AEW in June 2023: Two shows, one thread

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Yeah. Their biggest Canadian draw is Shawn Spears, who most people either don’t know at all or if they do, forgot was still on the roster.

 

[909]

punk is the only "draw" listed right? It's Punk, FTR, Andrade, Miro, Rosa and who? Punk is the only proven big draw and he has seemingly killed his aura. There's no Danielson, Omega, Jericho (which wtf it's Canada), etc.

edit: NO MOXLEY

Yeah see if he can’t work with all those people how could this show ever work

 

[Tino Standard]

if you get tsn then the streaming service is free and 86% of the country has TSN. My Dad even understands how to use it and he's awful at this shit. AEW's audience understands this stuff very well. The tickets are not selling because CM Punk killed himself as a draw and they haven't advertised anything else compelling. It is really that simple.

That’s good info. I still have to think that free or not, being on a streamer instead of a regular TV channel hurts to at least some degree. Same thing as when sports in the US are shown on a broadcast channel vs cable.

 

[Valeyard]

Stressing Omega "IS NOT IN CANADA" the other day was totally burying the show, huh

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I almost wonder if Tony Khan is self sabotaging to prove a point against Punk and the other bad kids. “You think you can do better than me? GFY!”

 

[Valeyard]

I refuse to think TK has that in him.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I do think he may be naive and enough of a mark to think that AEW: Black & Red is a good idea.

 

[Valeyard]

I firmly believe he's caught in some awful realm of being smug mark who wants to be friends with his favorite wrestlers but also gets mentally destroyed by things like mean tweets or comments. I don't think he understands it when people don't kiss his ass or don't live in his bubble, which hits harder when it's the people he clearly idolizes.

This is the first time he's being shit on where money and company prestige are an issue, and it's causing all his flaws to show. He's trying to please everyone, including himself, and it's a disaster.

 

[909]

One good thing that happened in his favor was those guys quitting AAA. Otherwise you’d literally have no Lucha guys on the Saturday show.

 

[geniusMoment]

Outside of what anyone thinks of Punk I think they've done a piss poor job of hyping up a new "A level" show in general. We still don't know if there will be some type of brand split. We don't have any clue what is happening with the champions. Tony reading these announcements with the excitement of a corpse isn't helping. There should already be 3 or 4 things big that you're looking forward to on this new show.

I will say AEW probably got really fucked by that Sasha injury. My guess is the first Collision was going to be her first appearance in AEW to hype up a match for Forbidden Door. Just imagine if at the very end of Dynamite the screen went black and there was a silhouette of Sasha with a message that for the first time in a year she would be live on US TV with a live mic. You then would've had a huge debut and a huge return. And probably would've gotten a big rating.

And with Punk appearing at her NJPW show and at Trinity's Impact debut I kinda think that was the angle they were building. And now that's all shot to hell.

 

[909]

I don't know what more you want tbh. If you think fans are just going to eat up whatever they do, at this point I think you'd be delusional to think that. Bringing Punk back destroys their relationship with a lot of these fans. A lot of the doomsaying coincides with this return and the announcement of this show for a good reason. There's no world where you get a happy CM Punk, a happy roster, good creative on TV, butts in seats. That's fantasyland at this point. There are now too many people in the company who deservedly want to pull things in their direction, that kind of thing is just not going to happen.

The bloom is off the rose and there's nothing they can do that would get people hyped for this show. They blew their load when they brought guys in from WWE in the first place. At the end of the day it's a Saturday show which might draw good attendance but it's going to get piss poor ratings because people have better shit to do with their time on a Saturday. Also at the end of the day it's featuring someone who has Hogan level heat with the audience they're shooting for. I think it's disingenuous to act like anything they do is going to uptick business. They have already done everything realistically within their power to try to boom business and it's not happening. At some point you have to accept that it isn't going to happen unless they bring in Roman Reigns. Everyone also needs to accept that this Saturday show will kill the Wednesday show by proxy. They are diluting the product and then spreading it too thin all at the same time. There's an obvious feeling of impending disaster here, there is nothing they can actually do at this point to prevent it because they've already started rolling the ball downhill. It's like WCW Thunder but it's worse because the product is still good overall but you know it's completely incapable of carrying two more hours of A level TV, and they aren't drawing as it was either. WCW's logic was that they were drawing so they could support this, but AEW wasn't drawing and they did this out of nothing but greed.

The shows that get business moving in the right direction for them are festival style shows where they bring in a ton of outside talent and put something great together. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what exactly this means. The only other thing that ever does get business going is when they bring acts in straight from WWE, but I will also point out that if you bring in Mercedes that isn't going to move the needle either because who is she gonna work with that moves the needle? Unless you feed Jade to her that wouldn't work, and why the hell would you do that? I can't think of anything more stupid.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

People are hesitant about Collision because, when has AEW shown they know how to properly book a secondary show, without it feeling like a filler/squash/C-Level show? Hell, they can't even consistently book Dynamite week-to-week.

THIS. I really, really want to like AEW, but any time I tune in is just bullshit upon bullshit and it's all done with a smirk like "of course this is a joke."

 

[909]

THIS. I really, really want to like AEW, but any time I tune in is just bullshit upon bullshit and it's all done with a smirk like "of course this is a joke."

MJF's title reign has been just as destructive to the company as Brawl Out was

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Silver lining is at this point, if/when he jumps to WWE, he is basically a younger version of LA Knighf.

I can’t remember the last time someone’s first World Title run deflated their momentum so badly that didn’t involve them being a weak champion.

 

[Hawk 34]

McIntyre? Different scenario with a pandemic but I think he fits that specific bill.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I think that was more the way he was treated at the end and after his reign though.

 

[909]

Silver lining is at this point, if/when he jumps to WWE, he is basically a younger version of LA Knighf.

I can’t remember the last time someone’s first World Title run deflated their momentum so badly that didn’t involve them being a weak champion.

MJF also did it to himself. Can't blame anyone else for his promos being atrocious. He did that all on his own, fundamentally does not understand how to construct a decent feud. You can see why him and Punk have no working relationship anymore.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

MJF’s stuff works on a small to medium scale level or with an expert backstage politician like Cody guiding him but it just seems like bush league smart mark bullshit with this run.

 

[claydude14]

I can’t sit through WWE for a full show and have always appreciated an alternative (I watched TNA over RAW during the “Monday Night Wars 2”) so the fact that I haven’t really cared for Dynamite outside of the BCC and HOB stuff has me excited for an alternative AEW. I also don’t get why everyone thinks CM Punk suddenly doesn’t draw, wait for the ratings. Does reddit hate him or something? My casual wrestling fans tuned in when he was back and don’t watch WWE outside of Rumble/Mania

 

[909]

I can’t sit through WWE for a full show and have always appreciated an alternative (I watched TNA over RAW during the “Monday Night Wars 2”) so the fact that I haven’t really cared for Dynamite outside of the BCC and HOB stuff has me excited for an alternative AEW. I also don’t get why everyone thinks CM Punk suddenly doesn’t draw, wait for the ratings. Does reddit hate him or something? My casual wrestling fans tuned in when he was back and don’t watch WWE outside of Rumble/Mania

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1668400188686303235

Chicago's always going to be a big town for Punk, but everywhere else on there, not so good.

 

[Valeyard]

There's no way MJF gets a WWE run and if somehow does it will be some EC3 shit. WWE and his buddy Nick won't take his bullshit. Guy's literally everything they tell people not to do.

MJF and Cole interacting is the most bush league shit you can put out there. If it leads to Strong or O'Reilly turning on Cole before all is said and done, TK should get punched in the head.

 

[geniusMoment]

Cole/MJF working a match this Wednesday is curious to me. With Mercedes hurt and not being able to be a big debut I'm thinking they're going to try and get another hook to get viewers in. I'm guessing they bumped up whatever was planned with MJF/Cole and the match on Wednesday leads to a world title match between the two on Saturday.

Maybe you announce something at the end of Dynamite where you mention Punk will have a live mic at 8, and immediately following you will have a world title match.

 

[909]

Cole/MJF working a match this Wednesday is curious to me. With Mercedes hurt and not being able to be a big debut I'm thinking they're going to try and get another hook to get viewers in. I'm guessing they bumped up whatever was planned with MJF/Cole and the match on Wednesday leads to a world title match between the two on Saturday.

Maybe you announce something at the end of Dynamite where you mention Punk will have a live mic at 8, and immediately following you will have a world title match.

MJF and Punk don't get along even slightly and they supposedly will not be on the same show. I have heard before that he was standing there during the fight and immediately relayed the information to Meltzer

 

[Valeyard]

Saying Punk will have a live mic on the debut would be like saying a wrestling match will take place.

 

[909]

Why not just announce that he's taking a shit we're already halfway there. They did three announcements just to say he was working in a specific match and they still sold jack dick afterwards

 

[Valeyard]

Hype up CM Piss.

 

[HSJ]

I honestly don’t know what’s worse anymore - this place or Twitter.

 

[909]

gonna have to be more specific

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

If you think this place is worse than twitter you need to read more twitter (please don't for your sanity). Everyone here wants AEW to be better and makes a lot of constructive criticism. It's obvious how frustrated people are. No one is hating on the product just to hate on it. We might focus more on AEW's negatives than its positives but that's because we want it to be better. Compare that to WWE where we barely even talk about it because its so fucking wretched outside of like 10 minutes a show.

 

[geniusMoment]

In terms of an announce team what are your thoughts?

I'd love for it to be Ian as the lead PBP guy. I know he's always wanted to stay doing ROH, but that seems pointless now.