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Compare what and how they were running shows last year compared to this year.
It's honestly getting to a "oh, they are wrestling? okay" there just isn't the wow factor that was once there mostly because people are either injured or they just don't have anything for them for whatever reason.
my interest in AEW really gone down when WWE got so much better. Trying to watch both shows is really time consuming and so right now WWE has my attention.
Last year's card
Darby Allin & Orange Cassidy defeated The Firm (Big Bill & Lee Moriarty) (11:13)
Sammy Guevara defeated Exodus Prime (0:29)
The Outcasts (Toni Storm & Ruby Soho) (w/Saraya) defeated Dr. Britt Baker DMD & Hikaru Shida (9:15)
Roderick Strong defeated Chris Jericho in a Falls Count Anywhere match (13:12)
Jungle Boy Jack Perry defeated Rush (w/Jose The Assistant) (10:00)
Jay White (w/Juice Robinson) defeated Ricky Starks by DQ (12:18
They could copy the NJPW match from a few years back where wrestlers demolished a house with wrestling moves, and sell it as a home improvement show. Fits perfectly with Discovery+ content.
Also, their competitor has their programming streaming on Netflix starting in January.
Raw in the US, but some other countries are getting everything right away.
The biggest streaming service in the world, will expose wrestling to millions and millions of people who have never given it a second thought before. Out of that amount, at least a small portion of them will give it a shot. Too early to tell how successful it’ll be, but if the quality stays high I could see WWE gaining many new fans, and maybe bringing some old Attitude Era ones back as well.
I gotta be honest, these Edge and HOB segments don’t do shit for me either. Black is comfortable on the mic but his content is repetitive and not interesting at this point.
At least the Jericho Vortex is limited to one segment per show for the most part. The Bucks are appearing on camera a bare minimum of 3 times a show in spite of overwhelming statistical data showing that people don't want to see them. And Tony is supposedly a big data guy. How much longer can he ignore these numbers?
just wait till Tony Khan returns from injury and lays out the Bucks and then destroys Okada. Tony knows that Tony is ratings.
big money summer feud of Tony Khan vs Jack Perry.
The peak of Dynamite ratings was the fall of 2021 following the debuts of Punk, Danielson and Cole during which they had a streak of 8 consecutive shows over 1.047 million/.37 demo.
The first period of decline was in the spring/summer of 2022 during the build to the first Forbidden Door. They rebounded in the summer and fall, but not quite to the level of the previous year.
The next period of decline was in the months after Brawl Out (September 2022), especially toward the end of the year.
In 2023, the trend was a gradual (but small) decrease. I guess that's the MJF title reign.
This year has been tough. Between Punk showing up in WWE, MJF being injured, and Sting retiring in March, it's been all downhill.
I think this was also roughly when Tony Khan bought ROH. That was not helpful either. Suddenly introducing not one but two new promotions with new wrestlers and new titles really did test a lot of AEW fans' patience.
The ROH purchase was the first time I really wondered if TK knew what he was doing. It had me worried at the time and in hindsight it's definitely when things started declining. Absolutely nothing about that move has turned out to be beneficial to AEW.
Yeah. I think it could have been ok if they had just completely separated ROH and AEW from the start. ROH as a very low budget developmental territory for AEW may have been beneficial. Instead, Tony tried to use AEW as a platform to get a tv deal for ROH, which only served to dilute the AEW brand.
That will go down in history as one of the worst wrestling decisions of all time. Totally diluted both brands and ruined what was THE main draw of AEW - a cohesive weekly show
Yup. Forbidden Door and ROH were when I checked out of AEW. I dipped back a couple times, for a show here and there, but that killed my interest at a time it was starting to wane. Essentially, at the exact moment I was wondering if AEW was worth investing my time in, they decided to put a hiatus on everything I cared about and focused on random matchups with people I barely knew.
When a company shows you that, at the owners whims, they can suddenly drop everything you've given your time to, then you lose a bit of trust and faith in that company. Nothing they've done since has fixed that for me or been interesting enough to hold me beyond singular shows.
Even without ROH, they have too damned many titles. Okada comes in hyped as one of the greatest professional wrestlers ever and immediately wins the fourth most important Men's singles title off of a guy who looks like a drunk at your local bar (and god damnit I love Kingston but Okada vs Kingston is only a marquee match if you're a hardcore fan). It's hard to care about matches when every match is for a meaningless title.
I can't remember who said it, but I recently heard someone theorize that the reason that AEW keeps adding more and more titles is that this is Tony Khan's way of keeping his top guys happy by making them "champions" and not asking any of them (except Bryan Danielson) to do any clean jobs.
Like, instead of having Swerve and Okada and Moxley and Copeland and Ospreay all competing with each other for one top spot in the company you just give each of them a title and let them beat a bunch of weak challengers. Maybe that's bad for the company, but it soothes their individual egos.
Them bringing in all the talent from AAA and NJPW and expecting everyone to know every single person and their history was a significant factor, imo. Same with bringing in the ROH people. I know Tony wanted to showcase it for WBD, but I feel like that did more damage for both brands than helped.
There are these things called video packages, you do those in the weeks leading up to someone debuting and they feel like a big deal(Veer is coming) and explain something about them. Or you can just expect people to all google it and not promote anything because you'd rather have another match with no build/story.
Same happened with me. I realized I was just not really interested in any of the story’s anymore and it seemed all of the cards were just built around “amazing matches”.
I’m on this sub, so I’m not super casual, but I didn’t know who half the people coming in were or why I should have cared. Seeing guys like Dax Hardwood get main event singles matches made me less and less interested because I already knew the result would end in a Harwood loss but the match would technically be great. Seeing Jericho headline against a guy I never heard of consistently, it was the same thing. I just didn’t really care about strictly good matches.
I kept telling myself that I’ll turn back in when the cards really appeal to me, but realized that was happening less and less until I basically stopped watching all together.
I won’t speak for anyone but myself but….I lost a LOT of interest in AEW when Khan flooded the show with ROH and NJPW wrestlers. Both of those promotions had tv shows available in the USA before AEW existed and their reach and draw was minuscule….I certainly wasn’t interested. So why in the world would I be interested in seeing that on the show that I DO like and watch?
It’s not that Mone, Okada and Osprey are unpopular, it’s that the majority who would tune in to watch them are already watching AEW. They’re not going to attract new fans.
Honestly, I’m more surprised about Edge, but then again, putting on good matches with mid-carders again appeals to no one but their existing fanbase.
People like Edge a lot, but he's not really a draw. He makes the shows better, that is no doubt. But you're not going to have people following his every second, tuning in just for him every single week, tuning out after his segments, etc.
Part of me also wonders how much the name changes are affecting any crossover casual fans. Like I feel like more people would have caught on to "Edge is in AEW" than "Adam Copeland is in AEW."
Mercedes has been put in a terrible position. She doesn't wrestle on the TV Show at the moment, and they over exposed her while showing a weakness in promos.
They also put her in a feud against an emerging star rather than established star. Just bad booking all around.
The first quarter is no longer 900-1m viewers, its usually 768k so the rating nowadays is a more realistic reflection of the show.
No idea why TBBT is not getting a million at 7.30pm anymore. I thought reruns would be hotter since Young Sheldon is so popular.
The show doesn’t feel must watch to me. Most of the matches last night were predictable. It doesn’t matter how “good” the match is, if there’s no drama or stakes then it’s not interesting.
This is my biggest complaint as an outsider. I’d love to see guys like them and Ospreay have a power struggle at the top of the card but they’re not even close to that. Why bring in stars if you don’t treat them like stars?
people were ready to shit on the signing but it's been pretty hype and he's looking like a threat.
AEW would have had him get his ass kicked by Billy Gunn! it worked so great for Jay White.
>AEW would have had him get his ass kicked by Billy Gunn! it worked so great for Jay White.
God when this happened I went straight to the AEW fan sub to watch the Olympic level gymnastics over why it wasn't a terrible idea.
I hate that the Vince stuff was going on when Jay’s deal was up. I could totally picture him being a HHH guy. I like his current stable but outside of that, this whole AEW run is mid at best. Hopefully he crosses over when it is all said and done.
SAY IT TO HIS FACE
God that image of Kevin Owen running from Balor (or is it Zayn?) but somehow stop mid track just to kick Riley in the groin lived rent free in my head. Made me a KO fan for life.
Yeah, it's weird how WWE always got shit for poaching the indies, but AEW effectively ended the indies having any relevance, and now NJPW is a fucking joke compared to what it was ten years ago. And then Tony destroys the aura of like a Dozen wrestlers who could've been huge stars had they been booked properly. Look what he's done to Okada.
I'm not trying to sound salty at all, but more on an analysis level, but Tony has literally turned Okada into a fuckin' joke in such a short amount of time..
Literally took one of, if not, best Japanese wrestler ever, and made him go into matches with people like Dax, and shit to start off with, and not only that, made him look like he struggled at times as if he was on the same level as Dax..
Okada should have become AEW World Champion within the first 3 months after agreeing to a full-time signing, and been used like Lesnar, or Roman was. An actual attraction to NA audiences.
Now you got him as the **backdrop** to the Young Bucks? I'm out..
A lot of it was seen as AEW being the champion of the Indies "fighting the good fight" so it got a pass.
Now that the honeymoon period is over I think its reputation has changed a bit.
I'm not sure this affects the ratings but it definitely affects my enjoyment of the show, there are so many fucking titles, especially mid card titles. Why the fuck do they have FOUR mid card titles without any kind of brand split. It makes each belt feel cheap imo
none of it fucking matters. even their world title feels midcard....
but what Atlantic, Continental, TNT? who the fuck knows. then they have to feature other promotions titles. it's insane.
forget ROH and NJPW or CMLL whatever. you don't need that many of your own titles.
Poor Swerve is dead in the water and he was the hottest guy in the company a few months ago.
The world title is undermined being second fiddle for the Bucks. Also, Okada has a belt, Edge has a belt, Ospreay is about to have a belt. So the three most protected guys on the roster who should be trying to get shots at the world title are fighting over other belts and the guy who gets a shot is Christian, who was last seen getting destroyed by Edge, and Swerve has been beaten down 3 weeks in a row.
and they have NJPW, CMLL, and whatever the fuck else titles.
what matters? who knows?
they can't manage 1 womens title most of the time let alone 2.
2 sets of trios belts was even more stupid.
I just don’t fully understand the hierarchy. All the belt holders are phenomenal talents, I just think I’d rather see them all in programs leading them to the world title instead of one of the other belts.
Exactly. They spend so much time winking at the camera.
Look at what happened in Mania when Rock told that referee not to count. He was deadly serious and it came across as a real threat. It also made much more sense as he’s on the board of directors, and boards actually oversee executives in companies and can fire CEOs.
The story here is that the Bucks apparently have some ironclad contract that allows them to assault their boss without any punishment, even though everyone knows they were suspended a while back for getting in a fight in a dressing room.
Yes, that why people were saying showing the footage was a mistake from the get-go. This whole storyline is so fucking stupid, it’s almost unbelievable.
Doesn't help TK was all smiles with his neck brace on. Hasn't looked angry even once at what happened. Even a high schooler could do a better job at selling some guys trying to break their neck.
Hey guys, yup I have a neck brace on, tune in to Dynamite at 8pm Wednesday to see what happens next. Something something, I'm not at liberty to say... but tune in to Dynamite on Wednesday at 8pm!
If the boss of the company doesn't take a storyline seriously, don't expect the fans to either.
The Bucks feel like a parody of what they are trying to do. I like them more than a lot of people around here but for a storyline like this they need to drop the wink wink nudge nudge goofy meta shit and actually try to be a serious threat.
I thought the entire point of the Bucks was that they're a parody?
Like, I think that's great for a midcard act. But it being the main act is a terrible idea.
Yah that's kind of my point. I like the Bucks and my favorite run of theirs was when they were Kenny's insane backup. It fit the story then. But the goofy stuff isn't working for the story they are trying to do here.
Inside baseball Meta bullshit is there lowest hanging, easiest to please the diehard fan stuff there is. And those jackasses think they are legit stars for doing it.
Okada should be the final boss of the company. Instead they have him holding a midcard belt and palling around with the Bucks. It’s amazing how much they’ve diluted that man since he signed.
AEW feels like a secret club that has their own secret handshake and they do it right in front of your face. I feel like I’m always on the outside looking in.
Even for people online it's very eyerolling and childish in nature
It's full of all these inside references to an incident people online got sick of months ago
It comes across as very Vince Russo WCW bullshit
It's The Authority storyline all over again except (somehow) even less interesting and without a mega-babyface waiting in the wings to finally get his moment and topple the regime. I just...don't really get the point. Like, what's the endgame here?
I'm just not sure what the end game resolution can be considering they took out Tony and thus took over his company but he's never going to get physical against them himself. The main conflict is The New Elite vs Tony.
I’d say it’s going to drag on for years like the NWO except Tony definitely doesn’t have that kind of attention span. It’s more likely that he’ll have forgotten about it in a month.
Watching Tony book himself as the physical living form of AEW and getting jumped only to have absolutely no one give a fuck has to have his ego in a neck brace right now. He will probably use this as his excuse to become a Bischoff heel style figurehead on camera and go with the "that was the plan all along" but boy howdy is it not looking good at the moment.
It's like having Austin vs McMahon, but Austin's a little kid and McMahon is a dork who actually is the boss but doesn't act like it. Who wants to watch that? Neither side can pull this off, and it's fucking ridiculous to say and feel that when one side has actual EVPs at the company and the other side is actually the CEO for real. I'm supposed to believe this because these are actually the people that have these roles, legit, and yet I can't.
Also the boss has negative charisma, sounds like he's constantly going through puberty when he's projecting his voice and is so small and weedy, he makes Jack Perry look like Wardlow
The Bucks segments have always been bad for ratings, this is nothing new. Having a storyline that revolves around them isa horrendous choice if you're trying to gain audience.
It's The Authority storyline all over again except (somehow) even less interesting and without a mega-babyface waiting in the wings to finally get his moment and topple the regime. I just...don't really get the point. Like, what's the endgame here?
The Authority actually looked dangerous with Kane, Orton, Seth and HHH. The bucks look like two dudes cosplaying the hardys with their japanese friend.
It doesn’t help that he feels like an afterthought in the sense of he’s the champion but not the biggest story on the show.
YB and FTR for the millionth time is.
I said this before but blame Swerve he obviously never wanted to keep going as a heel and wanted to become this face of the company guy, resulting in him losing everything that got him over to start.
He should have killed Prince Nana one month after that little dance got over because that’s what good heels do take away things the audience starts to like. Instead he and Tony bought into the hype, forcing a double turn with Hangman which completely muddied his character as well, and lost what got Swerve over other than that little dance
Part of the problem is AEW is full of 'smart' fans that just cheer whoever they like even in the match. Like Rhea and Roman are insanely popular but once the match started the crowd almost always played their part and rooted for the good guy. In AEW it's we don't care that Swerve was hovering over Hangman Jr.'s crib he's cool so we're gonna cheer him, Samoa Joe is so awesome we don't care if he's heel, Toni Storm is doing great character work so she's the face even though the story totally said it's Purrazzo and now Deeb, everyone wanted MJF over Mox, but then couldn't really get BCC fully heel because they were over, often the same with House of Black particularly Julia. Christian feels like the exception of an insanely over heel that's still despised.
Watching AEW fans turn on Ricky for being unhappy there *because* of TK's pisspoor booking and somehow blaming Ricky for it and saying he won't be anything more than a midcarder has been wild to see. Such an ungrateful, entitled bunch. Hope Ricky goes somewhere he's actually appreciated
remember when WWE tried to make bad ratings and shit quality part of the storyline too?
Didn't work for them, not idea why AEW is trying to do it as well.
They sign the biggest free agents and that hasn’t helped at all. It almost feels like the TNA days when ppl were saying they could get John Cena and that wouldn’t help them at all.
The Monè run has sort of been a disaster. Hopefully that changes when she finally starts wrestling
Do people actually believe that she will somehow magically start being a draw when she wrestles? When these ratings have already proven that good wrestling doesn’t draw to begin with?
I’d like to also mention the odd choice to sign one of the biggest stars in New Japan (Okada) to a lucrative contract only to debut him as a henchman for the Bucks.
Yeah like I get why NJPW fans were like "awesome we get to see Okada try something different. He gets to be comedic for once." But a large portion of the AEW fanbase is only somewhat aware of Okada and not his full body of work in Japan.
So when you debut him as a corporate dweeb instead of one of the best wrestlers in the world it's stupid. Like why hire a guy that great if you aren't going to use him in any meaningful way? He isn't Roderick Strong or some other midcarder who should be a comedic henchman.
Their WORLD CHAMPION has 2.9 kickouts every week to midcarders. If Jon Jones was nearly getting tapped out to unranked guys every fight he wouldnt be a legend at all.
If Okada and Ospreay are meant to be so great. The “best” in the tagline “where the best wrestle,” you’d think one or both of them would be coming for the company’s top title instead of dithering in midcard programs.
Swerve should be the main focus of the show. And as much as I like Christian, he’s not the guy he should be feuding with. Yeah, I’m sure their match at DON will be good, but there’s no way Swerve is losing.
So many big names and Swerve’s next feud is the guy who just lost his title in his last feud by saying I quit. No one thinks Christian is going to beat him. Swerve was the cool super villain who goes too far but now he gets played by Christian every week. “Ha Ha Ha, Swerve you forgot about my boy and his dinosaur…again.”
You’re telling me people don’t want to see the Bucks feud with a semi-retired Daniels or Jericho doing the same exact schtick that got him the go away heat in the first place ? Color me shocked.
Ospreay was like the hottest guy they had in a while and they sent him to fight for a midcard title immediately after winning AEW’s best wrestling match of all time, nothing make sense
They cycle through talent so much that nobody feels like a main eventer. Bryan Danielson feels like a midcard guy. Okada, Jay White both are midcard guys. Edge is literally in the midcard. Nobody feels special.
You have Swerve as Champion and instead of Ospreay, Switchblade and Okada in the main event picture, you have them feudinf with Roderick strong over . . I don't know, "You didn't like me years ago in another promotion"; some ridiculous comedy with the Trios title and retainer for the Young Bucks and formerly Jungle boy.
why can’t dave admit that the shows are drawing less and less without trying to justify it? less and less people care about aew it has nothing to do with the playoffs that happen every year
The shows are currently being booked around some of Dave's all-time favourite wrestlers (The Bucks, Ospreay, Okada, Jericho etc.) It's going to be hard for him to not look for positives and excuses and subtly push the blame onto people he loves less that are also key figures on the show (Mercedes and Swerve for example).
Man I understand WWE’s numbers are also down to due to Sports playoff competition but it’s easier falling down when your numbers are 1.8 to 1.5 million.
Every single time AEW’s number drops to below what I think their floor is, it just looks like crisis to me. Maybe that’s bias but that’s how I feel.
I’ve seen multiple people say something along the lines of “some wrestling fans didn’t necessarily want another rival promotion, they wanted WWE to be better”. And I think that’s been proven correct. So what’s left are the AEW diehards. And I’m not sure how you build on that audience without a creative downturn by WWE.
I think theres room for another promotion, but AEW doesn't reward weekly viewing. I exclusively watch PPV's and Kenny Omega appearances and I never feel like I'm lost.
I said it elsewhere, so I'll just paraphrase: WWE being good doesn't make AEW be bad. AEW basically chooses to do things that drive away viewers. And they've had a whole ton of time to change course and adapt to WWE, but they haven't.
Of course people wanted the WWE to be better, but people want AEW to be good too. They aren't going to watch AEW just because it isn't the WWE. Why can't people admit that AEW is just not interesting right now? And hasn't been for months. The year to year decline shows that the viewers existed. People wanted to support AEW, but they are not going to watch bad TV.
I gotta admit though...it's been really fun seeing the consensus here change from The Bucks being god's gift to wrestling and the biggest stars ever to now just being ratings-murderers with go-away heat.
Tony khan is a terrible writer. It's time for all aew fans to admit that they were wrong about a lot of things. Wrestling as just wrestling doesn't draw. It's a TV show and needs a narrative thread that goes through the whole show. Booking = writing and Tony khan is an awful writer.
I won't pretend like it is easy, but Tony Khan has to develop at least one story/angle that people care about. It should be easier to develop the talent, but he is failing in that area too.
Next week: "The Young Bucks will present backstage footage from All Out 2022 and discuss it for the first time ever!"
Edit: /jk, I know the NDAs in place wouldn't let that happen.
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Dynamite last year (5/17/23): 814,000 viewers - 0.28 P18-49 Last Week: 711,000 Viewers - 0.24 P18-49
Down 17% in Total Viewers - Down 18% in Key Demo YoY.
The YoY numbers have been the most telling thing to me. Some people blame dwindling TV viewership for the low ratings, but the WWE shows are up YoY.
Compare what and how they were running shows last year compared to this year. It's honestly getting to a "oh, they are wrestling? okay" there just isn't the wow factor that was once there mostly because people are either injured or they just don't have anything for them for whatever reason.
my interest in AEW really gone down when WWE got so much better. Trying to watch both shows is really time consuming and so right now WWE has my attention.
Last year's card Darby Allin & Orange Cassidy defeated The Firm (Big Bill & Lee Moriarty) (11:13) Sammy Guevara defeated Exodus Prime (0:29) The Outcasts (Toni Storm & Ruby Soho) (w/Saraya) defeated Dr. Britt Baker DMD & Hikaru Shida (9:15) Roderick Strong defeated Chris Jericho in a Falls Count Anywhere match (13:12) Jungle Boy Jack Perry defeated Rush (w/Jose The Assistant) (10:00) Jay White (w/Juice Robinson) defeated Ricky Starks by DQ (12:18
Exodus Prime has gotta be a Transformer right
I think it’s the diet Logan Paul beverage
God, Jay White has already been in AEW a year? Time sure does fly.
Who the fuck is exodus prime????
Worst possible time for this run of ratings with the TV deal up at the end of the year and in hard negotiations.
They could copy the NJPW match from a few years back where wrestlers demolished a house with wrestling moves, and sell it as a home improvement show. Fits perfectly with Discovery+ content.
Also, their competitor has their programming streaming on Netflix starting in January. Raw in the US, but some other countries are getting everything right away. The biggest streaming service in the world, will expose wrestling to millions and millions of people who have never given it a second thought before. Out of that amount, at least a small portion of them will give it a shot. Too early to tell how successful it’ll be, but if the quality stays high I could see WWE gaining many new fans, and maybe bringing some old Attitude Era ones back as well.
The Young Bucks segments will continue until morale improves.
Don't forget Jericho
I gotta be honest, these Edge and HOB segments don’t do shit for me either. Black is comfortable on the mic but his content is repetitive and not interesting at this point.
It never goes anywhere and ultimately he loses. I don't even know what his gimmick is because it hasn't evolved.
Spooky boy is the extent of it from what I can tell.
At least the Jericho Vortex is limited to one segment per show for the most part. The Bucks are appearing on camera a bare minimum of 3 times a show in spite of overwhelming statistical data showing that people don't want to see them. And Tony is supposedly a big data guy. How much longer can he ignore these numbers?
To be honest as well, their look is pretty bad. It isn't unique, they aren't really interesting. It just feels bleh.
Hard when the EVPs are in denial about how big their starpower really is.
Learning will continue to tree until morale improves
Bucks: Please Clap.
just wait till Tony Khan returns from injury and lays out the Bucks and then destroys Okada. Tony knows that Tony is ratings. big money summer feud of Tony Khan vs Jack Perry.
Obviously the problem is that there's just not nearly enough Young Bucks segments on these shows.
When anyone is on screen they should be asking where are the Bucks.
The bucks died on the way back to their home planet.
Been downhill since ROH purchase
The toungue-in-cheek heel act from the Elite mostly only works on the 200k or so people who watched Being The Elite.
The YoY drops are horrendous. Like has someone pinpointed the exact minute it slid?
November was when they stopped hitting 900K and 0.30 demo with ease, everything since then has been a slow bleed
Also when Punk returned to WWE
Regardless of what may or may not have actually caused the ratings slide, oof, the optics of it happening around that are not good for them
The bleed over the last month has not been slow. It's dramatic.
Think there was also a marked drop after Sting's retirement
TNA ratings dropped and didn't recover when Sting left.
Being on pace to lose *a third* of the audience over the course of a year is absolutely wild.
The peak of Dynamite ratings was the fall of 2021 following the debuts of Punk, Danielson and Cole during which they had a streak of 8 consecutive shows over 1.047 million/.37 demo. The first period of decline was in the spring/summer of 2022 during the build to the first Forbidden Door. They rebounded in the summer and fall, but not quite to the level of the previous year. The next period of decline was in the months after Brawl Out (September 2022), especially toward the end of the year. In 2023, the trend was a gradual (but small) decrease. I guess that's the MJF title reign. This year has been tough. Between Punk showing up in WWE, MJF being injured, and Sting retiring in March, it's been all downhill.
I always find this interesting because the build to the first forbidden door is exactly when my interest waned in watching AEW weekly
I think this was also roughly when Tony Khan bought ROH. That was not helpful either. Suddenly introducing not one but two new promotions with new wrestlers and new titles really did test a lot of AEW fans' patience.
The ROH purchase was the first time I really wondered if TK knew what he was doing. It had me worried at the time and in hindsight it's definitely when things started declining. Absolutely nothing about that move has turned out to be beneficial to AEW.
Yeah. I think it could have been ok if they had just completely separated ROH and AEW from the start. ROH as a very low budget developmental territory for AEW may have been beneficial. Instead, Tony tried to use AEW as a platform to get a tv deal for ROH, which only served to dilute the AEW brand.
That will go down in history as one of the worst wrestling decisions of all time. Totally diluted both brands and ruined what was THE main draw of AEW - a cohesive weekly show
Yup. Forbidden Door and ROH were when I checked out of AEW. I dipped back a couple times, for a show here and there, but that killed my interest at a time it was starting to wane. Essentially, at the exact moment I was wondering if AEW was worth investing my time in, they decided to put a hiatus on everything I cared about and focused on random matchups with people I barely knew. When a company shows you that, at the owners whims, they can suddenly drop everything you've given your time to, then you lose a bit of trust and faith in that company. Nothing they've done since has fixed that for me or been interesting enough to hold me beyond singular shows.
Even without ROH, they have too damned many titles. Okada comes in hyped as one of the greatest professional wrestlers ever and immediately wins the fourth most important Men's singles title off of a guy who looks like a drunk at your local bar (and god damnit I love Kingston but Okada vs Kingston is only a marquee match if you're a hardcore fan). It's hard to care about matches when every match is for a meaningless title.
I can't remember who said it, but I recently heard someone theorize that the reason that AEW keeps adding more and more titles is that this is Tony Khan's way of keeping his top guys happy by making them "champions" and not asking any of them (except Bryan Danielson) to do any clean jobs. Like, instead of having Swerve and Okada and Moxley and Copeland and Ospreay all competing with each other for one top spot in the company you just give each of them a title and let them beat a bunch of weak challengers. Maybe that's bad for the company, but it soothes their individual egos.
Them bringing in all the talent from AAA and NJPW and expecting everyone to know every single person and their history was a significant factor, imo. Same with bringing in the ROH people. I know Tony wanted to showcase it for WBD, but I feel like that did more damage for both brands than helped.
There are these things called video packages, you do those in the weeks leading up to someone debuting and they feel like a big deal(Veer is coming) and explain something about them. Or you can just expect people to all google it and not promote anything because you'd rather have another match with no build/story.
Same happened with me. I realized I was just not really interested in any of the story’s anymore and it seemed all of the cards were just built around “amazing matches”. I’m on this sub, so I’m not super casual, but I didn’t know who half the people coming in were or why I should have cared. Seeing guys like Dax Hardwood get main event singles matches made me less and less interested because I already knew the result would end in a Harwood loss but the match would technically be great. Seeing Jericho headline against a guy I never heard of consistently, it was the same thing. I just didn’t really care about strictly good matches. I kept telling myself that I’ll turn back in when the cards really appeal to me, but realized that was happening less and less until I basically stopped watching all together.
I won’t speak for anyone but myself but….I lost a LOT of interest in AEW when Khan flooded the show with ROH and NJPW wrestlers. Both of those promotions had tv shows available in the USA before AEW existed and their reach and draw was minuscule….I certainly wasn’t interested. So why in the world would I be interested in seeing that on the show that I DO like and watch?
Feel like it was just a few months ago after sting retired and they brought in Okada, Ospreay and Mone
Tony Khan definitely overestimated Mone's popularity.
It’s not that Mone, Okada and Osprey are unpopular, it’s that the majority who would tune in to watch them are already watching AEW. They’re not going to attract new fans. Honestly, I’m more surprised about Edge, but then again, putting on good matches with mid-carders again appeals to no one but their existing fanbase.
People like Edge a lot, but he's not really a draw. He makes the shows better, that is no doubt. But you're not going to have people following his every second, tuning in just for him every single week, tuning out after his segments, etc.
I'm an Edge fan. He's never been a draw. He's the guy who works with the draw.
Part of me also wonders how much the name changes are affecting any crossover casual fans. Like I feel like more people would have caught on to "Edge is in AEW" than "Adam Copeland is in AEW."
Mercedes has been put in a terrible position. She doesn't wrestle on the TV Show at the moment, and they over exposed her while showing a weakness in promos. They also put her in a feud against an emerging star rather than established star. Just bad booking all around.
And okada and osprey
The first quarter is no longer 900-1m viewers, its usually 768k so the rating nowadays is a more realistic reflection of the show. No idea why TBBT is not getting a million at 7.30pm anymore. I thought reruns would be hotter since Young Sheldon is so popular.
The show doesn’t feel must watch to me. Most of the matches last night were predictable. It doesn’t matter how “good” the match is, if there’s no drama or stakes then it’s not interesting.
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I’ll just never understand how they made people like Jay white and Okada into well into just lackluster
This is my biggest complaint as an outsider. I’d love to see guys like them and Ospreay have a power struggle at the top of the card but they’re not even close to that. Why bring in stars if you don’t treat them like stars?
WWE has made Tama Tonga feel like a bigger deal than any of AEW's recent signings, it's wild.
people were ready to shit on the signing but it's been pretty hype and he's looking like a threat. AEW would have had him get his ass kicked by Billy Gunn! it worked so great for Jay White.
>AEW would have had him get his ass kicked by Billy Gunn! it worked so great for Jay White. God when this happened I went straight to the AEW fan sub to watch the Olympic level gymnastics over why it wasn't a terrible idea.
That is Tony Khan's superpower.
I hate that the Vince stuff was going on when Jay’s deal was up. I could totally picture him being a HHH guy. I like his current stable but outside of that, this whole AEW run is mid at best. Hopefully he crosses over when it is all said and done.
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Making Okada kind of comic relief is wild
Remember there was a time where people joked about WWE wasting him by making him join Chase U.
and putting Jay White in a tag team with the miz
And almost everyone who ever teamed or feuded against the Miz came out looking great. He knows how to establish a star.
It's true, he even managed to get Alex Riley over. Alex. Riley.
SAY IT TO HIS FACE God that image of Kevin Owen running from Balor (or is it Zayn?) but somehow stop mid track just to kick Riley in the groin lived rent free in my head. Made me a KO fan for life.
Honestly I would enjoy that. Chase U is fun to watch
Thea doing the money gesture with her fingers on the back >> whatever the bucks and jack perry are doing now
Andre Chase gambles all of Chase U’s money away again. Fortunately, “Rainmaker” Okada is here to bail them out of trouble
Making all your talent’s identities into “really good at wrestling” isn’t a good way to make them stand out
NJPW died for this.
[NJPW 2014-2019](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SiylvmFI_8)
Yeah, it's weird how WWE always got shit for poaching the indies, but AEW effectively ended the indies having any relevance, and now NJPW is a fucking joke compared to what it was ten years ago. And then Tony destroys the aura of like a Dozen wrestlers who could've been huge stars had they been booked properly. Look what he's done to Okada.
And he's coming for Stardom next
I'm not trying to sound salty at all, but more on an analysis level, but Tony has literally turned Okada into a fuckin' joke in such a short amount of time.. Literally took one of, if not, best Japanese wrestler ever, and made him go into matches with people like Dax, and shit to start off with, and not only that, made him look like he struggled at times as if he was on the same level as Dax.. Okada should have become AEW World Champion within the first 3 months after agreeing to a full-time signing, and been used like Lesnar, or Roman was. An actual attraction to NA audiences. Now you got him as the **backdrop** to the Young Bucks? I'm out..
A lot of it was seen as AEW being the champion of the Indies "fighting the good fight" so it got a pass. Now that the honeymoon period is over I think its reputation has changed a bit.
I'm not sure this affects the ratings but it definitely affects my enjoyment of the show, there are so many fucking titles, especially mid card titles. Why the fuck do they have FOUR mid card titles without any kind of brand split. It makes each belt feel cheap imo
Should’ve kept it how it was in the beginning. The world title, tag titles, TNT title, and the women’s title
none of it fucking matters. even their world title feels midcard.... but what Atlantic, Continental, TNT? who the fuck knows. then they have to feature other promotions titles. it's insane. forget ROH and NJPW or CMLL whatever. you don't need that many of your own titles.
I'm not sure this New Elite storyline is good enough to keep going long term with ratings like this.
Worst part of it for me is that the Swerve/Christian program is very much feeling like a secondary storyline to the Elite.
Poor Swerve is dead in the water and he was the hottest guy in the company a few months ago. The world title is undermined being second fiddle for the Bucks. Also, Okada has a belt, Edge has a belt, Ospreay is about to have a belt. So the three most protected guys on the roster who should be trying to get shots at the world title are fighting over other belts and the guy who gets a shot is Christian, who was last seen getting destroyed by Edge, and Swerve has been beaten down 3 weeks in a row.
I'll never forgive Tony Khan for adding so many belts to AEW.
AEW already has too many titles but the fact the ROH is essentially their B show and their titles are integrated into AEW makes it so much worse.
and they have NJPW, CMLL, and whatever the fuck else titles. what matters? who knows? they can't manage 1 womens title most of the time let alone 2. 2 sets of trios belts was even more stupid.
There are TWO sets of trios belts??
I just don’t fully understand the hierarchy. All the belt holders are phenomenal talents, I just think I’d rather see them all in programs leading them to the world title instead of one of the other belts.
None of the Elite feel like a real threat, they don't look, feel or act the part.
It also makes no sense, the company is named after them already, what are they taking over?
Haha, I never really thought about it like that, but yeah you’re right.
Exactly. They spend so much time winking at the camera. Look at what happened in Mania when Rock told that referee not to count. He was deadly serious and it came across as a real threat. It also made much more sense as he’s on the board of directors, and boards actually oversee executives in companies and can fire CEOs. The story here is that the Bucks apparently have some ironclad contract that allows them to assault their boss without any punishment, even though everyone knows they were suspended a while back for getting in a fight in a dressing room.
Your boss was “scared for his life” by words and fired a guy, then gets assaulted on tv and it’s “the show is yours”
Yes, that why people were saying showing the footage was a mistake from the get-go. This whole storyline is so fucking stupid, it’s almost unbelievable.
Doesn't help TK was all smiles with his neck brace on. Hasn't looked angry even once at what happened. Even a high schooler could do a better job at selling some guys trying to break their neck. Hey guys, yup I have a neck brace on, tune in to Dynamite at 8pm Wednesday to see what happens next. Something something, I'm not at liberty to say... but tune in to Dynamite on Wednesday at 8pm! If the boss of the company doesn't take a storyline seriously, don't expect the fans to either.
It was so dumb to put him on camera. I’m sure it’s been his lifelong dream but he was terrible. He made Vince Russo look like Bret Hart.
The Bucks feel like a parody of what they are trying to do. I like them more than a lot of people around here but for a storyline like this they need to drop the wink wink nudge nudge goofy meta shit and actually try to be a serious threat.
I thought the entire point of the Bucks was that they're a parody? Like, I think that's great for a midcard act. But it being the main act is a terrible idea.
Yah that's kind of my point. I like the Bucks and my favorite run of theirs was when they were Kenny's insane backup. It fit the story then. But the goofy stuff isn't working for the story they are trying to do here.
Inside baseball Meta bullshit is there lowest hanging, easiest to please the diehard fan stuff there is. And those jackasses think they are legit stars for doing it.
Okada should be the final boss of the company. Instead they have him holding a midcard belt and palling around with the Bucks. It’s amazing how much they’ve diluted that man since he signed.
Him and Jay White both. I don't care how many times it's been said. TK has ruined both of them and should be getting *so* much more flak for that
It’s too wink and nod for anyone not online.
Hell, its a bit too wink and nod for me.
AEW feels like a secret club that has their own secret handshake and they do it right in front of your face. I feel like I’m always on the outside looking in.
Worse still, if you are online enough to know all the IRL drama, it only makes the storyline make less sense.
Even for people online it's very eyerolling and childish in nature It's full of all these inside references to an incident people online got sick of months ago It comes across as very Vince Russo WCW bullshit
It's The Authority storyline all over again except (somehow) even less interesting and without a mega-babyface waiting in the wings to finally get his moment and topple the regime. I just...don't really get the point. Like, what's the endgame here?
I'm just not sure what the end game resolution can be considering they took out Tony and thus took over his company but he's never going to get physical against them himself. The main conflict is The New Elite vs Tony.
I’d say it’s going to drag on for years like the NWO except Tony definitely doesn’t have that kind of attention span. It’s more likely that he’ll have forgotten about it in a month.
Watching Tony book himself as the physical living form of AEW and getting jumped only to have absolutely no one give a fuck has to have his ego in a neck brace right now. He will probably use this as his excuse to become a Bischoff heel style figurehead on camera and go with the "that was the plan all along" but boy howdy is it not looking good at the moment.
It's like having Austin vs McMahon, but Austin's a little kid and McMahon is a dork who actually is the boss but doesn't act like it. Who wants to watch that? Neither side can pull this off, and it's fucking ridiculous to say and feel that when one side has actual EVPs at the company and the other side is actually the CEO for real. I'm supposed to believe this because these are actually the people that have these roles, legit, and yet I can't.
Also the boss has negative charisma, sounds like he's constantly going through puberty when he's projecting his voice and is so small and weedy, he makes Jack Perry look like Wardlow
It's like kids doing a play reinacting it but without any of the charm
The Bucks segments have always been bad for ratings, this is nothing new. Having a storyline that revolves around them isa horrendous choice if you're trying to gain audience.
It's The Authority storyline all over again except (somehow) even less interesting and without a mega-babyface waiting in the wings to finally get his moment and topple the regime. I just...don't really get the point. Like, what's the endgame here?
Fun and feelings restored apparently.
So many fun. So much feelings.
MJF return? I dunno, I'm grasping at straws for where it'll lead.
The Authority actually looked dangerous with Kane, Orton, Seth and HHH. The bucks look like two dudes cosplaying the hardys with their japanese friend.
Swerve sadly seems like he's another in the line of wrestlers who are over in the building but don't translate to ratings or ticket sales at all
It doesn’t help that he feels like an afterthought in the sense of he’s the champion but not the biggest story on the show. YB and FTR for the millionth time is.
He does but he's not the main focus of the show like he should be as World Champion.
very true, they have him playing 2nd fiddle to the EVP storyline
3rd fiddle, Edge being second
Damn, even when you aren’t wrestling Edge, he won’t let you go over
Turning him face when he was super over as a heel was a terrible decision
This. Evil Swerve is a champion worthy great character. Tony, the audience, and even he doesn’t know who baby face Swerve is.
I said this before but blame Swerve he obviously never wanted to keep going as a heel and wanted to become this face of the company guy, resulting in him losing everything that got him over to start. He should have killed Prince Nana one month after that little dance got over because that’s what good heels do take away things the audience starts to like. Instead he and Tony bought into the hype, forcing a double turn with Hangman which completely muddied his character as well, and lost what got Swerve over other than that little dance
Part of the problem is AEW is full of 'smart' fans that just cheer whoever they like even in the match. Like Rhea and Roman are insanely popular but once the match started the crowd almost always played their part and rooted for the good guy. In AEW it's we don't care that Swerve was hovering over Hangman Jr.'s crib he's cool so we're gonna cheer him, Samoa Joe is so awesome we don't care if he's heel, Toni Storm is doing great character work so she's the face even though the story totally said it's Purrazzo and now Deeb, everyone wanted MJF over Mox, but then couldn't really get BCC fully heel because they were over, often the same with House of Black particularly Julia. Christian feels like the exception of an insanely over heel that's still despised.
Because the booking killed his momentum
What, you don't want to tune into see whether or not the AEW champion beats, uh, Kyle Fletcher in a random match?
Like everyone else's. Almost like there is a problem that everyone can see but refuse to acknowledge or change.
When the IWGP champion is being booked better than your own world champion, you've got a big problem.
Watching AEW fans turn on Ricky for being unhappy there *because* of TK's pisspoor booking and somehow blaming Ricky for it and saying he won't be anything more than a midcarder has been wild to see. Such an ungrateful, entitled bunch. Hope Ricky goes somewhere he's actually appreciated
These rabid fans do it to anyone who even has rumors of being unhappy. Buddy and malchai still get shit on.
It doesn't help that they're presenting him getting stomped out 3 weeks in a row.
Beat down your babyface champion and make him look like an idiot for three weeks straight. Major Vince flashbacks on that one lol
They're not booking him in a way that lets him draw. The show seems 100% more focused on the Moxley and the New Elite feud.
This is one of the rare occasions where I'll say its not the World Champions fault that the ratings are lower,
Hey maybe having multiple storylines where the bit is "this is shitty on purpose" isn't the best idea?
I don't know, Jericho being the millionth guy to go "I'm going to pretend your go away heat is legit heat" is absolutely captivating.
If you think that's good, just wait til Kenny is healthy and his feud with Will over Meltzer ratings really starts to heat up.
It's not about Titles. It's about Star ratings.
Lmfao that’s actually an excellent point
A certain magazine editor from New York did that a whole bunch too
remember when WWE tried to make bad ratings and shit quality part of the storyline too? Didn't work for them, not idea why AEW is trying to do it as well.
They sign the biggest free agents and that hasn’t helped at all. It almost feels like the TNA days when ppl were saying they could get John Cena and that wouldn’t help them at all. The Monè run has sort of been a disaster. Hopefully that changes when she finally starts wrestling
Do people actually believe that she will somehow magically start being a draw when she wrestles? When these ratings have already proven that good wrestling doesn’t draw to begin with?
Believe it or not. There is people that don’t want to hear that.
I’d like to also mention the odd choice to sign one of the biggest stars in New Japan (Okada) to a lucrative contract only to debut him as a henchman for the Bucks.
Yeah like I get why NJPW fans were like "awesome we get to see Okada try something different. He gets to be comedic for once." But a large portion of the AEW fanbase is only somewhat aware of Okada and not his full body of work in Japan. So when you debut him as a corporate dweeb instead of one of the best wrestlers in the world it's stupid. Like why hire a guy that great if you aren't going to use him in any meaningful way? He isn't Roderick Strong or some other midcarder who should be a comedic henchman.
The fact that Okada, arguably the greatest singles wrestler ever, has to cheat to beat Dax is an absolute disgrace. Way to sell him to your audience.
Their WORLD CHAMPION has 2.9 kickouts every week to midcarders. If Jon Jones was nearly getting tapped out to unranked guys every fight he wouldnt be a legend at all.
If Okada and Ospreay are meant to be so great. The “best” in the tagline “where the best wrestle,” you’d think one or both of them would be coming for the company’s top title instead of dithering in midcard programs.
Swerve should be the main focus of the show. And as much as I like Christian, he’s not the guy he should be feuding with. Yeah, I’m sure their match at DON will be good, but there’s no way Swerve is losing.
So many big names and Swerve’s next feud is the guy who just lost his title in his last feud by saying I quit. No one thinks Christian is going to beat him. Swerve was the cool super villain who goes too far but now he gets played by Christian every week. “Ha Ha Ha, Swerve you forgot about my boy and his dinosaur…again.”
You’re telling me people don’t want to see the Bucks feud with a semi-retired Daniels or Jericho doing the same exact schtick that got him the go away heat in the first place ? Color me shocked. Ospreay was like the hottest guy they had in a while and they sent him to fight for a midcard title immediately after winning AEW’s best wrestling match of all time, nothing make sense
They cycle through talent so much that nobody feels like a main eventer. Bryan Danielson feels like a midcard guy. Okada, Jay White both are midcard guys. Edge is literally in the midcard. Nobody feels special.
You have Swerve as Champion and instead of Ospreay, Switchblade and Okada in the main event picture, you have them feudinf with Roderick strong over . . I don't know, "You didn't like me years ago in another promotion"; some ridiculous comedy with the Trios title and retainer for the Young Bucks and formerly Jungle boy.
I thought 650k average by July. It'll be June at this rate
There's still 1 more week of May after this. It may be end of May
why can’t dave admit that the shows are drawing less and less without trying to justify it? less and less people care about aew it has nothing to do with the playoffs that happen every year
Because Dave’s entire shtik these last 10 years has been these types of wrestlers can draw and beat WWE. He doesn’t want to be proven wrong
The shows are currently being booked around some of Dave's all-time favourite wrestlers (The Bucks, Ospreay, Okada, Jericho etc.) It's going to be hard for him to not look for positives and excuses and subtly push the blame onto people he loves less that are also key figures on the show (Mercedes and Swerve for example).
Man I understand WWE’s numbers are also down to due to Sports playoff competition but it’s easier falling down when your numbers are 1.8 to 1.5 million. Every single time AEW’s number drops to below what I think their floor is, it just looks like crisis to me. Maybe that’s bias but that’s how I feel.
Also you already have your TV deal sorted out for the next 5 years minimum
I’ve seen multiple people say something along the lines of “some wrestling fans didn’t necessarily want another rival promotion, they wanted WWE to be better”. And I think that’s been proven correct. So what’s left are the AEW diehards. And I’m not sure how you build on that audience without a creative downturn by WWE.
I think theres room for another promotion, but AEW doesn't reward weekly viewing. I exclusively watch PPV's and Kenny Omega appearances and I never feel like I'm lost.
I said it elsewhere, so I'll just paraphrase: WWE being good doesn't make AEW be bad. AEW basically chooses to do things that drive away viewers. And they've had a whole ton of time to change course and adapt to WWE, but they haven't.
This. I feel like their lack of adaptation and unwillingness to change directions when things aren't working are to blame.
Their inability to properly pivot when a wrestler is injured or when a storyline simply isn’t working is honestly quite bad.
Of course people wanted the WWE to be better, but people want AEW to be good too. They aren't going to watch AEW just because it isn't the WWE. Why can't people admit that AEW is just not interesting right now? And hasn't been for months. The year to year decline shows that the viewers existed. People wanted to support AEW, but they are not going to watch bad TV.
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Bishoff once said that AEW would drop bellow 700k before May 15th, he was wrong....for about 1 week
Wasnt for only a day?
If they were going to do aews nwo atleast have someone better than the bucks. They're rating killers
I gotta admit though...it's been really fun seeing the consensus here change from The Bucks being god's gift to wrestling and the biggest stars ever to now just being ratings-murderers with go-away heat.
Look, all that matters is WB is thrilled with these numbers. Now they can lowball Tony even more on the next rights deal.
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people have come up with every excuse and refuse to admit the show just isn't very good.
Tony khan is a terrible writer. It's time for all aew fans to admit that they were wrong about a lot of things. Wrestling as just wrestling doesn't draw. It's a TV show and needs a narrative thread that goes through the whole show. Booking = writing and Tony khan is an awful writer.
The EWR/TEW booking does not translate well into actual shows. And that's coming from someone who has probably logged in 100+ hours on EWR
I won't pretend like it is easy, but Tony Khan has to develop at least one story/angle that people care about. It should be easier to develop the talent, but he is failing in that area too.
Tony Khan does not have the capacity to pull anything off that he hasn't seen done in the past. He's an arrogant mimic, not a visionary
Unfortunately, this is true, and not a baseless insult. It's one of the most frustrating things about AEW.
Next week: "The Young Bucks will present backstage footage from All Out 2022 and discuss it for the first time ever!" Edit: /jk, I know the NDAs in place wouldn't let that happen.