All Elite Wrestling

[MoS]

4 hours ago, sek69 said:

Also any links to the current Deadspin should be marked with an asterisk stating the staff that made that site worth a damn left en masse and created a new website NOAH style. The current Deadspin is a shell of its former self. 

yeah should have put in this disclaimer. Wasn't a fan of the article either - baseless assertions about how Punk doesn't care how he gets it as long as he gets what he wants, and some psychobabble about the mind games and psychological warfare he is engaging against Tony Khan, the Elite, and AEW. And a misunderstanding of the word "gaslighting", which means maybe writers should use terms related to trauma and abuse with a whole lot of discretion and understanding. 

Seems to me like a lot of people are angry that AEW has grown far beyond what it was when it started. AEW is no longer only about the Elite: there are many other great wrestlers, old and young, who have as much claim over AEW as the Elite members do. 

[KawadaSmile]

At this point it could even be arguable that most of AEW's highlights don't really involve The Elite, and the company has outgrown its founding fathers.

[sek69]

 To be fair, they've been gone for a bit due to injuries and other assorted hijinx. Kenny proved when he had the match with Vikingo that he's still the Big Dog of AEW.

[Dav'oh]

I'd advocate for Ospreay vs PAC to be the titular main event at Wembley, as incongruous as it seems to close their biggest show ever (?) with either of those two triumphant (at time of writing; plenty of time to build up the Bastard) You can stack the rest of the card.

Two Brits nominally headlinging a Brit supershow would raise the ghost of Gorilla Monsoon, just to say "you could cut the electricity with a knife".

[sek69]

One problem they'll have to consider is if they are going to have New Japan guys on the show (which they most assuredly will), that means they won't be able to have any AAA affiliated people on the show due to politics. That would mean no Fenix and Penta either, like how it was on Forbidden Door. 

[strobogo]

This is all so stupid. There's still so much drama around Punk and he's not even been in the locker room for 6 months. Why would things be any better with him actually there being his normal self? Guy is clearly not worth the hassle, nor can you trust his body not to immediately fall apart again.

Really wish someone would ban Dax from the internet for a few months, too.

[El-P]

3 hours ago, KawadaSmile said:

At this point it could even be arguable that most of AEW's highlights don't really involve The Elite, and the company has outgrown its founding fathers.

Considering they have a lot less hype, don't do as good numbers and don't sell as many seats as they were when The Elite was on top, that's a really odd one to argue. 

2 hours ago, sek69 said:

 To be fair, they've been gone for a bit due to injuries and other assorted hijinx. Kenny proved when he had the match with Vikingo that he's still the Big Dog of AEW.

And yeah, this. 

2 hours ago, sek69 said:

One problem they'll have to consider is if they are going to have New Japan guys on the show (which they most assuredly will), that means they won't be able to have any AAA affiliated people on the show due to politics. That would mean no Fenix and Penta either, like how it was on Forbidden Door. 

I had not thought about that one. Fénix & Penta aren't AAA talent though, so maybe there's a way around it. But yeah, that kinda sucks, especially since Vikingo really is the only AAA guy they would really want, whereas there is a number of NJPW workers that could mean something for big dream matches. Not to mention the Moné connection which hopefully hapens.

25 minutes ago, strobogo said:

This is all so stupid. There's still so much drama around Punk and he's not even been in the locker room for 6 months. Why would things be any better with him actually there being his normal self? Guy is clearly not worth the hassle, nor can you trust his body not to immediately fall apart again.

Really wish someone would ban Dax from the internet for a few months, too.

This and this. 1000%

[Dale Wolfe]

Jay White v Komander next week! 

[Embrodak]

2 hours ago, strobogo said:

This is all so stupid. There's still so much drama around Punk and he's not even been in the locker room for 6 months. Why would things be any better with him actually there being his normal self? Guy is clearly not worth the hassle, nor can you trust his body not to immediately fall apart again.

Really wish someone would ban Dax from the internet for a few months, too.

I think if the ratings were consistently better, there would be less of a push toward bringing Punk back, but they’re just not. Rampage has outright mediocre to bad ratings, even for its time slot, and they’re on the cusp of launching a *third* show. Punk wasn’t a *huge* ratings boost, but a 10-15% increase is nothing to sneeze at when you’re working with the fickle margins AEW is.

I also sense that the drama with regard to Punk exists in pockets and is not a general locker room phenomenon, hence why there seems to be a sense that keeping Punk to the third show and not booking certain people with him might massage all this away. We’ll see if it works, I guess.

[Jmare007]

The separate show for Punk could look incredibly silly if Punk gets injured again. Not just because of the "what was the point then?" angle but the backstage drama would once again increase when he returned

[strobogo]

Also Punk is not the deciding factor of in the red or in the black. AEW is making a profit. WBD is pleased with their ratings. Punk is not a necessity at this stage. He would just be icing on top, but you know, perhaps AEW doesn't need the extra calories. 

[El-P]

CM Punk is gonna be a diminishing return fast in term of ratings. He already was before he was gone. Not a factor enough to warrant such dramas. 

As a fan, would I enjoy some more CM Punk promos and matches ? Sure. A whole lot too.

As someone who cares about having a healthy alternative to WWE, I just hope bringing CM Punk back is not gonna end in more drama that will hurt the company in the long run. Again.

As far as a separate show just for the Punk crew, it sounds like a terrible idea. Like tribalism between the audiences of companies isn't bad enough, the last thing you need is creating tribalism inside your own audience and split it into factions. It can only lead to more bullshit and annoyance.

[Matt D]

I’m pretty excited for a soft brand split personally. The main benefit is that the only guy in the Elite I ever want to watch is Cutler and I only have so much time, but I think there could be spillover benefits when it comes to being forced to focus on wrestlers and not having so much start/stop stuff. 

I also think it’s a terrible idea relative to having people go through mediation and counseling and whatever else.

It’s just one that will benefit me personally.

[El-P]

Brand split in general has always been a terrible idea and it stinks of WWE reference. For that reason only, it should not be done, at all, ever.

Brand split to avoid backstage drama is basically admitting you can't manage the locker room. No upside at all whatsoever.

Adding a third show is good in the sense of how it speaks of their relationship with WBD. As a viewer, Rampage is already highly missable (this week, Shawn Spears in the main event, tell me you don't give a flying fuck about this show without telling me you don't give a flying fuck about this show) although mostly enjoyable. Adding a third show, if it's just yet another show taped alongside Rampage/Dynamite/ROH/Dark, with the same aesthetics and same feel, as much as I enjoy the promotion, it's like whatever to me. I don't even check out Dark at all anymore, haven't for a long while. 

Or do a women only show, that would be different. They badly need some TV and in-ring time, and when they only get one segment on Dynamite, they really come off as "the obligatory women segment" some weeks (like this week). The contrast is really striking with IMPACT for instance, when sometimes back to back women matches don't even seem odd, it's just part of the normal flow of the show, some matches are males, some are females.

There's one thing that should go away actually, it's the term "division". In any sport, there's no "women division". There is the male and the female competitions and that's it. The champ should be called the World Champ, not Women World Champ (or also use the term Men World Champ then). A detail, but I've been thinking about that lately, as I find kinda lame angles and promos focusing on "I built that division, I came here to save that division, This is MY division etc", it's like the women's division is an issue in itself instead of just being, well, the simple context in which matches are disputed aka women fighting instead of men. It's not a stylistic matter like the X-division in IMPACT, which warrants its name because it's divided from the main men's competition because of its style. It kinda reduces the scale of angles they do with the women, because all is often about "the division" in itself. Anywoo, just rambling about semantics, really.

[Champagne]

2 hours ago, strobogo said:

Also Punk is not the deciding factor of in the red or in the black. AEW is making a profit. WBD is pleased with their ratings. Punk is not a necessity at this stage. He would just be icing on top, but you know, perhaps AEW doesn't need the extra calories. 

AEW is not profitable and I'll literally print off every page of this thread and eat them if anyone can prove otherwise. While it's not a publicly traded company and Tony doesn't have to reveal his financials, he is always very careful about saying AEW will gross x amount. Gross does not subtract operating expenses which would certainly put AEW in the red. To be fair, WWE does the same thing—2022 revenue of 1.29 billion, net income of 195 million.

[KawadaSmile]

IIRC Tony himself has said that.

[NintendoLogic]

TK had previously said that the wrestling side of AEW was profitable and investments in the video game division had put the company in the red. We know from history what kinds of cost-cutting measures wrestling companies perform when they're in financial trouble (cutting/lowballing talent, running smaller venues, going live less often). AEW hasn't done any of that. If anything, they've done the opposite.

[Embrodak]

4 hours ago, strobogo said:

Also Punk is not the deciding factor of in the red or in the black. AEW is making a profit. WBD is pleased with their ratings. Punk is not a necessity at this stage. He would just be icing on top, but you know, perhaps AEW doesn't need the extra calories. 

He’s not, but I’m sure WBD would like Punk back on the show, too.

What I think TK is prob failing to consider is there’s now a sizable chunk of the audience that wants nothing to do with Punk, so he may drive as many away as he brings, but that’s something only empirical testing can prove.

[El-P]

No one will stop watching AEW because Punk is on TV, let's be serious now. This is all an inside-the-bubble drama. At worst, he'll get the Cody treatment while trying to be a babyface. Which I'm sure he would react in the most professional and thought out way imaginable. 

[Matt D]

One other personal thing. I almost never get to catch the shows live. I usually watch them on my own terms, picking and choosing a little (and there are some matches with wrestlers I don't like as much or on Dark/Elevation, I might watch on 1.25x speed if it's something I still want to catch, I'll admit that; I still get a lot of enjoyment out of those, again on my own terms). But I am watching mostly everything now, one way or another, save for the stuff I really don't want to see.

And while I look forward to matches, I look forward to seeing the taping spoiler lineups for Dark/Elevation/ROH and the end-of-the-show announcement of next week's matches on Dynamite/Rampage almost as much as watching the matches themselves. The giant roster means that there are so many possibilities and I love hearing we're going to get something as out there as Jay White vs Kommander or Taya vs Emi or whatever, or that we'll get Hijo de Vikingo vs Gringo Loco (not even a match that's targeted to me but I still think it'll be great for what it is) or even Colt vs Samoa Joe (just to see what that'd look like) this week on ROH. It's just fun to anticipate what might get booked given all the talent.

So I'm happy about another show just for the possibilities. That's what I personally enjoy the most out of AEW, those match up graphics and taping results. It's like opening a deck of trading cards as a kid.

[Embrodak]

20 minutes ago, El-P said:

No one will stop watching AEW because Punk is on TV, let's be serious now. This is all an inside-the-bubble drama. At worst, he'll get the Cody treatment while trying to be a babyface. Which I'm sure he would react in the most professional and thought out way imaginable. 

I didn’t mean anybody would stop watching AEW, just that people would turn away from his segments, thus nullifying the ratings boost.

[Stiva]

Is that area within Daily’s Place where they filmed during the height of the pandemic off limits these days? I might be a minority but I always loved the look of those shows, they should totally do ROH there if it’s possible 

[The Thread Killer]

4 minutes ago, Stiva said:

Is that area within Daily’s Place where they filmed during the height of the pandemic off limits these days? I might be a minority but I always loved the look of those shows, they should totally do ROH there if it’s possible 

I agree.

I have been looking around the “IWC” and reading some reviews of ROH on Honor Club, and a couple of other fans and reviewers have made the same points that I made in the weekly TV thread this week.  Namely, there has been a noticeable decrease in the quality of the ROH TV show since they stopped airing the episodes filmed at Universal Studios. The shows which have been taped before or after Dynamite and Rampage just haven’t been as good. They don’t feel special or unique, and the matches have not been as good.

(I am also glad to see I am not the only person who is not happy about paying money for the “privilege” of seeing Tony Nese and Mark Sterling EVERY WEEK.)

Tony Khan needs to make a decision if ROH really is going to be a unique brand, or if it’s just the same as Dark and Elevation. And if it’s the latter…I will not pay for it.

This point is especially important since it seems pretty much official that the new 2 hour Saturday Night TV show AEW Collision is going to be debuting on July 8, which is going to stretch Tony Khan even further.

[The Thread Killer]

In other news, Dax Harwood made a cryptic tweet this evening, saying that he will be making an announcement this week regarding the future of his podcast. So either he is trolling everybody, or he himself realizes that this is a very bad idea and the plug needs to be pulled for the sake of locker room harmony. 

[Matt D]

Tony Nese is probably the guy who surprised me the absolute most in AEW from what I thought he was when he came in to how good he actually is. He's really good at doing exactly what the moment demands as opposed to trying to just have a five star match or whatever.