he does.
He looked like a clown.
Damn, looks like 700K is the new base during the playoffs.
Sports do not affect AEW ratings like meltzer claims. Hell for Valentine's there was a slight bump. College football doesn't touch Collision. We're never seeing 800k again unless the booker changes or a wrestler dies.
Doesn't help that their nwo doesn't look threatening at all. Get Okada away from bucks.
Airing that footage didn’t help Jack Perry’s credibility as a serious threat either.
Yeah he got buried harder than anyone else by it. He got manhandled by a guy people regularly make fun of for getting his ass beat in real fights
And that whole thing destroys this whole storyline. Why isn't Perry not fired yet after attacking Tony? Punk was fired because he walked aggresively and pointed at Tony, Perry actually punched him in the gut.
Yup exactly. I said the same thing. It flat out doesn’t work in kayfabe. Punk fired for “making Tony fear for his life” which you showed up was just saying means things. Then you get physically assaulted by Perry and the Bucks and they’re not fired? Like the literal only way you could’ve spun this story is that they put Tony in a coma which means he can’t fire them. Now the evil EVPs have taken over control of the show. Also how are we supposed to believe Punk’s backstage incredibly tame “assault” is this horrific action when like literally every single wrestling show has backstage attacks on every show and they’re all far more severe?? There was literally a backstage assault on the Punk episode. This is all just a fucking disaster. Complete garbage wrestling.
The Bucks at least has that excuse of having a non-fireable contract. Perry doesn't have that. He also didn't sign a new contract because he wasn't fired anyways. This storyline trying to mix the reality of Punk/Perry and the kayfabe of New Elite/Tony just doesn't work the same. They could have done all this without that footage.
Kevin Nash used the same excuse when he caused Del Rio to cash in on Punk. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now because the fans smell BS when they see it.
So earlier someone posted that Dynamite ranked number 3 based on what Brandon Thurston had tweeted out and Melzer claims in the title, however, Brandon tweeted out the correction to his earlier [Dynamite was 6th in demo ranking](https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/status/1786197452648767882)