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AEW - AUGUST 2022


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11 hours ago, Stefanie the Human said:

This pretty much plummets my interest in AEW until she comes back. I had already been losing interest gradually, but knowing that my favorite member of the roster is gone for a year or so means I'll be putting AEW in the "will watch if I hear something interesting to me happens but otherwise I'll be moving onto something else".

To clarify, it's perfectly fine wrestling, it just hasn't been hitting my interest the same way it used to. I don't know. Maybe it's because my other favorites (Jamie Hayter, Powerhouse Hobbs, Hikaru Shida) have been so inconsistently booked that it's hard to maintain interest. But I've always said my interests are niche. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m super bummed. She’s been my favorite in AEW on the women’s side since she probably debuted. I was really stoked to see her get a run with the title and now it’s another 9 to 12 months on the shelf.

I really, really hope this isn’t a situation where her knees are just totally shot.

In the meanwhile, I do hope TK reads the room and sees how much Hayter has been getting over. Same for Hobbs. Hobbs even has the Cody/Jade entrance now.

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Alright, here are the fucking theses.

HOW TO FIX THE AEW WOMEN'S DIVISION

1. Have Two Women's Matches on Dynamite Every Other Week - This is Number One with a whole case of shells. There simply needs to be more time devoted to it. One match can be a squash. One can be a storyline-pushing clusterfuck or a match-as-angle kind of thing, whatever. I theorize that AEW's reticence toward booking more women's segments comes from looking at quarter-hour ratings and realizing women's matches usually lose viewers, but it's a fucking self-fulfilling prophecy at this point. This has to do with a broader matter of conditioning the audience to believe that the division matters.

2. Develop a Smackdown Six - Every time they run a Britt + Jamie vs. Babyface match, it works. So start there. Toni makes everybody look better. You've got Athena, use her. Serena Deeb is a machine and Hikaru Shida is the only Joshi import who can both work at a high level and cut an promo in English. Make their storylines and purposes revolve around each other and book them in interlocking configurations.

3. Identify The Middle of the Pack and Book to Their Strengths - This includes Ruby, Nyla, Riho, Tay, Skye Blue, Anna Jay, maybe Allie, and if we're being honest, Thunder Rosa. Plus Britt on a purely in-ring level (Statlander should have her spot in the aforementioned Smackdown Six but it's a cruel world).  There is a ton of talent in this group but they don't have consistent chemistry with each other and often get booked weird. Why does Nyla have a mouthpiece while Deeb doesn't? Why has Ruby been booked as a choke artist? Why doesn't Riho exclusively wrestle bigger heels on DARK?  How has nobody told Anna to stop doing that spinning kick thing? If we know Britt's gonna get cheered is it OK to book her to squash a heel sometimes?

4. Be Honest With The Joshi Situation - The early plan of padding out the roster with joshi talent would have made sense if AEW pulled half the ratings it does and COVID never happened. Whatever Kenny Omega's Day One strategy was is irrelevant now. There is a place on the roster for established talent like Shida and Riho, there is a place for gimmicks like Maki Itoh who draw legit social media attention, but as much as I love the idea of bringing in Miyu Yamashita for a one-off, it doesn't draw any news eyes to the product, takes away a TV spot from a real roster member, and exists entirely in a vacuum story-wise. If there is a real STARDOM crossover story to tell I'll hear it out but only if Point #1 manages to happen.

5. Find Better "Producers" - You hear so much from the WWE side about Finlay, Sara Del Rey, Tyson Kidd, etc. being these gargantuan, unheralded parts of WWE's Women's Revolution. Whoever AEW has in those roles maybe aren't cutting the mustard. Kenny? Dustin? Try somebody else just for the sake of trying. Shit man, see if Claudio can get a little involved. He's got a pretty good connection to the names first listed. Or just poach SDR? Maybe this is what Madison Rayne was brought in to do.

No thesis on Jade Cargill. Just stay the fuckin' course, it is working. And uuuuh poach Masha Slamovich whenever possible and actually try to outbid WWE for Giulia.

Edited by John E. Dynamite
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ThunderStorm vs. Britt/Jamie two weeks ago was a match with a long storyline build featuring some of the division’s most heavily pushed/most popular stars in an earlier time slot than the (purely mythical) “death slot”—and was a really good match to boot—and it was still the ratings low point of the show.

Everybody just has to come to terms with the fact that, of the million-ish people who watch Dynamite every week, there’s a significant portion of the audience (seemingly about 10%) that does not care about the women’s division and simply isn’t going to, outside of the odd match that promises the potential for gore (those weirdly do well!). And when ratings are your lifeblood, and the difference in 100,00 people could take tens of millions off your impending TV deal, I kinda can’t fault AEW for not wanting to sacrifice another quarter hour at this point in time.

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10 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

Alright, here are the fucking theses.

HOW TO FIX THE AEW WOMEN'S DIVISION

1. Have Two Women's Matches on Dynamite Every Other Week - This is Number One with a whole case of shells. There simply needs to be more time devoted to it. One match can be a squash. One can be a storyline-pushing clusterfuck or a match-as-angle kind of thing, whatever. I theorize that AEW's reticence toward booking more women's segments comes from looking at quarter-hour ratings and realizing women's matches usually lose viewers, but it's a fucking self-fulfilling prophecy at this point. This has to do with a broader matter of conditioning the audience to believe that the division matters.

2. Develop a Smackdown Six - Every time they run a Britt + Jamie vs. Babyface match, it works. So start there. Toni makes everybody look better. You've got Athena, use her. Serena Deeb is a machine and Hikaru Shida is the only Joshi import who can both work at a high level and cut an promo in English. Make their storylines and purposes revolve around each other and book them in interlocking configurations.

3. Identify The Middle of the Pack and Book to Their Strengths - This includes Ruby, Nyla, Riho, Tay, Skye Blue, Anna Jay, maybe Allie, and if we're being honest, Thunder Rosa. Plus Britt on a purely in-ring level (Statlander should have her spot in the aforementioned Smackdown Six but it's a cruel world).  There is a ton of talent in this group but they don't have consistent chemistry with each other and often get booked weird. Why does Nyla have a mouthpiece while Deeb doesn't? Why has Ruby been booked as a choke artist? Why doesn't Riho exclusively wrestle bigger heels on DARK?  How has nobody told Anna to stop doing that spinning kick thing? If we know Britt's gonna get cheered is it OK to book her to squash a heel sometimes?

4. Be Honest With The Joshi Situation - The early plan of padding out the roster with joshi talent would have made sense if AEW pulled half the ratings it does and COVID never happened. Whatever Kenny Omega's Day One strategy was is irrelevant now. There is a place on the roster for established talent like Shida and Riho, there is a place for gimmicks like Maki Itoh who draw legit social media attention, but as much as I love the idea of bringing in Miyu Yamashita for a one-off, it doesn't draw any news eyes to the product, takes away a TV spot from a real roster member, and exists entirely in a vacuum story-wise. If there is a real STARDOM crossover story to tell I'll hear it out but only if Point #1 manages to happen.

5. Find Better "Producers" - You hear so much from the WWE side about Finlay, Sara Del Rey, Tyson Kidd, etc. being these gargantuan, unheralded parts of WWE's Women's Revolution. Whoever AEW has in those roles maybe aren't cutting the mustard. Kenny? Dustin? Try somebody else just for the sake of trying. Shit man, see if Claudio can get a little involved. He's got a pretty good connection to the names first listed. Or just poach SDR? Maybe this is what Madison Rayne was brought in to do.

No thesis on Jade Cargill. Just stay the fuckin' course, it is working. And uuuuh poach Masha Slamovich whenever possible and actually try to outbid WWE for Giulia.

A nicely written and thoughtful analysis. I think you're missing seemingly the biggest piece of the puzzle - get this talent pool reps! I don't entirely agree on staying the course with Jade. She clearly has the charisma and mic delivery of a top star. She's also doing tremendously well for her experience level, but not getting her reps multiple times a week is not helping her. I see a bright future for Tay as well, but like nearly everyone in the division she needs reps. It's like Regal saying on his podcast that he told Helmsley to leave WCW in the midst of their Bluebloods run and take the WWF offer because he needed the reps to polish his 'game'. I really really wish AEW would consider running an 'AEW Dark' (or branding to indicate not all the 'stars' are coming) house show schedule. Play small capacity buildings twice or three times on the weekends and only book the greenhornes and teachers. Please!

The Women's Division, without the aid of Joshi stars, began and remains a talent pool that is clearly far more of a development than the Men's side (which began with a bunch of buzzy stars and bluechippers). It's often, as we've seen, a challenge putting these Women's Division bouts side by side with all these weekly TV 'dream matches'. I'm not so sure more Women's matches is the answer. Viewers aren't buying what they're already selling. Sure, could be lack of name recognition, but not entirely true. This doesn't seem to be nearly the issue when Hayter or Storm are in the ring, but the bench isn't currently that deep. Tho a bit inconsistent in the past, a case could be made for Statlander (looking great before yet another injury). Deeb with the right opponent works on my end (but yes, would benefit greatly from a manager). Shida's in that upper echelon, but again she's somebody who is inconsistent. Baker's got the goods, but again is  inconsistent. Mercedes is doing well. I'm a Riho fan and would argue she never disappoints, but here's a case where we don't really know her availability. Maybe that fits into your above Joshi discussion. And she's obviously not without her detractors. Athena's looked good and presents some hope in the division. Not a lot of consistency in-ring beyond those names. This seems to be a bit overlooked in these discussions.

The popular criticism going around is that the Ladies aren't being given opportunity. Certainly there's some arguments to made, but there's also clear fact of the matter that too few have really stepped up and made the best of their opportunity. Baker got the opportunity and, tho a bit inconsistent in-ring, stepped up incredibly well. Ruby on the otherhand got the shine, and kinda got revealed as very inconsitent. So too our current champion. Tho she has incredible potential, and has an excellent new persona, how many Anna Jay matches do we need to see before somebody gets her the rrrreps she needs to meet said potential?

I like where you were going with the more TV time sandwiched in, but I think at this stage the division would greatly benefit from getting a separate (and rumoured) All Women's show. I thought it worked well enough for the Tag tournament. Having a cluster of angles and matches over the course of an hour weekly could really help. If I had the pencil I'd gladly hand over 'Rampage' to the division. That and reps feel like the most crucial parts of solving this situation. Deonna Purrazzo, Chelsea Green and maybe Slamovich could help as well.

Edited by HarryArchieGus
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There is a lot I agree with in the AEW Women’s 95 Theses, but where I differ:

Deeb has been given several high profile chances and the only heat she’s ever gotten was crippling Shida and at the ROH PPV. She’s been a crowd and ratings killer. She may be a fantastic wrestler, but that’s not enough. Have her be the Ace and trainer of the ROW women’s division if you don’t have Purrazzo.

The counterpoint is Rosa. She’s not as good and she’s been in a slump lately but she (and Britt) are the stars and draws of the division right now.

Keep the course with the ThunderStorm-DentalHayte feud, spin stories off that. Use Shida and Riho in here some.

Have Jade’s angles be the focus of Friday (in case you need tape editing), and then add one other every week.

More RubyBlue-TayJAS. Fans love Willow, maybe have her feud with Nyla. Speaking of, Nyla and Shafir are a fun tag team.

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On 8/10/2022 at 10:12 PM, HumanChessgame said:

So the discussion doesn't get stuck in this week's Dynamite thread, here is the bracket for the Trios Title Tournament

D4iOzC3.jpg

Is Omega ready to return as the Bucks partner or do they opt for Jay White or someone else? The left side is quite a bit more weighted as HOB are the only non-jobbers on the right side.

Dumb question.  Where are Cole/red dragon?  I know they were all injured but I thought Cole mentioned before turning on the Bucks that he was going to win this with dragon?  The this past weeks, the Bucks mentioned them without mentioning their names, that we wouldn't be seeing them for a while.

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8 minutes ago, romdam said:

Dumb question.  Where are Cole/red dragon?  I know they were all injured but I thought Cole mentioned before turning on the Bucks that he was going to win this with dragon?  The this past weeks, the Bucks mentioned them without mentioning their names, that we wouldn't be seeing them for a while.

I think he said if he and ReDragon can’t win it, then neither can the Bucks.

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2 hours ago, EVA said:

ThunderStorm vs. Britt/Jamie two weeks ago was a match with a long storyline build featuring some of the division’s most heavily pushed/most popular stars in an earlier time slot than the (purely mythical) “death slot”—and was a really good match to boot—and it was still the ratings low point of the show.

Everybody just has to come to terms with the fact that, of the million-ish people who watch Dynamite every week, there’s a significant portion of the audience (seemingly about 10%) that does not care about the women’s division and simply isn’t going to, outside of the odd match that promises the potential for gore (those weirdly do well!). And when ratings are your lifeblood, and the difference in 100,00 people could take tens of millions off your impending TV deal, I kinda can’t fault AEW for not wanting to sacrifice another quarter hour at this point in time.

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The answer is a bloody Bunny

12 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

Alright, here are the fucking theses.

HOW TO FIX THE AEW WOMEN'S DIVISION

1. Have Two Women's Matches on Dynamite Every Other Week - This is Number One with a whole case of shells. There simply needs to be more time devoted to it. One match can be a squash. One can be a storyline-pushing clusterfuck or a match-as-angle kind of thing, whatever. I theorize that AEW's reticence toward booking more women's segments comes from looking at quarter-hour ratings and realizing women's matches usually lose viewers, but it's a fucking self-fulfilling prophecy at this point. This has to do with a broader matter of conditioning the audience to believe that the division matters.

2. Develop a Smackdown Six - Every time they run a Britt + Jamie vs. Babyface match, it works. So start there. Toni makes everybody look better. You've got Athena, use her. Serena Deeb is a machine and Hikaru Shida is the only Joshi import who can both work at a high level and cut an promo in English. Make their storylines and purposes revolve around each other and book them in interlocking configurations.

3. Identify The Middle of the Pack and Book to Their Strengths - This includes Ruby, Nyla, Riho, Tay, Skye Blue, Anna Jay, maybe Allie, and if we're being honest, Thunder Rosa. Plus Britt on a purely in-ring level (Statlander should have her spot in the aforementioned Smackdown Six but it's a cruel world).  There is a ton of talent in this group but they don't have consistent chemistry with each other and often get booked weird. Why does Nyla have a mouthpiece while Deeb doesn't? Why has Ruby been booked as a choke artist? Why doesn't Riho exclusively wrestle bigger heels on DARK?  How has nobody told Anna to stop doing that spinning kick thing? If we know Britt's gonna get cheered is it OK to book her to squash a heel sometimes?

4. Be Honest With The Joshi Situation - The early plan of padding out the roster with joshi talent would have made sense if AEW pulled half the ratings it does and COVID never happened. Whatever Kenny Omega's Day One strategy was is irrelevant now. There is a place on the roster for established talent like Shida and Riho, there is a place for gimmicks like Maki Itoh who draw legit social media attention, but as much as I love the idea of bringing in Miyu Yamashita for a one-off, it doesn't draw any news eyes to the product, takes away a TV spot from a real roster member, and exists entirely in a vacuum story-wise. If there is a real STARDOM crossover story to tell I'll hear it out but only if Point #1 manages to happen.

5. Find Better "Producers" - You hear so much from the WWE side about Finlay, Sara Del Rey, Tyson Kidd, etc. being these gargantuan, unheralded parts of WWE's Women's Revolution. Whoever AEW has in those roles maybe aren't cutting the mustard. Kenny? Dustin? Try somebody else just for the sake of trying. Shit man, see if Claudio can get a little involved. He's got a pretty good connection to the names first listed. Or just poach SDR? Maybe this is what Madison Rayne was brought in to do.

No thesis on Jade Cargill. Just stay the fuckin' course, it is working. And uuuuh poach Masha Slamovich whenever possible and actually try to outbid WWE for Giulia.

1. Agreed. When it is clear that the company doesn’t really care about a division, why should I as a fan? AEW fans (I assume) care mostly about good matches. Whether it is the bloody matches that @EVA pointed out or Hayter and an eventually healthy Statlander and Hersch suplexing fools, or a charisma driven Jade or Baker match. I could easily be pointed as being wrong, but I remember there being women’s matches with good ratings. I have no receipts so I’m sure the most resent ratings drops will suffice as me being wrong. 

There are reasons to invest into the women of AEW. The Brandi toy sold extremely well. Having a popular face star could make a lot of money. Jade will probably stay heel but she has likability written all over her. Toni looks like a star, Athena has an abundance of charisma and can carry herself over well in a PR interview, Rosa may be hurt (?) but she comes across over well as a champion and could be representing the company well at charity events and commercials. Its more then matches, but investing in your talent so they feel like more than big in a wrestling bubble. WWE was good at that. Imagine luchasaurus on a Cracker Barrel cup or a Thunder Rosa comic or a weekly skater arthouse Darby YouTube vignette. Just with YouTube, do more than dark and BTE. Have a Best Friends short series where they are roommates, like the tenacious D HBO show. Invest in your talent outside of wrestling.

Devils advocate: The issue with two matches, is what do we cut? I’m sure we can find the room but what would you all take away?

2. Yarp. A revolving door of set talent. Let’s say tag match and then mix in a midcarder and then a TBS open challenge, for example. Who would everyone’s 6 be? 

3. I hear ya. But what does identify mean. Like just recognize or what action does it take? Or are you saying find their weakness and attempt to hide it as they work on it? I’m interested in hearing more.

I feel they are doing a good job with Ruby Soho being sided with Kingston. I now see her more and excited to see her fight Tay. Tay with Guevara was awkward when they misread them as faces, but as a heel she is phenomenal. 

4. I’m pro-Joshi involvement in AEW. The issue is it needs to feel like a big deal. Rosa vs Yamashita should be having dramatic hype videos and heavy praise from the announcers. Make me excited for something special. Watching the Road to Minneapolis videos made me more excited for a boring Starks vs whatshisface match. Imagine that but on tv for an actual championship. Dynamite clearly wants to have its sports feel, but at times the miss on the opportunities to have exciting promotional hype. Have Yuka Sakazaki feel like you are seeing something special. Like a WCW luchadore. Riho could be your Mysterio and Hikaru your Juvi, etc. You have your regular roster members but your special attractions need to be treated like a special attraction.

5. I don’t know who is producing what but you make a fair point. Mix it up or add to whatever? Or the producing of matches is fine but there’s no time? Idk. I have nothing to add.

2 hours ago, Matt D said:

Step one: condition fans to realize enhancement matches are awesome.

Step two: treat the webshows as more important on your other programming.

1. Can be done the same way early on fans were treated to respect draws. All comes down to hard work from good announcers. Treat the finish like a big deal. 

But honestly, I prefer AEW to stay mostly to exciting matches. You can sprinkle in a squash, especially when there is a clear tier difference in card position. But evenly ranked wrestlers should be having good contests to get over. Especially in a company like AEW that match quality is the heart of the product. This came up last week and I strongly feel that is AEW transitioned to shorter TV matches, I’d likely be less interested.
Now add this to what we were talking about with the women’s division. Added a second match and have them be enhancement matches or squashes wouldn’t really feel like an improvement and would likely not help the roster that needs to get more time and more over.

2. Yes, this goes into my hype videos point. Schivone talking about how he watched a great match for free on YouTube! Taz gushing over Bear Country smashing nerds for free on YouTube! Etc. JR yelling about the Ass Boys are on a tear and on a milti-win streak for free on YouTube! Excalibur’s analysis on the moves Shida did for free on YouTube! 

This goes into promoting your own product. Dark feels like a tool for rankings as opposed to content to enjoy.  I don’t feel like checking it out every because it doesn’t feel special. I watched Omega vs Janela do hardcore stuff because it had references to a current storyline with Mox and Danielson vs Suzuki because it had internet hype (I watched that in a hotel in Gary, In and was so pumped up). 
——

At the heart of what I’m saying: I assume AEW leaves money on the table by not putting Luchasarus on a cup.

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4 hours ago, EVA said:

Everybody just has to come to terms with the fact that, of the million-ish people who watch Dynamite every week, there’s a significant portion of the audience (seemingly about 10%) that does not care about the women’s division and simply isn’t going to, outside of the odd match that promises the potential for gore (those weirdly do well!). And when ratings are your lifeblood, and the difference in 100,00 people could take tens of millions off your impending TV deal, I kinda can’t fault AEW for not wanting to sacrifice another quarter hour at this point in time.

I mean shouldn't they be trying to make their product appeal to more than 969,000 hardcore-ish wrestling fans though? "the small, stagnant pool of people who regularly watch our product don't care about the women that much so what can we do ¯\(°_o)/¯" feels like it's missing a trick

I know they've been down on star power due to injuries but I don't know if "randomly booked dream matches between AEW guys and New Japan/RoH guys" was the best way to style it out, and also the OTT style they have most people working causes a ton of the injuries!

 

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Fightful just posted that Daivari, who is signed to a full-time deal, produced the great Hayter/Britt v ThunderStorm tag. Omega hasn't been backstage other than a short stint since being out, so he's not responsible for the good or the bad. Riccabonni is on his old ROH deal still apparently (he hopes to sign a new one) and Alex Zayne is a free agent still.

So, hate on the Trustbusters all you want, but if Daivari can keep that kind of coaching up well then Slim J can be AEW World's Champion. (Slim J should still probably be world's champion regardless). 

Edit: I read on twitter that somebody said Khan compared his vision of AEW Rampage to Sunday Heat originally. Is that true? If so, I guess what we're seeing right now with it largely being a show for the younger talent will be the way forward despite dogshit ratings. 

Also, how on earth did Death Triangle and House of Black feud for half a year and we did not get a single straight-up PAC vs. Black match? 

Edited by Jiji
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4 hours ago, EVA said:

ThunderStorm vs. Britt/Jamie two weeks ago was a match with a long storyline build featuring some of the division’s most heavily pushed/most popular stars in an earlier time slot than the (purely mythical) “death slot”—and was a really good match to boot—and it was still the ratings low point of the show.

Everybody just has to come to terms with the fact that, of the million-ish people who watch Dynamite every week, there’s a significant portion of the audience (seemingly about 10%) that does not care about the women’s division and simply isn’t going to, outside of the odd match that promises the potential for gore (those weirdly do well!). And when ratings are your lifeblood, and the difference in 100,00 people could take tens of millions off your impending TV deal, I kinda can’t fault AEW for not wanting to sacrifice another quarter hour at this point in time.

I'd say limiting the presence of an entire segment of the population on your show because a small segment of your audience folds their arms and goes "B-B-B-BUT GIRLS NOOOOOOOO!!!" is an unfortunate stance to take, and something that corporate overlords might frown upon far heavier than whether you got 900K viewers or a million.

 

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24 minutes ago, Jiji said:

So, hate on the Trustbusters all you want, but if Daivari can keep that kind of coaching up well then Slim J can be AEW World's Champion. (Slim J should still probably be world's champion regardless). 

This is DVDVR. We’ve got like one and a half people complaining here.

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2 minutes ago, Stefanie the Human said:

I'd say limiting the presence of an entire segment of the population on your show because a small segment of your audience folds their arms and goes "B-B-B-BUT GIRLS NOOOOOOOO!!!" is an unfortunate stance to take, and something that corporate overlords might frown upon far heavier than whether you got 900K viewers or a million.

Its also a weird stance to take considering we have seen with WWE/NXT and Impact in the past how a well booked division can actually grab ratings.

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8 minutes ago, Stefanie the Human said:

I'd say limiting the presence of an entire segment of the population on your show because a small segment of your audience folds their arms and goes "B-B-B-BUT GIRLS NOOOOOOOO!!!" is an unfortunate stance to take, and something that corporate overlords might frown upon far heavier than whether you got 900K viewers or a million.

 

Unfortunately, these are the same corporate overlords who just threw the Batgirl movie into a volcano for... reasons. 

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2 hours ago, Jiji said:

 

Also, how on earth did Death Triangle and House of Black feud for half a year and we did not get a single straight-up PAC vs. Black match? 

Because one or the other was hurt and things never matched up. I also wouldn’t be surprised if you checked cagematch and found that Black was mostly involved in tags because his back is all fucked up.

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3 hours ago, Jiji said:

Fightful just posted that Daivari, who is signed to a full-time deal, produced the great Hayter/Britt v ThunderStorm tag. Omega hasn't been backstage other than a short stint since being out, so he's not responsible for the good or the bad. Riccabonni is on his old ROH deal still apparently (he hopes to sign a new one) and Alex Zayne is a free agent still.

So, hate on the Trustbusters all you want, but if Daivari can keep that kind of coaching up well then Slim J can be AEW World's Champion. (Slim J should still probably be world's champion regardless). 

Edit: I read on twitter that somebody said Khan compared his vision of AEW Rampage to Sunday Heat originally. Is that true? If so, I guess what we're seeing right now with it largely being a show for the younger talent will be the way forward despite dogshit ratings. 

Also, how on earth did Death Triangle and House of Black feud for half a year and we did not get a single straight-up PAC vs. Black match? 

Are they really dogshit ratings when they still place in the Top 5 or whatever for the night? It’s a little under half of what they do for Dynamite usually, and it’s still a top ranked show for TNT on a Friday night at 9pm.

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I would argue ratings drops on good women's matches goes back to the issue of conditioning an audience. If you have a match as solid as Britt/Hayter vs. ThunderStorm say, three weeks outta five, a chunk of that 100K is gonna hear about it. If the segments they skip aren't usually hypeworthy you're not gonna change minds. Remember AEW's chasing of "lapsed fans"? Those people still associate women w/ popcorn matches. Those are people who need Re-Education Through Hayter. It isn't gonna happen without consistency.

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I agree with a lot of the points already raised about improving the women's division.

The amount of airtime - I'm aware they have a much smaller roster, but Tuesday night's NXT episode had the same amount of airtime as Dynamite did on Wednesday yet had three women's matches, one of which was the main event. AEW can easily book two per show, especially if you have one go under 5 minutes. None of the other matches on the card would be hurt having a minute or two shaved off to accommodate that. As far as ratings or fans in general being less interested in women's wrestling, that may be. It doesn't mean you shouldn't give that division the card space however. Like others have said, if you regularly present it to the audience they'll be conditioned to treat it as serious business, or at least be indifferent and use it as a break point for themselves.

Dustin even mentioned it in a panel interview someone posted in this thread, but the lack of reps, especially for the younger talent, is also holding back their development. Sure they're free to work the indies but that might not always be a possibility. Either way I think the time has come for AEW to have more than one show a week. I get that having Rampage live gets expensive and difficult logistically, but they could tape it (and 90 minutes or so of material for Dark) on Thursday at a venue a few hours from wherever Dynamite is held. Having been to one of their events, I can say that the crowd was fatigued when it came time to tape Rampage at a little after 10 and everyone had already been there for 3 hours and possibly had work/school early in the morning. Additionally, having a house show at a smaller venue on Saturday or Sunday (when they don't have a PPV) would also be beneficial.

As far as the Joshi wrestlers go, if they want to bring in more experienced female wrestlers then fine, but flying them in from Japan has to get expensive. While I know there's a good portion of the fanbase who will recognize them, a lot of the fans aren't going to know who they are or what their deal is if they just show up and start having matches with little introduction. Bringing in outside talent like that as a whole has been a quibble I've had with AEW though. Take Mance Warner's recent appearance for example - he had that great promo that was posted on youtube...why not air that on the show when they announce the match? That way the more casual fans get an idea of who he is and what he's about rather than some random guy showing up getting a high profile match.

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5 hours ago, Octopus said:

Devils advocate: The issue with two matches, is what do we cut? I’m sure we can find the room but what would you all take away?

You have to cut time off of the other matches, but I think the real answer is simply that AEW needs to expand their TV time. If I was TK, I'm thinking that my company is finally at the stage where it can sufficiently produce 4 hours of live (being the key word) TV a week. You can do taped if you want to, but just know that the ratings are going to suffer - so I think the answer is live. Then you get into the problem of where do you put that additional hour of TV time, on Rampage making it a 2 hour live show now competing head to head with SmackDown or expanding Dynamite to 3 hours. I've got a pretty good idea of what the consensus would be on that.

But to the main point, there's more than enough of a roster built up in AEW now for them to expand even further. You could easily add another hour of TV and I bet you there are still gonna be some talents that will be having a difficult time making TV, because their roster is just that deep.

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Two hour live Rampage would be sweet if they could get the tv time. Then you could still do Sark before Dynamite AND do a taped one hour RoH before Rampage.

Heck, let’s be naughty and have a Friday night war of Rampage vs Smackdown.

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