Jmare007

I feel like the amount of hardcore AEW fans that feel this way at this point has already stopped watching after the 2022-2023 fuckery filled drama the company went through. To me, the problem with Shane is that he's probably not someone you can control much. Even if he comes up with a cool concept for an angle, he's gonna end up ruining it by being front and center of it and taking way too much TV time. But in an ideal world were Shane can be reigned in, the thought of him showing up in AEW is intriguing.

Nah, last year's Blood & Guts and at least the NXT's War Games were bloated as all hell and not touching the best ones from JCP.

Love the call for the next n°1 contender for Grand Slam. It's gonna be an awesome with either Swerve or Danielson (Swerve would make way more sense as a story though).

Vaquer was undoubtedly impressive but I disagree with the bolded.

The crowd started shitting on Boston, Vaquer had nothing to do with that, regardless of how good she performed on that match.

See? this guy is fucking insane about this sport. (I have no idea how to embed tweets anymore, fucking Elon...) https://x.com/AEW/status/1811247573212033352

That match can still happen at any time to be honest. I don't see Danielson going back to WWE and he's gonna keep wrestling as long as his body lets him. He's just gonna do it sporadically, so a Nigel match can be done in 2025 or 2026. Hell, in 10 more years when his kids grow up, who the hell knows what Dragon will do, he's clearly batshit insane when it comes to pro wrestling.

The last 3 weeks have been really well booked and it finally feels like Dynamite is a show that builds different angles weekly and there's better connectivity between different feuds because the same wrestlers are showing up every Wednesday to interact with different people and set up legit interesting matches for the coming weeks. Gladly surprised Danielson accepted the Wembley main event, TK probably begged Brie to convince Dragon that it was OK to win the tournament, lmao. Hangman vs Swerve as a title match should be preserved for later, when Page has more momentum and you can actually buy him winning the belt. I think that match could sell a good amount of tickets if the stakes feel real, and "rushing" it for All In was going to waste that opportunity, imo. Mariah and Toni have the best story in AEW for a while and thankfully fans have been behind it. The turn was done superbly, it was good ol' pro wrestling. Mercedes as a heel just feels right, she's might give Britt her first good non gimmick singles match.

I thought Mercedes/Vaquer was good, lol.

That main event had to be the best Jim Ross I've heard in like 8 years. The original camera take for that stomp onto the announce table was perfect because you couldn't really notice Osperay jumping up to make the spot work, that shit was crazy. Didn't see the whole show but the matches I watched all ranged from good to great. Something I've noticed more and more these days is that AEW fans are more looking forward to fast paced sequences with flashy and cool looking reversals than anything else. This crowd got fired up every time they saw one. It took some batshit stuff like Takeshita blue thunder bomb on the tables, the curve stop from the main event (and the wild nearfalls in that match) to reach the levels of hype those kind of sequences got in different matches. So for Wembley we are looking at: Toni vs Mariah (probably their best built angle right now) Ospreay vs MJF Mercedes vs DMD Swerve vs Danielson or the Wildcard (Hangman Page?) That's pretty damn good imo, on paper it sounds better than the top matches from last year, imo.

They should continue to roll with Mox as the outsider champ until they give one of the young guys the full green light push to take it from him. But I have no faith in them showing that kind of restraint, I'd be gladly shocked if Naito loses.

Nick Khan is really fucking great at his job. The Empire got stronger once it changed its emperor.

I don't think it's an excuse. If you actually look at their ratings this year, the only pattern that is consistent is that Dynamite's number depends on how many stayed tuned in after BBT. Before the playoffs it was in the 900k, range which lead to 800-700k average viewership for Dynamite. When the playoffs started the lead in was in the 700s and Dynamite averaged in the high 600s, except for two weeks when there were no playoffs and the BBT lead in went back to 900k and Dynamite to avg 700s. There's no fluke I think, it's just that TBS had a lower viewership right before 8PM. Dynamite's issue is that they have completely lost the power to convince anyone that they have to watch on Wednesday. For the past 12 to 18 months, if you look at the quarter hours, they (almost) never keep the lead in number. It's a steady decline for the first 45 minutes and then it fluctuates between gaining and losing smaller doses of viewers until the show is over. Even the overruns never do really well, at best they get a little bump (and sometimes they even lose viewers). It doesn't matter what AEW books in the short term, the Dynamite number is completely dependent on how many people tune in to TBS right before the show starts. And that's as telling as the poor attendance numbers. Like a I said a couple of weeks ago, they have become a PPV only promotion and the fans are done pretending they deserve more attention than that. EDIT: To be clear, what I'm trying to say is that is that the final Dynamite rating depends on the lead in because the decline is pretty much the same every time (final quarter having between 100k to 250k less viewers than the first quarter of the show). So no matter what is booked or what is in direct competition from 8 to 10pm, the decline pattern is gonna be practically the same, so the final rating will depend on how many are tuned in to TBS at 8PM. Taking this week as an example, if the lead in was 750k, there's no evidence for me to believe that Dynamite would've ended with a 431k viewership for the last quarter hour as it did. What I do have a ton of evidence of (from this year at least) is that if the lead in was 750k, Dynamite would've ended with a viewership between 580-650k for the last quarter.

This year has taught me that when it comes to Dynamite's ratings, it's all about the lead in to the show. The final number lives and breathes on what BBT gives them -my main surprise is how much the NBA and NHL playoffs impacted the BBT lead in this year, would have never guessed it could be a factor, lol- and this week TBS didn't air that show and put the first Black Panther film (because of Juneteenth would be by guess).

Okada vs Ultimo Guerrero had me when announced for Collision. I really, really hope their segment at the PPV was the feud ender, we do not need those two paired against each other anytime soon. In reality though, it probably means Cole is far from coming back and they just wanted to kick that feud for much later, which it's still a welcomed decision.

So it's Naito vs Mox at Forbidden Door. I know booking 101 points to Naito getting the belt back but I feel no one really wins anything with that result. It would be one thing if they ran that match in Japan but I think a nothing title reign by Mox that started and ended in the U.S is just a waste of an opportunity.

AEW has been a PPV company for almost two years and it seems it has finally caught up to them because fans couldn't give two shits about their weekly shows and the company isn't very interested in giving them reasons to change their minds either. And yeah, the Elite doing an authority angle was as predictably awful and doomed to fail just like the Devil angle that birthed the Undisputed Kingdom.

Well, a triple threat is also an option but that would be 100% a WWE move

Like a I said, TK can't do the rematch at Wembley. Only way to do it would be to put Ospreay for whatever reason in the Owen Hart Cup (winner gets the All In title match) while already being n°1 contender.

Wow, they are doing Ospreay vs Swerve at Forbidden Door and not Wembley, surprised by it because it's not like they can run it back at All In as that spot goes to the Owen Hart Cup winner and Ospreay is effectively out of that tourney. Swerve losing it so soon would be such a bummer. I know Ospreay is the most over guy on the roster right now but fuck it, take this chance to create a real rivalry between the two and have Strickland win the first one.

Fractured tibia for Copeland. Long injuries finally end, other long injuries show up. The AEW cycle.

Thing is, the part everyone hated lasted as long as the stuff people liked. I don't think fans are eager to watch MJF vs Cole right now, the whole Undisputed Kingdom has been a complete DUD since its inception at Worlds End. Roddy could do the matches and comedy/fuckery on his own and be in the same place and just as over as right now and everyone else has zero impact on the product.

I think I liked both women's matches the most. I hope Mercedes can stay healthy for a while, she's too damn good in the ring. And even though she's an awesome, awesome babyface, a really wanna see heel bully Willow run at some point.

Darby replacing Eddie in Anarchy in the Arena made that match way more interesting, probably for the wrong reasons because it's basically me curious to see what insane shit Darby comes up with.

I'm pretty sure it got worse up until this new authority angle they are running with. We've been pointing out who they've been ratings death for months now.