A_K

They look like a couple of low-rent crack addicts dressed like that. It is very, very amiss. Completely unnecessary given previous garb.

Fenix is an absolute stud. Butcher looks absurdly terrible in that attire - somebody please speak to them. Shame they wasted the Inner Circle title bout potential.

Would be superb if Santana & Ortiz win tonight.

No. That’s the sad part.

Yeah feels like a classic Sunday Night Heat angle. That's fine. Run the blow off on a PPV pre-show.

Really, really do not want to see a QT Marshall turn. Please. Just don't do that. There are some excellent roster members still starved for TV time. The last thing they need to do is devote any primetime minutes to that guy. Would also probably agree w/ the remark that Darby is fundamentally too small to be paired with Sting. Bit of an odd pair up. Other than the Brodie/Cody squash which was really effective, the TNT Title as a whole feels like an unrealised endeavour so far. The title is 10 months old and has how many defining moments associated with it? They need to start figuring out where the title program goes next. Separately I really do think a Cruiserweight/X Division style title would be a great add to the show to move a lot of the smaller + super young guys forward in programs together in a way that doesn't diminish the impact of them being paired with the older roster members (who typically seem to be the larger workers too) in the future.

Great stuff. Feels like pretty much everyone is in the right place on the show. Have said it before, will say it again: get this Team Tazz dirge in the bin and then they're rolling. Elevate Starks like Rock post-Nation of Domination and let the rest of them float to the low-card. Shame to have wasted Sting's presence on that but then again there's no obvious gap for him to fill in the show. Acclaimed gold. MJF/Sammy gold. Hangman gold. Main event scene gold. Cody can even have his weird Rhodes family circle jerk for 15 minutes a week at the bottom of the card when the real stuff is so strong. There's a bit of the '96 WWF feel to them whereby if they can capitalise on the young talent, they could have a special offering come 12-18 months time that can challenge the WWE flagship shows in ratings.

Yes totally agree re Outlaws comparison. I’m a big Acclaimed fan; think they have a super high ceiling. Outlaws were comedic and brutal though (think: SS 98 beating they laid down on Mankind). Would like to see Acclaimed roughened around the edges.

Miro up (although no rush); Archer down. Archer’s 43 now, was a fun monster-of-the-week for a while w/ Roberts but that ceiling has been truly sprung. Hardy goes - full stop. Zero benefit to Matt Hardy. Team Taz as group goes. That gives you your room to move Jungle Perry up (put him in a program w/ Darby & Starks if need be - that way none look tiny), give Hangman minutes on his side quest. Get Wardlow more involved too. Really, really easy to flush out the weak content of the show. It’s basically either the old 90s/00s WWE perennial mid carders who were scoffed at on a sinking TNA literally a decade ago (Hardy; Tazz) or talent who’ve been around the industry for a long time and just don’t make the commercial grade. There’s clearly a lot of nepotism / politics at work though when you look at some of the self-booking decisions & someone like Tazz’s completely & utterly forgettable son getting prime time TV minutes which is just weird.

Agreed. However I think the NJPW will grow their audience, certainly if executed right. They should probably just cool the Impact links however and focus on that, lest it become too confusing for general viewer. RE: criticisms of the show — there are too many voices weighing in on the same segments for there to be smoke without fire. Equally there are other parts of the show nigh on universally praised.

Wonderful main event. FENIX is indeed the man. A cruiserweight division would have been great from the off for Fenix, Darby, Sammy, Perry etc. to showcase in, much like Mysterio/Eddie/Jericho etc back in the 90s. Good Bros would make a great permanent fixture. Mitchell was fun for what he is. Miro keeps growing and growing. Don’t need Archer near the main event. Wedding angle wasted on Sabian + whoever was on camera work shouldn’t come back again.

- Segment was up 28k in 18-49 on preceding; segment immediately after was down 51k in 18-49. Net loss of 23k. Viewers of show lost, not retained. Increase in segment lead-in may have also been helped by resolution of earlier segment streaming technical issues. - As mentioned, YT views on in-week Archer/Kingston exceeds. YT views on Bucks/GB doubled. - Previous week: 5 show segments yield higher YT views than angle segment that same week. Incl. Inner Circle (4x), Moxley (2x), Sting (2x), Hangman, Miro This is before we discuss cost-of-viewer. I would fairly safely assume Shaq is higher cost than Charles Taylor in suit / Silver begging Hangman. So swinging back around, no, I don’t see what this is doing for them. Zero (or negative) viral buzz. Very poor quality segments creatively & utilisation of costly product. Viewers lost at end of segment not retained. Mediocre or very poor digital engagement after-fact.

Where is the source on that? People are changing the channel to watch this? So why do the YouTube segments not fare so favourably? It’s yielding less views than Archer/Kingston. Half the views of Bucks & Good Bros. I simply don’t believe this is drawing for them. I’d be hard pressed to say Shaq has even been part of the storyline .. he’s what, prerecorded one off-show tiny segment for the hour + of TV time they’ve dedicated to this alone? Malone/Page, Rodman/Hogan, Mayweather/Big Show this is not.

Of course not; it absolutely sucks and the presumed demographic its catered for will just laugh it out the house. Not quite TNA/Pacman Jones yet but we're on the spectrum.

At 32 & being so comprehensively beaten on his feet, it feels like the definitive end of the McGregor era. Shame he pissed away so much of his peak years. I was at MSG to see him beat Alvarez in '16 which was the absolute peak, and he was never the same after the Mayweather fight that followed. Looks old; demeanour has changed; financially taken care of for life. Khabib tells it as it is. Absolutely no value in him facing anyone in that division. GSP/Khabib or nothing? Almost certainly nothing? The only way Khabib gets a challenge is moving up a division, and he has never ever shown a desire for that.

Put Starks in there too as a '98 style Rock coming out of his Nation phase (see: Team Taz) & you've got a hyper young, hyper glamorous, fresh-take faction who can be in the serious + comedy spots.

Yup. For me, that is pro wrestling-comedy done right in a way that can have mass pop culture appeal. Dark humour (Taylor's twitching desperate smiles at the end of the segment was superb) w/ a modern twist and really cool characterisation on both sides of the coin. We feel for the plight of the loveable Face who is physically outmatched & backed into a corner; we can't help but be enthralled by the charismatic, hulking heel who we want to eventually see wrecked. Great wardrobe choices for all too. One of the best, most nuanced segments they've done; great work from all involved. Give me that over 10 formless characters running around a set shouting at each other & 'being funny' or bawling utterly inane cliches about 'street fighting' in one-pitched raised tones any day. If Miro is writing that himself, please pay him whatever he wants to re-write this awful Team Taz dirge and get this blatant nepotism with the Mute Hook off the screen.

Really hope they do the right thing & Miro goes definitively over - whatever the ending for this angle is. His portrayal of polite-mannered, nouveau riche Eastern European gangster-come-prison yard bully is absolute money. Send him to the top of the card on that portrayal. Reminds me of Fernando Vera w/ that hair & hulking menace.

Great main. Sad as it is to say it as an enormous Jericho fan over the years, he's the one who least deserves that main event spotlight. He's in absolutely ruinous condition. Guevara on the other hand looking like an absolute stud; Darby can be fun but of the two Sammy has a far higher ceiling. Stronger, explosive. JR's praise on the swanton was the most authentic he's sounded in years. Propel him into some sort of title programme please once this lame "Team Taz' stuff is finally finished. Everyone played their roles well in this one .. except Jericho. If he's going to be in a sorry-sack condition he at least needs to definitively be face. Miro is quality.

When the comment is "you want it to be like WWE; there is no success in trying to be like WWE", I mean .. what epoch are we talking about? This is not a 'WWE' thing - it is a 'product defining popular culture' thing. In the US the WWF/E variously had that magic touch over different generations, WCW had it through a couple of generations. It is sentiment rather than promotion based. Should AEW try to ape WWE now? Well, given WWE is certainly quantatively & arguably qualatively at its lowest ebb with some episodes drawing the lowest ratings in history, yeah, it makes sense not to try and replicate that. Are there elements in its past AEW would benefit from harnessing? Well, obviously. Opinions are what make the discussion. AEW are beating WWE's 3rd show - NXT. That's great. They're also pulling less than half, often a third, the numbers of Smackdown. Less than half, sometimes a third, of a 3-hour averaged RAW. Given we'd probably all agree WWE is less relevant now in culture than its been since the early 90s & a ton of money has been lavished on AEW, it has room to take more share. To bridge the gap they need to catapult some of these young stars into real (not indie) superstardom, so that's really the challenge ahead & point of this discussion. I don't think the more diplomatic booking style gets them there; others do. Look forward to seeing what 2021 has in store!

@Godfrey exactly my sentiment. RE: @MrKothoga - I get that, and the best equivalent high-performing portrayal I can think of would be Kurt Angle's "Wrestling Machine" early/mid 2000s schtick. A kind of psychotic, high performing goofball who plays the comedy spots but demolishes in-ring & has complete superstar status. Omega's portrayal at the moment, I feel, is very low-end on where it can be. Too flat. Raise the stakes. Have him hurt & show up inferior opponents. If they want to glamourise / sexualise his entrance, then really go for it. A halfway house is always dull. Shoot for the moon.

Yeah - personally I think they give too much. Back in the day late 90s / early 00s I remember the incredible impact of Jericho beating Hall, or Jeff Hardy taking one against Triple H // going competitively vsUndertaker, or even Helms vs Rock because these were otherwise untouchable guys who physically/verbally mocked vast majority of the roster. There are a few for whom AEW need to cultivate a similar level of superstardom / intensity. The Omega 3-man tag this week, for example, was I think too competitive given the opponents.

I think they really need to start setting some battle lines here where jobbers are concerned. Kip really shouldn be on the show; he is pretty close to the bottom of a long roster list in pretty much all aspects of talent / exposure. Being a sacrificial lamb to get Miro really over is probably the best use, if that's the way the angle is headed. If its not .. well, again I'm not sure why he has airtime given other talent at disposal. AEW has a tendency to be too democratic; what probably goes under the radar a bit w/ peak WWE/F & WCW is how proficient they were at leveraging low/mid card to get upper card over. There needs to be a few "untouchables" who embarass 90% of the roster in the ring which really drives up the stakes when that 10% face off with each other.

Ok didn’t know that, but makes sense. Not sure how they conclude the angle then. Let’s see.

What’s the real life situation?