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Is the empire crumbling before our eyes?


C.S.

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AEW is just ice cold right now, there’s no way around it. All In may have been their peak for a while.
 

Tony needs a booking team, fast. This weird hybrid where he has these meticulous long-term storylines but is also basically just scribbling matches he’d like to watch and letting the wrestlers freestyle the actual content is not working anymore.

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Yeah, I also think TK didn't expect Dynamite to do better than NXT last night either but he wanted to put on a fight and I'm glad he did. I'm happy he cares about this shit.

What I believe he completely oversold in his head was the impact Edge could have in his product though. My impression is that he truly thought there was going to be a spark with Copeland in AEW, and there wont be one.

The matchup with NXT is whatever, they had to move days, WWE is hotter than in two decades probably? and they put every single needle mover possible except for Roman in their developmental brand. There was no way it wasn't going to be a clear L.

The thing he has to worry about is ticket sales, imo. He's so damn stubborn with some of his choices for venues, WWE has Chicago on lock for the last week of November and TK books the NOW Arena for a Dynamite that same week. The result? a market that has already been ran to death has only bought 1,3k tickets so far.

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Yeah, today has not been a particularly good look for him. He has reverted to his DVDVR shit-poster gimmick. You would think a guy with five different jobs would have more important things to do with his time than troll WWE. Plus, you know people in WWE are noticing how he is reacting, and now they are just going to bait him all the more.

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The more Tony pushes himself at the forefront of the company, the less popular it seems to become. He has to understand it would be in the promotion's best interest if he took a step back, found other channels to promote the company and invested his money wisely.

The product was far more appealing when it was positioned as for the boys by the boys instead of Tony Khan's playthings aka Toy Story 5.

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47 minutes ago, Big Pete said:

The more Tony pushes himself at the forefront of the company, the less popular it seems to become.

Too many "Tony Khan has a huge (ACTUALLY NOT) announcement next week". 

49 minutes ago, Big Pete said:

The product was far more appealing when it was positioned as for the boys by the boys instead of Tony Khan's playthings aka Toy Story 5.

People made fun all All Friends Wrestling, but this is when AEW had that one particular spark that it has since kinda (totally ?) lost. In the end, a pro-wrestling promotion will be a pro-wrestling promotion. There's a lot to love still, but this was pretty inevitable. And if we gotta get some unhinged batshit crazy pro-wrestling promoteur, might as well go for broke and drag the spirit of the guy who started the Sleaze Thread on the forefront in term of bashing the opposition. Might not get "responsible" nor "presentable" nor "corporate", but at least it would be pretty fun. And so *pro-wrestling* at heart.

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1 hour ago, El-P said:

Too many "Tony Khan has a huge (ACTUALLY NOT) announcement next week". 

People made fun all All Friends Wrestling, but this is when AEW had that one particular spark that it has since kinda (totally ?) lost. In the end, a pro-wrestling promotion will be a pro-wrestling promotion. There's a lot to love still, but this was pretty inevitable. And if we gotta get some unhinged batshit crazy pro-wrestling promoteur, might as well go for broke and drag the spirit of the guy who started the Sleaze Thread on the forefront in term of bashing the opposition. Might not get "responsible" nor "presentable" nor "corporate", but at least it would be pretty fun. And so *pro-wrestling* at heart.

When did TK start doing the post-PPV press conferences regularly? All Out 2021? There had already been rumblings with Cody disappearing off of BTE but that was when the perception of the company changed. Instead of it being about supporting these starving artist who had begun this underground movement and were breaking into the mainstream, it became about Tony Khan living out his childhood fantasies of Dynamite and Rampage.

Maybe you DVD-R posters have some solidarity towards Coach_TK, but it just doesn't have the same appeal. Maybe it always was inevitable, but I seriously think Tony should make like his televised announcements and let the professionals handle it. Let Adam Cole, MJF, Bryan Danielson, Britt Baker, Kris Statlander, Orange Cassidy etc. be the face of the company and you can be the silent partner.

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22 minutes ago, Big Pete said:

Maybe you DVD-R posters have some solidarity towards Coach_TK, but it just doesn't have the same appeal. Maybe it always was inevitable, but I seriously think Tony should make like his televised announcements and let the professionals handle it. Let Adam Cole, MJF, Bryan Danielson, Britt Baker, Kris Statlander, Orange Cassidy etc. be the face of the company and you can be the silent partner.

If I'm being serious for a minute (pun intended), of course the two right thing to do would be to step the hell away from social medias and stop doing big announcements every other weeks, and to get serious help as far as booking goes (it's only human, who doesn't get burned out after a few years, not even taking in accounts his other business). Maybe he's actually doing it already, since there have been some positive changes in the product in term of character developments lately, although I don't get why they can't be as good as IMPACT as far as backstage segments and vignette goes (don't get me started on those Toni Storm "movies", although I get these were only going to be played during picture-in-picture, but they could do some awesome things with her in term of cinematic stuff). I sure hope we never see the days of Evil Coach TK, the Evil Owner character. You know it could happen. It's pro-wrestling, it's like a bug.

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I guess part of it is the inevitable burn out from trying to run 3 AEW shows (plus 3 big PPVs recently), all the RoH stuff, Fulham and his American football team concurrently. In many ways, I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner, but then this week he's had to put up with losing a head-to-head battle with NXT whilst also being aware that Fulham fans are planning a protest on his running of the club and want him out, all during his birthday week.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The 4th Anniversary show concluding with an angle between Adam Copeland & Christian Cage felt like TNA. Which strictly on a pro-wrestling show level, wasn't a good thing.

Ric Flair showing up feels like WWE. Gross.

AEW truly has failed. Not failed to be perfect, because nothing is never gonna be. But failed to be different. They just gave in. Ok then.

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As pro wrestling fans, this timeline feels cursed. WWE is going back to Saudi Arabia. AEW is bringing in Edge & Ric Flair to feud/wrestle with Sting & Christian while a bloated Chris Jericho is a main eventer. 

Remember all that shit with JAS & BCC trying to get Daniel Garcia over? Now he's a fucking Alex Wright rip off. Amazing.

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AEW Rampage match was pulled due to talent refusing to lose 

Metalik vs. Komander was planned for the show.

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/aew-rampage-match-was-pulled-due-to-talent-refusing-to-lose

If this is true, fire Metalik.

He's a nobody who's never done anything or made an impact anywhere. He's in no position to refuse to do jobs.

I understand not wanting to lose two in a row, but that's no excuse to be unprofessional and pull a "That doesn't work for me, brother!" over something so inconsequential. 

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Also it looks like after doing a match for the ROH tapings, that was it for him in AEW/ROH.  For those keeping score this is the running tally of bridges he's burned:

GCW - refused to lose to Hijo del Vikingo, which ended his time with them

CMLL - did a job for Titan but left such a bad impression he wasn't ever brought back  

and now AEW/ROH

 

The problem is he left WWE because he felt he wasn't being used properly (ie: jobbing all the time), but his biggest value on the indies in the US or Mexico is as "ex WWE guy that puts on a good match and puts over the local guy". That seems to have broken his brain and it will be interesting if he tries to pull this stuff if/when he gets to go to Japan like he's been wanting. 

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One issue with Metallik, is that ten years ago or so, he was the hot CMLL prospect as Mascara Dorada. He was all the hype during the NJPW Fantastica Mania and such. He was a star then. Then fast forward to post-WWE, not only the perception about him as shifted dramatically, as he's seen as a JTTS from WWE, therefore someone with no cred for a push unless you're TNA in 2010, but he's also been pushed way back in term of spectacular work by the Vikingo's and the Komander's of the world. He was the King of the Ropes, now he's just a good luchador who is not as spectacular as the new generation. Wrap all that into one and you probably get a frustrated Metalik with a distorted view of himself. I would say, bad choice of career in the grand scheme of things. He sure made way more money in WWE than he would have in Mexico, but not millions either I would guess, but now his value in the US has been pretty much killed in term of being a hot commodity, and the "eso no me functiona, hermano" (or something, I don't speak Spanish) bit is only gonna fuck him up even more, including toward AAA. La Parka can do this (well, he should not, but he can), Metalik... no so much.

Makes you wonder where Dragon Lee is gonna end up in 5 years...

And honestly, the same goes for most luchador going to AEW right now that are not called Rush or Lucha Brothers. Komander is the amazingly spectacular guy who never wins. Vikingo is more protected because he's a big star in AAA, but...

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