Paid Members garynysmon Posted March 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted March 28, 2020 (edited) 28 minutes ago, King Pitcos said: But the ticket sales dying a death after the first few weeks isn’t a good sign of sustainability. Like the original TNA, to some extent that doesn’t matter because rich parents, but it’s not growing in popularity the way a startup should. Although the money in wrestling now (besides Saudi and TV rights deals for WWE) is just fleecing the hardcore fanbase for every last dollar anyway, and they’ve got the brand loyalty to get that part sorted. Even if AEW draws 800 fans, each one will probably buy four t-shirts on the night and already bought seven online. And therein lies the problem. Generally the eye has been taken off the ball in terms of trying to grow the wrestling audience and attract your traditional wide ranging fanbase, in favour of everyone trying to appeal and wring every last penny out of the same narrow demographic that will always be there anyway. The most popular periods in wrestling aren't known for the high quality of the in-ring action, with more emphasis on the characters, promo work etc. This seems to have been forgotten. Edited March 28, 2020 by garynysmon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Pitcos Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 (edited) 25 minutes ago, garynysmon said: And therein lies the problem. Generally the eye has been taken off the ball in terms of trying to grow the wrestling audience and attract your traditional wide ranging fanbase, in favour of everyone trying to appeal and wring every last penny out of the same narrow demographic that will always be there anyway. The most popular periods in wrestling aren't known for the high quality of the in-ring action, with more emphasis on the characters, promo work etc. This seems to have been forgotten. Nobody has foolproof ideas to grow the audience though, and it's dangerous to rock the boat with experiments. The first boom was about Vince's vision for taking wrestling mainstream, and the second boom was fighting for survival in the marketplace. Now, COVID aside, nobody's back is against the ropes, cruise control is comfortable. For AEW, their whole identity is built on appealing to disgruntled WWE fans, and deviating from that will alienate those fans eventually - like it did when the first TNA tried to grow. Their challenge is always going to be walking the fine line of how much anti-WWE fan service is just right. For WWE, the milquetoast, stage-managed product is bringing in more money than any other era did, so throwing some radical shit at the wall is too risky until one of the bubbles bursts. Edited March 28, 2020 by King Pitcos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members unfitfinlay Posted March 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted March 28, 2020 9 hours ago, King Pitcos said: When dey do turn on the company though, I can see bringing in Matt Hardy and Luke Harper being one of the things talked about as a negative. Using knackered old midcard boys from WWE in the top spots isn’t a great way of standing out as an alternative. Harper as leader of the Voodoo Kin Mafia might turn out alright, but the Matt Hardy gimmick has shat the bed on arrival and runs the risk of dragging the Elite down with it. By rights, Hardy will be shunted down to his own Troma universe away from the main event after this, but the lads have made such a point of letting wrestlers do what they want and using them higher up the card than WWE did, can/will they even tackle it with him? I think so. As someone else said, they sacked off the Nightmare Collective pretty quick and that was Brandi's idea, with one of Jericho's best mates involved. Same with the original plans for the Dark Order. They obviously had big plans for them when they took out all the top babyfaces, and then quickly backtracked after seeing the reaction to it. They are apparently good mates with Grayson and Uno outside the ring, and they still went "Sorry. You two aren't good enough". Politics really doesn't seem like a big issue. Anyway, as crap as that segment was, I don't think Matt Hardy is beyond saving, even as a top guy. They just need to tweak it so there's far more emphasis on Hardy being mentally unstable and delusional than him actually being 3000 years old and able to teleport. I'd like to think even Hardy is smart enough to realise that it isn't going to work, given the general reaction to it online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 Hardy shouldn’t be a top guy, he would fit well in the upper mid card as the guys to best to get to top with Dustin. Hardy has came out on twitter saying he’s seen the reactions. , can see it being tweaked when he next appears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Bellenda Carlisle Posted March 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted March 28, 2020 They are really stupid to debut people now, Brodie and Hardy are big signings and having them go out there with no crowd is ridiculous. I can tolerate these weird Covid shows but nothing of note should be happening on them, WWE are having a similar problem with having to build up Wrestlemania despite all the limitations.  Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeavyT Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 What were the ticket sales like for dynamite generally? Always seemed a healthy crowd to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UK Kat Von D Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 (edited) 20 minutes ago, HeavyT said: What were the ticket sales like for dynamite generally? Always seemed a healthy crowd to me. They came out the box so strong that scalpers over bought and messed with predictions a bit. Big shows are always a sell out but Dynamite usually only packs out the side of the arena facing the hard cam. Blood and Guts was going to be their biggest crowd yet with 14000 tickets sold Edited March 28, 2020 by UK Kat Von D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeavyT Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 17 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said: They came out the box so strong that scalpers over bought and messed with predictions a bit. Big shows are always a sell out but Dynamite usually only packs out the side of the arena facing the hard cam. Blood and Guts was going to be their biggest crowd yet with 14000 tickets sold So are we talking still crowds of a couple thousand for dynamite? Thats tail outselling TNAs biggest PPVs.Youd think they could book arenas a bit smaller, always looks nice on TV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UK Kat Von D Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 (edited) 12 minutes ago, HeavyT said: So are we talking still crowds of a couple thousand for dynamite? Thats tail outselling TNAs biggest PPVs.Youd think they could book arenas a bit smaller, always looks nice on TV The record low is 2,950 for a Dynamite episode and TNA’s biggest attendance ever was 7,200 at Lockdown 2013. AEW PPVs have gotten 8,500-11,000 attendances.  Edited March 28, 2020 by UK Kat Von D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_3165 Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 Watching dynamite for the first time in months. It wasn't bad ffor empty arena. Matt Hardy coming to the ring through the stands was proper wrestle crap ha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philjax Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 (edited) What an excellent main event! I'll be watching that again later .A great show overall in fact. Good matches, jobber squashes, Brodie Lee came off incredibly (fixed the ring attire right? - certainly not an issue for me), Vanguard-1!! Hardy stuff glorious. It just gets better, even in these times. Raw and Smackdown, you OBSOLETE MULES!! EDIT: Ha! You must think I'm taking the piss after reading the misery guts in the last three pages. I'm not. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Sorry that you aren't though  Maybe you should all just go out for a run instead, eh? Edited March 28, 2020 by Philjax !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Bellenda Carlisle Posted March 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted March 28, 2020 Vanguard one is much more over than Matt Hardy with me, they should have just used Vanguard and some stuff Matt filmed at home for the build-up until they had an audience again and he could debut properly. Having Matt go full nonsense immediately with no crowd was brutal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Blog Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 50 minutes ago, Philjax said: What an excellent main event! I'll be watching that again later .A great show overall in fact. Good matches, jobber squashes, Brodie Lee came off incredibly (fixed the ring attire right? - certainly not an issue for me), Vanguard-1!! Hardy stuff glorious. It just gets better, even in these times. Raw and Smackdown, you OBSOLETE MULES!! EDIT: Ha! You must think I'm taking the piss after reading the misery guts in the last three pages. I'm not. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Sorry that you aren't though  Maybe you should all just go out for a run instead, eh? Think it is you that needs to get out more by the sounds of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philjax Posted March 28, 2020 Share Posted March 28, 2020 Nah, my life is perfect, thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chris B Posted March 28, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted March 28, 2020 I desperately want Vanguard 1 to turn heel and join the Inner Circle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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