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AEW - 2019


Dolfan in NYC

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12 minutes ago, OctopusCinema said:

Jericho is already reinventing himself into drunk Orson Welles.

That actually would be a great idea. Sad old rocker Jericho is funny, but it becomes painfully sad once you get past 3 matches. Too bad it’ll kill whatever spirit Damian Sandow has left, who was brilliant in that role.

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18 hours ago, Thibs said:

So the ticket announcement party this week will be held at the pool at the MGM Grand Hotel. 

Given that there’s a bar in every corner of that pool, I wonder if hammered Jericho shows up. 

Between all these announcement parties and sending most of the big names to the Super Bowl,  I hope Tony Khan is hiding his expense reports from his dad 

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4 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

Has anyone made Darby Allin/All In puns yet? Anyway, they should sign him.

I have a feeling Darby is on the WWE’s radar given his Evolve matches against NXT guys. It would amusingly petty for him to sign to NXT and be hyped up with “Are you #Allin?” vignettes.

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1 hour ago, hammerva said:

Between all these announcement parties and sending most of the big names to the Super Bowl,  I hope Tony Khan is hiding his expense reports from his dad 

If your dad is a goddamn multi billionaire (thus making you a billionaire), you could snort cocaine through a PVC pipe by the kilo in Vegas and not make a sizable dent in your fortune. 

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I get why they do it since they don’t actually have show yet.... but all this stuff they’re doing in high school gyms and reck centers in front of 200 people isn’t doing them any favors, perception wise.

Makes Cody and Co. come off as thinking they’re a bigger deal than they are. 

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It is also—and I mean this in the nicest way possible—pandering to their base. This is the “we’ve just signed to a major label, but are still playing basement shows and dive bars to prove we’re still punk—really” phase. Maybe that makes it sound a bit corny and try-hard, but given that their success has been because of abnormally high fan engagement/investment, that’s the sort of thing they’ll have to keep doing. I also don’t think anyone watching BTE is the sort of fan to begrudge the aesthetics of indie wrestling.

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35 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

It is also—and I mean this in the nicest way possible—pandering to their base. This is the “we’ve just signed to a major label, but are still playing basement shows and dive bars to prove we’re still punk—really” phase. Maybe that makes it sound a bit corny and try-hard, but given that their success has been because of abnormally high fan engagement/investment, that’s the sort of thing they’ll have to keep doing. I also don’t think anyone watching BTE is the sort of fan to begrudge the aesthetics of indie wrestling.

Sure, the people that already watch won’t begrudge. But if your run of the mill wrestling fan hears of this new AEW, YouTube’s them and sees Cody in his suit pandering in front of 200 hardcores in some sweatbox somewhere... ehhh..... doesn’t exactly match up with this notion of this big new company backed by a billionaire. 

And again, I get that’s pretty much the only thing they can do at this point. 

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They are also doing a big event at a pretty prestigious Las Vegas hotel/casino in the near future which should get some mainstream publicity. I think right now they are doing a pretty good job hitting both the grassroots and mainstream in terms of marketing up to this point...with the mainstream side getting ramped up as they get closer to Double or Nothing.

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14 minutes ago, Infinit said:

They are also doing a big event at a pretty prestigious Las Vegas hotel/casino in the near future which should get some mainstream publicity. I think right now they are doing a pretty good job hitting both the grassroots and mainstream in terms of marketing up to this point...with the mainstream side getting ramped up as they get closer to Double or Nothing.

Certain people don't want to admit to that. They just want to point out that showing up at small indy shows won't bring in this mythical casual audience that doesn't exist. If you weren't a diehard in 1998-2001, and checked out after ECW and WCW died, nothing is bringing you back. 

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47 minutes ago, Thibs said:

Sure, the people that already watch won’t begrudge. But if your run of the mill wrestling fan hears of this new AEW, YouTube’s them and sees Cody in his suit pandering in front of 200 hardcores in some sweatbox somewhere... ehhh..... doesn’t exactly match up with this notion of this big new company backed by a billionaire. 

And again, I get that’s pretty much the only thing they can do at this point. 

I think our perpetual disconnect comes from this “run of the mill wrestling fan” notion. You’re imagining some silent majority that watches WWE (or doesn’t but theoretically likes wrestling), but would be interested in watching another promotion, but has never made any attempt to do so such that they might know what indie wrestling looks like, googles AEW anyway, watches a YouTube show with an unrelated name starring nameless people who are nonetheless treated like big stars, only it’s a small number of people reacting thus, and you’d hoped for a bigger and cleaner arena product, so you decide against checking back. When Chris Evans pops into a comic book store, he doesn’t seem small; when Metallica plays a dive, they don’t look small. Of course Cody and the Bucks aren’t that famous, but the lesson applies.

Anyway, I think we’re going to keep going in circles about this kind of thing, since my perception is that you’d have them chasing ghosts, and you think I’d have them chasing a shrinking niche. The premises are too far apart to come to a similar conclusion.

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6 minutes ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Or maybe the culture just moved on. 

Had the product stayed the same and people still left in droves, you’d have a point.

But it changed. And people left.

It would be like a pizza restaurant changing all their recipes and products, and then losing business, and the owner throwing his hands up and saying “Idk, I guess people just got tired of pizza. The culture’s moved on ??‍♂️“. 

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The WCW audience left because the WWE's booking of the InVasion angle was so shit and squashy. And they didn't come back for ROH, or TNA, or any of the money mark start-up promotions. 

But I disagree that Wrestling (meaning WWE) books for the smarks. Most smarks think WWE booking is a load of shite and they just push their favourites regardless of what the fans want.

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12 minutes ago, Thibs said:

Had the product stayed the same and people still left in droves, you’d have a point.

But it changed. And people left.

It would be like a pizza restaurant changing all their recipes and products, and then losing business, and the owner throwing his hands up and saying “Idk, I guess people just got tired of pizza. The culture’s moved on ??‍♂️“. 

But it wasn't like that at all. People were gradually leaving while nuts were still getting strapped to car batteries. 

They had a couple hot stars in the late 90s but they were gone pretty quickly and people just started growing up and moving on. A lot of the edgy garbage stayed in the product for a few years afterward, but it became clear that the secret sauce just wasn't that appealing anymore. The cycle ended. That window closed.  We're the morons who stayed when the party was long over. 

Now give me the business about smark culture or workrate or vanilla midgets or whatever so I can move on. 

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