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AEW - APR 2022


The Natural

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My guys:

Danielson, Kingston, Miro, Tony Schiavone, Penta taunting

 

Not My Guys:

The Acclaimed, Alex Abrahantes, Sammy Guevara as a face and making doin it on belt jokes, Dan Lambert sometimes, Penta not taunting.

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My guys: Danielson, FTR, MJF, The Acclaimed, Wardlow, Thunder Rosa, TayJay, Team Taz, The Butcher, The Blade, and the Bunny

Not my guys: Young Bucks, Adam Cole, everyone in the dark order (except Anna Jay), the Best Friends

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Just now, TheVileOne said:

Tony Khan gift wrapping and FedExing Cody Rhodes overnight and paying all the S&H fees to WWE is probably the stupidest thing he's ever done. 

I think Cody is a bigger gain for WWE than a loss for AEW. AEW will be fine. 

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26 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I think Cody is a bigger gain for WWE than a loss for AEW. AEW will be fine. 

Yes. Honestly think that it was the best thing for everyone involved.

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1 hour ago, sabremike said:

Yes. Honestly think that it was the best thing for everyone involved.

Absolutely, Cody badly needed a refresh elsewhere and I think that AEW shows have flowed better without him the last two months. Also, I would be surprised if the son of Dusty is not eventually back in AEW in a few years.

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1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I think Cody is a bigger gain for WWE than a loss for AEW. AEW will be fine. 

Yeah, Cody being gone from AEW is addition by subtraction. AEW's roster is overloaded as it is and no more of his cringe-inducing segments give more time for newer and more interesting people. He'll have to tone his schtick down in WWE and freshen that scene up a little while not indulging his more annoying tendencies.

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3 hours ago, HumanChessgame said:

Yeah, Cody being gone from AEW is addition by subtraction. AEW's roster is overloaded as it is and no more of his cringe-inducing segments give more time for newer and more interesting people. He'll have to tone his schtick down in WWE and freshen that scene up a little while not indulging his more annoying tendencies.

How so? Even at the time of his exit, he was still one of AEW's top names and draws. Letting Cody leave when you built a large portion of your show around him and let him do whatever he wants, and in his final AEW segment let him say he BUILT THE FORBIDDEN DOOR is massively idiotic. 

It's not an addition by subtraction unless he was purposefully sabotaging the product and causing toxicity behind the scenes. 

This feels like a massive blunder. AEW just handed, literally handed, WWE one of their top draws on a silver platter. Guys who left WWE either hated working there by the end or were absolutely buried by bad creative before getting quietly released. AEW should not have allowed this to happen to themselves.

 

Edited by TheVileOne
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Is it bad that he was allowed to say he built the forbidden door? (beyond the fact that it became very annoying as a thing to constantly reference very quickly)

I'm not unsympathetic to the idea that Tony Khan needs to impose a bit more message discipline and consistency on his product, but is Rhodes referring to a nebulous concept that got invoked on TV nearly every week, in a rambling promo about nothing much where he came across as a bit of an idiot, that big a deal? If anything it seems that Cody being allowed to have his own little sandbox was just the cost of doing business to keep a guy who was to some degree a draw and liked by the network etc, but as we've seen that all became too much of a pain in the ass for everyone involved and it's been resolved in a way that's probably best for everyone.

The alternative would have been either not working with Cody in the first place, or changing everyone's name, insisting on giving them music you own, and having bullshit 90 day no competes, which would just be pushing AEW into being a company nobody particularly wants them to be

 

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I’m assuming that both sides assumed they would continue to work together and it wasn’t until contract negotiations that it was clear both sides were miles a part. Within kayfabe and television segments, the plans could have involved more Cody.

Which it could be said that continuing to heavily use a talent you don’t actually have locked down is criticizable. It seems that Tony Kahn is a big risk taker when operating on good faith. The surprise that ended up being Christian was announced before he actually signed.

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4 minutes ago, Octopus said:

I’m assuming that both sides assumed they would continue to work together and it wasn’t until contract negotiations that it was clear both sides were miles a part. Within kayfabe and television segments, the plans could have involved more Cody.

Which it could be said that continuing to heavily use a talent you don’t actually have locked down is criticizable. It seems that Tony Kahn is a big risk taker when operating on good faith. The surprise that ended up being Christian was announced before he actually signed.

This is the same guy that announced he was buying Ring Of Honor maybe an hour or two after he came to the agreement with Sinclair. Supposedly CM Punk didn't even sign a contract until he was about to step through the curtain. To say he's a risk taker is a bit of an understatement, I'd say.

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Definitely best for everyone from where I sit. I’ll catch Cody’s Raw segments to see whatever weirdness he’s up to and I haven’t watched Raw in forever, and I’ll keep watching every minute of AEW because the show is more consistent without him and better for it. 

I dunno what other win/win trades are out there. Jericho’s an easy choice but he’s doing a great job mixing it up with and elevating younger homegrown guys. Britt Baker maybe? Tons of new women to work with in a talk-heavier promotion, while AEW has a whole crop coming up and Jade as their mainstream star type.

Edited by For Great Justice
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1 hour ago, StuntmanCrowley said:

I really can't wrap my head around the Cody hate. Say what you will about the recent stuff, but the man was instrumental in what AEW is and I agree with a misstep to let him go.

That being said, if the reports are true that Cody was asking for what Punk was making, I don't blame TK for being like "fuck that"

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16 minutes ago, ThatTCGuy said:

That being said, if the reports are true that Cody was asking for what Punk was making, I don't blame TK for being like "fuck that"

I agree 100%, unsure of what Punk was making but I'd be of the belief that Cody,Omega,Bucks should all be making similar amounts.  If Cody wanted more than that, that's 100% on him.   It's a grey area that I'd imagine we'll never find out the true details of.  I'll enjoy the Cody WWE run, then he'll end up back in AEW either as a huge face with a "Star coming home" angle, or the "I main evented Mania"(hoping he does so during his new tenure there) mega heel angle.  Either way it'll be fun to watch.

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We've all gone back and forth on our Cody thoughts and it's probably best to move onto other AEW topics. All I will add to this is that after last night, Cody jumping is another step in legitimizing AEW. They brought over the entire presentation he was using there. If you were one of the WWE fans of the opinion that AEW is "minor league" but you see WWE go "hey yeah let's keep him how he was there it's awesome", maybe it starts to elevate AEW in their eyes.

And that brings me to a larger point that segues us off of Cody. Dynamite has settled in to getting about 900k - 1.1 million viewers a week. How do they grow? How do they get higher than that number? Smackdown's ceiling is about 2.5 million these days. Raw's ceiling is about 1.9 million. How does Dynamite get up to 1.5 million consistently? They have some huge names now so I think the WCW magic bullet idea isn't really a thing anymore. And they could never get Cena or The Rock (today's equivalent to Hogan in 1994). I feel like Punk & Bryan are more than comparable to Nash & Hall when they jumped, and it didn't increase viewership that much.

What will help them grow? Is it more detailed long term stories? Are they just kind of stuck where they're at without much hope to grow? Something else?

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6 minutes ago, NoFistsJustFlips said:

What will help them grow? Is it more detailed long term stories? Are they just kind of stuck where they're at without much hope to grow? Something else?

If you examine the pretty fantastic escalating numbers, year to year, in ratings and PPV buys it would suggest there's nothing they need to do, but continue putting on the best weekly pro wrestling show in at least 20 years.  I like that they aren't making Bischoff-WCW-like desperation moves to fast track that.  They're staying true to the vision and it's working beautifully.  I feel little doubt they'll be the number 1 wrestling show on cable by some point in the not so distant future.  

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Couldn't disagree more. If they keep doing what they're doing (which by the way is awesome, and I love their product) they're just going to stay where they're at. There's no viewership growth year over year. They are hovering at the same levels since NXT moved nights. The two highest numbers they did was the debut Dynamite and the Punk debut Rampage. Without looking I think 1.4 million was the Punk debut and 1.5 or 1.6 for the debut Dynamite. They're going to have to try some outside of the box stuff to get more TV viewers.

Sure PPV numbers are growing, I will give you that. And maybe that's enough to keep growing without needing to add more TV viewers. Entirely possible. But if you want a bigger market share, a bigger foot print, making a dent in the idea that "WWE is wrestling" like the general thought is "NFL is football"... it's going to take growing your numbers and reaching a larger audience.

"Bischoff desperation" is such an internet trope man. Signing Hogan (and Hall & Nash & Luger & Savage, ect) was the best move in company history. They went from a company that had lost money every single year of existence to a company making $60 million in profits. That's not desperation at all, and that talking point annoys me so much. It was a strategy, and one that was successful. The plane crashed and burned in the end, but focusing on that disregards them getting the plane into the air in the first place. Anyone else ever top WWE's numbers in the history of the business? Nope. So let's quit acting like there was any desperation in WCW's ascent.

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