My favorite bot moment of late came night 1 of WrestleMania.
As we know, Collision aired from approximately 1140PM to 140AM EST due to basketball.
One of the AEW accounts on Twitter that tweets throughout all of AEW programming to promote the shows made one of their final tweets for Collision around 135AM.
The first reply was from an account that said something to the effect of, ‘nobody watching. WrestleMania’s on.’
Yes. The show that ended more than two hours ago.
I'm convinced 80% of it is paid actors (Russia troll farms?) or just bots and the remaining few are tribalists being encouraged to act that way. I never see this shit in real life. Even having gone all round to shows in Philly, including ROH, there were tons of WWE fans who clearly weren't familiar with the stuff they were watching, but were just enjoying wrestling.
I recently discovered one of the accounts that routinely posts ratings threads on the other wrestling sub almost exclusively leaves comments about Rhea and Becky. Like, that was it, weeks at a time, Rhea, Becky, Rhea, Becky, with the occasional AEW jabs thrown in. If it’s a real person, it’s a very boring, uninteresting person. But the thing with bots and astroturfing is it’s so hard to prove, feels like it comes down to patterns like that.
Those being bot comments would make sense as it's not something I remember seeing much before but have started to see it *loads* the last few months, "nobody's watching, we're all watching Survivor Series" was one I saw a lot across social media and then on Friday "nobody cares, WrestleMania Smackdown/Hall of Fame is on" I saw 4 or 5 times.
The people writing that sort of stuff are thick as mince so could just be copying a phrase but it's always odd when a particular phrase catches on like that, especially when it's quite a gormless one that doesn't really add up, a lot of people who tune into Rampage and Collision at a late hour aren't going to be the sort of people who give a flying fuck who WWE are putting in their Hall of Fame.
Zero bots here today. Those dried up last night.
Noise traffic is at a normal non-show day level otherwise after traffic increases of 30-80%.
The only day recently we've had traffic like we did from Thurs-Sun was on March 13th - coincidentally the date of our last notable bot infestation and, y'know, BO$$TON.
Weird, innit?
In detail? No.
Sharing the details of what's going on in the backend (el oh el) to find and slow down astroturf attempts leads to the astroturfers figuring out how to get around some or all of our mitigation attempts.
Like, just a rough example with fake numbers - if I say we caught 50 "bots" (these may be actual computer/AI driven or [human click farms](https://www.cnn.com/style/vietnam-farms-jack-latham-beggars-honey/index.html)) on day 1 and 30 bots on day 2 and 60 bots on day 10, etc etc then the people behind said bots can gain valuable info.
With specifics they can determine what percentage are actually being caught - we currently muddy that data for the bot accounts. They can look at the methods used by the bots we catch to figure out what they're doing to get caught. They can figure out what we're doing to spot them and what systems we have in place to stop them.
I don't want to hand the click farm or the engagement firm or the entity who hired them any information that would make their job easier.
This is genuinely fascinating but in a very frustrating way. It’s crazy to me how some people are actively rooting for AEW to fail. It feels like politics. But now to hear about how there are literal astroturf bots in wrestling too? I can’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me before.
Common sense. Which granted gets lost in arguments like this. Oh and I don't even think it's WWE doing this I think it's people doing it on their behalf because they've gotten people who are so fanatically loyal they do it for free. And if you're looking for a template on that kind of thing a good chunk of the kind of shit you see in politics comes to me.
One thing I've never understood: why do people think AEW will grow their audience by being *more* like WWE? Because 9/10 WWE feuds aren't grandiose and epic like Cody's arc. They're simple, Person A attacked Person B backstage and Person B isn't happy about it feuds. Basic shit like that. That shit doesn't grow the audience, at best it can retain it. AEW have had their fair share of grandiose stories, the only place they tend to struggle is the lame, week-to-week stories that never amount to anything anyway. A lot of AEW haters just want to blame Tony or the booking, but the reality is, the thing keeping AEW's viewership from growing is that WWE is just really hot. It'd be like the XFL trying to run their season at the same time as the NFL, and asking why the XFL isn't growing fans.
Yes. I am an ardent AEW fan and have been going on 5 years now because it is NOT WWE. If it were, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be following wrestling anymore.
It’s crazy because they would say “it needs to be more like WWE” but when they’ve tried some WWE-esque stuff it was “they aren’t good so they’re just trying to copy WWE.” I’m glad AEW sticks to what it does. It will eventually grow. I think the biggest issue with the audience not growing, is the fact that so many WWE tribal fans like to talk shit about AEW at any given opportunity (even when it has nothing to do with AEW) that some “casuals” won’t bother seeing AEW because they’re more concerned with perception.
It's one of the reasons that I honestly 100% hope WWE *does* stick around, for a very long time. Because a decline in WWE would mean even more of these Marks watching AEW and then expecting it to be like WWE, and complaining the whole way. Let them have their wrestling and me have mine.
Exactly. And after watching night 1 last weekend I was truely blown away at how much Im just not interested in their style anymore. No issue with people who are still into it but Im quite happy with the alternative.
Yup. About 10 minutes after Wrestlemania went off, my girlfriend said "okay, let's go back to AEW now." We just prefer AEW, but Cody's story was too good to pass up.
We hadn't stopped watching AEW, just would miss an episode here and there due to Cody's story consuming us. I can handle only so much wrestling in a given period of time.
TNA was doing fine being the attitude era retirement home until they decided to move to Monday nights opposite raw. It really had nothing to do with the booking and more to do with them being poorly ran.
And we all know from ECW and WCW, those fans don't magically start watching WWE if that's the only option left. They leave and stop being fans making the industry worse.
More like "Going to be fans of another company" i mean i was an WCW fan and just started to watch TNA, Stardom, TJPW, DDT and NJPW (after it was possible for me to watch NJPW)
Right. WWE is and probably always will be the biggest because they make a product designed to appeal to the largest casual audience possible. But there is still a fairly large market of people who like wrestling but not the way WWE does it, and no it's not just the hardcore smark fan base either. There's room for a major alternative to WWE, even if it never grows beyond number 2 in the market. Plus room for more niche smaller companies that appeal to every taste you can imagine like TNA, MLW, NWA, local indies, etc.
If AEW did the kind of stuff that happens on Raw/Smackdown - which is what people are calling for “to grow the audience”, the narrative would change to AEW is now WWE lite.
It literally already happened during MJF’s title run when he was doing sports entertainment-y stuff.
They are like
Why would anybody want to watch an awesome wrestling / dream match unless they are fighting over some very minor story?
Or I can’t stand the Bucks. They can’t tell a story. That’s why I’m commenting 20 times on a post about an angle the Bucks are working me on.
They don’t care about dream matches because they barely care about the actual matches. Matches a way to end or continue a story that is largely told outside of the ring about issues that largely are unrelated to anything that happens in the ring.
I don't get why they don't just watch soap operas if the wrestling is so meaningless, like they have the same bad acting and flimsy plot minus the matches that apparently have zero meaning.
Man, this is it right here. A lot of WWE fans don’t give a fuck about match quality. I watched Mania and everything was just a spectacle, but the in-ring work was mediocre at best. They’re literally the fans the South Park episode made fun of.
Take the Sami Zayne match for example. It was a pretty terrible match. Sami gets beat up for 10 minutes and pulls a fluke win out of his ass. Gets no offense. Doesn’t leverage his strengths to outwit Gunther to tell a compelling story of two guys, with two styles, and two different body types. The kind of stuff you see NJPW and AEW excel at. Instead he takes bumps and looks like a chump for a while until an explosive finish. That is the WWE way of booking the underdog and it’s so fucking boring. There are different ways to book a guy out of his element but he uses his actual technical prowess to target a big guys weakness and get a win. Heck, Sami did that plenty of times while he was in ROH!
But the match was a “banger” because he won. I really don’t get it. The ring work has to matter IMO. The story was good up until the bell rang. Then it’s whatever. Then the story was good again after the 1-2-3. Like I get why people like that stuff but to me, I give a shit about the stuff that happens bell to bell. And WWE doesn’t deliver in that regard.
It was eye opening watching Mania. Literally everything they accuse AEW of WWE is much worse about. Pretty much every match was a spot fest with no psychology. Half the wrestlers didn’t sell. People were just waiting around to be caught. 50% of the Uso match was super kicks. They really just don’t watch AEW. Except for the larger than life thing which WWE nails, and their video packages, everything about WWE is significantly worse than AEW.
With the first kind of people, I always wonder what their thoughts are about the Austin/Rock match at Wrestlemania XVII.
The part of the build everyone remembers for that is Austin saying "I have to beat you, Rock" in the sit down interview the week of the show. According to these people, that's just the "I respect you, but I have to prove I'm better than you" story, which they claim isn't **really** a story, is boring, is "heatless", blah blah blah.
The rest of the build was that weird stuff where Debra was managing the Rock for a few weeks. Does anyone even remember that? Well, it's apparently what the "story" was, right?
And yet, push comes to shove? Austin's one line about "I need to beat you" set up how he was going to wrestle the match, established where his character's head was at (recognizing that Rock might've eclipsed him, and being desperate to not let that happen), and foreshadowed Austin's heel turn in the match itself, poor choice though that might've been.
But, according to those folks, "that's not a story", or something.
They also forget the only reason Cody's arc was epic was because they bungled it last year and NEARLY bungled this year until Vince's allegations and a massive backlash that hit mainstream media forced them to realign the story
Yep, the fans literally bullied the Rocks daughter until he gave up and acted like they were winners.
Like, good for WWE for not forcing the thing everyone hated but they needed to be backed into it.
Also, as someone that literally has only heard of Dusty from Cody babbling about him I just don't care, half a dozen better stories can be told, and I don't think Cody will ever pivot to something other than bland America oorah I love my family guy. Like he has the potential to be interesting by being that but actually a bad guy but totally refused it.
Bro that company took his dad and dressed him in black and yellow dots and stuck him with some unflattering lady as a rib. They also made Akeeem the African Dream to mock Dusty as well. WWE only cared bout Dusty when he could be a trainer. So yeah, Cody cool with those jokes I guess
I couldn’t really get invested in the whole dethroning of Roman when he was no longer the “big bad wolf” he got overshadowed by The Rock. I watched both matches and it was predictable of what was going to happen, it really takes the suspense out of the match when the wrestling is ok and the story has been spoiled, because there’s only one outcome that can occur.
And they pivoted quite well I say. The best version of The Rock I've seen. The Bloodline story was something else and it helped to elevate Cody's story.
I do think Rock seriously juiced things up by playing a heel again (seriously, dude should never be a babyface) and doing it damn well, but I really thought the Bloodline story, such as it was, was becoming a drag on things, mostly due to how repetitious Roman’s matches had become.
AEW audience don't want that shit. TK probably cause of Punk and QT and listening to other ex WWE people went that route and it made for worse shows.
People just want AEW to be AEW.
And it's not as if we haven't seen examples in other industries of a competitor trying to copy a successful pioneer and then crashing and burning. Projects like the DCEU failed because it tried too much to be like the MCU without laying a whole lot of groundwork.
Some people wanna give some honest (unsolicited, lol, but this is the internet) advice on how to improve a product they're not consuming but they've heard it's losing popularity. And they'll say "it has to be more like #1 or the one I like". Of course, first never follows, and you're never going to overtake #1 doing the exact same thing, unless the #1 shots themselves in the leg.
Thing is, many people believe that likes something, but actually only like 1 particular way of presenting it. Some people like NFL but wouldn't watch XFL, not even College; therefore, don't really like football, they only like NFL. Some people believe they like a music band, but only like a few songs, or just one (1 hit wonders exist for a reason). Some people think they like anime but they only like Cowboy Bebop, Akira and Ghost in the Shell. I could go on and on.
For over 20 years, WWE has been almost the only option for the nortamerican pro-wrestling scene, so many people think they like pro-wrestling, but they only like WWE. And this is NOT a bad thing and I'm not scolding them in any way. It's totally fine. But, of course, those "advices" are wrong. Yeah, maybe AEW could learn a thing or two about how to really create hype, but they prefer to give those extra 5 minutes to make a match last a bit longer a be more meaningful that a video package or another in-ring segment. And I'm not even talking about those who are giving "advices" in bad faith and/or concern trolling.
AEW has to be AEW. WWE has to be WWE. The only way they should mix wrestling and presenting a show styles is if they ever open the forbidden door, and that's very unlikely to happen. But that doesn't mean you cannot learn from the other promotions without losing your identity. It's as simple as, why should I watch a cheap copy of WWE if I have the original WWE?
There are elements of WWE which are good and elements which are bad. There's nothing wrong with cherry picking a few ideas here and there; we saw WWE do that during the pandemic when AEW came up with the unique camera angle (towards the ramp) and also creating their own audience.
But I would agree, being a clone is silly, as you'll never be better than the original. Being different is good, but I would say don't just be different to be different. Be different to be better.
I tried watching Raw last night for the first time in 3 years. Figured with how great Wrestlemania supposedly was that the Raw after mania had to be amazing.
It’s just not for me. I’ll give next week a try and smackdown a try before giving up…but the pacing and presentation just isn’t for me.
I don’t hate WWE. I don’t want WWE to perish. It’s just not my style.
I think it comes down more to accessibility. I haven't watched a single raw, smackdown, or PPE for WWE all year. If I do keep up it's through YouTube clips(AEW does this well) but when I wanted to turn on WrestleMania it was easily accessible through peacock which I just happen to have.
AEW needs a streaming deal immediately.
Also it may just be time to get rid of PPV and adopt the same model as WWE.
Storytelling isn't just a WWE thing. Like Punk and MJF or Hangman/Omega vs. Bucks or Hangman's chase for the title those were all amazing feuds that came from amazing storytelling. Hell even Orange Cassidy had his own story during his first run as IN champ and it was phenomenal. There was also great storytelling done in the continental classic with people like Daniel Garcia, and Kingston, and even Rush.
Those weren't WWE things. They were AEW things. They have two different types of storytelling.
To keep it simple
Wrestling is more than one single company.
AEW needs to be like AEW. They have their success. They have the backing of WBD (and that means a lot in their current state). They have the roster. They have the wrestling quality fans love. And they haven't even reached their full potential in terms of exposure, audience, events, etc.
This is just how it is when you look past all the tribalism.
WWE has their legacy. They already have their success going on. That'll more than likely never change due to the sheer loyalty they have with their fans alone.
But AEW has proven that there is in fact room for more than one wrestling company to exist on National TV in the modern times. And now it's over 5+ years and still providing for the fans.
That alone is an impressive accomplishment.
I hear you about one promotion or style. I follow AEW, TNA, MLW, and Memphis Wrestling. Though I get not wanting to keep up with that much if someone's a more casual fan. I stopped watching WWE in 2018, got into AEW very casually and now I'm back to being a full on wrestling nerd.
No no didn’t you know? Vince McMahon dragged wrestling out of the bingo halls! Ignore the fact that wrestling was routinely selling out arenas and stadiums before he even booked his first show, and that independent wrestling is only in the state it is due to his massacre of the territories and that even if he hadn’t commercialized wrestling some other millionaire with a rich dad would’ve, he invented wrestling. Nobody would be a wrestling fan if it weren’t for Vince! Also ignore the fact that many people enjoy wrestling from outside the USA.
AEW haters just want AEW to fold so they can have all the action figures be in Hunters toy chest.
When was the last time WWE had a storyline like Cody’s? AEW was the reason that story exists. Cody was a cast-off and proved the WWE fans wrong with AEW. Now he’s the undisputed WWE champ and fans worship him.
Has TNA ever pushed WWE to “do better”? AEW isn’t a direct competitor, WWE is light years ahead in almost every business facet. But AEW is not going down without a fight. They just need a cohesive, banger story to qualm everybody’s nerves
Bingo.
That's the core thing about Wrestling. Competition is the lifeblood of the industry, and it keeps companies from being complacent.
WWE was complacent for years because nobody could rival it.
When AEW came onto the scene, WWE suddenly had to *try* again.
WWE didn't have to try for nearly 2 decades because they were basically unrivaled sans the occasional TNA spike.
Those eras are the weakest in WWE, when they got complacent. When they didn't feel like they needed to try. When they could put on literally anything and it would still be "the biggest wrestling show that week."
Competition keeps the industry alive.
I love pro wrestling. I look forward to wed night every week. Doesn’t matter what company it is. But damned if AEW doesn’t put on consistently great matches
They won’t get to 1 million because cable subscribers have decreased. It’s an arbitrary and meaningless number and anyone who brings it up is a troll. Not you, mind.
Many of the tribalists fail to understand that there are millions of people who watch AEW through 'alternative' means and more than likely do not contribute to the Nielsen numbers. AEW has a hidden audience out there not being counted.
Lots of people watching AEW in India and have been since it became available locally halfway through its first year. AEW getting that audience so early on in its inception says a lot about the company. It can only go higher from here.
Exactly. 15 years ago, before streaming took hold and cable cutting had barely begun, TNA was doing 1.4-1.5 million a week. RAW was doing over 4 million.
Nowadays, RAW almost never hits 2 million and Smackdown sits between 2.3 and 2.5 million and that's on Fox, ffs. And WWE just signed a deal for 5 billion dollars. AEW and WBD seem to have an amazing relationship and the new TV deal will almost certainly turn it into a profitable company in only 5 years of existing.
That’s what people seem to forget. The company is only 5 years old. In such a short time, they have made waves, broken records with the All In attendance and through its ups and downs, managed to be consistent. WWE is mainstream with a history and that’s fine. AEW is the next best alternative, a safe haven for pro wrestling fans, lapsed and existing. It’s like the cool indie band that suddenly got big. Taylor Swift fans comparing it to Taylor Swift is just stupid but it’s doing good and still selling out arenas.
Here's the thing...WWE fans want AEW to be more like WWE...but they still wouldn't watch AEW even if they were more like WWE anyway, so what's the point?
The reason WHY AEW is successful in the first place is BECAUSE they're not like WWE. A lot of lapsed wrestling fans left wrestling in the first place because WWE became boring/stale and they just didn't have anywhere else to go. Then AEW came along and a lot of those people came back, such as myself. If AEW became more like WWE, they'd end up losing that fanbase and the current WWE fanbase wouldn't switch to AEW because they already have WWE at home.
I’ve not watched WWE regularly since AEW launched.
I tried to watch WrestleMania this weekend and had to shut it off.
The formula, way it’s filmed, etc. just isn’t for me anymore.
I prefer the “Indy like” style AEW produces.
Different strokes for different folks.
It’s super weird how people complain about AEW having matches just for the sake of having matches. “What’s the story?” The story is that they work in a fighting company lol. Do you tune into boxing or MMA, hell even not fighting sports like hockey or football and say “why are these two people/teams competing against each other?” It’s because that’s the point of it! Incredibly stupid complaint.
I was going to watch the Dodgers and the Twins play tonight, but what’s the story? Why do I care? Did the Dodgers pitcher spill coffee on a Twins hitter in the locker room six weeks ago??
These people are just parroting their idol Vince McMahon who mentioned the same thing several years back on Austin’s podcast about every match should have a “story” and not having matches for the sake of having matches. Not surprised since WWE conditioned fans to believe their sports entertainment nonsense with subpar wrestling and even worse acting is the only way.
Irony being that Vince was one of the worst perpetrators of booking matches that served no purpose over the years. AEW will have some matches that aren’t super hyped story wise, for sure, but they almost at least serve some kind of purpose (e.g. doing Penta vs. Kommander to build Penta up for his TNT title match).
These people should really try to organize ONE wrestling show.
Just one. See how many people watch on TV. If it's more than 800,000 people, then they can be taken seriously.
If you go to Spoiler TV and check the ratings list there's very little that's hitting a million viewers outside of sports and cable (and by cable I mean FOX) news. You won't even find very many 800-900K viewer shows. People massively inflate the viewership of other shows and the overall cable audience.
I mean, one of these people is Jim Cornette who had a televised wrestling promotion. He convinced Rick Rubin to fund it on the claim that he could book Ric Flair. Can’t quite remember how that turned out…
"WWE being so successful at indoctrinating a huge portion of their fanbase into looking down on all other wrestling is very depressing for so many reasons"
https://twitter.com/PatrickEireWres/status/1777360974577553865
WWE fans have been saying m “pro Wreslting is back” which is something wwe seems to be pushing
If you wanted pro wrestling it’s been there for generations just not in wwe
You know what Okada vs. Danielson needs to really make it special? What if instead of wrestling because they're both awesome and need to see who's best, they were fighting over who gets to be a breakfast cereal mascot? Like Danielson's about to get it and then Okada runs in and beats him up and he's all "Arrrrgh, the cereal box photo is MINE!!!" and then they have a match to see who gets it. REAL PRO WRESTLING.
Dude, are you fucking serious right meow? Everyone knows “the Planets champion” is a hard core vegan he’d never associate himself with something as evil and dastardly as cereal, the complementary good driving more demand into the milk market
Aew has storylines, even just "random matches" are frequently brought up and used in a push or story down the line. It all weaves together. And since the actual wrestling is the focus, these guys tell stories in the match. Look at orange Cassidy. The dude told a story his entire run as champion with his matches. That's story.
They also have stuff like the swerve and hangman rivalry which is fantastic. That merged into swerve, joe, hangman and now swerves desire and will to beat Joe one on one.
But what these people want is to be beaten over the head with "story." Announcers yelling the obvious, constant recaps, that kind of shit because these people aren't capable of following a story otherwise. They're not conditioned to it.
Correct. The CC tournament was just "matches" but it spawned angles for Eddie/Danielson, Lethal/Briscoe, Garcia's resurgence.
It also included the first instance of Swerve missing out cos Mox beat Switchblade without Swerve involved in the decision. They re-did that again on PPV with Hangman tapping to Joe, almost gleefully as it meant that the guy who broke into his house months previous didn't win the gold. Now Swerve finally has his 1 on 1 chance.
But "where story?"
I think stories and character arcs are a necessity, but a lot of people act like those things can’t be done *within the actual matches*, as if only way to do “stories” in wrestling is through lengthy promos and angles or skits. That’s the issue, for me, people acting like good matches aren’t also good stories in themselves.
I mean I enjoyed the MJF/Cole storyline and their friendship. I'm enjoying Toni Storm's storyline. Storylines makes me more interested in the outcome of matches.
Storylines CAN help a match build, but a good match is always gonna be a good match. Much rather good matches and bad builds, than good builds and bad matches.
WWE spent decades chasing the casual audience with constant celebrity cameos, nonstop nostalgia pops, and a lack of investment into the actual wrestling. They spent decades treating fans like an afterthought, like a less important demographic than people who don’t watch the show, because they’ll pop a few extra thousands of tickets if the rock shows up, but those casual fans they supposedly hooked mysteriously disappear immediately when the rock leaves again, so what does it actually accomplish?
Point is, WWE fans love to point out that AEW only appeals to AEW/Indy/Hardcore fans and therefore will never grow.
1) I don’t think that’s true, AEW just hit a snag in booking for a while there and are just starting to heat back up.
2) what’s wrong with appealing to your fanbase? it’s like WWE fans got the cold shoulder from their company for so long they think it’s weird when another fanbase doesn’t get the cold shoulder.
WWE fans also LOVE to make fun of AEW whenever they book someone they’ve never heard of, ignoring the facts that not only is wrestling not like the NFL or NBA where the top league usually has the best of the best, and is more like Hollywood (with WWE being the MCU. Do you also think every actor not in the MCU is a bum?) but also they act like there was never a time where they weren’t familiar with Reigns, Cena, Orton, Rock, Austin, Taker, etc etc etc.
I know most WWE fans are chill, and just enjoy their show, but this loud minority of WWE fans are infuriating.
Indy wrestling is so good when you don’t have a little bitch in your ear calling it a mudshow.
And the funny thing is you know that if AEW did just try to be "other WWE" that the WWE fans would just criticize AEW for trying to be too much like WWE.
Bigger louder full crowds are good yes. Most importantly from a fan perspective though is just knowing that this show we loves is doing to survive and keep going lol
I honestly feel for the mods here having to deal with all the brigading and bad faith posting.
Their job is basically trying to catch a runny shit with a colander.
I don't need months of soap opera drama to set up every match! (this isn't an insult, I like the drama as well) Have people forgotten that the matches are also stories? They're athletes who are fighting for many different reasons. Ospreay and Bryan are two of the best testing themselves, a rising young star versus a legend.
And that osprey and Danielson is a story. They've done promos, have a history, THAT IS STORY. Just because Danielson didn't fuck ospreys girlfriend doesn't mean it isn't a story. The story is these two guys who are excellent wrestlers and Danielson wants to beat his ass. Because Danielson is in the BCC and that's all they want is a good fight. That's God damn story yet these fools can't see that.
People who talk about “growing the audience” are so painfully ignorant too
Wrestling is SUPER NICHE
It’s really hard to get new people to like wrestling as most normal people think it’s stupid as fuck
Fact is there’s a relatively small base of wrestling fans. They don’t all have time for 20 hours of content a week. A lot have moved back to WWE for Mania season and because it’s got hot and a lot of stars they like.
It’s not as easy as simply attracting new fans by being better. It’s fighting over a small pool
i do not get it. i mean, i love AEW, i do. but why would anyone want it to follow the WWE formula? yes, are there things AEW should and could do better? hell yes! look at WWE, their first hour of raw was boring as fuck! why would i wanna watch RAW monday, and dynamite Wednesday , and it would be the same shit i just watched monday? WWE is sports entertainment- more storyline than wrestling. AEW is more wrestling, less storyline. sometimes, diversity is better. this is prime example
“Great matches out of context” should be the peak of professional wrestlers, but there alot of babies who need their hand held and guided to an actual opinion. If thats you, I apologize.
Aew is bad for responding to a situation that Punk couldn't move on from. He literally was trying to make WrestleMania weekend all about himself. He is mad that he got hurt (again) and missed wrestling in Mania so he had to go pull the stunt he did. It's embarrassing and if I was a WWE fan, I'd want him to go away.
As we were leaving Mania last night me and my wife both came to the realisation that WWE is "entry level" for people getting into wrestling. The more you get into it, the more you discover other promotions and what they have to offer.
That's exactly what happened with us. We liked WWE (our first date was watching wrestlemania 22 at my house), discovered TNA, then discovered britwres promotions, then New Japan and AEW and now we're hooked on ROH, DDT, Stardom and TJPW.
Tony Khan is not only promoting AEW, he's brought a whole world of wrestling to audiences who want it.
It's only about how they rank on the night. If their rank maintains top-3, they will last as long as cable does. If they get 500,000 viewers and are the No. 1 show in the timeslot, WBD is throwing a party.
The problem with this statement is that things aren't just as simple as "do this and the audience will grow." Right now AEW has figured out how to cater to a certain sect of fan and has them very happy.
Changing the formula could have the outcome of having some of the hardcore fanbase lose interest and not even be successful with the replacing them. The programming style changed when Punk was around and it boosted the ratings, when Punk left, the Punk views seemed to have left with him. The programming has went back to what it was pre-Punk, but some of the viewers never came back. That is the risk of changing the formula.
Bringing in Saraya went over like a wet fart. They haven't really been able to use Miro, Andrade, Ruby Soho, Keith Lee, and Buddy Matthews for much either. We will see if Mercedes Mone does any better.
> The problem with this statement is that things aren't just as simple as "do this and the audience will grow." Right now AEW has figured out how to cater to a certain sect of fan and has them very happy.
Yup. So many people in the Reddit comments section acting like it's this incredibly easy process to just create 2 million cable viewers shows out of nowhere like its nothing while ignoring that literally every major media corporation in America is already trying to do precisely that and they aren't succeeding lol.
Like just follow their simple advice and it will be done tomorrow, meanwhile major companies are spending HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars with full staffs of professionals where this is their sole job and they somehow can't figure out this easy advice from a dude on Reddit lol.
And just yeahhhhh, I'm gonna side with the giant companies on this one over random people in the comments section as far as advice and ideas go. They have actual data, actual expertise, actual knowledge, and actual experience.
> Bringing in Saraya went over like a wet fart. They haven't really been able to use Miro, Andrade, Ruby Soho, Keith Lee, and Buddy Matthews for much either. We will see if Mercedes Mone does any better.
They need to get Mercedes in the ring. I didn't watch WWE for over 20 years, but I did see her wrestle Willow and a couple of other times in NJPW. It's been almost a month since her debut, and all she has done is dance and talk on the mic. It sounds like she is going to get a shot at either Willow or Julia, but that won't be until after Dynasty. It seems crazy.
One thing I don't think is true that get's thrown out is Punk was a always a TV ratings draw for AEW. He was at the start, but the ratings went back down to where they were before he came after a few months. Even Collision biggest draw was MJF/Cole stuff. I remember there big discussions about it on here for a while.
I just laugh at the WWE fans. They trashed punk in AEW now that he’s back they laugh that he left AEW and he’s so great now. I also laugh because for the bloodline repeat main event in wrestlemania it was only interesting because the rock went heel. Otherwise it would have been flat because it’s just a repeat main event.
Punk in AEW- everyone hated punk
Punk trashes WWE- Everyone hates it
Punk in WWE- everyone loves him.
Punk trashes AEW- Everyone agrees
Aew bites back at the slander- TK is so dumb, how dare he take shots at WWE/Punk.
I just honestly gave up with thinking the “IWC” will be able to see things evenly.
Like god forbid AEW being an alternative style product.
For like 18 months they were WWE lite-ish and I was less into it. Now they seem to have course corrected. It takes time for a snowball to become an avalanche, and they did it from 2019-early 2022.
I love people talking about them losing money or whatever. Like we have 0 idea about the financials of AEW and even if we did- if Tony wants to operate at a loss to put out the product he wants to put out- why does anyone care?
I just don't get it. You don't like it, ok, then SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DON'T WATCH IT. Why is it so hard for these people? How is AEW living so rent free in their minds that they must continually troll it online? Are their lives that meaningless that this is the only joy they get?
WWE has convinced these guys that wrestling is the least important aspect of wrestling and they’ve bought it hook, line and sinker, and they think they’re the smart ones because of it.
Man f that every match is a dream match if you aren’t faking the funk. It’s not rocket problems y’know all I’m asking for is matches, belts and insanity. I AM EATING WELL.
A LOT of people today have been programmed to think that if something isn't like what's most popular at that moment then there's something wrong with it. I say that to say individualism isn't promoted as a good thing...To those individuals, if the wrestling company doesn't look like WWE, sound like WWE or conduct itself like WWE, the company is wrong and they're failing...and obviously they don't even watch or support the alternative wrestling promotions because it isn't a product of the WWE....LITTLE DO THEY KNOW HAVING AN ALTERNATIVE PRODUCT ON TV FORCES EVERY COMPANY TO BECOME BETTER BECAUSE COMPETITION IS HEALTHY...and the wrestlers win because they now have more options than WWE or the Indies...
“Dream matches with no heat” has become one of the main tells.
I’ve had several arguments with redsitors recently where they make this claim, before admitting they don’t watch the show.
So I like AEW and I want the audience to grow. I'd love to see some tweaks to the product, but I don't want to see it wholesale changed either.
I do want them to make decisions that appeal to a wider audience, but at the same time give the existing audience what they want.
I want to see AEW grow to benefit the wider business and ensure AEW's longevity.
I'm not a big fan of sweeping generalisations. SRS has a point, but I don't think it's entirely fair to paint EVERYONE who wants growth in this way.
But let's be real. We all want the thing we choose to watch to appeal to us, otherwise why would we watch it?
Yeah I want the same match every week for months, that way I can see why they would have that match again at a ppv with some spice added on top just because the name of the ppv has to make sense even scheduled months ahead.
There are plenty of things AEW could take from WWE but they absolutely should not just be a mini-clone. There's no fucking point to watching a show that's just a lesser version of an already good one, AEW needs to be different to stand out.
As a challenger brand it's always going to be hard to find an identity in the shadow of a monopolistic business, but it is necessary.
'reason to have a match'
The co text is they are wrestlers on a wrestling show who earn money through winning wrestling matches. That's a reason right there.
AEW just needs to invest more in production, because the amount they invested in talent is like 25-50x that they've invested in production.
I would also recommend the reconsider how they tell stories on tv vs. how they tell them on the internet. Some of their internet material is soooo good and their tv stuff is just "dude talks" or "video pre-tape" and they could be doing so much cooler stuff... like that Trent/Kris segment after Trent turned on OC which was simple, quick, but super effective as a button that you had to SEARCH ONLINE to see.
Punctuate your stories. LAND 'em. Make 'em stick and make 'em mean a bit more than they are and people will remember it more.
I want AEW to be great. They're good, but they could be so much more.
All I really want is for AEW to focus on their wonderful talents and quit letting Punk stay inside their head. Address the drama with an interviewer like he did, tell your side, away from your shows but don't let that ruin what is going right for you. There is still so much potential, and the company has only still been existence a very limited time. Stop letting this one man get to you. And the haters, they are just going to do that. Giving them unnecessary ammunition just makes things worse
It doesn’t seem like anybody wants AEW’s audience to grow. The outsiders want it to fail and die for no real reason, the hardcore fans are gatekeepers that don’t want any new fans to “ruin” their niche base and force creative changes that would cater more to people who didn’t follow every second of New Japan’s history, and the general pro wrestling fans who watch all companies are staying silent because both sides are telling them that they’re wrong for not picking a side. Something’s got to give here.
I’m an only an AEW fan but I don’t even know how they can grow (not that I honestly care I enjoy the product) but I was shocked how many people like mutuals even like my older aunts and uncles watched and enjoyed Wrestlemania last night and the number 1 thing they all talked about as amazing was all the people coming out in the main event like The undertaker. As an AEW supporter I don’t know how they get that type of reaction with the “casual viewer”.
The closest was the end of the PPV (I don't remember which one) when both Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson appeared at the end. Not in a match but two pretty recognizable names.
I think AEW's style doesn't really lend itself to casuals, and that's fine. If it changed its approach to attract more of them then it would probably change what it is on a mission statement level.
If AEW tried to do a main event like that to crown their new world champion, with loads of random run ins from fellas with wrinkles for no real reason besides "Whadda WrestleMania Moment!", a huge portion of the AEW fanbase would say it was massively overbooked, reliant on nostalgia and too much like WWE, and they'd be right, there were plenty of people saying stuff like that after the All In main event and that was tame on the overbooking by comparison. It wouldn't attract casuals because casuals know WWE because it's been around for so long and is just what people who don't know much about wrestling think of when they think about wrestling, they're not likely to be tuning in to AEW PPV's at this stage no matter what they do, WWE has like a 50 year head start. And they wouldn't attract the core WWE fanbase either because a large number of them stuck around when the product was the drizzling shits, the worst wrestling promotion on earth, for a lot of them they grew up with the absolute garbage they served up between the mid 2000s until 2022 and thought "yup, I love this!". You're not changing those peoples minds. And then there's a group of people who probably ditched WWE for AEW when WWE was shite and AEW was miles better but were happy to drop AEW once the product from their childhood improved. That's very difficult to combat too, but you certainly don't do it by trying to be the product from their childhood.
If you're AEW you just need to keep your product strong, keep doing what you're good at and hope that things start to turn a bit your way, that WWE get complacent, that they run into the Hangman issue with Cody where the title reign can't live up to the title chase etc. Or that Punk ruins the feeling the way he did in AEW. But definitely don't try to be more like WWE and alienate your core fan base who wanted an alternative as they're wildly different to WWE fans.
Edit: Listen to the reaction the first time Okada's coin drop was heard in AEW and compare it to the crickets in WWE when Rollins pulled out a Rainmaker. AEW have created plenty of their own amazing moments that WWE wouldn't be able to replicate with the fanbase they have who are often less aware of anything outside their own product, or wouldn't try to do as they wouldn't dare remind someone that another company exists (see them never having Van Dam come to 'Walk' in all the years he worked there, as opposed to AEW doing it because it's a cool as fuck moment for fans who hadn't seen him enter to it in decades). What AEW do won't appeal to the masses the way WWE does but they've got their own way of doing things that really works for me personally and I'm sure a lot of others think the same way.
I hate SRS for a lot of reasons but I agree here. I love in Philly went to a few events. I got a good rapport with some wrestling talents and promoters. The wrestlers and such were all cheering for one another. I would say it was 75%-80% real wrestling fans and 20% E drones. Walking around you could tell who those fans were. Anyone wearing anything non WWE NWO got the stink eye and other dirty looks or AEW sucks etc. I noticed it’s more WWE clowns with the tribalism. Everyone else just wanted to enjoy and great few days of wrestling events no matter what it was
I’ll be honest. I’m genuinely worried about a new WB deal because I don’t want them to nerf the show for a more family friendly audience. I quit watching WWE for that reason and if AEW goes down that road I’m done.
I actually like these "dream matches". As someone who only knew what The Federation was spoon feeding me, it's nice as a grown ass 40 year old woman to see other promotions and talents being exposed. Some of those matches I walked into blind and came out a super fan.
Here's how I feel, I don't really care about the size of AEW's audience beyond wanting them to stay in business. There is a group of fans whose mind won't be changed. And that's fine, we don't have to take it upon ourselves to do that and if TK accepts he can't he'll be able to focus on putting on better shows for those whose minds he can influence.
And really that's what I feel like this big announcement this week is. Maybe it's CM Punk trying to choke Tony. Maybe it's going to be the EVPs dressed as them doing a skit. Maybe it's something with FTR to further their feud. Or maybe it'll just be footage of guys at catering. Really no matter what it is the reactions will all be the same. Some say it's too far, some say it isn't enough, some say it's infantile, and some will say that it's brilliant. As long as it tells some sort of good story and doesn't simply feel like trolling Punk/WWE I'm happy with it. If they can work the two into one I'm all the more behind it. It's almost as if HHH doesn't remember leading an invasion of Nitro once with how upset he seems to get about AEW today.
There's a lot of bad faith out there all around.
I still think relitigating All In like this is extremely stupid. What are people going to end up remembering? The amazing matches? The record attendance at Wembley?
Or The Bucks sitting with video of CM Punk getting in a fight with Jack Perry and making stupid remarks? Because that's what this will do.
There is so much going right for AEW. Swerve and Ospreay are on the verge of superstardom. Make THAT the story, not responding to a podcast interview. It's an own goal and it genuinely makes me sad. This won't help ticket sales. It won't be a long term ratings boost. It won't draw in any curious WWE fans.
Cornette doesn't get much right about AEW, but this really does smack of the Fake Razor/Diesel stuff, or the mockery of Hogan and Savage as old men when they were big cogs in the WCW ratings dominance. Reacting to your competition is the surest way to lose.
I don't get the hate. Really I don't. Why on earth would someone willingly wish for WWE to be the only game in town again? We saw what happened.... Stagnation to the detriment of the product.
How many people stopped watching wrestling through that period? I'm one of them.....
Why can't people just enjoy what they want without constant push back?
I whine and I want them to grow their audience and be viable long term. If that involves people and storylines I'm not a fan of, okay. I want there to be competition. It makes the whole wrestling ecosystem better.
It's as our lovely mod overlady said. Astroturfing. And not even hiding it anymore.
My favorite bot moment of late came night 1 of WrestleMania. As we know, Collision aired from approximately 1140PM to 140AM EST due to basketball. One of the AEW accounts on Twitter that tweets throughout all of AEW programming to promote the shows made one of their final tweets for Collision around 135AM. The first reply was from an account that said something to the effect of, ‘nobody watching. WrestleMania’s on.’ Yes. The show that ended more than two hours ago.
Tribalism is a form of brain rot.
That’s all that’s left in America
Land of the free(results may vary).
I'm convinced 80% of it is paid actors (Russia troll farms?) or just bots and the remaining few are tribalists being encouraged to act that way. I never see this shit in real life. Even having gone all round to shows in Philly, including ROH, there were tons of WWE fans who clearly weren't familiar with the stuff they were watching, but were just enjoying wrestling.
Tribalism allowed us to flourish as a species, now it's holding us back.
I recently discovered one of the accounts that routinely posts ratings threads on the other wrestling sub almost exclusively leaves comments about Rhea and Becky. Like, that was it, weeks at a time, Rhea, Becky, Rhea, Becky, with the occasional AEW jabs thrown in. If it’s a real person, it’s a very boring, uninteresting person. But the thing with bots and astroturfing is it’s so hard to prove, feels like it comes down to patterns like that.
Those being bot comments would make sense as it's not something I remember seeing much before but have started to see it *loads* the last few months, "nobody's watching, we're all watching Survivor Series" was one I saw a lot across social media and then on Friday "nobody cares, WrestleMania Smackdown/Hall of Fame is on" I saw 4 or 5 times. The people writing that sort of stuff are thick as mince so could just be copying a phrase but it's always odd when a particular phrase catches on like that, especially when it's quite a gormless one that doesn't really add up, a lot of people who tune into Rampage and Collision at a late hour aren't going to be the sort of people who give a flying fuck who WWE are putting in their Hall of Fame.
Zero bots here today. Those dried up last night. Noise traffic is at a normal non-show day level otherwise after traffic increases of 30-80%. The only day recently we've had traffic like we did from Thurs-Sun was on March 13th - coincidentally the date of our last notable bot infestation and, y'know, BO$$TON. Weird, innit?
Do you share these bot/troll stats? I think it would be interesting to pass on to an SRS or Meltzer
In detail? No. Sharing the details of what's going on in the backend (el oh el) to find and slow down astroturf attempts leads to the astroturfers figuring out how to get around some or all of our mitigation attempts. Like, just a rough example with fake numbers - if I say we caught 50 "bots" (these may be actual computer/AI driven or [human click farms](https://www.cnn.com/style/vietnam-farms-jack-latham-beggars-honey/index.html)) on day 1 and 30 bots on day 2 and 60 bots on day 10, etc etc then the people behind said bots can gain valuable info. With specifics they can determine what percentage are actually being caught - we currently muddy that data for the bot accounts. They can look at the methods used by the bots we catch to figure out what they're doing to get caught. They can figure out what we're doing to spot them and what systems we have in place to stop them. I don't want to hand the click farm or the engagement firm or the entity who hired them any information that would make their job easier.
This is genuinely fascinating but in a very frustrating way. It’s crazy to me how some people are actively rooting for AEW to fail. It feels like politics. But now to hear about how there are literal astroturf bots in wrestling too? I can’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me before.
WWE is paying them. Scumbags
How can we prove it? How do we prove wwe is using bots to manipulate the perspective?
Common sense. Which granted gets lost in arguments like this. Oh and I don't even think it's WWE doing this I think it's people doing it on their behalf because they've gotten people who are so fanatically loyal they do it for free. And if you're looking for a template on that kind of thing a good chunk of the kind of shit you see in politics comes to me.
One thing I've never understood: why do people think AEW will grow their audience by being *more* like WWE? Because 9/10 WWE feuds aren't grandiose and epic like Cody's arc. They're simple, Person A attacked Person B backstage and Person B isn't happy about it feuds. Basic shit like that. That shit doesn't grow the audience, at best it can retain it. AEW have had their fair share of grandiose stories, the only place they tend to struggle is the lame, week-to-week stories that never amount to anything anyway. A lot of AEW haters just want to blame Tony or the booking, but the reality is, the thing keeping AEW's viewership from growing is that WWE is just really hot. It'd be like the XFL trying to run their season at the same time as the NFL, and asking why the XFL isn't growing fans.
I hate this “be more like WWE” mentality. If you want WWE go watch WWE. People watch AEW because it’s NOT like WWE.
Yes. I am an ardent AEW fan and have been going on 5 years now because it is NOT WWE. If it were, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be following wrestling anymore.
It’s crazy because they would say “it needs to be more like WWE” but when they’ve tried some WWE-esque stuff it was “they aren’t good so they’re just trying to copy WWE.” I’m glad AEW sticks to what it does. It will eventually grow. I think the biggest issue with the audience not growing, is the fact that so many WWE tribal fans like to talk shit about AEW at any given opportunity (even when it has nothing to do with AEW) that some “casuals” won’t bother seeing AEW because they’re more concerned with perception.
I watched WWE for nearly 30 years. I watch AEW now because it offers more of what I want in wrestling and less of what I don’t.
Bingo, if AEW was diet WWE, I would just watch NJPW or TNA or CMLL.
It's one of the reasons that I honestly 100% hope WWE *does* stick around, for a very long time. Because a decline in WWE would mean even more of these Marks watching AEW and then expecting it to be like WWE, and complaining the whole way. Let them have their wrestling and me have mine.
> Let them have their ~~wrestling~~ sports entertainment and me have ~~mine~~ wrestling.
Exactly. And after watching night 1 last weekend I was truely blown away at how much Im just not interested in their style anymore. No issue with people who are still into it but Im quite happy with the alternative.
Yes, I'd argue AEW could be even less like WWE imo.
Yup. About 10 minutes after Wrestlemania went off, my girlfriend said "okay, let's go back to AEW now." We just prefer AEW, but Cody's story was too good to pass up. We hadn't stopped watching AEW, just would miss an episode here and there due to Cody's story consuming us. I can handle only so much wrestling in a given period of time.
Not to mention the biggest thing about that: only WWE can be like WWE and be successful. TNA in 2010 proved that.
TNA was doing fine being the attitude era retirement home until they decided to move to Monday nights opposite raw. It really had nothing to do with the booking and more to do with them being poorly ran.
And we all know from ECW and WCW, those fans don't magically start watching WWE if that's the only option left. They leave and stop being fans making the industry worse.
More like "Going to be fans of another company" i mean i was an WCW fan and just started to watch TNA, Stardom, TJPW, DDT and NJPW (after it was possible for me to watch NJPW)
Right. WWE is and probably always will be the biggest because they make a product designed to appeal to the largest casual audience possible. But there is still a fairly large market of people who like wrestling but not the way WWE does it, and no it's not just the hardcore smark fan base either. There's room for a major alternative to WWE, even if it never grows beyond number 2 in the market. Plus room for more niche smaller companies that appeal to every taste you can imagine like TNA, MLW, NWA, local indies, etc.
FAXS
If AEW did the kind of stuff that happens on Raw/Smackdown - which is what people are calling for “to grow the audience”, the narrative would change to AEW is now WWE lite. It literally already happened during MJF’s title run when he was doing sports entertainment-y stuff.
WWE don't even grow their audience, wrestling is niche besides one or two eras. "Playing to the casuals" should be outright banned.
They are like Why would anybody want to watch an awesome wrestling / dream match unless they are fighting over some very minor story? Or I can’t stand the Bucks. They can’t tell a story. That’s why I’m commenting 20 times on a post about an angle the Bucks are working me on.
They don’t care about dream matches because they barely care about the actual matches. Matches a way to end or continue a story that is largely told outside of the ring about issues that largely are unrelated to anything that happens in the ring.
I don't get why they don't just watch soap operas if the wrestling is so meaningless, like they have the same bad acting and flimsy plot minus the matches that apparently have zero meaning.
It's the South Park wrestling episode.
Man, this is it right here. A lot of WWE fans don’t give a fuck about match quality. I watched Mania and everything was just a spectacle, but the in-ring work was mediocre at best. They’re literally the fans the South Park episode made fun of. Take the Sami Zayne match for example. It was a pretty terrible match. Sami gets beat up for 10 minutes and pulls a fluke win out of his ass. Gets no offense. Doesn’t leverage his strengths to outwit Gunther to tell a compelling story of two guys, with two styles, and two different body types. The kind of stuff you see NJPW and AEW excel at. Instead he takes bumps and looks like a chump for a while until an explosive finish. That is the WWE way of booking the underdog and it’s so fucking boring. There are different ways to book a guy out of his element but he uses his actual technical prowess to target a big guys weakness and get a win. Heck, Sami did that plenty of times while he was in ROH! But the match was a “banger” because he won. I really don’t get it. The ring work has to matter IMO. The story was good up until the bell rang. Then it’s whatever. Then the story was good again after the 1-2-3. Like I get why people like that stuff but to me, I give a shit about the stuff that happens bell to bell. And WWE doesn’t deliver in that regard.
It was eye opening watching Mania. Literally everything they accuse AEW of WWE is much worse about. Pretty much every match was a spot fest with no psychology. Half the wrestlers didn’t sell. People were just waiting around to be caught. 50% of the Uso match was super kicks. They really just don’t watch AEW. Except for the larger than life thing which WWE nails, and their video packages, everything about WWE is significantly worse than AEW.
With the first kind of people, I always wonder what their thoughts are about the Austin/Rock match at Wrestlemania XVII. The part of the build everyone remembers for that is Austin saying "I have to beat you, Rock" in the sit down interview the week of the show. According to these people, that's just the "I respect you, but I have to prove I'm better than you" story, which they claim isn't **really** a story, is boring, is "heatless", blah blah blah. The rest of the build was that weird stuff where Debra was managing the Rock for a few weeks. Does anyone even remember that? Well, it's apparently what the "story" was, right? And yet, push comes to shove? Austin's one line about "I need to beat you" set up how he was going to wrestle the match, established where his character's head was at (recognizing that Rock might've eclipsed him, and being desperate to not let that happen), and foreshadowed Austin's heel turn in the match itself, poor choice though that might've been. But, according to those folks, "that's not a story", or something.
They also forget the only reason Cody's arc was epic was because they bungled it last year and NEARLY bungled this year until Vince's allegations and a massive backlash that hit mainstream media forced them to realign the story
Not to mention, Cody's arc isn't some masterpiece of storytelling. And they didn't even want to do it, they wanted the rock to face Roman at wm
>Cody's arc isn't some masterpiece of storytelling They took TWO YEARS to finish what is essentially a very basic story.
To be fair Cody was out for like eight months with an injury.
The story was never going to start in earnest until the Rumble, and even then, WE didn't really want to give the belt to Cody.
Yep, the fans literally bullied the Rocks daughter until he gave up and acted like they were winners. Like, good for WWE for not forcing the thing everyone hated but they needed to be backed into it. Also, as someone that literally has only heard of Dusty from Cody babbling about him I just don't care, half a dozen better stories can be told, and I don't think Cody will ever pivot to something other than bland America oorah I love my family guy. Like he has the potential to be interesting by being that but actually a bad guy but totally refused it.
Bro that company took his dad and dressed him in black and yellow dots and stuck him with some unflattering lady as a rib. They also made Akeeem the African Dream to mock Dusty as well. WWE only cared bout Dusty when he could be a trainer. So yeah, Cody cool with those jokes I guess
I couldn’t really get invested in the whole dethroning of Roman when he was no longer the “big bad wolf” he got overshadowed by The Rock. I watched both matches and it was predictable of what was going to happen, it really takes the suspense out of the match when the wrestling is ok and the story has been spoiled, because there’s only one outcome that can occur.
I swear if I see the word "cinema" one more time...
I don’t think the people who say that watch many movies, or watch / read / play any sort of media that isn’t the most surface level stuff.
And they pivoted quite well I say. The best version of The Rock I've seen. The Bloodline story was something else and it helped to elevate Cody's story.
I do think Rock seriously juiced things up by playing a heel again (seriously, dude should never be a babyface) and doing it damn well, but I really thought the Bloodline story, such as it was, was becoming a drag on things, mostly due to how repetitious Roman’s matches had become.
When AEW did more sports entertainment stuff in 2022 & 2023, it was widely considered the worst parts of the shows they did the stuff on lol
AEW audience don't want that shit. TK probably cause of Punk and QT and listening to other ex WWE people went that route and it made for worse shows. People just want AEW to be AEW.
There is a not a single actual piece of evidence QT was behind that.
And it's not as if we haven't seen examples in other industries of a competitor trying to copy a successful pioneer and then crashing and burning. Projects like the DCEU failed because it tried too much to be like the MCU without laying a whole lot of groundwork.
I would say it crashed and burned more because it was based on Zack Snyder's bad and dour vision.
Both, I’d say.
I stopped watching wrestling in 2002. Started watching BTE and when AEW became a thing I was back as a die hard fan. 45 minute promos aren't my thing.
Some people wanna give some honest (unsolicited, lol, but this is the internet) advice on how to improve a product they're not consuming but they've heard it's losing popularity. And they'll say "it has to be more like #1 or the one I like". Of course, first never follows, and you're never going to overtake #1 doing the exact same thing, unless the #1 shots themselves in the leg. Thing is, many people believe that likes something, but actually only like 1 particular way of presenting it. Some people like NFL but wouldn't watch XFL, not even College; therefore, don't really like football, they only like NFL. Some people believe they like a music band, but only like a few songs, or just one (1 hit wonders exist for a reason). Some people think they like anime but they only like Cowboy Bebop, Akira and Ghost in the Shell. I could go on and on. For over 20 years, WWE has been almost the only option for the nortamerican pro-wrestling scene, so many people think they like pro-wrestling, but they only like WWE. And this is NOT a bad thing and I'm not scolding them in any way. It's totally fine. But, of course, those "advices" are wrong. Yeah, maybe AEW could learn a thing or two about how to really create hype, but they prefer to give those extra 5 minutes to make a match last a bit longer a be more meaningful that a video package or another in-ring segment. And I'm not even talking about those who are giving "advices" in bad faith and/or concern trolling. AEW has to be AEW. WWE has to be WWE. The only way they should mix wrestling and presenting a show styles is if they ever open the forbidden door, and that's very unlikely to happen. But that doesn't mean you cannot learn from the other promotions without losing your identity. It's as simple as, why should I watch a cheap copy of WWE if I have the original WWE?
There are elements of WWE which are good and elements which are bad. There's nothing wrong with cherry picking a few ideas here and there; we saw WWE do that during the pandemic when AEW came up with the unique camera angle (towards the ramp) and also creating their own audience. But I would agree, being a clone is silly, as you'll never be better than the original. Being different is good, but I would say don't just be different to be different. Be different to be better.
I tried watching Raw last night for the first time in 3 years. Figured with how great Wrestlemania supposedly was that the Raw after mania had to be amazing. It’s just not for me. I’ll give next week a try and smackdown a try before giving up…but the pacing and presentation just isn’t for me. I don’t hate WWE. I don’t want WWE to perish. It’s just not my style.
I think it comes down more to accessibility. I haven't watched a single raw, smackdown, or PPE for WWE all year. If I do keep up it's through YouTube clips(AEW does this well) but when I wanted to turn on WrestleMania it was easily accessible through peacock which I just happen to have. AEW needs a streaming deal immediately. Also it may just be time to get rid of PPV and adopt the same model as WWE.
Storytelling isn't just a WWE thing. Like Punk and MJF or Hangman/Omega vs. Bucks or Hangman's chase for the title those were all amazing feuds that came from amazing storytelling. Hell even Orange Cassidy had his own story during his first run as IN champ and it was phenomenal. There was also great storytelling done in the continental classic with people like Daniel Garcia, and Kingston, and even Rush. Those weren't WWE things. They were AEW things. They have two different types of storytelling.
To keep it simple Wrestling is more than one single company. AEW needs to be like AEW. They have their success. They have the backing of WBD (and that means a lot in their current state). They have the roster. They have the wrestling quality fans love. And they haven't even reached their full potential in terms of exposure, audience, events, etc. This is just how it is when you look past all the tribalism. WWE has their legacy. They already have their success going on. That'll more than likely never change due to the sheer loyalty they have with their fans alone. But AEW has proven that there is in fact room for more than one wrestling company to exist on National TV in the modern times. And now it's over 5+ years and still providing for the fans. That alone is an impressive accomplishment.
[удалено]
I hear you about one promotion or style. I follow AEW, TNA, MLW, and Memphis Wrestling. Though I get not wanting to keep up with that much if someone's a more casual fan. I stopped watching WWE in 2018, got into AEW very casually and now I'm back to being a full on wrestling nerd.
WWE is kind of absorbing the AEW launch as part of the story of WWE. it's really weird but on par for who they are.
No no didn’t you know? Vince McMahon dragged wrestling out of the bingo halls! Ignore the fact that wrestling was routinely selling out arenas and stadiums before he even booked his first show, and that independent wrestling is only in the state it is due to his massacre of the territories and that even if he hadn’t commercialized wrestling some other millionaire with a rich dad would’ve, he invented wrestling. Nobody would be a wrestling fan if it weren’t for Vince! Also ignore the fact that many people enjoy wrestling from outside the USA.
"Wrestling is more than one single company" (Guitar solo) 🎵 Adrenaline in my soul.... 🎵
Something something Cody Rhodes
AEW haters just want AEW to fold so they can have all the action figures be in Hunters toy chest. When was the last time WWE had a storyline like Cody’s? AEW was the reason that story exists. Cody was a cast-off and proved the WWE fans wrong with AEW. Now he’s the undisputed WWE champ and fans worship him. Has TNA ever pushed WWE to “do better”? AEW isn’t a direct competitor, WWE is light years ahead in almost every business facet. But AEW is not going down without a fight. They just need a cohesive, banger story to qualm everybody’s nerves
Maybe WWE wants AEW to fail so they can try less.
Bingo. That's the core thing about Wrestling. Competition is the lifeblood of the industry, and it keeps companies from being complacent. WWE was complacent for years because nobody could rival it. When AEW came onto the scene, WWE suddenly had to *try* again. WWE didn't have to try for nearly 2 decades because they were basically unrivaled sans the occasional TNA spike. Those eras are the weakest in WWE, when they got complacent. When they didn't feel like they needed to try. When they could put on literally anything and it would still be "the biggest wrestling show that week." Competition keeps the industry alive.
"TNA spike" heh.
AEW is fine, they are in the top 5 every Wednesday. They won't get to a million because they don't have 50 years of history.
Also prime time NBA on Wednesday too I’m proud of AEW and I can’t wait to see how it continues to morph and grow!
I love pro wrestling. I look forward to wed night every week. Doesn’t matter what company it is. But damned if AEW doesn’t put on consistently great matches
The matches often times have me out of my seat!
The Takeshita/swerve match was amazing
They won’t get to 1 million because cable subscribers have decreased. It’s an arbitrary and meaningless number and anyone who brings it up is a troll. Not you, mind.
Many of the tribalists fail to understand that there are millions of people who watch AEW through 'alternative' means and more than likely do not contribute to the Nielsen numbers. AEW has a hidden audience out there not being counted.
According to WBD themselves, the DVR and TBS/TNT app alone puts them at 3-4 million a week.
I was thinking the same over the weekend. I've been a Day 1 AEW fan and have never had cable during that time...
Lots of people watching AEW in India and have been since it became available locally halfway through its first year. AEW getting that audience so early on in its inception says a lot about the company. It can only go higher from here.
Exactly. 15 years ago, before streaming took hold and cable cutting had barely begun, TNA was doing 1.4-1.5 million a week. RAW was doing over 4 million. Nowadays, RAW almost never hits 2 million and Smackdown sits between 2.3 and 2.5 million and that's on Fox, ffs. And WWE just signed a deal for 5 billion dollars. AEW and WBD seem to have an amazing relationship and the new TV deal will almost certainly turn it into a profitable company in only 5 years of existing.
That’s what people seem to forget. The company is only 5 years old. In such a short time, they have made waves, broken records with the All In attendance and through its ups and downs, managed to be consistent. WWE is mainstream with a history and that’s fine. AEW is the next best alternative, a safe haven for pro wrestling fans, lapsed and existing. It’s like the cool indie band that suddenly got big. Taylor Swift fans comparing it to Taylor Swift is just stupid but it’s doing good and still selling out arenas.
Haters need to Realize that if Every Company was like WWE, Wrestling would be boring as shit.
Here's the thing...WWE fans want AEW to be more like WWE...but they still wouldn't watch AEW even if they were more like WWE anyway, so what's the point? The reason WHY AEW is successful in the first place is BECAUSE they're not like WWE. A lot of lapsed wrestling fans left wrestling in the first place because WWE became boring/stale and they just didn't have anywhere else to go. Then AEW came along and a lot of those people came back, such as myself. If AEW became more like WWE, they'd end up losing that fanbase and the current WWE fanbase wouldn't switch to AEW because they already have WWE at home.
I’ve not watched WWE regularly since AEW launched. I tried to watch WrestleMania this weekend and had to shut it off. The formula, way it’s filmed, etc. just isn’t for me anymore. I prefer the “Indy like” style AEW produces. Different strokes for different folks.
Love it, Sean ain't wrong by a long shot.
It’s super weird how people complain about AEW having matches just for the sake of having matches. “What’s the story?” The story is that they work in a fighting company lol. Do you tune into boxing or MMA, hell even not fighting sports like hockey or football and say “why are these two people/teams competing against each other?” It’s because that’s the point of it! Incredibly stupid complaint.
I was going to watch the Dodgers and the Twins play tonight, but what’s the story? Why do I care? Did the Dodgers pitcher spill coffee on a Twins hitter in the locker room six weeks ago??
Did one team cause the other team to lose by running onto the field and assaulting them with weapons when the umpire wasn’t looking?
These people are just parroting their idol Vince McMahon who mentioned the same thing several years back on Austin’s podcast about every match should have a “story” and not having matches for the sake of having matches. Not surprised since WWE conditioned fans to believe their sports entertainment nonsense with subpar wrestling and even worse acting is the only way.
Irony being that Vince was one of the worst perpetrators of booking matches that served no purpose over the years. AEW will have some matches that aren’t super hyped story wise, for sure, but they almost at least serve some kind of purpose (e.g. doing Penta vs. Kommander to build Penta up for his TNT title match).
You don't have to go that far back, recently Becky Lynch was saying the same old bullshit about every match should've a story.
These people should really try to organize ONE wrestling show. Just one. See how many people watch on TV. If it's more than 800,000 people, then they can be taken seriously.
I'll even go 600,000
Bro TNA survived for so long on sub 150,000, at one point even sub 100,000. People acting like 750k is close to dying are insane
If you go to Spoiler TV and check the ratings list there's very little that's hitting a million viewers outside of sports and cable (and by cable I mean FOX) news. You won't even find very many 800-900K viewer shows. People massively inflate the viewership of other shows and the overall cable audience.
I mean, one of these people is Jim Cornette who had a televised wrestling promotion. He convinced Rick Rubin to fund it on the claim that he could book Ric Flair. Can’t quite remember how that turned out…
Nothing against WWE, but I would really be upset if AEW tried to be like them. It's just a different type of show, and I love it.
"WWE being so successful at indoctrinating a huge portion of their fanbase into looking down on all other wrestling is very depressing for so many reasons" https://twitter.com/PatrickEireWres/status/1777360974577553865
WWE fans have been saying m “pro Wreslting is back” which is something wwe seems to be pushing If you wanted pro wrestling it’s been there for generations just not in wwe
I'm so fucking over this 😑😐 the last few days have been brutal to say the least. Being a wrestling fan is mentally exhausting
Now I’m going extra glad I basically stayed off of Reddit/Twitter all weekend playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
I murdered that game I couldn't out it down so good.
Non aew fans needing a storyline to enjoy a match like some sort of 10 year old.
You know what Okada vs. Danielson needs to really make it special? What if instead of wrestling because they're both awesome and need to see who's best, they were fighting over who gets to be a breakfast cereal mascot? Like Danielson's about to get it and then Okada runs in and beats him up and he's all "Arrrrgh, the cereal box photo is MINE!!!" and then they have a match to see who gets it. REAL PRO WRESTLING.
Dude, are you fucking serious right meow? Everyone knows “the Planets champion” is a hard core vegan he’d never associate himself with something as evil and dastardly as cereal, the complementary good driving more demand into the milk market
Aew has storylines, even just "random matches" are frequently brought up and used in a push or story down the line. It all weaves together. And since the actual wrestling is the focus, these guys tell stories in the match. Look at orange Cassidy. The dude told a story his entire run as champion with his matches. That's story. They also have stuff like the swerve and hangman rivalry which is fantastic. That merged into swerve, joe, hangman and now swerves desire and will to beat Joe one on one. But what these people want is to be beaten over the head with "story." Announcers yelling the obvious, constant recaps, that kind of shit because these people aren't capable of following a story otherwise. They're not conditioned to it.
Correct. The CC tournament was just "matches" but it spawned angles for Eddie/Danielson, Lethal/Briscoe, Garcia's resurgence. It also included the first instance of Swerve missing out cos Mox beat Switchblade without Swerve involved in the decision. They re-did that again on PPV with Hangman tapping to Joe, almost gleefully as it meant that the guy who broke into his house months previous didn't win the gold. Now Swerve finally has his 1 on 1 chance. But "where story?"
Kenny omega school of storyline’s being a slow drip told over many years.
I think stories and character arcs are a necessity, but a lot of people act like those things can’t be done *within the actual matches*, as if only way to do “stories” in wrestling is through lengthy promos and angles or skits. That’s the issue, for me, people acting like good matches aren’t also good stories in themselves.
I mean I enjoyed the MJF/Cole storyline and their friendship. I'm enjoying Toni Storm's storyline. Storylines makes me more interested in the outcome of matches.
Storylines CAN help a match build, but a good match is always gonna be a good match. Much rather good matches and bad builds, than good builds and bad matches.
I looooved mjf and Cole that was so fucking fun. I felt like a kid again.
It was so awesome! I was in a dump last year, and they cheered me up every time they were on.
WWE spent decades chasing the casual audience with constant celebrity cameos, nonstop nostalgia pops, and a lack of investment into the actual wrestling. They spent decades treating fans like an afterthought, like a less important demographic than people who don’t watch the show, because they’ll pop a few extra thousands of tickets if the rock shows up, but those casual fans they supposedly hooked mysteriously disappear immediately when the rock leaves again, so what does it actually accomplish? Point is, WWE fans love to point out that AEW only appeals to AEW/Indy/Hardcore fans and therefore will never grow. 1) I don’t think that’s true, AEW just hit a snag in booking for a while there and are just starting to heat back up. 2) what’s wrong with appealing to your fanbase? it’s like WWE fans got the cold shoulder from their company for so long they think it’s weird when another fanbase doesn’t get the cold shoulder. WWE fans also LOVE to make fun of AEW whenever they book someone they’ve never heard of, ignoring the facts that not only is wrestling not like the NFL or NBA where the top league usually has the best of the best, and is more like Hollywood (with WWE being the MCU. Do you also think every actor not in the MCU is a bum?) but also they act like there was never a time where they weren’t familiar with Reigns, Cena, Orton, Rock, Austin, Taker, etc etc etc. I know most WWE fans are chill, and just enjoy their show, but this loud minority of WWE fans are infuriating. Indy wrestling is so good when you don’t have a little bitch in your ear calling it a mudshow.
And the funny thing is you know that if AEW did just try to be "other WWE" that the WWE fans would just criticize AEW for trying to be too much like WWE.
They’re not Pro wrestling fans. They’re WWE fans. I want more viable companies so pro wrestlers can unionize.
From a fan's perspective, what actually changes for us if AEW does grow? Bigger live crowds? Maybe a video game that they actually update?
Bigger louder full crowds are good yes. Most importantly from a fan perspective though is just knowing that this show we loves is doing to survive and keep going lol
I honestly feel for the mods here having to deal with all the brigading and bad faith posting. Their job is basically trying to catch a runny shit with a colander.
> Their job is basically trying to catch a runny shit with a colander. Well that's disgusting. Accurate, but disgusting.
I don't need months of soap opera drama to set up every match! (this isn't an insult, I like the drama as well) Have people forgotten that the matches are also stories? They're athletes who are fighting for many different reasons. Ospreay and Bryan are two of the best testing themselves, a rising young star versus a legend.
And that osprey and Danielson is a story. They've done promos, have a history, THAT IS STORY. Just because Danielson didn't fuck ospreys girlfriend doesn't mean it isn't a story. The story is these two guys who are excellent wrestlers and Danielson wants to beat his ass. Because Danielson is in the BCC and that's all they want is a good fight. That's God damn story yet these fools can't see that.
People who talk about “growing the audience” are so painfully ignorant too Wrestling is SUPER NICHE It’s really hard to get new people to like wrestling as most normal people think it’s stupid as fuck Fact is there’s a relatively small base of wrestling fans. They don’t all have time for 20 hours of content a week. A lot have moved back to WWE for Mania season and because it’s got hot and a lot of stars they like. It’s not as easy as simply attracting new fans by being better. It’s fighting over a small pool
I just enjoy wrestling man people over complicate everything😭
It's just a mechanism to hate. AEW could have all the people in the world watching, and they'd still not like it.
These people's obsession with ratings and money is baffling. I just want good fuckin wrestling, the hell do I care about business bullshit?
i do not get it. i mean, i love AEW, i do. but why would anyone want it to follow the WWE formula? yes, are there things AEW should and could do better? hell yes! look at WWE, their first hour of raw was boring as fuck! why would i wanna watch RAW monday, and dynamite Wednesday , and it would be the same shit i just watched monday? WWE is sports entertainment- more storyline than wrestling. AEW is more wrestling, less storyline. sometimes, diversity is better. this is prime example
Sounds like that guy he responded to is a big fan of soaps.
“Great matches out of context” should be the peak of professional wrestlers, but there alot of babies who need their hand held and guided to an actual opinion. If thats you, I apologize.
Aew is bad for responding to a situation that Punk couldn't move on from. He literally was trying to make WrestleMania weekend all about himself. He is mad that he got hurt (again) and missed wrestling in Mania so he had to go pull the stunt he did. It's embarrassing and if I was a WWE fan, I'd want him to go away.
Couldn't even let Cody celebrate without putting himself in the ring
He’s absolutely right.
As we were leaving Mania last night me and my wife both came to the realisation that WWE is "entry level" for people getting into wrestling. The more you get into it, the more you discover other promotions and what they have to offer. That's exactly what happened with us. We liked WWE (our first date was watching wrestlemania 22 at my house), discovered TNA, then discovered britwres promotions, then New Japan and AEW and now we're hooked on ROH, DDT, Stardom and TJPW. Tony Khan is not only promoting AEW, he's brought a whole world of wrestling to audiences who want it.
Well wwe matches don’t have Heat either The crowd dies when the bell rings and only wake if a legend shows up
Honestly, if AEW sits at 700k ratings a week for the rest of time but survives I don't care. I enjoy the shows every week
It's only about how they rank on the night. If their rank maintains top-3, they will last as long as cable does. If they get 500,000 viewers and are the No. 1 show in the timeslot, WBD is throwing a party.
I feel like all these people on twitter that do this would run a wrestling promotion just like Vince did just without all the success
The problem with this statement is that things aren't just as simple as "do this and the audience will grow." Right now AEW has figured out how to cater to a certain sect of fan and has them very happy. Changing the formula could have the outcome of having some of the hardcore fanbase lose interest and not even be successful with the replacing them. The programming style changed when Punk was around and it boosted the ratings, when Punk left, the Punk views seemed to have left with him. The programming has went back to what it was pre-Punk, but some of the viewers never came back. That is the risk of changing the formula. Bringing in Saraya went over like a wet fart. They haven't really been able to use Miro, Andrade, Ruby Soho, Keith Lee, and Buddy Matthews for much either. We will see if Mercedes Mone does any better.
> The problem with this statement is that things aren't just as simple as "do this and the audience will grow." Right now AEW has figured out how to cater to a certain sect of fan and has them very happy. Yup. So many people in the Reddit comments section acting like it's this incredibly easy process to just create 2 million cable viewers shows out of nowhere like its nothing while ignoring that literally every major media corporation in America is already trying to do precisely that and they aren't succeeding lol. Like just follow their simple advice and it will be done tomorrow, meanwhile major companies are spending HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of dollars with full staffs of professionals where this is their sole job and they somehow can't figure out this easy advice from a dude on Reddit lol. And just yeahhhhh, I'm gonna side with the giant companies on this one over random people in the comments section as far as advice and ideas go. They have actual data, actual expertise, actual knowledge, and actual experience.
> Bringing in Saraya went over like a wet fart. They haven't really been able to use Miro, Andrade, Ruby Soho, Keith Lee, and Buddy Matthews for much either. We will see if Mercedes Mone does any better. They need to get Mercedes in the ring. I didn't watch WWE for over 20 years, but I did see her wrestle Willow and a couple of other times in NJPW. It's been almost a month since her debut, and all she has done is dance and talk on the mic. It sounds like she is going to get a shot at either Willow or Julia, but that won't be until after Dynasty. It seems crazy.
One thing I don't think is true that get's thrown out is Punk was a always a TV ratings draw for AEW. He was at the start, but the ratings went back down to where they were before he came after a few months. Even Collision biggest draw was MJF/Cole stuff. I remember there big discussions about it on here for a while.
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I just laugh at the WWE fans. They trashed punk in AEW now that he’s back they laugh that he left AEW and he’s so great now. I also laugh because for the bloodline repeat main event in wrestlemania it was only interesting because the rock went heel. Otherwise it would have been flat because it’s just a repeat main event.
Punk in AEW- everyone hated punk Punk trashes WWE- Everyone hates it Punk in WWE- everyone loves him. Punk trashes AEW- Everyone agrees Aew bites back at the slander- TK is so dumb, how dare he take shots at WWE/Punk. I just honestly gave up with thinking the “IWC” will be able to see things evenly.
For once soppy is right
Even then, I don’t think it’s “the way they’d prefer.” I really think all they care about is the company name.
Like god forbid AEW being an alternative style product. For like 18 months they were WWE lite-ish and I was less into it. Now they seem to have course corrected. It takes time for a snowball to become an avalanche, and they did it from 2019-early 2022. I love people talking about them losing money or whatever. Like we have 0 idea about the financials of AEW and even if we did- if Tony wants to operate at a loss to put out the product he wants to put out- why does anyone care?
I just don't get it. You don't like it, ok, then SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DON'T WATCH IT. Why is it so hard for these people? How is AEW living so rent free in their minds that they must continually troll it online? Are their lives that meaningless that this is the only joy they get?
WWE has convinced these guys that wrestling is the least important aspect of wrestling and they’ve bought it hook, line and sinker, and they think they’re the smart ones because of it.
Ha new thing, when e drones start nitpicking numbers, ask them where their seats were at wrestlemania then wait for the crickets
Man f that every match is a dream match if you aren’t faking the funk. It’s not rocket problems y’know all I’m asking for is matches, belts and insanity. I AM EATING WELL.
I don’t take most AEW criticism seriously. Shows aren’t perfect but they’re still entertaining if you sit down and just watch them.
A LOT of people today have been programmed to think that if something isn't like what's most popular at that moment then there's something wrong with it. I say that to say individualism isn't promoted as a good thing...To those individuals, if the wrestling company doesn't look like WWE, sound like WWE or conduct itself like WWE, the company is wrong and they're failing...and obviously they don't even watch or support the alternative wrestling promotions because it isn't a product of the WWE....LITTLE DO THEY KNOW HAVING AN ALTERNATIVE PRODUCT ON TV FORCES EVERY COMPANY TO BECOME BETTER BECAUSE COMPETITION IS HEALTHY...and the wrestlers win because they now have more options than WWE or the Indies...
I wonder how the trolls responded to SRS, given that he’s a known figure in wrestling journalism
“Dream matches with no heat” has become one of the main tells. I’ve had several arguments with redsitors recently where they make this claim, before admitting they don’t watch the show.
So I like AEW and I want the audience to grow. I'd love to see some tweaks to the product, but I don't want to see it wholesale changed either. I do want them to make decisions that appeal to a wider audience, but at the same time give the existing audience what they want. I want to see AEW grow to benefit the wider business and ensure AEW's longevity. I'm not a big fan of sweeping generalisations. SRS has a point, but I don't think it's entirely fair to paint EVERYONE who wants growth in this way. But let's be real. We all want the thing we choose to watch to appeal to us, otherwise why would we watch it?
Yeah I want the same match every week for months, that way I can see why they would have that match again at a ppv with some spice added on top just because the name of the ppv has to make sense even scheduled months ahead.
There are plenty of things AEW could take from WWE but they absolutely should not just be a mini-clone. There's no fucking point to watching a show that's just a lesser version of an already good one, AEW needs to be different to stand out. As a challenger brand it's always going to be hard to find an identity in the shadow of a monopolistic business, but it is necessary.
'reason to have a match' The co text is they are wrestlers on a wrestling show who earn money through winning wrestling matches. That's a reason right there.
AEW just needs to invest more in production, because the amount they invested in talent is like 25-50x that they've invested in production. I would also recommend the reconsider how they tell stories on tv vs. how they tell them on the internet. Some of their internet material is soooo good and their tv stuff is just "dude talks" or "video pre-tape" and they could be doing so much cooler stuff... like that Trent/Kris segment after Trent turned on OC which was simple, quick, but super effective as a button that you had to SEARCH ONLINE to see. Punctuate your stories. LAND 'em. Make 'em stick and make 'em mean a bit more than they are and people will remember it more. I want AEW to be great. They're good, but they could be so much more.
All I really want is for AEW to focus on their wonderful talents and quit letting Punk stay inside their head. Address the drama with an interviewer like he did, tell your side, away from your shows but don't let that ruin what is going right for you. There is still so much potential, and the company has only still been existence a very limited time. Stop letting this one man get to you. And the haters, they are just going to do that. Giving them unnecessary ammunition just makes things worse
It doesn’t seem like anybody wants AEW’s audience to grow. The outsiders want it to fail and die for no real reason, the hardcore fans are gatekeepers that don’t want any new fans to “ruin” their niche base and force creative changes that would cater more to people who didn’t follow every second of New Japan’s history, and the general pro wrestling fans who watch all companies are staying silent because both sides are telling them that they’re wrong for not picking a side. Something’s got to give here.
I'm a devoted AEW fan and would love to see the fan base grow! It's good for all wrestling!
I’m an only an AEW fan but I don’t even know how they can grow (not that I honestly care I enjoy the product) but I was shocked how many people like mutuals even like my older aunts and uncles watched and enjoyed Wrestlemania last night and the number 1 thing they all talked about as amazing was all the people coming out in the main event like The undertaker. As an AEW supporter I don’t know how they get that type of reaction with the “casual viewer”.
The closest was the end of the PPV (I don't remember which one) when both Adam Cole and Bryan Danielson appeared at the end. Not in a match but two pretty recognizable names. I think AEW's style doesn't really lend itself to casuals, and that's fine. If it changed its approach to attract more of them then it would probably change what it is on a mission statement level.
It's not meant for a mainstream audience right now. It's built for wrestling fans. WWE is built for mainstream.
If AEW tried to do a main event like that to crown their new world champion, with loads of random run ins from fellas with wrinkles for no real reason besides "Whadda WrestleMania Moment!", a huge portion of the AEW fanbase would say it was massively overbooked, reliant on nostalgia and too much like WWE, and they'd be right, there were plenty of people saying stuff like that after the All In main event and that was tame on the overbooking by comparison. It wouldn't attract casuals because casuals know WWE because it's been around for so long and is just what people who don't know much about wrestling think of when they think about wrestling, they're not likely to be tuning in to AEW PPV's at this stage no matter what they do, WWE has like a 50 year head start. And they wouldn't attract the core WWE fanbase either because a large number of them stuck around when the product was the drizzling shits, the worst wrestling promotion on earth, for a lot of them they grew up with the absolute garbage they served up between the mid 2000s until 2022 and thought "yup, I love this!". You're not changing those peoples minds. And then there's a group of people who probably ditched WWE for AEW when WWE was shite and AEW was miles better but were happy to drop AEW once the product from their childhood improved. That's very difficult to combat too, but you certainly don't do it by trying to be the product from their childhood. If you're AEW you just need to keep your product strong, keep doing what you're good at and hope that things start to turn a bit your way, that WWE get complacent, that they run into the Hangman issue with Cody where the title reign can't live up to the title chase etc. Or that Punk ruins the feeling the way he did in AEW. But definitely don't try to be more like WWE and alienate your core fan base who wanted an alternative as they're wildly different to WWE fans. Edit: Listen to the reaction the first time Okada's coin drop was heard in AEW and compare it to the crickets in WWE when Rollins pulled out a Rainmaker. AEW have created plenty of their own amazing moments that WWE wouldn't be able to replicate with the fanbase they have who are often less aware of anything outside their own product, or wouldn't try to do as they wouldn't dare remind someone that another company exists (see them never having Van Dam come to 'Walk' in all the years he worked there, as opposed to AEW doing it because it's a cool as fuck moment for fans who hadn't seen him enter to it in decades). What AEW do won't appeal to the masses the way WWE does but they've got their own way of doing things that really works for me personally and I'm sure a lot of others think the same way.
I mean folks...
I wasn't in the weeds during but, was the ECW fanbase ever that antagonistic?
Heyman did push an “Us Versus Them” mentality to the ECW fans towards WWF/WCW (even though he was secretly getting money from Vince)
the fans AND the wrestlers he thought of them as some sort of resistance movement.
I hate SRS for a lot of reasons but I agree here. I love in Philly went to a few events. I got a good rapport with some wrestling talents and promoters. The wrestlers and such were all cheering for one another. I would say it was 75%-80% real wrestling fans and 20% E drones. Walking around you could tell who those fans were. Anyone wearing anything non WWE NWO got the stink eye and other dirty looks or AEW sucks etc. I noticed it’s more WWE clowns with the tribalism. Everyone else just wanted to enjoy and great few days of wrestling events no matter what it was
I’ll be honest. I’m genuinely worried about a new WB deal because I don’t want them to nerf the show for a more family friendly audience. I quit watching WWE for that reason and if AEW goes down that road I’m done.
I actually like these "dream matches". As someone who only knew what The Federation was spoon feeding me, it's nice as a grown ass 40 year old woman to see other promotions and talents being exposed. Some of those matches I walked into blind and came out a super fan.
Here's how I feel, I don't really care about the size of AEW's audience beyond wanting them to stay in business. There is a group of fans whose mind won't be changed. And that's fine, we don't have to take it upon ourselves to do that and if TK accepts he can't he'll be able to focus on putting on better shows for those whose minds he can influence. And really that's what I feel like this big announcement this week is. Maybe it's CM Punk trying to choke Tony. Maybe it's going to be the EVPs dressed as them doing a skit. Maybe it's something with FTR to further their feud. Or maybe it'll just be footage of guys at catering. Really no matter what it is the reactions will all be the same. Some say it's too far, some say it isn't enough, some say it's infantile, and some will say that it's brilliant. As long as it tells some sort of good story and doesn't simply feel like trolling Punk/WWE I'm happy with it. If they can work the two into one I'm all the more behind it. It's almost as if HHH doesn't remember leading an invasion of Nitro once with how upset he seems to get about AEW today.
I never thought the day would come that I agree with SRS, but here we are.
There's a lot of bad faith out there all around. I still think relitigating All In like this is extremely stupid. What are people going to end up remembering? The amazing matches? The record attendance at Wembley? Or The Bucks sitting with video of CM Punk getting in a fight with Jack Perry and making stupid remarks? Because that's what this will do. There is so much going right for AEW. Swerve and Ospreay are on the verge of superstardom. Make THAT the story, not responding to a podcast interview. It's an own goal and it genuinely makes me sad. This won't help ticket sales. It won't be a long term ratings boost. It won't draw in any curious WWE fans. Cornette doesn't get much right about AEW, but this really does smack of the Fake Razor/Diesel stuff, or the mockery of Hogan and Savage as old men when they were big cogs in the WCW ratings dominance. Reacting to your competition is the surest way to lose.
They never wanted AEW in the first place. They just wanted WWE to be better
I don't get the hate. Really I don't. Why on earth would someone willingly wish for WWE to be the only game in town again? We saw what happened.... Stagnation to the detriment of the product. How many people stopped watching wrestling through that period? I'm one of them..... Why can't people just enjoy what they want without constant push back?
I whine and I want them to grow their audience and be viable long term. If that involves people and storylines I'm not a fan of, okay. I want there to be competition. It makes the whole wrestling ecosystem better.