War is Raw

Dave said AEW is fine with TNT with a 0.20 18-49 demo, which is more important than the reported 400K to 500K min total viewership goal. But he hit the panic button anyway because it has been declining, i.e. AEW has been losing its hardcore fanbase due to NXT's Survivor Series rub and NXT focusing on good matches which attract 50+ traditional rasslin' fans (but not many NEW fans). NJPW, NWA, and NXT are more similar to each other philosophically than AEW, which tries to be WCW or WWE "done right", but AEW also has an indie league aspect to it, which includes obscure wrestlers, indie darlings, performance art, and weird gimmicks. This and other forums went crazy over the Fyter Fest pre-show (Librarians and baby oil). The same reaction happens every week with the risky gimmicks and angles on Dynamite. It's amazing how the level of outrage for 5% of a show supersedes RAW/SD's nonsense every week. Just remember, the fanbase was complaining about the first 2-3 episodes because Kahn put on straight matches and post-match brawls instead of sports entertainment interviews, promos, skits, videos, etc. They still complain about length of matches on a wrestling program. Can't blame Tony for experimenting with skits now. AEW has been causing a shitstorm on Reddit, Twitter, podcasts, and the various forums due to certain things, like Dark Order, Nightmare Collective, Elite losing matches, women in general, and not presenting itself as "sports based" or targeting "lapsed fans". There HAS been a bait and switch from Kahn- who pitched it as Mid-South- and fans wanted Omega and the Young Bucks to have NJPW 5 star classics every week. This has turned off some hardcore fans from watching it (I am not one of them). The kids and women who tuned in for the 1st episode are long gone. The DVR numbers don't make TNT or advertisers happy- being a live, cant miss, "sporting" event is what gets the billion dollar bids. Not being negative- I don't want a popular mainstream wrestling product anyway. Only way to do that is to target zoomers and millenials, but I don't want pro wrestling to turn into a show featuring Logan Paul vs Billie Eilish, an Underdale walkthrough with Kenny Omega, Disney superheroes fighting like Power Rangers, or 2-hour Tik-Tok memes.

I liked the show until the last segment (first time I felt that way for Dynamite). Felt it ought to have been a feel good ending for the holiday break and Jericho cruise. I have an open mind about how things will turn out. I know shows ending with super heat on babyfaces usually piss off fans, but it is necessary for storytelling. However, jobbers beat up the Elite. Felt like Black Scorpions in WCW. Weird to use that as a homage, since it was universally panned- pure WrestleCrap to this day- and a brainchild of Ole Anderson. Luchasaurus beat all of them with a tail swipe previously. It was disappointing enough The Young Bucks didn't win the titles, so it felt flat that the focus was on Alex and John (squash match jobbers to the mainstream fans). I would have closed out the new year with The Young Bucks celebrating with the titles, and perhaps Christopher Daniels getting heat with Frankie and Scorpio as a subplot. If the Dark Order must have been used, a better ending would be if Adam Page took off his mask at the end. Maybe Tony Khan heard Vince Russo on Talk is Jericho yesterday morning and went full gear on sports entertainment. Again, we will see how it turns out. Overall I was hyped for this show and it was paced great and had solid matches, especially BBB vs Cody/Darby and Jericho/Boy. Would not surprise me if the 5 minute no-action character work (Pentagon/Omega) to start the show handed the night to NXT. I also wanted more than 3 seconds of Riho. I told my bud we'd get a 5 second cameo. Just think that AEW had said they want to treat the women's title the same as the men's. I don't want to come off negative. Just gotta vent. I know we all want AEW to succeed.

I know, man, the whole scene was heartbreaking. Will never forget it.

One of the best Darks IMHO. Really loved Orange Cassidy's hot tag. Announcing was pure comedy. Bea had her best match in AEW. Hope they do something more with her. I confess I am happy everyone enjoys Kris, but she's just "OK" to me in the ring. I mean there's no getting around the fact that she is inexperienced.

Yeah, I'm thinking it would have been better to have Tully be strong voice for old school rasslin' and The Four Horsemen image with Spears as his "no gimmick needed" protege. So the feud would be a clash of cultures based off a serious incident, rather than over a cigarette. Of course, Spears is somewhat miscast when Tully describes him as a bluechip wrestling prospect (similar to The Ringmaster, but without the skillset) anyway.

I saw the headlines so watched the Kairi match online this morning. And I cried.

It started with Janela putting a cigarette in Tully's drink. That lead to the tooth extraction and an earlier scuffle on Dynamite and Full Gear (spike piledriver KO). Tony Kahn expects us to remember this stuff. Gotta get with the program, my friend. :-)

On the plus side, Dave said AEW actually gets 700-800K DVR watches 1-7 days later, with a median age of 39. So basically, we are much closer to 1.5 million. Really changes the picture. Luchasaurus was getting a lot of pops before he got hurt so they didn't want to keep in on ice. He was their secret weapon. But at this point he is clearly not fully recovered and either the audio sucks or his pops have decreased. Seems like Stunt has been getting better pops lately, and more than Jungle Boy. Not that any of them have moved the dial. This week's episode was universally praised, with the only thing people really had a problem with was Emi vs Swole, yet every live segment bled after Mox confronting Jericho. By the way, it's a real shame Emi gets killed on most forums and podcasts. The gimmick does not help, being a tweener is weird, and she has lost her looks. But in her prime when she looked and acted like a regular joshi, she was great. Her style is to work fast with various ground submissions and pinning combinations to score a flash pin. Has good stamina and realism. She has a toolbox of spots she likes to use. In AEW I believe she is there to train the green Americans as best as she could. But considering she has never worked in front of U.S. crowds or in big arenas, she is learning crowd control as well. Kenny Omega is trying to condition fans to be open minded about different joshi styles besides what Americans see with Io and Asuka. But many fans will change the channel. I am looking forward to Riho wrestling on Dynamite to help with the teenage demo. Hard to believe she has only had 4 matches out of 11 episodes. All have either gained overall viewers or teenagers/18-34.

Barry Windham vs Arn Anderson 1991/11/02: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg6VYmhzkVU Some others online: For TV title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuYwzFwHF9Y For NWA Title: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x16t8ijs For Western States Title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urPckzggBco

Jon Moxley vs. Alex Reynolds/Chris Jericho recruiting Moxley started with 870,000 Cody & QT Marshall vs. Butcher & Blade lost 48,000 MJF promo/Dark Order vignette lost 8,000 Big Swole vs. Emi Sakura/Pac promo lost 18,000 Omega & Adam Page vs. Joey Janela & Shawn Spears lost 14,000 overall but gained 3,000 in the 18-49 demo Ending of the Omega tag match/Brandi Rhodes/Sammy Guevara vs. Luchasaurus (Jericho on color) lost 10,000 overall but gained 10,000 in 18-49 End of Guevara vs. Luchasaurus and Jericho/Jungle Boy post-match angle lost 87,000 Young Bucks vs. Santana & Ortiz lost 2,000 but stayed even in 18-49 Final 683,000 Women and teenagers anemic. 18-49 declining week to week. AEW won without the overrun and Spectrum Cable blackout. AEW viewers switched to NXT before the last quarter. Looking forward to Week 52 to see if any of the under 28s and Elite are over. And by over, I mean guaranteed total gainers, like Moxley. AEW gets around 150K-200K DVR viewers who watch another time.

His AEW character reminds me of a poor man's Mick Foley- a fanboy who gets his ass kicked in innovative ways. The Eddie Gilbert comparison is deep- I like it. I know a woman in real life who loves his hair and thinks he's cute. We both saw him for the first time at Fyter's Fest against Mox, which we liked, and then watched his documentary on Youtube and were sold on his story. Like 99% of the AEW personalities, one has to research the backgrounds and history outside of Dynamite/Dark to figure out who they are. I admit I still don't know about his indie work or what he does behind the scenes. That said, his chain wrestling and basics are not there yet. He's still only entertaining when he's getting destroyed with highspots. The Thread Killer, your Abe Simpson avatar fits. Jim is gatekeeping what "qualified" means. Anyone who can get over is qualified to be a wrestler. Fans that become wrestlers were told they could never make money in the biz anyway, so they look at it as a passionate hobby where they could relive their childhood memories. The Elite are just as "guilty" as this as Janela is. Omega won Wrestler of the Year. He has no credentials before starting out. Triple H was a WWF and JCP mark and his qualification was "rich, steroid using bodybuilder who trained at Killer Kowalski's school". Punk was a fan of wrestling. Qualification? Comic Book Guy. Mick Foley? Jumped off his roof. Dynamite Kid was a fan at the matches and told he was too small. Hogan was a fan who tried out. Experience? Band member. Larry Z? Obsessive Bruno mark. Most of those ECW guys were not qualified to wrestle, but are still talked about today and were influential. I guess you could label Joey Janela like one of them, if you'd like. Cornette longs for the day fighters got into 'rasslin to put food on the table. It's unrealistic nostalgia and I cited plenty of examples which he and you probably would object to because it doesn't fit the narrative. When do we look up to wrestlers viewing the industry as a "job" to make money in, anyway? Guys who did that like Warrior and Nash get killed for that mentality. Speaking of which, one was a steroid using hustler and the other a bouncer. Both got over. I find it ironic, Ole Anderson, perhaps the most ruthless, strict, outspoken hater of unqualified fanboys, discovered and pushed Hawk and Animal.

I think Brandi has "go away" heat from fandom. She knows it, which is why her promos are so personal against haters. Even her mother-in-law gives her the cold shoulder on camera. Guys turn the channel when she's on, which shows hardcore fans are not entranced by women's looks. It's amazing how many times I have heard she has no talent yet has her position due to nepotism. Just focusing on the 10 Dynamites/Darks or even the previous PPVs, her character has been inconsistent. I will agree she is very attractive, was important to Cody in the past, and can act well on the mic. I personally wouldn't say she's passable in the ring- she's more like a pre-AJ Lee diva, so yes, a valet is her best bet, although just doing Youtube skits as Marketing Director is even better. Maybe they should have made her a GM to make matches and levy fines. Cody is the mega babyface and it didn't make sense for her to interfere in his AEW matches. Her voodoo stuff hasn't been explained yet, and doesn't fit with Cody. I have faith in the product, but it seems like Brandi's stuff since Double or Nothing has been done on the fly. I still don't know if Allie losing her hair to Kong/Brandi is related to babyface Allie becoming Bunny, who was hired by MJF, or why Jamie and Bea's hair were cut, but never mentioned again. I'm OK if all will be revealed- I like a good mystery. But I feel Brandi has been scrambling to figure out what her role is. I thought she was going to get behind AEW's women's revolution to outdo Stephanie, but it seems Omega is doing all the heavy lifting, but had no time to book it effectively in 2019.

Just some random thoughts: Cody and Khan believe in giving wrestlers a year to get over. Dusty himself said that is the time it takes for new acts. Well, in many ways everyone except Jericho, Moxley, and Cody are "new" to TV. Khan is not panicking. It's all about long term booking and building stars. We are 10 weeks in for casuals, with only 2 hours a week. Everyone is learning on the fly in terms of production and booking. No one in the entire industry knows how to build a new star quickly, if it is possible. Riho and Darby have showed some potential even with inconsistent appearances. It could be argued that casual fans have seen Cody become a star after being an opening act in WWE. AEW had around 400K fans based on BTE subs and Fyter Fest/Fight for the Fallen, so they have doubled the fanbase thanks to Dynamite. The new fans are the ones who are changing the channel, which is causing the volatility in ratings and the fact that "new" acts aren't getting over. They have been conditioned by WWE to watch established stars. Sad part about all of this, is it seems Russo, Cornette, and Disco are right (so far): only the hardcore fans are left and they killed the industry by overvaluing workrate/highspots instead of valuing star power/looks/characters. The good news is TNT just wanted 500K to start, and Dynamite is their best show on Wed. They will keep them. Demo is good. Last week, Cody's squash lost viewers and so did MJF vs Page. I heard a rumor MLW would not let MJF on TV this week. Moxley had more gains wrestling Darby than against Joey Janela. Jericho's Thanksgiving bomb and his Darby match bomb puts Moxley ahead of him as the biggest draw IMHO, but it is splitting hairs. Yes, Jericho can carry the whole show at 9PM and 10PM but can can be overexposed with his silliness if not careful. Even Cody has had losses. Mox has been unbelievable. For those who want "sports based", Khan tried giving straight matches in the first couple of episodes and everyone complained they needed more promos, videos, and angles. So he did that and now the accusation is that it's WCW/TNA. "Damned if they do, damned if they don't". Bottom line is the interviews and angles with the stars score big. The opening technical matches do well. Omega vs Pac later in the show last week did fantastic. But the star power isn't there yet outside a few. I see the complaints about the Dark Order, Brandi, and Bunny stables as akin to the federal case made during the Fyter Fest Buy-In: the loyal fans will spit on any obvious sports-entertainment/cringe comedy/indie gimmick. I don't see all three as cults IMHO. Every league needs groups. Might as well form them now. Allie bombed as a face wrestler. New gimmick fits her better. Dark Order- although good in the ring- bombed with fans, so they are now cool for lonely people and gets social media attention. Brandi? I have no defense, save, it gives something for Kong to do since she is too beat up to wrestle frequently. Plus Brandi's frame of reference in wrestling is WWE in the 2010s. NJPW is mostly matches with a sports presentation, yet I am sure it would be a ratings bomb on TNT. The thing about the high risk gimmicks and angles is that there is a fine line between WWE doing silly stuff, yet indies get away with murder doing silly stuff. I guess because it is "ironic" or "parody" or whatever. But...what's the difference between Chikara invisible grenades and Rusev-Lana-Lashley? Well, the 150 men in attendance pop for the invisible explosion, and the Youtube comments love it. The 4,500 fans boo the cuckold angle, yet they actually have gained viewers many times, and they get great Youtube views as well. IMHO both the grenade and cuckold stuff suck. But at least the AEW groups are more traditional once you get past the outfits and lack of star power. Heck, I could hotshot a show which would give them over a million viewers using their big names and not even lose viewers for a segment, but it wouldn't help build for the future. Just my two cents.

Good question. It means it lost in other demos, so the overall total was down. Most of the time all demos match: they are all either up or down. But sometimes there is a mismatch because one demo is disgusted or finds it appealing. In this case, 18-49 liked MJF vs Page, but the majority did not, so it was a total loss, but good to know it gained from a certain demo. Riho's title win over Nyla actually lost 1000 total, but gained huge in the young and female demos; it was the 50+ who turned her off. Riho does great with young fans so she is more of a teen idol than Jungle Boy so far.

Chris Jericho Thanksgiving celebration opened at 730,000 Best Friends vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix lost 37,000 Bea Priestley & Emi Sakura vs. Hikaru Shida & Kris Statlander lost 34,000 Cody vs. Matt Knicks and the debut of The Butcher & The Blade lost 43,000 Kenny Omega vs. Pac gained 40,000 Adam Page vs. MJF lost 6,000 viewers but gained 11,000 in 18-49 Jericho vs. Scorpio Sky gained 66,000 Finished 716,000

Young Bucks & Dustin Rhodes vs. Santana & Ortiz & Sammy Guevara: Opened at 893,000 Rey Fenix vs. Trent lost 76,000 Cody promo gained 53,000 Dark Order video/Nyla Rose vs. Leva Bates lost 76,000 Chris Jericho promo/beginning of Kris Statlander vs. Hikaru Shida gained 115,000 End of Statlander vs. Shida/ the Kong & Brandi Rhodes angle lost 46,000 Pentagon Jr. vs. Christopher Daniels lost 38,000 Joey Janela vs. Jon Moxley gained 11,000 Finished with 851,000

I guess a bunch of people don't watch or remember AEW Dark, not even JR. Shida spoke English in her post match interview against Big Swole. She also speaks English on Instagram, and has at least two Youtube interviews in English. Yet JR said the fans are cheering for her even though she and the other Japanese women don't speak English. Very judgmental to Shida. Pretty sad if this guy is also in the production/booking meetings making pitches and his opinions known when he doesn't even speak to the talent personally (it is the drawback to just showing up to work once a week for everyone) or do his homework as a salaried employee to watch Dark. At least Excalibur knows his facts and Alex Marvez does research for the announce teams. JR wings it, and it shows. JR and many comments I've read in forums saw Statlander for the first time. Yet she was on Dark, and Dustin Rhodes on commentary put her over big time as a prospect. (Dustin also barely knew who Chuck Taylor was. So it's more evidence that not traveling on the road all week together takes away from getting to know each other.) And since JR is supposed to be such a stickler to keep kayfabe, you'd think he would have interrogated or at least joked about Excalibur knowing who Butcher, Blade, and Bunny were, and why Allie turned. It's a bad wrestling trope where the straight announcer happens to know the names of surprise debuting wrestlers. I am glad Tony Khan will tweak gimmicks that don't get over instead of banishing people to Siberia. Just wish he would offer an on-screen explanation to why characters change before they do (Brandi, Allie, even Dark Order) and to tighten up debuting wrestlers (Butcher + Blade). The show was a fun holiday special in Chicago, so it's not a true representation a normal show. Still, it was the worst so far. Looked much better on paper. Thankfully had Omega v Pac had a great match and the women were passable, although it probably lost 50-100,000 viewers. Dark Order video was fantastic. The rest was meh. Cody was wasted. MJF vs Page was killed by commercials. I'm fine with MJF channeling Piper or Zbyszko- all character work to get over instead of in-ring work so far in AEW. Lucha Bros must not have been happy about the job (Pentagon already did one for Trent on Dark). Scorpio and Jericho were just getting warmed up. The main events need to be 20+ minutes of ring time instead of wasting it on pre and post match stuff. At this point, yes, a 2-hour Jericho on the mic show would probably have a higher TV rating. Mox vs Jericho at least keeps all the company's momentum in the right direction. The show felt like an hour, so that's good. Ultimately, JR distracted me on commentary like he does with the PPVs, and the show was silly and some segments ended flat. In fact the opening segment felt like a WWE parody, yet it probably had over 1 million viewers which may encourage Khan to do stuff like that again to start strong. I thought AEW was against 20-minute promos to start shows? I guess we can make an exception for the holidays. Just blowing off some steam right now. I get that it was a booked as "fun" show. But with all the Jericho super heat at the beginning, the SCU run-in was a fart in church and the ref should have DQ'ed Jericho when Jake came to ringside (he was "banned"). Just my humble opinions. Happy Thanksgiving.

WWF actually had a few "exhibition matches" in 1980. Only in the wacky world of professional wrestling can the announcers describe this match as being fake, yet the in-ring work looked more real than regular 'rasslin'. (Bruno said it was "non-competitive", and "exhibition" is the code word for a performance. But in trying to give kayfabe explanations, it opened up a can of worms.) Baffling match with no explanation. Fans upset. Boring moves. Vince and Bruno had no idea what the rules were, and got them wrong: "unlimited pins" yet the ref refused to count when Backlund made his exhausted pin attempts (against a jobber...in an exhibition match). The commentary also buried Mexican wrestling in general by saying the jobber El Olympico was the best "over there" and had come to the WWF for better competition. Was billed as "10 minutes of non-stop straight wrestling". Was also called a "scientific match". Have to imagine this was Backlund insisting to show kids what real amateur wrestling was. Yet it was a worked match and the jobber was losing his temper and ready to throw punches, and Backlund was teasing the atomic drop. Backlund could be very cringe and scary when it comes to bluring kayfabe and reality.

Seth vs Punk at Wrestlemania. All Seth does is call him out at any opportunity, including local Chicago radio shows. It's a classic angle with a hotshot trying to get a veteran to come out of retirement. Seth had the heel turn planned for months, which is why he has been acting like a jerk. Punk is all in. It's a big secret and everyone is getting worked a la Andy Kaufman/Jerry Lawler.

Way too much nitpicking and has his favorite whipping boys.

From seeing her actual matches, IMHO she has been in the mix as the best joshi in the world for many years, even going back to 2012. IMHO joshi > North American women's wrestlers, so she has a case to be better than any woman on earth. And as far as comparing her to men, be sure to watch her face Pentagon DARK in Lucha Underground. Io is at such a high level that most women can't run with her. Tessa Blanchard and Riho have nothing on her in terms of working intergender realistically, that was was Io's gimmick. Io is the most underrated talent in wrestling (she makes 60K a year for NXT).

I was trying to communicate that he thinks he has a high IQ.

I find it ironic that the 1980s retro show had a casual racism joke in it. You would think the NWA Powerrr studio would be praised for being 100% authentic to the era it is mimicking. /s For all his supposed high IQ, Cornette is clueless about racism and sexism unless he's just working the heel manager routine. Mark Henry should have been invited on JC's podcast to educate him about why a joke about "fried chicken" and "Ethiopia" was inappropriate while announcing. Brian Last said white people have no right to complain about it, and Dave Lagana and Cornette believe this was an "AEW SJW" setup. Actually, the person who first tweeted the offense was an African-American NWA fan, and Mark Henry via TMZ said it was offensive as well.

Uncle Dave says there are not many fans switching from AEW to NXT. For some reason PnP is not over. Yes, PnP lost 200K and contributed to AEW's first loss. PnP lost viewers in their other Dynamite segments: Ortiz & Santana vs. John Silver & Alex Reynolds Ortiz & Santana post-match screaming w/Jericho interview on screen Ortiz & Santana jump the Rock & Roll Express Ortiz & Santana jump The Young Bucks (younger demo gained, but it was a total loss) I did not include when they stand around Jericho and blend in the background, but that actually is a case against them because around 1 million people watch Inner Circle yet tune out PnP. At the end of the day, it's the same for anyone who is not over (yet)- there is something not connecting with audiences with their presentation, booking, gimmick, star power, or "it factor" (which Riho has). Could just be that they are too good at being thug heels and turn people off, or needed the LAX name and full group (or at least Konnan). As you know Dark Order now has a "gimmick tweak", so AEW will stay loyal and help workers to get over.

Dave apologized and retracted, yet no-sold the fact he had no source or his source misled him. He either ran with a troll's post on reddit and reported it as news or his source is a double agent who tried to humiliate him. Sad part is if he was a professional journalist, he would have confirmed the story by asking people at the meeting. It is a big roster. Really should have damaged Dave big time. But his private board took his side.