AEW - 2019

[Brian Fowler]

The Bucks probably matter to them. And they did protect Cody pretty well, so he might matter to them.

[Archibald]

How did they protect Cody? His match with Juice was about as close as you can get to squash without it being a squash.

[JonnyLaw]

7 hours ago, Archibald said:

Makes sense for Barreta. He was going nowhere in NJPW (or RoH) and probably will have more opportunities in AEW.

BUT, Young Bucks + SCU + Best Friends for tag team division. How this is not same old RoH that everyone complained about? Only thing missing is Briscoes.

Assuming their goal is to be bigger than ROH, having a solid foundation of teams that’s familiar with each other but new to a “mainstream” audience is a good thing.

[CSC]

I feel like if there was ever going to be an agreement between AEW and New Japan it would have happened to save these New Beginning shows in the US.

I could get in the door for $9.99 tonight!  I can't even go see random lucha indy in a high school gym for $10 anymore!

[Brian Fowler]

1 hour ago, Archibald said:

How did they protect Cody? His match with Juice was about as close as you can get to squash without it being a squash.

I think he got wins over everyone who beat him in a singles match except Okada. (Granted, the win over Omega was on a ROH show)

The loss to Juice came after he was going.

They didn't keep him a top guy, but they kept him a threat his entire two years.

[Octopus]

8 hours ago, Thibs said:

If its not, it better be. They’re obviously going to get on big time TV network by all indications. And if they do, they have one shot to get it right. Everyone’s going to scream ratings don’t matter. That’s fine. 

Pretty much. All of this is banking on the marketablity of the Elite-friends. Will hot teens tune in (or "follow" as the kids say) to the Young Bucks doing flips with their silky gorgeous long hair? Will Crack Barrel Country buy the latest Hangman Page action figure? Will Video Game nerds put down their inhalers to Insta Cody promos? I don't have the answer to this and honestly none of us will know until it's put into action. We haven't seen it done. 

I find their YouTube show to be very fun but have an underlying intriguing use of wrestling storytelling. I also thought All In was gonna be a goof-off fest but was one of the better wrestling event top to bottom of the year. Penis bits to storytelling to near matches. I guess my rambling is just to say I trust them based on what I've seen them do. It sounds like a lot of people and possibly TV executives are saying that too. That is the whole risk of this promotion. Selling the Elite to a bigger audience. 

 

[Jiji]

It will also take time. I imagine that whatever TV stations they are negotiating with understand that too and aren't expecting AEW to do huge numbers right away. This is something that is going to take some time and a lot of money to build up.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

41 minutes ago, OctopusCinema said:

Will Video Game nerds put down their inhalers to Insta Cody promos? 

Stop generalizing people with asthma. We don't all play video games.  As an asthmatic, I don't appreciate it. Just as gender shaming, fat shaming, slut shaming, etc. are all wrong, so is asthma shaming.

In my case, it's hereditary. Your inherited genetic makeup predisposes you to having asthma. In fact, it's thought that three-fifths of all asthma cases are hereditary. According to a CDC report, if a person has a parent with asthma, he or she is three to six times more likely to develop asthma than someone who does not have a parent with asthma. 

 

[Thibs]

53 minutes ago, OctopusCinema said:

Pretty much. All of this is banking on the marketablity of the Elite-friends. Will hot teens tune in (or "follow" as the kids say) to the Young Bucks doing flips with their silky gorgeous long hair? Will Crack Barrel Country buy the latest Hangman Page action figure? Will Video Game nerds put down their inhalers to Insta Cody promos? I don't have the answer to this and honestly none of us will know until it's put into action. We haven't seen it done. 

I find their YouTube show to be very fun but have an underlying intriguing use of wrestling storytelling. I also thought All In was gonna be a goof-off fest but was one of the better wrestling event top to bottom of the year. Penis bits to storytelling to near matches. I guess my rambling is just to say I trust them based on what I've seen them do. It sounds like a lot of people and possibly TV executives are saying that too. That is the whole risk of this promotion. Selling the Elite to a bigger audience. 

 

Do you think its selling the Elite to a bigger audience? Or is it adjusting and evolving the Elite to gain a larger audience? 

You made a lot of good points. We’ll have to wait and see. My prediction is that unless the weekly shows are must see with stories being threaded throughout the show, and with characters that have some build behind them, the viewership won’t be pretty. Just IMO.

One of my main concerns is that they’re going to throw all these new faces out there without intro vignettes, without characters, etc. Impact made this mistake— they’d put a talent on TV and slap a nickname on them and that was their character. “Lucha Royalty” comes to mind. NXT is super guilty of this as well (EC3). 

If you’re gonna put a Jungle Boy on TV, you better give him a character explain why he’s called Jungle Boy. Otherwise I just don’t think you’re gonna get people to care. 

[Brian Fowler]

The problem with adjusting them to appeal to a larger audience is that you could lose the 200,000 or whatever fans they do have without gaining anything.

[Thibs]

6 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

The problem with adjusting them to appeal to a larger audience is that you could lose the 200,000 or whatever fans they do have without gaining anything.

You definitely could. Especially with the hardcore Meltzer fanbase that fair or not, will complain the minute you don’t give them exactly what they want.

They're going to have to find a balance. And it won’t be easy.

The easy thing would be to just get on a streaming service, ignore the TV and keep doing what they’ve been doing. 

But given the type of return on investment that Kahn probably wants, they can’t do that. 

[Octopus]

59 minutes ago, Thibs said:

Do you think its selling the Elite to a bigger audience? Or is it adjusting and evolving the Elite to gain a larger audience? 

Both? *shrug emoji* High production values and they can't say the B-word. I look at it like when a network likes a comedian and wants to base a show on them. Chas he too much and it loses the initial appeal (think John Mulaney). Trying to enough with the original act that it still feels authentically them (Seinfeld with Larry David writing). Obviously those are 2 extremes and a different beast all together. But I think it works. 

59 minutes ago, Thibs said:

You made a lot of good points. We’ll have to wait and see. My prediction is that unless the weekly shows are must see with stories being threaded throughout the show, and with characters that have some build behind them, the viewership won’t be pretty. Just IMO.

Yup. Words of advice for all tv. 

59 minutes ago, Thibs said:

One of my main concerns is that they’re going to throw all these new faces out there without intro vignettes, without characters, etc. Impact made this mistake— they’d put a talent on TV and slap a nickname on them and that was their character. “Lucha Royalty” comes to mind. NXT is super guilty of this as well (EC3). 

If you’re gonna put a Jungle Boy on TV, you better give him a character explain why he’s called Jungle Boy. Otherwise I just don’t think you’re gonna get people to care. 

I think they have a track record of good character building. I'm going solely off of BTE which is different. I know little about MJF and now I'm interested in him. I now care about Cody who I was indifferent towards. I know nothing of Jungle Boy but I'm sure something neat will be done. But we'll see. Could crap the bed. 

[EVA]

15 hours ago, Norwegian Rudo said:

Sammy Guevara close to signing according to Meltzer on todays WOR.

Woof.  That dude sucks.

[Jiji]

Awe, what do you dislike? I think he does a really good job of being a heel who doesn't just rely on doing headlocks. He's a smarmy, cocky prick who stooges and bumps well and can do some pretty good shit on offense too. He'll be a very good midcard heel for them.

[Jenalysis]

At this point I'm expecting Kenny to take Ibushi and try to bring Dragon Gate up to NJPW's level.  Would the Lovers be able to take fans of theirs from NJPW to another promotion?

It would be interesting if two rival wrestling blocs formed- like some version of an indie cold war, with CMLL/NJPW/ROH on one side, and say Dragon Gate/AEW/Impact/AAA on the other.   That would likely give a surge to both blocs, and they'd both have to be worried about WWE as well.

 

As for what weekly TV would be like for AEW, I'm expecting them to try and go all out on being something different- I'm expecting full videogame wrestling, and something that is closer to WSX or LU, but with some elements from NJPW to keep it coherent.  I'm basing a lot of this off what I saw with CEOxNJPW, and the high likelihood that AEW's 2nd show will be CEO again.  I'm surprised AEW hasn't tried to get Matt Striker- as much as folks don't like him here, he's a good dude who I think would get exactly what AEW goes for.

 

The video game nerds love Kenny, and the video game girls love Kenny and Ibushi so much.  However, they love Ingobs just as much (and Suzuki-Gun, I think NJPW is underestimating Suzuki-Gun's popularity in the US)

 

[Jiji]

I remember Kenny talking about the DG style on one of the BTE Q&As and he didn't sound very fond of it.

And everything we know about Matt Striker doesn't point to him being a good dude, particularly his dealings with women. Fuck that guy.

[Jenalysis]

I've never heard of anything on that end (going off what I've heard from others/personal interactions).  I suspect AEW will be very careful if this is the case- Kenny got burned during CEO due to an oversight, and the Khan's aren't MAGA-heads like Sinclair or Vince.

 

Edit: finally saw something, Striker's a MAGA-head himself.  Don't think that's enough to get him blackballed,def not enough to make me boycott if he was hired, but now I don't want it.

 

 

 

[hammerva]

9 hours ago, EVA said:

Woof.  That dude sucks.

Eh he is okay as a flippy guy and he is easily hateable from i have seen in the ring.  Although half the time I saw he was supposed to be the face.

He could easily be the new Flip Gordon in AEW.   They need someone to do that unbearable "where do you think you're going" angle from last year

 

[Thibs]

Not sure how true this is, but apparently according to Meltzer (via other sites), AEW, along with WWE and UFC will be going after Lesnar this spring as his contract comes up.

Apparently Jericho wants a match with Brock. 

 

[hammerva]

Oh come the fuck on that was just Meltzer trying cover his one of his boys for his drunk tweeting mess this weekend.   

In order to Brock (and Heyman) to leave the WWE for AEW he would have to double the value that UFC and WWE give him.  If they did that even Dixie Carter would laugh her ass off at that level of money mark

 

[Thibs]

11 hours ago, OctopusCinema said:

I think they have a track record of good character building. I'm going solely off of BTE which is different. I know little about MJF and now I'm interested in him. I now care about Cody who I was indifferent towards. I know nothing of Jungle Boy but I'm sure something neat will be done. But we'll see. Could crap the bed. 

They’ve shown the ability to build personalities and character traits. 

But who is MJF? I’m looking for them to build a character from start to finish and define exactly who this character is. Wrestling just doesn’t do that these days. They have “premises” for characters but not actual characters. EC3 In NXT was a joke. They kept the name and basically stripped away everything that made him EC3 and just had him wrestle. Impact brought in Taya and had Josh Mathews tell us 50 times that she’s “lucha royalty”.... that was the extent of her character development.

Compare that to EC3’s debut in Impact— he has vignettes, he has a backstory, he looked and acted the part. Everything made sense. And as a result he was a standout character that was associated exclusively with Impact. 

[Thibs]

20 minutes ago, hammerva said:

Oh come the fuck on that was just Meltzer trying cover his one of his boys for his drunk tweeting mess this weekend.   

“Well, I mean, umm, errr, I don’t think any of those guys even drink...”  -Meltzer

In all seriousness, I think they’ll at least reach out. Let’s be honest.... somehow landing Lesnar would immediately put them on the map like nothing else could. And they have the money to do it. So who knows

[Beech27]

You can only build characters from start to finish, by definition, if you have them at the start. And wrestling fandom in this indie-aware internet age means most fans have heard of someone by the time they see them, and don't want a total repackage. I'd be surprised if AEW goes that route with many guys, though of course they should define characters enough so that their actions and motivations are clear. Characters have to want things in order to create narrative tension. 

[Octopus]

25 minutes ago, Thibs said:

They’ve shown the ability to build personalities and character traits. 

But who is MJF? I’m looking for them to build a character from start to finish and define exactly who this character is. Wrestling just doesn’t do that these days. They have “premises” for characters but not actual characters. EC3 In NXT was a joke. They kept the name and basically stripped away everything that made him EC3 and just had him wrestle. Impact brought in Taya and had Josh Mathews tell us 50 times that she’s “lucha royalty”.... that was the extent of her character development.

Compare that to EC3’s debut in Impact— he has vignettes, he has a backstory, he looked and acted the part. Everything made sense. And as a result he was a standout character that was associated exclusively with Impact. 

I guess MJF is too recently signed to be my example. Maybe Flip Gordon fits the bill. Annoying dork that just wants to be in the group. The underdog story of him not getting booked in All In due to certain members of the group not wanting him in. Comes in the battle royal in a mask, surprise win, reveal, crowd went nuts. The storyline got him over. They used YouTube, twitter, hashtags, shirts, etc. Now imagine they have a tv show to do that. 

Again, we have a small sample size. Or at least I do because I jumped in on BTE during the Cody vs Kenny storyline for the leader of the group. A storyline that made me a fan of Cody, when I was lukewarm on him before that. So I never watched the early stuff. 

[Thibs]

11 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

You can only build characters from start to finish, by definition, if you have them at the start. And wrestling fandom in this indie-aware internet age means most fans have heard of someone by the time they see them, and don't want a total repackage. I'd be surprised if AEW goes that route with many guys, though of course they should define characters enough so that their actions and motivations are clear. Characters have to want things in order to create narrative tension. 

I disagree with some of that. People have been repackaged when going from promotion to promotion forever, even in recent history and it has been successful— EC3 In Impact being an example. You certainly don’t need to have them from the start to build a distinct character from start to finish. 

To your second point, hardcore fans may be aware of all the talents in the indie scene but the assumption that the vast majority of fans are familiar is a false one. Putting people out there and having the announcer say “That’s MJF!” ain’t gonna cut it. 

To your third point, I agree, a characters motivations and actions must be totally clear. But before you worry about that, you have to define who the character is so that their actions and motivations make sense.