Niners Fan in CT

I just don't think 'Brawl Out' and the aftermath is handled the same way in current WWE and I believe the end result in WWE is a CM Punk vs. Young Bucks feud where they all make money from it. They are all under contract, I think WWE gets them all in a room and says "knock it off and let's make some money off this" like they are doing with CM Punk and Seth Rollins, although I'm unclear as to how much those two dislike one another, reports say it's real but who knows.

Punk and Cody are selling ridiculous amounts of merch right now. Punk's social media engagement numbers are off the charts. Cody directly impacted the house show business, putting butts in seats. Jade has been presented as the "Next Big Thing" of the women's division, I see her becoming a very big star for them. I know you're going to say Punk needed to be fired and I agree with that, but the thing is he should have been reeled in way before it got to the point it did with Jungle Boy. WWE felt strongly enough in their management team that they can handle CM Punk.

I'm not saying Cody/Punk/Jade make AEW a better on-screen product, it depends on how they are utilized but it's interesting that when it's all said and done, all three of them are going to do big numbers for WWE. That makes me question Tony Khan's ability to get the most out of the talent he has.

Never noticed. I've always liked AEW's set designs.

What's tedious about it? This is the first time, maybe ever (or at least in a long time) that I've brought up the issues AEW has. Instead of your poor attempts at "dunking" you could have addressed the content of my post and what was "wrong" about it. You jumped to snark/insults because you couldn't address the attendance issues or the Collision ratings or that Punk and Cody are red hot in another company with Jade in line for a monster push or the injury issues like losing Omega that started the conversation..

You are unable to address the dwindling attendance and poor ratings because that would lead you to having to admit that I'm right about them being an issue.

The snark and pushback on any attempt to have a discussion about some of AEW's issues are only proving what I said to be true. It's the "this is fine" meme come to life.

I don't read every thread on here for one and even if I did, enough has happened this week alone to have the discussion. You could skip past it and leave the snarky comments to yourself but we know you can't help yourself there

What are you talking about? I like much of AEW for what it is (I do think they can be better creatively in some areas) and have especially liked all of their PPVs, and that's why I have some concerns over it. I want it to be as successful as it can possibly be. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't care as much about it. These are legitimate concerns. I'm not sure why it's a "bad thing" to discuss them. Also, it's nonsense that I am always in here throwing cold water on everything. That's not true at all. I go months without posting at all. You must have me confused with someone else. Check my post history and you'll see that I don't post on here for weeks at a time over the past year or so.

I'm not just cherry picking this part of your post, I agree with much of the rest of it. Firstly, to address what I mean about their TV rights negotiations. They need to see an increase and the future of the company is dependent on it and I think they can secure that increase but me saying that doesn't come out of thin air. Tony Khan has stated himself how important that is going to be because the company is not likely to be profitable without it. But on to the comment I highlighted, I'm not sure what you mean by it. I think it's a real issue. These buildings they are running were selling out or near sell outs a couple of years ago and now they are doing sometimes a third or 40% of what the attendance was. I expected some of the demand to wear off over time but that's why they needed to step things up creatively to keep that interest going. Dynamite running large arenas in front of sometimes 2,000-3,000 fans is a bad look any way you slice it.

There's no doubt cable is slowly fading away. I'm just not sure streaming is the answer quite in the way that people may think. There's going to have to be deals worked out like what we see with Max having AMC+ content on their platform or like how Netflix is buying rights to distribute some HBO shows on their platform. I don't think it's going to be 6-10 streaming services all with exclusive content. I think some services will likely end up merging as well. For a company like AEW, you would still want to position yourself somewhere that's easy to find or you risk going dark to everyone except your biggest hardcore fans.

That's the only language that some posters speak and I don't believe they wanted to have a fruitful discussion because if they did they wouldn't jump straight to name calling like Craig always does. I would tag him but apparently tagging isn't working. If you don't think attendance is an issue or you don't think the ratings on Saturday nights have been a big issue then go ahead and explain why they aren't a big issue and do it without name calling. I think 40+-year old men should be able to handle that. Also, why are we still doing the Mercedes Mone insults? I haven't said a word about her in months. But she is a draw and proved that to be true for NJPW/Stardom in her few appearances for those promotions.

Reportedly, FOX expected something like 3 million viewers and that's just insane. I think there's 30 people or more just on this board alone that could have told the FOX executives that was never going to happen. Apparently, WWE didn't bring in the type of advertising dollars they expected either. So while SD! was on many Friday nights the "winner" sometimes in all of television, FOX didn't really care. It wasn't worth it to them. And that's WWE. That's a company that is bringing in 10x the revenue as AEW. That's my concern for AEW. They are doing well for WBD and reportedly, WBD has been happy with the numbers but does that automatically mean AEW is looking at a 40% or more increase like NASCAR just got? I don't know. You stated AEW isn't likely to grow on TBS/TNT at this point but are they going to grow on a subscription service? I feel like MLS is hidden over on Apple TV. Messi obviously made a huge splash coming over and doubled the subscriptions by himself but that's not a sustainable model for them. I feel like most sports programming (and wrestling) still want to be on cable because that's where they are still receiving the most exposure. You don't have to go around searching for them.

Here's the problem with this folder. Everyone WANTS AEW to succeed so much so they are willing to overlook all of the issues that have been going on within the company over the past 18 months. You have blinders on. I want the company to be a success too but when there's 2,000 people attending Dynamites in buildings that hold 13,000 it doesn't look healthy. When ratings cratered on Saturday nights, it doesn't look healthy. You can point to the in-ring and say Well look how good the CC has been. Yes, it's been great for a niche audience. I love it. Has it been great for everyone? Apparently not. And these stories they are telling are really stupid. 'The Devil' thing is Black Scorpion territory right now.

Show me the lie in the awful ticket sales for Collision and Dynamite.... Show me the lie in the ratings declines... You can't.

That's all good but they've lost three of their biggest stars to WWE, they've lost others to injury, their ratings on Saturday nights have plummeted, their ticket sales for Collision/Dynamite have been very weak, they are still losing money and now there's rumors that they might not be staying on WBD. They really need a big TV rights increase next year. Their immediate future is dependent on that.

The biggest question for me is let's say AEW doesn't stay on WBD. There's just not many networks that I feel would pay good money for wresting content no matter what the ratings are. Who else is left when you remove WBD and NBC/Universal from the conversation? But anyway, I would need to see better sources on all of this before believing RAW is going to WBD. Warner Bros. is slashing costs, not adding to them.

This company looks like a sinking ship right now. Nothing going right.

Punk is in WWE because he blew an easy $5M/year contract in AEW and is salty as fuck about how it all played out. That doesn't mean everything he does will be some going through the motions bullshit but I can't say I have high hopes for any of it. Also, I have to laugh at these dumbass dirtsheet reports about how Punk was in a "good mood" backstage and getting along with everyone. You think? It was his first fucking night in the company. He's an asshole but he's not so dumb that he's going to jeopardize his new deal on the first night back. It takes time. Give it a few months. Hell, give it six months. Then we can talk.

That promo sucked ass. Let's hurry up and get to the Punk and Rollins pissing contest. Maybe one of them will go too far.

If AEW goes out of business, a lot of people lose jobs. A lot of wrestlers lose jobs. They go back to grinding or maybe not wrestling at all. The top performers lose a lot of money too because there's nobody to drive the price tag up. Wrestlers themselves LOVE that AEW exists. I'm not sure why this is a topic anyway, AEW has hit a rough patch but they aren't going anywhere anytime soon.

That feels like "night 1 opener" or "middle of the show marquee match up" than a main event to me. Roman will main event night 2 and I'm thinking Rhea is slotted for night 1 with someone, maybe Charlotte or Becky

Well now you're speaking a language that I recognize.

That brings me to something I was thinking about the other day about how Jericho is pretty much sucking the life out of everything I like in AEW. He just latches himself now on to whatever is "hot" at the time and it goes on and on for months on end. Jericho has become everything he used to bitch and complain about in wrestling and now Punk is on his way to doing the same thing. The moral to the story is that nobody is above the mighty dollar, these guys are ALL carnies, 100% of them. Cena was another example. Bitching about The Rock being too Hollywood and leaving the company behind and then he does the same thing. LOL.

Rollins isn't that great of an actor. He was being "held back" by people but not really. So I'm guessing that was a work and they will play into the little Twitter beef he and Punk have had over the years. I guess.... two guys I don't really need to see much of so if they are occupying each other's time that's ok with me.