The AEW Wednesday Night Dynamite Thread

[69MeDon]

Enjoyed the show, although as others have pointed out it was a quieter affair than we'd become used to in recent months (which is crazy when you think about it - what was the last Dynamite where you watched it and went "meh"? Quite the run). I could do without Jericho's awful shite on the mic, on Twitter and, frankly, at this stage of his career, in the ring. What is he offering to the product now other than name recognition?

Enjoyed Darby's run-up assisted clothesline - was it just me who thought Charlie Ramone, who seemed to be kind of directing traffic in the crowd, was Sean Waltman when they first saw him?

Never seen Aerostar before. But, based on this, I am surprised he isn't in a wheelchair - dude could have landed on his neck a couple times.

Miro vs OC ended up being great. Although, I do have a question: if Miro was added to the tournament because he was the top ranked contender, why wouldn't he just wait until the dust settles after Full Gear and get his shot then?

Edited November 4, 2021 by 69MeDon

[Chris B]

I'm hardly one to defend Vince McMahon, but that did feel a little bit like 'Vince McMahon probably wouldn't even pay for the rehab, the prick. Oh, no, wait, of course he would, because he's a prick.'.

Not saying it's wrong, like, but I found it funny.

[BrodyGraham]

Aerostar was one of my favourites in Lucha Underground, but his stuff has always had a real good chance of seeing him land right on his head.

There was an awful spot from a Triple A PPV a few years ago where he does a diving cross body off a lighting rig, doesn't realise he's too far to one side, connects with the lads catching him with just his legs and lands on his face to the outside, from about 15/20ft up.

And that still hasn't calmed him down. He clearly fucked his leg overshooting the plancha to the outside but for whatever reason just worked the same match. Shame, cos I actually always rated Samuray, so between this and the Jericho bollocks it looks like he's been done out of a potential regular pay cheque.

[Guest]

Having never seen Lucha Underground, and having seen everyone talked up as being great there, seems their best worker was the editor 

Edited November 4, 2021 by Louch

[Chili]

If anyone can fire me a recommendation for good Aerostar matches I like to check him out because I'm certain he's not actually shit. I like Kalisto but they both looked those rough arse luchadores I see fuck up things with absolute ease on Botchamania's. 

[IANdrewDiceClay]

If Jericho's heart stops from a bad line, and he ends up like Chris Farley all fat and blue on the floor of some shit hole he's pretending to sing in for the vanity of telling people he's a musician, the headline will read "WWE wrestler dies of drug overdose."

McMahon's a cunt, but whatever the reason for him doing it, he is going to put you in rehab and make sure you dont get the "WWE star dead LOL" treatment. Moxley would have got help if he asked for it.

[Merzbow]

So did Cody take all the "he's in his own universe, away from everything else" criticism a little too hard and now he's among a whole bunch of feuds and stories?

[69MeDon]

3 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

So did Cody take all the "he's in his own universe, away from everything else" criticism a little too hard and now he's among a whole bunch of feuds and stories?

I think that's possible.

Also, on Cody, Tony Khan said on WOL that the reactions Cody has been getting were "not unintended".

[tiger_rick]

878k total viewers and 0.32 demo last night. Pretty disappointing numbers for both from where they were a month or so ago. Not dreadful but a shame there's not more growth given the quality of the shows and a big PPV coming up. 

[LaGoosh]

6 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

878k total viewers and 0.32 demo last night. Pretty disappointing numbers for both from where they were a month or so ago. Not dreadful but a shame there's not more growth given the quality of the shows and a big PPV coming up. 

That's a shame. Apparently due to some weird reasons that I don't understand, AEW is being shown at 5pm on the West Coast of the US for the rest of the year which is taking a big chunk out of their numbers because, naturally, most people aren't home from work by 5pm and ready to watch 2 hours of wrestling.

[69MeDon]

27 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

878k total viewers and 0.32 demo last night. Pretty disappointing numbers for both from where they were a month or so ago. Not dreadful but a shame there's not more growth given the quality of the shows and a big PPV coming up. 

I might be wrong without the figures to hand but it seems like, whenever they get moved to Saturday for a few weeks, it takes them a while to rebuild their Wednesday audience. That, in addition to the west coast getting the show at 5pm, will probably have had an effect.

I think they also have themselves to blame a bit, though. I love watching AEW but from the perspective of drawing in casual fans and keeping them watching, how they've used Punk so far hasn't been great. There's something to be said for treating your top stars like top stars. As much as I've enjoyed seeing Punk up against the likes of Will Hobbs and Daniel Garcia, less so against Bobby Fish, there is a certain amount of taking the shine off him by having him in that spot. I get that Punk wanted to work with the young guys and all that but his return should have provided more than a few weeks boost to their ratings (plus the initial massive Rampage rating). I definitely think they've mishandled him a bit here. There's still time to get it back but he really shouldn't be working with anyone below Eddie Kingston's level for a while and, to be honest, he generally shouldn't be working guys at Eddie's level, either. Not to mention, until Eddie, Punk's programs have been pretty cold anyway. And you can only do "we hear from CM Punk" so many times and watch him come out and do the happy to be here stichk for so long before the TV audience loses interest. They had a similar approach with how they used Sting when he came in - obviously Sting wasn't going to go into a top level, heated feud since he can't do a proper singles match but it was the same deal. "We hear from Sting!"

Edited November 4, 2021 by 69MeDon

[DavidB6937]

Blaming Punk for their lack of ratings is a huge stretch. They've had Adam Cole, Bryan Danielson, and shit loads of other stuff going on too. Why Punk specifically?

If you're a fan of Punk then you'll tune in and watch him. If you're not going to watch him because he hasn't been shoved straight into a main event feud then you're hardly a fan. And I don't think the casuals would've been turned off by his booking either.

And say some people haven't been into Punk's appearances week on week despite tuning in for him initially - why aren't they sticking around for the other stuff? You can't just put it all on one guy. Bringing him in is meant to get more eyes on the product and even if his booking hasn't blown people away, surely they'd still be interested in some of the other great stuff that IS impressing people. So what's the real cause?

 

[2Xtreme_lives]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

That's a shame. Apparently due to some weird reasons that I don't understand, AEW is being shown at 5pm on the West Coast of the US for the rest of the year which is taking a big chunk out of their numbers because, naturally, most people aren't home from work by 5pm and ready to watch 2 hours of wrestling.

Yeah it really shows you the effect of timings, the same was with Dynamite last week on the Saturday wasnt it, odd timezones.

The TBS cant come soon enough

[BomberPat]

the Punk thing is interesting, and Konnan's being saying something similar - that Punk's the biggest name they have, and should have been thrust straight into main event stories. In some ways, it would make sense to swap his and Danielson's roles - Punk being the only immediately mixing it up with Kenny and the title picture, while Danielson works exhibition matches against all and sundry. But I think the unspoken part of that is whether Punk would have even signed if they did that - Punk didn't need to come back, and was waiting for the right offer, and maybe just being told "here's all the main event matches I want you in" would have sounded too much like "come in and make me a lot of money", whereas letting Punk work with handpicked opponents and do his whole thing seems to be a big part of what got him there in the first place.

In terms of him being a draw, while there was an obvious buzz around his signing, I do wonder to what extent the sort of fans who will be diehards for CM Punk would already have been more predisposed toward watching AEW anyway. There must be a significant crossover.

There's also the old Jim Cornette adage about wrestling working in seven year cycles - after seven years, there's been enough of a shift in the audience in terms of old fans leaving and new fans coming in, that you can start to repeat gimmicks and angles without it seeming repetitive or like a cheap rip-off of the last time you did it. Before showing up in AEW, Punk hadn't been in wrestling for seven years. And in that time, because he was on the outs with WWE, he wasn't brought up as an all-time great, he wasn't getting mentioned or shown on TV. So there was seven years worth of WWE fans who, potentially, either had no idea who CM Punk is, or don't see what's special about him. I wonder if the way Punk's been booked thus far has failed to win those fans over.

[LaGoosh]

Punk has said in interviews recently that he didn't want to do the "WWE return" where you come in, immediately win the Rumble and then win the title at Wrestlemania (or the AEW equivalent of that). Coming in, wrestling people he wants to wrestle and slowly working his way up the rankings is very much part of the story he wants to tell. If he had told Tony Khan he wanted the belt straight away he probably would have got it but that's not what Punk himself wants.

To me it's certainly the more interesting to do it that way, but can definitely agree somewhat with the argument that he's lost a decent chunk of buzz. It's definite that AEW will someday get to Punk/Bryan vs Young Bucks, Punk vs Omega, Punk vs Moxley etc. and they will be AWESOME but you can't help but think how exciting things would have been if they had gone straight to those big matches rather than go for the long build.