CM Punk chat

[Keith Houchen]

3 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

But Bob Holly was great. Always thought he was a bit of a forum favourite here.

He was with the cool kids. 

[Sphinx]

50 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

He was with the cool kids. 

How dya like him now?

[d-d-d-dAz]

That’s certainly one solution.

[WyattSheepMask]

Just in case the 13hrs of weekly TV between WWE and AEW(ROH) wasn’t enough

[Infinity Land]

33 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Just in case the 13hrs of weekly TV between WWE and AEW(ROH) wasn’t enough

Can't really count ROH since it means Lvl Up and Main Event would have to be included. That's without factoring all the other promotions that are producing weekly TV.

There's an easy complaint over AEW diluting the product. Particularly with high school clique nonsense. Doesn't really need to factor in other companies.

[WyattSheepMask]

13 minutes ago, Infinity Land said:

Can't really count ROH since it means Lvl Up and Main Event would have to be included. That's without factoring all the other promotions that are producing weekly TV.

There's an easy complaint over AEW diluting the product. Particularly with high school clique nonsense. Doesn't really need to factor in other companies.

Completely forgot they were even a thing. But that’s the point, 15hrs of weekly TV between the main two promotions, and thats before you include the PPVs as well, and as you say before you factor in other smaller promotions. Who has the time to sit and watch that much stuff every week

[Fatty Facesitter]

How many entertainment TV shows in your particular favourite genre air in a particular week? How many matches/competitions/meets are there for a given sport you enjoy each week? 

In both cases the answer is likely to be a high amount. It’s virtually impossible for anyone to watch every hour of everything, but these TV people aren’t daft - they know this. And that’s why they all make a concerted effort to make their particular show, or channel, or match etc to promote it, produce it well and to catch your eye to draw you away from the competition. 

Wrestling is exactly the same in that regard - WWE wants you to watch its own shows and not watch the competition. AEW wants to you watch all of its output and ideally not WWE’s shows. 4/5 hours of fresh content a week for each individual promotion is a lot, but then again the demand is clearly there, and this is still less than the output of many sports channels when covering a particular league/competition etc. 

Both companies are fully aware that people might choose one show over the other on a given week. This drives competition, this drives further marketing and promotion, and in the long term it creates a demand for more content and this is how the rights fees increase and how they become valuable commodities. 

15 hours or whatever it will be in total is a lot, but the notion that as a consumer you absolutely have to watch every hour of every promotion in every company is silly. Nobody is forcing you to do so - this might come as a shock but you are allowed to pick and choose what you want to watch. Mad I know. 

So, who has the time to sit and watch all of that in a week? Probably very few people. But networks are currently thirsting for wrestling content and this means that as consumers we’ll make our own choices. 

Also, imagine posting on a wrestling forum, something we’re all presumably passionate about to some degree, and complaining about there being too much wrestling on TV. 

Business is boomin’ folks. Learn to love it. But not all of it. Pick and choose it, yeah? If you’re really that worried about missing everything, I’ll watch it for you, then can look at my posts about them and skip the shit bits. I might even start a fucking Patreon at this rate. My reviewing talents are wasted here. 

[Infinity Land]

40 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Completely forgot they were even a thing. But that’s the point, 15hrs of weekly TV between the main two promotions, and thats before you include the PPVs as well, and as you say before you factor in other smaller promotions. Who has the time to sit and watch that much stuff every week

No one that doesn't do so professionally or no other interests. 

Nobody watches all medical shows or cop shows even though they are the same genre & format most of the time. People pick & choose. The way its always been. 

[DavidB6937]

The issue is never quantity in isolation. At least for viewers anyway. We can pick and choose and that's the end of that problem at least at a basic level.

The main issues can be:

1. The company itself not being able to cope with the increased programming. Brand splits can be problematic. Booking can be spread thinly. All those sorts of things. An easy comparison would be the amount of stuff Marvel does now and the obvious drop in quality especially with the graphics. Or a much simpler comparison - when TK got ROH. Many issues initially came out of that.

2. The temptation to interlink shows and therefore driving the need for people to actually watch everything. So the new show has stuff that then links to the main existing ones. Again to pull from Marvel - that stuff is so interlinked now with all the TV shows that it's almost impossible to follow.

Not saying that AEW will end up like that but I can see why some people might be worried about the potential issues. Only time will tell.

For me I feel like they've barely delivered on the promise of what Rampage could be so the potential of another show doesn't excite me at all. But it's all down to how they manage it and who they get to work it and staff etc.

No one really knows anything at the moment.

[Infinity Land]

8 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

The issue is never quantity in isolation. At least for viewers anyway. We can pick and choose and that's the end of that problem at least at a basic level.

The main issues can be:

1. The company itself not being able to cope with the increased programming. Brand splits can be problematic. Booking can be spread thinly. All those sorts of things. An easy comparison would be the amount of stuff Marvel does now and the obvious drop in quality especially with the graphics. Or a much simpler comparison - when TK got ROH. Many issues initially came out of that.

2. The temptation to interlink shows and therefore driving the need for people to actually watch everything. So the new show has stuff that then links to the main existing ones. Again to pull from Marvel - that stuff is so interlinked now with all the TV shows that it's almost impossible to follow.

Not saying that AEW will end up like that but I can see why some people might be worried about the potential issues. Only time will tell.

For me I feel like they've barely delivered on the promise of what Rampage could be so the potential of another show doesn't excite me at all. But it's all down to how they manage it and who they get to work it and staff etc.

No one really knows anything at the moment.

If this show happens the way they expect it. I'm not convinced that Rampage will hang around long term. A bit like when the various B-C shows faded out when Thunder was introduced.

The quality dilution is my main concern. We've hit that point in the PPV cycle where feuds are being drawn out. Have 2 live TV shows treated as A-A1 that's only going to get worse with the booking style AEW has.

[Keith Houchen]

9 hours ago, Infinity Land said:

No one that doesn't do so professionally or no other interests. 

Nobody watches all medical shows or cop shows even though they are the same genre & format most of the time. People pick & choose. The way its always been. 

That’s because they exist primarily in their own universe or don’t run concurrently. Not watching Doctors isn’t going to affect the viewers understanding of any plot lines or characters in Grays Anatomy. The latter exists in the same universe as Private Practice and Station 19, but you don’t need to watch the other two as they only have a handful of crossover episodes. And even then they aren’t really relevant to each others plot lines. 
 

I believe the DC television shows are terrible for needing to watch all of them in the correct sequence as they have plots crossing different shows, so you can’t really pick and choose which ones to watch as they aren’t self contained. Wrestling is more like that than cop shows. Also, I believe the first eight words of this paragraph work as a stand alone. 

[Supremo]

I think a good analogy would be the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When all you had to watch was four or five films per year, it was great. Easy to follow. Every new piece of content felt premium. But the moment they introduced Disney Plus and you had to watch tonnes of average TV shows to still keep up and understand everything that was going on? Forget it.

There are already signs of it in the Tony Khan Cinematic Universe now. He puts out lineups for Rampage and Battle of the Belts that scream, "not worth watching," and then suddenly Mark Briscoe is hanging around with Jeff Jarrett and you have no idea why because you skipped a few shows. Eddie Kingston used to be my favourite wrestler in the world but now I only hear about him potentially being out with an injury via Twitter, because fuck off am I watching two hours of ROH every week. If even freaks like me can't consume it all and end up falling out of the loop? Not good.

[The King Of Swing]

I don't watch Elevation or Dark other than the odd match or any WWE so an extra two hours of AEW isn't going to break me.

Rampage and BoTB I can take or leave depending on the card. I've rarely felt out of the loop if I skip them and easily catch up if I do miss anything. 

Other than being a hype man, I've long tired of Eddie Kingston so I'm happy he's been fucked off to ROH.

[Pinc]

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

Eddie Kingston used to be my favourite wrestler in the world but now I only hear about him potentially being out with an injury via Twitter, because fuck off am I watching two hours of ROH every week. If even freaks like me can't consume it all and end up falling out of the loop? Not good.

The demotion of Eddie Kingston over the last twelve months is the worst waste of a potential drawing card since… Punk by summer’s end of 2011? Goldberg in WWE the first time? RVD during the invasion? Bret in WCW?

I know its partly due to him being difficult backstage or whatever. But treating it like a normal TV show - its as if Pete Bennett had been voted out of Big Brother 7 in week 4. Both were adored by their audiences and both made the people they interacted with more interesting by proximity to such unusually complex characters for the medium they were each presented in. They should be doing everything they can to foreground him regardless of whether he has tourettes/occasionally spams Sammy Guevara on the bonce.

Edited April 16, 2023 by Pinc

[Infinity Land]

6 minutes ago, The King Of Swing said:

I don't watch Elevation or Dark other than the odd match or any WWE so an extra two hours of AEW isn't going to break me.

Rampage and BoTB I can take or leave depending on the card. I've rarely felt out of the loop if I skip them and easily catch up if I do miss anything. 

Other than being a hype man, I've long tired of Eddie Kingston so I'm happy he's been fucked off to ROH.

I don't bother with the youtube shows unless a particular match gets a shout out. Rampage has devolved into Heat after Smackdown came along. The dependable OC mini-feud or HOOK/Jade Cargill developmental moved elsewhere. Way too much Action Andretti, glad he might be packed off to ROH.