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AEW - 2019


Dolfan in NYC

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I'm probably giving Thibs too much credit here, but I think his point is getting somewhat lost here.

Do I watch wrestling because I like good wrestling matches? Yes.

Do I follow promotions because they have good wrestling matches? Not really. I don't watch lots of good rated (and MOTYC) matches because a) I don't have enough time to watch everything and b) I don't really care about someone like Gargano and I'm not going to watch his match even if it gets 8 stars from Dave. Nothing specific about Gargano here, just one of many well rated wrestlers that I don't care about.

So why do I follow certain promotions and not the other ones? Because I like their characters and their stories. Atlantis probably hasn't had "good match" since his return from injury, but I'm always looking forward to his next program and crowds usually turn up as well when he is doing something meaningful. And when/if he is going to have another apuesta match you bet that I'm going to watch it even if it ends up being complete clusterfuck. And I probably will write (or think) about how Atlantis can't go on anymore and all that stuff, but next Friday I'll be looking at cards again to see what he is doing next.

AEW having "good matches" is meaningless to me, because right now I can open youtube and can probably find 200 good matches that I haven't seen yet. And by the time I finish watching them there'll be new 200 good matches uploaded. What do I need is cool premise with cool characters that I can "invest" my time into.

So would I prefer Aries/Cody or Del Rio/Cody? Probably neither because I'm losing interest in Cody and I never was that high on Aries or Del Rio in the first place.

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12 hours ago, Craig H said:

Yeah. Aries isn't what I'd call reliable at all. He's also a head case. 

Austin Aries has burned through numerous bridges like Alberto Del Rio (fuck ADR/AEP) and Low-Ki. Speaking of Aries, has he been back in TNA since dropping the top title to Johnny Impact at Bound for Glory? I thought it was a shoot with Aries at the end. 

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6 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Tennis nets make great ring ropes. They're great for raking someone's face across.

This is starting to sound vaguely like Lionheart.

P.S. Our school improvised ring was the top of the stairwell. 

I don’t know how no one died that year?

The other was the Track & Field crash pads that were set-up under the high jump.

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7 hours ago, Oyaji said:

Aries strikes me as a great idea for AEW because they're going to be so loaded up on the babyface side of things and Aries would be a very good foil to that because he's a real-life dickhead who can work extraordinarily well and is one of the better talkers today. You probably don't want to tie the company's fortunes around the guy but he could be a very versatile and useful option for them. 

 

A rotating cast of heels to fight the Elite might be a good overall thing.   Aries would be a good short-term antagonist.  One of the nice things if AEW takes off and ROH does well is they can both help each other out by rotating guys between them to keep the matchups fresh.

 

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Oh baby - the implication that "Kenny and Jericho are nice little pickups but they need to bring in the RVD/Swaggers of the world to move that needle" is some next level takes. 

I think a little to much focus is being put on the TV ratings and what will draw, which is nebulous. The key is to find a station that a) needs content b) is willing to pay for content c) is committed to a multi-year deal where they are willing to help build a brand and then  d) converting whatever fan base you have watching on TV into spending money on live events or PPVs and on whomever is advertising on the show. 

TNA used to have over a million viewers a week and was still viewed as an embarrassing money-losing failure that couldn't draw on house shows and couldn't convince those viewers to actually order their PPVs. 

Re: BET - I thought it was dumb, snarky Russo-esque shit when I first heard about it but then parachuted in to follow the Cody/Kenny angle (which was built for like six months over two company's TV shows and the online show) and it's good. Aside from humanizing these guys, it's already doing a great job at building Pac/Page, setting up MJF as a hot heel ("fuck Jerry Lynn"), and keeping the buzz going on where Omega is going to end up. The humor can be self-referential and a bit too cute and not all the bits land but as far as building up matches it's doing a great job. 

Also, they showed their DEFY wrestling "invasion" where they all ran in to clean house...okay...it's a smaller indy show that caters to their fanbase but they all came across like the biggest stars in the world and this is EXACTLY what we wanted WWE to do with their Summer of Punk angle by having him show up at random indy shows. I have a hunch that the Elite are going to keep doing these indy show run ins between now and May and it'll just keep building the heat for the show.  

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Thibs went pretty far off that cliff but it's true that it's not really the most important thing whether Austin Aries is good in the ring or not at this point. Doesn't really matter how good a promo he is or how well he can build storylines either. All of their PR indicates that they are trying to build a promotion that is seen as unique and sociopolitically progressive.

Austin Aries is one of the names that is, at least to me, interminably linked with TNA. That he was one of the bright spots in that promotion isn't really the point: AEW cannot be TNA, so it cannot build around TNA's stars.

AEW is also carefully crafting an image, whether sincere or not, of being a company that is a left-leaning ally to marginalized groups. Hiring Aries at all, let alone placing him in a prominent position, would essentially be the company saying "Yeah, we know we said our values would be an important part of this company, but we're bringing him in anyway. It's totally cool that he once shoved his dick in a female announcer's face for botching and has a history of saying sexist and homophobic things on Twitter." Even if you're of the opinion that everything with Johnny and Taya was a work, Aries did NOT come off well and the general public perception of him is NOT favorable.

Also: dude is 40.

It doesn't matter if he's the best in-ring performer in the world (and he's not even kind of close IMO); Aries is a liability.

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14 minutes ago, JohnnyJ said:

To me, the good matches argument is dated. Most wrestlers nowadays can work and regularly produce average to above average matches.

This. There's so many better workers that I'm more drawn to ones that have better gimmicks. 

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3 hours ago, Hagan said:

Oh baby - the implication that "Kenny and Jericho are nice little pickups but they need to bring in the RVD/Swaggers of the world to move that needle" is some next level takes. 

I think a little to much focus is being put on the TV ratings and what will draw, which is nebulous. The key is to find a station that a) needs content b) is willing to pay for content c) is committed to a multi-year deal where they are willing to help build a brand and then  d) converting whatever fan base you have watching on TV into spending money on live events or PPVs and on whomever is advertising on the show. 

TNA used to have over a million viewers a week and was still viewed as an embarrassing money-losing failure that couldn't draw on house shows and couldn't convince those viewers to actually order their PPVs. 

Re: BET - I thought it was dumb, snarky Russo-esque shit when I first heard about it but then parachuted in to follow the Cody/Kenny angle (which was built for like six months over two company's TV shows and the online show) and it's good. Aside from humanizing these guys, it's already doing a great job at building Pac/Page, setting up MJF as a hot heel ("fuck Jerry Lynn"), and keeping the buzz going on where Omega is going to end up. The humor can be self-referential and a bit too cute and not all the bits land but as far as building up matches it's doing a great job. 

Also, they showed their DEFY wrestling "invasion" where they all ran in to clean house...okay...it's a smaller indy show that caters to their fanbase but they all came across like the biggest stars in the world and this is EXACTLY what we wanted WWE to do with their Summer of Punk angle by having him show up at random indy shows. I have a hunch that the Elite are going to keep doing these indy show run ins between now and May and it'll just keep building the heat for the show.  

That was never the implication. My point is that if you’re going to be on a big time network that’s going to have ratings expectations, you need a mix of unknown talent and known names, which allows you to USE the names to get over the unknown talents— MJF, Janella, etc.

In terms of too much focus being put in ratings... my focus is there because its clear that they’re shooting to get on a big network. If they get on TNT, they better perform numbers-wise or they’ll be booted off. 

If they’re on some streaming service, then by all means focus of live events. But if they’re not performing on a big time network, they’ll just be cancelled. 

 

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So I watched an episode of Being the Elite, and Cody Rhodes playing a WCW style exec and just throwing million dollar contracts around is funny. Adam Page going "full gear" at a Denny's was a fun reference to PAC at the rally.

I see why people like these guys. They feel like the Jackass/CKY crew, but with wrestling instead of shopping carts. ...unless there's an episode where they sit in shopping carts and wreck themselves into bushes(linkplz)

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Thibs’ problem is that he still think ratings are primary motivator for TV programming these days.  Outside of the major broadcast networks, that isn’t really the case anymore, hasn’t been for a little while now, and is only going to become less relevant in the coming years.  And even the Big 4 are evolving in that regard, as well.

TV is about content now.  Its about stuffing your library with enough shows that tap into every demographic, every niche audience, that enough people will pay the subscription fee for your streaming service or buy your channel a la cart that you can survive the inevitable cable apocalypse.  That is THE motivator driving every decision in the business right now.

Netflix doesn’t spend billions to make 8,000 shows a year because they expect everyone to watch them.  They do it because they want to have a show for every possible audience, no matter how small, so subscribers will continue plunking down their subscription money.  That’s the name of the game.

If AEW gets a TV deal, it’ll be because the channel sees value is supplying content that satisfies the wrestling niche and adds them to their audience, not because they’re necessarily expecting huge ratings growth.

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3 hours ago, MORELOCK said:

AEW is also carefully crafting an image, whether sincere or not, of being a company that is a left-leaning ally to marginalized groups. Hiring Aries at all, let alone placing him in a prominent position, would essentially be the company saying "Yeah, we know we said our values would be an important part of this company, but we're bringing him in anyway. It's totally cool that he once shoved his dick in a female announcer's face for botching and has a history of saying sexist and homophobic things on Twitter." Even if you're of the opinion that everything with Johnny and Taya was a work, Aries did NOT come off well and the general public perception of him is NOT favorable.

Counterpoint: The Briscoes were on All In.

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On 1/18/2019 at 11:59 PM, Niners Fan in CT said:

Impact did a 4-month long round robin style tournament leading to Bound for Glory and it was always a mess. It was a mess because they had no plan other than who they wanted to win, they didn't know ahead of time how they would get there. But it was also a mess because of shit like injuries.  I don't recommend AEW do anything like that.  All they need to do is have comedy/drama angles that are actually funny and progress logically and then have other feuds that are simply about titles.  Keep it simple.  

The weird thing about that was the timing, because it looked like they were ripping off Chikara's 12 Large tournament.

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1 hour ago, EVA said:

Thibs’ problem is that he still think ratings are primary motivator for TV programming these days.  Outside of the major broadcast networks, that isn’t really the case anymore, hasn’t been for a little while now, and is only going to become less relevant in the coming years.  And even the Big 4 are evolving in that regard, as well.

TV is about content now.  Its about stuffing your library with enough shows that tap into every demographic, every niche audience, that enough people will pay the subscription fee for your streaming service or buy your channel a la cart that you can survive the inevitable cable apocalypse.  That is THE motivator driving every decision in the business right now.

Netflix doesn’t spend billions to make 8,000 shows a year because they expect everyone to watch them.  They do it because they want to have a show for every possible audience, no matter how small, so subscribers will continue plunking down their subscription money.  That’s the name of the game.

If AEW gets a TV deal, it’ll be because the channel sees value is supplying content that satisfies the wrestling niche and adds them to their audience, not because they’re necessarily expecting huge ratings growth.

Sure, but they still do cost-benefit analysis. If nobody (relatively speaking) is watching then they won't spend millions on it.

Like, remember how Lucha Underground first two seasons were picked up by Netflix? But third season wasn't and eventually entire thing was dumped? I think it never was stated officially, but idea clearly was that not many people were watching and Netflix was not interested in keeping it. So just because they need content doesn't mean that they'll take any content.

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8 hours ago, Hagan said:

Oh baby - the implication that "Kenny and Jericho are nice little pickups but they need to bring in the RVD/Swaggers of the world to move that needle" is some next level takes. 

I’m not saying I agree with the “they need RVD/Swagger types,” but they do need the type of guy that casual/lapsed fans already know and are invested in. To me, Jericho fits that perfectly, as do Goldberg and RVD(to a lesser extent). Swagger and ADR are not that type.

On the flip side, I think you could make an argument that signing Kenny is entirely superfluous for AEW(at least in North America). What does he bring to the table that they already have? They’re not going to lose the BTE audience. They’ve got PAC who has more mainstream recognition and is capable of similar matches.  He’s likely to be their highest or next highest paid star unless he cuts them a sweetheart deal.  Honestly, I think his best value for AEW is to take a monster WWE deal and then jump to AEW as a bigger star/household name when that deal is up.  Now, obviously that assumes they’d still be around, but if they aren’t, is there really a scenario where Omega would have kept them open?

Of course, I fully expect him to sign with AEW because that’s where he’ll be happiest, but I don’t see the value for AEW.

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In terms of perception, failing to sign (I'd argue) wrestling's biggest free agent who just happens to be their best friend would torpedo any perception that they're really a big company. The narrative would quickly become that AEW can't sign anyone who WWE remotely wants, that they're a company of castoffs. That's a disaster.

Beyond that, to put it as simply as possible, he's really good. Better than anyone they have. You want guys who are really good.

I also wonder, broadly, if the lapsed/casual fan might be a bunch of white whales. What evidence do we have that people who haven't watched in 20 years would ever do so again? If so, what evidence do we have that signing a couple people they remember will bring them back? I'm honestly not sure I can answer any of that, but it just seems to me discussion around the wrestling industry is always hyper-fixated on this amorphous group of people about whom we know next to nothing for sure. What little we do know is that WWE's fanbase is mostly over 50, which would suggest that the problem isn't really lapsed fans so much as a failure to create new ones.

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57 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

I also wonder, broadly, if the lapsed/casual fan might be a bunch of white whales. What evidence do we have that people who haven't watched in 20 years would ever do so again? If so, what evidence do we have that signing a couple people they remember will bring them back? I'm honestly not sure I can answer any of that, but it just seems to me discussion around the wrestling industry is always hyper-fixated on this amorphous group of people about whom we know next to nothing for sure. What little we do know is that WWE's fanbase is mostly over 50, which would suggest that the problem isn't really lapsed fans so much as a failure to create new ones.

Yes, thank you. I always thought that any lapsed fans that were going to come back have been back for a while. Why wouldn't they be? Wrestling rules right now.

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3 hours ago, EVA said:

Thibs’ problem is that he still think ratings are primary motivator for TV programming these days.  Outside of the major broadcast networks, that isn’t really the case anymore, hasn’t been for a little while now, and is only going to become less relevant in the coming years.  And even the Big 4 are evolving in that regard, as well.

TV is about content now.  Its about stuffing your library with enough shows that tap into every demographic, every niche audience, that enough people will pay the subscription fee for your streaming service or buy your channel a la cart that you can survive the inevitable cable apocalypse.  That is THE motivator driving every decision in the business right now.

Netflix doesn’t spend billions to make 8,000 shows a year because they expect everyone to watch them.  They do it because they want to have a show for every possible audience, no matter how small, so subscribers will continue plunking down their subscription money.  That’s the name of the game.

If AEW gets a TV deal, it’ll be because the channel sees value is supplying content that satisfies the wrestling niche and adds them to their audience, not because they’re necessarily expecting huge ratings growth.

You may be right to an extent... but I don’t think so. To me, people who make that argument do so to excuse shows that don’t draw numbers. I still think ratings are the be all end all especially with the big networks. Neither one of us know for sure so we’ll have to see what happens.

if you look at other companies, Impact lost 2/3 of the audience over last summer/fall and were off POP within a few months. 

If they go on TNT and draw 300k, they’ll be off that network so fast their head will spin IMO. And I don’t know that putting on a show without names people will know will do much better than that. 

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1 hour ago, Archibald said:

Sure, but they still do cost-benefit analysis. If nobody (relatively speaking) is watching then they won't spend millions on it.

 

I mean, yeah, if nobody watches, it won’t last.  But I’m gonna to out on a limb and say that “more than nobody” will watch this.

And it’s not necessarily the case that a small audience is a death knell either.  A relatively small, but passionate audience can keep a show on the air for a long time in the content age, because the channel/service knows it can count on those people’s money.  And everybody charts success differently.

The CW is famous for renewing shows for multiple seasons that draw the type of ratings that wouldn’t last multiple *episodes* on other channels.  Why?  Because they value social media metrics over traditional ratings.  As long as a show is loving the needle socially, they think it has value for their audience (which is young, socially engaged, etc.)

HBO is famous for valuing the prestige a show brings to their brand over ratings.  Before GOT, a show that HBO considered a “hit” often did numbers that wouldn’t last elsewhere.

TBS (a rumored landing spot for AEW) has been one of the most progressive channels for a while.  Back when they signed Conan O’Brien, one of their execs opined that the future of TV was less about how *many* people watch your show but rather how passionately engaged the audience of you show is.  The trends have proved whoever that was right.  TBS does all kinds of crazy shit that circumnvents traditional programming now, like upload an entire new season of a show before the first episode has even aired so people can watch it however they want—watch it week by week traditionally or binge it all at once.

There really are no rules in TV right now, and I think it would be unwise to assume AEW has to do this-this-and-this to be successful.  They just have to find the right partner for the show they want to make.

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What I am excited about is that Kahn seems to understand the importance of making the show feel spontaneous and unpredictable. And by all accounts it’ll be LIVE (another indication that viewership will be of importance). 

I think that if you can hit the right note on that end, and build stories from beginning to end, while at the same time putting out great matches, you can have the best of both worlds. 

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3 hours ago, jaedmc said:

So I watched an episode of Being the Elite, and Cody Rhodes playing a WCW style exec and just throwing million dollar contracts around is funny. Adam Page going "full gear" at a Denny's was a fun reference to PAC at the rally.

I see why people like these guys. They feel like the Jackass/CKY crew, but with wrestling instead of shopping carts. ...unless there's an episode where they sit in shopping carts and wreck themselves into bushes(linkplz)

You didn’t mention the best part which was smarmy MJF kissing Cody’s ass and then being a douche to everyone as soon as Cody isn’t around. 

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