NoFistsJustFlips

They claim to be however accurate but come on. There's no way one person counting for 10,000 people is ever going to actually be accurate. In this digital age it boggles my mind that Nieleson doesn't enter into agreements to put viewership measuring tools into every single cable box / satellite box / digital converter / smart tv out there and get the true and accurate numbers. Is there any consumer out there that would really say no to that as part of the user agreement to sign up for cable / satellite / buying a tv? Most everyone would not even read it and just sign it and not care. We have the technology to make it happen. Greed is the only answer for why it doesn't happen. Cable / Satellite / TV manufacturers would want a piece of the pie to allow the tech to be placed into their systems.

Think you're missing the whole picture here... The match before the Hook match they had a sign that said TK please sign Bill Collier (one of the best indy workers in PA). Then during Hooks match the guy on our left help up a sign saying thank you for listening to us TK with an arrow pointing to a sign on the right, which was a girl holding the original sign they took to the last Pittsburgh AEW show asking TK to please sign Danhausen. It was a two sign thing saying thank you for signing Danhausen like they asked for.

Ah yes because there is an AFC Super Bowl and an NFC Super Bowl and the NFC teams don't ever play the AFC teams. Ooops lol. Those are just distinctions among one big company. The company is the NFL. And they play each other all the time, so the conferences are not separate entities. Running a separate AFC company and a separate NFC company that don't cross over is the analogy here. And that's not how the NFL works at all. Sure wrestling is scripted. But it's scripted to emulate a sport. Modern pro wrestling is most closely scripted to be similar to boxing with divisions, titles, and fights. Essentially you are supposed to win matches and earn titles. You take that element out and wrestling is more like Saturday Night Live meets gymnastics. The whole pretense and purpose of wrestling is to beat the other guy and become the best. Which is what every major sport's pretense is.

There were a bunch of timing issues on the show tonight. I could tell a few things ran long and the main had time cut from it. The faster he could get through the read the faster the main could start. Bryce was even yelling the time cues to Andrade & Darby very audibly at the end there.

Idk man... asking the guy that called himself the Elite Hunter and couldn't beat any of the Elite to sidestep that obvious L... doesn't seem like that shitty of a thing for a real friend to ask to me lol. 'Hey dude can you just skip over this forgone conclusion and let me have a rematch with the dude that won by hitting me in the dick? Cool I owe you one.' Perfectly reasonable to me.

Just for shits and giggles... Bryan vs Ibushi MJF vs Naito Punk vs Okada Hangman vs Ospreay Moxley vs Tanahashi Lee Moriarty vs ZSJ Wardlow vs Jeff Cobb Darby vs Takahashi OC & Danhausen vs Yano & Ishii FTR vs Young Bucks vs GOD vs Ropongi 3K Jericho Appreciation Society vs Bullet Club 10 Man Tag ETA: There should be some kind of women's component to this aswell but I know nothing about Stardom so couldn't even venture to guess what women's matches should be on the card. And realistically this is way too much for a single night. But a two night event is probably pushing it.

I'm not as bullish on a brand supremacy storyline perse, just down on the separate but equal aspects of maintaining two brands. No matter how great of a booker or businessman he is, it's a mistake. You can't put your full attention into making your company as good as it can be at all times by splitting your attention between two promotions and trying to build them up at the same time. World renowned directors don't direct two blockbuster movies at the same time. Bands don't split time between making two separate albums at once expecting both to be big hits. It's just not a recipe for anyone's best work. I very much like AEW. I would prefer if TK spent all of his time and effort making that as good as possible. If he somehow threads the needle and we have two distinct mega companies that have a once a year Super Bowl and it's a critical success I will be the first to say my bad I was wrong. But the likelihood of that is near zero. The much more likely scenario is the very high quality of AEW starts to wan a bit when he has to devote time and effort to quality control on ROH too. And I personally just don't see the upside to having two companies vs one (unless one is used as a feeder system). What doors does having two companies open that having one very good one won't open? I just don't get it. I'll just have to wait and see if there's some kind of aha moment as things progress where a purpose becomes more clear to me I guess.

This is the correct answer. Good call, I hadn't consider that. But then you get into a whole new can of worms if you sell Warner Media a show based on an equal company and then use it as a less than / developmental. Listen, I mean no offense by this. I like your posts and you seem knowledgeable. But you treat TK like he is infallible. If TK decrees it, you're on board touting the virtues of it. Your perspective is far from impartial or a basis for a fair debate. And again, to me, it doesn't matter who books a brand split. Trying to create your own fake competition is not a story or plot point I will ever be on board with. Especially when there is a real competition happening off screen. It's transparent and insults the audience's intelligence. No one, especially the smarter AEW fan base, will believe there's a real fight between ROH & AEW for brand supremacy. So I ask, rhetorically, what's the point in running a story no one buys into? Or putting all these resources into trying to make two amazing and entertaining brands that serve the same purpose? Wouldn't putting all of your resources into making your one company be the most fun / entertaining / well liked wrestling promotion you can? I digress....

But they own Bash at The Beach again now. Why not use that? Cody sold it back to them and AEW had to change to Beach Break because of it. Back to collecting dust with the other unused trademarks you go Bash at The Beach.

But one is bigger and better than the other, so I don't see the need for corporate speak. Especially since he owns both. He isn't hurting anyone's feelings by being honest. The top ROH star (currently) is Gresham. Is the top AEW star (take your pick, Punk / Danielson / Jericho / Mox) bigger and better (in terms of star power)? Yes. And it's not close. I just don't see the need to correct that talking point at all if his plan was to keep it as the secondary developmental brand. So he clearly has plans to at least try and make a go of building ROH into an equal. It doesn't matter if AEW has better booking and won't do WWE-like things with a brand split, I just don't like brand splits. There's no way to do one that will be interesting to me. It wouldn't have been a good in WCW with the original nWo plan, it wasn't good when WWE had WCW as a separate brand in the Invasion, and it's not good with the Raw / Smackdown brand split. Making your own fake "competition" just isn't compelling to me. Wrestling is a simulated sporting event. Does the NFL or NBA have a second league that is separate but equal? No. They have minor leagues that build up stars of tomorrow, and that is more realistic and effective in my opinion. Both in terms of realism, and also in terms of storytelling.

I mostly agree with you, but not on the celebrity WM involvement. That would be like saying well if Hogan was a mega-star in 1985 they wouldn't have needed Ali & Liberace and shit. Wrestlemania is based around celebrity involvement. So them using Johnny Knoxville or Logan Paul would have happened regardless of how many tickets sold or how popular the brand is / how big of a mega-star Roman is.

And I'm officially off the bandwagon of this being a good idea. What's the point of two separate but equal brands? What's the point of taking market share away from yourself?? I hate the brand split in WWE. Doing one in AEW (essentially what two separate but equal companies equates to) is fucking dumb.

I don't know if you're not understanding me or just disagree with me. But this is not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying a Monday Night Raw was set to make a $300,000 gate in 2021 but once Reigns was added to the show the week before for a dark match, they made $100,000 more at the gate than they would have if they didn't add him. That's not obtuse because almost no one does that significant of an increase in WWE. We're talking only Roman, Brock, & Cena that add that kind of a value to a card vs just the WWE brand. Adding Bobby Lashley to a card would not increase 2,000 ticket sales. Adding Seth Rollins wouldn't move $100,000 more of money being added to a show. I'm not being obtuse at all. That is literally the definition of a draw. A guy who makes you way more money by being on the show. A show with Reigns on the card will draw $100k - $300k more at the gate than a show without him. That's a draw. The literal definition of a draw. Making the company more money by his presence. You're conflating a bunch of things here. Making the company more money with your presence is literally what a draw is.

Just to add to my point, this is incorrect. Did Diesel being on a show bring more paying customers to events than the events he wasn't on? The answer is actually no. He had a negative affect the houses. And is widely regarded as one of the worst drawing WWE Champions of all time. The TV ratings at the time aren't what's cited for that metric. That's not what defines a draw. It's the paid attendance. And paid attendance was way down with Diesel on top vs Bret Hart on top. hence he was not a draw at all. (As Diesel. nWo Kevin Nash was definitely a draw for WCW).

That would be more clear. A draw is literally someone who draws fans to the building. It's a business metric. A mainstream star is what you guys are debating. Like Hogan wasn't considered a draw because of the TV ratings he was getting. He was considered a draw because he drew paying fans to the buildings for WWE. That's traditionally what a draw means. Like WCW's attendance went way the fuck up when they hired Hogan away. Because he drew way more paying fans to the buildings than they did before he got there. And to that end, no one is denying Stone Cold is a draw right? He's a significant draw and a mainstream star as well. He's a household name. And even his appearance doesn't change the TV ratings these days. But the live attendance sure goes up if he's booked on TV. That's what a draw is. You draw paying customers to see you.

It was intentional. Gus' plan was for the Salamancas to open his safe, find his location, & kill him. Mike noticed two fake IDs in the safe. One for Nacho & one for his dad. Mike didn't put the one of Nacho's dad back in there because he didn't want the Salamacas to go after an innocent man. Mike was also banking on Nacho realizing Mike not picking up all those calls was a sign that something was up. It was his way of giving Nacho a lifeline to start questioning his surroundings and get out of the situation alive.

This is a bizzaro land post lol. Roman absolutely is a draw. What's being conflated is a draw vs a mainstream star. Roman sells tickets. He's a draw to a wrestling audience. There have been Raw shows that were doing poorly in tickets sale that they added Roman to and tickets shot up by 2,000. He's not a mainstream star. He's not a household name. He hasn't broken through to the mainstream like a Hogan / Rock / Austin. But more wrestling fans pay to see a show he is on vs one he is not on. The same goes for Brock. TV ratings are what they are. But if we're talking drawing wrestling fans into the building Roman & Brock both qualify.

That sentiment I totally agree with.

But Main Event isn't a show for reps. It's a show that makes them money on Hulu. Main roster guys are on it. Not developmental guys. It's just low pressure content they don't care that much about. But they aren't using it to teach anyone anything. Apollo Crews was on the episode they taped last night. Dude was IC Champ at last year's Mania. Don't think that qualifies as a guy needing to learn or develop.

I agree with you. It won't be an easy sell. And the streaming landscape is ever changing. But the fact remains, that's why Dark & Elevation exist. Yes a secondary reason of getting reps and TV practice. But they want to pump up that library number. The feel the chances of striking a deal are higher with a bigger number than a smaller number. And this competent is a little moot now anyways. ROH has about 30,000 hours of content that can now be packaged in and make the total amount of the content being acquired wayyyyy more attractive.

Bummed out there was no Gene scene. Is this the only season opener without one? Also was an 8 minute montage of his possessions being repo-ed really a good use of time with only 13 episodes left? lol I loved both episodes. That scene with Kim & The Kettlemans was hardcore. She is most definitely Walter White now. I'm also happy they had Gus figure out Lalo was alive like instantly. On Breaking Bad they showed him to be super intelligent so glad they didn't make him a dumb dumb for the sake of moving the story along. Saul slipping with Lalo's name with the DA & detective is going to snowball. That was a small moment that's going to have big consequences. Nacho is fucked. There's no way out of this one for him. He's the Jesse of this show. And he sure ain't getting that Jesse escape ending.

Nope. You know that's dumb. I know that's dumb. Fans really don't care about the B & C shows. You know who does care? People who don't know the difference. Like streaming execs. Do you think the Peacock negotiations were based around how many hours of library content WWE had (and obviously the value of the live PPVs). Or was the conversation "Hey guys how many episodes of Raw do you have? Can we subtract money because no one cares about 2003 episodes of Velocity?" No. Streaming & media companies care about the total amount of content they get (and the live shows they can get). They don't get that deep into the weeds on how much of the content is A show vs B show. Point blank if TK went into a meeting with HBO and they asked how many hours of content are you bringing to the table, which sounds better? 2,000 hours? Or 9,000 hours? HBO Max is not getting into the nuts and bolts of 7,000 hours of it being enhancement matches. They want a bottom line content number. The quality of the content is pretty irrelevant to people who don't understand the content in the first place.

Let me try this example to see if you change your mind. Say I run a nightclub. It's making money and most people are happy coming there. But then I decide I also want my nightclub to be a competitor to H&R Block and we do tax prep. We start renovating and shifting around the bar location & dance floor so we can fit in desks for our CPAs. It's also too loud so we turn the music way down. We still have music. We still serve drinks. So it's still a nightclub. But our focus has shifted to making sure we stop H&R Block from being able do tax prep. Our top goal is to take them out. NXT was still a developmental, just like in this example it's still a nightclub. But the developmental component took a backseat. The primary focus was trying to cock block AEW and make sure Warner didn't want to continue on with them once the first deal ran out. It muddied the waters. They didn't fully commit to building those Sami / Finn / Bayley kind of stars. That took a backseat to trying to out workrate the workrate company. So you get Ciampa & Gargano & Cole overload. Those guys weren't developmental guys. They were super indys. They weren't being groomed to succeed on the main roster. They were being groomed to have matches good enough people picked watching NXT over AEW. The truth is the big loud showy announcement and NIL focus is the 'you can't fire me, I quit' move. It's to change the narrative in the news cycle. It's no longer WWE hired a bunch of guys they can't make stars out of to try and take a bite out of AEW. It's oh wow WWE decided to do this new thing now. How dumb is this new thing now. It's purely a PR move.

This is super interesting to me. Love seeing stuff like this. The font for World Championship Wrestling is different on each title. Which is odd. As is using lower case letters on United States Heavyweight Champion. I don't remember the 1999 logo ever being purple like that. Which leads me to wonder if these were designs just submitted by belt makers that WCW never approved? That seems most likely. Still very cool to see. This may be pedantic but shouldn't a World Television Champion be higher in the pecking order than just a United States Champion? I know it wasn't. But wouldn't a world title be more prestigious than a title of just one region?

Well we aren't even to step one yet. Step one is them having their own stand alone shows. Until we get to that point you don't see the value in raising the profile of the ROH Titles? Or building brand equity and awareness through AEW? Was the ROH Pure Title doing better popularity wise on Josh Woods? Or is it more prominent on Yuta than it had been in forever? If we get a year down the road and FTR are still the ROH tag champs and defending them on Dynamite you'll have a very valid point. As is, we'll have to wait and see if they really want Samoa Joe to be a top AEW star while holding a midcard ROH Title. My sense is that goes away once ROH is up and running. Do they NEED one? Maybe, maybe not. But is it a luxury that will be a net positive to the product? Yes. It will help. My best demonstration of this is Cena's US Open Challenges. Remember that time in Montreal when Sami Zayn was introduced by Bret Hart and worked Cena? You remember that reaction? That's because Sami got way fucking over in NXT. And the WWE audience in his hometown lost their shit getting to see him. Does that moment still happen without the NXT run for Sami? No. There is absolutely value in creating your own stars on a separate platform to bring over, and the awesome moments that will bring. Will a Brian Cage be content being in developmental? Well there's going to be frustrations. It's bound to happen. But would a Brian Cage enjoy having no contract at all more? Because he was for sure a goner if ROH wasn't purchased. He keeps a steady check and has a place to work now. The brass ring will always be go down to ROH and find some missing pieces. Put it all together and move back up to AEW and make 3x more money than he would have without that development time. With NXT as the example, Cesaro went from catering to a consistent upper midcarder after going to back to NXT and getting hot working with Sami. This I agree with, if they try and keep it equal and not use it as a clear secondary promotion. If he bought it to just own two companies that's pretty short sighted. But I choose to believe there's a clear business purpose to keeping this promotion going. TK is not just buying up a bunch of companies to mark out and be like 'bro you see how many companies I own, it's sweet dude'. He's shown to be a better businessman than that. Dark & Elevation happen because yes, they want to get reps to more people. But that's it's secondary purpose. It's primary purpose is to quickly build up the amount of hours in their library. It's a strategy to make a streaming deal more attractive to a media company. Cody & TK have both said this on the record. But I see people miss that way too much. Rampage exists because Warner wanted more content. It got AEW more money. They produce 3 hours of TV a week and get $43 million a year. Rampage was part of that extension. You telling me you would turn down the network that asked for more content for more money? Superstars & Wrestling Challenge and even Shotgun were done for monetary reasons. They weren't for reps. The WWE guys were working 300 days a year. They didn't need reps. They were, (and is the case of Main Event) still are, bringing in money. Hulu pays WWE for Main Event today just like syndicated networks paid WWE for Superstars. The dollar numbers are way better today. But the purpose was never development, they were done to make money. Superstars was actually the A show until Primetime Wrestling switched to Raw. NXT (2014 - 2019) was for developing new stars. Letting current stars go put on a new coat of paint. Learning how to do TV. As a business arm, developmental lost money. Not made money. It was an investment. They tried to have that and also make money with it as a brand once AEW started in 2019. But it couldn't be both and it kind of imploded. Which is what I feel will happen to ROH if they try and use it as a money making promotion instead of a loss leader for developing talent.