AEW: All Out

[Yakashi]

Got my tickets. Early birthday present

[iPumaPants]

My friend was number 71000 in the queue. With that level of demand, these guys could easily sell out a reasonably sized stadium.

[DavidB6937]

That's not 71000 genuine fans though. Although it will be interesting to see how big they can go in the future.

[Yakashi]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

That's not 71000 genuine fans though. Although it will be interesting to see how big they can go in the future.

Dave said they could have sold 130000 tickets if they had them. I mean, I don’t really know what to say to that. He is what he is at this point. 

[UK Kat Von D]

Got to assume they would have quite a few people trying off multiple devices and plenty scalpers at this point. The actual number is likely to still be very impressive though 

[Loki]

I'm only a filthy casual when it comes to the Indy scene, but it surprises me that so early in this company's existence, they are putting together singles matches that are arguably bigger than their title match.

It's pretty important to solidify your top belt as the apex of your company, and so I would imagine your top stars and therefore matches should be aligned for that.

I suppose the thinking is that Jericho is their biggest star, but for their audience surely Moxley and Omega are their biggest stars?  Weird to see them already fighting but not over the title.  

It's like when Hogan came into WCW, they didn't have him face Flair but have Vader and Sting wrestling for the title on the same card.

[Yakashi]

Yeah they absolutely could fill a much, much larger venue. But it’s like he takes absolutely nothing into consideration when he comes up with his numbers. 

In todays podcast he said that AEW is drawing an all new audience and his justification is that the AEW PPV buyers were completely different than the people who buy the ppvs for wwe. He didn’t understand where the people were coming from. So the 11000 that bought the Saudi shite (still can’t believe that many buy those shows when the network exists) were people who didn’t buy AEW. And that’s his reasoning for why AEW is this magical new audience. He didn’t even mention the wwe network and it’s almost 2m subscribers and the fact that, in all likelihood, a massive number of the 100k poeple that bought that show also subscribe to the network and/or new Japan world. Who could possibly believe that most of the AEW fan base don’t already watch and support other wrestling.

Its like, the massive success they are having just isn’t enough. 

[WeeAl]

I like Dave, I subscribe and listen to his radio shows and read through the observer (although usually about 3-4 weeks behind) but he's blinkered as fuck when it comes to AEW. He comes accross as bought and paid for, whether that's the case or not. I don't expect that he has been though. Really, more than anything, I think he's just excited as all hell as it looks to be a wrestling company that's closer to his tastes than any has ever been before. 

I don't get bogged down on his star ratings, as it's simply his opinion, and I don't share it a lot of the time. Where he is above the rest in his field is as a wrestling historian, and analysing business shifts, trends and the PPV and TV market. If he wants to give Kenny Omega or Will Ospreay sixteen stars for doing twenty head drops a match, then that's his business. 

He's excited about AEW and as such, I think he may be getting a bit carried away with thinking that they are a new audience. I can't see any way in which that would be possible, as they seem to be the most "in on the joke" audience that you could find. Without being on TV, there's no chance it's a new audience. Jaded/lapsed WWE fans, some of which follow certain indies, or the business at a distance, fans of everything, NJPW followers, being the elite viewers, it's bound to be a bit of all of the above.

Above all though it's a young, highly male, bachelor audience with plenty of disposable income who follow some form of wrestling closely online. At the minute it's a completely niche audience, but one that's very willing to part with money. If AEW can keep them happy while they try and gain new customers from other brackets via TNT, then they'll be onto a winner.

They need both to be viable as a large entity. Without the small, rabid following they currently have, they wouldn't have gotten their foot in the door of the TV stations. If they can't gain a new audience that's willing to attend shows and keep TV ratings up then they'll get dropped by TNT, and be dead in the water as rights fees are the only way to be a big player. It'll be interesting to see where they are in around nine months time. 

 

[BomberPat]

Yeah, there's going to be a very small minority of AEW fans that aren't also watching WWE. And most of that minority will be people who used to watch WWE and stopped. I can't imagine AEW's drawing a single first-time wrestling viewer, because that's not who they've targeted their marketing at.

What I find fascinating is that "indie wrestling" isn't the homogenous market I'd kind of assumed it was - The Elite have carved out this odd niche where their fanbase see them, and them alone, as the alternative. I saw people on Twitter complaining that the NJPW UK show doesn't have "any of the stars" - a show that has Tanashi, Naito, Okada and Ibushi already announced - because, to a significant number of people, Bullet Club or The Elite are the be-all and end-all of NJPW.

It's similar when you look at the reaction to some of the indie guys at AEW, either online or in the arena - there seems to be a huge fanbase that have bought in completely to Cody, Omega and the Bucks, but don't follow non-WWE wrestling anywhere else. They don't know guys like Orange Cassidy, who has been booked practically everywhere for the past 18 months, or didn't realise Aja Kong was still wrestling, and so on.

[Vamp]

The Bullet Club stuff is interesting. They're the most sports entertainment booked off all of the NJPW stables. Maybe they're more over than the rest of NJPW because that's really what the fans want. It's not the long wrestling matches that appeal but the interference, the Americans, the shit civil wars and the interference and cheating.

[TildeGuy~!]

2 minutes ago, Vamp said:

The Bullet Club stuff is interesting. They're the most sports entertainment booked off all of the NJPW stables. Maybe they're more over than the rest of NJPW because that's really what the fans want. It's not the long wrestling matches that appeal but the interference, the Americans, the shit civil wars and the interference and cheating.

Bullet Club haven’t been over in a long time.

LIJ is New Japans top and most over stable

[BomberPat]

30 minutes ago, Vamp said:

The Bullet Club stuff is interesting. They're the most sports entertainment booked off all of the NJPW stables. Maybe they're more over than the rest of NJPW because that's really what the fans want. It's not the long wrestling matches that appeal but the interference, the Americans, the shit civil wars and the interference and cheating.

It depends what you mean by "over" and by "the fans". Bullet Club were likely an essential part of NJPW's increased relevance outside of Japan, but for all the Hot Topic deals and whatnot, were they as much of a merchandising juggernaut domestically? Genuine question, I have no idea.

These days, LIJ are definitely a bigger deal than Bullet Club in Japan, and ratings/attendance being up since the Elite left suggests they were never the big draw to the Japanese audience. 

Early on, the point of Bullet Club was that they were disrespectful for bringing Americanised tactics to NJPW - when the whole product becomes more Americanised, what are Bullet Club for? Who stands out when everyone is doing it?

[AshC]

It's odd how the Bullet Club became this big thing in the west after the true and arguably best incarnation with Devitt and Anderson had ended. Pre-NJPW World era I guess. Increase in visibility online and English commentary will have played a massive part.

[Liam O'Rourke]

The perception that the Bullet Club was super over is a weird one for me. In America they sold a shit load of shirts, so clearly they were, but I'm convinced that most people that bought into them in the first 2 incarnations (Devitt and Styles as leaders) weren't actually watching New Japan. It was just a cool viral thing, but the Bullet Club as an act were one of the worst parts of the promotion outside of AJ's great matches, their merch was not as big in Japan as it was internationally, and one of the only times since the rise of New Japan since 2010 where the attendance figures actually dropped was when the Bullet Club were on top holding all the titles (with AJ as champion).

Edited June 17, 2019 by Liam O'Rourke

[mim731]

17 minutes ago, Liam O'Rourke said:

The perception that the Bullet Club was over is a weird one for me. In America they sold a shit load of shirts, but I'm convinced that most people that bought into them in the first 2 incarnations (Devitt and Styles as leaders) weren't actually watching New Japan. It was just a cool viral thing, but the Bullet Club as an act were one of the worst parts of the promotion outside of AJ's great matches, their merch was not as big in Japan as it was internationally, and one of the only times since the rise of New Japan since 2010 where the attendance figures actually dropped was when the Bullet Club were on top holding all the titles (with AJ as champion).

I was in Tokyo in January 2016 (sadly we arrived a week after WK that year, long story) and I saw BC shirts pretty frequently. They had loads of them in Tower Records, and the NJPW shop in Suidobashi was about 50% Bullet Club merch. I have to presume that's a decent indicator they were doing reasonably well on that front in Japan, even if not on the same level as internationally.