Kevin Wilson

I like that idea in theory but I don't think as a country we are quite ready yet (if we ever will be). With their budget there just isn't a realistic way they could make $70 million a year doing their own thing (last estimate I saw had WBD currently paying $68 mil a year for all three shows). At even $15 a month (which how many fans are dedicated enough to pay that) they would need 380,000 monthly subscribers on Triller or with a dedicated streaming channel to make that money back (that doesn't even take into account the provider's cut, or the fact AEW wants a much higher number from WBD then what they have now). I don't think there is any production at that level that survives just on their own streaming service/paid channel setup, everyone is tied to a broadcaster or major streaming deal. They'd have to really shrink their budget to make that work and would effectively end their run as a major wrestling promotion, they'd basically be TNA in regards to reach. Now if they could do some type of hybrid deal that would be best case, the streaming situation is difficult to predict as people are starting to revolt from overpaying for streaming packages, we are in a weird place right now and my gut its going to get worse before it gets better as services are getting more and more expensive.

I know its become a joke (of his own doing) but it really is a show for the sickos. The hardcore fans absolutely love it but if I asked my brother (a hardcore AEW fan but not much else) to pick Naito out of a line-up he'd have no idea. I don't think it does any real damage and the PPV always delivers in-ring, but at a time that interest is trending down I'm not sure if its a positive for ratings either.

I think the issue is they wanted to stick with the theme of AEW vs. World (I assume the last wrestler in the ladder match will be from CMLL or New Japan), and Cobb's match would be for the title which would make it harder to book an ending. So this is what we end up with. It should be a fun match, I don't think it has the proper build to be on PPV but that's kinda Forbidden Door in a nutshell. I mean Mox is against Naito who hasn't been on AEW TV in forever, the build-up isn't good for the average fan watching. AEW in general with Forbidden Door has issues booking the full card since they are building two feuds at the same time (their own stories and Forbidden Door stories), its been a problem past years too. Personally I'd be ok if they got rid of it but TK really enjoys it so it is what it is.

Someone, somewhere in here mentioned that AEW should do/consider a re-start or a reboot of sorts and I couldn't possibly disagree with that more. WCW tried that and the thing is - the viewing audience KNOWS when you are doing that and why, and it comes across as desperate. Even though it seems odd to say to a promotion with a downward trend in viewers, I think they have to stay the course. Make a few changes here and there, sure, but they shouldn't make any sudden major changes. The last month or so of Dynamite had been really good, and last week's was universally enjoyed. It won't help last week's ratings, but there are people that DVR the show and maybe thought 'hey this was a damn good Dynamite' and will watch live next week. What they need is just consistently entertaining events, keep building their young stars, and hope that the fans that may have wondered away come back once they get on a good run. Getting a hot storyline/wrestler is mostly luck but that wouldn't hurt either.

We had our first walk-off pitch clock violation yesterday, it was just as funny as I had been anticipating.

That's kinda true but EagleBank seats 10K (probably 8K with a wrestling setup) so even with the opening of a few sections they were around 4.5K. They released more tickets but they had under 4K originally released. There was still very large sections empty. I was glad with the attendance all things considered but I guess the question would be would the promotion rather legit sell out a 4K arena, or 60% fill a 8K arena. And the answer seems to be the latter but I can see the argument that occasionally doing a smaller arena and selling it out would be nice for TV and doing the "full" scan of the place, and being able to yell on commentary all night that its sold out.

As far as overall ratings go, its also interesting that Collison has stabilized and unless its against something like a WWE PLE, its ratings are in the same range they were last August/September and are a lot more steady. Collison still won't beat Dynamite this week but if it stays around 400K its a lot closer than anyone would have reasonably thought just a few months ago.

So I just automatically dismiss anyone that says "there aren't storylines" as there are plenty of those going on in AEW, so those people either aren't watching or just repeat what they see on X. But certainly no use in engaging with people making arguments in bad faith. We'll see if its a weird one-time thing that can't be explained or part of a trend. I think the two biggest factors are the lack of BBT lead-in and also... lets face it, Forbidden Door probably isn't the most exciting PPV for more casual fans. That's a PPV that really is for the sickos. While I don't think Dynamite has suffered due to the build, in fact I think Dynamite has been really hitting its stride the last month and the shows have been really good, I could absolutely see some fans that aren't interested in CMLL or Japanese wrestlers and just checking out. Will they come back in July? I think the Blood and Guts rating will be important, not that it needs to set new records but if its also sub-700K I think that would show a legitimate notable shrinking of the fanbase. I know its popular to say they should run smaller venues, and I don't necessarily disagree but I think one issue that has been brought up before is there aren't as many 3K to 4K arenas in the US, that can be adapted to wrestling for a reasonable price, in major cities. I'm not saying they don't exist but most arenas are going to be at least 8K as the places wrestling run are college basketball arenas, hockey arenas, general entertainment arenas, etc that are decent sized. They could do 'studio' shows but that clearly isn't the look they want. I'd love for them to at least once a month run Dynamite or Collision in a sub-4K arena they can fill or 95% fill, really get a good loud crowd in a small place but I don't know if its realistic on a broader scale. AEW's Dynamite ratings over the last six months have varied really wildly (as much as a 250K swing that fluctuates week to week), which admittedly I find fascinating as most shows don't ebb and flow over 20% of their viewers week to week. I mean they hit 819K on 4/10, 672K on 5/15, 787K on 5/29, and 502K on 6/19. That's crazy. But they definitely need a hot storyline or wrestler, even if its a weird one like Joe Hendry got in TNA, which is easier said than done.

I don't think anyone named her yet but I think Willow is the biggest success story. Started her AEW career with eight straight Dark losses.

I think y'all are a little crazy if you think Microsoft gaming is going anywhere. Their gaming division brings in the 3rd most revenue in the company, and the last gamepass estimated number we got was they have 34 million subscribers. I can see a world where their next console is strictly streaming and they don't bother with an "X" version though as the consoles themselves haven't been selling well comparing to the competitors. The developers they are shuttering is definitely unfortunate, I don't like it just like everyone else. But there aren't any real indicators that the company is looking to get out of the space as a whole, but more like Raziel said making little cuts before financial releases to keep the stockholders happy.

I'm glad the crowd came across well on TV as I thought we were pretty loud and into things. The final attendance ended up being pretty solid so I hope they come back. This was my first AEW show and thus of course my first AEW TV taping, and I have to say they really keep things moving. Both the in-ring talking segments felt short to normal, there were only a couple true commercial breaks and I never felt bored or the need to stand up/walk around. Rampage was really good too, no spoilers but it felt like one of the better ones recently. Overall a great night of wrestling. Justin Roberts is absolutely horrible at talking to the crowd during commercials, to the point I hope he was intentionally being cringe for laughs. TK came out three times to hype us up. I am glad my wrestling fandom lives on the same timeline as Tony Khan's live eFed experiment, what a time.

My one life skill is being able to buy wrestling tickets that are low, but high enough to be over the heads of people standing on the floor.

My problem is if I dive back in I'll have to start a new game. Its been over two years and I'm old, I have no idea what my character was, the controls, etc. I'd get destroyed. But my backlog is too big so its hard to justify committing to a 100+ hour game I already played once. Maybe once I retire I'll have time.

Them adding late two bangers I really want to see (Claudio vs. PAC and Nyla vs. Statlander) is really exciting, the whole card looks good. I hope my seats aren't low enough that I'm on TV as I'm not an overly vocal fan (of anything) and I don't want to look disinterested even if I am thoroughly entertained on the inside.

I was a big fan of Bray in general, as I like weird characters and outside the box shit. But for those offended, the reason some fans are immediately like "this isn't going to work" is the cinematic spooky killer faction hasn't worked in WWE in 5+ years and honestly even outside WWE is extremely hard to pull off. For a few reasons. First, its hard to have both on the same show. Its difficult to structure an event where one minute Chelsea Green is complaining about management in the back and the next minute two people are dead in Gorilla. Wrestling is mysterious but its a huge gap between "Adam Pearce can't control Bron" (normal storyline) and "people are running around the back murdering people" (not normal storyline). And to somehow combine it onto the same show, they had the problem with Bray's gimmick post-original stable and the same problem persists. The other issue is once the bell rings, in the end these guys are normal wrestlers. So either they have normal matches and its weird that one minute they are leaving people bloody and the next are doing Irish Whips, or they go full Fiend and they are invincible and spit black goo and use giant hammers and its even more weird. Its just really, really hard to pull off and again this isn't WWE-specific but something all promotions struggle with. Lucha Underground arguably did it best but they were a niche bizzaro world show where their entire vibe was spooky weird so it usually worked. As a fan, I am hoping it works and somehow HHH figures out something Vince couldn't but I don't think fans that are skeptical are coming from a place of just being a "hater" but just looking at past history and not being optimistic.

I'm also amazed more of this doesn't leak out, like that Zelda game is DONE. How did no one know about it. (maybe some random reddit poster predicted it but I just mean leaked out to the general press/masses)

For what I assume may be the last Direct focused 100% on upcoming AAA Switch games, I thought they knocked it out of the park. Definitely not a "dying" system (yet) as a new Zelda, a new Mario game, DK remaster, finally Metroid Prime 4, and the fun looking RPGs were all very satisfying announcements.

Insane this game sold 25 million copies. That puts it in the top 50 best selling video games of all time. I love Elden Ring but it just feels too niche to be that popular haha but as someone that mostly plays massive single player games I have to root for their success so developers don't stop making them. FromSoft just showing if you make a game that is polished, challenging, and fun that the people will come.

I don't know if he was just guessing or had a brief talk with Priest, but CM Punk said after the show that he thought Priest had a torn hamstring. Which does seem possible, I kept thinking he hurt his ankle but he could have torn something else with the sudden jerk of the ankle getting caught. I also hope whatever it is, its not serious enough he has to vacate but definitely a concern.

I hadn't seen that type of thing floating around in a couple years, I know Jordynne Grace used to do it. But later on they called it "custom wrestling" as people would pay a decent amount of money and get to choose the outfits, stipulations, etc. for the wrestlers, then they'd tape the match for the buyer and sell it on their site. In theory it doesn't sound bad but many of the matches were structured to be... erotic/fetish leaning if nothing else so it always felt a little scummy to me personally. Seth Rollins did it also but I hadn't seen anything about Becky.

I Quit matches almost never have good endings as there are only two primary choices: face threatens heel with violence, heel quits, face does it anyway, OR heel is about to do something violent to someone face cares about, face quits so they won't, heel does it anyway. Mankind/Rock is special for the sheer brutality and unique ending but there just aren't a lot of choices on how to end it.

I looked it up and you're right, Test got pretty fucking stuck too and not on purpose. Looks like at least he avoided any type of injury.

I've been watching wrestling for 30 years and I can't remember someone's ankle getting stuck on the ropes like that, to the point the referee couldn't even get Priest freed. Course it impacted the match, hope that Priest is ok and it was just an ankle twist and not something more serious. Jade had another rough night, I wonder if they are going to disappear her for a few months for more training. Its not just she makes mistakes here or there, she just seems to get lost at some point every match and its pretty noticeable. None of the matches reached "great" for me but I enjoyed Cody/AJ, Bayley/Niven, and Zayn/Gable. I was shocked Drew lost, I really thought he'd kick out, win, and then pose with the belt while pointing at Punk. Drew is a good sport to lose two straight in the UK, the crowd just completely deflated though.

I still don't really understand why they have PLEs, even "B" Level ones (although Scotland may disagree) with only five matches. I completely understand why people are against AEW's 12+ match PPVs that can run four hours but five matches just seems too few. Especially since WWE has an incredibly deep roster and other storylines going on for RAW and SD, they could have put a couple more matches that made sense and would give the fans more action. Six to Eight always felt like a good sweet spot no one would really complain about, even if a match was on the pre-show. At least all five matches are title matches, and all should get plenty of time so those are two benefits of shorter cards, no fluff, straight to the point. But if I was there live and paid $800 for floor seats I would think I'd just want more bang for my buck. For me casually watching on a Saturday afternoon it'll be fine and I guess it'll be over in time for me to still do something tonight so I'm not really complaining, just a little confused.

I have prime seats to see MJF vs. Rush live, LFG! One benefit of no "regular" PPVs between now and Wembley, and wanting to impress WBD, is they are just giving us extra good shit on Dynamites. Should be a good show next Wednesday, curious on Okada's opponent (assuming I heard that right and he'd also have an Eliminator Match).