AEW TV - 10/10 - 10/17/2023 - Tuesday Night Wars

[For Great Justice]

7 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

clearly AEW won the ratings last night if you count for

1) the fact that at least 100,000 people who tuned into NXT accidentally thinking Edge was gonna wrestle there

2) the fact that there were 200,000 people who were planning on watching Dynamite tonight

3) the fact that some of the TV listings didn't tell people exactly when the show was

4) the fact that the Cable Dahmer had thousands of raving AEWmaniacs while the Performance Center had 100 people there

5) the fact that the WWE cheated by trying to put on a show that people wanted to see instead of conceding Tony Khan's birthday

call me Tony

(should I sarcasm tag that)

Wes Mantooth? 

Tony needs to chill out. Dude ain’t beating Cena and Taker, in a different day/time slot than normal, no matter what he does. Omega/Danielson for two hours or Moxley in an exploding time bomb piranha match or whatever else he could book isn’t beating it. And that’s ok; this week’s Dynamite was a great show.

[Cobra Commander]

just one mood swing away from having guys go from last night's NXT card to being signed by AEW... sorta like the batch of NXT guys who went head to head with Dynamite for a year.

[Octopus]

Flex King or whatever is a draw!

[Cobra Commander]

Lexis "The Ratings" King

[For Great Justice]

Is Adam Cole the Diesel of midweek wrestling ratings?

[Cobra Commander]

i'm guessing a 300k gap is a little large to blame it all on Edge but....

[Pete]

I can't exactly call it a win for AEW, but you can absolutely say WWE's fears about the NXT brand got exposed, and exposed badly.

AEW was handicapped from the off by running on a different night, even with a very strong show on paper. Logically they were going to lose a big chunk of their audience... so what did WWE do? 

They brought in ELEVEN folks from the main roster by my count (Asuka, Balor, Dominik, Priest, Ripley, Cody, Knight, Butch, Holland, Heyman, Shotzi), teased Roman, then added Cena for good measure... and THEN added Undertaker at the last minute because they felt the need to go glass-parking-lot for this one.

Sure they popped a rating for the night, but at what cost? Was it worth the "win" to tell the world they have no faith in that roster against anything resembling a threat? And what happens next week when those folks are gone?

[JLowe]

4 minutes ago, Pete said:

I can't exactly call it a win for AEW, but you can absolutely say WWE's fears about the NXT brand got exposed, and exposed badly.

AEW was handicapped from the off by running on a different night, even with a very strong show on paper. Logically they were going to lose a big chunk of their audience... so what did WWE do? 

They brought in ELEVEN folks from the main roster by my count (Asuka, Balor, Dominik, Priest, Ripley, Cody, Knight, Butch, Holland, Heyman, Shotzi), teased Roman, then added Cena for good measure... and THEN added Undertaker at the last minute because they felt the need to go glass-parking-lot for this one.

Sure they popped a rating for the night, but at what cost? Was it worth the "win" to tell the world they have no faith in that roster against anything resembling a threat? And what happens next week when those folks are gone?

All of this, but RATINGZ WARZ are never logical, and Tony should know better than to keep off social media for a while and just let it simmer.

[Cobra Commander]

Tony needs to be savvy and talk up how much the ratings surged from week to week once they get back on Wednesday night due to the momentum of TITLE TUESDAY

[JLowe]

I mean, I could counter that WWE/NXT going all out and not cracking a million while AEW brought 610k viewers over to Tuesday from their regular night is pretty notable too. But as long as the networks are happy, that's what matters. 

[Cobra Commander]

15 minutes ago, Pete said:

And what happens next week when those folks are gone?

NXT has been having main roster people dabble for awhile though. Last week they drew 857K, they were over 800k on September 12th and 19th and they've been 600-700K lately. So it's a ways from a year ago where the norm was 500-600K.

I doubt anybody will loudly say that going from 857 to 921 "wasn't enough" because of the gap between NXT and AEW... but at the very least, it wasn't a surge where half the audience wasn't watching last week

edit: to expand on the first point... last night wasn't the only time that the WWE had been trying to pop the NXT ratings lately, so last night isn't the ratings equivalent to Brady Anderson hitting 50 HRs and never being that good again

Edited October 11, 2023 by Cobra Commander

[Curt McGirt]

2 hours ago, (BP) said:

Why would they give booker of the year to Jim Hellwig? 

   

[TheVileOne]

52 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

clearly AEW won the ratings last night if you count for

1) the fact that at least 100,000 people who tuned into NXT accidentally thinking Edge was gonna wrestle there

2) the fact that there were 200,000 people who were planning on watching Dynamite tonight

3) the fact that some of the TV listings didn't tell people exactly when the show was

4) the fact that the Cable Dahmer had thousands of raving AEWmaniacs while the Performance Center had 100 people there

5) the fact that the WWE cheated by trying to put on a show that people wanted to see instead of conceding Tony Khan's birthday

call me Tony

(should I sarcasm tag that)

"I'm bleeding, making me the victor."

https://youtu.be/BrGBJ_nk0oY

[Cobra Commander]

looking at the QH comparisons just because

• First 15 minutes: NXT 991, AEW 731.
• 8:15-8:30: NXT 956 (-35), AEW 655 (-76)
• 8:30-8:45: NXT 861 (-95), AEW 673 (+18)
• 8:45-9:00: NXT 909 (+48), AEW 589 (-82)
• 9:00-9:15: NXT 958 (+48), AEW 549 (-40)
• 9:15-9:30: NXT 914 (-44), AEW 557 (+8)
• 9:30-9:45: NXT 887 (-27), AEW 558 (+1)
• 9:45-10:00: NXT 866 (-21), AEW 559 (+1)
• Overrun: NXT 960 (+96), AEW 606 (+47)

AEW gained after their commercial-free period ended, and also gained steadily in the last 45 minutes. NXT dropped for most of the first hour, and then gained for 30 minutes, and then dropped for most of the last 45, and then both sides went up on the overrun.

So the biggest ratings drops of the night were the QH with Holland/Gallus and the QH where White/Page started.

Guess we can blame the ratings on Jay White, actually.

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

They should do a Very Special episode of Rampage set up in the format of 1991 Prime Time Wrestling, with a debate on the middle east, moderated by drunk Jim Ross and key speakers, Scott Steiner, Luchasaurus, Jim Duggan, Orange Cassidy, Arn Anderson and Barry Horowitz.

[Cobra Commander]

for some reason, Jungle Boy will return to discuss the Middle East, which may or may not be an attempt to give them grounds to fire him.

[Matt D]

So, Danielson vs Christian on Saturday… pretty excited for that one.

[Zakk_Sabbath]

Another key thing to keep in mind is that WWE's audience (and specifically NXT's) is much older overall, is it not? My points with that being:

1) TV numbers in 2023 are only one (arguably antiquated, and notoriously flawed) metric of many - what are the social impressions? How are the YouTube views? Any search engine spikes, either for the show, specific people featured, shit advertised (Rick and Morty)?

2) I would expect the gap to close a little taking the +10 day DVR number into consideration with AEW's younger, less timeslot-adherent audience.

[sabremike]

1 hour ago, Cobra Commander said:

NXT has been having main roster people dabble for awhile though. Last week they drew 857K, they were over 800k on September 12th and 19th and they've been 600-700K lately. So it's a ways from a year ago where the norm was 500-600K.

I doubt anybody will loudly say that going from 857 to 921 "wasn't enough" because of the gap between NXT and AEW... but at the very least, it wasn't a surge where half the audience wasn't watching last week

edit: to expand on the first point... last night wasn't the only time that the WWE had been trying to pop the NXT ratings lately, so last night isn't the ratings equivalent to Brady Anderson hitting 50 HRs and never being that good again

They had Cena and The Undertaker on the show, which is a wee bit bigger than some main roster talent. 

[zendragon]

17 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

I don't believe for one second that MJF didn't personally approve of, or quite possibly proposed that part of the angle himself. He has been playing edgelord and using uncomfortable references to his Jewish identity since well before his AEW debut. For every one time it reads as the legitimate life story of a man who encountered emotionally traumatizing prejudice and abuse, twice it reads as MJF using his real experiences to get weird heat and/or the wrong kind of sympathy. For what it's worth I've watched almost every episode of Dynamite with my Jewish partner and it hasn't required a ton of effort to realize her fluctuating opinions of MJF's use of religion/ethnicity/culture. Sometimes it's refreshing, empowering and compelling. Sometimes it's cringe and tasteless. 

I think the intended story was supposed to be - Juice Robinson is a punchin' heel who has occasionally used a roll of quarters to enhance his performance in that regard, and he was supposed to intend nothing more than a threat to MJF's jawbone (yes, I think this is terribly misguided). And MJF, upon witnessing said quarters, was reminded of his storyline-established trauma and finally SAW RED, was hit in his most sensitive point, and now wants to rip Juice's head off like a conquering babyface dragged down to an emotional level he doesn't usually occupy due to the actions of the offending heel. I do not think AEW is stupid enough to intentionally add antisemitism to Juice's current heel shtick.

Problem is Juice is so smarmy and MJF uses this particular device so often that it seems like intentional racial provocation, which happens a lot with MJF storylines and is happening again at yeah-maybe-the-wrong-fuckin-time. But this is a long standing Max problem. I'd make a small bet, more like a hope, that they course correct soon, possibly on Collision pre-tapes but probably right before the actual match.

I've long felt the "rich, evil jew" character stuff gets really close to playing into antisemitic tropes (even the horns stuff he's done as "the devil" plays into that). I think some of it is Max idolizing Piper who was basically the top say/do anything to get heat on an angle guy.

 

other thoughts. Shout out to Big Poppa Pump in the audience.

Some weird gear tonight, Hangman's tights made him appear to be wearing shorts and a vest at first glance, and for some reason Shida wore a jockstrap.

Glad Shida went over, so many more women on the roster I'd rather see wrestle than Saraya (and thought it was not that great of a match on show with plenty of wrestling) 

One thing I hate in modern wrestling is Tazz going "that's gotta be it" on the tombstone, when you know it isn't. thanks Micheal Cole 

Wish they had announced the overrun earlier so I could set my DVR.

[Cobra Commander]

28 minutes ago, sabremike said:

They had Cena and The Undertaker on the show, which is a wee bit bigger than some main roster talent. 

I think Taker was one of those playing it both ways where if you were very online, you knew Taker would be "in the PC" this week but they didn't necessarily advertise him. Cena, yeah, he was advertised.

But from the sustainability point of things, they had more stuff going on than just this week. One could argue that Dominik is one of the most over heels on the roster and he's been camped in NXT for a little bit. I guess the "what if x leaves" concern for NXT ratings would be whenever Carmelo and Bron leave.

Considering the initial impressions of NXT after the purge/rebrand, I've heard that they've improved a bit (I haven't watched NXT regularly though)

Anyways, congrats to Shawn Michaels on becoming Vince's favorite son once again.

[The Natural]

12 hours ago, JLowe said:

I mean, I could counter that WWE/NXT going all out and not cracking a million while AEW brought 610k viewers over to Tuesday from their regular night is pretty notable too. But as long as the networks are happy, that's what matters. 

Edited October 12, 2023 by The Natural

[Technico Support]

54 minutes ago, zendragon said:

One thing I hate in modern wrestling is Tazz going "that's gotta be it" on the tombstone, when you know it isn't. thanks Micheal Cole 

 

Reminds me of Caprice always saying THAT'S IT, RICCABONI, I PROMISE YOU THAT!  He's correct 99% of the time, so it feels like he knows the finish already and we're in a "Russo predicts the Rumble winner" situation.

[Matt D]

6 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Reminds me of Caprice always saying THAT'S IT, RICCABONI, I PROMISE YOU THAT!  He's correct 99% of the time, so it feels like he knows the finish already and we're in a "Russo predicts the Rumble winner" situation.

They were talking about what Caprice's T-Shirt should say this week on commentary and they didn't come up with that. Drove me nuts.

Edited October 12, 2023 by Matt D

[Doc Townsend]

Lol, this board is so delusional.  It’s great fun.