AEW Dynamite

[Powder]

That is exactly what I was thinking when I watched it last night.

Also the 'triple moonsault' that Page/Jungle Boy/Luchasurus did, got the crowd chanting holy shit for about 30 sec to a minute. It made me shake my head bc that was not a holy shit moment.

[Team Farrell]

I just saw the clip of Britt being powerbombed on the thumbtacks, and not selling it. I know it's just a clip, and I shouldn't base the entire promotion on a 20 second clip... but it really reminded me why I don't watch AEW.

Yeah...

That was pretty awful.

[Oliver]

I am all in on The Blackpool Combat Club. Also, I loved having Regal on commentary. There's something absolutely great about having a guy like him there who drills into the minutiae of really little things. There was something he said last night about the way Brian Pillman Jr was pinning one of his own proteges that put the opposition over as smart, but also points out how tough his own guys are.

There's something special about the three guys together, at the moment. I want to see them wrestle, and it could be against anyone.

Pretty much the only thing I tuned in for on the show this week, I skipped through basically everything else. Was there anything else worth getting into? I Youtubed the highlights of Punk vs Dax.

[Oliver]

Does AEW try and do too much on their weekly shows? I can kind of understand why something like the TNT title gets defended on the show on TNT, but doing it in a ladder match seems unnecessary. Next week they're having a unifcation match between Purazzo and Martinez that could easily make the Double Or Nothing card. Last week had a casket match, you had Joe vs Suzuki(!) and a tag titles match on a recent show too, and it wasn't that long ago that they headlined the TV show with FTR vs Bucks.

I feel like somewhere along the line they've focussed on making their TV show as 'must see' as possible in the ring, but to the detriment of actually building what could be really great stories for PPVs.

[Prime Time]

From the outside looking in, it sounds like that. It's funny because where they've had success, it seems to be by re-asserting wrestling logic over what you get on the indies and - let's be honest about it here - in the modern WWE. And yet rather than follow where that leads, there seems to be an inability to hold back elsewhere and they end up splurging, almost throwing shit at the wall, and - again, if wrestling logic still holds true - it's likely they are turning off people that would otherwise have flocked to their banner.

[PEN15v2]

To be fair, if they can make every Wednesday a noteworthy card, I don't see the harm. The obvious negative to that is eventually they'll be out of options. But with the ROH purchase, with the association with Impact and NWA, and the combined show with NJPW, I don't think they need to worry just yet.

The nature of their booking is benefiting this mindset. While they might over do it with Punk promos and Cole matches (the only criticism concerning oversaturation that I've read), everyone gets spaced out so that big matches are always available. This isn't praise of their booking, as there are many many flaws. But one positive aspect to it is that it seems like there's an unlimited amount of TV main event matches available, while still building their PPVs.

All that being said, one of the reasons I can't enjoy AEW is the mentality of "get your shit in, " which applies to the card booking as well as the matches. But to those that enjoy AEW, it's hard to see fault in how much space the roster has between big matches.

[Powder]

I still tune into AEW, every now and then just to see what is going on, but in general I do not watch. But when I tune in, I have to agree with what Pen said about that in every match, each wrestler feels that he/she has to “get their shit in”. They have to do al of their signature spots and moves.

What makes anything special if it is seen every week?

[The Cook]

Not that I disagree with the viewpoint that people are "getting their shit in" but isn't that the case in literally every match in virtually every company. Even in absolute one-sided affairs the likes of HHH would still do the jumping knee, knee smash, spinebuster and Pedigree. So I don't particularly mind if anyone does it, as long as they occasionally mix up the order or setting or build-up to said "shit".

[PEN15v2]

I can only speak for myself, but I don't care about having signature moves. That's not what I consider "getting my shit in". "I think it's more about packing in so much into a match that it loses sense. People stop selling big moves because they need to move on to another big spot. I would agree that it's in every company when discussing ladder matches. You can see how it's just a combination of planned spots, with poor selling overall. But I find in AEW, regular matches have that feeling as well.

It isn't AEW, but I saw a gif of the Young Bucks at the AAA show, where they moved in tandem around the ring so that the opponent could scale the ropes from their end and launch into the YB. It was so contrived and stupid. I can't speak on the rest of the match, but it's moments like that where I lose focus on the match. This does occur in all sorts of matches, but I find the percentage much higher in AEW than WWE or NWA.

[Powder]

I know that the talk about Darby Allin vs Jeff Hardy from last night is that it was a "great Dream match". Well I watched the match.

First off it was NOT great. It was a 12 minute spot fest with no match, and no psychology. If AEW wanted to do this right, they should have built this match up over the course of a few weeks to months and done it on a PPV.

This was exactly what I think is wrong with AEW. It was AEW saying : Hey we now have Jeff hardy, and the younger version of himself in Darby. let's put them out there ASAP and let them do spot after spot.

[PEN15v2]

I haven't seen too many people disagree with you. I've seen mostly criticism towards the match, and from people that are generally all praise for AEW.

[Team Farrell]

The company caters to doing "dream matches", and when you only run four PPV's a year, it's going to become a thing where these dream matches are given away on free TV semi regularly.

I only saw "the" spot from it and I don't need to see any more.

That Dark Side of the Ring parody though? Fucking gold!

[Powder]

That I did not see, but I will check out.

[Team Farrell]

I think something to remember is that we're no longer in the "traditional" pro wrestling business when it comes to the nationally televised companies. WWE and AEW are beholden to people other than their fans.

Why is WWE bringing fan favourite PPV events like Money in the Bank and Elimination Chamber to Saudi Arabia instead of giving them to their American fans? Because they're being paid something like $20 million per event by the Saudis, and the Saudis want bigger. Why are they adding to their PPV schedule when pundits constantly say that they have too many PPVs? Because Peacock is paying them over a $200 million per year and they want more content.

Why is AEW putting major matches on free TV all the time? Because TBS is paying them $45 million per year, and it's the only thing keeping them anywhere near financially solvent.

Wrestlenomics — who uses available information to make educated estimates and I am somewhat skeptical of when it comes to AEW numbers but it's the only numbers we have — estimated that Double or Nothing, their biggest PPV to date, netted AEW $5.4 million. That's PPV buys, tickets sold and arena merch. That's approx. 205,000 PPV buys (and everything since has been about 50k fewer), and an arena full of Punk merch. You can't replicate Punk's debut.

So what that says is that if they could guarantee DON2021 numbers on everything (they haven't been able to), the best that they can hope for at the moment without significant growth is about $21.6 million net for the year on PPV.

So at the moment, they're making 2-3x as much from TBS as they are off of PPV. TBS wants demo numbers, which have been suffering recently alongside the rest of their numbers, and they're six months or so away from negotiations beginning for a renewal.

AEW still has to sell pay per views to generate that revenue. But let's say Discovery doubles their TV rights — Wrestlenomics is estimating 3x but that's not how Corporate America works and I think they're floating that to get the chatter going within the industry based on who they're friends with — they'd now be at $90 million and making 4-5x as much as they can do on PPV in a year. TBS is going to have some expectations.

We aren't in the world where WWE's TV revenue was a split of commercial sales with USA, or commercial time that they themselves had to sell anymore.

[PEN15v2]

Thankfully in the case of AEW and TBS/TNT, what would please the networks also tend to please the pundits and audience. It might not be for me, but there's not a more consistently praised wrestling show on TV than Dynamite. That could change down the line, or maybe sooner with this Discovery change up. But for now AEW is in a safe spot where it isn't hard to please everyone with the same single gameplan.