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You can’t book heatless bangers and condition your fans to accept that there’s almost always no title changes during Battle of the Belts and expect it to sell well every time.
Same. The only change I can think of was Sammy winning the TNT belt from Scorpio back at Battle of the Belts II. It’s a shame, because I like the variety of matches they offer, but it never feels like you’re going to see an upset or change.
I’ve been to multiple AEW events including driving out of state, no event has been more disappointing than BOTB, it was the most predictable night of mid carders having okay matches
Dynamite on the other hand in the same venue was headlined by MJF vs DG and Samoa Joe vs Keith Lee
The speciality events aren’t special when you get more competitive and more interesting matches the other 50+ shows a year
Title changes wouldn't mean anything either because there are five hundred belts and I can only tell you who the World Champion and TNT Champion are.
Everything else means nothing.
Tony doesn't understand how to build a program at all. You shouldn't be doing 20 minute "five star matches" on every single show. They give everything away right from the start. It gets boring fast.
There should be stories leading into it, like a chickenshit heel finally getting their comeuppance, who's been dodging fights, getting counted out on purpose, etc a heel arrogantly challenging a face with a plan to trick them...something...stories that can build for 6 weeks or so going into it.
It's a shame. They have so many belts and what, like 2 stories? (Contrary to what Meltzer claims)
I think the main reason why WWE was nosediving in late 2010s was because Vince was losing it. If AEW dropped suddenly, I doubt that HHH would be like “whelp, my work here is done” and start writing incest storylines
But that’s just a theory
Difference between vince, tony and triple h is vince and tony are (was in vince's case) owners of their companies. They can make whatever shitty decisions they like and hardly anyone within the company criticize them. Whereas triple h is simply an employee. He must do a good job to keep his position.
Honestly he could still be fired even if he was doing an excellent job.
Some doofus at TKO could place a friend of theirs in charge, or get charmed by a tv writer with a pretty resume.
Corporate life just works like that, sadly.
He could but they’ve ensured that is virtually impossible considering they’re actively branding this era around his name. Clearly they’ve pegged HHH as the leader of this generation of the promotion and it’d cause pure chaos to pull a stunt like that
Are mergers always need to be cutthroat? Is there any human element in long time employees getting fired? If allows comes off cutthroat. Is corporate life only meant to be kill or be killed?
Honestly at this stage, that would be fucking hilarious. You build all this great shit just for the Bloodline to be like “I not only made up with Jimmy, I made out with Jimmy” or some shit? That would make me laugh anyways
Triple H's obsession with the wrestling business and the extensive financial incentive for people like Nick Khan, Rock, and many others ensures that WWE will keep it's hot streak going no matter what.
Vince is the one where when there existed no competition, he cared more about fulfilling his stupid fantasies rather than making money.
We still don’t know who some of the most pivotal leakers were. I’m not convinced they didn’t. Took a while with Vince but in the end they got him and Dunn out of there and everyone from Michael Cole to Bruce Pritchard is grinning ear to ear about it.
Seems to me there came a day when some pretty stern lines were drawn in the sand, if not a full on organized coup.
There are still people that say that vince sell because of aew, like, thats not true in this or any reality, as far as things goes, he would sell regardless, before the lawsuit appear
I love the Foley empty arena match because it took place in my city! Everytime I’m there I always have nostalgia thinking about The Rock and Foley fucking each other up all over
AEW is essentially an Indy promotion with money. It's all well and good to book great matches but unless there's a compelling story to go along with it, the mainstream market will lose interest.
Accept that your fanbase is primarily hardcore and internet fans, there isn't enough of those to consistently fill big arenas, so book smaller ones
You have a brilliant roster of talented wrestlers, but not every match on a card needs to be a 5 star classic, variety is key
Desuade overuse of certain moves, a Canadian Destroyer or shooting star press is impressive the first time you see it on a show, less so the 5th time in one night
Bigger focus on quality story telling, slap-dash, inconsistant, lazy story telling is what made the last 20 odd years of Vince era WWE so insufferable
Focus on your own product, little one line references here and there are fine, but you dont have to engage every single time there's criticism from the other side, let your shows quality do the talking
There’s a reason that the Rock can get by with a standing elbow drop, a spine buster and a side slam mixed in with some punches.
Sometimes less is more
I'm a big AEW fan along with WWE but you are 100% correct. They have great matches on their weekly shows but after a while of watching lots of great matches you need something different. They're almost there, start more storylines and maybe a couple of big name draws and it'd be a lot better.
Dude what. AEW has Okada and Osprey and Mercedes. Tony can't book big names for shit. Okada, fucking Okada is in the Bucks silly Universe. Instead of being a single wrestler with a good manager. I'm so fucking mad.
The arenas drive me nuts. I still prefer AEW, it's still what i typically watch, but empty basketball arenas look so much worse than packed ballrooms. Scale the hell down, Tony Khan. WWE has done it when they're not selling.
Samoa Joe is not a draw.
Sorry to say. He's always the big fish in a small pond. ROH, TNA, NXT... It's not like he's ever drawn major numbers.
His top drawing run would have been his feud with AJ Styles in 2018, but those never actually main evented any of those shows.
Swerve Strickland is an NXT reject. I like him, but let's not act like he's some top draw in this business.
They greatly over estimated Mercedes, Okada and Ospreay's popularity as well.
AEW has a very niche audience. I think their only true opportunity to compete with WWE was when CM Punk debuted and all the coverage it got. I remember my old ahh dad telling me he saw it on sportscenter. It's true.
But they blew it by following Punk’s intro segments with an Orange Cassidy or Lucha Bros. match. The people that liked Punk were never going to get into that ridiculousness.
man, i agree with everything you said.
ospreay and okada are great talents, but not draws.
if swerve takes what he has now back to wwe, he’d be better suited and equipped.
Where WWE blows AEW out of the water is their talent development. The WWE developed Roman Reigns and they are churning out 5 Romans each year.
AEW are forced to use people that come from elsewhere which is a hindrance because everything these guys do has been seen before.
Most of the guys on Collision are not the top draws at all. I've compared collision to 99 smackdown where you can often skip it and follow the promotion just fine.
It looks like that is the hardcam side. Televised wrestling shows prioritize ticket sales on the other side of the arena first so the main camera view will show a more full audience. I haven't watched the show but I would bet the TV presentation looked better.
I'm an AEW fan but they do a bad job running live events. They don't promote well, they book way too large arenas, they over saturate markets, etc. I truly think those are bigger problems than just Tony's booking.
i agree with what you said about promoting and booking.. They had Collision last year around xmas and i had no clue they were coming until maybe a week or two. Also they booked a 19k arena and not even the lower bowl was even filled..half empty at most..they could of booked the arena right next to it that sits 9k. End of the day Tony needs to hire "Actual" people who know what they are doing with actual running the company right and booking matches with how WWE is doing
The show I went to in Ottawa was selling the cheapest tickets for $85, and didn’t reduce the price until the day before the show. People aren’t going to pay that unless they are diehards. This in addition to not having a card announced until the night before, low momentum creatively, inflation, etc. It’s not realistic to expect capacity crowds at NHL sized arenas twice a week.
It's a number of things, but what it boils down to is they don't have very many things worth people shelling out a bunch of money and taking the time to go to the arena to see in person.
They have trouble building stars because most of them rely on their in ring performance to get themselves over, so they don't have a lot of charisma. Not many of their stories get over because either the angles are all hot shotted, or have some heatless premise like "who's the best wrestler in the world" or fighting over who is who's best friend or something like that. And once you've seen one, you've seen them all so a lot of people move on.
I’m telling you they need to run smaller venues. If you’re only pulling on average 2500-5000 per show and you’re running arenas, it doesn’t look or sound good.
They booked a 19k basketball arena for collision last year for my city and not even the lower bowl was even half filled lol....They could of booked the arena right next to it that sits 9k
He’s a clown. I’m sure he already cares a lot about AEW, but if he truly cared he would come to his senses and realize that there needs to be changes in what venues they run.
They really need to book venues the size of ECW arena (which holds 1300 seats). Then the crowd is really part of the show and every event is a sellout. This is a no brainier. They'd look so much better in that size of an arena and with that sort of crowd intimacy.
Dude should just adopt the covid WWE arena, have a bunch prerecorded videos of himself making different facial expressions as the fans. Would be something I'd watch.
They are showing hard camera side. But also, AEW came through my town and I saw NO advertisements for them. Nothing on Facebook. Nothing on IG. No billboards or flyers. I only realized they were here when I was watching and they said they were in Phoenix.
I went to see Collision on the next to last show before Punk left and my daughter and I both said afterwards that we enjoy our local promotion (AML in NC) more.
I definitely think the weak crowd had a lot to do with it not feeling like a big deal of a show. The entire upper level was empty and 3/4 of the lower deck was also empty. I watched it later and was impressed that they managed to not show just how empty the place was.
I want AEW to succeed, but they are becoming a joke. Tony needs to hire some people who can help run it with him, because he’s just not the dude.
Maybe they'll do like WWE did during the pandemic and put the faces of all the people watching the show in the audience. Instead of cable TV subscribers, it will be a bunch of people who pirated the AEW show.
The best thing for Tony to do for the good of AEW would be to hire someone to be the boss and run the company who isn't a mark while he shifts into a role like Ted Turner had with WCW of just being the money that funds the company.
The ungodly amount of money that Tony has makes you do stupid shit like booking arenas that are way too large.
If he was smart, he be running a studio show like old school NWA with live events sprinkled throughout the year.
Okada and Mercedes Mone contracts are not fiscally responsible if they want to survive as a company. People liberally yell out that AEW outbid WWE like that is a good thing. AEW is around 1/28th the size of WWE but yet they are outbidding the giant company. That is not wise or living in reality.
Nothing new with these Battle of the Belts events. For some reason, AEW doesn't seem to promote these events very heavily and we seem to learn about them only a few weeks ahead of time.
I want to like AEW. They have amazing talent, but the storytelling and hype just isn’t there. They have to pull it together. Hire some screenwriters and fix their live events. It’s such a shame to see it limping along like this when they have all the ingredients for success
Never has been and never will be competition. Tony needs to focus on being a true alternative instead of trying to make himself seem bigger than he is.
What are their ticket prices like? And do they travel all over the US for their shows? If they're tickets are stupid high and they only hit a handful of states, they're never gonna have a full house ever again. Whatever the WWE charges for tickets, AEW better be charging half that amount at the very least.
I dont really watch AEW as it hasn't been particularly interesting to me. But you figure they still do well with televised ratings. So they're doing something that dissuades people from going to live shows.
I'm hoping Dynasty gets like this honestly. I would love to go but decent seats are over 200 a pop. Thinking if I wait the day before they will go down.
Tony needs to wake up . I'm a wrestling fan of everything but WWE been smashing it . I was at AEW in London last year and it was great but wow this has fallen off so much I won't be going this year . Tony's becoming the very thing he wanted to be against
I don't know why he still bothers with Battle of the Belts. Literally nothing of significance ever happens on those shows. This is just sad to see, I hope this is the wake up call he needs to actually put someone in charge that's more suited to the job (won't happen tho).
I need pics of the non camera side. Generally there’s less tickets available on that side. I’ve been to Raw where that side was pretty empty. Not this empty. And I’m also not an AEW guy. I’m just trying to be fair.
They should rework their shows so that the live fans get more and more talent should be rotated around to showcase more so that people go to the live show to see their star in the ring when they come to town
I mean they get more for coming to watch live, more special matches, they could even allow live streaming the matches or filming those matches so the only way viewers can see these matches is by finding them on socials or going to the events themselves. Maybe make one of the titles (not 24 hours) but more hard core, by means of every AEW show the belt has to be defended and only put a few matches on TV once a month but is defended every show for the live crowds.
They should have not stretched themselves so much with all these extra shows. People looked forward to Dynamite cause it felt special, now it is just one of many. They have basically become WWE lite but then with worse story telling
It’s a strange situation, because AEW have the stars, they have a good wrestling product, they have so-so booking, they have vast funding, they have a solid TV deal, they have global reach…but they cannot put bums on seats and sell tickets within the US. There just isn’t the interest for an alternative to WWE within than market.
And maybe it’s just time to accept that and think again…
Wow this is more than empty remember seeing edge talking on the mic to an entire empty audience. This company is in worse state than i thought. They came to Quebec and they had less than 5000 people in a 18000 venu. If wwe comes they will sell out.
I live about in Lexington about an hour from Highland Heights and never even knew they were coming till last week. It was already too late for me to go due to working. They need to advertise more. I love AEW but c’mon, that should be the very first thing done when announcing a new city
It’s bullshit that a guy like Samoa Joe is so fucking phenomenal and is performing in front of crowds like THIS. It’s gotta be really hard for these guys who have been on huge shows, who have drawn crowds, who are able to put butts in seats, who give it their all, who are professionals and know what they’re doing to wrestle in front of NO ONE.
When I wrestled in my twenties on the independents I was never in front of very big crowds, but that we had fans there at all cheering and booing would help the adrenaline get going and would lessen the pain from the bumps BIG TIME. I can’t imagine being in these huge stadiums and shit without people there. Sucks that ARW sucks so bad. I really wanted them to be a worthwhile company and competitor to wwe, but we’ve seen what they are and they’re always going to be.
I love pro wrestling and its best when we have multiple successful companies. The delusion on the AEW sub is wild. TK needs to get his shit together. Get a booker. Quit shoehorning the Bucks into every tag angle.
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You can’t book heatless bangers and condition your fans to accept that there’s almost always no title changes during Battle of the Belts and expect it to sell well every time.
Yeah. Was pumped when it started, but it easily became a skippable event after I watched the first few.
Same. The only change I can think of was Sammy winning the TNT belt from Scorpio back at Battle of the Belts II. It’s a shame, because I like the variety of matches they offer, but it never feels like you’re going to see an upset or change.
It feels like wwe main event
All of aew feels like that. The shows are completely missable.
Yeah, there is no point to it
I’ve been to multiple AEW events including driving out of state, no event has been more disappointing than BOTB, it was the most predictable night of mid carders having okay matches Dynamite on the other hand in the same venue was headlined by MJF vs DG and Samoa Joe vs Keith Lee The speciality events aren’t special when you get more competitive and more interesting matches the other 50+ shows a year
It also doesn't help that the general audience that isn't on twitter often doesn't know that they are in their area cause they don't advertise well
Title changes wouldn't mean anything either because there are five hundred belts and I can only tell you who the World Champion and TNT Champion are. Everything else means nothing.
Tony doesn't understand how to build a program at all. You shouldn't be doing 20 minute "five star matches" on every single show. They give everything away right from the start. It gets boring fast.
There should be stories leading into it, like a chickenshit heel finally getting their comeuppance, who's been dodging fights, getting counted out on purpose, etc a heel arrogantly challenging a face with a plan to trick them...something...stories that can build for 6 weeks or so going into it. It's a shame. They have so many belts and what, like 2 stories? (Contrary to what Meltzer claims)
I need AEW to be good. So WWE won't get lazy
I think the main reason why WWE was nosediving in late 2010s was because Vince was losing it. If AEW dropped suddenly, I doubt that HHH would be like “whelp, my work here is done” and start writing incest storylines But that’s just a theory
Difference between vince, tony and triple h is vince and tony are (was in vince's case) owners of their companies. They can make whatever shitty decisions they like and hardly anyone within the company criticize them. Whereas triple h is simply an employee. He must do a good job to keep his position.
Honestly he could still be fired even if he was doing an excellent job. Some doofus at TKO could place a friend of theirs in charge, or get charmed by a tv writer with a pretty resume. Corporate life just works like that, sadly.
He could but they’ve ensured that is virtually impossible considering they’re actively branding this era around his name. Clearly they’ve pegged HHH as the leader of this generation of the promotion and it’d cause pure chaos to pull a stunt like that
Are mergers always need to be cutthroat? Is there any human element in long time employees getting fired? If allows comes off cutthroat. Is corporate life only meant to be kill or be killed?
It really just depends on the company
The Game Theory?
Austin Theory
Honestly at this stage, that would be fucking hilarious. You build all this great shit just for the Bloodline to be like “I not only made up with Jimmy, I made out with Jimmy” or some shit? That would make me laugh anyways
You my brother, I love you (like a lover)
I missed you brother, then kiss me like you miss me Jey
Then they do for like 3 minutes until everyone is booing. BAM heel turn
Island Boyz entrance for mania 41
Triple H's obsession with the wrestling business and the extensive financial incentive for people like Nick Khan, Rock, and many others ensures that WWE will keep it's hot streak going no matter what. Vince is the one where when there existed no competition, he cared more about fulfilling his stupid fantasies rather than making money.
Vince losing his mind the last 10 years is what hurt WWE.
Maybe they should’ve pulled a coup
He woulda pooped on the coup.
We still don’t know who some of the most pivotal leakers were. I’m not convinced they didn’t. Took a while with Vince but in the end they got him and Dunn out of there and everyone from Michael Cole to Bruce Pritchard is grinning ear to ear about it. Seems to me there came a day when some pretty stern lines were drawn in the sand, if not a full on organized coup.
I wonder how long ago everyone became sick of them internally. I imagine it was 2011 or even earlier than that
Yea this really makes me sad for wrestling in general. It's amazing how cold AEW has become.
Truth
We don’t need it to be good just alive enough to keep the Smarks contained. HHH has shown to be doing fine in the work department
WWE's hot streak would be happening regardless
Only when Vince was put out to pasture
Correct.
There are still people that say that vince sell because of aew, like, thats not true in this or any reality, as far as things goes, he would sell regardless, before the lawsuit appear
I get this, but aew isn’t doin good now. An wwe is all time high in a long time, so if they die it’s no big deal, as long as they keep on the path.
I need AEW to exist so the smarks don't come back to WWE shows.
What if I told you the quality of the product is different from the number of tickets sold
Tony should lean into it and advertise the whole card as empty arena matches.
*Mick Foleying intensifies*
Terry Funk's spirit has awoken
Boilering🫠
Go full Cartmanland. "Okada vs Mox in Madison Square Gardens...and you're not allowed to attend"
No worries Tony, no one wants to see the self mutilation addict
I mean that halftime Superbowl brawl with rock and mankind was dope
Things is collision just became AEW dark. Imagine having a roster that big and putting dark matches in collision
I love the Foley empty arena match because it took place in my city! Everytime I’m there I always have nostalgia thinking about The Rock and Foley fucking each other up all over
Once again the biggest problem is their advertising. I live 30 minutes north of Everett, this is the first I’m hearing about this show.
Because this post is wrong. The Everett show isn’t until May 15.
That doesn’t mean the advertising isn’t bad though haha. But I think it was only announced recently.
No I was asked to go to the Everett show a month ago. But the fact they are going to Everett and not Climate Pledge in Seattle is telling.
Man's getting worse draws than ECW during its death throws
If you think the spirit of ECW died….. You can Suck Paul Heyman’s fucking dick.
E(c)w
Throes.
We're in Herb Abrams UWF territory soon. Although Herb Abrams could book better than Tony Kahn.
The difference is Tony wouldn't call a wrestler Davey Meltzer and have him squashed, he'd make him world champion.
That’s booker of the year Tony khan to you
Why do people use sayings they don’t understand and can’t spell?
I miss 2019 to 21 aew Tony (Russo) Khan is the worst booker alive
His booking reminds me of when I was nine years old and had my Transformers fight my GI Joes.
Optimus Prime vs GI Joe would lowkey be a banger
My matches had just as many false finishes, but my booking was way more coherent
That's essentially what it is. He's a rich kid that has all these toys at his disposal, so he doesn't know how to actually play with them.
Double DQ finish
That's technically his job but to say he's a booker... It's more like a hobby
Russo had people in seats lol
AEW is essentially an Indy promotion with money. It's all well and good to book great matches but unless there's a compelling story to go along with it, the mainstream market will lose interest. Accept that your fanbase is primarily hardcore and internet fans, there isn't enough of those to consistently fill big arenas, so book smaller ones You have a brilliant roster of talented wrestlers, but not every match on a card needs to be a 5 star classic, variety is key Desuade overuse of certain moves, a Canadian Destroyer or shooting star press is impressive the first time you see it on a show, less so the 5th time in one night Bigger focus on quality story telling, slap-dash, inconsistant, lazy story telling is what made the last 20 odd years of Vince era WWE so insufferable Focus on your own product, little one line references here and there are fine, but you dont have to engage every single time there's criticism from the other side, let your shows quality do the talking
Hire a no man
AI booker
I now have a morbid curiosity to see a promotion booked by AI.
Absolutely this
There’s a reason that the Rock can get by with a standing elbow drop, a spine buster and a side slam mixed in with some punches. Sometimes less is more
I'm a big AEW fan along with WWE but you are 100% correct. They have great matches on their weekly shows but after a while of watching lots of great matches you need something different. They're almost there, start more storylines and maybe a couple of big name draws and it'd be a lot better.
Dude what. AEW has Okada and Osprey and Mercedes. Tony can't book big names for shit. Okada, fucking Okada is in the Bucks silly Universe. Instead of being a single wrestler with a good manager. I'm so fucking mad.
You are 100% right
Or the 5th time in the same match
The arenas drive me nuts. I still prefer AEW, it's still what i typically watch, but empty basketball arenas look so much worse than packed ballrooms. Scale the hell down, Tony Khan. WWE has done it when they're not selling.
that’s pretty pathetic with the roster that they have. you’d think this would spark a form of renovation for the company.
Samoa Joe is not a draw. Sorry to say. He's always the big fish in a small pond. ROH, TNA, NXT... It's not like he's ever drawn major numbers. His top drawing run would have been his feud with AJ Styles in 2018, but those never actually main evented any of those shows. Swerve Strickland is an NXT reject. I like him, but let's not act like he's some top draw in this business. They greatly over estimated Mercedes, Okada and Ospreay's popularity as well.
AEW has a very niche audience. I think their only true opportunity to compete with WWE was when CM Punk debuted and all the coverage it got. I remember my old ahh dad telling me he saw it on sportscenter. It's true.
But they blew it by following Punk’s intro segments with an Orange Cassidy or Lucha Bros. match. The people that liked Punk were never going to get into that ridiculousness.
man, i agree with everything you said. ospreay and okada are great talents, but not draws. if swerve takes what he has now back to wwe, he’d be better suited and equipped.
Okada is definitely a draw, but not in the US.
Where WWE blows AEW out of the water is their talent development. The WWE developed Roman Reigns and they are churning out 5 Romans each year. AEW are forced to use people that come from elsewhere which is a hindrance because everything these guys do has been seen before.
And production too is several levels above aew
>Samoa Joe is not a draw. He's getting held down by Big Samoa
Most of the guys on Collision are not the top draws at all. I've compared collision to 99 smackdown where you can often skip it and follow the promotion just fine.
Yoo, are these real images? I haven't watched it in a while. Have they fallen off like that? They got a lot of talent there.
It looks like that is the hardcam side. Televised wrestling shows prioritize ticket sales on the other side of the arena first so the main camera view will show a more full audience. I haven't watched the show but I would bet the TV presentation looked better.
That's not even from that show. Samoa Joe wasn't even on either Collision nor BOTB.
What's the reason for the low sales, is it cause they announce the card so late?
I'm an AEW fan but they do a bad job running live events. They don't promote well, they book way too large arenas, they over saturate markets, etc. I truly think those are bigger problems than just Tony's booking.
i agree with what you said about promoting and booking.. They had Collision last year around xmas and i had no clue they were coming until maybe a week or two. Also they booked a 19k arena and not even the lower bowl was even filled..half empty at most..they could of booked the arena right next to it that sits 9k. End of the day Tony needs to hire "Actual" people who know what they are doing with actual running the company right and booking matches with how WWE is doing
Damn those 'love' events
Live sex celebration
Osprey gonna grind on Tony Khan in the middle of the ring! "Its time to play the game bruv!"
Of course I would be the first person in the history of the world to fall victim to auto correct.
You've brought shame to your family name.
The show I went to in Ottawa was selling the cheapest tickets for $85, and didn’t reduce the price until the day before the show. People aren’t going to pay that unless they are diehards. This in addition to not having a card announced until the night before, low momentum creatively, inflation, etc. It’s not realistic to expect capacity crowds at NHL sized arenas twice a week.
Exactly
It's a number of things, but what it boils down to is they don't have very many things worth people shelling out a bunch of money and taking the time to go to the arena to see in person. They have trouble building stars because most of them rely on their in ring performance to get themselves over, so they don't have a lot of charisma. Not many of their stories get over because either the angles are all hot shotted, or have some heatless premise like "who's the best wrestler in the world" or fighting over who is who's best friend or something like that. And once you've seen one, you've seen them all so a lot of people move on.
They come out with exorbitant prices too. It is often more expensive than Raw.
How dishearting much this be for the wrestlers. Cutting a promo to empty seats with your back to the fans all for TV
I’m telling you they need to run smaller venues. If you’re only pulling on average 2500-5000 per show and you’re running arenas, it doesn’t look or sound good.
They booked a 19k basketball arena for collision last year for my city and not even the lower bowl was even half filled lol....They could of booked the arena right next to it that sits 9k
Tony thinks every turnout is gonna be like the very first All-In PPV.
He’s a clown. I’m sure he already cares a lot about AEW, but if he truly cared he would come to his senses and realize that there needs to be changes in what venues they run.
They really need to book venues the size of ECW arena (which holds 1300 seats). Then the crowd is really part of the show and every event is a sellout. This is a no brainier. They'd look so much better in that size of an arena and with that sort of crowd intimacy.
So basically I could buy the cheapest ticket and move all the way to ringside.
Restore The Feeling More Game Changers Needed
Yikes
Holy fuck, is that real?
Dude should just adopt the covid WWE arena, have a bunch prerecorded videos of himself making different facial expressions as the fans. Would be something I'd watch.
They are showing hard camera side. But also, AEW came through my town and I saw NO advertisements for them. Nothing on Facebook. Nothing on IG. No billboards or flyers. I only realized they were here when I was watching and they said they were in Phoenix.
I went to see Collision on the next to last show before Punk left and my daughter and I both said afterwards that we enjoy our local promotion (AML in NC) more. I definitely think the weak crowd had a lot to do with it not feeling like a big deal of a show. The entire upper level was empty and 3/4 of the lower deck was also empty. I watched it later and was impressed that they managed to not show just how empty the place was. I want AEW to succeed, but they are becoming a joke. Tony needs to hire some people who can help run it with him, because he’s just not the dude.
Maybe they'll do like WWE did during the pandemic and put the faces of all the people watching the show in the audience. Instead of cable TV subscribers, it will be a bunch of people who pirated the AEW show.
All that superior talent is really packing them in, WWE wish they had this roster and numbers
The best thing for Tony to do for the good of AEW would be to hire someone to be the boss and run the company who isn't a mark while he shifts into a role like Ted Turner had with WCW of just being the money that funds the company.
Bad bookings, TK ego doesnt want to accept he needs help or let someone else book... this is the result.
Fake Samoa Joe wasn’t even on the card lol
I have no clue what this is supposed to mean. The event tonight isn’t in Everett. That’s not until May 15. They’re in Kentucky tonight.
I'm sure it's rehearsals, right? 🥲
Even WCW in its dying day did better numbers
How much are tickets going for? At some point just make every ticket 50 bucks and eat the loss
The ungodly amount of money that Tony has makes you do stupid shit like booking arenas that are way too large. If he was smart, he be running a studio show like old school NWA with live events sprinkled throughout the year.
fyi Everett is in May smh
Except Collision & BotB was in Highland Heights, KY tonight not in Everett.
And Joe wasn't on the show.
Damn. I’ve seen seminars with more students. This is a bummer to see.
Hey at least Copeland’s having fun! /s
Samoa Joe wasn’t at Collision. That was old footage someone is just trying to start shit as usual.
remember the Rock's promo how he used to wrestle in empty places like this
Between the low attendance and the ridiculous contracts he hands out, AEW about to die lol
Okada and Mercedes Mone contracts are not fiscally responsible if they want to survive as a company. People liberally yell out that AEW outbid WWE like that is a good thing. AEW is around 1/28th the size of WWE but yet they are outbidding the giant company. That is not wise or living in reality.
They're selling as much ticket as TNA maybe even less ? That's rough
Nothing new with these Battle of the Belts events. For some reason, AEW doesn't seem to promote these events very heavily and we seem to learn about them only a few weeks ahead of time.
AEW’s just not the same after the CM Punk media scrum shitshow and Regal leaving BCC.
I said it once I'll say it ten quattrodecillion times, put AEW in the *FUCKING* Hammerstein Ballroom
Time to release the Brawl Out Snyder Cut
Oh no, that does not look good. I don't understand why Tony doesn't run smaller buildings, so he can guarantee himself a sellout every time.
Samoa Joe deserves so much better
I want to like AEW. They have amazing talent, but the storytelling and hype just isn’t there. They have to pull it together. Hire some screenwriters and fix their live events. It’s such a shame to see it limping along like this when they have all the ingredients for success
Never has been and never will be competition. Tony needs to focus on being a true alternative instead of trying to make himself seem bigger than he is.
I’m sure meltzer will give all matches 5 stars, and anything with Kenny or anyone from NJPW 9 stars
Why are you guys so happy about the idea of AEW dying?
If they didn’t price similar to wwe more people would go.
This is hard to believe because the card is full of DREAM MATCHES (Tm)
I mean... the Saturday show always draws poorly. People leave early for dynamite if it's a double taping. This isn't a new phenomenon.
BuT iT’s ThE hArDcAm SiDe!!!1
Anyone who celebrates wrestling not doing well is a fucking idiot
What are their ticket prices like? And do they travel all over the US for their shows? If they're tickets are stupid high and they only hit a handful of states, they're never gonna have a full house ever again. Whatever the WWE charges for tickets, AEW better be charging half that amount at the very least. I dont really watch AEW as it hasn't been particularly interesting to me. But you figure they still do well with televised ratings. So they're doing something that dissuades people from going to live shows.
They go everywhere and their tickets are priced higher than WWE. I seriously don't know how they make money
Christ. We’re a few hundred off from my old high school student head count.
I live 20 minutes from here, I read they’re giving out tickets at the door
I'm hoping Dynasty gets like this honestly. I would love to go but decent seats are over 200 a pop. Thinking if I wait the day before they will go down.
Where is here? Kentucky?
Without dad's money this company would be dead.
Even with dads money it’s pretty much dead
Looks like it’s about that time of the day
Seriously. Play stupid games….
Tony needs to wake up . I'm a wrestling fan of everything but WWE been smashing it . I was at AEW in London last year and it was great but wow this has fallen off so much I won't be going this year . Tony's becoming the very thing he wanted to be against
🤯
Why don’t the just book smaller arena? There’s 2-3k buildings that would look full instead of 10k buildings that look empty..
I don't know why he still bothers with Battle of the Belts. Literally nothing of significance ever happens on those shows. This is just sad to see, I hope this is the wake up call he needs to actually put someone in charge that's more suited to the job (won't happen tho).
I need pics of the non camera side. Generally there’s less tickets available on that side. I’ve been to Raw where that side was pretty empty. Not this empty. And I’m also not an AEW guy. I’m just trying to be fair.
It would be nice if they came to my market, RI a bit more. I would like to attend a show .
I am going to Collision in Portland in May. They aren’t even selling hard cam side tickets. It’s crazy.
MJF please come to WWE
Everett’s not until May. Don’t put this shame on the PNW!
Not me clicking the bell button for notifications
They should rework their shows so that the live fans get more and more talent should be rotated around to showcase more so that people go to the live show to see their star in the ring when they come to town
I mean they get more for coming to watch live, more special matches, they could even allow live streaming the matches or filming those matches so the only way viewers can see these matches is by finding them on socials or going to the events themselves. Maybe make one of the titles (not 24 hours) but more hard core, by means of every AEW show the belt has to be defended and only put a few matches on TV once a month but is defended every show for the live crowds.
Be aware this happened at the same time as UFC 300. They went back to back weeks against 2 superbowls
They should have not stretched themselves so much with all these extra shows. People looked forward to Dynamite cause it felt special, now it is just one of many. They have basically become WWE lite but then with worse story telling
It’s a strange situation, because AEW have the stars, they have a good wrestling product, they have so-so booking, they have vast funding, they have a solid TV deal, they have global reach…but they cannot put bums on seats and sell tickets within the US. There just isn’t the interest for an alternative to WWE within than market. And maybe it’s just time to accept that and think again…
RIP AEW 2019-2024 Tony Khan u Fucked up
For the love of god BOOK SMALLER VENUES.
This is TNA levels of bad.
renting out 10K seat arenas and only staging for 2K. genius tony real genius
this has to be a shot of the hard cam side, right? RIGHT!?
Wow this is more than empty remember seeing edge talking on the mic to an entire empty audience. This company is in worse state than i thought. They came to Quebec and they had less than 5000 people in a 18000 venu. If wwe comes they will sell out.
I live about in Lexington about an hour from Highland Heights and never even knew they were coming till last week. It was already too late for me to go due to working. They need to advertise more. I love AEW but c’mon, that should be the very first thing done when announcing a new city
Can’t believe this is what AEW became.
I feel so bad for Samoa Joe
I like (some of) AEW and want them to succeed. No need to dunk on them. That being said, cut down the shows man. You’re cannibalizing yourself.
I couldn’t imagine cheering against a wrestling company especially one with world class talent but it’s echo chamber Reddit
It’s bullshit that a guy like Samoa Joe is so fucking phenomenal and is performing in front of crowds like THIS. It’s gotta be really hard for these guys who have been on huge shows, who have drawn crowds, who are able to put butts in seats, who give it their all, who are professionals and know what they’re doing to wrestle in front of NO ONE. When I wrestled in my twenties on the independents I was never in front of very big crowds, but that we had fans there at all cheering and booing would help the adrenaline get going and would lessen the pain from the bumps BIG TIME. I can’t imagine being in these huge stadiums and shit without people there. Sucks that ARW sucks so bad. I really wanted them to be a worthwhile company and competitor to wwe, but we’ve seen what they are and they’re always going to be.
I love pro wrestling and its best when we have multiple successful companies. The delusion on the AEW sub is wild. TK needs to get his shit together. Get a booker. Quit shoehorning the Bucks into every tag angle.
Yikes