The All Elite Wrestling Discussion Thread

[Matt_Black]

5 hours ago, TigerClawTV said:

Did I miss a W. Morrissey appearance? Big fan of his from his work on Impact.

He's part of Stokely Hathaway's new stable that's aligned with MJF, alongside Lee Moriarty, Ethan Page, and the Ass Boys Gunn Club.

[TigerClawTV]

[Kamchatka]

AEW doing 1.1175 mil and 0.39. 

Good bounce, hard to tell if thats the end of the summer lull kicking in, or if people are enjoying new stories coming through finally rather than the weird holding patterns we seemed to be stuck in for the last few months.

[Jaysin]

Everytime I see Lee with his green hair I think it's Kid Cudi

[Matt_Black]

2 hours ago, Kamchatka said:

AEW doing 1.1175 mil and 0.39. 

Good bounce, hard to tell if thats the end of the summer lull kicking in, or if people are enjoying new stories coming through finally rather than the weird holding patterns we seemed to be stuck in for the last few months.

That's especially encouraging considering that while they had over a million at the start of last week's episode, it dropped significantly by the main event.

[Dalton]

Last year's "go-home" Dynamite for Grand Slam had the same amount of viewers (1,175,000) and with cable down 10%+ since last year, that can't be considered anything other than a huge success. Good for them.

[milamber]

- Mox vs Sammy was great. Mox forgot to bleed but sold the not-nut shot like a pro.
- Anyone who wants Babyface Maxwell will have to wait a long time.
- Big Stoke & The Firm. That Jose shade lol. Segment went long but it was a smart idea to reintroduce everyone and lay out their goals. They should add a female prospect like Queen Aminata.
- Jungle Boy vs Lethal was solid.
- Interested to see what Action Bronson can do in the ring. Luigi Primo we hardly knew you. Egon/Danhausen should be fun.
- Darby needs his own TBS stunt show. Matt trying to out-daredevil Darby won't end well.
- Hobbs smash! Ricky is over.
- Lucha Bros vs Swerve in Our Glory (c) was great. Acclaimed hype! Cassidy blindsiding PAC 😮
- Deeb & DMD vs Athena & Storm was good. Looks like Hayter is going solo but staying heel. Another Fatal 4-Way... the only other method for TK to book 4 women on a TV show.
- Jericho vs Danielson was my MOTN. Garcia approved.

[milamber]

4 weeks of 1 million + for the 1st time in a year and highest demo since early June. No quarter under 1 million. Highest quarters were the Tag Title match and main event.

Edited September 16, 2022 by milamber

[Matt_Black]

32 minutes ago, milamber said:

- Deeb & DMD vs Athena & Storm was good. Looks like Hayter is going solo but staying heel.

That is a terrible idea. First, the crowd seems super hot for her to be a babyface. The crowd was hot for Scorpio Sky to be a babyface, but AEW nipped that in the bud too. Eventually, fans are going to get frustrated.

Second, the women's division is lacking in babyfaces that are anywhere close to being credible. Shida & Ruby Soho have been booked terribly the past year (and the former is said to be prioritizing engagements in Japan), Rosa and Statlander are injured, Riho and Sakazaki are hardly ever in the U.S. anyway, and Tay, Jay, & Velvet were all turned heel.

[milamber]

4 minutes ago, Matt_Black said:

That is a terrible idea. First, the crowd seems super hot for her to be a babyface. The crowd was hot for Scorpio Sky to be a babyface, but AEW nipped that in the bud too. Eventually, fans are going to get frustrated.

Second, the women's division is lacking in babyfaces that are anywhere close to being credible. Shida & Ruby Soho have been booked terribly the past year (and the former is said to be prioritizing engagements in Japan), Rosa and Statlander are injured, Riho and Sakazaki are hardly ever in the U.S. anyway, and Tay, Jay, & Velvet were all turned heel.

I guess they need her as a heel right now unless she's taking Jade's title. Deeb, DMD & Hayter can be Toni's next 3 defenses. If Rosa's out long term strap Hayter up.

[Matt_Black]

3 minutes ago, milamber said:

I guess they need her as a heel right now unless she's taking Jade's title. Deeb, DMD & Hayter can be Toni's next 3 defenses. If Rosa's out long term strap Hayter up.

That's fine for the short term. But there are long term issues to look at. You can't just have the division be Britt Baker and whoever she's feuding with at the time. Especially considering that Britt is somewhat prone to injury.

[Makhai]

3 minutes ago, milamber said:

I guess they need her as a heel right now unless she's taking Jade's title. Deeb, DMD & Hayter can be Toni's next 3 defenses. If Rosa's out long term strap Hayter up.

 

So who does Jade get to squash? They don't have a single babyface left on the whole roster basically. 

[milamber]

7 minutes ago, Makhai said:

 

So who does Jade get to squash? They don't have a single babyface left on the whole roster basically. 

No one. Her reign has gone long enough and it's losing steam. Athena should have beaten her.

[The Blonde Bomber]

Anyone know the quarter hour ratings? 

[Kamchatka]

1 hour ago, The Blonde Bomber said:

Anyone know the quarter hour ratings? 

From Wrestlenomics

Very stable stuff, normal bump at the top of the 9m hour, then full ad break at 9:15 as usual lead to a drop in viewers, but then big boost for people coming in for the main event which is cool to see. Just like with last week theres evidence to suggest a lot of people are tuning in to get the main event (Yuta v Garcia had a big viewership by the end). Battlebots and AEW seems a good pairing.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Kamchatka

[Makhai]

8 hours ago, Kamchatka said:

From Wrestlenomics

Very stable stuff, normal bump at the top of the 9m hour, then full ad break at 9:15 as usual lead to a drop in viewers, but then big boost for people coming in for the main event which is cool to see. Just like with last week theres evidence to suggest a lot of people are tuning in to get the main event (Yuta v Garcia had a big viewership by the end). Battlebots and AEW seems a good pairing.

If you take away anything other than women, no matter what, are -200k( they have been pretty consistent channel flippers for a year pretty much) and Yuta v Garcia was a complete disaster. I don't know what to tell you. Viewership was up at the end because stars were actually doing stuff so people flipped back over to see the angle. 

Don't main-event your fall-takers, simple concept here. 

Edited September 16, 2022 by Makhai

[The Swanton825]

8 hours ago, Makhai said:

If you take away anything other than women, no matter what, are -200k( they have been pretty consistent channel flippers for a year pretty much) and Yuta v Garcia was a complete disaster. I don't know what to tell you. Viewership was up at the end because stars were actually doing stuff so people flipped back over to see the angle. 

Don't main-event your fall-takers, simple concept here. 

"Quick! Flip back to Dynamite, Danielson is putting the ROH Pure belt on Garcia and that made Jericho a sad panda!"

Yeah, I'm totally sure people flipped back to see what can barely be called an angle and not just people looking to watch BattleBots turning on TBS at the end of the main event.

I'm not dunking on Yuta/Garcia because that was a legit good match, just the inane notion that people would flip back just to see a sad old man doing his best to look young again staring at the ring for five seconds.

[The Blonde Bomber]

18 hours ago, Kamchatka said:

From Wrestlenomics

Very stable stuff, normal bump at the top of the 9m hour, then full ad break at 9:15 as usual lead to a drop in viewers, but then big boost for people coming in for the main event which is cool to see. Just like with last week theres evidence to suggest a lot of people are tuning in to get the main event (Yuta v Garcia had a big viewership by the end). Battlebots and AEW seems a good pairing.

Where’d you get that pic for future reference?

[Kamchatka]

1 hour ago, The Blonde Bomber said:

Where’d you get that pic for future reference?

Brandon Thurston on twitter, he runs Wrestlenomics and usually he posts quarter hour break downs but doesnt always post them publicly.

Wrestlenomics was set up by Chris Harrington who is now the Senior Vice President of Business Strategy for AEW and close friend to Thurston so theres a lot of underlying detail he knows and they sometimes have Harrington back to talk about the business side of things.

They have their radio show on youtube on sunday mornings 11am EST, and a patreon subscriber show on thursdays as well as access to their discord where you can download the Wrestlenomics spreadsheets which contain ratings for basically every US wrestling tv show going back to before the monday night wars etc.

Meltzer sometimes gets minute by minute ratings as well which he doesnt post publicly but will comment on and he would only be getting if someone in the business sent to him by either AEW or WWE. 

The recent Meltzer commented on in that regard was the Yuta v Garcia match had 1.01 million viewers watching it by the end (prior to the mini promo Jericho/Danielson stuff)

If theres ever a graphic like that up about ratings, 99% chance its from wrestlenomics.

this is the other classic one he puts out after each show.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Kamchatka

[Dalton]

51 minutes ago, Kamchatka said:

Brandon Thurston on twitter, he runs Wrestlenomics and usually he posts quarter hour break downs but doesnt always post them publicly.

Wrestlenomics was set up by Chris Harrington who is now the Senior Vice President of Business Strategy for AEW and close friend to Thurston so theres a lot of underlying detail he knows and they sometimes have Harrington back to talk about the business side of things.

They have their radio show on youtube on sunday mornings 11am EST, and a patreon subscriber show on thursdays as well as access to their discord where you can download the Wrestlenomics spreadsheets which contain ratings for basically every US wrestling tv show going back to before the monday night wars etc.

Meltzer sometimes gets minute by minute ratings as well which he doesnt post publicly but will comment on and he would only be getting if someone in the business sent to him by either AEW or WWE. 

The recent Meltzer commented on in that regard was the Yuta v Garcia match had 1.01 million viewers watching it by the end (prior to the mini promo Jericho/Danielson stuff)

If theres ever a graphic like that up about ratings, 99% chance its from wrestlenomics.

this is the other classic one he puts out after each show.

As a long-time (looong-time) member of Wrestlenomics, I second everything Kam said. Brandon Thurston provides an invaluable resource for the industry.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Dalton

[Makhai]

6 hours ago, The Swanton825 said:

"Quick! Flip back to Dynamite, Danielson is putting the ROH Pure belt on Garcia and that made Jericho a sad panda!"

Yeah, I'm totally sure people flipped back to see what can barely be called an angle and not just people looking to watch BattleBots turning on TBS at the end of the main event.

I'm not dunking on Yuta/Garcia because that was a legit good match, just the inane notion that people would flip back just to see a sad old man doing his best to look young again staring at the ring for five seconds.

Flipping back to stare at sad old men was pretty much then entirety of TNA. So I don't know what to tell you other than, welcome to wrestling. 

AEW holds viewers consistently because their MEs are good and well advertised so their audience sticks around. This one was not, Pure Rules are never gonna get over as a Main Event thing in AEW, and Yuta and Garcia are seen as goober fall-takes because that's what they were. 

If you lead with that match and finish with Page-Danielson It likely holds at least 1M throughout the night. I honestly don't know what Battlebots does for viewers, but it doesn't move the needle for other nights, so can't be that many. 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Makhai

[The Swanton825]

56 minutes ago, Makhai said:

Flipping back to stare at sad old men was pretty much then entirety of TNA. So I don't know what to tell you other than, welcome to wrestling. 

AEW holds viewers consistently because their MEs are good and well advertised so their audience sticks around. This one was not, Pure Rules are never gonna get over as a Main Event thing in AEW, and Yuta and Garcia are seen as goober fall-takes because that's what they were. 

If you lead with that match and finish with Page-Danielson It likely holds at least 1M throughout the night. I honestly don't know what Battlebots does for viewers, but it doesn't move the needle for other nights, so can't be that many. 

And TNA did such great ratings doing that didn't they? I don't even get the channel they're on these days.

At what point did I suggest that Pure Rules was a good main event choice to get anyone's attention but for people like me who only watch Dynamite maybe twice a month? My point was that nobody on this planet cares that much about Chris Jericho in 2022 to watch him look like a sad panda for two seconds before they go to black. There is no way that he and Danielson with their feud that has all the heat of a freezer moved the ratings that significantly.

I would also point out that ten years ago, plenty of people were calling Danielson bad for ratings. AEW tried something different since Punk and the Elite screwed the original plan and the experiment didn't work, boo hoo. I'd rather they try something different on occasion instead of getting into a main event rut like 99% of wrestling does. Besides, last time I checked AEW had a pretty shallow main event pool that only got more shallow after All Out.

[Matt_Black]

One of the big complaints that many have been levying at AEW the past year or so is "too many WWE guys". Well, the main event last week was two indy guys who barely weigh 350 lbs combined. They're trying to make new stars, and on occasion that means sacrificing short term ratings for hopeful long term gains.

Now, if they could only apply that to the women's division....

[The Blonde Bomber]

42 minutes ago, Matt_Black said:

One of the big complaints that many have been levying at AEW the past year or so is "too many WWE guys". Well, the main event last week was two indy guys who barely weigh 350 lbs combined. They're trying to make new stars, and on occasion that means sacrificing short term ratings for hopeful long term gains.

Now, if they could only apply that to the women's division....

To me the problem with how they did it was, the match wasn’t built up well. The talent hasn’t been built up incredibly well either. Yuta was getting a huge push for a few weeks months ago and then became a background character in BCC. TK has done a poor job of pushing people consistently with good booking. The other clear example to me is wardlow

[Jaysin]

1 minute ago, The Blonde Bomber said:

To me the problem with how they did it was, the match wasn’t built up well. The talent hasn’t been built up incredibly well either. Yuta was getting a huge push for a few weeks months ago and then became a background character in BCC. TK has done a poor job of pushing people consistently with good booking. The other clear example to me is wardlow

Wardlow is one of the most over acts on the roster and wins almost every single match. He's on TV pretty much every week. How is his push bad?