The AEW Wednesday Night Dynamite Thread

[Nick James]

I'm far from a Kenny Omega fan currently (have only been exposed to his work via AEW), however I think its unfair to say that he can't be a star or 'face of the company' to use a WWE phrase, without them actually positioning him as such and letting him run with it. If they allow him the opportunity and it dies on its arse, then we can all say hes a nerd who doesn't draw. 

When AEW came to fruition, the main draw at that point was that they had Kenny Omega. 

[The Cutting Edge]

I agree about Omega/Superhero stuff.

I'd say now more than ever its harder to pinpoint what fans want or need as an all rounder, we're constantly hearing that Black, Hispanic, LGBQ or any "minority" group want to represented at the top of the card and say they can't relate to Omega (white dude) Reigns (Samoan) or whoever cos they "don't look like or act like me" 

I saw black guys saying Kofi wasn't really a black champion for them cos he didn't act how they would (really stupid I know)

So I can see why wwe is the selling point these days rather than a name like it used to be.

[WyattSheepMask]

Watching the show at the moment after watching the second of Fyter Fest this morning.

”in Mexico that would an automatic disqualification, but not here in AEW”, because apparently nothing gets you DQ’ed in AEW. See last week when P&P threw orange juice in Cassidy’s face in full view of the referee. They clearly don’t want to do them because “real sports feel and win & losses matter” and all that, but they’re going to have to give in to wrestling tropes at some point.

Jericho’s demo talk can do one as well. Saying “yeah, but I won the key demo!” is like Sebastian Bach (who coincidentally has been having a hilarious petty squabble with Jericho this week on twitter) saying a sold-tour show at a dive-bar did better than Metallica because they only nearly filled a stadium.

Edited July 17, 2020 by WyattSheepMask

[boyfriend]

I fully agree on the superhero stuff and the potential of Omega.

My issue and many others is the woeful presentation of him so far. From looking like a megastar at the initial face off with Jericho to complete goofball now, timed nicely with Hangman doing the opposite and shockingly getting the most cheers and a real sense that people are fully behind him.

Basically why reheat Omega up down the line. If the masses are to believe in him now is the time. Timing as we know in wrassssslin is everything.

[Chris B]

Not watched the entire episode yet, but when I saw how much criticism the episode was getting, I suspected I'd end up enjoying it more. Also found it ironic that the 'Kenny Omega isn't a star' thing is up again when he came across a lot more like a star in this episode than he has in a while - he was pretty dominant in this one, and I liked the sudden attack on Marko. The thing with FTR and the beer, as a continuation from the previous week, I liked too, along with the positioning FTR as getting Hangman more than his partner does. I'm not sure where they're going with Omega/Hangman, but they're clearly going somewhere.

The Vickie Guerrero thing is an odd choice, but some of the stuff they've been doing around Nyla outside of the main show suggests they're trying to get more of her personality out. Based on their podcast and Brandi's show, Nyla can be a lot of fun when she has someone to play off. So this might be giving her someone to do that with more than anything else. If it's that, then I get it and it makes sense - if it isn't, I have no idea what's going on.

Jericho getting freshly outraged each time the footage was shown was great. And something about the way it was shot was impressive - every angle of it looked good. Not my favourite thing they've done either.

[Snitsky's back acne]

26 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

 

If having a bad-ass superhero you can live vicariously through was a guaranteed route to success, then every promotion ever would book their top star that way, and it would always be an unmitigated success. But people clearly didn't want that when Roman Reigns was booked in that position. 

Roman 'Suckering Succotash' Reigns was not booked as a bad-ass superhero - when he got over organically prior to that as the cool, silent, kick-ass member of the Shield the fans loved him.

Diesel got over as a bad ass, cool, ass-kicker. He became smiley corporate Diesel and people hated it. He became NWO 'Big Sexy' Kevin Nash and he got over again.

Again, thats not the only archetype that works but generally if a gimmick is seen as 'cool' in whatever manifestation one chooses to define that term, it generates interest beyond the core audience.

Of course its not a guaranteed 100% certainty that these kind of things are going to be a success but its hard to argue that 'ordinary' characters in wrestling appeal to anybody other than diehard fans when you look at the difference in popularity between the two.

Anyway, AEW. Clearly whatever they are doing is not capturing peoples imaginations. Neither is WWE (as evidenced by how little the WWE threads are posted in these days). Wrestling in general is in a slump. If AEW are happy pulling the numbers they are (which according to Tony Khan they are) then great, but I sadly cant ever see them growing their audience with the goofy, tongue-in-cheek content they are putting out now. 

[BomberPat]

it's also worth noting that Steve Austin was only the top draw in wrestling for two years, non-consecutively. 

John Cena was the biggest draw in wrestling for close to fifteen years, and he spent much of that time as the goofy "smiley corporate" babyface that would be hard for anyone to argue was "cool". Bob Backlund wasn't "cool" in 1979-1982. I love The Sheik, but I don't think you could argue that he was cool, nor was Lou Thesz. Gorgeous George wasn't on top because people wanted to be like him. Hulk Hogan might be the most profoundly uncool man imaginable.

What matters is creating an emotional connection with the audience. Looking at the media landscape in 2020, it's clear that the people achieving that in Hollywood are Marvel, and people dining out on geek cred or nostalgia, not on "cool". 

 

Another important point is that Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, pretty much anyone else we can talk about as a past main event draw, existed in a world before Reality TV, and before social media. The only non-sporting event to make the top 10 most viewed TV in the UK in the 2010s was an X-Factor final. If you take sports out of the equation, five out of the top ten most viewed TV shows were reality TV shows. The way we engage with celebrity, and with media as a whole, is different now. Relateability and human stories sell across the entire TV sector, it's weird to assume that wrestling should be uniquely exempt from that.

[Snitsky's back acne]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

it's also worth noting that Steve Austin was only the top draw in wrestling for two years, non-consecutively. 

John Cena was the biggest draw in wrestling for close to fifteen years, and he spent much of that time as the goofy "smiley corporate" babyface that would be hard for anyone to argue was "cool". Bob Backlund wasn't "cool" in 1979-1982. I love The Sheik, but I don't think you could argue that he was cool, nor was Lou Thesz. Gorgeous George wasn't on top because people wanted to be like him. Hulk Hogan might be the most profoundly uncool man imaginable.

What matters is creating an emotional connection with the audience. Looking at the media landscape in 2020, it's clear that the people achieving that in Hollywood are Marvel, and people dining out on geek cred or nostalgia, not on "cool". 

 

Another important point is that Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, pretty much anyone else we can talk about as a past main event draw, existed in a world before Reality TV, and before social media. The only non-sporting event to make the top 10 most viewed TV in the UK in the 2010s was an X-Factor final. If you take sports out of the equation, five out of the top ten most viewed TV shows were reality TV shows. The way we engage with celebrity, and with media as a whole, is different now. Relateability and human stories sell across the entire TV sector, it's weird to assume that wrestling should be uniquely exempt from that.

Austin was on top for 'only' two years, yes, but everyone in wrestling now would KILL for those two years.
 

Hulk WAS cool. It was the 80's for fucks sake! Mullets and shell suits were cool! David fucking Hasselhoff was cool [alright I might be stretching it a bit there  ] - and again, it was the larger than life 'superhero' thing that got Hogan over. Same with Warrior. Same with the Legion of Doom. All these guys leapt out of the screen and made you go 'Whoa!'. Do the Bucks do that? Does Omega? No.

If you don't think The Sheik, with his fire throwing and scary, insane brawls was cool then I can't help you. Scary is cool. Undertaker scared the fuck out of me as a kid. Cool mother fucker.

Backlund was very popular to the fans he was popular with, same as Omega, but beyond that he wasn't. He was a big regional star but not a mainstream attraction - and that's not a knock on him.

Absolutely, 100% creating an emotional connection is essential but I would argue that wrestling has always been it's own unique industry which is exempt from certain traits that other forms of entertainment have. It of course has cross-over and parallels with other things like almost everything does but what made wrestling as a whole unique was that it was just different enough from all those other things to stand on its own.  

It's an interesting debate [I think] and apologies if this has derailed the thread at all but I do think it's pertinent to AEW and wrestling in general currently, to be honest. .

 

Edited July 17, 2020 by Snitsky's back acne

[Chris B]

I'm pretty sure if that Tony Khan / Eric Bischoff interview had gone five minutes longer, Tony would have called him 'dad'.

There's some interesting stuff in there, and I love seeing people talk about their experience of the business side. It's been pointed out a few times, that (even taking luck into account), Bischoff did some amazing work with WCW in the 90s, and it's clear Khan holds him in high regard. It's also clear that Bischoff is angling for a consultancy job.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

2 minutes ago, Chris B said:

It's also clear that Bischoff is angling for a consultancy job.

Which he'll probably get, since Tony Khan brings in anyone he's a mark for.

[Vamp]

Everyone seems to be assuming that Omega even wants to be a star. Its quite possible he's done a Nakamura and gone to the US to not be a star at all. He never really seemed to like the NJPW schedule, maybe an easy schedule and easy money is all he wants. 

[DavidB6937]

48 minutes ago, Vamp said:

Everyone seems to be assuming that Omega even wants to be a star. Its quite possible he's done a Nakamura and gone to the US to not be a star at all. He never really seemed to like the NJPW schedule, maybe an easy schedule and easy money is all he wants. 

Can't see how his schedule etc would really change that much if he was a top star in AEW.

[KingofSports]

9 hours ago, Vamp said:

Everyone seems to be assuming that Omega even wants to be a star. Its quite possible he's done a Nakamura and gone to the US to not be a star at all. He never really seemed to like the NJPW schedule, maybe an easy schedule and easy money is all he wants. 

I've been thinking exactly that for months. If he never had another match, his legacy is already cemented (7 star matches and all that). His body took so much punishment over there & weekly TV isn't geared to 30-minute plus epics. He could do to sack those shitty grey tights off though.

[LaGoosh]

Just watched Fight For The Fallen. I thought it was a solid entertaining show. At the moment it feels like lots is going on but also nothing is going on. Interesting stuff is constantly started and teased but never seems to progress. The FTR/Bucks/Page&Omega stuff has loads of intriguing stories so hopefully that picks up and soon. They really need a strong storyline for Mox and the title to build the show around. Loved his match this week actually. 

Jericho continues to be gold and think the criticism of the Demo God stuff is fairly ridiculous. It's the exact petty sad dumb thing that a delusional heel like Jericho should be bragging about. Also it was a fairly short part of his promo. His reaction to the OJ was hilarious, as was him being given an OC towel.

So yeah, it was a decent way to spend a few hours on a Saturday morning. Hopefully they start kicking off all these big stories they seem to have planned now though.

[HarmonicGenerator]

15 hours ago, Vamp said:

Everyone seems to be assuming that Omega even wants to be a star. Its quite possible he's done a Nakamura and gone to the US to not be a star at all. He never really seemed to like the NJPW schedule, maybe an easy schedule and easy money is all he wants. 

This seems to be the way the weekly Omega Discussions are heading at the moment, with the idea that he doesn’t feel like a star because he’s not trying to be one in AEW. I think the issue with that isn’t even whether it’s right or not. For people like me, what I knew of Omega before AEW was:

- He’s had some of the greatest matches ever

- Because he’s almost definitely the best wrestler on the planet.

- He’s something pretty fucking special.

So for better or worse, that is the level of my expectations for him in AEW. And when his matches aren’t always that great and he doesn’t come across as even the best wrestler in AEW, and he doesn’t feel even a bit special, it’s hard to view him as anything other than disappointing regardless of what his intentions re his booking may be.

If I know or have been told consistently someone is a star, I want to see them being a star. Whether he wants to or not, as a great mind once said.

Same with Nakamura although we did get a year of him feeling like a big deal before the Ziggler Feud struck.

-

Saying all that, I enjoyed Omega this week. I didn’t even get annoyed at him selling for Marko Stunt because it was so obvious he was off his game, and when he hit back you could feel his frustration.

 

One of the biggest plus points of the last month or two of AEW is them gradually testing the waters with Jungle Boy Jack Perry, making him feel like a star in the making more and more each week. Give it time and that is the babyface to put at the very top of your company and I hope they don’t mess it up because he could and should be a star.