Migs

Tying some things in the last few posts together, this is where it feels like there's real potential in something like Lucha Underground again - a wrestling show that's more of a "TV show" and can be binged on a streaming service. How big it can be, I dunno, but there's definitely a space where it could take off to some degree.

I guess I'm not sure if it's a "wrestling needs to change thing" vs. the way people consume it has changed thing. I'm very low on modern WWE and I can see why people wouldn't want to engage long-form with it. But I also feel like I see people who like it who just aren't hopping on for the TV, at least not in a regular way. Again, talking anecdotally, but I know people who are really happy to see Bianca Belair getting pushed, but I'm not sure it's turning them into weekly viewers, even if it makes them more likely to watch Mania and way more likely to enjoy it. And to be clear, not saying you're wrong about wrestling needing to reach out and do better. Just that I think there's also this change in consumption that's happening at the same time and it makes it very hard to weigh which is having a larger effect, because the people they're losing on TV, some are engaging elsewhere and some aren't, and the metrics on the engagement elsewhere are really messy. Makes it hard to understand the value of outreach in a tangible way.

I think part of the problem is that we're in a transition period in the media industry generally. Cable TV is dying, but social media engagement can't always be monetized well, and thus is less valuable to big companies. The 18-49 demo is the one advertisers want (18-34 even better), but the networks also want a solid viewer number to promote, so those over 50 viewers are probably a bit more valuable than they used to be, too. It all makes it very hard to compare across eras. Casual fans of a certain age don't just flip on the TV show for 20 minutes - they might watch a YouTube clip. That's a problem for as long as the viewer on cable TV is more valuable than the YouTube viewer. I think Meltzer is right to point to the live numbers as a sign of the health of the industry, although it's still not a full picture (and it'll be very interesting to see how the indies do post-pandemic with so many of the stars swallowed into the big 2). One thing I'm interested in from @Matt D's post earlier about how the younger generation dives into things is why it seems that when wrestlers do have crossover appeal, it seems it may matter less than it used to. I know non-fans who loved Total Divas and didn't watch a minute of WWE TV. Reigns has done fairly well in movies and it doesn't seem to have moved the needle for him. Maybe it's just the availability of other content (I don't need to follow the Bellas to their other show if it's not my thing, I can just watch something else).

I think you're slightly overstating the importance of the TV audience here to wrestling as a broader whole (it's obviously what matters to WWE). There's still an audience that goes to shows that is not WWE fans, who enjoy wrestling but don't show up in TV ratings numbers, and they matter to the extent they support promotions in a meaningful way (for an indy, buying tickets; for AEW, maybe it's chipping in for a PPV party). I know a lot of people who are wrestling fans but aren't the the TV audience, and they go to indy shows, they watch a little New Japan, they might watch Dynamite. If they watch WWE it's probably checking out a big show and not the weekly TV. Go to a GCW show and it's a crowd that's not over 50, not too predominantly make, and has a mix of race and LGBTQ+. Now, it might be that WWE *doesn't* cater to this crowd because it's not the TV audience, and maybe that keeps the size of this group a bit smaller. I certainly can't point to scientific numbers to tell you how substantial this group might be. But they're there, and sometimes I think their existence gets dismissed because people are just looking at WWE ratings and haven't been to an indy show in a major city.

I think Dave had said the delay wouldn't change, at least initially.

I do think there are some AEW guys with crossover potential, but it's not that explosive "wrestling boom period" potential. I know plenty of people who were brought back to watching wrestling by the Elite guys, especially Omega, who find him someone they relate to as a character and has hooked people. But what I'd say is generally true of a lot of those people is that they were fans of other niche artforms - anime and drag, for two examples - and found wrestling was another artform they liked. That's a very different appeal than being someone that a room full of 15-year-olds can agree on.

This was definitely not the show to get New Japan out of a rut. Ishii-White was good but never really took off for me. I actually thought Yano-Owens was an interesting idea in trying to mix the violence and the comedy, but ultimately, the violence just sort of felt out of place with these two and the comedy didn't hit great.

It really depends on viewership relative to other things. People say "look how many less people are watching wrestling !" but it's really an apples and oranges comparison compared to 20 years ago, when there was really no way to consume wrestling other than a TV show. There are smash hit shows now that would have been cancelled in a week 20 years ago if they did the same numbers. This is the point I think people miss when they say AEW needs to reach for a wider audience - it's so hard to find a new audience that cares enough to stick with something on TV nowadays. Maybe people watch the Shaq match and it makes them casually aware of AEW, and that's great... but the odds of making them a regular viewer are really low when they have all of recorded TV history at their fingertips. I think there's a lot of wisdom in just doing the show you want to do, and if it doesn't break things wide open, at least you made good art that people who enjoy your kind of art already will enjoy.

I was wondering about this too. I think there's a shift in the consumption of things like wrestling and comics where older fans are 1) more likely to stick with it and 2) are interested in ("demand" on social media) things the younger fans aren't always interested in, and the companies have responded to it. To an extent, this makes sense - these older fans have plenty of disposable income and more lucrative than marketing to kids. But it's also a real shift in the target audience and how you're trying to engage with them.

MLW seems to be working with AAA and maybe NOAH (they haven't mentioned it recently, though), and seems to have at least an open relationship with New Japan since they were referenced on the Super J Cup. New Japan probably still has a relationship with Rev Pro in the UK that will probably kick up when people can travel again.

The Young Bucks' book has a good amount of discussion of the backstage scene in TNA when they worked there.

Gorilla and Bobby are funny together. You're more likely to get a laugh from them than a lot of other teams. But there's also a reason why Jesse got the call for SNME and for PPVs. He was far better at getting over the characters and the stories. I feel like you can really judge a heel color man by the way, in Jesse's mold, they have set of principles and can recognize things they like in babyfaces, or the way they have a real connection to some of the heels more than others. (Don Callis fits that mold now. I also found El Phantasmo pretty good at that when he was on NJPW color commentary recently.) With Jesse in WCW, it's almost hard to accurately judge him because things were frequently so dire before he got there. They often had no color commentators at all (I cannot take solo Jim Ross, it's just a neverending stream of football references), really dire ones, or guys that were really only good for a laugh (I like Ross and Paul E together roughly the same way I like Gorilla and Bobby). So Ventura is a huge upgrade, even if he's not at his best. I personally really like him and Tony together, great natural chemistry from the start, they're terrific together on the '92 Worldwides.

I'm also sort of interested that they feel comfortable doing this, since they're obviously referencing LU and those guys have been super litigious with their contracts, and I'd think that would extend to their IP. Possibility that some of the original behind the scenes people are involved with this?

It feels like AEW obviously likes her, but her stuff is going to work way better with a crowd and it's not like waiting six months to bring her over will kill her career.

Naito appears to be out for a bit with a knee injury - unclear of the severity, or if he'll miss the Ibushi match.

I actually do! (Although not young-young, more like early 30s) To the point made here, they're generally people also wrapped up in comic book culture as well, not "sports fans." Also, I have not seen Itoh perform yet, but my friends who like both drag and wrestling are big Itoh fans. I think this point about wrestling fandom moving away from overlap with sports fans is a huge, prescient point that I think is driving a lot of the disagreement in wrestling circles online.

Hey, Thunder Rosa is apparently still signed! I'm not sure what Billy's goals are at this point, but if they can produce in the future, I'd imagine they'd just scrape the bargain basement again and maybe try to bring in some ROH guys through that relationship. (Although given that the NWA Women's title is appearing on AEW, who knows how welcome ROH would be at this point.)

I'm also a little bummed to see Taya go to NXT, just because it felt like she'd have been a fun fit in AEW/BTE. But hey, she joins her husband and I assume is getting well paid to do whatever they end up using her for.

I'm not sure how Sammy makes sense in that spot either?

I feel like Mance Warner channels that every time he lets a full minute of Simple Man play before he actually enters.

Yeah, it's really felt like they have a ton of guys who could use an IC title run to solidify themselves - Sanada, Ospreay, Shingo, ZSJ, Taichi - but the belt was being held up in this double title thing.

I agree. There's a reasonable market for something like this and it's not terribly expensive content. If a streaming company wanted to get behind something, they could have a reasonable sized hit. But I do think it needs to be something like LU that's wrestling TV show and not a touring company. It's got to feel like something that's distinctly of the streaming company and not just something they're airing.

To be clear, this didn't end up being some 45 minute slog, but it even at just under a half hour I thought it could have been trimmed and just kinda never got into full gear. Zack Sabre on commentary was fairly amusing, though.

Yeah, these were real downer shows for me. All the main events were overly long, and the tag title match was egregiously so, especially given the finish. Just a very flat couple of days. I like the direction of the next shows for the most part, though.

It wasn't invisible, though. Sammy told the cameraman to stay. EDIT: Didn't see the comment above on this.