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All Elite Wrestling 2019


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It's true. Don't get me wrong, Big Dave set the events in motion and Cody and the Bucks worked very hard and made all the right moves. But they weren't drawing even half those size crowds with ROH or NJPW. 

The show itself was the draw.

Now the draw is "we're creating a mainstream promotion to rival the WWE and don't you want to be a part of that?"

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Everything with Omega and Ibushi is fascinating. It's very old school in the way it completely blurs the line between kayfabe and reality. You have people swear they are/have been a real life couple/are best friends/business partners. 

On the other hand, there's this idea that everything about their team is performative and just a long-form angle that they keep simmering for an eventual major money match. It's really unique to modern day wrestling. 

Re: All In. What is fascinating about the success of All In and the (somewhat theoretical success) of AEW is the notion of brand building. I think there are a large segment of wrestling fans who when they hear ROH or Impact or insert whatever non-WWE name they immediately think minor league. To wit, my older brother is in his late 40s and has been watching wrestling since before I was born. He loved WCW, ECW, WWF during the day but since then has just mainly watched WWE and doesn't really fuck with what he considers lesser companies. 

However, he is PUMPED about AEW and is calling me up and asking about these guys, speculating on who they can sign etc. I think a big draw of these guys is it seems new and major league and that appeals to a large portion of wrestling fans who even when seeing these same guys in ROH still think it all comes off as minor league and a large reason for that is these companies have basically been feeder systems for the WWE for over a decade.

 

Edit - addendum - fwiw, I think everything Ibushi/Omega say in public is in character and designed to further an angle, even in a long-form way. 

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3 hours ago, alstein said:

Tye Dillinger is exactly the kind of guy you don't want to be picking up as AEW, except as enhancement/lower-midcard talent.  He just has no real value to a national company other than roster filler.

Oh yeah, no way in hell is Tye Dillinger a "lost main eventer" or someone that should be brought in at the upper half of the card. But he is just credible enough where he would be valuable as a gatekeeper/first feud for newer talent they are trying to establish. 

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3 hours ago, alstein said:

Tye Dillinger is exactly the kind of guy you don't want to be picking up as AEW, except as enhancement/lower-midcard talent.  He just has no real value to a national company other than roster filler.

Oh yeah, no way in hell is Tye Dillinger a "lost main eventer" or someone that should be brought in at the upper half of the card. But he is just credible enough where he would be valuable as a gatekeeper/first feud for newer talent they are trying to establish. 

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For him to leave WWE, wait out whatever non compete he has, wait for AEW to get a TV deal, and then pretty much have to reinvent himself for the idk, umpteenth time... I hope to not see him in the main event picture either. He's had a fun gimmick and is recognizable to wrestling fans but I dont think anyone really cares that much to see him be a prominent player in AEW.

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2 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

That's called promoting. 

They promoted the experience of seeing a non-WWE show with a 10,000 person crowd which became the draw, sure. They did not promote themselves as these big box office attractions, it was always the concept that drew attention. And then all the talent wanted in once they saw it trending so much. It was just as much a show promoted by the internet fanbase as it was promoted by Cody. They certainly were not his fanbase before this started. 

AEW is the same thing. It will never be about Cody or the Bucks. It will always be about being a mainstream alternative to WWE. And they will succeed, not because people enjoy the Bucks or Cody, but because fans want a mainstream alternative to WWE.

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3 hours ago, peachchaos said:

The draw for All In was "we're putting on a show with 10, 000 fans and don't you want to be a part of that?"

Had nothing to do with any of the talent or promoters. 

It was totally a "if you build it, they will come" situation. Somehow it worked.

If you're making the 'Glastonbury sells out no matter who is headlining' argument (it does, tickets go on sale months before any performers are announced; that's why people got pissed off about the Jay-Z thing. They were expecting a festival headline act, not an unknown in Britain rap act who had one (shite) novelty hit single a decade previous, and was only famous because of his wife or if you really liked Linkin Park. Which he was, at that time, in the UK. He's famous now though).

Now I could see that if you were talking about Wrestlemania, because it is an event that sells because of it's historical name and status. What's a better Mania main event, Hulk Hogan vs Steve Austin, or James Ellsworth vs Enzo Amore? It's a tie. Both matches would sell out Mania, because Mania always sells out regardless. But All In wasn't Mania. It's one thing to make a massive huge leap when you've got a lot of momentum. All In was a massive jump from a standing start. And it's success defies logic.

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3 hours ago, peachchaos said:

They promoted the experience of seeing a non-WWE show with a 10,000 person crowd which became the draw, sure. 

Except if you don't have the talent and the right marketing (obviously part of promotion), no one is going to come to your vanity project to get 10,000 folks in the first goddamn place. Dave Meltzer's bet didn't sell 10,000 tickets so we don't have to discredit the fact they did a great job with their card and promoting the event. If that didn't go right, it doesn't set the wheels in motions for AEW. It would be like saying the UFC is around today with a 1.5 billion TV deal with ESPN just because folks wanted to see a MMA reality show in 2004. That's incredibly simplistic. 

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If you believe Tony Khan, AEW in whatever form it would have been in without the Bucks, Cody, Omega, etc. was going to happen one way or another. All In supposedly sped up the process and those names then got attached, but, again, if you believe what he says - he was looking into opening a promotion before All In was even an idea.

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2 minutes ago, Casey said:

If you believe Tony Khan, AEW in whatever form it would have been in without the Bucks, Cody, Omega, etc. was going to happen one way or another. All In supposedly sped up the process and those names then got attached, but, again, if you believe what he says - he was looking into opening a promotion before All In was even an idea.

I'm safely assuming it would not be called AEW because that's calling your shot. So the fact remains.

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2 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I'm safely assuming it would not be called AEW because that's calling your shot. So the fact remains.

Well, yeah, obviously. That's why I said "AEW in whatever form it would have been", obviously implying that the name ALL ELITE wouldn't exist. I don't really know if I believe Khan in that statement, though. I'm sure he was thinking about doing it, but it wouldn't have made sense to do it at any other time before All In.

I don't know what I'm trying to say anymore. Uhhhhhh... let's talk about Brandon Cutler some more.

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Just now, Casey said:

Well, yeah, obviously. That's why I said "AEW in whatever form it would have been", obviously implying that the name ALL ELITE wouldn't exist. I don't really know if I believe Khan in that statement, though. I'm sure he was thinking about doing it, but it wouldn't have made sense to do it at any other time before All In.

I don't know what I'm trying to say anymore. Uhhhhhh... let's talk about Brandon Cutler some more.

There are as many money marks in pro wrestling as there are in MMA and boxing etc waiting like vultures when there are free agents ready to be snatched up. I can't say he is lying knowing that, but if All In failed, he would be waiting quite a long time for something that actually wouldn't be a failed experiment or DOA from the start. 

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4 hours ago, AxB said:

And it's success defies logic.

It defies old school logic that ignores the influence of social media, absolutely. And I'm not using the Glastonbury or Mania argument because as you said, this is brand new territory and hose events have been going for decades. Meltzer challenged them to do something that had not been done in 20 years. The tweet was the conception. None of this happens without it because Twitter is bigger than wrestling and Dave has the most influential wrestling account on Twitter. People saw the tweet, they dug the concept of the challenge, and they were hooked. The Bucks and Cody probably knew within the first week based on the social media numbers where this was headed.

So Twitter created AEW and the Jaguars should pay them dividends basically.

 

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