Thunder Down Under

I can see it being the opposite and him playing a total babyface to that particular crowd, because they still respect him or some bs like that.

I believe a new 24-hour gas station opened up, which also siphoned viewers. Thankfully no new openings are planned for this week.

Funnily enough in my experience in those situations the non wrestling fan will just as often make light of the in ring action as guys pretending to fight in their underwear. A “funny move” to someone like that is just as likely to illicit derision as it would laughter. But the idea that stories aren’t needed to draw in casuals is ridiculous and a complete misunderstanding of what works in the business and it has been that way since the 50’s. Characters and stories that connect with the audience are infinitely more important than match quality. No company with TV has been successful without those two ingredients.

I don’t even think it’s necessarily the heavy dose of soap opera that viewers are looking for. Bad soap opera is probably even more off putting to the general public than good pro wrestling. But to appeal to the widest possible audience there needs to be a reason other than just “I want to see good matches”. At least from the weekly TV show perspective, the stories should drive the matches and not the other around. The general public does not really want to watch a 4* match like those of us here might. The general public will watch and engage with characters and stories they can get into. AEW needs to focus on the latter and not the former. The problem AEW seems to have is that they either have stories that people could engage with but characters they don’t (like the Elite & Jericho angles) or characters they like put into horrible/boring stories (Swerve/MJF pre injury). Good characters put into bad stories seems like it hurts long term more than bad characters put into good stories, because you can always swap out a bad character for a better one vs lowering a star because of poor booking.

Yeah altho the idea that he made sure things like his music/tron package were all cued up and ready to go on his own does make me laugh.

Yeah I see this as Levesque’s first real “We will always do what’s best for business “ moment in charge. This is just a sign that still no bridge is ever burned in that company if a ton of money can be made from you.

Wonder if he did a post show victory lap in the ring?

Damn RIP DEAN

I’m far from a fan of the Omega/Bucks style of wrestling, but it’s hard to point to that as being deleterious while fans being deprived of gratification when they assume they are going to get it after a 3 year long story isn’t. Both have just as negative an effect as the other. And when you consider how many fans have been shed over the years, it’s hard to point to WWE as a company that really does well in servicing their fans in general.

Yeah short of winning the title tonight, it was hard to see how Cody would’ve been better off. As it is, Cody likely would’ve been better off not even being on Raw. So not only did he fall short on the biggest stage after making a big deal about how he had to win, he got turned down for a rematch and then was stupid enough to pick a partner who turned before the bell even rang and got absolutely destroyed by said partner. What motivation do the fans have to see him as anything but a loser now?

I think a lot of the online WWE/AEW discourse is just based on how objectively bad both companies are at putting on consistently good wrestling TV shows, which gives anybody that wants to criticise them a lot of ammo, with the diehards on both sides then feeling compelled to dig in for various reasons. Acknowledging that the WWE has struggled to put together an engaging, coherent Main Event angle from WM to WM for over 2 decades and botched one that basically fell into their laps does not mean you want the company to die. Acknowledging that AEW books to a very narrow segment of the wrestling community with no real attempts to grow it except hoping that the general population develops a taste for watching ***** matches also does not mean you want it to die. It is probably that lack of honesty within the power structures of those companies would explain why the 10 million people who used to watch wrestling on a Monday night has dwindled down to 2 million or so.

It’s hard to rely on capturing lightning in bottle for a second time. Given this company’s track record you described, it is just as likely Sami will be doing something insignificant next Mania due to the failure to capitalise on the chance they had this year.

It’s hard to argue people have been made by this storyline when they only got the reactions they did when people thought they were going to be the ones to end it (Sami & Cody) and it’s questionable to think they will get the same outside of that story given they let the people down. It’s also hard to assume they are using this as a tool to elevate someone given they have passed up their 2 best opportunities in the last 2 months, and the conditions that led to that aren’t really replicable. So assuming they are using this as a situation where it will be a “big star” that comes in to win it, the only 2 possible names that make any sort of sense which would fit are The Rock……and CM Punk. The Rock story is obvious, but if it’s not him, Punk is the only big enough name that’s either not on the roster or that hasn’t already been tarnished by losing to Reigns. His storyline connection to The Sheild debut/Heyman would also allow for a decent story to be told, without even worrying about the buzz a Punk/Reigns feud would create.

It only makes sense if you don’t build it up in the way they did, but once they went with the build they did he just looks like no different to the other losers, especially with such a weak finish. That’s ignoring if they’ll have The Bloodline feud as hot when they eventually do pull the trigger.

God this company is so stupid lmao