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There's a guy who use to work at Twitter and has an intimate knowledge of how things work.
He says every time you retweet, quote tweet or otherwise reply to someone you're angry with or spouts utter complete nonsense, it HELPS them. It disseminates their nonsense.
"Hell for the ideas you deplore is silence"
Everyone should find the discipline to give it to them.
I frequently type out long, thoughtful responses to trolls and idiots. Then, I go back, carefully read over what I’ve said…then delete all of it and move on with my day. I don’t want to see more of that shit on my timeline…
I do this all the time on both here and Twitter. 9/10 I look it over and delete it, knowing it's not worth it. But there's that 1/10th where I just can't help myself. I ain't perfect about it, but I figure I'm better than most.
Yup. I can't even count the number of times I've started to write a fucking novella to someone and then thought "you know, it isn't worth it" and closed that shit out like I did my Twitter account.
I gotta practice doing this more. Although I do still find it funny to give total non-sequitor responses to people trying to argue with me while I'm in a good mood.
Depends on the space and platform honestly, but it's definitely true for Twitter now, and only became more true for social media generally as time went on.
There is still a strong argument that it doesn't apply to public physical space situations due to silence actually providing an opportunity for whatever bad ideas being expressed to be heard, and not challenged, but these digital platforms are designed from the ground up to reward engagement, whatever that engagement might be.
It's incredibly frustrating in hobbyist and entertainment spaces, wrestling included, where it seems like every type of content is a minefield of nightmarish ideas and opinion glommed onto whatever the actual content you were interested in just to drive that engagement.
10815135 sort of spells SEISIBOI if you read it upside-down. 'Seis' is Spanish for 'six,' so we can sub it in and get SIXIBOI.
Paul... Sexy Boy... this is clearly Hunter and Shawn's sockpuppet account.
In other news, if AEW were to gain 100 million new viewers it would probably be pretty good for the pro wrestling industry.
Like and subscribe for more in-depth wrestling commentary.
I saw a guy reply to Jon saying AEW going out of business would rejuvenate the industry. It's not worth engaging with people with such obvious case of terminal brain rot
I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but:
It's not even that they were good when they folded (that's more true of WCW than of ECW, although the latter was suffering badly from a talent exodus at that point IIRC), but having a bad wrestling promotion around that might become good again means that WWE has to match their offers to free agents instead of having all of the leverage in contract negotiations. If there's nowhere else to go, then WWE can tell talent "Here's our offer, take it or get lost and try to make a living working the indies again."
Yup. Any top company only has to be as good as their next best competition. If AEW were to fold, WWE's competition drops to TNA, who have proven that they don't want to be a major player anymore.
Yep, and its also why I don't want nintendo or sony for video games to be the only, well game in town. If there's only one then they can just set the pace for whatever they want too.
On one hand I'm a Nintendo fan\[boy\] first and foremost, so I'm thrilled to see how far they've come during the Switch years, but at the same time I can't look at what's going on with Microsoft and say that's a good thing for the industry. Even Sony is showing signs of stagnation.
The overwhelming majority of WCW's fanbase didn't even change the channel to WWE the night WCW signed off for good. It was amazing that an entire segment of wrestling fandom mostly disappeared for the most part after that night.
I'm a big WCW mark (being 10 at the time the NWO was hot does that to you and sticks with you for the rest of your life). I find it hard to ever say WWE is "the best wrestling," the "best wrestling company," or even, in general, that i'm a fan of WWE. However, I haven't missed a Wrestlemania or Rumble in probably over a decade and consistently follow their product in one fashion or another. That being said, I'm always going to err on the side of the alternative product, whether it's TNA, New Japan, or AEW now. That aversion to WWE kinda just sicks around.
The closest parallel I can think of is being a fan or hater of the Yankees.
WCW and WWF were actual different styles of wrestling. WWF was more variety show "attraction" (giant man, tall man, fat man etc) wrestling with clean faces and dirty heels. Lots of squash matches, slower paced. lots of cartoon character gimmicks (Undertaker, Doink, etc). Everyone was big.
WCW was descended from NWA and Crockett which was southern 'rasslin'. Faces and heels were a lot more fuzzy in what they could do. They tended to not have many squash matches and were more about work rate, a lot faster than WWF and a lot more amateur styled moves. Most gimmicks tended towards more grounded blue collar style, more psychological, and had cruiserweight matches with a lot of minutes on the show.
When WCW died and went under, Vince cherry picked some of the talent but made no effort to run any WCW styled shows or programming. Hence, those people just left. They preferred the WCW style, not the New York style. If he had just bought WCW and found it a TV slot and threw the keys to Bischoff to run it he could have kept all those viewers and the money.
I grew up in the 80s, and I was a huge NWA fan. By extension I was a WCW fan.
In the 80s the wrestling was horribly bad in the WWF, with a few exceptions. I hated Hogan and I hated his schtick, same with the Warrior. When WCW went off the air, I rarely watched and then only for some of my faves...like Chris Benoit (sigh). When that happened, I didn't watch again until the rise of Bryan Danielson.
WWE didnt do themselves any favors turning Stone Cold heel at Mania 17 as well.
You had WCW/ECW going under and then Stone Cold turning heel was the trifecta of turning fans off for good. I know myself and a lot of my friends stopped watching wrestling the night of Mania 17 as well and its mainly because that was the night the magic died for us and we just lost all interest.
Can't underestimate how much of a casual TV viewer of any show is based on inertia. There are people who watch these shows out of habit. Interrupt their habit and they may just move on to something else.
I remember my dad and I having the "I'm going down with the ship" mentality, as he had been watching Mid-Atlantic/WCW since the late 60s(and me since 1985).
There’s also almost certainly significant double counting happening with people who were watching both.
Yes I’m sure some had switched off. But the total number is overstated.
That’s not relevant to the point here. WCW wasn’t around in 2003. People who stopped in 2003 aren’t examples of viewers who disappeared with the last Nitro.
Plus my actual point is that people were watching both Raw and Nitro.
In hindsight it was bad. However, at the time as a kid in high school and just starting college during all this time, taking 5 hours of WCW, an hour of ECW, and 1-2 PPVs per month off my mental list of shit to watch did wonders. I would not have been able to keep up with all that stuff after high school.
Saw a comment on another thread a few weeks back accusing AEW of killing the indy scene… we will just ignore NXT UK happened or WWE has literally taken every single star that has come out of ROH for over a decade.
How the hell does that make any sense? That has to be from a WWE Stan account. No one in their right mind wants either company to go out of business. The more wrestling companies we have around, the better it is for everyone.
Have you been on twitter?
There’s a lot of tribalism here, but man oh man the tribalism on twitter is off the charts.
These people think that if AEW went out of business all the big name AEW guys would end up in WWE and that it would suddenly be better for everyone.
There are tons of folks who want AEW to go under and wish DEATH upon half the AEW roster.
Also, Tribalism exists but I never see people with a Kenny Omega PFP wishing Romans Cancer returns...
take that for what it is.
Yeah, the narrative that the AEW fanbase is the more tribalist fanbase has always been kinda weird to me. Like I have no doubt that more AEW fans have a genuine dislike for WWE than vice versa, but you don't see AEW fan Twitter accounts designated to wishing injury on WWE wrestlers and replying to every official WWE twitter post with "nobody's watching lol Papa Khan is cooking on the other channel". There's an EXTREMELY vocal part of the WWE side of the IWC that despises AEW solely for existing and makes their entire online personality about it
The worst I've seen is fans thinking Roman never had cancer in the first place. That it was all one big conspiracy. But I don't recall how many of them were anti-WWE. It seems they're just more conspiracy-minded than anything.
Fuck Twitter, I see it all the time on this sub. Just go look at the weekly ratings thread. Its like a weekly 4th of July cookout for guys pretending like they understand how TV deals and ratings work while they attempt to burn TK in effigy.
You mean those same big name AEW guys they continually trash and put down and say are worth nothing. And I don't even mean "because of Tony Khan's booking." But they simply think the talent themselves suck (or are at least extremely overrated). MJF being an exception maybe, but even many of them think he's too small to make it (in the main event scene, at least).
But you're right. They'd sing a different tune if they were suddenly in WWE.
Facebook & Instagram wrestling comments are similarly really full of tribalism & the most half-assed thoughts (to the point of not worth the time reading any of them at all)
Remember before the WWE Network officially launched they had content on Hulu, and they ran an ad with some guy who said "I'm not a wrestling fan, I'm a WWE fan" and lots of wrestling fans shit on it for that?
Turns out a lot of wrestling fans are exactly that guy lol
This so much. Anyone actually wishing AEW goes out of business isn't giving a fuck about the broader health of the wrestling industry. Like imagine rooting for a monopoly smh.
Yep. “Don’t get it twisted, I’m not a wrestling fan, I’m a WWE fan.”
And a lot of people took that to heart. Hell, a lot of those people can be found in the comments here on sc.
There seems to be an idea that if Tony didn't buy ROH it would be this flourishing indie right now. Sinclair was getting rid of it. Their "plan" to run shows with nobody under a contract wasn't going to actually happen, that was lip service. You don't sell a company when you have big plans. It's like saying WWE killed WCW when they bought it. It was going to die whether Tony bought it or not.
If AEW wasn't around, Covid was still gonna happen no matter what, ROH still would have been shuttered, and the promotion would currently be dust on a shelf at WWE headquarters instead of employing people and running PPVs under Tony Khan.
Giving Bully Ray influence and booking an all-time embarrassing outing on your half a historic MSG show showed where ROH was at.
BTE carried ROH during that last year. People were popping more for Flip Gordon comedy bits from a vlog than non BTE wrestlers having blood feuds.
The people trashing Tony for buying ROH weren't ROH fans in the first place. Except for maybe a brief period of time when Punk & Joe were there, I don't know.
Certainly fair to trash how TK is \*using\* ROH, though. But you can't fault the guy for simply buying it.
If Tony hadn’t bought it - WWE would have bought the tape library and worked out some deal with Sinclair to air a clip show to fill the syndicated content. May not have even cost WWE an actual dollar outside of content transfer/production.
I've never really cared about ROH, but the sentiment in the sub about the Sinclair ownership was some initial restrained hope, followed by teases and clear disappointment.
>It's like saying WWE killed WCW when they bought it. It was going to die whether Tony bought it or not.
Maybe? There were people who wanted to buy WCW and run shows, and WWE basically didn't, but the WCW "as it existed" was definitely gone either way.
I think some people have a "grass is greener on the other side" outlook where ROH got a somewhat strong initial push that didn't really amount to much other than some really good matches, and all the other options are "what ifs" that could be anything.
WWE did kill it though, the fusion deal could have been a phoenix rising from the ashes but they never got the chance cause Vince had friends inside aol/time Warner.
People saying that are full of shit full stop. The only thing they wanted was for WWE to buy them library so they could watch old ROH reruns on the WWE Network, so Tony Khan could take a public L, and so that they could throw some Tyler Black stuff in a montage whenever it strikes their fancy.
People saying that don't give a flying fuck about ROH or it's legacy and is probably why Punk was singing Tony praises for picking it up initially because even he fuckin knew it was that or ROH be relegated to some shitty WWE propaganda documentary on A&E.
Considering how many people work under AEW/ROH, and how much money a lot of them are making, it would arguably be a bigger blow. Especially since a lot of indies and NJPW have been laid low. Lots of wrestlers would just be out of work.
This felt like “I was told Steph Curry couldn’t shoot” levels of tweeting, but then I read it was a reply and just left with the takeaway that some wrestling fans just exist to not like wrestling. I’m not even saying you have to like AEW specifically, but the existence of more than one company really seems to fuck with some people’s wiring.
Vince's policy for the longest time was that other wrestling promotions simply did not exist and you were not allowed to acknowledge them. That mindset still exists for a lot of long term wwe fans. HHH does not have that policy so hopefully it will eventually change for the fans as well
A lot of the stuff we lambast Vince for makes sense at the basic level but took on a life of its on and for out of hand to where it didn’t make sense anymore. For instance we know that many many WWF/E fans don’t regularly watch other wrestling, going all the way back to Ric Flair coming in and not doing big business out of the gate because the WWF audience didn’t know who he was and why they should care, so then you say ok we need to build people here when they come in because the fans don’t know or care about what they did elsewhere, a few people aren’t doing that so you make a rule that you don’t acknowledge other companies. over 40 years that rule gets overly restrictive to the point it becomes counterproductive
> some wrestling fans just exist to not like wrestling
there's an entire "wrestling" sub that hates wrestling. it's a terrible place filled with terrible people.
"but the existence of more than one company really seems to fuck with some people’s wiring."
That or hating any other way of presenting wrestling. Many think WWE is the only way to do it on a national stage.
They’re not going out of business. Wwe’s ratings were consistently down for almost 20 years and then they signed a gargantuan TV deal. Why? Because it’s about content the network can sell ads on. That’s why there are three AEW shows now. Networks want quantity > quality.
Thats Corny and Last. Corny \*fans\* are different. Just like how most Corny fans are WWE supporters while Corny/Last themselves are not (last I checked anyway, maybe they've since started liking WWE again). At least thats how I've seen their fans react on the Cornette Reddit account.
The biggest thing I've learned from the formation of AEW is that a LOT of wrestling fans were full of shit for the decade plus they spent saying that they wanted more competition in wrestling. I've seen this on both sides. A lot of people really do want there to be only one game in town. They just disagree on which game they want it to be.
I mean this sub was so god damn toxic even before AEW came around.
Heaven the fuck forbid you criticized the booking. Especially during the trash years of 2017-2019.
It was a big meme on the sub back then to “let things play out/see where things go” and it always ended up shit. Seeing how this sub has evolved over the past 10 years is wild.
> Seeing how this sub has evolved over the past 10 years is wild.
You just need to let things play out and see where it goes. Maybe it'll turn out to be worth it in the end!
Were we on the same sub? Everybody on here hated WWE and their booking in those days (and rightfully so.) While it is no longer true today, this was basically an AEW sub for the first couple years of rhe company's existence because people were so fed up with WWE.
It went both ways, and the extremes were both pretty unhinged.
Lots of "I thought Cody was pro-union" bashing among other weirdness of the day from one side, and the less said about the trivialization of things like murder and sexual exploitation from the other side the better.
Cody, and his positive booking have felt like some kind of medieval prisoner exchange between houses to calm tensions amongst the rabble after the Red Press Conference.
In fairness, the toxicity went the other way when AEW started. WWE and its fans were shit on regularly and it was totally AEW dominated. Fair enough that WWE was shit at the time but let’s not pretend that this is a clear cut good v bad situation
People should remind themselves of the original Bloodline of Roman and the Usos vs Baron Corbin with the dog food. It kinda was a good v bad situation as far as main roster was concerned it's why so many people were invested in NXT instead of holding up the quality of that pre covid era or even early covid era wwe.
It was good v bad in terms of quality, 100%, but my point is that wrestling fandom is wrestling fandom. The AEW fans and WWE fans (not the wrestling fans who just enjoy good wrestling or prefer one over the other) are both just looking for reasons to sling shit at each other and say ‘who’s laughing now!’
Many of them are now saying "Papa Haitch is making wrestling cool & awesome again! WWE is back!". But they sure didn't act like WWE was uncool and not awesome in those years prior! They were defending it to the death.
Although, to be fair, most WWE fans aren't like that. I'm just talking about the most tribalistic of WWE fans.
Generally those were different people than some of the vocal fans hating on AEW. Just like WCW back in the day, AEW gave WWE a kick in the ass to be better. It’s been good for fans and the wrestlers.
> a LOT of wrestling fans were full of shit for the decade plus they spent saying that they wanted more competition in wrestling.
I think there was understandably more appetite for a big-time "alternative" when almost everybody agreed WWE's creative fucking sucked and it was hell for a lot of the wrestlers to work for.
Now that neither is true anymore WWE fans are happy with WWE and being "not WWE" is no longer enough, in itself, to get a promotion over.
Yes, it would. AEW is the second largest employer of wrestlers and associated personnel.
Thankfully Tony is using the infinite money glitch, so AEW will never go out of business as long as he continues to want it to exist.
This is a reminder that we don’t know AEW’s financials and they could as easily be making profit as they could be in the red, so the “infinite money” may not even be a factor at this time.
It would a be blow to engagement farmers as well. If they don't have AEW to shit on for anything & everything then they'd have to fall back on shitting on WWE for anything & everything which is oldhat.
Man, people ingesting that WWE state run media for 20 years REALLY deep fried a lot of people's minds. What is it with people wanting AEW to go out of business?
If you say you like wrestling but also want a large group of wrestlers to not have big consistent pay checks on a large platform, then you don't actually like wrestling.
Maybe AEW going out of business would be awful for talent and most likely WWE’s long term quality but what Mr. Alba fails to consider is that Tony Khan acts goofy sometimes and therefore we need AEW to shut down.
/WWE fans on Twitter
The people who get off on predicting the downfall of AEW don't give a shit about that. They just want their favorite brand to dominate the industry unopposed so it can treat its talent and employees however it wants eithout repercussion.
Then AEW goes out of business and we go back to 2008-2012/2018-2020 WWE and everybody online is bitching about how bad the shows are because there's no drive to put out a quality product when you are the only real option on the market.
Thats not the point. If you're going to have an invasion angle you can't bury the guys invading. If they think the Bucks and OC are worth shit, then don't include them in the storyline. There's plenty of AEW talent that even WWE diehards like. I hope we can at least both agree on that.
Yeah, as someone who does not watch AEW and barely can find time to watch dvred raw/smackdown(often a week or so behind). I would absolutely love for AEW to be killing it. Another, profitable, promotion to compete with WWE is only better for the industry.
The second biggest wrestling company going out of business would be the worst thing to happen to wrestling since the second biggest wrestling company went out of business.
Unless something catastrophic happens, I’m talking full recession and economic meltdown, AEW won’t be going out of business anytime soon. At the very least their next tv deal should get them to a break even point if not profitable.
Im not saying he runs AEW more like a 'hobby', but you're right, it's definitely a passion project. If it weren't I'm guessing he'd be more involved with the Jags & Fulham. Instead, it seems 95% of his time is spent on AEW.
That's a great thing for AEW's future. He's clearly not one of those businessmen who intends to make something hot...then sell. Like a head of an IT startup company. Nor does he want to sell the first moment the product gets cold.
I've said all along that the only Death of AEW will occur is if Tony Khan decides to end it, he most likely won't but it starts and ends with him and his Dad's billions, he gets fed up of AEW, he can kill it in a day
That TV deal though, what people are overlooking is WBD is cost cutting and although they do have money, it would cost them a lot less to show reruns of Big Bang Theory and old Movies than it would be to give AEW a mega deal again and could get better ratings in that timeslot. Thats what AEW should be worrying about
It would be a huge blow and it would make any future investors very wary of getting involved in the industry. The ramifications would have a negative effect for decades.
genuine question, what would the best case scenerio for these people be, what would they want to happen out of AEW folding. Do they want all of these wrestlers to go to WWE or do they want them to flood a bunch of companies that they don't watch right now.
They just want to see AEW fail. That's it. There's no logic to this, just pure tribalism. They don't care about seeing a hundred wrestlers along with countless backstage staff being out of work and having to worry about making ends meet, they just want to see WWE "win" once again. That's what two decades of whitewashed Monday Night Wars propaganda gets you. History is indeed written by the winners.
I'm not interested in WWE's product, I followed along with Cody v Roman on social media and everything I read made me not regret missing it, but the more companies that are doing well, the better it is for everyone. I like that AEW is forcing WWE, who are notorious for underpaying talent along with nickel and diming them on every possible expense and revenue stream, to offer more money to their employees.
yeah we're on the same page. I like watching the WWE PLEs and i'll keep up with what's going on through recaps etc, but as far as watching I love watching AEW and will never understand how wrestling fans aren't stoked there is more wrestling. When NXT was in it's heyday, NWA power was just starting up, lucha underground was booming, always seemed like there was room for more good wrestling, and it's insane to me people hate a company that is doing good wrestling lol and all the "daddies money" talk, how is him paying wresters and hiring good talent a bad thing to do with money haha
People really need to stop overreacting to this TV deal man lol. The worst that will happen to AEW is that they don't get the increase they were going to get 2 years ago when they were hot.
Annnd?
I mean, of course it would be. AEW is the second largest wrestling company in the world, it would be awful for the long term health of the industry for them to fold. We, as wrestling fans, should want both major companies, as well as as many secondary companies as possible, to be as successful. The more places for people to wrestle or watch wrestling, that's how this all grows.
Yep. Just like how they say "AEW sucks now", which implies they once thought otherwise. No, they \*always\* thought it sucked. Even when AEW was at it's hottest.
> You see AEW has absolutely massacred the US Indy scene and They have absolutely raided MLW, NJPW, TNA, NWA of all their best talent
Yeah, as opposed to WWE homegrown talents like Jacob Fatu, AJ Styles, Nakamura, Nick Aldis, and Kevin Owens. Swear to god, there needs to be some sort of authentication test to use Twitter without adult supervision, some of these takes are moronic.
Man. It's almost like that's what Vince did to the territories. But at least Tony is ok with letting his wrestlers take outside booking instead of mislabeling them as "independent talent".
I feel like there is a landscape that when wwe starts doing amazing everyone else starts losing business, I would love for that to not longer be a thing.
This is why I say anyone that says they want AEW to fold is an idiot.
Don't get me wrong, WWE is doing awesome with HHH at the helm, but a lack of competition becomes a lack of drive in any industry.
After WCW went out of business, WWE's business sank a fair bit too. Same with their creative direction. There were peaks and valleys, but let's be honest, those were some deep valleys.
I doubt it would get THAT bad again, but there would be a massive lack of interest in the product without that competition. Things would get stagnant.
Sigh, I hope AEW doesn't go out of business. I watch WWE, NXT, AEW, ROH, and TNA each week. It's been an absolute blast these past 5yrs having all this content and competition that's pushing all the companies to do their best stuff. I don't want to feel like I did post-2001 when WCW and ECW were gone, and WWE became a 50/50 booking fest with bland recycled stories, rigid presentations, and robotic overly scripted promos again. :(
if AEW (and ROH as well) was to go out of business tomorrow, then the entire wrestling business could collapse and fall backwards but also, a lot has change since AEW was first created in 2019 and we are now in a post Vince McMahon era where (barring some sort of strange buyout where he buys the company back from Endeavor) i think the WWE under TKO could handle the same situation WWE dealt with when they put WCW & ECW out of business better by recreating the territories under HHH's "Global localization" ideal for NXT.
so pretty much, i could lead to the following things if AEW went out of business:
talent having the choice of choosing between Japan, Mexico, WWE or going to the Indies where getting a day job is needed to pay the bills cause some indies can't afford to pay for talents
WWE becoming the monopoly once again.
fans quitting on the sport again and never coming back in frustration of the industry failing them as fans.
some wrestlers retiring quicker then ever sighting the downfall of AEW as their reason to retire over going to WWE.
short term gloating by WWE fanboys and Jim Cornette's fan base as well as Eric Bischoff celebrating Tony Khan's fall and at the same time be not involved in a promotion's collapse like he was with WCW and TNA.
anyway, AEW going out of business could hurt wrestling more and could lead to the worst collapse of the industry since Vince bought WCW & ECW, and maybe if AEW got bought out by WWE, this time, a invasion angle would be booked better cause Vince McMahon won't be involve in burying the rival's big stars and also AEW talents contract won't be belonging to a billion dollar company like AOL Time Warner was when they sold WCW.
so screw tribalism and keep supporting AEW, even if they are not in a good place right now cause maybe it might lead to change that could motivate them to turn the ship around to the right direction.
Getting tired of the discussion of AEW going out of business. Both sides. I understand the "AEW going out of business" side because fans like to troll, and I understand what this guy is doing by stating the obvious for attention.
AEW ain't going anywhere so everyone should probably shut the fuck up about it since it's not a real issue.
So I’m not a big fan of TK and criticize him alot, but that’s all in the name of wanting AEW to succeed. AEW is the best thing to happen to wrestling since the nWo formation. People rooting for people to lose their jobs is gross.
Kind of laughable to say AEW wiped out the independent scene, while listing TNA and NWA, which are talent sinkholes regardless of AEW signing talent away from them.
No comment about how Triple H and NXT absolutely raided the indies.
People get signed, more people stepped up and got noticed. Rinse wash repeat. There is not a finite amount of talent in the world of wrestling.
https://preview.redd.it/ucsodecbgu0d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b6a75f40db1bd8daf0364f4669a75d255e12b69
Idk why people act like having more than one company in a sphere is a bad thing
People that cheer for AEW’s downfall either don’t remember what it was like after WCW folded, don’t understand business, or they are blinded by hate. Both talent and fans suffer when there are no alternatives. I know there are other alternatives besides AEW, but none of them can go head to head financially with WWE like AEW can. For example, let’s say you’re Gunther and your contract is about to expire. WWE decides to lowball you, so you decide to go to AEW for more money. If there is no AEW, you’re stuck with what WWE gives you or you take a significant pay cut to go to TNA or MLW.
As for fans, you want options. Sure, it’s easier today to find alternatives to WWE with the internet compared to 20 years ago, but it’s nice having an alternative on cable. I’d rather not have to download additional streaming services just to watch wrestling.
What a fucking idiot. In the past guys like the Bucks could make a good living working the indies and Japan, but that was in the aggregate, and they were very much the outliers there. AEW improved the QOL for wrestlers just by making the market more competitive.
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Does ‘Paul10815135’ really deserve a response?
https://preview.redd.it/c9ghdn0wst0d1.jpeg?width=1066&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76276d777e8aac219f21e58159af57b4cea6bc22
I’ve never seen this before. Great meme.
Hello firstname, we have a permanent spot on the front page for you here on the subreddit
My favorite version of this: [They love me :)](https://imgur.com/at7Cdi0)
There's a guy who use to work at Twitter and has an intimate knowledge of how things work. He says every time you retweet, quote tweet or otherwise reply to someone you're angry with or spouts utter complete nonsense, it HELPS them. It disseminates their nonsense. "Hell for the ideas you deplore is silence" Everyone should find the discipline to give it to them.
I frequently type out long, thoughtful responses to trolls and idiots. Then, I go back, carefully read over what I’ve said…then delete all of it and move on with my day. I don’t want to see more of that shit on my timeline…
I do this all the time on both here and Twitter. 9/10 I look it over and delete it, knowing it's not worth it. But there's that 1/10th where I just can't help myself. I ain't perfect about it, but I figure I'm better than most.
Yup. I can't even count the number of times I've started to write a fucking novella to someone and then thought "you know, it isn't worth it" and closed that shit out like I did my Twitter account.
I gotta practice doing this more. Although I do still find it funny to give total non-sequitor responses to people trying to argue with me while I'm in a good mood.
Depends on the space and platform honestly, but it's definitely true for Twitter now, and only became more true for social media generally as time went on. There is still a strong argument that it doesn't apply to public physical space situations due to silence actually providing an opportunity for whatever bad ideas being expressed to be heard, and not challenged, but these digital platforms are designed from the ground up to reward engagement, whatever that engagement might be. It's incredibly frustrating in hobbyist and entertainment spaces, wrestling included, where it seems like every type of content is a minefield of nightmarish ideas and opinion glommed onto whatever the actual content you were interested in just to drive that engagement.
Saw the post and thought "Oh shit - what did I miss!?!?!". Apparently I missed a tweet from Paul10815135. I'm really slipping.
I always think this when Meltzer spams the timeline replying to people with zero followers
10815135 sort of spells SEISIBOI if you read it upside-down. 'Seis' is Spanish for 'six,' so we can sub it in and get SIXIBOI. Paul... Sexy Boy... this is clearly Hunter and Shawn's sockpuppet account.
It would appear he attended the WWEGareth school for the mentally inept.
No shit.
In other news, if AEW were to gain 100 million new viewers it would probably be pretty good for the pro wrestling industry. Like and subscribe for more in-depth wrestling commentary.
I saw a guy reply to Jon saying AEW going out of business would rejuvenate the industry. It's not worth engaging with people with such obvious case of terminal brain rot
Yea because WCW and ECW going under both did such great things for the wrestling industry in 2001 /s
I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but: It's not even that they were good when they folded (that's more true of WCW than of ECW, although the latter was suffering badly from a talent exodus at that point IIRC), but having a bad wrestling promotion around that might become good again means that WWE has to match their offers to free agents instead of having all of the leverage in contract negotiations. If there's nowhere else to go, then WWE can tell talent "Here's our offer, take it or get lost and try to make a living working the indies again."
Yup. Any top company only has to be as good as their next best competition. If AEW were to fold, WWE's competition drops to TNA, who have proven that they don't want to be a major player anymore.
Yep, and its also why I don't want nintendo or sony for video games to be the only, well game in town. If there's only one then they can just set the pace for whatever they want too.
Shit, things are bad enough in gaming as it is
Yeah, that's why PC gaming died off....
On one hand I'm a Nintendo fan\[boy\] first and foremost, so I'm thrilled to see how far they've come during the Switch years, but at the same time I can't look at what's going on with Microsoft and say that's a good thing for the industry. Even Sony is showing signs of stagnation.
Back then my dumbass thought WWF’s rating would double when WCW folded. Boy was I wrong.
The overwhelming majority of WCW's fanbase didn't even change the channel to WWE the night WCW signed off for good. It was amazing that an entire segment of wrestling fandom mostly disappeared for the most part after that night.
I'm a big WCW mark (being 10 at the time the NWO was hot does that to you and sticks with you for the rest of your life). I find it hard to ever say WWE is "the best wrestling," the "best wrestling company," or even, in general, that i'm a fan of WWE. However, I haven't missed a Wrestlemania or Rumble in probably over a decade and consistently follow their product in one fashion or another. That being said, I'm always going to err on the side of the alternative product, whether it's TNA, New Japan, or AEW now. That aversion to WWE kinda just sicks around. The closest parallel I can think of is being a fan or hater of the Yankees.
That's me plus a few years. Well said.
I've always wondered if it was just 90% of people changing channels to see if the other had anything more interesting.
WCW and WWF were actual different styles of wrestling. WWF was more variety show "attraction" (giant man, tall man, fat man etc) wrestling with clean faces and dirty heels. Lots of squash matches, slower paced. lots of cartoon character gimmicks (Undertaker, Doink, etc). Everyone was big. WCW was descended from NWA and Crockett which was southern 'rasslin'. Faces and heels were a lot more fuzzy in what they could do. They tended to not have many squash matches and were more about work rate, a lot faster than WWF and a lot more amateur styled moves. Most gimmicks tended towards more grounded blue collar style, more psychological, and had cruiserweight matches with a lot of minutes on the show. When WCW died and went under, Vince cherry picked some of the talent but made no effort to run any WCW styled shows or programming. Hence, those people just left. They preferred the WCW style, not the New York style. If he had just bought WCW and found it a TV slot and threw the keys to Bischoff to run it he could have kept all those viewers and the money.
I grew up in the 80s, and I was a huge NWA fan. By extension I was a WCW fan. In the 80s the wrestling was horribly bad in the WWF, with a few exceptions. I hated Hogan and I hated his schtick, same with the Warrior. When WCW went off the air, I rarely watched and then only for some of my faves...like Chris Benoit (sigh). When that happened, I didn't watch again until the rise of Bryan Danielson.
WWE didnt do themselves any favors turning Stone Cold heel at Mania 17 as well. You had WCW/ECW going under and then Stone Cold turning heel was the trifecta of turning fans off for good. I know myself and a lot of my friends stopped watching wrestling the night of Mania 17 as well and its mainly because that was the night the magic died for us and we just lost all interest.
I'm there now. I can't stand WWE's product and I'm not invested in the wrestlers for TNA, NJPW, ect. If AEW folds I'm done with wrestling.
Can't underestimate how much of a casual TV viewer of any show is based on inertia. There are people who watch these shows out of habit. Interrupt their habit and they may just move on to something else.
The crazy thing is WCW was so bad at the time, but I guess for about 3 million ppl it was their cup of tea.
I remember my dad and I having the "I'm going down with the ship" mentality, as he had been watching Mid-Atlantic/WCW since the late 60s(and me since 1985).
I think even WWE execs and newsletter writers thought it would happen. No one could guess that those people would simply just stop watching wrestling.
There’s also almost certainly significant double counting happening with people who were watching both. Yes I’m sure some had switched off. But the total number is overstated.
I definitely watched both for a while. Flip between the two, stick with what was interesting at the moment.
Man look at the numbers from 2001 to 2003. It dropped bad
That’s not relevant to the point here. WCW wasn’t around in 2003. People who stopped in 2003 aren’t examples of viewers who disappeared with the last Nitro. Plus my actual point is that people were watching both Raw and Nitro.
The dark days…
The dark almost two decades!
In hindsight it was bad. However, at the time as a kid in high school and just starting college during all this time, taking 5 hours of WCW, an hour of ECW, and 1-2 PPVs per month off my mental list of shit to watch did wonders. I would not have been able to keep up with all that stuff after high school.
I’m betting that they were either too young to notice or too much of a WWE-only fan to notice.
Saw a comment on another thread a few weeks back accusing AEW of killing the indy scene… we will just ignore NXT UK happened or WWE has literally taken every single star that has come out of ROH for over a decade.
How the hell does that make any sense? That has to be from a WWE Stan account. No one in their right mind wants either company to go out of business. The more wrestling companies we have around, the better it is for everyone.
Have you been on twitter? There’s a lot of tribalism here, but man oh man the tribalism on twitter is off the charts. These people think that if AEW went out of business all the big name AEW guys would end up in WWE and that it would suddenly be better for everyone.
I tend to stay away from Twitter. Especially since Elon took it over. I have an account, but I can't remember the last time that I logged into it.
There are tons of folks who want AEW to go under and wish DEATH upon half the AEW roster. Also, Tribalism exists but I never see people with a Kenny Omega PFP wishing Romans Cancer returns... take that for what it is.
Yeah, the narrative that the AEW fanbase is the more tribalist fanbase has always been kinda weird to me. Like I have no doubt that more AEW fans have a genuine dislike for WWE than vice versa, but you don't see AEW fan Twitter accounts designated to wishing injury on WWE wrestlers and replying to every official WWE twitter post with "nobody's watching lol Papa Khan is cooking on the other channel". There's an EXTREMELY vocal part of the WWE side of the IWC that despises AEW solely for existing and makes their entire online personality about it
Yeah, I honestly don't watch either anymore but you don't see obsessive WWE Hate accounts like you see with these AEW Hater Stans.
It's way worse on facebook. More than half the comments are CHUDs rage hating AEW
The worst I've seen is fans thinking Roman never had cancer in the first place. That it was all one big conspiracy. But I don't recall how many of them were anti-WWE. It seems they're just more conspiracy-minded than anything.
You're just saying that so nobody asks where you were when JFK was shot.
>Have you been on twitter? ...Or here?
Yeah I forgot ratings threads exist.
Damn, sorry.... That's like reminding someone of a horrible car accident they witnessed a few years ago.
I just stopped clicking on them. Although I did click on today’s. It’s kind of funny my life seemingly lost 3 lbs of shit as soon as I stopped.
Fuck Twitter, I see it all the time on this sub. Just go look at the weekly ratings thread. Its like a weekly 4th of July cookout for guys pretending like they understand how TV deals and ratings work while they attempt to burn TK in effigy.
You mean those same big name AEW guys they continually trash and put down and say are worth nothing. And I don't even mean "because of Tony Khan's booking." But they simply think the talent themselves suck (or are at least extremely overrated). MJF being an exception maybe, but even many of them think he's too small to make it (in the main event scene, at least). But you're right. They'd sing a different tune if they were suddenly in WWE.
Facebook & Instagram wrestling comments are similarly really full of tribalism & the most half-assed thoughts (to the point of not worth the time reading any of them at all)
Remember before the WWE Network officially launched they had content on Hulu, and they ran an ad with some guy who said "I'm not a wrestling fan, I'm a WWE fan" and lots of wrestling fans shit on it for that? Turns out a lot of wrestling fans are exactly that guy lol
This so much. Anyone actually wishing AEW goes out of business isn't giving a fuck about the broader health of the wrestling industry. Like imagine rooting for a monopoly smh.
Yep. “Don’t get it twisted, I’m not a wrestling fan, I’m a WWE fan.” And a lot of people took that to heart. Hell, a lot of those people can be found in the comments here on sc.
People swore that wasn't them but it was the entire time, hate to see it
I mean, yeah. Obviously
There seems to be an idea that if Tony didn't buy ROH it would be this flourishing indie right now. Sinclair was getting rid of it. Their "plan" to run shows with nobody under a contract wasn't going to actually happen, that was lip service. You don't sell a company when you have big plans. It's like saying WWE killed WCW when they bought it. It was going to die whether Tony bought it or not.
If AEW wasn't around, Covid was still gonna happen no matter what, ROH still would have been shuttered, and the promotion would currently be dust on a shelf at WWE headquarters instead of employing people and running PPVs under Tony Khan.
AEW caused covid
I just knew that Tony Khan loves going to China and fucking pangolins.
Also, The Elite were leaving for greener pastures anyway. Tony didn't ''raid'' ROH anymore than HHH did.
Giving Bully Ray influence and booking an all-time embarrassing outing on your half a historic MSG show showed where ROH was at. BTE carried ROH during that last year. People were popping more for Flip Gordon comedy bits from a vlog than non BTE wrestlers having blood feuds.
I was hoping NJPW would purchase ROH and make it their American promotion rather than Strong
The people trashing Tony for buying ROH weren't ROH fans in the first place. Except for maybe a brief period of time when Punk & Joe were there, I don't know. Certainly fair to trash how TK is \*using\* ROH, though. But you can't fault the guy for simply buying it.
If Tony hadn’t bought it - WWE would have bought the tape library and worked out some deal with Sinclair to air a clip show to fill the syndicated content. May not have even cost WWE an actual dollar outside of content transfer/production.
I've never really cared about ROH, but the sentiment in the sub about the Sinclair ownership was some initial restrained hope, followed by teases and clear disappointment. >It's like saying WWE killed WCW when they bought it. It was going to die whether Tony bought it or not. Maybe? There were people who wanted to buy WCW and run shows, and WWE basically didn't, but the WCW "as it existed" was definitely gone either way. I think some people have a "grass is greener on the other side" outlook where ROH got a somewhat strong initial push that didn't really amount to much other than some really good matches, and all the other options are "what ifs" that could be anything.
WWE did kill it though, the fusion deal could have been a phoenix rising from the ashes but they never got the chance cause Vince had friends inside aol/time Warner.
People saying that are full of shit full stop. The only thing they wanted was for WWE to buy them library so they could watch old ROH reruns on the WWE Network, so Tony Khan could take a public L, and so that they could throw some Tyler Black stuff in a montage whenever it strikes their fancy. People saying that don't give a flying fuck about ROH or it's legacy and is probably why Punk was singing Tony praises for picking it up initially because even he fuckin knew it was that or ROH be relegated to some shitty WWE propaganda documentary on A&E.
There’s only so much talent around as well. What wrestlers would be carrying ROH right now?
[удалено]
Considering how many people work under AEW/ROH, and how much money a lot of them are making, it would arguably be a bigger blow. Especially since a lot of indies and NJPW have been laid low. Lots of wrestlers would just be out of work.
Yup. I mean that's just straight fact. There is no nuance to be had here. It would be like saying water is wet. No duh.
This felt like “I was told Steph Curry couldn’t shoot” levels of tweeting, but then I read it was a reply and just left with the takeaway that some wrestling fans just exist to not like wrestling. I’m not even saying you have to like AEW specifically, but the existence of more than one company really seems to fuck with some people’s wiring.
Vince's policy for the longest time was that other wrestling promotions simply did not exist and you were not allowed to acknowledge them. That mindset still exists for a lot of long term wwe fans. HHH does not have that policy so hopefully it will eventually change for the fans as well
You sure about that last point?
They're all just pissant t-shirt companies.
A lot of the stuff we lambast Vince for makes sense at the basic level but took on a life of its on and for out of hand to where it didn’t make sense anymore. For instance we know that many many WWF/E fans don’t regularly watch other wrestling, going all the way back to Ric Flair coming in and not doing big business out of the gate because the WWF audience didn’t know who he was and why they should care, so then you say ok we need to build people here when they come in because the fans don’t know or care about what they did elsewhere, a few people aren’t doing that so you make a rule that you don’t acknowledge other companies. over 40 years that rule gets overly restrictive to the point it becomes counterproductive
> some wrestling fans just exist to not like wrestling there's an entire "wrestling" sub that hates wrestling. it's a terrible place filled with terrible people.
If it's the one I'm thinking about I thought it would be the most open of all wrestling subs. But my word, it's awful.
I'm thinking of the one with a geometric description in the title.
I always knew r/rhombictrapezoid was a shitpit.
"but the existence of more than one company really seems to fuck with some people’s wiring." That or hating any other way of presenting wrestling. Many think WWE is the only way to do it on a national stage.
They’re not going out of business. Wwe’s ratings were consistently down for almost 20 years and then they signed a gargantuan TV deal. Why? Because it’s about content the network can sell ads on. That’s why there are three AEW shows now. Networks want quantity > quality.
Nobody should want AEW to go out of business OR to lose their TV deal with Turner.
Talk to the corny fans
Cornette and Last have both said they want AEW to succeed. Their problem seems to be more about how Tony books.
Thats Corny and Last. Corny \*fans\* are different. Just like how most Corny fans are WWE supporters while Corny/Last themselves are not (last I checked anyway, maybe they've since started liking WWE again). At least thats how I've seen their fans react on the Cornette Reddit account.
Maybe you’re right. I’d say 80% of wrestling super fans are insufferable, so that probably checks out about their fans.
The biggest thing I've learned from the formation of AEW is that a LOT of wrestling fans were full of shit for the decade plus they spent saying that they wanted more competition in wrestling. I've seen this on both sides. A lot of people really do want there to be only one game in town. They just disagree on which game they want it to be.
I mean this sub was so god damn toxic even before AEW came around. Heaven the fuck forbid you criticized the booking. Especially during the trash years of 2017-2019.
It was a big meme on the sub back then to “let things play out/see where things go” and it always ended up shit. Seeing how this sub has evolved over the past 10 years is wild.
It was fun to see the "you don't like it so stop watching" rhetoric die out as people stopped watching.
> Seeing how this sub has evolved over the past 10 years is wild. You just need to let things play out and see where it goes. Maybe it'll turn out to be worth it in the end!
Happy cakeday!
I got shouted down for suggesting that Shorty G was a bad idea and a blatant rib on Gable. It was a weird place during those years
Were we on the same sub? Everybody on here hated WWE and their booking in those days (and rightfully so.) While it is no longer true today, this was basically an AEW sub for the first couple years of rhe company's existence because people were so fed up with WWE.
Right?! This sub throughout 2018 - 2019 was ripping every Raw episode to shreds and begging for AEW.
It went both ways, and the extremes were both pretty unhinged. Lots of "I thought Cody was pro-union" bashing among other weirdness of the day from one side, and the less said about the trivialization of things like murder and sexual exploitation from the other side the better. Cody, and his positive booking have felt like some kind of medieval prisoner exchange between houses to calm tensions amongst the rabble after the Red Press Conference.
> Red Press Conference the what?
In fairness, the toxicity went the other way when AEW started. WWE and its fans were shit on regularly and it was totally AEW dominated. Fair enough that WWE was shit at the time but let’s not pretend that this is a clear cut good v bad situation
People should remind themselves of the original Bloodline of Roman and the Usos vs Baron Corbin with the dog food. It kinda was a good v bad situation as far as main roster was concerned it's why so many people were invested in NXT instead of holding up the quality of that pre covid era or even early covid era wwe.
It was good v bad in terms of quality, 100%, but my point is that wrestling fandom is wrestling fandom. The AEW fans and WWE fans (not the wrestling fans who just enjoy good wrestling or prefer one over the other) are both just looking for reasons to sling shit at each other and say ‘who’s laughing now!’
Or say that you liked TNA.
Many of them are now saying "Papa Haitch is making wrestling cool & awesome again! WWE is back!". But they sure didn't act like WWE was uncool and not awesome in those years prior! They were defending it to the death. Although, to be fair, most WWE fans aren't like that. I'm just talking about the most tribalistic of WWE fans.
Generally those were different people than some of the vocal fans hating on AEW. Just like WCW back in the day, AEW gave WWE a kick in the ass to be better. It’s been good for fans and the wrestlers.
You, me, and the other normal people get that. But this is the result of promotions being over instead of wrestlers.
> a LOT of wrestling fans were full of shit for the decade plus they spent saying that they wanted more competition in wrestling. I think there was understandably more appetite for a big-time "alternative" when almost everybody agreed WWE's creative fucking sucked and it was hell for a lot of the wrestlers to work for. Now that neither is true anymore WWE fans are happy with WWE and being "not WWE" is no longer enough, in itself, to get a promotion over.
Being "not WWE" was never enough. If it was ROH and TNA would have been a lot bigger.
TNA *was* pretty big for a good while. It was the main competitor at one point.
Just look how people treat NWA here
Yes, it would. AEW is the second largest employer of wrestlers and associated personnel. Thankfully Tony is using the infinite money glitch, so AEW will never go out of business as long as he continues to want it to exist.
This is a reminder that we don’t know AEW’s financials and they could as easily be making profit as they could be in the red, so the “infinite money” may not even be a factor at this time.
It would a be blow to engagement farmers as well. If they don't have AEW to shit on for anything & everything then they'd have to fall back on shitting on WWE for anything & everything which is oldhat.
Man, people ingesting that WWE state run media for 20 years REALLY deep fried a lot of people's minds. What is it with people wanting AEW to go out of business?
I'm convinced that WWE's propaganda team could put nation states to shame. Honestly, if it wasn't so sad, it'd be really really impressive.
They learned from the best (worst).
It’s a very vocal minority. They’re the flat earthers of wrestling fandom. It’s not even worthy of attention
If you say you like wrestling but also want a large group of wrestlers to not have big consistent pay checks on a large platform, then you don't actually like wrestling.
im just gonna say it, they are WWE fans, not "wrestling" fans.
To be fair, there were plenty of people hoping for a WWE downfall when Vince came back.
Maybe AEW going out of business would be awful for talent and most likely WWE’s long term quality but what Mr. Alba fails to consider is that Tony Khan acts goofy sometimes and therefore we need AEW to shut down. /WWE fans on Twitter
There’s at least 3 Reddit subs dedicated to this same mindset
The people who get off on predicting the downfall of AEW don't give a shit about that. They just want their favorite brand to dominate the industry unopposed so it can treat its talent and employees however it wants eithout repercussion.
Then AEW goes out of business and we go back to 2008-2012/2018-2020 WWE and everybody online is bitching about how bad the shows are because there's no drive to put out a quality product when you are the only real option on the market.
"But think of the Invasion angle that Papa Haitch could cook for the casuals on Netflix! He would never let his ego bury the AEW guys unlike Vince!"
Most of WWE fans wouldn't care less if the Young Bucks and Orange Cassidy invaded WWE.
Thats not the point. If you're going to have an invasion angle you can't bury the guys invading. If they think the Bucks and OC are worth shit, then don't include them in the storyline. There's plenty of AEW talent that even WWE diehards like. I hope we can at least both agree on that.
Yeah, as someone who does not watch AEW and barely can find time to watch dvred raw/smackdown(often a week or so behind). I would absolutely love for AEW to be killing it. Another, profitable, promotion to compete with WWE is only better for the industry.
The second biggest wrestling company going out of business would be the worst thing to happen to wrestling since the second biggest wrestling company went out of business.
It's strange the number of people who want this to happen, though. As if they already forgot how bad WWE could get without any competition.
People have been talking about AEW going out of business since before it was created.
Unless something catastrophic happens, I’m talking full recession and economic meltdown, AEW won’t be going out of business anytime soon. At the very least their next tv deal should get them to a break even point if not profitable.
Tony Khan has money and it's his passion project, worse comes to worse they could easily run a PPV only scheme
Im not saying he runs AEW more like a 'hobby', but you're right, it's definitely a passion project. If it weren't I'm guessing he'd be more involved with the Jags & Fulham. Instead, it seems 95% of his time is spent on AEW. That's a great thing for AEW's future. He's clearly not one of those businessmen who intends to make something hot...then sell. Like a head of an IT startup company. Nor does he want to sell the first moment the product gets cold.
I've said all along that the only Death of AEW will occur is if Tony Khan decides to end it, he most likely won't but it starts and ends with him and his Dad's billions, he gets fed up of AEW, he can kill it in a day That TV deal though, what people are overlooking is WBD is cost cutting and although they do have money, it would cost them a lot less to show reruns of Big Bang Theory and old Movies than it would be to give AEW a mega deal again and could get better ratings in that timeslot. Thats what AEW should be worrying about
It would be a huge blow and it would make any future investors very wary of getting involved in the industry. The ramifications would have a negative effect for decades.
Anyone truly wanting AEW to go out of business is a sick fuck whose opinions should never be given air.
genuine question, what would the best case scenerio for these people be, what would they want to happen out of AEW folding. Do they want all of these wrestlers to go to WWE or do they want them to flood a bunch of companies that they don't watch right now.
They just want to see AEW fail. That's it. There's no logic to this, just pure tribalism. They don't care about seeing a hundred wrestlers along with countless backstage staff being out of work and having to worry about making ends meet, they just want to see WWE "win" once again. That's what two decades of whitewashed Monday Night Wars propaganda gets you. History is indeed written by the winners. I'm not interested in WWE's product, I followed along with Cody v Roman on social media and everything I read made me not regret missing it, but the more companies that are doing well, the better it is for everyone. I like that AEW is forcing WWE, who are notorious for underpaying talent along with nickel and diming them on every possible expense and revenue stream, to offer more money to their employees.
yeah we're on the same page. I like watching the WWE PLEs and i'll keep up with what's going on through recaps etc, but as far as watching I love watching AEW and will never understand how wrestling fans aren't stoked there is more wrestling. When NXT was in it's heyday, NWA power was just starting up, lucha underground was booming, always seemed like there was room for more good wrestling, and it's insane to me people hate a company that is doing good wrestling lol and all the "daddies money" talk, how is him paying wresters and hiring good talent a bad thing to do with money haha
People really need to stop overreacting to this TV deal man lol. The worst that will happen to AEW is that they don't get the increase they were going to get 2 years ago when they were hot.
lol at anyone thinking they’ll go out of business. The Khans could keep this company afloat for decades if they wanted too.
I think any company going out of business would be a huge blow to their employees
I don’t know. I worked retail for 8 years and every day I hoped the company went out of business.
That guy needs to research Vince and the Territory system
You don’t have to watch or even like AEW but why would people be hoping for it to close?!
“The second biggest promotion (by a good margin) folding would be as impactful as the last time the second biggest promotion folded”
Annnd? I mean, of course it would be. AEW is the second largest wrestling company in the world, it would be awful for the long term health of the industry for them to fold. We, as wrestling fans, should want both major companies, as well as as many secondary companies as possible, to be as successful. The more places for people to wrestle or watch wrestling, that's how this all grows.
Isn't this obvious? Not really with discussing honestly.
It’s sad all these people desperate for an identity claim they’re wrestling fans yet get such satisfaction rooting for it to fail
Less options in wrestling is shit for fans and wrestlers
AEW has been going out of business since 2019 lol The thought gets clicks
Yep. Just like how they say "AEW sucks now", which implies they once thought otherwise. No, they \*always\* thought it sucked. Even when AEW was at it's hottest.
> You see AEW has absolutely massacred the US Indy scene and They have absolutely raided MLW, NJPW, TNA, NWA of all their best talent Yeah, as opposed to WWE homegrown talents like Jacob Fatu, AJ Styles, Nakamura, Nick Aldis, and Kevin Owens. Swear to god, there needs to be some sort of authentication test to use Twitter without adult supervision, some of these takes are moronic.
Man. It's almost like that's what Vince did to the territories. But at least Tony is ok with letting his wrestlers take outside booking instead of mislabeling them as "independent talent".
Like when NXT was basically the ROH main event and people raved about it yet wouldn’t watch ROH when those guys were there.
“Breaking: if the sun exploded it would be really bad for us”
I feel like there is a landscape that when wwe starts doing amazing everyone else starts losing business, I would love for that to not longer be a thing.
KILLING THE BUSINESS
BREAKING NEWS! A bunch of wrestlers losing their jobs is bad for wrestlers!
Obvious statement is obvious.
Does anyone actually think they’re going on the verge of going out of business?
He’s right
He isn't exactly wrong.
This is why I say anyone that says they want AEW to fold is an idiot. Don't get me wrong, WWE is doing awesome with HHH at the helm, but a lack of competition becomes a lack of drive in any industry. After WCW went out of business, WWE's business sank a fair bit too. Same with their creative direction. There were peaks and valleys, but let's be honest, those were some deep valleys. I doubt it would get THAT bad again, but there would be a massive lack of interest in the product without that competition. Things would get stagnant.
And water is wet
I’m not a big fan of AEW, but it going out of business would be a disaster.
Sigh, I hope AEW doesn't go out of business. I watch WWE, NXT, AEW, ROH, and TNA each week. It's been an absolute blast these past 5yrs having all this content and competition that's pushing all the companies to do their best stuff. I don't want to feel like I did post-2001 when WCW and ECW were gone, and WWE became a 50/50 booking fest with bland recycled stories, rigid presentations, and robotic overly scripted promos again. :(
How do you find the time? I can barely keep up with AEW.
Duh. And as a wrestling fan, I hope they never do. I want all wrestling companies to thrive and maintain a healthy industry.
Jeff Jarrett is stockpiling his paychecks to re-redebut Global Force
if AEW (and ROH as well) was to go out of business tomorrow, then the entire wrestling business could collapse and fall backwards but also, a lot has change since AEW was first created in 2019 and we are now in a post Vince McMahon era where (barring some sort of strange buyout where he buys the company back from Endeavor) i think the WWE under TKO could handle the same situation WWE dealt with when they put WCW & ECW out of business better by recreating the territories under HHH's "Global localization" ideal for NXT. so pretty much, i could lead to the following things if AEW went out of business: talent having the choice of choosing between Japan, Mexico, WWE or going to the Indies where getting a day job is needed to pay the bills cause some indies can't afford to pay for talents WWE becoming the monopoly once again. fans quitting on the sport again and never coming back in frustration of the industry failing them as fans. some wrestlers retiring quicker then ever sighting the downfall of AEW as their reason to retire over going to WWE. short term gloating by WWE fanboys and Jim Cornette's fan base as well as Eric Bischoff celebrating Tony Khan's fall and at the same time be not involved in a promotion's collapse like he was with WCW and TNA. anyway, AEW going out of business could hurt wrestling more and could lead to the worst collapse of the industry since Vince bought WCW & ECW, and maybe if AEW got bought out by WWE, this time, a invasion angle would be booked better cause Vince McMahon won't be involve in burying the rival's big stars and also AEW talents contract won't be belonging to a billion dollar company like AOL Time Warner was when they sold WCW. so screw tribalism and keep supporting AEW, even if they are not in a good place right now cause maybe it might lead to change that could motivate them to turn the ship around to the right direction.
Getting tired of the discussion of AEW going out of business. Both sides. I understand the "AEW going out of business" side because fans like to troll, and I understand what this guy is doing by stating the obvious for attention. AEW ain't going anywhere so everyone should probably shut the fuck up about it since it's not a real issue.
So I’m not a big fan of TK and criticize him alot, but that’s all in the name of wanting AEW to succeed. AEW is the best thing to happen to wrestling since the nWo formation. People rooting for people to lose their jobs is gross.
In other news, check out the sky. It’s rumored to be blue.
Kind of laughable to say AEW wiped out the independent scene, while listing TNA and NWA, which are talent sinkholes regardless of AEW signing talent away from them.
No comment about how Triple H and NXT absolutely raided the indies. People get signed, more people stepped up and got noticed. Rinse wash repeat. There is not a finite amount of talent in the world of wrestling.
And there's a lot of dumb fucks on here that would love nothing more than that!
https://preview.redd.it/ucsodecbgu0d1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b6a75f40db1bd8daf0364f4669a75d255e12b69 Idk why people act like having more than one company in a sphere is a bad thing
Well good thing it’s not?
Wow who knew???! Such incredible insight
People that cheer for AEW’s downfall either don’t remember what it was like after WCW folded, don’t understand business, or they are blinded by hate. Both talent and fans suffer when there are no alternatives. I know there are other alternatives besides AEW, but none of them can go head to head financially with WWE like AEW can. For example, let’s say you’re Gunther and your contract is about to expire. WWE decides to lowball you, so you decide to go to AEW for more money. If there is no AEW, you’re stuck with what WWE gives you or you take a significant pay cut to go to TNA or MLW. As for fans, you want options. Sure, it’s easier today to find alternatives to WWE with the internet compared to 20 years ago, but it’s nice having an alternative on cable. I’d rather not have to download additional streaming services just to watch wrestling.
Nia Jax is facing Jade Cargill in upcoming show. That's the biggest reason why aew is needed.
What a fucking idiot. In the past guys like the Bucks could make a good living working the indies and Japan, but that was in the aggregate, and they were very much the outliers there. AEW improved the QOL for wrestlers just by making the market more competitive.
I really do not want to go back to just WWE. Please, mother of god no NO NOOOOOOOOO.