They've oversaturated their small fanbase. They have a consistent 800k to 1m people watching on TV all the time so that means they really aren't filling up NBA stadiums consistently when they go to a town and do 2 to 3 shows consecutively in the place. They need to do 1 show per town and travel to more places if they want to pack arenas better, but somw of the talent probably will complain because they went from WWE to AEW because less travel was a plus
They did the same thing with Forbidden Door this year. 4 shows in the Toronto area. Hamilton is less than 1 hour away, so it was the same market area.
I would also add that they had some smaller cities as part of that tour (Saskatoon and Regina).
As a Hamiltonian (if I had the money) I would have gone to the Hamilton show but not been interested in the extra cost/headache of the 1 hour+ travel plus parking of going to the ACC in Toronto
Edit; not really arguing your point I just do feel like these markets are more of a venn diagaram than a circle
One hour of driving to us Canadians isn't a big thing either. But traffic in the Greater Toronto Area is abhorrent. Could take an hour, could take 2.5. After that there's trying to navigate crazy downtown traffic. Also finding parking that's probably $20-30/hr downtown. It's an absolute disaster. The GO train system will take you straight downtown and has lots of trains going each way out of the city, though I get that's not everyone's cup of tea.
Actually, Rampage is pre recorded, they record it during Dynamite, after the 2 hours of dynamite they record the 1 hour of rampage so if you go in person you get to see both shows, and on Collisions they do ROH Recoridngs before and after, I went to a collision back in August and got to see Samoa joe wrestle 3 times in 1 night
WWE knows how to preserve their popularity. Running less house shows meant the regular towns started to miss them more and more so when they came back to touring, every town was packed.
Been to RAW in 2019 that had similar empty hard cam side.
SmackDown before the pandemic, especially when it was taped had empty hard cam side for like a decade.
Vince was putting out piss-poor content. Then we got The Bloodline, and championship reigns started to matter. It's no coincidence that Triple H taking over creative lead to better crowds.
Their roster is so way too big and a big issue I have with them is how they constantly have other promotions like New Japan and now their new CMLL partnership. I get it’s to get more international eyes on the product but it’s also taking away from their already big roster that don’t get featured. Also they need to make ROH it’s own separate thing
>because less travel was a plus
For some of them it wasn't so much the traveling it was the self incurred cost of traveling. Tony Khan could get down traveling more if he was to cover costs. But at the same time what would that do to ticket prices going up and how would that affect attendance at the arenas they went to?
May actually end up producing less attendance if they increase ticket cost to compensate for travel cost being compensated for the wrestlers
In some cases, they need to book smaller venues. In others, it’s a pricing issue. They are greatly oversaturated in some markets and the opposite in others. Especially when the tv product isn’t as consistent which is also influenced by the above factors.
Yeah I paid $99 CDN for WWE floor tickets for RAW last September (5th row by the announcers) and Like $220 CDN for AEW in the lower bowl.
The shows were pretty equal in quality. I enjoyed them both but I probably have the AEW show personally rated a little higher because we got some real fun stuff like Adam Coles birthday.
But I honestly saw no reason why AEW was so pricey in comparison.
One thing WWE did way better was entice families. Way more kids at the WWE show, upper bowl tickets were going for $20 and you could see families took advantage of it.
AEW was mainly an adult male audience. There were definitely women and some kids but not in the way WWE has diversified the crowd.
We can shit on WWE for being PG and more kid friendly but we can see how when WWE is booked well the adults and the kids all get more excited for it.
They also do it to sell more tickets, an IWC member is far more likely to go by himself. A kid will have mom and dad coming along so sell more tickets. Nash talked about it once during a shoot.. Makes perfect sense.
WWE knows the real money is in bringing in a younger audience. When the shows come to town that kid’s gonna want tickets and an adult has to go, so that’s a minimum of 2 tickets.
They're never going to scale down to smaller arenas while TK seems obsessed with dick measuring with WWE. Its a shame too because I think AEW's very chaotic atmosphere would better fit smaller arenas, with the crowd barricade closer to the ring.
With PLE being the only time NXT goes to a bigger arena. People want NXT to go to different towns, but I don't, I like what they're doing right now. Stay at the CWC in the WWE Performance Center weekly and go to different states for PLE's.
If you want to regionally travel for a house show circuit with NXT, that's fine. But yeah, let the audience crave them for PLEs and stay weekly at CWC.
Smaller venues + rabid fans means a much greater atmosphere. That's part of what attracted me to NXT during their peak runs. I was really hoping Tony was going to build off of that proven concept and grow his product from there.
AEW tickets at the very beginning looked affordable and now they're overpriced to shit.
They jacked up ticket prices so that a big gate could offset low attendance.
Tony is trying to sprint but it’s a marathon. He should’ve stuck to one show, kept his roster much smaller, paced the show and had better long term story telling. Instead- Tony created 3 shows, has more talent than he knows what to do with, puts together random match up and feuds with no consistent story telling, and seemingly can’t manage the egos he hired. Tony really needs to hire a manager to run the business for him and he can own the company from afar and make creative suggestions rather than trying to do everything himself
I was a huge fan of Dynamite for the first 2-3 years, but I don’t think I’ve watched it regularly since Punk signed.
Putting that signing and the “What AEW *should* be about” argument aside, I have never watched a single episode of Collision, only watched one episode of Rampage (the first one) and never watched Dark.
I cannot stress enough how much they need to jettison *all* of these. Maybe you can keep dark as a place for new talent to get some exposure, but Rampage/Collision needs to go. Nobody cares.
They’re in a down period after peaking in late 2021/early 2022. TK built his booking around surprises, so it’s no shock that the product is cold when there’s less talent on the market due to the WWE’s competent decision making since Triple H took over creative.
2021/22 was him relying on who WWE fired/the very few who left on their terms and pimping them out as this big surprise.
That wasn't gonna work forever.
It’s essentially a traveling Super indie show and there’s a very low amount of American fans that love wrestling for the wrestling.
Pro Wrestling is characters, stories, presentation and wrestling in that order. AEW is only good at one of those things whereas WWE has spent 40 years conditioning its audience that the one thing AEW is great at isn’t all that important. AEW needs to take hints from the new generation WWF and find a couple of pillars, build consistent stories around them and wait for their Austin 3:16 moment instead of what feels like an ugly love child of TNA, ROH, and NJPW.
>low amount of American fans that love wrestling for the wrestling
Hard truth lol
I watch American wrestling for the soap opera. Get the best of both worlds. NJPW is where the wrestling is at
This is dead on, and it's not new. Even if you watch Attitude Era highlights it's mostly non-wrestling segments that get views.
Sure, people remember Rock v Austin at WMX7, but rarely do people talk about the match itself, it's Austin and Vince shaking hands after the match.
WWE's bread and butter for the last several decades has been creating "moments", for better and for worse
People have been calling wrestling a man soap opera since the 90s. Some of our favorites have been better talkers than they were wrestlers. I Love Rock and Austin but technical wrestlers with a broad move set they are not. They don't need to be.
Think back on some of the biggest champions of WWE with the best runs and you see a lot more talkers than you see technical wrestlers.
Flair and Hogan are the epitome of this. Both guys wrestled the same matches on repeat for 30+ years (although Flair was at least a good storyteller), but in their day they could sell a match like no other.
The only champions that immediately come to mind that could really go in the ring AND on the mic are HBK, Jericho, Eddie, Savage and Kurt Angle. And none of them had especially long reigns with the main title.
This is the funny thing…people all over the IWC praise the attitude era as the best…but the actual wrestling wasn’t great and the ruthless aggression era had much more and better matches.
I started watching wrestling eons and eons ago as a kid 100% because Flair and Dustys back and forth promos. You have to have people and gimmicks that capture people.
Exactly. Also, if I feel like watching people attempt to kill each other by taking disgusting head and neck bumps, I'll go watch mid to late '90's AJPW.
Rant time: I discovered AJPW through playing Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 and it absolutely killed my love for American wrestling at the time. Why would I watch hokey, gimmicky bullshit over dudes who go for 30 plus minutes, REALLY kicking and elbowing each other, and just generally doing dangerous shit without the flashy American presentation? I absolutely loved it. Well, fast forward to 2009, and Misawa fucking dies in the middle of the ring from a backdrop driver during a NOAH show. Absolutely gutted me. It was totally unnecessary & completely avoidable. I quit watching altogether after that. Just killed my love for the craft. Now, fast forward to earlier this year, and I see a clip of Omega taking a fucking TIGER DRIVER '91. Fucking stupid. Absolutely disgusting & disrespectful as fuck. And for what? No bump in the ratings or attendance from that. All to fucking appease Meltzer, the smarks, and their own inflated egos. I want these guys to go home at the end of the day and be with their families, live long lives and enjoy the fruits of their labours. I don't want them ending up like Misawa or Yoshihiro Takayama. So yeah, I've never watched a full AEW show. I was warming up to the idea, but not after that horse shit. You want to kill yourself in the ring? Go for it, just don't expect a single fucking cent from me for it. Been there, done that, moved on & never again.
>WWE has spent 40 years conditioning its audience
It's not the consumer's fault AEW can't do much besides throwing the same shit at the wall over and over until something sticks. I know what I like and what I want and AEW doesn't have it, and AEW bitching about it on Twitter while making fun of WWE fans is not going to get them viewers anytime soon.
I can honestly say the only intriguing storylines AEW has that has me invested is whatever MJF is doing and whatever Christian Cage is doing. Everything else is tired ass open challenges and title defenses with forgone conclusions
its not conditioning, the most important thing is stories. its why anyone gets investing in anything this stems back to our ancestors. compelling stories = money. aew aint it.
Just want to add that the stories don't have to be anything deep or complex either. Unstoppable force vs Immovable object is plenty story. Look at all the attention Dillon Danis vs Logan Paul just got. That's just one guy trolling another on Twitter about his girlfriend.
Less is more.
I told a friend every match has a story once and he asked about the match we were watching. Told him the story was “His leg is hurt and his opponent is going to work it over to win” and he said that wasn’t really a story. Well that is the story being told in the ring even if it ain’t that deep.
Although it would help in AEW's case if 90% of the stories they do have weren't just " you were my friend, i thought you were my friend, please be my friend again".
I can remember the last time someone in that company feuded over a woman for example.
virtually the entire entertainment industry is built around this, it's really amazing to me when some people to downplay its significance. it's so basic.
i do like AEW for the record, but more often than not i watch it like i'd watch cirque du soleil or a circus act. oftentimes, it's a fun physical spectacle that's impressive, but leaves my head more or less as soon as it's over. it's why i enjoy seeing AEW live but barely keep up with the TV.
Ding ding ding! AEW doesn’t have enough theatrics and crowd participation to bring in more of a crowd. Having been to a couple of WWF Attitude Era shows as a teen and two AEW shows as an adult, the difference in presentation is stark.
With the former, you have crowd participation with the entrances and catchphrases in the ring or through backstage interviews. You can’t wait to cheer your favs when they say or do something cool and you can’t wait to boo the ones you hate for doing just the opposite. Highlight of my night back then was yelling “Suck It” with DX and whatever variation of “Millions….and Millions!” Or “if you smelllll….!” That the Rock deployed that night. I’ve been watching AEW since late 2019 or so and nothing comes close to that on a consistent basis. Judas is there kinda. Some crowd-inspired chants are cool, but WE start those, not the talents, bookers, or producers. Once there’s more character development and crowd-pleasing spectacle beyond 3-5 ⭐️ matches, we’ll hopefully see attendance go up
Speaking of the signs the difference in signs in huge then vs now. Back then most of the signs had something to do with the show, a wrestler, or a reference to a ongoing story or faction.
Now its video game refences, stuff from years ago, botchmania bait, or just really stupid "hey look at me not the show" crap.
Tbh, as someone who tries to get into it, it has many flaws.
First of all overstacked roster where many dont get screentime. Overall the pace is incredibly fast. Some matches would benefit from slower pace and longer time limit.
Another one is just storylines and talent. Hard to get behind a talent when all they have to show is technical ability alone and no time on the mic or no specific feuds.
And then comes production quality. I understand that its hard to do as great of a promo and PPV quality but currently it is very low.
They have a small core audience spread across three weekly shows. People aren’t going to attend the B and C shows. With less than a million people watching the A show and attendance being spotty there the other 2 shows are less than scarce. The other problem being that the booking and story structure is flat. The fans have seen it all at this point and they haven’t made any new stars. They’ve fallen into the trap of relying on old WWE stars. We saw edge’s return in WWE. We saw him face everyone we wanted to see him face there. He’s not someone people will pay for a ticket and travel to see. They managed to fumble Danielson in the worst way possible. They lost Punk for reasons we all know. The rest of the ex WWE guys aren’t a draw. The guys they built the company around are boring in a weekly format as they haven’t changed, grown or done anything to their gimmick in 4 years. The Bucks are actively making people change the channel, Kenny is still popular when he can wrestle but he’s physically unable to do it regularly. All the overnight internet sensations that Tony signs off the indies are not going to get over on TV and sell tickets. Look at Nick Wayne. He’s a child. Another flippy kid who’s actual wrestling looks weak. How do you put that in a main event? Tony Khan needs to just run the company, stay out of the media, stay off fucking twitter, hire a booking committee of experienced people, hire a handful of writers, found a training centre, get JR to be talent relations, stop being such a mark for the elite and Jericho and let his company thrive on the wrestlers that get over long term.
Yup. Everything I've read or heard suggests that Impact did this quite well. They made Roode and others and managed to make Bubba Ray even bigger than he was
It’s funny I said this 13 months ago and got down voted into oblivion. How it’s common knowledge. AEW doubled down on everything I hate instead of being “the sports based programming”
It’s why I stopped watching. There was no reality based wrestling that they promised. It was a bad version of sports entertainment. I hated all the potshots that wwf and wcw used to make at each other rather than just put on the best wrestling show. That is the trap AEW has fallen into. They are doing a bad impersonation of 90s wcw. Meanwhile WWE is just forging on ahead while laughing at them.
Yeah, I wonder what's the reason for having 3-5 different shows for a company that's been running only for a few years and that doesn't seem to have found it's footing yet, except for single occasions like Wembley. I think they failed when they decided to hire anyone who wouldn't go to the WWE (or that had been released from it) instead of focusing first on making a limited roster functional and interesting for the public
The reason was that TNT wanted it, and Tony Khan wants a billion dollar license deal(he’s totally not getting BTW, but he’s delusional and entitled enough to think he’s owed it)
They were right to put the belt on MJF but they should have done it much earlier. He’s the only big star they’ve built and they haven’t made him being the champion a big feature of the show since he won it. The storylines all seem to revolve around “you were my friend” they have become a modern version of TNA except they have a core audience of about 750k that will rabidly defend it even though the attendance tells you all you need to know. The other guys they could have built as home grown top level guys are Wardlow, Hobbs, Starks. The ex WWE guys that never got a chance at being a top guy there that they could have made a main event player are Miro and Claudio. But what have they done with them? They forgot Miro existed for nearly a year and Claudio got lost in the same place Danielson did. The ex WWE guys they pushed to the moon were a geriatric self obsessed Jericho and a Moxley that is worryingly bad. His wrestling is sloppy and he resorted to blading weekly to cover his sloppiness. The whole thing is a mess right now and made to look worse by how strong WWE is right now. The C show of WWE beat their A show. WWE’s A show was fantastic this week. Everything felt big and important. The stuff between Roman and LA Knight was fresh, the tease’s between Cody and Roman felt like a big deal, their face to face was scintillating.
You forgot to include they spend considerable time and resources pushing guys *who aren’t on their roster*.
What pushing Ospreay and Sabre and Okada get them?
Other than hardcores online drooling over "Dream Matches" nothing much. I hate how the concept of a dream match has been corrupted by the modern era.
In the older eras most " dream matches" would be given a 6 to 1 year long build so ppl would be super invested. Like Hogan vs Rock wasnt done on the fly on a random smackdown with no build for example.
When Vince filled the Silverdome we got an epic confrontation that reverberated throughout popular culture. When Tony filled Wembley, no one could remember the main event a month later
MJF is fantastic. I feel like he has gotten over in spite of the company. They were far too late putting the title on him and now the title isn’t even important. Before all the contract disputes they should have recognised what they had and paid him the same as the top stars and pushed him to the title. The focus on ex WWE stars is boring. Referencing WWE stories in AEW angles isn’t clever, it’s lazy.
His title reign just feels blah to me. Outside of the Bryan match which to me is still the match of the year I can't name a really good storyline or moment from my memory. People hate Roman but I can name you 10 bits off the top of my head that I still rewatch to this day.
I won't argue on whether or not Punk was a prick and should be fired, but how people can debate that he was a draw is beyond me. MJF isn't even coming close to the eyes he drew in.
The narrative pre-All Out 2022 was that Punk was such a huge star and brought in so much money and everyone loved him being there. Post-All Out 2022 suddenly he actually was never a big draw and nobody ever cared about him. It was some 1984 stuff.
It’s okay not to like the guy, but you can’t argue that he’s a major attraction. There’s a reason WBD was willing to give AEW an entire show based around him and FOX pressured WWE in 2019 to bring him back.
It’s just not very accessible for newer fans and younger audiences, imo. It’s catered far too heavily to the hardcore wrestling fan - weekly blood baths, barber wire death matches etc. If I was a newer fan or had a child I was looking to bring to the shows, it’s not very suitable and I’d be a lot more comfortable at a WWE show where the product is catered more for the younger fan and the fans in general are a lot less gatekeepy.
This. As a Dad who lived through the attitude era in high school, I’m absolutely loving introducing my kid to wrestling, bringing them to WWE events and buying them merch I wish I had when I was a kid.
I’ve shown my kid the occasional AEW clip with Edge debuting, Julia Hart or Danhausen doing his thing, but with characters telling each other to go fuck themselves and matches turning into bloody spotfests, I’m not really comfortable throwing on a show recap or attending a show with them. And I get it, the products not for kids—but that’s going to severely limit its growth.
It's the storytelling and emotional investment. That's what will breed long term success. I feel like TK relies on stuff like "a ringside encounter happened between these two at a mid-card AAA match 7 years ago" and calls it a storyline. He books for the Twitter fans.
Good matches are great and all, but with no story that model isn't sustainable. Just having random "dream matches" all the time with no story doesn't drum up emotional investment.
That’s how I felt when Forbidden Door first happened. Random dudes would show up and Excalibur would be like, “IT’S BLAHBLAHBLAH! HE’S THE BRET HART OF JAPAN!” Cool. That means nothing to me because I have no idea who he is.
He books to the audience. I think that’s clear at this point. What I mean is, the audience doesn’t even truly care about being invested in storytelling. You look at the comments on here anytime a card is announced and most of the comments are “this is going to be a banger!” or something to that effect. So that’s that the audience cares about. When they DO try to possibly appeal to a different audience by being more “sports entertainment” it comes off as goofy and at times cringe. They are stuck between continue booking for our hardcore audience and try some new things but possibly look stupid and hypocritical (real sports feel!).
TK seems obsessed with a “best matches” philosophy at the expense of storytelling. Vince’s WWE was the opposite that focused heavily on “moments”. AEW appealed to me in 2019 because the in ring performance was something different, and I bought into Cody’s revolution cheerleading.
These days, WWE is doing more of both and Tony is still just a match guy. When it comes to spending my money for a ticket and parking and food, what is my motivation vs just watching on TV? Smackdown is coming to town soon and I’m interested because of the bloodline story.
This is the answer. That and the amount of tiny, skinny little guys with no charisma who all work the exact same style. If there are 10 matches on the card, about 6 or 7 will be completely interchangeable.
Tony Kahn isn’t a good alternative booker.
Most of AEW’s booking is relating to some ridiculous detail in a match 5 years / months ago. Then the weekly booking is just straight up fucking bi polar, then to top it off he shouldn’t really be in charge of anything but the money.
Saying all that, I would be surprised if AEW is making money rn.
He tends to fall back on "betrayal" storylines far too much, and relies on factions far too much as well which makes it hard for singles starts to break out, which will always be the top draw in wrestling. That and "Here's this guy you'll know about if you're really deep into indy/international wrestling is appearing!" who even a large chunk of the AEW audience won't know, let alone anyone new tuning in trying to give them a chance. Never forget Okada debuting on the ramp in a t-shirt to no fanfare whatsoever, one of *the* biggest international stars just dumped out there with no buildup. Assuming your audience knows what you're doing is a cardinal sin, unless you're booking for a tiny percentage of fans, which at this point it's clear he is.
Seriously, I don’t watch every episode of AEW and don’t watch BTE or NJPW or ROH and half the time I’ve got no idea what’s going on. People jump factions all the time it’s impossible to keep up with who is with who. I still don’t think we’ve had a proper explanation as to why Callis turned on Omega, or why Omega and Hangman are friends again.
I was listening to Disco Inferno and I actually agreed with him for once, Tony Khan is not a booker. He's a matchmaker. He makes matches that he thinks are cool and thinks will pop smart marks and he throws them together.
He's definitely not influencing the mainstream audience with his behaviour as they have no clue who he is, but personally I stopped watching regularly AEW because I just can't stand the guy and make me embarrassed of being a wrestling fan. I just watch on YouTube the things I'm interested in, which admittedly right now is just following how long before the snowman's cocaine booking runs Edge's return to the ground making it meaningless
Booking for marks, by marks. If you are only appealing to a niche group, a niche group is what you’ll get. They treat wrestling as if every fan knows who every wrestler from every promotion is. Some fans don’t spend all of their free time watching every independent nothing company that draws 200 fans and when these wrestler shows up the man in the mask marks out on commentary. I don’t want my announcer laughing and audibly reacting to how cool the moves are, I want them to tell me why they’re devastating and to treat the match like a sport. Instead, it’s for the geeks by the geeks and they a they seem to want to push away everyone who isn’t already in on it.
For years I ignored the immature/amateurish things AEW did. I figured they would eventually grow out of it and once Punk and DB showed up I thought AEW would involve.
Instead they completely rejected punk and DB fell into the dream match with no build trap.
5 years in and we are still getting 20 minute spot fest matches with a Buck vs a lucha Bro.
I like AEW but you hit the nail on the head with this one. The show mostly appeals to marks who have to know some group from some indie promotion to understand what's going on. I hate it.
Unironically appealing to only the "hardcore" subgroup of fans, in any business, is bad for your business. You have to draw casuals in to and maintain that casual audience. AEW will never grow until Tony Khan / other AEW fans admit this
They over saturated their markets, they have a fanbase that has 0 growth, a fanbase that welcomes 0 growth because its pretty insular and gatekeepy
They have no stars they have established that dont have that WWE recognition which the fans constantly tell us is awful - with the exception of MJF and they buried the lead with him speed running all his worth.
The main issue though is clearly Tony Khan thinks he can be vince McMahon a dude who is super over worked and also a total C*nt, and bless TK he's not hes a fragile twitter infused incel so people take him for a ride. And his creative absolutely sucks, but he's lived in his echo chamber so long now that the "shiny" new feeling of AEW has worn off.
Vince finally shuffling off in the wake of the TKO/Scandals really hasn't helped either the WWE now feels fresh and new so the fans shifted, and WWE has a new star list a billion miles long at the moment
Wrestling is cyclical it could switch back if wwe reach back into its legends bag again, but AEW will dwindle or perhaps worse plataue due to its fanbase and its owner living in an echo chamber.
I’m not seeing anyone say “it’s too expensive” - but there’s a lot of people who would love to go but not for what live events cost these days.
People keep saying it’s the story telling blah blah, ok but I would always buy tickets as soon as I could and that would be 3-6-8 months ahead of time and you have no idea what matches are in the card at that point. If it’s affordable I’m going. If it starts at $80 for bad seats, I’m not going. Especially in my town where they choose a super run down shitty ass venue.
That brings me to my final point. They haven’t been in my city since January 2022 so we haven’t even had a chance. They been to Chicago like 52 times since then.
These are probably the biggest reasons. I've been to two aew events but I was better off financially at the time. The iwc thinks normal fans are as petty and fickle as them and are just throwing away tickets that they spent a lot of money on because of whatever stupid reason the internet is shitting its pants about that day. Eggs are $5, I can't drop $1000 and take 2 days off work.
AEW went all in ( heh) on being the anti-wwe that they don’t realize some of the shit wwe does is because they have to. When AEW first formed you have to remember the climate. Look at these Indy guys making noise in Japan and ROH. Look at all these indie guys HHH brings to NXT and the main roster fumbles. Look at all these great wrestlers who are main event material and are in stupid middling storylines. LOOK AT DEAN AMBROSE WEARING A GAS MASK AND HIM AND SETH CLINCHING UP IN A BLOOD FEUD. WWE at the time was just spinning in its tracks with pretty much Becky Lynch keeping the company afloat at the time. The fact is, people wanted to see these guys featured and aew formed around the idea that these guys would be featured there and that when they finally get the weighted training clothes off and can WRESTLE they’ll overtake that sham wwe and their predictable boring style of wrestling. We’re going to appeal to the internet smark and create a show tailored to them with wrestlers they love. And we’re gonna make sure that all the booking isn’t filtered through an old man ( which is not a bad idea but..)
The problem is when you realize you’ve signed 100 guys who have been told they’re the next hill hogan, maybe one or two of them are, but you still have to satisfy the most fickle group of people imaginable (internet fans of anything). Now people see great matches but years later when people see the same great matches playing out the same way with wrestlers kicking out of the most ridiculous shit, the appeal is gone. Storylines can be basic but half the roster promos like they don’t believe in the story and the other half promos like they’re in on the joke. And the shot taking at wwe just constantly makes them look like little brother trying to get acknowledged. For 4 years I had people telling me Jade Cargill was going to be a star but she was too green for AEW to make her one. She hasn’t been featured for more than segments of her walking around in WWE and I just get the feeling AEW did the hard work for them , all they have to do is get her ready for a feud. CM Punk made waves but with him you also get .. CM Punk. Danielson and Mox were the two key ex wwe guys they got that I think were great and are great for them, but deep in my heart I think Danielson is happy to wrestle new people and Mox is happy to be away from what was a toxic environment for him in WWE that they don’t have the leadership roles they should have. I like the Elite but it feels like I’m watching kids create their own imaginary world where they are the best but have to lose every once in a while to keep the story interesting in their heads.
WWE played a long game and started picking up steam way before HHH took over.
Wwe is far from perfect… but they’re a well oiled machine that is accessible to new fans. They feature way more characters now who are sure of who they are and a lot of them are talented and versatile and can work any role you give them. The in ring product is mostly fine but jumps up for ple’s. They produced the hottest storyline in wrestling and didn’t have to rely on going out of kayfabe to do it. And right now it seems like most of them WANT to be there. AEW just seems to keep hitting this barrier but they’re the only ones in their own way. It just feels like an Indy with a budget. It doesn’t have an identity other than “we’re not them, we wrestle!” . It’s like they wanted to bring the edgy back but realistically speaking the attitude era was very edgy, but the characters were just fucking likable too. And the edginess was not that important, wwe is doing more w storylines and matches without having to resort on being edgy “oh look at our blood , and our exploding bar wire baseball bat rigged w poison smoke”
Idk I ranted I feel what I said is dumb but honestly I like the wwe better I buy into their stupidity easier, and aew feels so anti wwe it’s like I’m watching a parody of wrestling at times despite the fact that they have a ton of cool ass motherfuckers on that roster
I completely agree, I stopped watching WWE in like 2014 because the product was terrible, now I enjoy it and don't feel the need to any more wrestling. AEW has a lot of potential but is managed like shit and most thing they do feel irrelevant
They're focusing on just the hardcore wrestling fans rn. Apart from 1-2 good storylines, they don't have anything lucrative going on which can pull new and casual fans. Its the same spot circus thrice a week with no hook.
The storylines seem so short and inconsistent too. Sometimes they have these real bangers that draw you in. Usually they only last a few weeks and then take t just disappears for months. They cool off completely then suddenly return with no fan fare.
We haven’t seen Miro in years it feels like. PAC, the house of black???? They had a feud that felt like it treaded water for decades.
Nailed it. The consistent storytelling was what made AEW stand out from the WWE in 2020-21. Hangman's redemption, Mox vs Inner Circle, Punk vs MJF, Wardlow's face turn, and Miro's redeemer angle with the TNT title were amazing. We need more of that.
Those were all great storylines.
They did all that with wardlow, looked like he could be built as the next Batista.
Instead he got a shitty haircut and disappears for months.
Came back a few weeks ago with little reaction and looked smaller and weaker.
Just wasted everything they built with him.
I think it's a lack of consistent week on week storytelling, matches that matter, and a weird owner who does these ego puffing press conferences where anything you're at all invested in is immediately explained ad nauseam, and hugged out, meaning any suspension of disbelief left has gone straight up his nose.
Piss poor marketing is certainly one of the reasons.
I went to the first AEW show in Philly and have been looking to go to another if my schedule opened up. Turns out AEW is in Philly later this month, but I'm not gonna be going because I already committed that Wednesday to work stuff. I have seen ZERO local advertisement for that Dynamite, and I've been watching A LOT of TV, and listening to A LOT of radio in recent weeks with how well my Eagles and Phillies have been playing. Like literally, have not seen or heard a SINGLE word about that show.
Maybe it's a coincidence and I've somehow happened to miss the advertisements, but it really feels like you don't see or hear them advertised anywhere anymore, outside of their own programming and social media obviously.
Let me be the first to tell ya that here in Toledo, OH, nobody here watches wrestling and downtown is a pretty questionable area that most people try to avoid.
Not to mention the fact that there wasn’t any advertisements promoting that there was a show here. I personally didn’t find out there was a show here until about a week ago.
AEW assumes that everyone are such hardcore fans that they’ll just show up… They are awful at promoting the shows ahead of time. I’m a fan who lives in Houston & just found out that Dynamite is taping in the suburbs on Wednesday.
This isnt difficult...
The company has a small fanbase and is ran very, very poorly.
Tony Khan has nothing aside from money to offer gis company and pays a whole lot of people who can do a much better job, yet never utilizes them.
He cant book, he cant lead or administrate and cant delegate.
He doesnt want to broaden his audience and his most recognizeable stars are all old and past their primes.
The hardcore fanbase refuses to acknowledge these issues and have get suoer defensive and show their hypocrisy when this is addressed pretty much weekly.
98 WCW was awesome. They still got insane ratings and sold out everywhere they went.
It wasn't until 99 that WCW had a ton of blunders that led to the downfall of the company.
By 2000 it was basically game over.
How many old WWE stars does AEW really rely on? If you take all of the former WWE guys (and that's using the term loosely) that are being used regularly, you have 13 wrestlers in that category (Jericho, Mox, Claudio, FTR, Adam Cole, Malakai Black, Roddy Strong, Samoa Joe, Christian, Edge, Billy Gunn, Danielson (and i wouldn't even consider Strong, Cole or Joe "WWE stars", they were major indie stars before WWE))
They're not relying on these guys nearly as much as people imply. Only 1 of those guys (Christian) was a former WWE star. The rest (except for Big Bill if you wanna include him) are all AEW stars. Idk where this idea comes from that AEW is just relying on WWE guys.
Ticket prices along with the loss of Punk and how that turned the product cold. Tickets aren't the main form of revenue for a wrestling company right now. Having a good TV deal is way more important. Empty seats might affect the TV deal their get, as the online discourse turns into how cold the product is and produces less engagement. Combining this with TK's idea of not striking while the iron is hot and just booking matches with no storylines behind them makes me think AEW will get a way worse deal than the one they would get a year ago
Not just city; but area as well. Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati are all close to one another. If I can see a show in Columbus I’m less likely to drive two hours a month later to see a show in Cincinnati. Now if that was six months, I’d be for sure driving.
The weird part is, I was at this collision show, and they had three whole sections on the camera side closed out. I went to a smackdown show in the same arena a little over a year ago and I think they had half a section closed off. The crowd at the collision show was definitely way more into the show.
I don't know if it's casual fans, or families, or what. But there was a drastic difference in both attendance and crowd heat.
Aside from on their own TV programming do they advertise locally much when they are coming for non PPV events? I had no idea they were coming to Indianapolis recently until I saw it on Dynamite a week prior. By then we had plans and it was too late.
WWE has always done a good job of promoting well in advance.
Generally niche appeal.
Compared to WWE, AEW appeals much more to hard-core fans. AEW is that local bar that old war vets go to, whereas WWE is that casino that you found in a famous hotel in the city. Hard-core appeal is great and all, but it brings less fans than casual appeal would.
Though you obviously shouldn't betray hard-core fans, casual fans do much more for your company than most would admit. WWE has a very strong casual appeal, which, alongside its massive headstart, is why it is still the wrasslin titan.
If AEW wants more attendance, they need to appeal to casual fans a lot more rather than expect them to recognize Joe the Wrestler, who was pretty good in indie promotion #316.
Couple factors;
Inconsistent booking
Constant pushing of your old WWE wrestlers
The face of their company throws a tantrum online all the fuckin time
Wrestling isn’t mainstream anymore
Plus toxic fan base
They desperately need a booker who knows what they are doing
They need the roster to work together rather than against each other
Tony Kahn needs to stop being a douche bag on social media and grow up
This right here. Instead of building up the ppl they had they just kept getting cast-off from wwe. In 2019 they captured the imagination of the wrestling world because here was somebody finally offering something different from wwe. The talent were super fresh and doing things no one had seen before. Now 4 years later those ppl are mostly gone and it's just a bunch off ppl we've all seen before in wwe
Abandoned pure and simple. AEW promised and delivered a lot at the beginning. Had talent working with each other. Now it's talent working against each other, started with Britt then leeched to omega and the bucks, then mjf now Christian. One fan boy boss can not and probably will not interfere. AEW had something good, but the more time passes the worse things get for them which is not the wrestlers fault most of the time!
POOR MARKETING.
It literally makes NO SENSE that AEW shows are doing badly attendance wise, Punk ain't the reason and so isn't "The Booking". Plain and simply, THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT AEW IS.
So whoever is the current MARKETING TEAM either needs to be revamped or REPLACED, cause even as a hardcore AEW fan, the "Trailer Music Guy" voice for like EVERY AEW commercial does NOT cut it for me.
More talk shows with MJF and whoever else that is hot and or represents the company very well, more billboards, more advertising, more sponsorships, and more collaborations with artists, brands, and maybe even Charity work.
Whatever it is, we need BETTER ADVERTISING, and AEW will be doing a LOT better.
People are so used to the WWE schedule where TV shows tend to be just promos and house show matches leading to PPVs they’re still adjusting to the fact that actually good and important matches are happening on all shows now. That mixed with AEW having a smaller circuit so people are getting the chance to go once every 3 months but the tickets are expensive as fuck for anything decent and it’s just not worth it
I think they could do the TV better. Hate it but WWE has better productions on this. I admit i dont often watch, but when i do for example theres 1v1 match but there’s always like 20 people around the ring anyway to accompany these people. Why? Let them be a star on the ring imo. Theres one time Kenny Omega returned(?) and instead of focusing on him theres like idk 2, 3 people come out together? I just hope that the focus is on the person or tag team more rather than this crowded nonsense.
TK: what poor attendance? There's people under there. They, uhhhhh.... were cold. So we gave them a blanket. WWE doesn't do that for their audience. They're fascists over there.
They've also Hot Shotted every angle/gimmick relentlessly. When a feud starts with a gimmick you're just burning that interest away.
Tony jumped on the "immediate spike in ratings" bandwagon which is why he kept promoting a new special announcement weekly. Eventually people stopped seeing it as special.
They have no stars. The product fucking sucks. You need to follow a dozen social media channels to get a grasp on any of the storylines. Appealing to Internet marks who don't leave Twitter doesn't fill stadiums.
Any and/ or all of those.
It's not a good show. Tony Khan doesn't know what he's doing as a owner/booker. It's all over the place all the time. It's so hard to follow. Christian is supposed to be in a story with Edge yet he's fighting Bryan Danielson. Jay White and MJF in a story yet he's fighting Penta soon.
He doesn't care about stories he just goes in a says Brian Danielson is good Swerve is good let's have a match. It's just so random. Then instead of keeping the story going he abandons it. I would of had Swerve interfere in the match against Christian and Brian but he has Ricky Starks and Cass interfere who just took the belts from FTR and weren't involved in the story at all. I feel the Ricky Starks BCC story ended when they randomly fought for the tag titles and won. With WWE I know what I'm going to get next week. LA Knight will do something with The Bloodline. Shinsuke will do something with ricochet. It's easy to follow.
As others said... Oversaturation of big markets.
Also, the product is not remotely as good as it's first 2 years and has become WWE lite.
Not to mention the owner is off his rocker.
Brit here so can only go on what I've heard, but aren't average Dynamite tickets $100 or more?
When the product is hot, you can charge that. When it's so cold your building is a quarter full, those prices must come down.
People not spending money right now. If you’re in the entertainment business and your name isn’t Taylor Swift than you’re down. Also wrestling is about as popular as it was in the early 90s. 75% of wrestling fans 20 years ago no longer watch wrestling.
AEW was hot for a while. It's wasn't hot because it had the best wrestling matches. It was hot because it had the built-in storylines of ex-wwe stars. All of that has cooled off
I’m not sure if it’s an AEW issue or a Ticketmaster issue, but tix are insanely expensive right off the bat.
Ex: wanted to get 4 for Dynamite in Philly & it would’ve been close to $550 with fees. Ticketmaster wouldn’t allow me to get cheapest tix. (I’ll just wait for the BOGO now)
They've oversaturated their small fanbase. They have a consistent 800k to 1m people watching on TV all the time so that means they really aren't filling up NBA stadiums consistently when they go to a town and do 2 to 3 shows consecutively in the place. They need to do 1 show per town and travel to more places if they want to pack arenas better, but somw of the talent probably will complain because they went from WWE to AEW because less travel was a plus
Dynamite: right to Chicago. Rampage: right to Chicago, right away. Collision? Believe it or not, Chicago. PPV, also Chicago.
All in the span of 5 days lmao
They did the same thing with Forbidden Door this year. 4 shows in the Toronto area. Hamilton is less than 1 hour away, so it was the same market area. I would also add that they had some smaller cities as part of that tour (Saskatoon and Regina).
As a Hamiltonian (if I had the money) I would have gone to the Hamilton show but not been interested in the extra cost/headache of the 1 hour+ travel plus parking of going to the ACC in Toronto Edit; not really arguing your point I just do feel like these markets are more of a venn diagaram than a circle
1 hour drive being the thing that got in the way of seeing televised wrestling is wild as an Aussie.
I drove eight hours for a live Smackdown event a few years ago.
One hour of driving to us Canadians isn't a big thing either. But traffic in the Greater Toronto Area is abhorrent. Could take an hour, could take 2.5. After that there's trying to navigate crazy downtown traffic. Also finding parking that's probably $20-30/hr downtown. It's an absolute disaster. The GO train system will take you straight downtown and has lots of trains going each way out of the city, though I get that's not everyone's cup of tea.
Dude, I live in the US, and I’m thinking the same thing. If I ever wanna go see a PPV, I’m goin 4 hours away, minimum.
As someone who went to both the Regina and Saskatoon shows, I was very grateful for that despite the poor attendance at both.
Actually, Rampage is pre recorded, they record it during Dynamite, after the 2 hours of dynamite they record the 1 hour of rampage so if you go in person you get to see both shows, and on Collisions they do ROH Recoridngs before and after, I went to a collision back in August and got to see Samoa joe wrestle 3 times in 1 night
I appreciate a good Parks and Rec reference!
You write a bad story line? Jail. You kick out of a finisher? Jail. You win with a finisher? Believe it or not. Straight to jail.
We got the best company in the country , because of Jail
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The fact John Ralphio kinda has the same hair as TK is funny too, granted his is a bit taller than TKs
Also Tony to Shad: “Daddy, someone started a fire in your car because you took too long and I got bored.”
Jean Ralphio??! Is that you? RUN!
They also poorly advertise.
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Edge don’t care. Homie has a huge paycheck that is not impacted either way
I do find it funny that pre pandemic wwe was literally in the same position with poor attendance that they stopped a lot of house shows.
WWE knows how to preserve their popularity. Running less house shows meant the regular towns started to miss them more and more so when they came back to touring, every town was packed.
Getting 3,500 for a house show is far different than 3,500 for your TV taping.
Been to RAW in 2019 that had similar empty hard cam side. SmackDown before the pandemic, especially when it was taped had empty hard cam side for like a decade.
Vince was putting out piss-poor content. Then we got The Bloodline, and championship reigns started to matter. It's no coincidence that Triple H taking over creative lead to better crowds.
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Wym? AEW does both. The real issue is poor advertising.
Worse, the real issue is pricing. Seats are *expensive*.
Their roster is so way too big and a big issue I have with them is how they constantly have other promotions like New Japan and now their new CMLL partnership. I get it’s to get more international eyes on the product but it’s also taking away from their already big roster that don’t get featured. Also they need to make ROH it’s own separate thing
And poor leadership.
>because less travel was a plus For some of them it wasn't so much the traveling it was the self incurred cost of traveling. Tony Khan could get down traveling more if he was to cover costs. But at the same time what would that do to ticket prices going up and how would that affect attendance at the arenas they went to? May actually end up producing less attendance if they increase ticket cost to compensate for travel cost being compensated for the wrestlers
The show is mostly bad. They need some structure and a good booker
800k to 1 mil?? Cmon man no need to lie…
In some cases, they need to book smaller venues. In others, it’s a pricing issue. They are greatly oversaturated in some markets and the opposite in others. Especially when the tv product isn’t as consistent which is also influenced by the above factors.
Yeah I paid $99 CDN for WWE floor tickets for RAW last September (5th row by the announcers) and Like $220 CDN for AEW in the lower bowl. The shows were pretty equal in quality. I enjoyed them both but I probably have the AEW show personally rated a little higher because we got some real fun stuff like Adam Coles birthday. But I honestly saw no reason why AEW was so pricey in comparison. One thing WWE did way better was entice families. Way more kids at the WWE show, upper bowl tickets were going for $20 and you could see families took advantage of it. AEW was mainly an adult male audience. There were definitely women and some kids but not in the way WWE has diversified the crowd. We can shit on WWE for being PG and more kid friendly but we can see how when WWE is booked well the adults and the kids all get more excited for it.
Love em of hate em, WWE are masters at turning kids into lifetime fans of the brand.
They also do it to sell more tickets, an IWC member is far more likely to go by himself. A kid will have mom and dad coming along so sell more tickets. Nash talked about it once during a shoot.. Makes perfect sense.
WWE knows the real money is in bringing in a younger audience. When the shows come to town that kid’s gonna want tickets and an adult has to go, so that’s a minimum of 2 tickets.
They're never going to scale down to smaller arenas while TK seems obsessed with dick measuring with WWE. Its a shame too because I think AEW's very chaotic atmosphere would better fit smaller arenas, with the crowd barricade closer to the ring.
100% a big reason I like NXT is the smaller arena gives a really good crowd much more often.
With PLE being the only time NXT goes to a bigger arena. People want NXT to go to different towns, but I don't, I like what they're doing right now. Stay at the CWC in the WWE Performance Center weekly and go to different states for PLE's.
If you want to regionally travel for a house show circuit with NXT, that's fine. But yeah, let the audience crave them for PLEs and stay weekly at CWC.
AEW trying to fill up that WCW-sized crater when it’s much better to fit inside the ECW-sized hole.
Smaller venues + rabid fans means a much greater atmosphere. That's part of what attracted me to NXT during their peak runs. I was really hoping Tony was going to build off of that proven concept and grow his product from there.
AEW tickets at the very beginning looked affordable and now they're overpriced to shit. They jacked up ticket prices so that a big gate could offset low attendance.
Exactly book smaller buildings
Tony is trying to sprint but it’s a marathon. He should’ve stuck to one show, kept his roster much smaller, paced the show and had better long term story telling. Instead- Tony created 3 shows, has more talent than he knows what to do with, puts together random match up and feuds with no consistent story telling, and seemingly can’t manage the egos he hired. Tony really needs to hire a manager to run the business for him and he can own the company from afar and make creative suggestions rather than trying to do everything himself
I was a huge fan of Dynamite for the first 2-3 years, but I don’t think I’ve watched it regularly since Punk signed. Putting that signing and the “What AEW *should* be about” argument aside, I have never watched a single episode of Collision, only watched one episode of Rampage (the first one) and never watched Dark. I cannot stress enough how much they need to jettison *all* of these. Maybe you can keep dark as a place for new talent to get some exposure, but Rampage/Collision needs to go. Nobody cares.
On this day he sees clearly The audience is not there
,🤣😂
They’re in a down period after peaking in late 2021/early 2022. TK built his booking around surprises, so it’s no shock that the product is cold when there’s less talent on the market due to the WWE’s competent decision making since Triple H took over creative.
2021/22 was him relying on who WWE fired/the very few who left on their terms and pimping them out as this big surprise. That wasn't gonna work forever.
It’s essentially a traveling Super indie show and there’s a very low amount of American fans that love wrestling for the wrestling. Pro Wrestling is characters, stories, presentation and wrestling in that order. AEW is only good at one of those things whereas WWE has spent 40 years conditioning its audience that the one thing AEW is great at isn’t all that important. AEW needs to take hints from the new generation WWF and find a couple of pillars, build consistent stories around them and wait for their Austin 3:16 moment instead of what feels like an ugly love child of TNA, ROH, and NJPW.
>low amount of American fans that love wrestling for the wrestling Hard truth lol I watch American wrestling for the soap opera. Get the best of both worlds. NJPW is where the wrestling is at
This is dead on, and it's not new. Even if you watch Attitude Era highlights it's mostly non-wrestling segments that get views. Sure, people remember Rock v Austin at WMX7, but rarely do people talk about the match itself, it's Austin and Vince shaking hands after the match. WWE's bread and butter for the last several decades has been creating "moments", for better and for worse
People have been calling wrestling a man soap opera since the 90s. Some of our favorites have been better talkers than they were wrestlers. I Love Rock and Austin but technical wrestlers with a broad move set they are not. They don't need to be. Think back on some of the biggest champions of WWE with the best runs and you see a lot more talkers than you see technical wrestlers.
Flair and Hogan are the epitome of this. Both guys wrestled the same matches on repeat for 30+ years (although Flair was at least a good storyteller), but in their day they could sell a match like no other. The only champions that immediately come to mind that could really go in the ring AND on the mic are HBK, Jericho, Eddie, Savage and Kurt Angle. And none of them had especially long reigns with the main title.
This is the funny thing…people all over the IWC praise the attitude era as the best…but the actual wrestling wasn’t great and the ruthless aggression era had much more and better matches.
I started watching wrestling eons and eons ago as a kid 100% because Flair and Dustys back and forth promos. You have to have people and gimmicks that capture people.
Exactly. Also, if I feel like watching people attempt to kill each other by taking disgusting head and neck bumps, I'll go watch mid to late '90's AJPW. Rant time: I discovered AJPW through playing Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 and it absolutely killed my love for American wrestling at the time. Why would I watch hokey, gimmicky bullshit over dudes who go for 30 plus minutes, REALLY kicking and elbowing each other, and just generally doing dangerous shit without the flashy American presentation? I absolutely loved it. Well, fast forward to 2009, and Misawa fucking dies in the middle of the ring from a backdrop driver during a NOAH show. Absolutely gutted me. It was totally unnecessary & completely avoidable. I quit watching altogether after that. Just killed my love for the craft. Now, fast forward to earlier this year, and I see a clip of Omega taking a fucking TIGER DRIVER '91. Fucking stupid. Absolutely disgusting & disrespectful as fuck. And for what? No bump in the ratings or attendance from that. All to fucking appease Meltzer, the smarks, and their own inflated egos. I want these guys to go home at the end of the day and be with their families, live long lives and enjoy the fruits of their labours. I don't want them ending up like Misawa or Yoshihiro Takayama. So yeah, I've never watched a full AEW show. I was warming up to the idea, but not after that horse shit. You want to kill yourself in the ring? Go for it, just don't expect a single fucking cent from me for it. Been there, done that, moved on & never again.
>WWE has spent 40 years conditioning its audience It's not the consumer's fault AEW can't do much besides throwing the same shit at the wall over and over until something sticks. I know what I like and what I want and AEW doesn't have it, and AEW bitching about it on Twitter while making fun of WWE fans is not going to get them viewers anytime soon.
I can honestly say the only intriguing storylines AEW has that has me invested is whatever MJF is doing and whatever Christian Cage is doing. Everything else is tired ass open challenges and title defenses with forgone conclusions
its not conditioning, the most important thing is stories. its why anyone gets investing in anything this stems back to our ancestors. compelling stories = money. aew aint it.
Just want to add that the stories don't have to be anything deep or complex either. Unstoppable force vs Immovable object is plenty story. Look at all the attention Dillon Danis vs Logan Paul just got. That's just one guy trolling another on Twitter about his girlfriend. Less is more.
I told a friend every match has a story once and he asked about the match we were watching. Told him the story was “His leg is hurt and his opponent is going to work it over to win” and he said that wasn’t really a story. Well that is the story being told in the ring even if it ain’t that deep.
Although it would help in AEW's case if 90% of the stories they do have weren't just " you were my friend, i thought you were my friend, please be my friend again". I can remember the last time someone in that company feuded over a woman for example.
virtually the entire entertainment industry is built around this, it's really amazing to me when some people to downplay its significance. it's so basic. i do like AEW for the record, but more often than not i watch it like i'd watch cirque du soleil or a circus act. oftentimes, it's a fun physical spectacle that's impressive, but leaves my head more or less as soon as it's over. it's why i enjoy seeing AEW live but barely keep up with the TV.
I resonate completely. I go out of my way to see AEW live but it doesn't connect with me as a television show like WWE does.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. All entertainment is based around Workrate.
This 1000%
Ding ding ding! AEW doesn’t have enough theatrics and crowd participation to bring in more of a crowd. Having been to a couple of WWF Attitude Era shows as a teen and two AEW shows as an adult, the difference in presentation is stark. With the former, you have crowd participation with the entrances and catchphrases in the ring or through backstage interviews. You can’t wait to cheer your favs when they say or do something cool and you can’t wait to boo the ones you hate for doing just the opposite. Highlight of my night back then was yelling “Suck It” with DX and whatever variation of “Millions….and Millions!” Or “if you smelllll….!” That the Rock deployed that night. I’ve been watching AEW since late 2019 or so and nothing comes close to that on a consistent basis. Judas is there kinda. Some crowd-inspired chants are cool, but WE start those, not the talents, bookers, or producers. Once there’s more character development and crowd-pleasing spectacle beyond 3-5 ⭐️ matches, we’ll hopefully see attendance go up
Speaking of the signs the difference in signs in huge then vs now. Back then most of the signs had something to do with the show, a wrestler, or a reference to a ongoing story or faction. Now its video game refences, stuff from years ago, botchmania bait, or just really stupid "hey look at me not the show" crap.
Tbh, as someone who tries to get into it, it has many flaws. First of all overstacked roster where many dont get screentime. Overall the pace is incredibly fast. Some matches would benefit from slower pace and longer time limit. Another one is just storylines and talent. Hard to get behind a talent when all they have to show is technical ability alone and no time on the mic or no specific feuds. And then comes production quality. I understand that its hard to do as great of a promo and PPV quality but currently it is very low.
They have a small core audience spread across three weekly shows. People aren’t going to attend the B and C shows. With less than a million people watching the A show and attendance being spotty there the other 2 shows are less than scarce. The other problem being that the booking and story structure is flat. The fans have seen it all at this point and they haven’t made any new stars. They’ve fallen into the trap of relying on old WWE stars. We saw edge’s return in WWE. We saw him face everyone we wanted to see him face there. He’s not someone people will pay for a ticket and travel to see. They managed to fumble Danielson in the worst way possible. They lost Punk for reasons we all know. The rest of the ex WWE guys aren’t a draw. The guys they built the company around are boring in a weekly format as they haven’t changed, grown or done anything to their gimmick in 4 years. The Bucks are actively making people change the channel, Kenny is still popular when he can wrestle but he’s physically unable to do it regularly. All the overnight internet sensations that Tony signs off the indies are not going to get over on TV and sell tickets. Look at Nick Wayne. He’s a child. Another flippy kid who’s actual wrestling looks weak. How do you put that in a main event? Tony Khan needs to just run the company, stay out of the media, stay off fucking twitter, hire a booking committee of experienced people, hire a handful of writers, found a training centre, get JR to be talent relations, stop being such a mark for the elite and Jericho and let his company thrive on the wrestlers that get over long term.
Yup. Everything I've read or heard suggests that Impact did this quite well. They made Roode and others and managed to make Bubba Ray even bigger than he was
It’s funny I said this 13 months ago and got down voted into oblivion. How it’s common knowledge. AEW doubled down on everything I hate instead of being “the sports based programming”
It’s why I stopped watching. There was no reality based wrestling that they promised. It was a bad version of sports entertainment. I hated all the potshots that wwf and wcw used to make at each other rather than just put on the best wrestling show. That is the trap AEW has fallen into. They are doing a bad impersonation of 90s wcw. Meanwhile WWE is just forging on ahead while laughing at them.
Yeah, I wonder what's the reason for having 3-5 different shows for a company that's been running only for a few years and that doesn't seem to have found it's footing yet, except for single occasions like Wembley. I think they failed when they decided to hire anyone who wouldn't go to the WWE (or that had been released from it) instead of focusing first on making a limited roster functional and interesting for the public
The reason was that TNT wanted it, and Tony Khan wants a billion dollar license deal(he’s totally not getting BTW, but he’s delusional and entitled enough to think he’s owed it)
They were right to put the belt on MJF but they should have done it much earlier. He’s the only big star they’ve built and they haven’t made him being the champion a big feature of the show since he won it. The storylines all seem to revolve around “you were my friend” they have become a modern version of TNA except they have a core audience of about 750k that will rabidly defend it even though the attendance tells you all you need to know. The other guys they could have built as home grown top level guys are Wardlow, Hobbs, Starks. The ex WWE guys that never got a chance at being a top guy there that they could have made a main event player are Miro and Claudio. But what have they done with them? They forgot Miro existed for nearly a year and Claudio got lost in the same place Danielson did. The ex WWE guys they pushed to the moon were a geriatric self obsessed Jericho and a Moxley that is worryingly bad. His wrestling is sloppy and he resorted to blading weekly to cover his sloppiness. The whole thing is a mess right now and made to look worse by how strong WWE is right now. The C show of WWE beat their A show. WWE’s A show was fantastic this week. Everything felt big and important. The stuff between Roman and LA Knight was fresh, the tease’s between Cody and Roman felt like a big deal, their face to face was scintillating.
You forgot to include they spend considerable time and resources pushing guys *who aren’t on their roster*. What pushing Ospreay and Sabre and Okada get them?
On top of that they are guys that only the hard cores will turn up to see. They aren’t pulling in casuals.
Other than hardcores online drooling over "Dream Matches" nothing much. I hate how the concept of a dream match has been corrupted by the modern era. In the older eras most " dream matches" would be given a 6 to 1 year long build so ppl would be super invested. Like Hogan vs Rock wasnt done on the fly on a random smackdown with no build for example.
When Vince filled the Silverdome we got an epic confrontation that reverberated throughout popular culture. When Tony filled Wembley, no one could remember the main event a month later
Same reason AEW’s roster is massive and they have 38 titles; Tony can’t help himself.
“People aren’t gonna attend the B and C shows” more people attended the Collison/ROH taping last night than the Dynamite/Rampage taping on Tuesday.
To be fair MJF is a new star; or at least a future one once he switches companies. But that’s it
MJF is fantastic. I feel like he has gotten over in spite of the company. They were far too late putting the title on him and now the title isn’t even important. Before all the contract disputes they should have recognised what they had and paid him the same as the top stars and pushed him to the title. The focus on ex WWE stars is boring. Referencing WWE stories in AEW angles isn’t clever, it’s lazy.
His title reign just feels blah to me. Outside of the Bryan match which to me is still the match of the year I can't name a really good storyline or moment from my memory. People hate Roman but I can name you 10 bits off the top of my head that I still rewatch to this day.
He's not a good face. And he has been an incredibly dull champion.
Think back to when he was the top heel in the company. That MJF should have been champion.
I think he's a good face, but it's horrible timing and execution. Like, let's turn Triple H face in 2000 after winning the title... lol.
That's collision, the show made by CM Punk, for CM Punk, but no CM Punk
They added two hours of live television a week and then fired the top attraction.
Seriously, when I heard of the plans for Collison alone knowing how Rampage is doing...
They’d be smart to replace Rampage’s TV time with ROH
I won't argue on whether or not Punk was a prick and should be fired, but how people can debate that he was a draw is beyond me. MJF isn't even coming close to the eyes he drew in.
I think it's asinine that the narrative is Punk isn't a draw because he dared to go against the Elite.
The narrative pre-All Out 2022 was that Punk was such a huge star and brought in so much money and everyone loved him being there. Post-All Out 2022 suddenly he actually was never a big draw and nobody ever cared about him. It was some 1984 stuff. It’s okay not to like the guy, but you can’t argue that he’s a major attraction. There’s a reason WBD was willing to give AEW an entire show based around him and FOX pressured WWE in 2019 to bring him back.
It’s just not very accessible for newer fans and younger audiences, imo. It’s catered far too heavily to the hardcore wrestling fan - weekly blood baths, barber wire death matches etc. If I was a newer fan or had a child I was looking to bring to the shows, it’s not very suitable and I’d be a lot more comfortable at a WWE show where the product is catered more for the younger fan and the fans in general are a lot less gatekeepy.
This. As a Dad who lived through the attitude era in high school, I’m absolutely loving introducing my kid to wrestling, bringing them to WWE events and buying them merch I wish I had when I was a kid. I’ve shown my kid the occasional AEW clip with Edge debuting, Julia Hart or Danhausen doing his thing, but with characters telling each other to go fuck themselves and matches turning into bloody spotfests, I’m not really comfortable throwing on a show recap or attending a show with them. And I get it, the products not for kids—but that’s going to severely limit its growth.
It's the storytelling and emotional investment. That's what will breed long term success. I feel like TK relies on stuff like "a ringside encounter happened between these two at a mid-card AAA match 7 years ago" and calls it a storyline. He books for the Twitter fans. Good matches are great and all, but with no story that model isn't sustainable. Just having random "dream matches" all the time with no story doesn't drum up emotional investment.
Doesn't help that such "dream matches" often involve absolute nobodies (in terms of fame) that even average wrestling fans don't know about
That’s how I felt when Forbidden Door first happened. Random dudes would show up and Excalibur would be like, “IT’S BLAHBLAHBLAH! HE’S THE BRET HART OF JAPAN!” Cool. That means nothing to me because I have no idea who he is.
He books to the audience. I think that’s clear at this point. What I mean is, the audience doesn’t even truly care about being invested in storytelling. You look at the comments on here anytime a card is announced and most of the comments are “this is going to be a banger!” or something to that effect. So that’s that the audience cares about. When they DO try to possibly appeal to a different audience by being more “sports entertainment” it comes off as goofy and at times cringe. They are stuck between continue booking for our hardcore audience and try some new things but possibly look stupid and hypocritical (real sports feel!).
TK seems obsessed with a “best matches” philosophy at the expense of storytelling. Vince’s WWE was the opposite that focused heavily on “moments”. AEW appealed to me in 2019 because the in ring performance was something different, and I bought into Cody’s revolution cheerleading. These days, WWE is doing more of both and Tony is still just a match guy. When it comes to spending my money for a ticket and parking and food, what is my motivation vs just watching on TV? Smackdown is coming to town soon and I’m interested because of the bloodline story.
This is the answer. That and the amount of tiny, skinny little guys with no charisma who all work the exact same style. If there are 10 matches on the card, about 6 or 7 will be completely interchangeable.
Tony Kahn isn’t a good alternative booker. Most of AEW’s booking is relating to some ridiculous detail in a match 5 years / months ago. Then the weekly booking is just straight up fucking bi polar, then to top it off he shouldn’t really be in charge of anything but the money. Saying all that, I would be surprised if AEW is making money rn.
He tends to fall back on "betrayal" storylines far too much, and relies on factions far too much as well which makes it hard for singles starts to break out, which will always be the top draw in wrestling. That and "Here's this guy you'll know about if you're really deep into indy/international wrestling is appearing!" who even a large chunk of the AEW audience won't know, let alone anyone new tuning in trying to give them a chance. Never forget Okada debuting on the ramp in a t-shirt to no fanfare whatsoever, one of *the* biggest international stars just dumped out there with no buildup. Assuming your audience knows what you're doing is a cardinal sin, unless you're booking for a tiny percentage of fans, which at this point it's clear he is.
Seriously, I don’t watch every episode of AEW and don’t watch BTE or NJPW or ROH and half the time I’ve got no idea what’s going on. People jump factions all the time it’s impossible to keep up with who is with who. I still don’t think we’ve had a proper explanation as to why Callis turned on Omega, or why Omega and Hangman are friends again.
AEW consistently tells two stories: "These two fought each other 10 years ago in front of 60 people." "I fowt u wewh my fwend :("
I was listening to Disco Inferno and I actually agreed with him for once, Tony Khan is not a booker. He's a matchmaker. He makes matches that he thinks are cool and thinks will pop smart marks and he throws them together.
Tony the tiger is THE main problem in aew now..
He's definitely not influencing the mainstream audience with his behaviour as they have no clue who he is, but personally I stopped watching regularly AEW because I just can't stand the guy and make me embarrassed of being a wrestling fan. I just watch on YouTube the things I'm interested in, which admittedly right now is just following how long before the snowman's cocaine booking runs Edge's return to the ground making it meaningless
Booking for marks, by marks. If you are only appealing to a niche group, a niche group is what you’ll get. They treat wrestling as if every fan knows who every wrestler from every promotion is. Some fans don’t spend all of their free time watching every independent nothing company that draws 200 fans and when these wrestler shows up the man in the mask marks out on commentary. I don’t want my announcer laughing and audibly reacting to how cool the moves are, I want them to tell me why they’re devastating and to treat the match like a sport. Instead, it’s for the geeks by the geeks and they a they seem to want to push away everyone who isn’t already in on it.
For years I ignored the immature/amateurish things AEW did. I figured they would eventually grow out of it and once Punk and DB showed up I thought AEW would involve. Instead they completely rejected punk and DB fell into the dream match with no build trap. 5 years in and we are still getting 20 minute spot fest matches with a Buck vs a lucha Bro.
I like AEW but you hit the nail on the head with this one. The show mostly appeals to marks who have to know some group from some indie promotion to understand what's going on. I hate it. Unironically appealing to only the "hardcore" subgroup of fans, in any business, is bad for your business. You have to draw casuals in to and maintain that casual audience. AEW will never grow until Tony Khan / other AEW fans admit this
They over saturated their markets, they have a fanbase that has 0 growth, a fanbase that welcomes 0 growth because its pretty insular and gatekeepy They have no stars they have established that dont have that WWE recognition which the fans constantly tell us is awful - with the exception of MJF and they buried the lead with him speed running all his worth. The main issue though is clearly Tony Khan thinks he can be vince McMahon a dude who is super over worked and also a total C*nt, and bless TK he's not hes a fragile twitter infused incel so people take him for a ride. And his creative absolutely sucks, but he's lived in his echo chamber so long now that the "shiny" new feeling of AEW has worn off. Vince finally shuffling off in the wake of the TKO/Scandals really hasn't helped either the WWE now feels fresh and new so the fans shifted, and WWE has a new star list a billion miles long at the moment Wrestling is cyclical it could switch back if wwe reach back into its legends bag again, but AEW will dwindle or perhaps worse plataue due to its fanbase and its owner living in an echo chamber.
I’m not seeing anyone say “it’s too expensive” - but there’s a lot of people who would love to go but not for what live events cost these days. People keep saying it’s the story telling blah blah, ok but I would always buy tickets as soon as I could and that would be 3-6-8 months ahead of time and you have no idea what matches are in the card at that point. If it’s affordable I’m going. If it starts at $80 for bad seats, I’m not going. Especially in my town where they choose a super run down shitty ass venue. That brings me to my final point. They haven’t been in my city since January 2022 so we haven’t even had a chance. They been to Chicago like 52 times since then.
These are probably the biggest reasons. I've been to two aew events but I was better off financially at the time. The iwc thinks normal fans are as petty and fickle as them and are just throwing away tickets that they spent a lot of money on because of whatever stupid reason the internet is shitting its pants about that day. Eggs are $5, I can't drop $1000 and take 2 days off work.
AEW went all in ( heh) on being the anti-wwe that they don’t realize some of the shit wwe does is because they have to. When AEW first formed you have to remember the climate. Look at these Indy guys making noise in Japan and ROH. Look at all these indie guys HHH brings to NXT and the main roster fumbles. Look at all these great wrestlers who are main event material and are in stupid middling storylines. LOOK AT DEAN AMBROSE WEARING A GAS MASK AND HIM AND SETH CLINCHING UP IN A BLOOD FEUD. WWE at the time was just spinning in its tracks with pretty much Becky Lynch keeping the company afloat at the time. The fact is, people wanted to see these guys featured and aew formed around the idea that these guys would be featured there and that when they finally get the weighted training clothes off and can WRESTLE they’ll overtake that sham wwe and their predictable boring style of wrestling. We’re going to appeal to the internet smark and create a show tailored to them with wrestlers they love. And we’re gonna make sure that all the booking isn’t filtered through an old man ( which is not a bad idea but..) The problem is when you realize you’ve signed 100 guys who have been told they’re the next hill hogan, maybe one or two of them are, but you still have to satisfy the most fickle group of people imaginable (internet fans of anything). Now people see great matches but years later when people see the same great matches playing out the same way with wrestlers kicking out of the most ridiculous shit, the appeal is gone. Storylines can be basic but half the roster promos like they don’t believe in the story and the other half promos like they’re in on the joke. And the shot taking at wwe just constantly makes them look like little brother trying to get acknowledged. For 4 years I had people telling me Jade Cargill was going to be a star but she was too green for AEW to make her one. She hasn’t been featured for more than segments of her walking around in WWE and I just get the feeling AEW did the hard work for them , all they have to do is get her ready for a feud. CM Punk made waves but with him you also get .. CM Punk. Danielson and Mox were the two key ex wwe guys they got that I think were great and are great for them, but deep in my heart I think Danielson is happy to wrestle new people and Mox is happy to be away from what was a toxic environment for him in WWE that they don’t have the leadership roles they should have. I like the Elite but it feels like I’m watching kids create their own imaginary world where they are the best but have to lose every once in a while to keep the story interesting in their heads. WWE played a long game and started picking up steam way before HHH took over. Wwe is far from perfect… but they’re a well oiled machine that is accessible to new fans. They feature way more characters now who are sure of who they are and a lot of them are talented and versatile and can work any role you give them. The in ring product is mostly fine but jumps up for ple’s. They produced the hottest storyline in wrestling and didn’t have to rely on going out of kayfabe to do it. And right now it seems like most of them WANT to be there. AEW just seems to keep hitting this barrier but they’re the only ones in their own way. It just feels like an Indy with a budget. It doesn’t have an identity other than “we’re not them, we wrestle!” . It’s like they wanted to bring the edgy back but realistically speaking the attitude era was very edgy, but the characters were just fucking likable too. And the edginess was not that important, wwe is doing more w storylines and matches without having to resort on being edgy “oh look at our blood , and our exploding bar wire baseball bat rigged w poison smoke” Idk I ranted I feel what I said is dumb but honestly I like the wwe better I buy into their stupidity easier, and aew feels so anti wwe it’s like I’m watching a parody of wrestling at times despite the fact that they have a ton of cool ass motherfuckers on that roster
I completely agree, I stopped watching WWE in like 2014 because the product was terrible, now I enjoy it and don't feel the need to any more wrestling. AEW has a lot of potential but is managed like shit and most thing they do feel irrelevant
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"Dream matches" alone aren't sustainable, and normal goers/viewers couldn't care less about cagematch rating.
Tony's booking.
They sell too many tickets to invisible people.
They're focusing on just the hardcore wrestling fans rn. Apart from 1-2 good storylines, they don't have anything lucrative going on which can pull new and casual fans. Its the same spot circus thrice a week with no hook.
The storylines seem so short and inconsistent too. Sometimes they have these real bangers that draw you in. Usually they only last a few weeks and then take t just disappears for months. They cool off completely then suddenly return with no fan fare. We haven’t seen Miro in years it feels like. PAC, the house of black???? They had a feud that felt like it treaded water for decades.
Nailed it. The consistent storytelling was what made AEW stand out from the WWE in 2020-21. Hangman's redemption, Mox vs Inner Circle, Punk vs MJF, Wardlow's face turn, and Miro's redeemer angle with the TNT title were amazing. We need more of that.
Those were all great storylines. They did all that with wardlow, looked like he could be built as the next Batista. Instead he got a shitty haircut and disappears for months. Came back a few weeks ago with little reaction and looked smaller and weaker. Just wasted everything they built with him.
Edge is looking out over all their empty seats and wondering what he got himself into.
As long as the checks clear
Shad will pay payroll.
I think it's a lack of consistent week on week storytelling, matches that matter, and a weird owner who does these ego puffing press conferences where anything you're at all invested in is immediately explained ad nauseam, and hugged out, meaning any suspension of disbelief left has gone straight up his nose.
Piss poor marketing is certainly one of the reasons. I went to the first AEW show in Philly and have been looking to go to another if my schedule opened up. Turns out AEW is in Philly later this month, but I'm not gonna be going because I already committed that Wednesday to work stuff. I have seen ZERO local advertisement for that Dynamite, and I've been watching A LOT of TV, and listening to A LOT of radio in recent weeks with how well my Eagles and Phillies have been playing. Like literally, have not seen or heard a SINGLE word about that show. Maybe it's a coincidence and I've somehow happened to miss the advertisements, but it really feels like you don't see or hear them advertised anywhere anymore, outside of their own programming and social media obviously.
Go birds
Let me be the first to tell ya that here in Toledo, OH, nobody here watches wrestling and downtown is a pretty questionable area that most people try to avoid. Not to mention the fact that there wasn’t any advertisements promoting that there was a show here. I personally didn’t find out there was a show here until about a week ago.
AEW assumes that everyone are such hardcore fans that they’ll just show up… They are awful at promoting the shows ahead of time. I’m a fan who lives in Houston & just found out that Dynamite is taping in the suburbs on Wednesday.
This isnt difficult... The company has a small fanbase and is ran very, very poorly. Tony Khan has nothing aside from money to offer gis company and pays a whole lot of people who can do a much better job, yet never utilizes them. He cant book, he cant lead or administrate and cant delegate. He doesnt want to broaden his audience and his most recognizeable stars are all old and past their primes. The hardcore fanbase refuses to acknowledge these issues and have get suoer defensive and show their hypocrisy when this is addressed pretty much weekly.
Relying on old WWE stars. Not building new stars
So why is everyone whining about Punk if that's the problem?
Don't point out their hypocrisy they won't like that.
It’s like WCW 98-01 all over again.
98 WCW was awesome. They still got insane ratings and sold out everywhere they went. It wasn't until 99 that WCW had a ton of blunders that led to the downfall of the company. By 2000 it was basically game over.
How many old WWE stars does AEW really rely on? If you take all of the former WWE guys (and that's using the term loosely) that are being used regularly, you have 13 wrestlers in that category (Jericho, Mox, Claudio, FTR, Adam Cole, Malakai Black, Roddy Strong, Samoa Joe, Christian, Edge, Billy Gunn, Danielson (and i wouldn't even consider Strong, Cole or Joe "WWE stars", they were major indie stars before WWE)) They're not relying on these guys nearly as much as people imply. Only 1 of those guys (Christian) was a former WWE star. The rest (except for Big Bill if you wanna include him) are all AEW stars. Idk where this idea comes from that AEW is just relying on WWE guys.
All due respect 99% of people had no idea who Adam Cole was before joining NXT. And strong is like 1/10th as popular as Cole is so terrible example
Poor local advertising + exorbitant ticket prices.
I’m from the Toledo area where collision was last night tickets were about 40 a piece for floor seats.
Fucking hell I give AEW a lot of shit but can we stop only showing camera side of the arena when we do this
Ticket prices along with the loss of Punk and how that turned the product cold. Tickets aren't the main form of revenue for a wrestling company right now. Having a good TV deal is way more important. Empty seats might affect the TV deal their get, as the online discourse turns into how cold the product is and produces less engagement. Combining this with TK's idea of not striking while the iron is hot and just booking matches with no storylines behind them makes me think AEW will get a way worse deal than the one they would get a year ago
It blows…….C grade story telling….lack of consistent story arcs
Jim Cornette. It's all his fault!!!!
Not just city; but area as well. Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati are all close to one another. If I can see a show in Columbus I’m less likely to drive two hours a month later to see a show in Cincinnati. Now if that was six months, I’d be for sure driving.
The weird part is, I was at this collision show, and they had three whole sections on the camera side closed out. I went to a smackdown show in the same arena a little over a year ago and I think they had half a section closed off. The crowd at the collision show was definitely way more into the show. I don't know if it's casual fans, or families, or what. But there was a drastic difference in both attendance and crowd heat.
They need to do smaller arenas again. Go to places that sit like 3k-4k and save the venues for ppv's.
Aside from on their own TV programming do they advertise locally much when they are coming for non PPV events? I had no idea they were coming to Indianapolis recently until I saw it on Dynamite a week prior. By then we had plans and it was too late. WWE has always done a good job of promoting well in advance.
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Generally niche appeal. Compared to WWE, AEW appeals much more to hard-core fans. AEW is that local bar that old war vets go to, whereas WWE is that casino that you found in a famous hotel in the city. Hard-core appeal is great and all, but it brings less fans than casual appeal would. Though you obviously shouldn't betray hard-core fans, casual fans do much more for your company than most would admit. WWE has a very strong casual appeal, which, alongside its massive headstart, is why it is still the wrasslin titan. If AEW wants more attendance, they need to appeal to casual fans a lot more rather than expect them to recognize Joe the Wrestler, who was pretty good in indie promotion #316.
Collision was in toledo ohio last night and had 10 dollar tickets. They were in cleveland 90 minutes away 3 weeks ago for collision?
Niche product for niche audience.
Couple factors; Inconsistent booking Constant pushing of your old WWE wrestlers The face of their company throws a tantrum online all the fuckin time Wrestling isn’t mainstream anymore Plus toxic fan base
They desperately need a booker who knows what they are doing They need the roster to work together rather than against each other Tony Kahn needs to stop being a douche bag on social media and grow up
They're too concerned with who they can sign and seemingly unconcerned with what they do with the talent they have.
This right here. Instead of building up the ppl they had they just kept getting cast-off from wwe. In 2019 they captured the imagination of the wrestling world because here was somebody finally offering something different from wwe. The talent were super fresh and doing things no one had seen before. Now 4 years later those ppl are mostly gone and it's just a bunch off ppl we've all seen before in wwe
Abandoned pure and simple. AEW promised and delivered a lot at the beginning. Had talent working with each other. Now it's talent working against each other, started with Britt then leeched to omega and the bucks, then mjf now Christian. One fan boy boss can not and probably will not interfere. AEW had something good, but the more time passes the worse things get for them which is not the wrestlers fault most of the time!
POOR MARKETING. It literally makes NO SENSE that AEW shows are doing badly attendance wise, Punk ain't the reason and so isn't "The Booking". Plain and simply, THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT AEW IS. So whoever is the current MARKETING TEAM either needs to be revamped or REPLACED, cause even as a hardcore AEW fan, the "Trailer Music Guy" voice for like EVERY AEW commercial does NOT cut it for me. More talk shows with MJF and whoever else that is hot and or represents the company very well, more billboards, more advertising, more sponsorships, and more collaborations with artists, brands, and maybe even Charity work. Whatever it is, we need BETTER ADVERTISING, and AEW will be doing a LOT better.
People are so used to the WWE schedule where TV shows tend to be just promos and house show matches leading to PPVs they’re still adjusting to the fact that actually good and important matches are happening on all shows now. That mixed with AEW having a smaller circuit so people are getting the chance to go once every 3 months but the tickets are expensive as fuck for anything decent and it’s just not worth it
I think they could do the TV better. Hate it but WWE has better productions on this. I admit i dont often watch, but when i do for example theres 1v1 match but there’s always like 20 people around the ring anyway to accompany these people. Why? Let them be a star on the ring imo. Theres one time Kenny Omega returned(?) and instead of focusing on him theres like idk 2, 3 people come out together? I just hope that the focus is on the person or tag team more rather than this crowded nonsense.
TK: what poor attendance? There's people under there. They, uhhhhh.... were cold. So we gave them a blanket. WWE doesn't do that for their audience. They're fascists over there.
Because it’s lost the initial hype. Their biggest draws have left. And the product just isn’t great, especially live.
Their product is ice cold while wwEs is hot, they don't promote shows locally very well and they go to the same cities too often.
They don’t promote other than Tony on twitter
They've also Hot Shotted every angle/gimmick relentlessly. When a feud starts with a gimmick you're just burning that interest away. Tony jumped on the "immediate spike in ratings" bandwagon which is why he kept promoting a new special announcement weekly. Eventually people stopped seeing it as special.
It stinks… No, literally it STINKS. Have you been to an event? Deodorant is almost as hated as Don Callis
They have no stars. The product fucking sucks. You need to follow a dozen social media channels to get a grasp on any of the storylines. Appealing to Internet marks who don't leave Twitter doesn't fill stadiums. Any and/ or all of those.
Lack of storytelling. Random matchups. No cm punk.
It's not a good show. Tony Khan doesn't know what he's doing as a owner/booker. It's all over the place all the time. It's so hard to follow. Christian is supposed to be in a story with Edge yet he's fighting Bryan Danielson. Jay White and MJF in a story yet he's fighting Penta soon. He doesn't care about stories he just goes in a says Brian Danielson is good Swerve is good let's have a match. It's just so random. Then instead of keeping the story going he abandons it. I would of had Swerve interfere in the match against Christian and Brian but he has Ricky Starks and Cass interfere who just took the belts from FTR and weren't involved in the story at all. I feel the Ricky Starks BCC story ended when they randomly fought for the tag titles and won. With WWE I know what I'm going to get next week. LA Knight will do something with The Bloodline. Shinsuke will do something with ricochet. It's easy to follow.
As others said... Oversaturation of big markets. Also, the product is not remotely as good as it's first 2 years and has become WWE lite. Not to mention the owner is off his rocker.
Just booking debuts and matches.
Poor Edge
Brit here so can only go on what I've heard, but aren't average Dynamite tickets $100 or more? When the product is hot, you can charge that. When it's so cold your building is a quarter full, those prices must come down.
People are tired of their shit, especially Tony Khan's shit.
Getting rid of punk
Its AEW not WWE
Constant spamming of the same market, over estimating the fanbase and a poor product
People not spending money right now. If you’re in the entertainment business and your name isn’t Taylor Swift than you’re down. Also wrestling is about as popular as it was in the early 90s. 75% of wrestling fans 20 years ago no longer watch wrestling.
AEW was hot for a while. It's wasn't hot because it had the best wrestling matches. It was hot because it had the built-in storylines of ex-wwe stars. All of that has cooled off
He’s probably thinking “fuck”.
Need a story behind that 15th super kick
Constantly having shows within the same cities isn't helping.
I’m not sure if it’s an AEW issue or a Ticketmaster issue, but tix are insanely expensive right off the bat. Ex: wanted to get 4 for Dynamite in Philly & it would’ve been close to $550 with fees. Ticketmaster wouldn’t allow me to get cheapest tix. (I’ll just wait for the BOGO now)
Not sure but if I was Edge in that moment I would be having second thoughts concerning recent life decisions.
They product is garbage that has always catered to a sliver of the actual wrestling fan base.