The AEW / ROH Brand Split... Whose going where?

[The King Of Swing]

18 minutes ago, Loki said:

I caught Rampage from last week and Shida was defending ANOTHER fucking belt that’s not from either promotion, that I’d never heard of.

I'm honestly amazed that Pro Wrestling WAVE still hasn't gone under.

Last I saw anything of the promotion it was rubbish even by my low standards. 

[RedRooster]

13 hours ago, Infinity Land said:

Statlander was meant to at least challenge if not win the TBS title. Which if true would have shaken up the Women's division a bit. Jade instead is doing the same thing as the bulk of the year.

There's no way Statlander would have won the TBS title, surely? I've not read anything suggesting this was the plan; but if she had, it would have been a big mistake. I don't think you'll find many people complaining about the role Jade Cargill is playing in AEW right now, she's the best thing their women's division has to offer, and one of the few female wrestlers they have who genuinely feels like a megastar. 

13 hours ago, Infinity Land said:

Things that are meant to have cluttered up Dynamite/Rampage because ROH.

Some of what you say after this is correct, but your defence of ROH seems to consist of "other things were bad too" and "this might have happened anyway", and you've not gone down the path of explaining why the presence of the ROH brand is/was a good thing, which in itself backs up a lot of what people here are saying. 

[Lorne Malvo]

2 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

There's no way Statlander would have won the TBS title, surely? I've not read anything suggesting this was the plan; but if she had, it would have been a big mistake. I don't think you'll find many people complaining about the role Jade Cargill is playing in AEW right now, she's the best thing their women's division has to offer, and one of the few female wrestlers they have who genuinely feels like a megastar.

She was getting big reactions just before she got injured and I remember thinking at the time that she was much more suited to taking the TBS title than Athena, who was getting that 'shiny new toy' push.

I don't think it gets remembered much becuase she got injured, but there was definitely a period of a few weeks where the crowd organically got super into her and she was red-hot.

[gmoney]

Red hot is pushing it. A lot. 

[Infinity Land]

7 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

Some of what you say after this is correct, but your defence of ROH seems to consist of "other things were bad too" and "this might have happened anyway", and you've not gone down the path of explaining why the presence of the ROH brand is/was a good thing, which in itself backs up a lot of what people here are saying. 

Because the large part of ROH presence on Dynamite is OMG he's carrying a belt! I hate belts! Get rid of the belts! It's all just too much with the belts!

The actual problem is the booking.

In 8 Months there's been a grand total of 11 ROH title matches on Dynamite.

World 6x all involving Jericho (BCC v. JAS or Jericho's sports entertainment beats wrestling might still have seen challenge matches)

Women's 1x Mercedes v. Deonna

Tag 2x. FTR v. Bucks and FTR v Roppongi Vice (still might happen as part of Forbidden Door build)

TV 1x Samoa Joe v. Brian Cage (part of WarJoe)

Pure 1x Wheeler v. Garcia (part of JAS v. BCC)

People were complaining about the booking long before ROH became a thing. Actually look back on the 8+ months of TV, the vast majority of the time there's fuck all ROH to stink up the place.

[DavidB6937]

Again, it's really not as simple as "it's ROH. We hate ROH! BOOOO ROH!". So giving stats on how many ROH matches there have been on AEW programming is missing a lot of what the issue is for people.

And it's not just ROH. People were absolutely complaining about the booking beforehand. Especially getting the NXT guys over and focusing on them etc.

BUT it definitely feels like Tony's got too much on his hands to be able to focus on AEW like he was previously. Everything felt a lot tighter and more focused previously. And whether that's now down to ROH or the number of talents he's bringing in or personal stuff or whatever else.. I think it's safe to say the ROH acquisition hasn't exactly improved things.

[RedRooster]

1 hour ago, Infinity Land said:

People were complaining about the booking long before ROH became a thing. Actually look back on the 8+ months of TV, the vast majority of the time there's fuck all ROH to stink up the place.

Believe me, I agree with that - bad choices have been made elsewhere too. People complain about assumed knowledge in AEW, but I'd say a bigger problem is assumed caring. Tony Khan cares about something, and therefore assumes we all do; leading to him wheeling things out on television with zero build, that could really do with some level of substance. This could be ROH, it could be New Japan, but it could also be a good wrestling match; that would be much better with storyline context. 

But ROH is certainly part of the problem. As usual, @DavidB6937, @Nick Jamesand @Loki have summarised things brilliantly. 

I'm genuinely curious as to how much of a role Cody played in the general booking process prior to his departure. Things fell off the wagon a bit shortly after he left; and it may be that it would have happened anyway, but I do wonder if part of the reason Khan was comfortable with his departure is that it left a void behind the scenes that he thought he was ready to fill. 

[Nick James]

The issue is ROH was a distraction, so was Forbidden Door, so was the former NXT guys, all at a detriment to Dynamites product. Anyone can tell you, when Dynamite is firing on all cylinders, its unmatched and whilst there has still been some very good stuff, the frustration is that it could be so much better. How long has it been said that Tony is taking on too much? Dynamite, Rampage, Dark, Dark Elevation, Promos, ROH, Fulham transfers, he is one man, running or being mainly involved in all of those projects. 

I often think criticism of AEW can be taken the wrong way, most of the criticism on this board (ignore the Twitter mutants) is constructive criticism, we KNOW how good AEW can be, thats the frustration.

[DavidB6937]

32 minutes ago, Nick James said:

I often think criticism of AEW can be taken the wrong way, most of the criticism on this board (ignore the Twitter mutants) is constructive criticism, we KNOW how good AEW can be, thats the frustration.

Absolutely this. Only need to look at last year's awards on here. We fucking loved AEW. Everyone was super excited about so much of it.