AEW Dynamite Thread 2022

[Guest]

58 minutes ago, Gay as FOOK said:

 

Yeah, the whole Madlad Nash fawning is definitely the UKFF version of "Kane's dead clever because he had a blog before."

I'm all for Punk being a prick so long as the TV stays decent. Even as a whole the wrestling community is forever pining for 1997 vibes, then shits the bed when a wrestler goes all 1997 and winds up taking it too seriously. 

We fawn for Nash as he’s the coolest man that ever lived. Nothing at all like Kane being clever. 
 

when we want 97 wresting I want Bret, not Shawn. Shawn was an arse then and that pot shot at Page makes Punk an arse now 

[The Gaffer]

43 minutes ago, Duke said:

Out of interest, when has AEW worked the media? That's not a gotcha, I'm sure there are examples, I just can't think of them off the top of my head.

I reckon they done it with MJF. Maybe there was some genuine dissension at the negotiating table but you had some major news sources and wrestling Twitter actively discussing if it was morally right or not for AEW to be working their audience like that. 

Wrestling's job is to work the audience. You can have an extended interest into the behind the scenes, but fundamentally as a consumer you're there to be worked. The fact that there was a high strung discourse around whether that was right or not was hysterical. 

I'm all for calling out (mostly shite) worked shoot stuff when it's not conducive to logical storytelling, but the way some heads go on as if they're above being worked is something to behold. I guess that's the role of the wrestling media, lest it be like reading kayfabe columns in Apter mags, but there's definitely a lot of fans who convince themselves they're not being worked, and they just genuinely have a strong opinion on someone or something based on perceived backstage manner. 

[DavidB6937]

1 hour ago, Duke said:

He didn't need to do totally bury Adam Page to do that though. In storyline, the character is now a coward, refusing to fight Punk and hanging out in catering.

That's absolutely the main problem with the promo. Simply because it didn't make any sense whatsoever. They've been struggling with Hangman lately anyway so to deliberately make him look bad would be completely nonsensical. That's not getting Punk over. It's certainly not getting Hangman over.

It's just something that didn't need to be said, especially in a promo that was meant to be selling him vs Mox. It killed the crowd too.

They might think they're being smart by doing shit like this. Wouldn't surprise me. But it was a bad move.

[WyattSheepMask]

Not wanting to get too bogged down in the minutiae of ratings, but 957,000 when you’ve got a returning Kenny Omega and coming off a CM Punk return appearance the previous week has got to be considered a disappointment 

[Daddymagic]

Ratings in general are a disappointment. 
 

They were doing higher viewers and demos during the pandemic era when they had NXT as competition. Since then they have hired Adam Cole, red Dragon, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and tons of others and the needle has moved sideways or backwards. 
Rampage, despite its poor time slot is dead in the water after a promising start. 
 

I can only speak for what my biggest turn offs are as far as AEW (though I generally watch most weeks) - 

- the NJPW stuff dragged and I had no interest. Likewise , ROH and Owen Hart Cup  - too many titles, and a new tournament seemingly every week to keep track of. 
- Champions don't feel like they matter - at present we have the AEW World, World Interim, Atlantic, Tag, TBS, Women's, TNT, ROH World, ROH TV, ROH women's, FTW, and soon to be 6 man tag. Plus, featuring AAA & NJPW belts from time to time. 
Thats 12 full time champions for 3 hours of programming!  
- Stop / start pushes. Wrestler A comes in, works a strong match against established talent such as Moxley or Danielson, puts in a good showing. Gets a couple more wins and feels like they're building something and then - they're gone for weeks or even months replaced by another new talent. It's very hard to get excited by or invested. 
- commentary - whilst not enough to make me not tune in, JR and Jericho are the pits announcing. JR in particular is becoming a detriment to segments. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Not wanting to get too bogged down in the minutiae of ratings, but 957,000 when you’ve got a returning Kenny Omega and coming off a CM Punk return appearance the previous week has got to be considered a disappointment 

Isn’t just shy of a million high for them this year? From the light touch I keep on ratings it’s their demo that seems to be dropping that I’d be more worried about. 

[DavidB6937]

I'm not really one to look at the ratings every week and obsess over them. It does pose an interesting question though.

How do they grow beyond where they are?

Consider all the big names they've brought in. All the specials. Partnership with NJPW. Some ROH stuff. And for what?

Obviously a stable and successful company isn't a bad thing at all, but when you see certain people saying that AEW isn't 'competition' for WWE - perhaps they're right in a sense. It's not the war some people want it to be.

I think much like NXT, there's only a finite audience for the type of product they put out.

I do wonder what the internal business strategy would be going forward. Do you wonder how to increase ratings? Do you focus on expanding live markets, overseas etc? I'd guess the latter because that's probably the most untapped area over the last couple of years for understandable reasons.

[WyattSheepMask]

8 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

I'm not really one to look at the ratings every week and obsess over them. It does pose an interesting question though.

How do they grow beyond where they are?

 

I’m not usually, but it popped up on my Twitter timeline.

It was down ever so slightly (less than 2%) from last week. Since then they’ve been hyping a mystery partner, which aside from a few mutants online the majority knew it was going to be Omega. He’s one of the top guys that the company was founded to showcase, yet there was no bump in viewership. Likewise CM Punk, one of the biggest names to the audience that AEW play to more often than not and the current World Champion, came back last week yet no bump in viewership.

Obviously the Title Unification Match isn’t a kneejerk reaction as it was announced before this weeks number came in, but if they don’t break 1million next week with that main event then some serious words need to be had.

Or maybe they’re as big as they’re going to be, and 100k either side of 1million viewers is their ceiling

Edited August 19, 2022 by WyattSheepMask

[RedRooster]

1 hour ago, Duke said:

He didn't need to do totally bury Adam Page to do that though. In storyline, the character is now a coward, refusing to fight Punk and hanging out in catering.

32 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

That's absolutely the main problem with the promo. Simply because it didn't make any sense whatsoever. They've been struggling with Hangman lately anyway so to deliberately make him look bad would be completely nonsensical. That's not getting Punk over. It's certainly not getting Hangman over.

I honestly don't think it was a huge problem at all. The announcers said they didn't think he was there, so if anything it made Punk look cowardly, while potentially acting as a red herring for whatever might go down next week. "Wrestler deliberately calls out wrestler who isn't there" is an angle that's as old as the hills. They can have Hangman address it next week, to really make it hit home; and if a Punk heel turn is the eventual end goal, having Punk show his true colours before the actual explicit turn absolutely works. 

34 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Not wanting to get too bogged down in the minutiae of ratings, but 957,000 when you’ve got a returning Kenny Omega and coming off a CM Punk return appearance the previous week has got to be considered a disappointment 

To be fair, they didn't advertise the return of Omega. I think the rating is fine, but next week will be pretty interesting given the magnitude of the match they're offering up on free TV.

[The King Of Swing]

900k is pretty much AEW's ceiling.

They'll break a million once in a while but that's it. 

It's the times we live in. The mainstream audience just isn't there anymore imo. 

[Factotum]

Next week they'll do well. AEW is coming off a bit of a stale period and its been picking back up. Word gets around and people will be tuning in. Its about growing that momentum. They're still doing just fine.

Once again, I reiterate, everyone is now talking again about Adam Page. They weren't before

[Infinity Land]

3 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

I’m not usually, but it popped up on my Twitter timeline.

It was down ever so slightly (less than 2%) from last week. Since then they’ve been hyping a mystery partner, which aside from a few mutants online the majority knew it was going to be Omega. He’s one of the top guys that the company was founded to showcase, yet there was no bump in viewership. Likewise CM Punk, one of the biggest names to the audience that AEW play to more often than not and the current World Champion, came back last week yet no bump in viewership.

Nielsen only have over 40,000 households to represent the 300+ million people in the US.

It's accepted that the margin of error is so high (increases in population, increase in channels, cable cutting). That it's regarded to be anywhere from +/- 10%. Which is why it's always seemed a little daft to me when it gets overanalysed by the IWC.

Standing still is actually a bit of a good thing in today's cable market. One metric that can be accurately measured. Since it relates to access and payments, is the number of households that have the channel.

From Jan 2020-Jan 2022 TBS lost over 7m homes, and TNT lost over 6m homes.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2022/01/10/Insiders/Sports-media.aspx

 

[Guest]

Omega fans are surely your week to week watchers anyway? Not like he has a wider audience who wouldn’t watch when he’s not on

tv audience staying in that range is as good as growth, lots of shows have seen steep declines the last few years while they stay largely stable. Growth will be increasing revenues from other ventures such as the video game, and widening the marketing and merchandising of products like wwe has. Not enough to just have figures and the pwtees store. The aew podcast this week was a good listen as Tony S talks about them sizing up and realising they need more bodies doing more jobs to function as they grow. They aren’t gonna become a 4 million tv viewers show, staying a stable 1m range company within budget and not pissing off the tv companies can give them a lotta success then aiming for the moon and missing 

[Infinity Land]

5 minutes ago, The King Of Swing said:

900k is pretty much AEW's ceiling.

They'll break a million once in a while but that's it. 

It's the times we live in. The mainstream audience just isn't there anymore imo. 

https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2022/streaming-claims-largest-piece-of-tv-viewing-pie-in-july/?utm_campaign=nielsen-audience-measurement_nlsn_&utm_content=the-gauge__08182022&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=organic_social

Going by Nielsen, July was the first month in the US that Streaming was the most popular viewing choice. Which shouldn't be that surprising as it's been trending that way. Just Summertime making it more obvious with the break in original network programming and major league sports in their close season (except MLB which has moved a lot of games to streaming anyway).

[Pinc]

27 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

I honestly don't think it was a huge problem at all. The announcers said they didn't think he was there, so if anything it made Punk look cowardly, while potentially acting as a red herring for whatever might go down next week. "Wrestler deliberately calls out wrestler who isn't there" is an angle that's as old as the hills.

Aye this was how I saw it. The commentators said Page wasn’t in the building so it came across as Punk being angsty and paranoid about a potential Page challenge, rather than Page ducking him.

Even if it was a ‘shoot’ it still worked within the canon of the show. And its put some heat under another Page/Punk match when previously there was none. Good bit of business for me. The best in that segment to be honest given Moxley’s tepid response and those honking punches.