AEW Rampage Thread 2023

[Merzbow]

She may have seen AEWs booking and thought "fuck that" to be fair.

[Infinity Land]

Dynamite: Blood & Guts, MJF & Cole v. Sammy & Garcia, HOOK v. Jack Perry

Rampage: Royal Rampage, the Acclaimed v. QTV

Collision: The Acclaimed v. House of Black

Athena v. Willow is happening this week. Tucked away on Friday's ROH PPV.

[RedRooster]

5 hours ago, Loki said:

I'd also argue that merch sales are a great way of knowing who's popular.  I saw Rousey wrestle in her first WWE run at the O2 and EVERYONE including half the men were wearing her shirt.

Oh I’m not disputing that - but I don’t think the top-10 best sellers are a good way to measure whether people care or not. I’d totally forgotten about Jaime Hayter until you made that post, and I’m kind of amazed at that. I also forgot about Serena Deeb, Taya Valkyrie, Layla Hirsch and even Tay Melo, who can have a solid match with the right opponent. The women’s roster in AEW has an embarrassment of riches these days. 

[andrew "the ref" coyne]

1 hour ago, RedRooster said:

Oh I’m not disputing that - but I don’t think the top-10 best sellers are a good way to measure whether people care or not. I’d totally forgotten about Jaime Hayter until you made that post, and I’m kind of amazed at that. I also forgot about Serena Deeb, Taya Valkyrie, Layla Hirsch and even Tay Melo, who can have a solid match with the right opponent. The women’s roster in AEW has an embarrassment of riches these days. 

You asked for a measurements and I showed you merch sales and YouTube numbers. If merch sales isn't a measurement of popularity then what is?

Of course it is. Your just burying your head in the sand now. 

[RedRooster]

6 hours ago, andrew "the ref" coyne said:

You asked for a measurements and I showed you merch sales and YouTube numbers. If merch sales isn't a measurement of popularity then what is?

Of course it is. Your just burying your head in the sand now. 

Read what I said again:

20 hours ago, RedRooster said:

That’s unsurprising - my point is that AEW’s women’s division isn’t being presented in a way where it could make a difference, but it easily could be. I also don’t think merch sales is a particularly good metric to use to judge whether people care or not. 

I absolutely agree that merch sales can tell you whether an individual wrestler is popular or not, but they’re simply not a measure you can use to determine whether or not people care about women’s wrestling, especially not without context - and that was the point of discussion here.

The YouTube views, without context, are similarly unhelpful. It may well be a damning indicator for what AEW is doing with its women’s division, but it’s a stretch to use it as an indicator as to whether or not people care about women’s wrestling.

In 2023, to make the argument you appear to be trying to make about women’s wrestling, you’d have to ignore the wider wrestling landscape as has been pointed out multiple times in this thread, by multiple people.

Edited July 18, 2023 by RedRooster

[Hannibal Scorch]

11 hours ago, RedRooster said:

Oh I’m not disputing that - but I don’t think the top-10 best sellers are a good way to measure whether people care or not. I’d totally forgotten about Jaime Hayter until you made that post, and I’m kind of amazed at that. I also forgot about Serena Deeb, Taya Valkyrie, Layla Hirsch and even Tay Melo, who can have a solid match with the right opponent. The women’s roster in AEW has an embarrassment of riches these days. 

Taya had 2 matches last week on TV. Tey is pregnant, Layla Hirsch is coming back from injury. The only one who isn't doing anything is Deeb who waiting on creative. The rest of your argument, even with your justification feels flawed at best. 

@Infinity LandWhy would a ROH woman's title match not be on their PPV?

Edited July 18, 2023 by Hannibal Scorch

[Jazzy G]

21 hours ago, garynysmon said:

I always find that women’s wrestling works best when you don’t make a song and dance out of it and just present it as an integral part of the show as you would any other feud.

Whereas WWE were often guilty of making a big fuss of their ‘women’s revolution’ and “look at us, we’re main eventing women”, its best to just do it quietly and without fuss and it will be accepted by the audience.

There have been multiple occasions when women have main evented Impact PPV’s because they were legitimately the best or most built feuds on the card.

There was an argument that Deonna Purazzo v Trinity could have closed Slammiversary on Saturday, and if they had no one would have complained.

Its not a token gesture any more. Deonna Purazzo can legit go as well as any man on the roster.

The general quality of women’s wrestling is such now that if people aren’t watching women’s matches in the same numbers as men’s, then its down to how they’re being presented rather than the audience being against it.

Yeah, TNA/Impact's approach to women's wrestling always seems to be "we have women on the roster as well, and they can wrestle" and they do. Deonna Purazzo is a great wrestler, but due to Impact's history she's largely overlooked. Having said that if she was elsewhere she'd probably just be "one of the girls". Which is a waste. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

42 minutes ago, jazzygeofferz said:

Yeah, TNA/Impact's approach to women's wrestling always seems to be "we have women on the roster as well, and they can wrestle" and they do. Deonna Purazzo is a great wrestler, but due to Impact's history she's largely overlooked. Having said that if she was elsewhere she'd probably just be "one of the girls". Which is a waste. 

Also, we’re in a different place (thankfully) than we were 15 years ago. Even when women are being under-utilised at least they are being paid fairly. I remember when the TNA woman’s champion was working full time in Sunglass Hut because of how little she was paid as a wrestler when we know they were paying people like Kurt Angle 6 figures. I think it was Taylor Wilde, could be mistaken.

[Jazzy G]

I remember TNA wrestlers tweeting out that they were eligible for food stamps. 

[RedRooster]

5 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Taya had 2 matches last week on TV. Tey is pregnant, Layla Hirsch is coming back from injury. The only one who isn't doing anything is Deeb who waiting on creative. The rest of your argument, even with your justification feels flawed at best. 

Regarding the wrestlers - I’m not sure what your point is here, all I’m saying is that there’s a lot of talent in this division and I’d forgotten to mention these wrestlers when I was listing first time round.

I think we’re going round in circles, so I’m not going to continue arguing something I consider quite apparent (that modern wrestling fans care about women’s wrestling when it’s presented well - I don’t even think you disagree with this) - but in regards to merch sales, they tell you something but not everything and they certainly don’t tell you whether or not people care about women’s wrestling. Some things are going to sell simply because they look cool and yes, some sell well because people care about the wrestler in question - but that’s much more likely when the wrestler in question is treated like a big deal, or given meaningful TV time. The outlier in the listing provided is Danhausen, but he’s carved out a good following online, so it’s understandable, I think. I don’t really see how that suggestion is flawed. 

[The King Of Swing]

4 hours ago, jazzygeofferz said:

I remember TNA wrestlers tweeting out that they were eligible for food stamps. 

If you have a problem then speak to The Harris Twins. 

[Accident Prone]

20 hours ago, RedRooster said:

Oh I’m not disputing that - but I don’t think the top-10 best sellers are a good way to measure whether people care or not. I’d totally forgotten about Jaime Hayter until you made that post, and I’m kind of amazed at that. I also forgot about Serena Deeb, Taya Valkyrie, Layla Hirsch and even Tay Melo, who can have a solid match with the right opponent. The women’s roster in AEW has an embarrassment of riches these days. 

I'm sorry, you lost me at Taya Valkyrie, who is absolutely a wrestler that I'd like to forget exists.

[Infinity Land]

10 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

 

@Infinity LandWhy would a ROH woman's title match not be on their PPV?

I did say it was on the ROH PPV. Tucked away in fact. Since it plays 2nd/3rd fiddle to Smackdown & Rampage on Friday night. Then within the Tony Khan bubble of shows 4th in priorities behind the 3 AEW shows this week.

This AEW show thread the topic turned to the overall booking, presentation, and promotion of the AEW Women's division. 3 shows and 5 hours of TV and nothing promoted for the women's division on any of them so far. Seeing two of the top active AEW talents hidden away on ROH isn't exactly doing anyone any favours.

 

 

[Merzbow]

There's the Royal Rampage, the two ring battle royale on Friday for a shot at the TNT title at All Out. Big Butch Man has to win it this time.

[Infinity Land]

4 hours ago, Merzbow said:

There's the Royal Rampage, the two ring battle royale on Friday for a shot at the TNT title at All Out. Big Butch Man has to win it this time.

With that interview trying to do 5 things at once I completely missed that the Royal Rampage this year was 1) For a TNT title shot and 2) And it won't be until All Out.