AEW - All Elite Wrestling (*Spoilers for Latest Show*)

Neil3030

This is glorious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWBVfZy7OjM

Omackeral

Imagine actually making that.

Lithium93_

The audacity to ****ing ruin Belinda Carlile's Heaven Is A Place On Earth.

Agent Coulson

Whoever made that is a billion times the worse than those he is trying to take the p1ss out of.

The White Wolf

One ballsy mother fcuker to make 4 minutes out of that.

Smacruairi

Neil3030 wrote: »

This is glorious:]

That's some top quality trolling

J. Marston

Jericho: "It’s been a really cool environment with AEW because Tony is, you never want to say this, but he’s one of the boys to an extent, he’s one of the boys in that he hangs out after the show. He’s very generous."

https://www.sescoops.com/chris-jericho-talks-drug-use-in-todays-wrestling-compared-to-past/

"Very generous." Jericho, Cody, The Young Bucks etc saw starry-eyed Khan coming from a mile away.

beakerjoe

Sure isnt Vince one of the boys too.

Tony is a money mark. Plain and simple.

Lithium93_

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1330978268674187273

LineOfBeauty

beakerjoe wrote: »

Sure isnt Vince one of the boys too.

Tony is a money mark. Plain and simple.

Time will tell. I personally think Tony is the longest of long shots coming through. A guy whose dad is a billionaire that owns sport teams whose been a WON subscriber and smart wrestling fan for life. All of that falling into place with The Elite gaining super popularity. The stars aligned perfectly for it to all work out. There's bits and pieces Tony allows onto his shows I don't like, but by and large his vision of pro wrestling is good and he's a shoe in for booker of the year.

beakerjoe

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

Time will tell. I personally think Tony is the longest of long shots coming through. A guy whose dad is a billionaire that owns sport teams whose been a WON subscriber and smart wrestling fan for life. All of that falling into place with The Elite gaining super popularity. The stars aligned perfectly for it to all work out. There's bits and pieces Tony allows onto his shows I don't like, but by and large his vision of pro wrestling is good and he's a shoe in for booker of the year.

Dont get me wrong, I enjoy AEW and want it to succeed but Tony is a money mark. Hes throwing cash at a pet project, happy to be 'one of the boys' and to be fair, doing a lot right but Im interested to see how AEW is in 5 years.

Cherry_Cola

Seems like he's making profit off it so fair play to him. Many here would kill to be in a similar position and would likely do a much worse job so not sure why people deride him for being a money mark. If you work on something you enjoy, hang out with your childhood heroes and make money doing it, then that's pretty cool no matter how you look at it.

Neil3030

By the strictest of definitions, I don't think Tony Khan is a money mark, seeing as AEW turnover a decent amount of cash.

The company's TV deal is worth $45m per year. 4 PPVs a year doing buy-rates of ~50-100k probably tops up the kitty with an additional $3m-$5m.

Add revenues from a live crowd each week, you're probably talking another $10m-$15m.

So even a conservative estimate, you're likely dealing with a business that turns over more than $50m per year.

However, the question is, how much goes back out the door? Meltzer reckons production costs are 500k per week, or $26m a year. And then you have a roster of over 100 wrestlers, plus an additional 30 non wrestling on air personalities (Justin Roberts, Vicki G, the refs, etc). How many of them are on 6+ figures annually? The handful of big names like Jericho, Cody and Moxley are likely in the low 7 figure range too. Hard to imagine the Bucks and Kenny making much less.

And then you have production costs for the vignettes like the trip to Vegas or the Hardy compound matches.

I mean, sure, this is all guesswork, but it's pretty easy to imagine the Khan family needing to top up the kitty with a few mil each year.

Cherry_Cola

TNT front productions costs though I believe.

Neil3030

Cherry_Cola wrote: »

TNT front productions costs though I believe.

Not in the new deal.

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2020/01/how-much-the-new-aew-tv-deal-is-actually-worth-665015/

sky88

They also pay for the accommodation and flights for the wrestlers then advertising and promotion I would love to see the accounting of the company

Agent Coulson

Between owning an NFL team a Premier League team and a Wrestling company I would imagine the Khan family are pretty good at knowing how to spend money in sports franchises without dipping into their own personal wealth.

Be that tv money, Advertising money, sponsorship money and tax breaks.

Neil3030

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Between owning an NFL team a Premier League team and a Wrestling company I would imagine the Khan family are pretty good at knowing how to spend money in sports franchises without dipping into their own personal wealth.

Be that tv money, Advertising money, sponsorship money and tax breaks.

Since Khan took over Fulham in 2013, the club hasn't turned a profit once, and have yearly losses ranging from 2m to 46m.

Agent Coulson

Neil3030 wrote: »

Since Khan took over Fulham in 2013, the club hasn't turned a profit once, and have yearly losses ranging from 2m to 46m.

Only about 3 clubs in England's top flight not in debt nearly every other one is leveraged up to the last.

Just look at the money Man U's owners make from the club despite it being £500m in debt.

There is a reason all these billionaires buy football teams in England

The Khans wrote off debt at Fulham by turning it into shares and when they do sell they will make a huge profit.

Neil3030

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Only about 3 clubs in England's top flight not in debt nearly every other one is leveraged up to the last.

Just look at the money Man U's owners make from the club despite it being £500m in debt.

There is a reason all these billionaires buy football teams in England

That wasn't your point.

Neil3030

sky88 wrote: »

They also pay for the accommodation and flights for the wrestlers then advertising and promotion I would love to see the accounting of the company

Yikes, do they pay transport and accommodation? That must be 100k+ per week for the whole roster.

What's the story with healthcare / the independent contractor status of their workers?

If AEW are paying healthcare, that's millions per year. Easily.

sky88

Neil3030 wrote: »

Yikes, do they pay transport and accommodation? That must be 100k+ per week for the whole roster.

What's the story with healthcare / the independent contractor status of their workers?

If AEW are paying healthcare, that's millions per year. Easily.

No wrestlers are independent contractors except I’m assuming the evps not sure of the healthcare not heard /read anything if they do pay healthcare

Most do live in Florida it seems so I’d say right now the flights aren’t too expensive you’d imagine

RollieFingers

LineOfBeauty wrote: »

Time will tell. I personally think Tony is the longest of long shots coming through. A guy whose dad is a billionaire that owns sport teams whose been a WON subscriber and smart wrestling fan for life. All of that falling into place with The Elite gaining super popularity. The stars aligned perfectly for it to all work out. There's bits and pieces Tony allows onto his shows I don't like, but by and large his vision of pro wrestling is good and he's a shoe in for booker of the year.

Khan is definitely pro-wrestling Booker of the year, in North America anyway. Overall I'd give it to the Dragon Gate crew but on his side of the world it's Khan.

He's done a very solid job, without too much competition in fairness. ROH and MLW took hits with the pandemic, I'd probably say Callis and D'Amore in Impact would be second best this year. Main roster WWE isn't pro wrestling and NXT is an afterthought so yeh I'd say it's Khan in 2020.

LineOfBeauty

RollieFingers wrote: »

Khan is definitely pro-wrestling Booker of the year, in North America anyway. Overall I'd give it to the Dragon Gate crew but on his side of the world it's Khan.

He's done a very solid job, without too much competition in fairness. ROH and MLW took hits with the pandemic, I'd probably say Callis and D'Amore in Impact would be second best this year. Main roster WWE isn't pro wrestling and NXT is an afterthought so yeh I'd say it's Khan in 2020.

Ye Dragon Gate and Nosawa Rongai's NOAH are the other two that came to mind. Gedo and NJPW have had a pretty poor year, started so well with the double Dome Naito victory, had a couple of peaks in the G1 but everything else has been a struggle.

In North America Khan has to be the automatic choice, and you have to give him credit in a lot of different ways. He's built an interesting company with it's own booking patterns, it's own rhythms, he's dealt with the many curveballs thrown at him admirably and his 4 PPV's a year are by far and away my most anticipated wrestling shows in North America. There's a lot of stuff to be said in his favour.

Agent Coulson

John Silver vs Hangman announced for tomorrows Dynamite could be a cracker.

Top Flight vs TH2 announced as well.

RollieFingers

Big win for Pretty Peter Avalon!

CastorTroy

Woohoo! Clearly Leva was holding him back.

Find it funny that the Heat/Velocity of AEW was nearly as long as a PPV and longer than any of the other bigger weekly shows.

I know it was kind of an obvious joke but still found Britt commenting on calling someone the wrong name while addressing Rebel. I'm guessing that wasn't Rebel's real laugh.

Agent Coulson

Taz doing the Kata ha jime

His sons ring name Hook so I’m guessing he’s going to be a shooter.

Also Powerhouse Hobbs is so old school it's great.

ciaran2054

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Taz doing the Kata ha jime

His sons ring name Hook so I’m guessing he’s going to be a shooter.

Also Powerhouse Hobbs is so old school it's great.

Very good episode of Dynamite although I found the ending a bit odd. They’re all basically heels and then another heel does a run in.

Team Tazz looking very strong now. I don’t mind Brian Cage but he’s becoming the background guy.

Kenny v. Mox has all the ingredients for a classic.

CastorTroy

I know he's backstage like that, but Cody coming out with the headset just looks fake. Like he just grabbed it to make it look like he's involved backstage. Why can't he take it off when going out to the ring? Looks like they're trying too hard.

Looked like Hobbs thought he injured Lee Johnson. Johnson who not only doesn't get any members of the Nightmare Family accompanying him, but also just doesn't get an entrance on tv

Was there meant to be a part 2 to the Vegas trip?