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AEW Dynamite - 4/7/2021


Dolfan in NYC

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Should be noted that AEW was ranked No. 5, while NXT was No.11 in the top 50.

With NXT moving to Tuesdays...there should be less siphoning of fans. Remains to be seen what numbers both shows get next week on their respective nights.

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55 minutes ago, The Great ML said:

Bucks and Omega are not good at professional wrestling...at least my preferred version of what pro wrestling is.

I had such high hopes for this company...but it needs a real booker and people who aren’t afraid to say NO.

Couldn’t agree more. And while I can appreciate letting guys run with their own ideas, the problem is that too many wrestlers have the same ideas in AEW.

I don’t know how many times they’ve had the same storyline with different people going on at the same time.

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I don't see anything wrong with the amount of groups. I think it's pretty cool. Gives people something to do. And as to the notion that there's too many people thrown on tv every week... Do you guys want the WWE over exposed burnout? Because that is what you get. 

I like what they're doing with the talent. I don't need to see everyone every week... Especially in this era of "get your shit in"... Because F- that. I don't need to see the sale topé con whatever every week in the same spot in a match. That is a huge part of what I hate about the modern product. Keeping stuff like that limited exposure wise is what keeps acts interesting. 

Right now I think they have Fenix out there too much. Especially for a style like his, you need to keep that "wow" factor or you end up desensitizing the audience.

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While I understand the point that you don’t want  to over expose your talent, you also make it very hard for anyone to build momentum week to week if it is a month between appearances. Has Thunder Rosa shown up since her star making match with Baker? No and it’s been three weeks so is her momentum up or down as a result? Is Scorpio Sky better off now that he turned heel, disappeared (again) and now is back with Ethan Page? Yes, you need to cycle talent so we are excited to see them again but why employ Will Hobbs if he hasn’t worked on television in 2021? Doesn’t that tell you the roster is too big and the only way some of these people exist at all on Dynamite is because they walk out with other people?

I totally agree about dialing back on some spots because they’ve gotten over exposed.

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Proof is in the pudding really. They’ve been haemorrhaging fans. Shaq episode apart (since which they’ve lost more & more viewers every week without fail), they’re down roughly 15~20% on viewership for same period last year, and as much as 50%+ on viewership from their first episodes in ‘fall 19.

There was a lot of excuse making for quite a long time about a fairly significant amount of terrible decisions. Nepotism and favours-for-friends has clearly been rife. That rating this week is one of the 10 worst they’ve had, and in real-terms one of the very worst as previous 600s ratings were mostly during height of riots or presidential election coverage. It’s a very high intensity profession and endeavour; if they don’t address problems now then things escalate quickly. At the outset it was a really cool concept and obviously there are still great elements mingled in, so I really hope they get their shit together. I think Khan becoming an on-screen personality after steadfast saying he’d be away from that at the beginning is a very bad look. I think strapping the belts onto the EVPs is a very bad look. These are not decisions that give the impression of a neutral, fair-minded management of the product.

Next week looks good to me. They’ve got a ton of athletic, attractive, cool young roster members. Get the shine on them & stay away from the bombardment of faction bullshit & dweeb-chaos. I really hope they take advantage of NXT moving away and get this straight. Fuck the egos and run what works. Whatever the fuck that Main was ain’t it.

Edited by A_K
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My basic thoughts on the booking is it sometimes gets really wonky in the short term, sometimes moving way too fast and sometimes just crawling along.

But the long term booking has been stellar. I think they could use someone to fine tune the format each week, but they often have clear visions for 3, 6, and 12 months down the road, and that helps a lot.

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I think they need to come to realize that not all of their fans watch all of their product so Dynamite needs to be self contained to the point even first time watchers can follow what’s happening.

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I think you're making too much of the ratings. They will not have direct wrestling competition starting next week and it seems like they're determined to start touring again in the summer. I know some people just don't watch wrestling without crowds. The two friends of mine who are into wrestling don't. I try to convince them to watch AEW when it's really firing but nope. One will check out the PPVs but that's it.

If it's not your preferred style of wrestling, I get that. That's fine. I wish they did some things differently and I'll bitch on it here but it feels like we're focusing on one sub-par outing and forgetting the fantastic TV they've been featuring the past month plus. Last week was an all-timer for me, and the three weeks prior all had outstanding main events and featured good stuff throughout most of the shows. The big problems are pretty easy to spot and most of them have been pointed out over and over again. We'll see if they pivot and try to adjust like they have in the past with a lot of their mistakes. If we see them, they see them. The Bucks were basically saying don't troll us or we'll quit twitter again last night, so it's obvious to me that they know it didn't go over well. Both Omega and the Bucks are loved by the cagematch users and that match is currently sitting at 4.65/10, lol.

I'm typically not one to defend stuff like this and I know it'll irritate some of you but the last page of comments seems like hyperbole. I've said it before and Fowler just made the point too. They know where they're going and the destination is excellent. They need to get better at the week-to-week attention to detail stuff because while they do an admirable job most of the time it's pretty obvious to see when they fumble it. The Omega/Page feud is what this all will boil down to and that has been handled exceptionally well imo. If you don't like Hangman associating with the Dark Order, that's fair, but you should be able to see at least why they've chosen that path. I don't think there's anybody here who enjoyed last night's shenanigans despite the match being good in spite of the bullshit, but the Bucks and Omega needed to get back together so they can work babyface Hangman and the Dark Order. The end game of all this is to crown babyface ass kicking Hangman and for him to be the face of the company and feud with guys like MJF after MJF presumably beats Jericho 1v1 at DoN or All Out (anybody else shocked they're giving Blood & Guts away for free instead of PPV? That was originally the plan though, was it not? Maybe I shouldn't be surprised). I could see a scenario where Cody fucks off to Hollywood or TV purgatory and Omega goes back to Japan leaving the Bucks as the only EVPs around. I don't think it's likely but it's possible and the company has done a great job in elevating guys like Darby, MJF, Jungle Boy (less so but that's coming, get him away from that green jabroni) and creating a midcard full of valuable people who can main event when given the right build like OC and John Silver. That was one of the major complaints of early AEW: they have some good top end talent but there isn't enough going on with the midcard in terms of established names. They've made their own midcarders that could one day be elevated. I was bitching weekly of the women's division and while I don't agree with still a lot of how it's booked, there has been a lot of progress made there and the future looks bright. Tay Conti has developed into a solid worker with superstar potential. Britt Baker went from channel changer to must see in and out of the ring. Thunder Rosa was the lynchpin for a lot of the improvement. They've got those three, Shida, Nyla, Jade Cargill, Mizunami, Statlander, and Riho in addition to some promising women like Red Velvet. 

It is a flawed show. I think we all had huge expectations for the company and while many of us had to shift what AEW was to become, I'm enjoying watching it week in and week out more than I have any North American show since '96-'97 Nitro as a kid. 

For those that are saying they think Omega and the Bucks are bad at pro wrestling, this includes the matches like Omega/Pac, Omega/Fenix, Bucks/FTR, Bucks/Lucha Bros? I'm assuming you wouldn't have liked the Revolution tag between the Bucks and Hangman/Omega. But you just don't like their style flat out? Or is it the melodrama? I completely get not liking last night's shit but just their overall presentation and work? Do you like other modern wrestling? I prefer '90s violence where it was starting to expand on what the territory era had done but I don't know if you can go back to that era and style of wrestling.

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33 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

My basic thoughts on the booking is it sometimes gets really wonky in the short term, sometimes moving way too fast and sometimes just crawling along.

But the long term booking has been stellar. I think they could use someone to fine tune the format each week, but they often have clear visions for 3, 6, and 12 months down the road, and that helps a lot.

Sure, you can explain the arcs in a way which makes sense. But it's the "we're making a ten hour movie" problem that's plagued a lot of scripted TV over the last decade: If you're making a ten hour arc, but most of the individual episodes are a slog, all you've made is a slog. And week-to-week, that's about all they've had with the stories of Omega, the Bucks, and Page. Blessedly Page is seemingly coming out of that funk. But I don't watch live television in three, six, or twelve month chunks or binges. I watch it weekly, and I expect it to be compelling when I watch it, not when I reflect a year from now on how the showrunner sat down and plotted shit out. 

Blessedly there's enough good on these shows to outweigh the bad. But in terms of the way these specific characters are presented, I think it's been nothing but hot, sweaty swamp-ass on a weekly basis most of the time. I don't care how well Tony and the gang plot things a year out from a thirty thousand foot view, I can't be arsed to care about these moody dweebs and their fee fees on a weekly basis. 

At least Cody did a good job building Darby. One of the EVPs has a clue. Sometimes...

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God I wish you guys had an "Is AEW GOOD or BAD?" thread to put all this navel-gazing in. It would still end up filling every Dynamite thread and the regular thread too though I'm sure. 

Anyway, the Drake/Allin match was fine, Drake is plain but will stomp your ass. Conti/Bunny was alright too though the Tay-KO is the most ridiculous move I've seen in quite awhile. 

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I wish we could hang a big “Mission Accomplished” banner over all the AEW forums.  Starting next week the “war” is over.  Hey, I want as many eyes on wrestling as possible too.  We are not advertisers.  All it amounts to is people looking like children as they try and blow out their birthday candles so their wishes will come true.  That is the relationship fans have with ratings.  Thank God this horse race is over.

Ratings can go back to meaning a little less than they did Wednesday nights in the before time, long long ago...in September 2019.

What is important is the ridiculous “ arms race” for talent that WWE never wants to lose.  That is why there is so much talent working a two hour wrestling program.  

Should Tony K hold up on signing new talent then WWE and their zest for life will just sign twenty people at once “just because” while some of the best talent anywhere is left to rot on the vine...WWE exclusive vine, of course.

Did WWE really need to gut the UK wrestling scene entirely just because WoS was starting back up? AEW wasn’t even a fantasy in Matt Jackson’s notes for BTE when a huge swath of my brothers and sisters of the Commonwealth were swept up during spring cleaning for NXT/TPC.

Coach Tony K remembers.  That is why they NEED as much talent signed as they currently have...and maybe more! 

 

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3 minutes ago, Ryan Faulconer said:

Ratings can go back to meaning a little less than they did Wednesday nights in the before time, long long ago...in September 2019

When AEW doesn't pull a million or whatever, the end is nigh talk will keep happening. But when the same happens for NXT, nothing will be said. The mere fact that a free Takeover was airing head-to-head with Dynamite and AEW only "lost" or whatever by 12K is kind of proof that these shows don't have the same audience and the move for NXT to Tuesdays is going to do little to nothing in viewership numbers for either show. There will be a slight increase, for both probably, but nothing huge. AEW will occasionally have segments that hit 1m viewers, but members of this board that actually think AEW can grow to hit 1m on a consistent basis through good booking, or whatever, are kidding themselves. RAW and Smackdown only do those numbers because they're legacy shows attached to a brand that IS pro wrestling in North America, for better or worse.

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LOVED Drake's performance in that match, he's still one of my boys.

I hate the Bucks even more now. It's not like they're even trying these days to make them likeable, they've pretty much given up and acknowledge they're natural heels.

I'm okay with Tyson being friends with Jericho again.

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42 minutes ago, The Green Meanie said:

LOVED Drake's performance in that match, he's still one of my boys.

I hate the Bucks even more now. It's not like they're even trying these days to make them likeable, they've pretty much given up and acknowledge they're natural heels.

I'm okay with Tyson being friends with Jericho again.

The AEW Bucks are the worst babyface in AEW.  Callis is right.  The best Bucks are the New Japan/PWG Bucks.  They were really great as foreign heel flashy juniors.  Their best matches are only in New Japan or PWG multi-mans.  AEW Bucks are good but I’d rather watch two of the three Dark Order teams than Matt & Nick in two on two bouts.

I always thought the Bucks were pretty likeable on BTE.  I haven’t seen more than a couple BTEs since Brodie Lee passed away.  

Then again I used to watch WCTT’s show on the ‘tube way back in 2015-2016.  Joey Ryan is pretty damn sleazy but he seemed like an act back then.  I was very very wrong.

I don’t know what to think about Mike Tyson in 2021. People deserve second chances but he was a pretty messed up dude for a long time.  That isn’t even considering his rape conviction.  I figured -1 would be kept off the show for sure.  I was wrong...again.

Edited by Ryan Faulconer
Tyson is gonna eat your children
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For me, that was a good, solid two hour pro wrestling show, with the action between D'arby and Drake being the biggest highlight. 

Oh, cool. My autocorrect remembers Terence Trent D'Arby! I'm just gonna leave that in. And maybe look up "Wishing Well" on youtube once I'm done posting this.

I think it's a good sign that AEW has set such a high standard in recent weeks that a merely "good" show is seen as a real clunker.

I have to agree with the general consensus that the main event melodrama really didn't connect for me. Still, I have faith that it's gonna lead to something I will enjoy.

I agree with @Brian Fowlerthat the overall course of the company seems to be well plotted out. I sympathise with @John from Cincinnatiand others who's like things to be more tightly controlled and to have every show firing on all cylinders on a week to week basis. 

However, I think that the occasional "clunker" is the price you have to pay for allowing freedom of self-expression  and creativity. I'd planned to go into that in detail in that thread I started, but then I got too busy for longform think pieces... 

tl/dr version: I'm happy with long form planning that leaves room for the wrestlers to have a lot of creative short-term input and don't mind if it means there is some overlap between stories, some repetition, and the occasional bit that falls flat. The alternative seems to be a too-tightly-controlled "product" where what we'd complain about instead is individual wrestlers being held down and/or held back. I'd rather AEW err too far in their current direction. YMMV, which is fine, but AEW gonna AEW and that is also fine.

I also find it interesting that several of the people complaining about the show in this thread unironically use the word "product" to talk about pro wrestling.

@Curt McGirt: I tried to start a "naval gazing" thread but I got busy and neglected it and it got closed down (which I am 100 percent fine with). It really might be worth someone starting up a new one, though. That kind of discussion is not everyone's cup of tea, obviously, but some of us genuinely do enjoy it.

 

Edited by El Gran Gordi
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3 hours ago, Goodear said:

While I understand the point that you don’t want  to over expose your talent, you also make it very hard for anyone to build momentum week to week if it is a month between appearances. Has Thunder Rosa shown up since her star making match with Baker? No and it’s been three weeks so is her momentum up or down as a result? Is Scorpio Sky better off now that he turned heel, disappeared (again) and now is back with Ethan Page? Yes, you need to cycle talent so we are excited to see them again but why employ Will Hobbs if he hasn’t worked on television in 2021? Doesn’t that tell you the roster is too big and the only way some of these people exist at all on Dynamite is because they walk out with other people?

I totally agree about dialing back on some spots because they’ve gotten over exposed.

Thunder Rosa is still under contract to nwa. Now that they’ve started back up she may not be available to AEW right now..,

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4 hours ago, Goodear said:

While I understand the point that you don’t want  to over expose your talent, you also make it very hard for anyone to build momentum week to week if it is a month between appearances. Has Thunder Rosa shown up since her star making match with Baker? No and it’s been three weeks so is her momentum up or down as a result? Is Scorpio Sky better off now that he turned heel, disappeared (again) and now is back with Ethan Page? Yes, you need to cycle talent so we are excited to see them again but why employ Will Hobbs if he hasn’t worked on television in 2021? Doesn’t that tell you the roster is too big and the only way some of these people exist at all on Dynamite is because they walk out with other people?

I totally agree about dialing back on some spots because they’ve gotten over exposed.

 

Rosa might be busy with NWA commitments- using part-timers can put things out of your control.   Will Hobbs is mostly doing dark, he's rather do that than sit at home, and it's better to have a Will Hobbs in reserve than nothing.

 

Also with COVID, you don't know if half your roster will test positive and you end up with Main Event of Fuego Del Sol vs Ten.  During the early days of the pandemic, AEW deliberately had half their roster in reserve just in case the main roster had an outbreak so they'd be able to keep putting on a show, for AEW that TV money is what keeps them afloat, they don't have the network that allows WWE to do nothing and make money.

 

 

Edited by alstein
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