# Eric Bischoff: "Don't position yourself as something you're clearly not. AEW is competitive with the WWE development territory."



## La Parka (Oct 28, 2008)

TNA was never competitive with WWE. It was as far away from WWE as AEW is now. 

It was a good wrestling program before bischoff got there and then it became a shitty wcw knockoff. 

Yes it had better ratings than AEW but it was also 8-10 years in before that was ever the case. It was also during a time when more people watched cable programming.


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## EmbassyForever (Dec 29, 2011)

I don't care about the "competition" aspect, but Eric is obviously out of touch here.
AEW is in (or was, before the COVID-19) a great place. Their PPVs are always sold-out, they have loyal fanbase that's actually willing to pay for their tickets, great PPV buys, locked in TNT for 3 more years.....

RATINGS AREN'T THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. It's not 1999 anymore, bud.
AEW are much more of a "competition" to WWE than TNA ever was. And I used to love TNA.


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## The Masked Avenger (Apr 18, 2018)

EmbassyForever said:


> I don't care about the "competition" aspect, but Eric is obviously out of touch here.
> AEW is in (or was, before the COVID-19) a great place. Their PPVs are always sold-out, they have loyal fanbase that's actually willing to pay for their tickets, great PPV buys, locked in TNT for 3 more years.....
> 
> RATINGS AREN'T THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. It's not 1999 anymore, bud.
> AEW are much more of a "competition" to WWE than TNA ever was. And I used to love TNA.


Clearly out of touch. In fact he sounds like several posters on here bringing up rating from a decade ago to prove their point. Sad.


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## Erik. (Mar 17, 2014)

TNA also got bigger rating than the UFC.

Let's not go there shall we, when it comes to ratings? 

TNA never did the PPV or attendances that AEW are doing, when wrestling is the least popular too. 

In fact when they were "challenging" WWE they were doing about 10k buys for their PPVs. 

Calm yourself Bischoff.

As a wrestling man once said. AEW has buy rates topping 100,000 three times. Sold out 10,000 seat arenas multiple times and once arenas open up will produce more revenue than TNA could ever have dreamed.


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## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

... and here comes the AEW sympathisers. 

He simply said AEW have spent mega money just to compete with WWE's development brand.... He's not wrong. 

He said AEW aren't the only promotion to try and compete with WWE... He's not wrong. 

He said TNA were getting better ratings.... He's not wrong. 

He said TNA were delivering consistently.... He's not wrong. 

When you consider that TNA spent a fraction of what AEW have, they put on a better product, were more consistent and were a lot closer to competing with WWE (not their development brand) than what AEW are.


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## EmbassyForever (Dec 29, 2011)

OVW & FCW were a development brand. NXT is WWE's third brand. Their PPVs attendances are fantastic, their Women's champion is Charlotte, and they have guys like Finn Balor from the main roster.

TNA put on a better product? well that's your opinion. I disagree. 
At the end of the day, AEW are much more profitable than TNA ever was. I don't see how it can be denied.


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## ElTerrible (Feb 8, 2004)

They should do a Dark Side of the Ring episode about Bischoff, Russo and Cornette not being able to let go of the 90s. Maybe Vince can be the narrator.


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## validreasoning (Jul 4, 2012)

EmbassyForever said:


> OVW & FCW were a development brand. NXT is WWE's third brand. Their PPVs attendances are fantastic, their Women's champion is Charlotte, and they have guys like Finn Balor from the main roster.
> 
> TNA put on a better product? well that's your opinion. I disagree.
> At the end of the day, AEW are much more profitable than TNA ever was. I don't see how it can be denied.


OVW had guys like Kane, Henry, Big Show work multiple matches. FCW had Taker, Batista, Cena appear on shows. NXT is still developmental. Charlotte has worked one match there, 99% of the time people move to Raw/SD not the other way around. Those moving from main roster to NXT usually are in limbo and need career resurgence like Emma, Tyson Kidd, Zach Ryder, Tyler Breeze. Prior to September USA tv debut how many NXT talent had appeared on national TV..

As neither AEW nor TNAs finances are public it's impossible to determine who is more profitable. TNA was 9 years prime time cable, AEW six months so we can't compare yet.

No guarantee AEW will be profitable in 2020 given economy. Ad rates are down over 60% since covid lockdown in the US and that's one of AEWs main revenue sources. Unlikely there will be any ticket sales revenue in near future and ppv probably too unlikely.

AEW also have much bigger overheads than TNA had especially TNA 2006-09.


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## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

TNA had sting. aew has noone in his league right now, they badly needed punk.

Jericho has been great dont get me wrong, but he’s never been the top star in any company other than aew. 

They are badly missing that one name that would have done big things.


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## InexorableJourney (Sep 10, 2016)

-Is AEW competition for talent, yes if guaranteed money is not their single greatest goal.
-Is AEW competition for ratings, obvs it runs directly against NXT and trounces it.
-Is AEW direct competition to the main WWE brands, no but as it's only been going for one year and in that time has become profitable, has over 10x the viewership of TNA's first year, and isn't being run by an idiot like Eric Bischoff.

It's say AEW is doing amazeballs.


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## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

I love the attention grabbing headline. AEW is not competitive with RAW/SD, ratings wise, but that’s where they want to be.

TNA wasn’t competitive ratings wise either.


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## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

Danielallen1410 said:


> TNA had sting. aew has noone in his league right now, they badly needed punk.
> 
> Jericho has been great dont get me wrong, but he’s never been the top star in any company other than aew.
> 
> They are badly missing that one name that would have done big things.


I would say Jericho is bigger now than what Sting was in TNA.


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## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

InexorableJourney said:


> -Is AEW competition for talent, yes if guaranteed money is not their single greatest goal.
> -Is AEW competition for ratings, obvs it runs directly against NXT and trounces it.
> -Is AEW direct competition to the main WWE brands, no but as it's only been going for one year and in that time has become profitable, has over 10x the viewership of TNA's first year, and isn't being run by an idiot like Eric Bischoff.
> 
> It's say AEW is doing amazeballs.


They're not competition for talent at all, they're getting castoffs/guys WWE no longer have a purpose for. 

I would hardly say that AEW is trouncing NXT ratings wise. Nor are they competition for WWE. If WWE actually saw AEW as a viable competitor, they would wipe them off the face of the Earth. 

TNA wasn't being run by Bischoff in its first year, neither was TNA being ran by a billionaire with global contacts.


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## Cooper09 (Aug 24, 2016)

Problem with AEW is that the only way it's going to be competitive with WWE is if the WWE's audience falls to their level. AEW can't grow to WWE's level.


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## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

Cooper09 said:


> Problem with AEW is that the only way it's going to be competitive with WWE is if the WWE's audience falls to their level. AEW can't grow to WWE's level.


they can audience wise in my opinion, but Business wise no chance, and I think they know that anyway.


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## Stellar (May 30, 2016)

Bischoff is right.

Of course TNA Impact had higher ratings long ago though. They were in a better situation that they could have those ratings. Wrestling in general isn't what it was a decade ago. Ratings for a lot of shows isn't what it used to be also. It's a different time.

It's more that people have a realistic view because of where AEW is at now and wanting a good alternative after Impact fell off of the cliff and ROH never having aspirations to grow. Dynamite is not even a year old and is on one of the biggest timeslots of TV during the week. Being realistic of the situation.

By the time that Bischoff made it to TNA, Impact had already been on Spike TV for a long time (heavily promoted and supported by Spike by the way.) and Bischoff used guys from the 90s to gain viewers. The only active wrestler from the peak of wrestling during our lifetime that AEW has is Jericho (not counting Billy Gunn because he isn't very active on screen.).

Also yes, as soon as Impact considered going on the road and going head to head with a wrestling show they struggled a lot and that only lasted a minute. Taped episodes of Smackdown that were on Syfy or some other channel was the main wrestling show that Impact ever had to worry about before they tried to challenge RAW.

NXT can be claimed to be developmental but they still have a lot of established talent that wouldn't still be in NXT if it was still as small as FCW was. Adam Cole, Balor, Keith Lee, Riddle, etc. would all be on RAW or Smackdown by now. They are all still in NXT because NXT TV isn't promoted like a developmental show. It's promoted and supported by the WWE machine like it's a threat to any other show.


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## kingfrass44 (Sep 19, 2019)

TheAppler said:


> TNA was never competitive with WWE. It was as far away from WWE as AEW is now.
> 
> It was a good wrestling program before bischoff got there and then it became a shitty wcw knockoff.
> 
> Yes it had better ratings than AEW but it was also 8-10 years in before that was ever the case. It was also during a time when more people watched cable programming.


It was also during a time when more people watched cable programming Stupid excuse


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## Mastodon (May 20, 2009)

I think Bishoff is making a fair point here. The difference in perception between AEW & TNA is worthy of criticism. TNA had higher ratings then AEW has ever had yet was negatively thought upon because it had poor creative. AEW is positively perceived by wrestling journalists & certain wrestling fans who fawn over The Elite even though AEW makes the same poor creative choices. Both companies have tried to copy WWE's cartoonish style & fail. AEW has the disadvantage of competing with NXT but both shows have declined in the ratings.

So I ask the question, What is the difference between AEW now & TNA when it was on national television? Is the cold hard truth that as WWE declines due to its own hubris, fans(that are left) have gotten more thirsty for any product that is a perceived alternative? Why does it seem like AEW gets a haul pass for being WWE 2.0?


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## RiverFenix (Dec 10, 2011)

Bischoff also scored 4 touchdowns in a single game at Polk High...

Hogan and Bischoff pushed to move TNA to Monday nights IIRC. Dummies. 

AEW looked for a night WWE wasn't on television. WWE moved NXT to television and added a second hour to compete directly against AEW.


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## Corporate Rock (Apr 9, 2014)

the_flock said:


> I would say Jericho is bigger now than what Sting was in TNA.


I gotta agree, Jericho is more relevant/popular in AEW than Sting was in TNA.


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## ElTerrible (Feb 8, 2004)

DetroitRiverPhx said:


> Bischoff also scored 4 touchdowns in a single game at Polk High...
> 
> Hogan and Bischoff pushed to move TNA to Monday nights IIRC. Dummies.
> 
> AEW looked for a night WWE wasn't on television. WWE moved NXT to television and added a second hour to compete directly against AEW.


Leave facts out of this. This is America.


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## Erik. (Mar 17, 2014)

TNA were getting higher ratings.

Yet AEW is closer to Raws ratings than TNA ever were. 

TNAs average rating during their peak year :
*1.17*
Raws average rating during that same time :
*4.6*

AEWs average rating since inception :
*874,000*

Raws average rating during the same time:
*2.3*

That should tell you all you need to know about how unpopular wrestling is right now. AEW might on average be doing slightly worse than TNAs best year but they've also been alive for half a year. 

What the comparison should be is early TNA and early AEW and AEW has it beat not only in terms of a good TV deal, buy rates and ratings. But in entertainment too.


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## Riddle101 (Aug 15, 2006)

It feel kind've lame to bring up rating at this current point in time. AEW is still a very recent company and anyone expecting them to do WCW type ratings at it's peak is delusional. Keep in mind, that WCW had been around for quite some time before the Monday Night Wars kicked in. It's a marathon not a sprint. Let's see what things are like in 3 - 5 years time. Who knows, maybe the company will go bust too, but maybe it will grow to the level of WWE eventually.


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## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

DetroitRiverPhx said:


> Bischoff also scored 4 touchdowns in a single game at Polk High...
> 
> Hogan and Bischoff pushed to move TNA to Monday nights IIRC. Dummies.
> 
> AEW looked for a night WWE wasn't on television. WWE moved NXT to television and added a second hour to compete directly against AEW.


What night was NXT on before this?


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## WhyTooJay (Aug 25, 2010)

Bischoff is shocking insecure for a man who's done as much as he has for the wrestling business. Dude takes everything as a slight/attack. Tony Khan was hardly even criticizing him and dude got all butthurt lol


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## Bubbly (Oct 10, 2019)

AEW was close to turning a profit IIRC, and would have with the new tv deal. TNA lost money every year I believe.


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## Dickhead1990 (Aug 31, 2016)

He's right that WWE had competition in TNA, however it was never a serious threat. If TNA had been positioned against a modern day NXT, then the comparison would have been equal (pre-Hogan). The thing is that AEW market themselves as an alternative, it was WWE that viewed them as competition by placing NXT in that slot. For us viewers, that's a good thing though as it provides us with many legitimate alternatives.

TNA and AEW (also to some extent NXT) has formed a very organic fan base, so these three brands in their primes are very comparable in my eyes.


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## kingfrass44 (Sep 19, 2019)

Dickhead1990 said:


> He's right that WWE had competition in TNA, however it was never a serious threat. If TNA had been positioned against a modern day NXT, then the comparison would have been equal (pre-Hogan). The thing is that AEW market themselves as an alternative, it was WWE that viewed them as competition by placing NXT in that slot. For us viewers, that's a good thing though as it provides us with many legitimate alternatives.
> 
> TNA and AEW (also to some extent NXT) has formed a very organic fan base, so these three brands in their primes are very comparable in my eyes.


Stupid excuses


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## Dickhead1990 (Aug 31, 2016)

kingfrass44 said:


> Stupid excuses


Care to explain how?


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## Alexander_G (Mar 10, 2018)

Danielallen1410 said:


> TNA had sting. aew has noone in his league right now, they badly needed punk.
> 
> Jericho has been great dont get me wrong, but he’s never been the top star in any company other than aew.
> 
> They are badly missing that one name that would have done big things.


Do you want an old top star, or a new top star?


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## zkorejo (Jul 2, 2010)

Sounded way more positive in the audio as compared to the thread title. He actually praised AEW alot. 

Difference between TNA and AEW is, TNA tried to compete against WWE in 2010s with stars made in 80s and 90s. Whereas AEW is just trying to find its own groove and isnt claiming to compete with WWE at all in any capacity. 

WWE put the NXT on Wed TVs to compete and/or hurt the other promotion, not the other way around.


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## Dickhead1990 (Aug 31, 2016)

zkorejo said:


> Sounded way more positive in the audio as compared to the thread title. He actually praised AEW alot.
> 
> Difference between TNA and AEW is, *TNA tried to compete against WWE in 2010s with stars made in 80s and 90s. *Whereas AEW is just trying to find its own groove and isnt claiming to compete with WWE at all in any capacity.
> 
> WWE put the NXT on Wed TVs to compete and/or hurt the other promotion, not the other way around.


Directly, I totally agree about the 80s and 90s stars. The biggest problem with this though is that they had people tuning in for their new talent, formed in the 2000's and being poorly booked in the X Division. Things turned around in the run up to the Hogan takeover, just for them all to be buried instantly by the Nasty Boys and Val Venis.


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## 5 Star Giulia ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Apr 21, 2014)

EmbassyForever said:


> I don't care about the "competition" aspect, but Eric is obviously out of touch here.
> AEW is in (or was, before the COVID-19) a great place. Their PPVs are always sold-out, they have loyal fanbase that's actually willing to pay for their tickets, great PPV buys, locked in TNT for 3 more years.....
> 
> RATINGS AREN'T THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. It's not 1999 anymore, bud.
> AEW are much more of a "competition" to WWE than TNA ever was. And I used to love TNA.


*Before? I'll go as far as to say the shows are better during quarantine; especially the women's division. This is coming from a primary WWE fan.*


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## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

BOSS of Bel-Air said:


> *Before? I'll go as far as to say the shows are better during quarantine; especially the women's division. This is coming from a primary WWE fan.*


I really don't see how these quarantine episodes as anywhere near the same quality; I can agree with you on the women's division though in some respects. AEW is missing MJF, Hangman who is one half of the tag champs, practically the entire tag team division, and Pac. Not to mention, at least half of the matches have been squashes featuring no name indy talent; squash matches are useful in moderation, but this is way too much.

With Blood and Guts just around the corner with the battle between the Inner Circle and Elite reaching a fever pitch, not to mention the debuts of Brodie Lee and Matt Hardy, AEW seemed to be on a real upswing; now they have had to freeze multiple stories, and are seemingly treading water until things reach a level of normalcy again.


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## Dickhead1990 (Aug 31, 2016)

MJF said:


> TNA were getting higher ratings.
> 
> Yet AEW is closer to Raws ratings than TNA ever were.
> 
> ...


Reading through these ratings, it's clear to see that Raw has halved in viewership in that time. Proportionately speaking, taking into account a 50% decrease, that should put AEW on less than 600,000 to be worse than TNA. I think it's safe to say that they've actually done marginally better for their debut year, compared to TNA's best.

Plus we all know that ratings only mean so much in 2020. Even back in 2010, I never watched wrestling on TV and streamed it online. If there was a way to take this into account, I think it would be interesting to see what changes across the board. Maybe that decreased viewership for WWE now streams online for free, avoiding cable fees in various countries?

Food for thought.


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## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

the_flock said:


> ... and here comes the AEW sympathisers.
> 
> He simply said AEW have spent mega money just to compete with WWE's development brand.... He's not wrong.
> 
> ...


not even close. Impact without competition drew 25-30% of Raws audience, AEW against nXt was doing 40%. So already AEW has a higher rating share and let’s not even talk about really matters, the demo, the thing that TNA never got.
AEW is a PPV machine, only twice did TNA get 30k or more buys (60k highest ever), AEW has beat that 4 for 4 times, great buyrates, literally 10x’s TNAs ole PPV buyrates.

Attendance wise it is even further apart. TNA record for US is 7200 and AEW has topped that 7 times already.

Look, we all know Bisch is upset AEW didn’t hire him. He wanted to be a part of this so bad. That’s all this is.


Riddle101 said:


> It feel kind've lame to bring up rating at this current point in time. AEW is still a very recent company and anyone expecting them to do WCW type ratings at it's peak is delusional. Keep in mind, that WCW had been around for quite some time before the Monday Night Wars kicked in. It's a marathon not a sprint. Let's see what things are like in 3 - 5 years time. Who knows, maybe the company will go bust too, but maybe it will grow to the level of WWE eventually.


Yes. You have to build generations and AEW has no prior generation like WCW did when they debuted Nitro. You build fan bases in wrestling generationally.


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## Daniel Allen (Sep 12, 2016)

Cult03 said:


> What night was NXT on before this?


They were on the network. Not on tv. Aew were not trying to compete for ratings. That’s just vinces petty attitude of trying to destroy competition. He’s the biggest hypocrite in the business.


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## 304418 (Jul 2, 2014)

AEW is competitive with WWE when it goes toe to toe with NXT, and beats that show regularly and consistently and has only been around a year. Dynamite itself has been around 6 1/2 months.

TNA failed to be competitive with WWE when it went toe to toe with Raw. It had been around 7 years at that time, and Impact had been on the air for 5 of those years. And Lockdown 2008 was their record in PPV buys. And was on the same network as UFC at the time and could have crosspromoted with them if they wanted and took the opportunity, considering UFC's growth in pop culture at the time - and UFC also had Brock Lesnar at that time too. TNA still lost in the ratings when going against mediocre episodes of Raw after a couple of months, and had to return to its safe Thursday night slot. And then stumbled badly when it went on the road, resulting in it becoming the glorified indy it is today.

Let's be honest and fair: AEW is closer to being a threat like WCW was than TNA could ever hope to be.


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## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

El Hammerstone said:


> I really don't see how these quarantine episodes as anywhere near the same quality; I can agree with you on the women's division though in some respects. AEW is missing MJF, Hangman who is one half of the tag champs, practically the entire tag team division, and Pac. Not to mention, at least half of the matches have been squashes featuring no name indy talent; squash matches are useful in moderation, but this is way too much.
> 
> With Blood and Guts just around the corner with the battle between the Inner Circle and Elite reaching a fever pitch, not to mention the debuts of Brodie Lee and Matt Hardy, AEW seemed to be on a real upswing; now they have had to freeze multiple stories, and are seemingly treading water until things reach a level of normalcy again.


Yes it was WAY better before the corona. Most of their roster isnt even there sadly. Not having MJF & Hangman are real killers. They are the fanbases chosen ones. AEW made stars despite them being in other companies before, most people didn't know about them until they came to AEW. Not to mention Pac, Bucks, PnP, Lucha Bros, SCU, etc...alot of folks that have had MAJOR tv time devoted to them are not there and it hurts bad.


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## Dickhead1990 (Aug 31, 2016)

Daniel Allen said:


> They were on the network. Not on tv. Aew were not trying to compete for ratings. That’s just vinces petty attitude of trying to destroy competition. He’s the biggest hypocrite in the business.


Exactly this. If AEW was aiming to compete with anyone, it's against the likes of ROH and NJPW, shows which are the key fanbase that they're after. They wanted wrestling fans in their mid 20's to late 30's, who saw the golden age in WWE but were turned off by their current offerings. It does happen that a lot of this sector also favour NXT over Raw and Smackdown too (a group smartly catered for by Triple H), hence Vince putting it against AEW. NXT is competing against AEW, not the other way around.


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## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

Dickhead1990 said:


> Exactly this. If AEW was aiming to compete with anyone, it's against the likes of ROH and NJPW, shows which are the key fanbase that they're after. They wanted wrestling fans in their mid 20's to late 30's, who saw the golden age in WWE but were turned off by their current offerings. It does happen that a lot of this sector also favour NXT over Raw and Smackdown too (a group smartly catered for by Triple H), hence Vince putting it against AEW. NXT is competing against AEW, not the other way around.


The funny thing is WWE made AEW seem like a bigger deal that it‘s supposed to be at this stage.

moving NXT to TV
Taking shots on TV
Hogging talent for as long as possible

It’s like they’re looking for competition. You almost wonder if WWE secretly fund AEW lol


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## 5 Star Giulia ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Apr 21, 2014)

El Hammerstone said:


> I really don't see how these quarantine episodes as anywhere near the same quality; I can agree with you on the women's division though in some respects. AEW is missing MJF, Hangman who is one half of the tag champs, practically the entire tag team division, and Pac. Not to mention, at least half of the matches have been squashes featuring no name indy talent; squash matches are useful in moderation, but this is way too much.
> 
> With Blood and Guts just around the corner with the battle between the Inner Circle and Elite reaching a fever pitch, not to mention the debuts of Brodie Lee and Matt Hardy, AEW seemed to be on a real upswing; now they have had to freeze multiple stories, and are seemingly treading water until things reach a level of normalcy again.


*I'll be honest with you. All I care about is Matt Hardy, Chris Jericho, and Shida, so I'm having a great time.*


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## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

BOSS of Bel-Air said:


> *I'll be honest with you. All I care about is Matt Hardy, Chris Jericho, and Shida, so I'm having a great time.*


Fair enough I guess.


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## 5 Star Giulia ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Apr 21, 2014)

El Hammerstone said:


> Fair enough I guess.


*I wouldn't mind seeing more Private Party though. They're my favorite tag team in AEW.*


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## kingfrass44 (Sep 19, 2019)

TKO Wrestling said:


> not even close. Impact without competition drew 25-30% of Raws audience, AEW against nXt was doing 40%. So already AEW has a higher rating share and let’s not even talk about really matters, the demo, the thing that TNA never got.
> AEW is a PPV machine, only twice did TNA get 30k or more buys (60k highest ever), AEW has beat that 4 for 4 times, great buyrates, literally 10x’s TNAs ole PPV buyrates.
> 
> Attendance wise it is even further apart. TNA record for US is 7200 and AEW has topped that 7 times already.
> ...


Excuses for milking stopped
And you know you are wrong
Bisch Not upset AEW
True Tony Khan upset
He not need aew hire him


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## kingfrass44 (Sep 19, 2019)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Yes it was WAY better before the corona. Most of their roster isnt even there sadly. Not having MJF & Hangman are real killers. They are the fanbases chosen ones. AEW made stars despite them being in other companies before, most people didn't know about them until they came to AEW. Not to mention Pac, Bucks, PnP, Lucha Bros, SCU, etc...alot of folks that have had MAJOR tv time devoted to them are not there and it hurts bad.


AEW Not made stars
he is WAY better before the corona
Hangman Not real killers
Bubble is not a measure 
most people didn't know about before and after aew


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## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

kingfrass44 said:


> AEW Not made stars
> he is WAY better before the corona
> Hangman Not real killers
> Bubble is not a measure
> most people didn't know about before and after aew


What is even you saying
Posts make no sense you
From what can see
Just you saying things sake of things said


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## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

TheAppler said:


> It was a good wrestling program before bischoff got there and then it became a shitty wcw knockoff.


You're fabricating things.

In 2009 we saw a wrestler aged 40+ in PPV main events in 10/12 PPV's. 51 year old Sting, 44 year old Mick Foley and 41 year old Kurt Angle were in PPV main events monthly. This was many months before Eric even got signed.

TNA rehashed the Millionaires Club Vs New Blood with the Main Event Mafia (Consisting of Angle, Sting, Nash, Steiner and Booker T) taking on the TNA Front Line (Lead by AJ Styles). 

Don't forget beloved ECW character and full time professional wrestler Stevie Richards magically becoming a doctor and fucking with Abyss or Jenna Morasca from Survivor wrestling on Pay Per View or Don West the colour commentator turning heel.

Eric and Hogan came in and if anything things started to change at least up top. First PPV they did had the very respectable Angle/AJ match and they brought in both Jeff Hardy and Mr. Anderson who were stars from the WWE but also well under the age of 40. D'Angelo Dinero (Pope) main evented their next PPV offering against Anderson with AJ/Joe for the belt followed by Abyss Vs AJ for the belt in March 2010. As a matter of fact TNA only had 5 main events with a guy over the age of 40 in 2010 and most of them were Kurt Angle who could still go.

I don't know about you but PPV main events like Foley/Sting seem a lot more WCW like.

By the way I'm not saying TNA 2010 was great because it wasn't but I think it gets unfair criticism. A lot of it was entertaining television and dare I say I'd rather TNA 2010 than AEW 2020.




EmbassyForever said:


> I don't care about the "competition" aspect, but Eric is obviously out of touch here.
> AEW is in (or was, before the COVID-19) a great place. Their PPVs are always sold-out, they have loyal fanbase that's actually willing to pay for their tickets, great PPV buys, locked in TNT for 3 more years.....
> 
> AEW are much more of a "competition" to WWE than TNA ever was. And I used to love TNA.


AEW's last PPV in February just before this COVID-19 stuff started coming out was in a 10,000 seat arena and sold 7000 tickets. The buy rate was 100,000 total including international buys, internet buys etc. Not shitting on that number but it goes against what you're saying about sold out PPV's and great PPV buys. Don't be fooled into thinking all 7000 seats were sold either, arenas have people they look after, sponsors get free tickets, local media outlets get free tickets in hopes of promotion, contest winners etc. I'd say off a 7000 figure maybe 6000 were paid for. You'll never hear a report of that though because Meltzer is an AEW fan and doesn't want them to look bad.

For comparison sake by the way I think TNA used to do 20,000 - 30,000 buys even in their worst years domestically only. That isn't including TNA hotbeds such as Australia, Canada, England or the rest of the world. I'd say TNA even in 2010 was doing close to 100,000 buys including international purchases. I will openly admit that for most PPV's they weren't drawing anything close to 7000 though.




MJF said:


> TNA also got bigger rating than the UFC.
> 
> Let's not go there shall we, when it comes to ratings?
> 
> ...


They didn't regularly do AEW crowd numbers but to say they never did is dishonest. They have done multiple shows with several thousands in attendance and I believe their "on the road" trial with Impact was averaging about 2000-4000 fans. Again, not awesome but is AEW really drawing that much more to come and see Dynamite?

All that says anyway is that TNA is bad at promoting their live appearances but had a product that people still wanted to watch as opposed to AEW which has a strong fan base of just over half a million but can't attract anyone else.



EmbassyForever said:


> At the end of the day, AEW are much more profitable than TNA ever was. I don't see how it can be denied.


You're looking at this from a biased standpoint or don't understand wrestling business that much.

Yes, Impact had lower attendance on average and AEW kills their buyrates on PPV but take these things into account:

- TNA for as much shit as it gets was incredibly successful domestically and internationally. Spike would've been paying big money especially since TNA was their highest rated shows most weeks and it's rumoured that Spike would actually help pay for big stars such as Angle, Sting, Hogan etc. TNA gets money from Spike but also every international TV deal they strike. At TNA's peak it was airing in over 100 countries and TNA gets a fee from all of those broadcasters. Here in Australia during 2010 we would get Impact on the same channel as WWE plus replays throughout the week and one of the big networks on free to air TV had Xplosion on the air also. We could also purchase their PPV broadcasts and even have a limited amount of merchandise in our retailers (Mainly action figures and DVD's). I've never seen anything related to AEW in any kind of media or store here in Australia but all this related in income for Impact.

- Speaking of merchandise TNA had international merchandise deals also. Stores from around the world would buy their merchandise looking to sell it at a profit. TNA gets a piece of that no matter how small it is and that results in more dollars. AEW produces all their merchandise and to my knowledge their stuff isn't carried in any major retailers except maybe Hot Topic? I'm not American so I could be wrong in this count but I know they have no international merchandise in real retailers.

- On top of that you have licensing. If someone wants to make a TNA Kurt Angle action figure or a TNA Kurt Angle T-Shirt they need to pay TNA to do that. That video game TNA had out? The company that made it would've paid for the licence to make it. Rumour was at the time Hogan signed with TNA they got a piece of anything he did that was wrestling related. Hogan did some stupid fitness video game and TNA saw money for it. All of this is stuff that AEW doesn't have yet. 

- A big one people forget is that TNA had a real legitimate house show schedule. Most weekends Impact would do a 3 day loop where they'd draw from anywhere between 500-1500. Eventually that dropped off but 500 people spending on average 20 bucks for a ticket are 30,000 dollar weekends on tickets alone for TNA. Throw in merchandise, the expensive meet and greets (Which always had big crowds) and the post show photo in the ring with the likes of Hardy and Angle and you have a nice little side earner for weekends. TNA also used to get paid gigs where they'd be paid X amount of dollars to go to a baseball stadium or a local school fundraiser and perform.

- TNA also had an international touring schedule which saw them draw thousands (Especially in England) to TV shows and house shows. In early 2010 they drew 7000 people to Wembley arena with the only real big former WWE guys being Kurt Angle and Team 3.D. That 7 day tour of Europe alone could quite possibly have been a million dollar tour for them on tickets alone. Then you throw your merchandise in, your sponsors, your meet and greets etc. Not a bad weeks work.

- You then have a ton of other misc stuff that I don't really have time to go into further but things like YouTube would've created revenue for Impact (They used to regularly get hundreds of thousands of people checking their stuff out), Social Media, Sponsorship (TNA always seemed to have MULTIPLE sponsors), additional TV means more money etc etc.

AEW has very few revenue streams and that's the money that comes from PPV, TV and live attendance. Maybe they have merchandising deals domestically in the USA what else do they have? That's it. TNA had at least 10-15 revenue streams that were delivering for them.



DetroitRiverPhx said:


> Hogan and Bischoff pushed to move TNA to Monday nights IIRC. Dummies.


Wasn't their idea it was decided when they had no real power. That decision came from Dixie or someone in her camp not Eric B and Hogan. Both have said it was a bad idea and they knew it wouldn't work.



TKO Wrestling said:


> Look, we all know Bisch is upset AEW didn’t hire him. He wanted to be a part of this so bad. That’s all this is.


I went to an Eric Bischoff talk/Q & A before AEW started Dynamite. Some obese AEW fan dressed up as Chris Jericho asked the inevitable "Are you interested in going to AEW?" question and Bischoff put them over but said he had no interest.


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

Daniel Allen said:


> They were on the network. Not on tv. Aew were not trying to compete for ratings. That’s just vinces petty attitude of trying to destroy competition. He’s the biggest hypocrite in the business.


And they organized a TV show within a few days? Again I ask, what night was NXT on before this? Because I believe Triple H would have wanted to get the show on TV years before. You guys spin everything to seem so petty. AEW chose to put Dynamite on the same night as NXT, not the other way around.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

Cult03 said:


> And they organized a TV show within a few days? Again I ask, what night was NXT on before this? Because I believe Triple H would have wanted to get the show on TV years before. You guys spin everything to seem so petty. AEW chose to put Dynamite on the same night as NXT, not the other way around.


Yeah, anyone who buys the narrative that Triple H and Vince clicked their fingers and magically got on TV just because AEW did isn't too bright.


----------



## LifeInCattleClass (Dec 21, 2010)

EmbassyForever said:


> I don't care about the "competition" aspect, but Eric is obviously out of touch here.
> AEW is in (or was, before the COVID-19) a great place. Their PPVs are always sold-out, they have loyal fanbase that's actually willing to pay for their tickets, great PPV buys, locked in TNT for 3 more years.....
> 
> RATINGS AREN'T THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS. It's not 1999 anymore, bud.
> AEW are much more of a "competition" to WWE than TNA ever was. And I used to love TNA.


stop making sense


----------



## Pippen94 (Jan 10, 2020)

TNA highest attendance was about 6,000 & buyrate well under 100,000.


----------



## TerraRising (Aug 5, 2015)

TNA at its peak was 90s WCW meets ROH. It had an identity, which AEW honestly lacks. And AEW is hella niche in its targeted demographic, whereas TNA smartly acted as a tourist trap.


----------



## MontyCora (Aug 31, 2016)

I just listened to the podcast where Bishoff defended the Sting/Hogan match from Conrad Thompson who is absolutely flabbergasted. 

I don't want to hear what this nimrod thinks about anything. He's a dipshit. You'd think given history his opinion would almost HAVE to be relevant wisdom, and yet.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

Cult03 said:


> And they organized a TV show within a few days? Again I ask, what night was NXT on before this? Because I believe Triple H would have wanted to get the show on TV years before. You guys spin everything to seem so petty. AEW chose to put Dynamite on the same night as NXT, not the other way around.





Chip Chipperson said:


> Yeah, anyone who buys the narrative that Triple H and Vince clicked their fingers and magically got on TV just because AEW did isn't too bright.


on July 24th AEW announced that they would premiere dynamite on Wednesday October 2nd

In August wwe announced they would move nxt to USA, guess what night the premier would be?


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

Danielallen1410 said:


> on July 24th AEW announced that they would premiere dynamite on Wednesday October 2nd
> 
> In August wwe announced they would move nxt to USA, guess what night the premier would be?


The same night they were already on?


----------



## Geeee (Aug 9, 2010)

Correct me if I'm wrong but at this point in TNA's life cycle, they were still doing weekly PPV and didn't have TV at all


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

Geeee said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong but at this point in TNA's life cycle, they were still doing weekly PPV and didn't have TV at all


TNA had it MUCH harder I think. It formed one year after the death of WCW when the hunger for new competition [among fans] was non-existent. WWE were still killing it at this point. Networks were probably also very hesitant to pick up a new promotion after what happened with WCW.

I mean either way, AEW are in a much better position to become a genuine competitor. WWE is the last popular its ever been; fans are hungry to see something different. It is a massive shame about Corona. It has either delayed or stopped AEW completely from becoming competition.


----------



## Geeee (Aug 9, 2010)

optikk sucks said:


> TNA had it MUCH harder I think. It formed one year after the death of WCW when the hunger for new competition [among fans] was non-existent. WWE were still killing it at this point. Networks were probably also very hesitant to pick up a new promotion after what happened with WCW.
> 
> I mean either way, AEW are in a much better position to become a genuine competitor. WWE is the last popular its ever been; fans are hungry to see something different. It is a massive shame about Corona. It has either delayed or stopped AEW completely from becoming competition.


In Bischoff's defense, he probably wasn't even aware of TNA at that point LOL


----------



## validreasoning (Jul 4, 2012)

optikk sucks said:


> WWE is the last popular its ever been; fans are hungry to see something different. It is a massive shame about Corona. It has either delayed or stopped AEW completely from becoming competition.


I assume you mean least and if so not correct.

WWE averaged more paying fans last year at North American live events than 1992, 93, 94, 95, 96, 2003 or 2004.


----------



## Sbatenney (Jul 3, 2018)

AEW is what TNA could have been had Dixie not hired Hogan and Bischoff in 2010, you can argue that oh they just reharshed the millionaire club vs new blood but they didn't, they did it the right way with the Main Event Mafia as a heels holding down the younger guys. That was a good storyline imo and had they done the logically follow through and book the younger guys strong after it, focusing less on people like Nash, Hall, Pac etc etc and more on the Frontline, they could have been what AEW is today instead of what they are now.

AEW and TNA are the same, they are competition but neither are really a threat to the WWE, by that I mean something like WCW was where you will have then driving the WWE into the ground. AEW are just smart enough to pick the small battles to win where as TNA dreamed a little too big and actually thought that there was a war.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

Cult03 said:


> The same night they were already on?


 what bit aren’t you understanding here?

Nxt were not competing for tv ratings on the network, they are on USA.

it’s like you saying if they’d put it on Thursday they would have been competing with “day of” or some other program the network puts on.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

validreasoning said:


> I assume you mean least and if so not correct.
> 
> WWE averaged more paying fans last year at North American live events than 1992, 93, 94, 95, 96, 2003 or 2004.


Take out the WrestleMania crowd and replace it with the average crowd from the era and I’d be interested to see the outcome.


----------



## Pippen94 (Jan 10, 2020)

Chip Chipperson said:


> You're fabricating things.
> 
> In 2009 we saw a wrestler aged 40+ in PPV main events in 10/12 PPV's. 51 year old Sting, 44 year old Mick Foley and 41 year old Kurt Angle were in PPV main events monthly. This was many months before Eric even got signed.
> 
> ...


So what you are saying is aew is bigger & has room to grow!


----------



## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

Sbatenney said:


> AEW is what TNA could have been


When AEW lasts nearly 2 decades then you can say that.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

validreasoning said:


> I assume you mean least and if so not correct.
> 
> WWE averaged more paying fans last year at North American live events than 1992, 93, 94, 95, 96, 2003 or 2004.


Well analysts did an evaluation of this: Analysis: WWE's Popularity Assessment | Fightful Wrestling


You can't just take 1 thing and say that im incorrect based on one trend. So do not say im incorrect when almost all trends currently suggest a decline in popularity.


----------



## Lesnar Turtle (Dec 6, 2011)

TNA underachieved if anything. Ratings were higher across the board back then, and they were close enough to the fallout of the MNWs that there was still a ton of ex WWF, WCW and ECW name talent out there who hadnt gotten too old and/or become irrelevant yet. 

As far as just sheer quality goes, its early days for AEW but so far the stuff they've put out is far better than Bischoff/Hogan era TNA.


----------



## Pippen94 (Jan 10, 2020)

10 - 15 years ago all TV ratings were higher. Erroneous statement by Eric


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

Pippen94 said:


> TNA highest attendance was about 6,000 & buyrate well under 100,000.


They did 7000 seats for a House Show at Wembley in 2010. Lockdown 2013 did 7200, England house show in 09 did over 8000.

Buyrates reported by Meltzer at the time were domestic buyrates only.


----------



## Pippen94 (Jan 10, 2020)

Chip Chipperson said:


> They did 7000 seats for a House Show at Wembley in 2010. Lockdown 2013 did 7200, England house show in 09 did over 8000.
> 
> Buyrates reported by Meltzer at the time were domestic buyrates only.


Depends what source you believe - TNA site says 7200, but is that all paid? Other sites say 6000.
Peak ppv buys for TNA is 60,000 - average much lower. Domestic buys for all aew ppvs likely exceed this.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

Pippen94 said:


> Depends what source you believe - TNA site says 7200, but is that all paid? Other sites say 6000.
> Peak ppv buys for TNA is 60,000 - average much lower. Domestic buys for all aew ppvs likely exceed this.


Don't try and argue who paid or who didn't because that won't work properly. They could've given 7000 tickets away for all we know.

Domestic I'd agree that AEW kills TNA buyrates but TNA was incredibly popular internationally. Put TNA's international and domestic buys against AEW and I think you'd be surprised.

Same with TV ratings. People say at TNA's peak it was getting 1.2 million viewers a week but that's just domestically. I bet at their peak they were getting as many as 3-4 million a week including domestic and international views.


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

Danielallen1410 said:


> what bit aren’t you understanding here?
> 
> Nxt were not competing for tv ratings on the network, they are on USA.
> 
> it’s like you saying if they’d put it on Thursday they would have been competing with “day of” or some other program the network puts on.


Why would NXT change the night they were on? AEW decided to put their show on the same night NXT was on, not the other way around no matter how hard you try to spin it.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

Pippen94 said:


> TNA highest attendance was about 6,000 & buyrate well under 100,000.


Oh yeah, TNAs highest was 60k for Joe/Angle. That is the only PPV in the history of that 18 year company to do more than 30k buys. Amazing. Most of their PPVs were in 7-15k range.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Don't try and argue who paid or who didn't because that won't work properly. They could've given 7000 tickets away for all we know.
> 
> Domestic I'd agree that AEW kills TNA buyrates but TNA was incredibly popular internationally. Put TNA's international and domestic buys against AEW and I think you'd be surprised.
> 
> Same with TV ratings. People say at TNA's peak it was getting 1.2 million viewers a week but that's just domestically. I bet at their peak they were getting as many as 3-4 million a week including domestic and international views.


Not in their first year and not when WWE was drawing high 1s/low 2s for Raw/Smackdown. Raw was doing well over 5 million fans per show during TNAs height. It seriously helps when the market leader is doing well. Not to mention TNA didn't go against a WWE produced who's only reason for being on television is to stunt the growth of the competing show every Thursday night either


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Oh yeah, TNAs highest was 60k for Joe/Angle. That is the only PPV in the history of that 18 year company to do more than 30k buys. Amazing. Most of their PPVs were in 7-15k range.


Domestically.


----------



## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Same with TV ratings. People say at TNA's peak it was getting 1.2 million viewers a week but that's just domestically. I bet at their peak they were getting as many as 3-4 million a week including domestic and international views.


1.2 million viewers were their average. They regularly hit 1.9 million and have gone over 2 million a few times.


----------



## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Oh yeah, TNAs highest was 60k for Joe/Angle. That is the only PPV in the history of that 18 year company to do more than 30k buys. Amazing. Most of their PPVs were in 7-15k range.


Wrong. They had over 20 PPVs that did over 30k between 04-09.


----------



## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

This whole argument is pointless anyway as you can't compare the situations. 

TNA started out at a time when it was a lot harder to get a TV deal. They essentially went 2 years without TV. 

AEW got many TV deals straight away and got more eyes on the product. 

When TNA was launched, WWE were doing great and ECW/WCW had only been dead for a year. People weren't really seeking an alternative. 

AEW started out with WWE in a big lull creatively and a lot of companies on deaths door and WCW/ECW having been dead for nearly 2 decades, so people were genuinely looking for a new brand to get behind to bring back the good times. 

AEW is owned by a multi billionaire with many contacts in the tv and sports industry, who could literally buy out any contract in the industry if they chose to. TNA was built by former wrestlers,with next to no capital.


----------



## Pippen94 (Jan 10, 2020)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Don't try and argue who paid or who didn't because that won't work properly. They could've given 7000 tickets away for all we know.
> 
> Domestic I'd agree that AEW kills TNA buyrates but TNA was incredibly popular internationally. Put TNA's international and domestic buys against AEW and I think you'd be surprised.
> 
> Same with TV ratings. People say at TNA's peak it was getting 1.2 million viewers a week but that's just domestically. I bet at their peak they were getting as many as 3-4 million a week including domestic and international views.





Cult03 said:


> Why would NXT change the night they were on? AEW decided to put their show on the same night NXT was on, not the other way around no matter how hard you try to spin it.


sure


----------



## Pippen94 (Jan 10, 2020)

the_flock said:


> This whole argument is pointless anyway as you can't compare the situations.
> 
> TNA started out at a time when it was a lot harder to get a TV deal. They essentially went 2 years without TV.
> 
> ...


So basically aew has outperformed TNA despite Eric's claims.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Eric Bischoff is overrated when it comes to intelligence. He had someone else’s money to poach stars and rode that into the ground. Very little in WCW did things to make them more money for the future. They paid to play. And when something did catch on (Sting in 1997, Goldberg in 1998) they’d kill it at Starrcade.

That being said, he’s not _wrong_ about AEW not being competition. That went out the window when they did Double or Nothing and opened with a Battle Royal to decide the top contender for the World Title. It was confirmed when their PPVs have attracted less people over time and their TV ratings settled at being a fraction compared to the industry leader (whatever you think about them).

He’s wrong about them dominating NXT. Winning by a few thousand people is statistically insignificant in TV terms. No one obsessed about ratings like that who isn’t Dave Meltzer. They’re inexact and they don’t mean what people think they mean.

He is wrong about TNA too. They weren’t competition, never were, and were never going to be in the way that AEW _could_ have been. No, you can’t exactly compare TV ratings from now to even ten years ago, but you can compare them to other shows on the air right now, and you can contrast them to the number of people with cable, who could still _potentially_ watch, but keep AEW a stick’s length away.

AEW COULD have competed with Raw and SmackDown. I don’t care what excuses anyone makes on this. There is no reason that when you have an audience of at least 2 million people willing to watch five hours of crappy fucking wrestling every goddamn week, that you can’t get somewhere within that ballpark with two priority hours that doesn’t insult the intelligence of people who watch. No one will be able to convince me that Vince McMahon’s sports entertainment _cannot_ be beat. It would just mean spending less time on something better. That hasn’t happened though, and I do not buy the bullshit about it taking time, or viewing habits, or WWE having such loyal fans. This had the capital and potential to make the WWE VERY nervous. They’re not. They have no reason to be, and that is absolutely AEW’s fault.


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

Pippen94 said:


> sure


Still adding a lot to this forum, I see.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

The Wood said:


> AEW COULD have competed with Raw and SmackDown. I don’t care what excuses anyone makes on this. There is no reason that when you have an audience of at least 2 million people willing to watch five hours of crappy fucking wrestling every goddamn week, that you can’t get somewhere within that ballpark with two priority hours that doesn’t insult the intelligence of people who watch. No one will be able to convince me that Vince McMahon’s sports entertainment _cannot_ be beat. It would just mean spending less time on something better. That hasn’t happened though, and I do not buy the bullshit about it taking time, or viewing habits, or WWE having such loyal fans. This had the capital and potential to make the WWE VERY nervous. They’re not. They have no reason to be, and that is absolutely AEW’s fault.


I think this is a really important point. People were willing to give AEW a chance that debut edition of Dynamite had 1.5 million viewers which means people were willing to give it a chance. NXT drew 700,000 that night and they usually only do a little more than that. That means AEW had a potential 500-600 thousand fans to keep who knew about AEW and were willing to support it but elected not to.

If you look at their show they had nothing to differentiate themselves from the WWE or any other wrestling program. Started off with Guevarra Vs Cody Rhodes which doesn't show what AEW is all about at all, an MJF squash which doesn't show what AEW is about, Private Party got on the debut show, the only celebrities millionaire Mr. Tony Khan could muster up is Jay & Silent Bob who I have nothing against but damn even David Arquette would've meant more. Matches were too long, big lack of stars on the debut episode apart from the main event and Rhodes plus the big hook for next week was Jack Swagger attacking Dustin Rhodes. Not a bad show for hardcores like everyone here but not enough to keep casuals tuned in.

Lost 500-600 thousand viewers just like that and have dropped even more since then. Imagine what AEW could've done with a full fledged writing team, no nepotism towards talents and a multi millionaires backing. It's a shame.


----------



## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

The Wood said:


> AEW COULD have competed with Raw and SmackDown.


I agree with this, they had the momentum and buzz around them to hit close to 2 million straight off the bat.

They have made some monumental cock ups which have resulted in big losses of viewers. People can blame COVID-19 all they like.

Having a Women's champion who couldn't defend her title.

Having the first tag champs as a team who didn't even get the biggest pops. 

Not launching with a mid card title, instead we had that bullshit ring tournament. Which has resulted in glorified jobbers getting chances against the main event talent when they should have been in their own division. Don't you think MJF the 3 time TV champion sounds more compelling than just MJF, the guy with the ring. 

Not having monthly PPV’s, which means we have to wait months for a pay off, which ends up being a damp squib.

The Wins/losses essentially being ignored. Then you have Jungle Boy and Scorpio Sky getting shots at Jerichos title, Jake Hager getting a shot at Moxleys title.

Creating that awful stipulation in the beginning which meant the guy who was the people's champion and had huge pops (Cody) being completely derailed and then getting in awful 1 match feuds when he should have been world champion.

Setting up storylines and feuds which never got played out ie Dustin/Hager, until all the momentum had gone and people were past caring. 

Bringing in friends and friends of friends, instead of targeting genuine talent. 

The God-awful Dark Order and Nightmare collective. 

Having fifty thousand tag teams, but not enough main event calibre talent. 

Fair enough Orton might have been using them to get a better deal,but that doesn't excuse low balling Edge and CM Punk, getting Punk in would have been a game changer a year ago. Right now Christian has said he's trying to get cleared, I bet AEW don't even make an effort to get him. 

Derailing Omegas career.


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

He's right and wrong. I've said numerous times, AEW is competing with ROH and NJPW. They aren't on WWE's level yet. They need to do a lot to get there. They also need to stop doing dumb shit because that dumb shit is exactly why these companies we talk about missing are gone.

Where he's wrong is claiming any credit for TNA's glory. TNA gave me some of the most entertaining moments from about 2004-2008. It was when he was around that it turned to shit.


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

Pippen94 said:


> So basically aew has outperformed TNA despite Eric's claims.


Not yet it hasn't. TNA was really good for a while and AEW definitely haven't reached those heights. They might get more viewers or whatever shitty justification people are trying to use, but they haven't been as entertaining as TNA was at certain points


----------



## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

the_flock said:


> Not having monthly PPV’s, which means we have to wait months for a pay off, which ends up being a damp squib.


I really don't agree with this one, as a PPV every month means very few feuds are going to have anything resembling a proper build, and you end up with half a card of filler. I think 6 PPV's per year is the ideal number, as 2 months between these shows is enough time to build something solid without it being so drawn out that people stop caring; you could also have 2-3 special edition Dynamite's per year to spice things up as well (Bash at the Beach, Blood and Guts, etc.)

Agree with everything else you said though.


----------



## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

Cult03 said:


> Not yet it hasn't. TNA was really good for a while and AEW definitely haven't reached those heights. They might get more viewers or whatever shitty justification people are trying to use, but they haven't been as entertaining as TNA was at certain points


AEW haven't had anything on the level of Angle/Joe, Angle/JJ, Styles/Daniels, AMW/XXX, Roode/Storm, Kong/Kim, not even close. 

Even AEWs best tag teams aren't anywhere near as good as TNA's best. The Women's division isn't anywhere close to the knockouts. I don't think any of AEWs "homegrown" talent will ever be on the same level as AJ Styles or Somoa Joe either.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

the_flock said:


> AEW haven't had anything on the level of Angle/Joe, Angle/JJ, Styles/Daniels, AMW/XXX, Roode/Storm, Kong/Kim, not even close.
> 
> Even AEWs best tag teams aren't anywhere near as good as TNA's best. The Women's division isn't anywhere close to the knockouts. I don't think any of AEWs "homegrown" talent will ever be on the same level as AJ Styles or Somoa Joe either.


Prime TNA is better than any current generation pro wrestling.
I remember angles debut. Coming in staring down Joe from behind and headbutting him. Classic shit.

I also believe the knockouts have not been touched by WWE and AEW. You mentioned that classic Kim Kong feud. I’m also thinking Beautiful People, ODB, Tara etc.


----------



## EmbassyForever (Dec 29, 2011)

Nah that's just not right. WCW's product during those 83 weeks of dominance was cool as fuck and had an awesome, sports-like presentation.



optikk sucks said:


> Prime TNA is better than any current generation pro wrestling.
> I remember angles debut. Coming in staring down Joe from behind and headbutting him. Classic shit.
> 
> I also believe the knockouts have not been touched by WWE and AEW. You mentioned that classic Kim Kong feud. I’m also thinking Beautiful People, ODB, Tara etc.


That's just you being nostalgic.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

EmbassyForever said:


> Nah that's just not right. WCW's product during those 83 weeks of dominance was cool as fuck and had an awesome, sports-like presentation.
> 
> 
> That's just you being nostalgic.


Not at all. TNA went to shit as soon as Hogan and Bischoff joined. But prior to that, the majority of what they were doing was right.


----------



## kingfrass44 (Sep 19, 2019)

Lesnar Turtle said:


> TNA underachieved if anything. Ratings were higher across the board back then, and they were close enough to the fallout of the MNWs that there was still a ton of ex WWF, WCW and ECW name talent out there who hadnt gotten too old and/or become irrelevant yet.
> 
> As far as just sheer quality goes, its early days for AEW but so far the stuff they've put out is far better than Bischoff/Hogan era TNA.


You know you are wrong And you try to answer excuses


----------



## Lesnar Turtle (Dec 6, 2011)

kingfrass44 said:


> You know you are wrong And you try to answer excuses


I know I havent seen you make a single post that wasnt borderline retarded yet.


----------



## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

optikk sucks said:


> Not at all. TNA went to shit as soon as Hogan and Bischoff joined. But prior to that, the majority of what they were doing was right.


I believe Benoit had agreed to join TNA in 07 as well. Jericho also held talks with them in 05 as well as 07. Seth Rollins nearly joined in 07. Edge held talks with them in 08, but chose to stay with WWE. Just goes to show that choosing the rights guys can elevate you, whereas the wrong guys can be a detriment (Hogan, Bischoff, Flair)


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

the_flock said:


> I believe Benoit had agreed to join TNA in 07 as well. Jericho also held talks with them in 05 as well as 07. Seth Rollins nearly joined in 07. Edge held talks with them in 08, but chose to stay with WWE. Just goes to show that choosing the rights guys can elevate you, whereas the wrong guys can be a detriment (Hogan, Bischoff, Flair)


Let’s hope AEW have learned from TNAs mistakes, but also pick up some of the good stuff that TNA did. Something like the x-division relaunched in AEW would be good if done right.


----------



## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

the_flock said:


> I believe Benoit had agreed to join TNA in 07 as well. Jericho also held talks with them in 05 as well as 07. Seth Rollins nearly joined in 07. Edge held talks with them in 08, but chose to stay with WWE. Just goes to show that choosing the rights guys can elevate you, whereas the wrong guys can be a detriment (Hogan, Bischoff, Flair)


God, I can only imagine the matches Benoit could have had with guys like Joe and AJ, and the other potential talents that may have hopped onto the TNA train if Benoit did show up there. The fact is, the better AEW's roster, the more enticing an option it would be for hot prospects choosing between them and the WWE; I can't exactly imagine these guys salivating over the chance to wrestle OC or Marko Stunt.


----------



## Chairshot620 (Mar 12, 2010)

the_flock said:


> ... and here comes the AEW sympathisers.
> 
> He simply said AEW have spent mega money just to compete with WWE's development brand.... He's not wrong.
> 
> ...


AEW was already announced for TNT, before NXT was announced for USA network. It is WWE who has decided to compete with AEW to try and stunt their growth.

The difference in actual numbers between Dynamite, Raw and Smackdown is far less than it was between Impact and those WWE shows just mentioned.

AEW usually does around 700 or 800K.

AEW has had larger paid attendance than TNA on average.

AEW has had more buyrates for PPV on average.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## Freelancer (Aug 24, 2010)

Don't forget to mention Eric what happened in TNA once you and Hogan got there........


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

the_flock said:


> I believe Benoit had agreed to join TNA in 07 as well. Jericho also held talks with them in 05 as well as 07. Seth Rollins nearly joined in 07. Edge held talks with them in 08, but chose to stay with WWE. Just goes to show that choosing the rights guys can elevate you, whereas the wrong guys can be a detriment (Hogan, Bischoff, Flair)


I'd never heard of any of those guys being linked to TNA except Jericho who quickly shot it down. Would've been interesting to see Edge, Jericho and Benoit with TNA in 07 though no doubt. All the Benoit documentaries say he wanted to run a school so wrestling a few times a month for TNA and running said school would probably be ideal for him.

As most sporting businesses or wrestling companies would tell you any star is important to your respective companies or franchises. An ageing Tom Brady is worth 59 million dollars to Tampa Bay who has just thrown massive money at him and he will bring them millions even if he sucks and can't get it done on the field. They will sell millions of dollars in tickets, jerseys, merchandise, signings, sponsorship etc just because Brady is going to play. To turn down some of wrestling's biggest stars such as Hogan and Flair would be silly. Those guys even being seniors at the time could bring in a large amount of viewers and make large amounts of money for their respective wrestling promotions which is what they are doing now in WWE.

The problem is how they were used in TNA. Hogan shouldn't have been the main star of Impact past the first 2-3 weeks of him being there. He could've been the authority figure who we see every week in his office or coming out to lay the law down which still allows him to be on TV, still allows TNA to sell Hulkamania T-Shirts and other merchandise but keeps him away from the main stories. Hogan was the GM but he was way too involved which turned him into a bad investment. Overkill.

Meanwhile they got it right with Flair as well. The perfect role for him is as a manager looking for the next big star of wrestling and even the pairing with AJ isn't a horrible choice but instead of the Flair/Triple H dynamic we got where Flair comes out every night talking about how great AJ is and how it's an honour to stand beside him we got Flair trying to turn AJ into Ric Flair Jr which killed AJ as a main event player. 

Even 10 years later in 2020 both Hogan and Flair used the right way would be massive assets to any wrestling company. There are very few wrestlers more recognisable than the Hulkster and he has such goodwill with the fans that him telling them to tune into (Insert wrestling show here) is probably enough to sway some of them.


----------



## the_flock (Nov 23, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> I'd never heard of any of those guys being linked to TNA except Jericho who quickly shot it down. Would've been interesting to see Edge, Jericho and Benoit with TNA in 07 though no doubt.


Jericho said he had a few months gap when his contract expired with WWE in 2005 and he was in active talks with TNA, but chose to return to WWE and again in 2007,his contract ran out with WWE and he was in advanced talks with TNA, he went back to WWE and asked for a certain figure and they bawked at it, so he got his agent to release a fake letter to the press with his TNA deal on it, including fake photos of him with the TNA logo and WWE phoned him up and offered what he wanted. He said if it didn't work he would have been in TNA. 

Edge said he was in talks with TNA in either 08 or 09,he couldn't remember, but he said his body was a mess and the TNA workload appealed to him. He said he nearly joined again a few years ago and said it was to be in a commissioner role. 

Benoit had basically agreed to join TNA once his WWE deal was over in 07, the rumour was that he tried to get out of his deal in 06. He was also in talks to join NJPW in 04 too.


----------



## kingfrass44 (Sep 19, 2019)

Chairshot620 said:


> AEW was already announced for TNT, before NXT was announced for USA network. It is WWE who has decided to compete with AEW to try and stunt their growth.
> 
> The difference in actual numbers between Dynamite, Raw and Smackdown is far less than it was between Impact and those WWE shows just mentioned.
> 
> ...


Stupid excuses


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

zkorejo said:


> Sounded way more positive in the audio as compared to the thread title. He actually praised AEW alot.
> 
> Difference between TNA and AEW is, TNA tried to compete against WWE in 2010s with stars made in 80s and 90s. Whereas AEW is just trying to find its own groove and isnt claiming to compete with WWE at all in any capacity.
> 
> WWE put the NXT on Wed TVs to compete and/or hurt the other promotion, not the other way around.


You can claim that you’re not competition for anyone, but as soon as you are introducing content that is going to infringe on someone’s market share, you are providing competition. AEW also make constant swipes at WWE. They say they don’t want to compete because they aren’t going to be able to win.

WWE didn’t put NXT on Wednesday because of AEW. NXT was already on Wednesday. It’s insanity to me that people don’t get that. It’s not a trivial point, this sort of misinformation gets peddled and it’s how stories get lost.

NXT was on Wednesday, AEW was looking at Tuesday (they trademarked “Tuesday Night Dynamite”), AEW got Wednesday because it’s a quieter night and won’t get bumped around because of basketball, NXT got a USA deal.

I _understand_ why people see NXT going to the USA Network as an aggressive move, but WWE has flirted with the idea before and was likely always planning to monetize NXT. It’s insane to think they weren’t, because the Performance Center runs at such a deficit. A great TV deal immediately makes developmental profitable.

AEW may have sped up the deal. But WWE were also negotiating more content for FOX and was always looking to give USA something more. The idea that they moved NXT to Wednesday night just to spite the little guys is just such a tainted way of representing the reality though. They changed the delivery mechanism and went live. 



TKO Wrestling said:


> not even close. Impact without competition drew 25-30% of Raws audience, AEW against nXt was doing 40%. So already AEW has a higher rating share and let’s not even talk about really matters, the demo, the thing that TNA never got.
> AEW is a PPV machine, only twice did TNA get 30k or more buys (60k highest ever), AEW has beat that 4 for 4 times, great buyrates, literally 10x’s TNAs ole PPV buyrates.
> 
> Attendance wise it is even further apart. TNA record for US is 7200 and AEW has topped that 7 times already.
> ...


When did Raw go to three hours? Are you comparing three-hour Raws with two-hour Raws? The decrease in WWE’s popularity has way more to do with WWE than it does AEW. 

AEW is not a PPV machine, haha. ECW did better on terrestrial PPV. They were routinely getting 99k buys pre-internet PPV and smart device. You had to order through a fixed unit. AEW gets barely that from all over the world in an age where everyone could see it through a magic portal in their pocket. Children could spend their pocket money on it and watch it in their rooms without disturbing their wrestling-hating father. All over the world. 

Also, citation fucking needed on your last assertion. Yikes.



Pippen94 said:


> TNA highest attendance was about 6,000 & buyrate well under 100,000.


TNA creative by Vince Russo. Not started by billionaire. Ran smaller arenas.

No shit. My grandmother’s book club is better designed to fill big arenas and sell PPV than TNA. Their lack of focus on that area might be a valid criticism of them, but it doesn’t make beating them at it impressive.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

Cult03 said:


> Why would NXT change the night they were on? AEW decided to put their show on the same night NXT was on, not the other way around no matter how hard you try to spin it.


im not saying change the night they are on, I’m saying they went on to tv as opposed to the network to try and compete with aew.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

The Wood said:


> You can claim that you’re not competition for anyone, but as soon as you are introducing content that is going to infringe on someone’s market share, you are providing competition. AEW also make constant swipes at WWE. They say they don’t want to compete because they aren’t going to be able to win.
> 
> WWE didn’t put NXT on Wednesday because of AEW. NXT was already on Wednesday. It’s insanity to me that people don’t get that. It’s not a trivial point, this sort of misinformation gets peddled and it’s how stories get lost.
> 
> ...


yes it was all one big coincidence they moved to USA the exact same night dynamite debuted.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

Danielallen1410 said:


> im not saying change the night they are on, I’m saying they went on to tv as opposed to the network to try and compete with aew.


Cult and Wood are WWE fanboys so why debate it with them. Even if NXT wasn’t on Wednesday, it would be that they planned to move to Wednesdays for a long time.

even the push for NXT to be a third brand on TV is because this was HHH’s plan for a long time.


----------



## TKO Wrestling (Jun 26, 2018)

optikk sucks said:


> Cult and Wood are WWE fanboys so why debate it with them. Even if NXT wasn’t on Wednesday, it would be that they planned to move to Wednesdays for a long time.
> 
> even the push for NXT to be a third brand on TV is because this was HHH’s plan for a long time.


Cult I really don't think is. He just seems to hate everything from every company.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Cult I really don't think is. He just seems to hate everything from every company.


i think wood can make good points but quite clearly has an agenda.

he’ll say something positive Or constructive about aew but there is always a but with them.

whereas the negatives are just negatives and nothing else.

id class myself as totally down the middle, I see a lot of faults with aew, there’s so many things I want to see improve, however I fully support them, I don’t think for one second it is realistic to compete with wwe, JR said in his podcast, no one can compete with them in his lifetime, now that’s someone with knowledge of the business, I’ll believe his opinion over “the wood” from the wrestling forum.

the main thing is I want them to succeEd, I also want wwe to succeed, I want impact to succeed. I don’t personally care who is on top in the ratings out of those three, but what I do care about is that WWE are so fucking insecure they have to try and destroy anyone who dares ”compete” ... as soon as aew started up hhh was digging them out calling them names.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

TKO Wrestling said:


> Cult I really don't think is. He just seems to hate everything from every company.





Danielallen1410 said:


> i think wood can make good points but quite clearly has an agenda.
> 
> he’ll say something positive Or constructive about aew but there is always a but with them.
> 
> ...


They can both make very good points, but they allow their bias to invalidate a lot of their arguments.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Danielallen1410 said:


> im not saying change the night they are on, I’m saying they went on to tv as opposed to the network to try and compete with aew.


People definitely say that they changed nights. Maybe not you, but people do. They’ll say things like “moved to Wednesday.” It’s a slippery trick that changes the narrative.

I don’t think there is enough evidence to make the claim you are making though. I feel like the syntax is wrong. They weren’t going to compete with AEW, AEW was coming to compete with them. WWE has been around much longer, lol. 



optikk sucks said:


> Cult and Wood are WWE fanboys so why debate it with them. Even if NXT wasn’t on Wednesday, it would be that they planned to move to Wednesdays for a long time.
> 
> even the push for NXT to be a third brand on TV is because this was HHH’s plan for a long time.


Translation: I don’t like this argument you’ve made that is completely valid, so I’m going to respond to an invalid argument neither of you has made instead.

Here’s a twist: I have zero doubts NXT WOULD have moved nights to go opposite Dynamite. Or some form of WWE content would be running in the same slot. It would actually be rather stupid not to. That’s _not_ what happened though. You don’t just get to make that up because you like the sound of it.

NXT was around. On Wednesdays. With a television presence all around the world (already on cable over here). It was always being marketed as boutique content. First as a Network anchor, then as something to try and find an audience on cable and make some extra money. It’s not some big conspiracy and it’s pretty obvious this is Triple H’s audition to prove he can run certain sectors of the company.

It was not magicked into existence because some company with money behind it popped up. 



Danielallen1410 said:


> i think wood can make good points but quite clearly has an agenda.
> 
> he’ll say something positive Or constructive about aew but there is always a but with them.
> 
> ...


Well that’s because they don’t actually do that much worth praise, and the negatives fucking hurt. That WOULD be spin.

JR has gone on the record as saying that all you need to compete with Vince is money. Also, how “negative” is it to assume you can’t? I love JR, but I’m fairly certain you are getting mixed messages there.

Yes, of course you see yourself as right down the middle. Your opinion is balanced. That’s because you’re biased to your opinion. I’m not saying that as an insult, but I feel my opinion is balanced, optikk feels that their opinion is balanced.

Cult03 has gone on record saying basically the same thing as you about wanting to see wrestling get better and succeed. You shouldn’t listen to anyone who cries troll and engage with Cult instead.

I think the idea that the WWE is insecure is way too personified to be valid in this sense. Yes, they are a giant corporation who makes some ruthless decisions, but insecure? Way too much is given to them even thinking about AEW. Why would they? At this point, AEW have positioned themselves out of contention. I mean, AEW have basically started up their own lemonade company and are upset there are Sprite commercials around. Who is really insecure in that scenario?


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

The Wood said:


> People definitely say that they changed nights. Maybe not you, but people do. They’ll say things like “moved to Wednesday.” It’s a slippery trick that changes the narrative.
> 
> I don’t think there is enough evidence to make the claim you are making though. I feel like the syntax is wrong. They weren’t going to compete with AEW, AEW was coming to compete with them. WWE has been around much longer, lol.
> 
> ...


a balanced opinion is an opinion that presents opposing points of view fairly and without bias.

if you look at my posts I have spent as much time discussing positives and defending aew as I have discussing negatives. That is balanced.

You saying there aren’t many positives to discuss is unbalanced, 

you saying they should be able to compete with raw and smackdown is unbalanced. This is the comment I take most exception to and I will explain why, I guarantee if you got 100-500 people in a room who don’t watch wrestling and said ”have you heard of wwe” about 80 per cent would say yes, if you said “have you heard of AEw” i bet at least 80 per cent say no. This isn’t AEWs fault, those people likely heard of wwe during the boom period, but don’t care enough to know that there are other promotions now.

WWE have had the monopoly on wrestling now for just Under 20 years, they will always have a higher amount of base fans than aew. It’s actually ridiculous that they only currently have 1.2 million more base fans watching raw than AEW. 

wrestling is not mainstream anymore, there is hardly anyone out there who doesn’t watch wrestling who thinks “I’ll check out a wrestling show tonight” it just doesn’t happen.

in my opinion aews first few weeks were likely lapsed wrestling fans who gave It a go and just didn’t enjoy WRESTLING, and what I mean by that is that no matter what AEW did other than bring in the rock, stone cold or the undertaker those people were never going to stick with it. Between 600-900k have. Sure their show could have been better and that’s from me as a wrestling fans point of view, but I strongly disagree that that is why it lost viewers. 

The only way aew will ever compete with raw or smackdown is if these viewers literally just decide they’ve had enough of WWE and go over to AEw, they likely already watch 5 hours of wrestling so don’t fancy trying another 2 hours of AEW.

personally I have no idea how anyone can choose raw over dynamite if they had the choice, even these empty arena shows for dynamite are far better in my opinion, but they do and until people literally stop watching the WWE , AEW will Stay between 600-900k and I think they know that. What isn’t going to happen is a load of people who don’t watch wrestling suddenly tuning in to watch it, they just aren’t, too many things have taken over from wrestling for the majority in this day and age.

There simply aren’t enough wrestling fans, but I for one am thankful for the choice of wwe, nxt, nwa power, aew and Impact. I hope all are successful, and i believe in their own minds they all will be.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

The Wood said:


> Translation: I don’t like this argument you’ve made that is completely valid, so I’m going to respond to an invalid argument neither of you has made instead.


Actually I don’t read most of your posts tbh. But when you initially started posting, they were very negative, which put me off making the effort to read your posts. So since then I don’t really read them. 

Cults posts are to the point, and his thoughts are sane, unlike most people on this forum - it doesn’t change the fact that I feel he is biased. In fact, cult is probably the only decent poster in the wwe sections.

And like I said, you make some good points that are invalidated by your bias’. idk if you still say it, but AEW have not closed in 2020 -
They did not have 1.6 million fans at the beginning. Theyre not closing by the end of the year. Marko Stunt is not a competitive wrestler on the roster who is beating main event talent. You can complain about OC all you want, but he brings in money, which will allow AEW to become a stronger competitor. It’s early days - until recently, the scene was barren of talent. Let’s hope they aggressively sign Rusev, EC3 etc because they do need it.


----------



## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

optikk sucks said:


> Actually I don’t read most of your posts tbh. But when you initially started posting, they were very negative, which put me off making the effort to read your posts. So since then I don’t really read them.
> 
> Cults posts are to the point, and his thoughts are sane, unlike most people on this forum - it doesn’t change the fact that I feel he is biased. In fact, cult is probably the only decent poster in the wwe sections.
> 
> ...


Not true; it definitely has nowhere near the depth it once did, but Cult, on more than one occasion, has drawn up a long list of available talents that AEW could have looked into that weren't locked down with ROH, MLW, NWA, NJPW, or Impact.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

El Hammerstone said:


> Not true; it definitely has nowhere near the depth it once did, but Cult, on more than one occasion, has drawn up a long list of available talents that AEW could have looked into that weren't locked down with ROH, MLW, NWA, NJPW, or Impact.


Fair enough I may have missed that post.

JR should be scouting. He has to be the best at that in all honesty.


----------



## kingfrass44 (Sep 19, 2019)

Daniel Allen said:


> They were on the network. Not on tv. Aew were not trying to compete for ratings. That’s just vinces petty attitude of trying to destroy competition. He’s the biggest hypocrite in the business.


 raw network no tv


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

optikk sucks said:


> Cult and Wood are WWE fanboys so why debate it with them. Even if NXT wasn’t on Wednesday, it would be that they planned to move to Wednesdays for a long time.
> 
> even the push for NXT to be a third brand on TV is because this was HHH’s plan for a long time.


Fuck off Optikk, getting real sick of you doing this to invalidate my opinion. It's dishonest. They were already on Wednesdays and it would have been terrible business to not go on Television if given the opportunity. I'm not sure what people thought WWE should have done, but staying on the Network wasn't a good choice.


----------



## Cult03 (Oct 31, 2016)

optikk sucks said:


> Fair enough I may have missed that post.
> 
> JR should be scouting. He has to be the best at that in all honesty.


You guys seem to miss all of the positives I post about AEW. It's actually really weird. When I post something negative someone blows up and there's an argument so it's probably more visible. When I post something positive it gets no replies. Plus for weeks on end, I worked out the percentages of what I enjoyed and what I hated about AEW in the weekly live thread and it worked out to be around 50/50 so I don't hate the show at all. I'm just sick of their dumb shit.

I dunno if JR has his head in the business anymore, but I'd love a scouting report type thing from either him or Cody on Dynamite or even Youtube, so the talent can get noticed. Just like Anna Jayy, you could see how the public reacts to them and sign them up.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

Yeah I will back Cult up the past 2-3 weeks he has posted a review in the AEW TV section with a lot of it being positive. Go check the latest show thread his review should be near the end of that thread for those who think he's a "WWE Fanboy".


----------



## zkorejo (Jul 2, 2010)

The Wood said:


> You can claim that you’re not competition for anyone, but as soon as you are introducing content that is going to infringe on someone’s market share, you are providing competition. AEW also make constant swipes at WWE. They say they don’t want to compete because they aren’t going to be able to win.


They actually have been winning against NXT for the most part. 



> WWE didn’t put NXT on Wednesday because of AEW. NXT was already on Wednesday. It’s insanity to me that people don’t get that. It’s not a trivial point, this sort of misinformation gets peddled and it’s how stories get lost.
> 
> NXT was on Wednesday, AEW was looking at Tuesday (they trademarked “Tuesday Night Dynamite”), AEW got Wednesday because it’s a quieter night and won’t get bumped around because of basketball, NXT got a USA deal.
> 
> ...


NXT never was about profit, was it? it was about developing young talent? Atleast thats what they had always touted about. Their profit was, wrestlers graduating from NXT and being WWE-ready (knowing where the cameras are). I remember reading about TV deals, but it had been years and nothing came out of it. Just a few months after the announcement of AEW going live on TNT made them magically make that jump. Nip it in the bud... use all the resources available to squash the competition so we can maintain monopoly and earn some easy money. 

WWE has been doing some dirty business tactics since forever. But recently they have outdone themselves. You are free to believe the idea wasnt to bleed viewers from AEW, and it was "always the plan" (like they ever fuckin stick to their plans). 

Hoarding talent, trying to buy out the entire UK wrestling scene, paying big money contracts to jobbers just to keep them from working anywhere else and then firing most of them at the first sign of danger. Yeah, this company doesnt sound like they would sacrifice their own developmental in order to hurt potential direct competition in 5-10 years.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

zkorejo said:


> They actually have been winning against NXT for the most part.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


exactly, it’s not just the move to TV, it’s the bringing raw and smackdown stars in the beat aew in the ratings, now they’ve got Charlotte as the champion, don’t tell me that would happen if Aew didn’t exist.


----------



## validreasoning (Jul 4, 2012)

Danielallen1410 said:


> Take out the WrestleMania crowd and replace it with the average crowd from the era and I’d be interested to see the outcome.


Without Wrestlemania WWEs paid average in North America in 2019 was 4,900 over 259 events

In 92 it was 4,300
In 93 it was 3,500
94 it was 2,900
95 it was 3,000
96 it was 4,900 so the same
2003 it was 4,500
2004 it was 3,900

Of course you have to ask would WWE have put 70,000 odd (63,000 paying) in a stadium to watch a show in 93-95. Odds are extremely against it considering in 95 Wrestlemania 11 did not sell out. Even in early 97 they put 60,000 in for Rumble but that was 48,000 paid and tickets averaged like $5-10. Wrestlemania 35 tickets averaged $270.

In 2004 WWE half sold the venue in Cleveland (decently strong market) for their #4 event survivor series, put 7,000 in MSG for Raw and 3,500 in a building which held 13,000 for Taboo Tuesday.



optikk sucks said:


> Well analysts did an evaluation of this: Analysis: WWE's Popularity Assessment | Fightful Wrestling
> 
> 
> You can't just take 1 thing and say that im incorrect based on one trend. So do not say im incorrect when almost all trends currently suggest a decline in popularity.


You said ever. That report only compared a few years not entire run of company. No question since Cena left certain metrics have fallen. Reigns layoff coupled with his de-push has seen a further fall off but that still doesn't mean they are least popular ever.

Live attendance is a pretty key metric to look at last 30 years more than anything else. I could have used other things like

Number of orders on wweshop
Number of network subs
Number of YouTube views by year
Again all those metrics were nowhere near lowest ever levels in 2019.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Danielallen1410 said:


> a balanced opinion is an opinion that presents opposing points of view fairly and without bias.
> 
> if you look at my posts I have spent as much time discussing positives and defending aew as I have discussing negatives. That is balanced.
> 
> ...


No, that's you being biased towards your own opinion. Being balanced isn't about sitting in the middle and saying nice things about all sides -- it's about being able to actually weigh evidence. Is it better to eat dog shit or chocolate? If you think it's balanced to like both, you are talking out both sides of your mouth. Being balanced means you are able to determine that one is a sugary treat and the other is dog shit. 

AEW fucking sucks for the most part. I am more down on it than even most critics, but I have standards for my entertainment. I find talking about the product far more interesting than watching it. I don't feel the need to throat-clear and put that in a compliment sandwich on the internet. I'm not knocking anyone who does if that's what they feel like doing, but I'll call it like I see it. If they start doing better, I'll start calling it better. 

Responding to the part I've put in bold: Yes it fucking is. Why do they get a pass? If any other show debuted on TNT and no one had ever heard of it, it would be called bad promotion. It is your responsibility if you have an audience to make that audience aware of you.

No, wrestling isn't popular. *That's their fault too.* Wrestling isn't popular because it isn't very good. It used to take about six weeks to get something over. Now that you have the internet, you don't even need to wait for word to spread anymore. It's ridiculous that people use wrestling's ineffectiveness in 2020 to justify it's ineffectiveness. 



optikk sucks said:


> Actually I don’t read most of your posts tbh. But when you initially started posting, they were very negative, which put me off making the effort to read your posts. So since then I don’t really read them.
> 
> Cults posts are to the point, and his thoughts are sane, unlike most people on this forum - it doesn’t change the fact that I feel he is biased. In fact, cult is probably the only decent poster in the wwe sections.
> 
> ...


No, actually -- I was one of the most positive people about AEW. That's because I was hungry for an alternative and saw the potential. They shat their potential away from basically night one and are more sports entertainment than pro-wrestling. They are closer to TNA than Mid-South Wrestling. Sorry if the truth is too "negative" for you. 

Don't know what your last paragraph is even about. I have never said any of those things. You've actually just completely made it up. I have ALWAYS said that AEW has the capital to stay around for as long as they want to keep it open. I've ALWAYS said that. Where the fuck does this going out of business quote come from? Are AEW fans so insecure that they literally have to just make up total horseshit to dismiss people?

I've never said they had 1.6 million fans. They got 1.4 million viewers (approximately) and have lost most of them. Does anyone dispute that? I've said they should and would have more if they were a better overall product.

I've never said Marko Stunt has beaten anyone. I've never said he's a main event talent. I've said that it's ridiculous he's even on the roster in the first place. If you wink once you've blinked. 

Citation fucking needed for Orange Cassidy bringing in money. 

They could have gone after talent from Ring of Honor, MLW, the NWA and internationally. They didn't. They wanted to sign their friends. And get Chris Jericho and JR for vanity reasons and to get on TV in the first place. 

They'll make Rusev into a parody like Brodie Lee is. You watch. It'll be less killing machine Rusev and more Rusev Day Rusev making sideways remarks about how over he was once upon a time. And no one has ever needed EC3. My god, could you be more bush league? 



zkorejo said:


> They actually have been winning against NXT for the most part.


NXT is hours six and seven of WWE programming every week. Raw and SmackDown both absolutely smash AEW in the ratings. AEW doesn't beat NXT outside the margin of error Nielsen applies to its own ratings. Stop listening to Meltzer measure out 400 viewers like it means something to anyone in television.



zkorejo said:


> NXT never was about profit, was it? it was about developing young talent? Atleast thats what they had always touted about. Their profit was, wrestlers graduating from NXT and being WWE-ready (knowing where the cameras are). I remember reading about TV deals, but it had been years and nothing came out of it. Just a few months after the announcement of AEW going live on TNT made them magically make that jump. Nip it in the bud... use all the resources available to squash the competition so we can maintain monopoly and earn some easy money.


Everything is about profit when you are a business like WWE. They were fine running NXT at a deficit for a while, but eventually the idea was obviously to market it. Why do you think they sell tickets to Takeovers and put that shit on the Network? Why do you think they did the USA and Halftime Heat specials? Why do you think they negotiated international TV deals for it? The plan was always to find a way to turn the costs around. They'd ideally like to do the same thing with 205 Live and NXT UK too. Don't fool yourself. 

WWE _has not_ used all its resources to crush AEW. This is just observably not true. Brock Lesnar would be wrestling on free TV opposite AEW if that were the case. John Cena would have returned to Wednesday nights. Daniel Bryan, Rey Mysterio and AJ Styles would be having dream matches on Wednesdays. It's just demonstrably not true that WWE have used all their resources. They've barely lifted a finger. They're fighting Chris Jericho with Adam Cole.





zkorejo said:


> WWE has been doing some dirty business tactics since forever. But recently they have outdone themselves. You are free to believe the idea wasnt to bleed viewers from AEW, and it was "always the plan" (like they ever fuckin stick to their plans).
> 
> Hoarding talent, trying to buy out the entire UK wrestling scene, paying big money contracts to jobbers just to keep them from working anywhere else and then firing most of them at the first sign of danger. Yeah, this company doesnt sound like they would sacrifice their own developmental in order to hurt potential direct competition in 5-10 years.


This is more Meltzer mythology. The WWE has always planned to make money. You've taken the en vogue thing of criticizing WWE to try and sneak some non-points through. Their creative irregularities have got nothing to do with their business and expansion plans. Your last paragraph just doesn't even make any sense. Can you rephrase it? What does hoarding talent have to do with them wanting to make money off NXT or have anything to do with developmental? Like, on the surface, doesn't acquiring talent fuel developmental? I mean, I'm not going to go into whether or not I think they should have so much talent or how I think WWE should develop talent, but can you explain to me why WWE buying a bunch of UK wrestlers means they are sacrificing their developmental? Doesn't that mean they just have a wider crop of UK talent to pick from? I don't get it.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

zkorejo said:


> They actually have been winning against NXT for the most part.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


NXT was created for the WWE to make it's own alternative. They saw the success of the independents and companies like TNA who signed the top indy guys and drew decent numbers and decent money. Created their own super indy under the WWE banner.

Also has the benefit of getting those guys ready for WWE television. Smart business move by them.


----------



## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

It should be noted as well that the WWE approach is far different than it was when TNA started up; WWE had no NXT, and they neglected a large number of top independent stars, which meant that the indies were still loaded with talent and were there for TNA's taking. Their approach these days is to hoard all the top indie talent they can get their hands on, leaving slimmer pickings for the competition. If they had the same approach now that they did then, AEW could have seen the likes of Austin Theory, WALTER, Dragunov, Adam Cole, and Gargano available. With that said, there are still plenty of talents out there that AEW could have looked into rather than the Marko Stunt's, Joey Janella's, Sonny Kiss', and Michael Nakazawa's of the world.

Not to mention, when TNA popped up, ECW and WCW had just gone under, meaning that there were still many top names with real mainstream notoriety from both of these promotions available for TNA to sick their teeth into.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> NXT was created for the WWE to make it's own alternative. They saw the success of the independents and companies like TNA who signed the top indy guys and drew decent numbers and decent money. Created their own super indy under the WWE banner.
> 
> Also has the benefit of getting those guys ready for WWE television. Smart business move by them.


except when they come to the main roster they normally fuck it up.

I was watching the documentary on the network about the most important stars in nxt, so many people were hot in nxt but have done next to fuck all on the main roster.

ofcourse there are exceptions but most don’t get anywhere near the reactions they got on nxt, bobby Roode and Nakamura being two of the biggest examples.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

El Hammerstone said:


> Not to mention, when TNA popped up, ECW and WCW had just gone under, meaning that there were still many top names with real mainstream notoriety from both of these promotions available for TNA to sick their teeth into.


I'd argue that AEW had the more famous starting roster as opposed to TNA. TNA had Jeff Jarrett, Scott Hall, Ken Shamrock and Road Dogg as the big stars on their debut episode. They would've killed for someone on the level of Chris Jericho at that point in time.


----------



## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

Chip Chipperson said:


> I'd argue that AEW had the more famous starting roster as opposed to TNA. TNA had Jeff Jarrett, Scott Hall, Ken Shamrock and Road Dogg as the big stars on their debut episode. They would've killed for someone on the level of Chris Jericho at that point in time.


Sure, but by the time they got to TV, they would have guys like Jeff Hardy, Sting, Rhyno, Raven in the fold, along with a thriving X division, and up and comers like AJ Styles, AMW, Monty Brown, Bobby Roode, and Abyss to name a few.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

The Wood said:


> No, that's you being biased towards your own opinion. Being balanced isn't about sitting in the middle and saying nice things about all sides -- it's about being able to actually weigh evidence. Is it better to eat dog shit or chocolate? If you think it's balanced to like both, you are talking out both sides of your mouth. Being balanced means you are able to determine that one is a sugary treat and the other is dog shit.
> 
> AEW fucking sucks for the most part. I am more down on it than even most critics, but I have standards for my entertainment. I find talking about the product far more interesting than watching it. I don't feel the need to throat-clear and put that in a compliment sandwich on the internet. I'm not knocking anyone who does if that's what they feel like doing, but I'll call it like I see it. If they start doing better, I'll start calling it better.
> 
> ...


I just think it’s insane for someone to spend this much time posting about something they don’t like.

as I’ve said before I don’t like marvel movies or game of thrones, all my friends do, I dont enter into long arguments about why they are wrong for liking it.

if they like it then i leave them to it, I don’t need to force my views onto others.

clearly the general vibe in this group is positive, so why do you feel the need to change that? Why can’t you just look at it and think, this isn’t for me?


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

I got tired of the pissing contest, but I did see one comment about WWE fanboys. @Cult03 absolutely is not a WWE fanboy. He just doesn’t appreciate the stupid comedy bullshit that AEW throws into the middle of a great fucking episode or middle of a great story arc.

@The Wood has major negative feelings towards AEW over them not skinning this cat in his preferred style. More than one way to do things, but he believes in one singular path...his. Anything less is god awful. Egomaniac here just to hear himself speak and never wants to entertain an opposing viewpoint.

Anyone else being tossed into the “WWE fanboys” pile isn’t important enough to notice.


----------



## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

bdon said:


> I got tired of the pissing contest, but I did see one comment about WWE fanboys. @Cult03 absolutely is not a WWE fanboy. He just doesn’t appreciate the stupid comedy bullshit that AEW throws into the middle of a great fucking episode or middle of a great story arc.
> 
> @The Wood has major negative feelings towards AEW over them not skinning this cat in his preferred style. More than one way to do things, but he believes in one singular path...his. Anything less is god awful. Egomaniac here just to hear himself speak and never wants to entertain an opposing viewpoint.
> 
> *Anyone else being tossed into the “WWE fanboys” pile isn’t important enough to notice.*


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Danielallen1410 said:


> except when they come to the main roster they normally fuck it up.
> 
> I was watching the documentary on the network about the most important stars in nxt, so many people were hot in nxt but have done next to fuck all on the main roster.
> 
> ofcourse there are exceptions but most don’t get anywhere near the reactions they got on nxt, bobby Roode and Nakamura being two of the biggest examples.


They're two different products. NXT is there to develop talent and really let them stretch out and walk, WWE is a volume business where they just throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks. Vince doesn't need to get more out of Roderick Strong than Triple H does in order to make people care about Roderick Strong. 



Danielallen1410 said:


> I just think it’s insane for someone to spend this much time posting about something they don’t like.
> 
> as I’ve said before I don’t like marvel movies or game of thrones, all my friends do, I dont enter into long arguments about why they are wrong for liking it.
> 
> ...


More of this sideways bullying bullshit. "There must be something wrong with you if you have a hobby I don't understand." Fuck you. I'm obsessed with wrestling. Been a fan most of my life. Wish I could shut it off, because modern wrestling is largely really bad, but I can't. It's gotten me through some really tough times and I LOVE studying it. I just can't go and watch fish swimming in a tank and get the exact same feeling. This is what I love. Talking about this shit -- warts and all. Don't yuck someone's yum in an attempt to kick them around. 

Plenty of people talked about why they don't like Game of Thrones and what is wrong with Marvel movies. Anecdotally and as forms of formal criticism.

I don't "force" my views onto anyone. Most of the people you talk to on the internet are fucking morons. They're not going to learn anyway. I talk because I enjoy it, and there are a few people who will actually listen to me REASON and get something from that. 

I don't give a shit if people enjoy AEW and dribble bits of precum down their leg when Jericho says a funny word or something. Good for them. What I do is explain why their product is actually going to end up drying that leg in a few years time. I get mocked for it, but I am going to have so much fun saying "I told you so" and maybe they'll listen next time. 



bdon said:


> I got tired of the pissing contest, but I did see one comment about WWE fanboys. @Cult03 absolutely is not a WWE fanboy. He just doesn’t appreciate the stupid comedy bullshit that AEW throws into the middle of a great fucking episode or middle of a great story arc.
> 
> @The Wood has major negative feelings towards AEW over them not skinning this cat in his preferred style. More than one way to do things, but he believes in one singular path...his. Anything less is god awful. Egomaniac here just to hear himself speak and never wants to entertain an opposing viewpoint.
> 
> Anyone else being tossed into the “WWE fanboys” pile isn’t important enough to notice.


You're on the money with Cult03, but I think you misunderstand me. I don't think there's only one way to skin a cat. I just wish they'd actually skin the cat instead of giving it a funny hairdo. I've said before, but maybe not in this section because AEW has never gotten this good -- one of the best feelings in wrestling is when the booking can go either way and it's gonna feel rich. That's when you can surrender to it. Ideally, there would be many ways to skin a cat. But AEW isn't going down a path, it's jacking off in the poison ivy.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

I listened to this podcast by Eric today.

he was very positive about AEW.

the headline of the thread has been taken out of context.


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

El Hammerstone said:


>


You get labeled a WWE fanboy!?


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

The Wood said:


> They're two different products. NXT is there to develop talent and really let them stretch out and walk, WWE is a volume business where they just throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks. Vince doesn't need to get more out of Roderick Strong than Triple H does in order to make people care about Roderick Strong.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Why? What will listening to you achieve? Do you want everyone to go “oh actually the wood is right so I won’t watch?”

what are you trying to achieve?


----------



## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

The Wood said:


> They're two different products. NXT is there to develop talent and really let them stretch out and walk, WWE is a volume business where they just throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks. Vince doesn't need to get more out of Roderick Strong than Triple H does in order to make people care about Roderick Strong.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That you think nothing has been that good in AEW says you’re very close-minded, man.


----------



## El Hammerstone (Jan 11, 2020)

bdon said:


> You get labeled a WWE fanboy!?


Not often, but I have been. One time specifically when I complimented NXT's roster a while back; for the record, I find a lot of NXT boring despite this.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

bdon said:


> That you think nothing has been that good in AEW says you’re very close-minded, man.


exactly right,

theres plenty they’ve done wrong, but plenty they’ve done well.



for a start the crowd is always hot, which makes the programs far more entertaining than any other wrestling on TV.

I can list negatives and positives off the top of my head

negatives

casino battle royal

too many matches and not enough storylines early on

too obsessed with clean finishes

not enough big guys early on

too many finisher kick outs

too many flippy matches

too many tag matches in one show sometimes

Positives 

aesthetically pleasing, not too many LEDs

commentary

crowd always hot.

Focusing on the right guys (Jericho, Cody, Moxley, hangman, mjf) 

every pay per view has felt big and has delivered.

2020 has struck a perfect balance of wrestling and promos

Ofcourse the negative posters will try and pick apart my positives, because they have no interest in there being any.

there are so many things they can improve but I hold hope they will.
Most importantly Is I feel unlike the other company I watch, they’ll always try their best to deliver the best show possible even if sometimes they fail.


----------



## sideon (Sep 18, 2008)

EmbassyForever said:


> I don't care about the "competition" aspect, but Eric is obviously out of touch here.
> AEW is in (or was, before the COVID-19) a great place. Their PPVs are always sold-out, they have loyal fanbase that's actually willing to pay for their tickets, great PPV buys, locked in TNT for 3 more years.....
> 
> *RATINGS AREN'T THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS*. It's not 1999 anymore, bud.
> AEW are much more of a "competition" to WWE than TNA ever was. And I used to love TNA.


Interesting, Because if the WWE has a dip in ratings that's the first thing people go to. AEW is nowhere near competition for WWE because the popularity for wrestling isn't there now. It's funny how much AEW fans look for as many variables as they can to justify AEW's lackluster existence.


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

Danielallen1410 said:


> I just think it’s insane for someone to spend this much time posting about something they don’t like.
> 
> as I’ve said before I don’t like marvel movies or game of thrones, all my friends do, I dont enter into long arguments about why they are wrong for liking it.
> 
> ...


It has been explained so many times why the "Anti-AEWers" comment. For me much like The Wood explained I love wrestling and enjoy a fair few of the talents on AEW TV. I grew up with Chris Jericho, Dustin Rhodes, Lance Archer/Hoyt and Matt Hardy on my TV, JR is a massive part of my wrestling fandom, Schiavone and Tazz are guys I've always enjoyed hearing, I love Jake Roberts and feel he's one of the best promos ever, I like Moxley, I like MJF, I like Cody, I like a whole heap of guys that AEW has on their television show.

This product COULD be for me but the majority of the guys listed aren't being used properly (Jericho is now a goof, Hardy makes no sense, Archer looks bad, Dustin is being misused and even Cody just seems like a midcard dude). As I said above we are wrestling fans and shouldn't be forced to tune out and miss out on all those talented people simply because you don't like hearing our critiques of a show that quite frankly should be doing better.


----------



## EmbassyForever (Dec 29, 2011)

sideon said:


> Interesting, Because if the WWE has a dip in ratings that's the first thing people go to.


Well, they are dumb as well if that's the case. I don't care about WWE nowadays so idk.

And some of you gotta stop with the whataboutism when it comes to AEW/ WWE discussion. WWE is a huge company w/ 27 years experience on TV.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

bdon said:


> You get labeled a WWE fanboy!?


Of course he does. Anyone that criticizes AEW does. I've seen it happen with you too, lol. 



Danielallen1410 said:


> Why? What will listening to you achieve? Do you want everyone to go “oh actually the wood is right so I won’t watch?”
> 
> what are you trying to achieve?


Enlightenment. Education. Ennui. The three E's. The last because if you're satisfied with this shit, they're not going to change it, and if they don't change it, nothing will change. If you want good wrestling, you cannot mindlessly support bad wrestling. 



bdon said:


> That you think nothing has been that good in AEW says you’re very close-minded, man.


I don't think I said nothing. Cody vs. Dustin was excellent. JR's still the best commentator in the business. MJF is excellent when he's not forced into remotes with a soundtrack for some magical reason. Most of the stuff is overrated. Kenny Omega is boring. Adam Page has potential, but the beer shit is self-indulgent and off-putting. The tag team wrestling has sucked. Sorry, but it has. Jericho can be entertaining, but that's crossed over into self-indulgent scene chewing too. And a lot of it is just pure shit. The Librarians, Nakazawa, Marko Stunt, Brodie Lee, Joey Janela, the women's division, Matt Hardy. 

Sorry, I'm just not going to make stuff up. What else has been really good that they've done that you think someone who likes serious pro-wrestling would like?


----------



## CMPunkRock316 (Jan 17, 2016)

Bischoff is playing with the numbers. TNA was getting numbers close to what Raw has been getting lately while Raw was getting 5+ Million. 

Also SD just did a .5 on Fox


----------



## Pippen94 (Jan 10, 2020)

Eric killed two companies with national TV - why is anybody listening to him?


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

Pippen94 said:


> Eric killed two companies with national TV - why is anybody listening to him?


Spoken like a guy who watched the WWE's Rise and Fall of WCW DVD and has it all figured out.

Please explain how Eric Bischoff killed WCW. He left the head booker role in like early 1999 and then became part of a committee lead by Kevin Nash, he went home in late 1999 in which Vince Russo took over and then returned briefly in 2000 for four months to work alongside Russo. He then left in August allowing Russo full control who eventually gave up booking power to a committee again until the company died. When Bischoff left the shows suddenly didn't get better or improve as a matter of fact they actually got worse.

In regards to his TNA run he was only brought in to get creatively involved in Hulk Hogan's stories and eventually became the executive producer. During the time Bruce Prichard and Eric Bischoff were in charge the company was generally seen by fans as being the most entertaining it had been in a long time. TNA went off the air under I believe the watchful eye of former WWE employee John Gaburick. All the shit from 2010 that people blame Eric and Hogan for was actually booked by Vince Russo and the other TNA writers.

Not saying Eric is perfect because he has had plenty of shit ideas but the narrative that he kills companies is just ignorance.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Spoken like a guy who watched the WWE's Rise and Fall of WCW DVD and has it all figured out.
> 
> Please explain how Eric Bischoff killed WCW. He left the head booker role in like early 1999 and then became part of a committee lead by Kevin Nash, he went home in late 1999 in which Vince Russo took over and then returned briefly in 2000 for four months to work alongside Russo. He then left in August allowing Russo full control who eventually gave up booking power to a committee again until the company died. When Bischoff left the shows suddenly didn't get better or improve as a matter of fact they actually got worse.
> 
> ...


I certainly agree Eric didnt do much wrong in wcw

i blame hogan for TNAs fall, but Bischoff was assisting his storylines, and hogan was on the show far too much.


----------



## Danielallen1410 (Nov 21, 2016)

The Wood said:


> Of course he does. Anyone that criticizes AEW does. I've seen it happen with you too, lol.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


why dont you tell us what you would be doing different right now then?

dont include fantasies like who you would sign.

use the current roster and tell us what theyve done wrong and what you would do different?


----------



## DMD Mofomagic (Jun 9, 2017)

Danielallen1410 said:


> I certainly agree Eric didnt do much wrong in wcw
> 
> i blame hogan for TNAs fall, but Bischoff was assisting his storylines, and hogan was on the show far too much.


Hogan and Bischoff's creative didn't ruin the company. The finances did.

Dixie thought going live and moving to Mondays would bring in more money than it did.

Bischoff also was super tight with Scott Fishman, and when he left, no one was there to keep Spike TV happy


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

DMD Mofomagic said:


> Hogan and Bischoff's creative didn't ruin the company. The finances did.
> 
> Dixie thought going live and moving to Mondays would bring in more money than it did.
> 
> Bischoff also was super tight with Scott Fishman, and when he left, no one was there to keep Spike TV happy


Moving to Monday was Hogans choice, no?


----------



## DMD Mofomagic (Jun 9, 2017)

Danielallen1410 said:


> why dont you tell us what you would be doing different right now then?
> 
> dont include fantasies like who you would sign.
> 
> use the current roster and tell us what theyve done wrong and what you would do different?


This is easy.

The first 3-4 weeks should have been a straight infomercial to get your characters over, you do vignettes, interviews, videos...whatever to get people interested in people they don't know.

I will give you 3 examples of people they literally just stunted in the beginning:
Private Party
Darby Allin
The Dark Order

Private Party:
No one knew who these guys were, the Bucks have a match with them. Before the match, there are these stupid little interviews. The Bucks say how they are the best in the world, and they can't be touched blah blah blah. Well, Private Party comes out and has a 17 minute match with about 20 spots in it, have their finisher kicked out of, and win by a fluke roll up.

If instead, you actually showed private party hanging out in night clubs in Vegas(you know when you held your PPV there) and in Florida, and New York, the characters makes more sense, and actually can connect with an audience at home (oh those are the party guys) and then have them beat decisively the "Best Tag Team in the World" (I like the Bucks btw) then you really have two made men.

Instead they went half pregnant, and now Private Party is basically a fart in the wind, because The Revival is coming in.

Darby Allin had no backstory on TV when he fought Jericho. Oh AEW fans were telling you it was like Jeff Hardy getting a title shot. But in reality, it was more like Alex Wright getting one. Because no one knew who Allin was outside of the niche market to care.

And then the criminality of not putting Allin on TV after the loss, which made him look like enhancement talent at best. Consistency is key, if you want to get the kid over have him cut a promo, or beat someone up, or do something in the back.

Allin should have cut a promo the next week in front of the place of his accident and talked about how he was going to rise again, and lead that into his return, nope... he just left so Cody could have his feud, and ta-da he shows back up out of nowhere.

The Dark Order is the worst. And it was since day 2.

They did the cool thing at Double or Nothing. But then it began to make no sense.

They had a .500 record and telling people they should join to become winners. Could you imagine a team going .500 and then proclaiming how losers should be more like them instead of actual winners.

Reynolds and Silver join because Fuck it, thats why... they attack the Elite because fuck it thats why.... they literally have no direction, and then Brodie Lee comes by and becomes Vince McMahon.

WTF do they actually want? To take over? To show they are superior? You don't know because their actions are inconsistent and they spent so much time going right, they came out at the last minute to go left.

Also, Brodie Lee just wrestles the same as he did in the Wyatt family, he doesn't do anything like a cult leader unless he is making fun of Vince McMahon.

I mean its pretty easy, what they could do right is figure out who they want to get over to the people at home, be consistent with those people and bring out the characters and keep them consistent, there are more examples of this also


----------



## DMD Mofomagic (Jun 9, 2017)

optikk sucks said:


> Moving to Monday was Hogans choice, no?


Honestly, I couldn't tell you.

All I can say I know for sure, is Dixie loved Hulk and wanted him bad, Eric worked that into a job, and she listened to a lot they say.

I do remember the Hulk line of "Give Eric full control and the company will soar" So who knows, maybe


----------



## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

optikk sucks said:


> Moving to Monday was Hogans choice, no?


Was all confirmed and agreed upon before Hogan and Eric came on board. Eric did say in a recent podcast that he supported the move but also mentioned it wasn't his idea and how he had zero power over anything except Hogan.


----------



## The Wood (Nov 7, 2003)

Danielallen1410 said:


> why dont you tell us what you would be doing different right now then?
> 
> dont include fantasies like who you would sign.
> 
> use the current roster and tell us what theyve done wrong and what you would do different?


Well the roster largely is the problem. Why they have chosen it is a philosophical problem beyond me. But even so, I do give my ideas all the time.

* Cody should have been the babyface that dethroned Jericho. They should have milked him being unable to chase for what it was worth.

* Arn Anderson should actually speak.

* Pac should have Tully as his manager.

* Brodie Lee should not look ridiculous and should just be the new age Bruiser Brody.

* Dustin should be in a tag team with a babyface Lance Archer.

* The Lucha Bros should be singles guys.

* Trent and Marq Quen should be a tag team.

* Hikaru Shida should have been in the Riho role.

* MJF should be talking every week.

* No more magic cameras, invisible walls or WWE tropes.

This is just all random bullshit off the top of my head. There are variations of these ideas they could do. I’d be fine with Tully being with Jericho or MJF too, for example, but these are just some basic things that kind of highlight where they have gone sideways when they should have gone forwards.


----------



## Optikk is All Elite (Sep 5, 2007)

Chip Chipperson said:


> Was all confirmed and agreed upon before Hogan and Eric came on board. Eric did say in a recent podcast that he supported the move but also mentioned it wasn't his idea and how he had zero power over anything except Hogan.


it a nice idea; but poorly executed. the product was absolute trash by this point.


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## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

optikk sucks said:


> it a nice idea; but poorly executed. the product was absolute trash by this point.


It actually had a lot going for it at least when they organised the Monday Night War return. TNA had probably the greatest line up of future stars that we've seen in a fair while (AJ, Daniels, Joe, Young Bucks, Nick Aldis, Nigel McGuiness, Pope, Storm, Roode, Motor City Machine Guns etc) mixed in with some of the biggest stars in wrestling at that point in time (Angle, Jeff Hardy, Sting, Hogan, Flair, Nash, Foley)

The talent was certainly there for TNA to execute well but Vince Russo didn't know how to I guess. None of those guys had any reason to be coming in and the initial feuds for the signings weren't excited. Hogan and Flair paired off against one another with their respective proteges whilst Jeff Hardy got into a feud with Homicide. Nobody cared about Hardy feuding with a midcarder and Hogan Vs Flair 57.

It's sad though because with that roster and a half decent management team TNA very well could've been a viable alternative to WWE on Monday nights. Not saying they'd beat RAW ever but a respectable million or so every Monday night could've been doable with a strong show.


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## DMD Mofomagic (Jun 9, 2017)

When the Nasty Boys showed up, it literally derailed all the good will TNA built from their fanbase.

They were the underground company who was selling out to the corporation, the fans felt betrayed, and never came back.

The AEW story has been told before, we all hope the ending is different


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## bdon (Nov 12, 2019)

DMD Mofomagic said:


> When the Nasty Boys showed up, it literally derailed all the good will TNA built from their fanbase.
> 
> They were the underground company who was selling out to the corporation, the fans felt betrayed, and never came back.
> 
> The AEW story has been told before, we all hope the ending is different


Matt Hardy going straight to the forefront of storylines nearly did it for me.


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## Chip Chipperson (Jun 29, 2019)

DMD Mofomagic said:


> When the Nasty Boys showed up, it literally derailed all the good will TNA built from their fanbase.


Even that had potential though.

A couple months prior I saw the Hulkamania tour here in Sydney and The Nasty Boys had a fine hardcore match with some independent guys from California that the crowd was super into. It was WWE style hardcore but a heap of fun to watch.

On paper you would assume The Nasty Boys and Team 3.D would be more than capable of putting together a half decent brawl on PPV but it just didn't happen. The feud was lame and the matches they had were poor.


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## kingfrass44 (Sep 19, 2019)

zkorejo said:


> They actually have been winning against NXT for the most part.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


NXT did not bleed viewers from AEW 
You are free to believe the idea bleed viewers from AEW


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## zkorejo (Jul 2, 2010)

Chip Chipperson said:


> NXT was created for the WWE to make it's own alternative. They saw the success of the independents and companies like TNA who signed the top indy guys and drew decent numbers and decent money. Created their own super indy under the WWE banner.
> 
> Also has the benefit of getting those guys ready for WWE television. Smart business move by them.


Sure is smart, never said it wasnt. But that wasnt the point, my post was in response to the other poster that claimed that NXT was all about generating profit and being on TV was always the plan. Which is made-up bullshit to support his argument. 



kingfrass44 said:


> NXT did not bleed viewers from AEW
> You are free to believe the idea bleed viewers from AEW


Suppose NXT wasnt on USA on the same day or even in the same time slot as AEW. You dont think the 600,000 fans that tune in every week to watch NXT would check out AEW? Now they have their WWE show on at the same time, ofcourse they will watch that.

Its giving people an option to watch a show under the umbrella of an established brand of WWE versus a completely new wrestling promotion.

Yeah, I do believe that there would have been a percentage of that NXT audience watching AEW, if there was no NXT at the same time slot.


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## HelloSir (Dec 11, 2019)

EmbassyForever said:


> OVW & FCW were a development brand. NXT is WWE's third brand. Their PPVs attendances are fantastic, their Women's champion is Charlotte, and they have guys like Finn Balor from the main roster.
> 
> TNA put on a better product? well that's your opinion. I disagree.
> At the end of the day, AEW are much more profitable than TNA ever was. I don't see how it can be denied.


Don't kidd yourself. 

Finn Balor and Charlotte are only there because there's nothing for them on the main roster atm. Finn Balor is there to developer his heel character while Charlotte is NXT champion but still a RAW talent.

NXT is where the PC performers get their start and compete on a much smaller scale weekly. The big arena shows happen relatively rarely. When someone gets big and /or ready to fill a slot on the main roster they usually get called up. Velveteen will get called up before the end of the year. Guaranteed. Keith Lee will get called up soon, too. The only guys that will probably stay there on a longterm basis are the smaller, workrate machines that are better suited for that type of audience.

To be absolutely fair though, NXT finds itself somewhere in a grey area between developmental and 3rd brand BECAUSE they're on TV now and they get main roster exposure, but there's a reason why (barring Charlotte) Vince refuses to send his biggest stars to compete in NXT, and why guys like Cole and Gargano are at the top of the card


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## BC4LIFE (Jan 16, 2018)

ElTerrible said:


> They should do a Dark Side of the Ring episode about Bischoff, Russo and Cornette not being able to let go of the 90s. Maybe Vince can be the narrator.


This made my day! 😂 Thank you sir!


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