AEW in Fall 2022- Spreading lies and bullshit to the media.

[909]

If Rampage struggles to hit 600k, then god damn what you think a third rate show with a third rate name value is gonna do.

Stop this ROH bullshit. Either TK is a bigger idiot mark than he proclaims he is or he really did spend more than he needed to on this and needs to justify it.

I think he's a mark who had this idea he could save Ring of Honor and he just won't let it go. I think he's been a good booker other than this, but this is starting to really negatively affect his show. The way he's choosing talent for his two TV shows is going to kill his promotion in the long run. The guys he's brought in aren't having bad matches, but they don't have star power, they don't sell tickets, AND THEY NEVER WILL.

A couple of these wrestlers already have the worst kind of heat (Nese, Lethal, Woods, Castle) so yea just keep sending them out there and see what happens.

 

[Hawk 34]

And the baffling thing is…the people who made ROH whatever value it holds? HE HAD THEM IN HOUSE ALREADY. He didn’t need the stars of the Sinclair era for this shit.

 

[909]

And the baffling thing is…the people who made ROH whatever value it holds? HE HAD THEM IN HOUSE ALREADY. He didn’t need the stars of the Sinclair era for this shit.

I would say the most baffling thing is that you can distinctly see that the ticket sales started to decline at the same time they started bringing in all these people and featuring them more than certain key AEW talent. And then they doubled down and brought in even more lower midcard talent to suck up valuable TV time. There's a really obvious cause and effect here. As soon as the match booking became more obvious and featured key AEW guys less and less, people stopped buying tickets to the TV shows. Now you aren't guaranteed to see your guys unless you fucking love Jay Lethal and Mark Sterling so people aren't going. Who fuckin knew

 

[909]

Also like how are you gonna sell tickets to live Rampage all autumn when they keep loading ROH guys onto Rampage, it's not just that they're pushing them. Everyone's had their bit to say about ticket sales but this is my theory for why they aren't drawing people. They are directly relying on ROH guys to sell tickets for them. I don't know anyone in the entire world who buys a ticket to something because they'll get to see Jay Lethal and Mike Bennett. They're trading on AEW name power in order to sell tickets to an ROH show where people will be watching non-draws wrestle. Maybe Moxley or Danielson will be on it, if they are they're likely facing a lower midcard guy. This is the same kind of shit WCW did in 99 with Thunder.

Who the fuck wanted FTR to feud with two randomly paired green guys and then the Kingdom? Like really you're doing this now?

 

[909]

Lastly you can’t employ the whole world and at some point you have to decide what’s more important to you, these new guys or the ones you had. You also can’t give up your third hour of TV to ROH and I bet Turner wouldn’t let you, but even if you did you’re driving good talent out of the company for a proven loser brand. You can’t keep a company going because some people went to a couple shows in NYC 12-15 years ago. THIS SHIT IS DONE

That being said if TK already gave these people long term contracts he’s fucked, he won’t release them so they’re going to drive other talent out by taking their tv time. There is no happy world where you can employ all these people with three hours of tv time, that’s even worse than what WWE tries to do. This shit actually really annoys me or obviously I wouldn’t be going on like this, but I want to see my favorites wrestle and not Jay Lethal. I saw the spoilers for tonight already and it drove me up a wall. Let my people go.

Also if Kenny Omega looked straight at these people when he made his ‘joke’ he was absolutely right. And how are you gonna put everyone back on tv while you bring in more losers like Matt Taven to ruin the company with

 

[Valeyard]

The ROH shit is a big part of why AEW isn't appointment viewing for me these days. I just don't care and don't want it. 909 nailed it. I didn't care when these people were ROH for real and don't want to see them now at the expense of people I enjoy. Those titles are meaningless to me, because unlike the AAA or IWGP belts they are from a dead promotion that alienated me ten years ago and haven't been relevant for almost 15. Anyone who says different should've given a fuck when they were real titles.

TK has hurt most of my goodwill in the past few months and crippling his own major company at the expense of trying to animate the corpse of a dead niche company no one cared about until they died is the kind of shit I can't nor should let slide as a fan.

 

[Tino Standard]

The last page or so on here has articulated everything about AEW that has been bothering me for months. It’s so frustrating to watch.

I don’t think buying ROH was a mistake. If it was just for the tape library and an occasional nostalgia show, it would have been fine. But trying to shoehorn it into AEW programming as an active brand with no clear path to becoming its own separate entity again anytime soon is a glaring mistake, and the worse it gets, the more they seem to double down. Honestly, it’s kind of shocking because Tony has been pretty good about adjusting when something clearly isn’t working.

 

[909]

Now that I'm finally not typing on a phone...I gotta say this is the only redeeming aspect of Vince and that he understands this far more than TK ever will. Vince did miscategorize people sometimes but there's really only three categories that the modern wrestler fits into. Now the reason I say Vince understands this is because he has always treated lower card guys and jobbers like they're expendable because 90% of the time they are. The other 10% are the guys he miscategorized.

Exceptional Talent
Lower Card
Jobber

My personal opinion is that you can fill your company with as many exceptional talents as you want. You can also sign as many jobbers as you want as long as you aren't giving them long term deals and the only reason they're there is to get squashed. You can keep adding great talents, but there comes a point where you have to start letting lower card guys go if you keep stacking your company. Tony never did that. Either you have a lot of great talent or a lot of lower card guys, you don't get to have both or you wind up like WWE and have to cut 25-30 jobs every year with some of the people leaving being amazing wrestlers.

I feel like sometime around the point where they signed Joe this situation hit a breaking point where it could go one way or the other and Tony chose for it to go the wrong way. Lower card guys by definition have to be expendable. You should be able to rotate through them in order to prevent people from getting tired of them because they aren't good enough to be on the show all the time. That's just the fact of it, but Tony's already messed that part up. I digress. Now there's two scenarios, either Tony thinks the wrong guys are exceptional talent (probably) or he thinks it's in the interest of his company to keep adding people (at this point it absolutely isn't). Eventually when you sign too many lower card guys to full time contracts you're creating a situation where it's the exceptional talents have to get booted from TV sometimes in order to make things work. And that's where things always fall apart because nobody wants to be off TV, and everyone starts getting mad, and then you have a situation where guys are fighting backstage all the time.

They have three hours of television. They do not have time to fit all their A+ talent and all their lower card talent. I think Tony already fucked up because he gave long term contracts to lower card guys who he shouldn't have signed, and he's gonna use them because of course he is, so he set his company down a path I would say is not ideal. The three hours they have is probably not enough to fit all the exceptional talent they have. I could make a list but that would take a really long time, it's a lot of people. I also did not write down Ricky Starks or Powerhouse Hobbs when I was going on about people not being on TV lately. The list of people Tony has left off TV in favor of far worse talent is actually fucking embarrassing and I'm stunned more people haven't asked to be released. I would personally not be able to handle sitting in catering every week while some of the lower card guys are on TV every week, I would have lost my shit by now. Fucking HOOK is barely on there. And I only mentioned the men's roster here. The amount of stalled out talent since the NYC show is just ridiculous tbh. They had this guy wrestle with Action Bronson and did absolutely nothing with it after. Why?

They are putting on good TV but to me that isn't a viable defense in their favor, they should be putting on great TV. Look at what they have to work with here. In ring product is great, better than WWE, BUT it could be a lot better. You have to pick who you want to have on TV all the time and he picked wrong. This ROH shit has been a plague.

 

[Valeyard]

It's kind of exposed TK's biggest weaknesses as a booker, too. The stuff that works best is definitely just outlining what he wants and letting the workers do it themselves, sink or swim. It's blatant and it's awesome. But this is him actively trying to book a story in some fashion and it's failing remarkably, in no small part because the actual talent involved are not even in the same league.

Dude literally is also the reason why the bubble is funny. He thinks other people think ROH matters, when anyone who did kind of moved on when the talent they liked left.

 

[909]

I also wonder if there are certain talents who actually really have a problem with this but won't say anything about it. The ROH stuff for some of them is like going backwards in their career. I feel like if you told Omega he was going to feud over an ROH title he would rightfully have a fit.

 

[Valeyard]

To say nothing of how guys like Miro or Claudio have to feel after years of being mishandled. Now they gotta fight for time with rejects and make believe companies when even at their most buried they got on TV with more regularity and even main evented once in a while. I'd be bitter as hell.

 

[909]

To say nothing of how guys like Miro or Claudio have to feel after years of being mishandled. Now they gotta fight for time with rejects and make believe companies when even at their most buried they got on TV with more regularity and even main evented once in a while. I'd be bitter as hell.

Everyone also said they came to the company to work with the Elite or Bryan or Miro or Sammy or MJF or Darby or Lucha Bros or Swerve or Keith or Claudio or Mox or Andrade or Black or FTR or Pac or OC or Starks or Hobbs or Hangman or Sting or Eddie and now they're working with Matt Taven instead. It seems like Tony and a few other fans who like everyone they brought in are the only ones who don't see that these backstage problems and complaints come from root frustration of showing up to TV every week and working with guys who are frankly beneath them. Those guys I listed aren't even all the great talent they have either. And it's not once they have to work with the Jay Lethal's of the world but it's every single week.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

I know they’re one of the most hated talents around here, for really no reason,

Because they were pushed to the moon in ROH when they're midcard at BEST, and too soon after we had ROH shows main'd by people who could out-work them while dogging it. They literally embodied the fall of ROH under Sinclair more than any other talent.

...and I don't mind Taven, but he is the very definition of a guy that works great at a VFW hall and is instantly outclassed by even the job guys on slightly larger stages.

 

[Valeyard]

Taven is like a dollar store pregancy test in that while yes he is technically what he is supposed to be he is still an awful concept and should be avoided.

 

[Valeyard]

Bennett and Maria, they would've been awesome in the early days when they needed those kind of stars. Maria honestly has a ton of value still, I think, when it comes to input or booking of the women's division. She knows her shit. Bennett is a hard miss.

It's really funny how the only ROH name I would want to see is PCO and he's in Impact still.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Bennett and Taven are the worst signing for a major promotion until WWE officially announces they have signed Vincent and Dutch.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

I've said before that I used to see Bennett on the same local shows that I'd see Eddie Edwards, and it truly is amazing that he somehow got worse between working in the YMCAs and working on PPV. He had a few brief moments of awesome working for XWA, ditto Taven (and also where TK O'Reilly was still more Roddy Piper cover band than bargain bin Chris Hero), but that's really it.

Do they even have name value? Is there a section of the audience that's literally clamoring for more of the Kingdom?

 

[Valeyard]

Lotta apologists are down, evidently. I don't hate Bennett but he's got no business being in a major promotion. I get he's a package deal with Maria but he's got nothing to offer at this level. I seriously question the judgment of anyone who thinks he and Taven are a positive signing.

I miss when ROHbots weren't so stupid.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

I don't remember a time when ROHbots weren't really awful tbh.

 

[Tino Standard]

Wow, AEW is really trying to drive up ticket sales for Tuesday in Cincinnati. They’re doing a free meet & greet with Moxley at the arena box office.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1581118922484772865

As of two days ago, they only had about 3,800 tickets sold, according to WrestleTix, so they’ve got some work to do.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I see less ROHbots than Impact Wrestling stans. It's probably closer to the amount of boomers that still watch and enjoy NWA than the number of AEW fans.

If you're still defending ROH's involvement in AEW, you may be in the Wrestling Bubble we're accusing Tony Khan of being in.

(I got to work on my Foxworthy-esque "You May Be in a Wrestling Bubble" jokes for TSMCon)

 

[geniusMoment]

More shows and more shows and more shows....

In the recent Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave reported that Kathleen Finch, the Chairwoman and Chief Content Officer for WBD made what sounds like a major vote of confidence for AEW in a Hollywood Reporter interview. She said they are looking at doing 4,000 hours of original content for their U.S. Networks and are looking for new scripted series’ for TBS and TNT, as well a new sports franchise that would work on those stations. She said, “We really play in the sports space. One of the things that we’re doing around sports is creating shoulder programming to hold onto those fans. AEW pulls huge numbers, so we are working with the wrestling team to figure out what new kind of content can we build that’s not in a wrestling ring.”

As noted before, WBD had been filming a reality show with AEW couples to fill the slot of “Rhodes tothe Top.” Tony Khan is also pitching ROH as a separate show and All Elite Women as a separate show. But Dave believes that there is no demand for adding hours of wrestling content and wrestling fans have as many hours now and can’t watch all of them, which is a reason Rampage numbers are sliding because of the major shows, it’s the most “can miss” because of lesser star power. But he added that Rampage is still top five in its time slot on cable most weeks and WBD alone has 30 stations.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Who here is going to hate watch the Sammy Guevara/Tay Conti reality show?

 

[Valeyard]

So what kind of money does AEW make, anyway? Do they turn profits? Really asking.

 

[909]

Yeah they’re not going to get more wrestling hours, they can forget it.

 

[Valeyard]

Just hit me that, based on signings and all, one Bobby Fish is worth as much as both Bennett and Taven. Impact proved it.

 

[Hawk 34]

Yeah they’re not going to get more wrestling hours, they can forget it.

Almost positive the Renee hiring was just so they could fold her into the NHL and food network.

@cobainwasmurdered will be appointment viewing the GOOD BONES RENOVATION show on HGTV.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Yeah they’re not going to get more wrestling hours, they can forget it.

I don't get mindset of "We want more wrestling based content but not actual wrestling." However as goofy as it sounds, some people got into WWE through Total Divas. I guess that's why these people are cable network executives and I'm sitting here typing ITT.

 

[Hawk 34]

You answered your own question, pal.

Adding more wrestling content isn’t gonna bring more viewers, but keep the attraction of that product with another demographic and you can have success like Total Divas did.

The issue with Rhodes to the Top was that Cody and Brandi weren’t interesting, famous enough and the built in audience disliked them already.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

It's hard to find a balance. I highly doubt The Bellas became as popular as they were without Total Divas. Naomi to a lesser extent but like the bulk of that show's castmembers' careers went over about as well as Nikki Bella's reaction to John Cena telling her he purchased 57 suits.