The Wednesday Night War *Spoilers for AEW and NXT*

Last week’s AEW wasn’t bad but it was very meh. I watched the two live at the same time and NXT was constantly grabbing me and AEW losing me (and I’ve been really into Dynamite). The worry is that they’re running out of game-changing ideas. They do solid, traditional booking and execute well, match quality is always high, but that’s not necessarily stuff that grabs people and gets social media buzzing. Nobody texts their mates to tell them how solid something is.

It’s a tough spot to be in because they’ve kinda earned their following by doing the basics really well, if they start doing stunts it could come across unnatural or desperate. They can’t just go after ex-WWE lads either because that’s very WCW/TNA. I don’t think they’re going anywhere, but I’d hoped we’d get a year or so of fun before it got to “Well we weren’t REALLY trying to compete anyway” and lads looking to cosy back up to WWE. Hopefully they stop the rot.

I said it here months back and got absolutely lambasted, it’s all stuff we’ve seen before: inmates run the asylum with someone else’s chequebook, jobs for the boys, high profile lads sign from WWE, do ‘shoot interviews’ and make digs that please the smarks. Kurt Angle was Chris Jericho, Jeff Jarrett was Cody and Christian was Moxley in TNA (now all get paid by WWE).

They’ve got resources and smarts though so if they can be introspective enough to acknowledge this in themselves they can switch up.

leggo wrote: »

I said it here months back and got absolutely lambasted, it’s all stuff we’ve seen before: inmates run the asylum with someone else’s chequebook, jobs for the boys, high profile lads sign from WWE, do ‘shoot interviews’ and make digs that please the smarks. Kurt Angle was Chris Jericho, Jeff Jarrett was Cody and Christian was Moxley in TNA (now all get paid by WWE).

They’ve got resources and smarts though so if they can be introspective enough to acknowledge this in themselves they can switch up.

Why ? You're not wrong leggo. For all vince's faults and there have been many and will be more I've no doubt about it, but the one thing that WWE had that WCW didn't was that one guy was in charge and he had the final say on things. I'm not saying everything WWE did in the attitude era and prior to it was 24 Carat gold but there was a defined chain of command for lack of a better word. WCW never seemed to have that or at least it got less and less as it went along. I mean at times in the late 1990's WCW was spending Ted turners money like drunk sailors on shore leave.

Wouldn't be scape goating Omega & the Bucks for the rating last week. If anything the show in general (including Cody) has felt directionless since the last PPV.
Only Jericho has had a clear path with his title run. Lucha Bros, Page, The Bucks & Omega should be booked stronger even if people inevitably moaned about them putting themselves over it's the right thing to do. Same with giving Jericho the title, you first must confirm who your stars are to help create your next stars.

As far as creative goes nobody is perfect. Vince gets more things wrong than he does right which is why WWE is often ice cold for most of the last 2 decades. The show very much reflects a man who has now lost his memory.
Gedo gets a lot of praise (rightfully so) but has got a lot wrong too with title importance, tag teams & poorly reading the landscape at key moments, several times.
Maybe HHH could amount to something but at the end of the day they had to put NXT over at Survivor Series for a reason.

I won't discuss clowns like Bischoff or Russo as anyone who thinks they can offer something in 2019 needs to get their head checked. The likes of JR, Prichard & Cornette are all well past their sell by date too.
Who else is there working in creative in the U.S. now?
ROH is a disaster with Bully & Delirious in charge. Lagana I wouldn't touch with a barge pole either.
Scott D'amore has done a good job with Impact as has Court Bauer with MLW but neither of those shows are weekly TV where you need to react to the ups & downs. This is their first kick in the teeth & they need to react to it, not throw their dummies out like others will.

sirmanga wrote: »

So amusing seeing the AEW diehards make every excuse for the dire rating.
"It was the day before Thanksgiving"
Yes, but NXT still did a better number.
"AEW are doing better with the younger demo."
Yeah, whatever, who cares.
"NXT cheated because they have exposure on main roster WWE TV."
All that says to me is that AEW can only compete with the third brand, minor league version of WWE. And so what if WWE are using everything at their disposal to elevate NXT. AEW are running at half speed. Barely there storylines and match after match. Why would people stick around to watch that?

Honestly, AEW fans are becoming like a woman who's found lipstick on her husband's collar, noticed his new haircut, and wonders why he's working late every evening.
No matter what you say, they don't want to believe what they already know.

What’s worse is seeing supposed journalists do this. If fans want to live or die with a company, that’s fine and I can even respect it. But these are people whose job is supposed to be objectively reporting the fact and they’re publicly scrambling to make excuses for a company that just co-opted them. VOW and Brian Alvarez are embarrassing themselves with some of their reactions. Like at least Meltzer is actually mates with the lads, you can almost understand him defending his friends. These are lads who got backstage passes to All-In and a bit of mark treatment for one night and are ****ting on their own objectivity a couple years later.

Of all the weeks to run this also this of real cause you never know these days is very TNA


https://twitter.com/thenextblgthing/status/1202067431339855872

So I see the fears I had for AEW in relation to Tony Khan may have come through which is unfortunate. It's only one incident so hopefully that's it but they'd want to be careful.

Lithium93_ wrote: »

Care to expand on this train of thought?

Might be something to do with this

no real problems with it but id be more worried about the empty seats even with after the show i doubt that many left

https://twitter.com/AlexM_talkSPORT/status/1207590739737223168?s=20

sky88 wrote: »

Might be something to do with this

no real problems with it but id be more worried about the empty seats even with after the show i doubt that many left

https://twitter.com/AlexM_talkSPORT/status/1207590739737223168?s=20

So Tony Khan, a huge Stone Cold fan goes out to the ring, when AEW has gone off air, hits a Stunner on Shawn Spears, on Austin's 55 birthday no less, and, the way Itssoeasy had posted, I thought Khan had done something worse.

Lithium93_ wrote: »

Care to expand on this train of thought?

Well as others have said it happened after the show was over but whose to say it won't happen on live national TV soon ?

I was gonna post this in the AEW thread but since comparing to NXT, will post here.
I realised tonight that AEW may be competing with NXT but they seem more similar to Raw and Smackdown. By that I mean we seem to get the same guys in the ring every week while NXT seems to be every other week for a lot of guys.
Take this week for example. In NXT we didn't get a lot of the big names such as UE except for Cole. No Ciampa, Riddle or Lee.
Same for the women. No Candice, Bianca or Tegan.
Yet they did a good show.

Over in the AEW thread there was mention about giving Cody or Kenny the title. With the amount of tv time they get as it is, how would the title promote them? We already seem to be getting through every combination of match with a lot of them and some already seem repetitive.
I know it's still early but if feel like this already, I can't see much changing the longer it goes on.

This weeks Ratings


https://twitter.com/pwtorch/status/1207769933691719682

Bad for both shows for sure


NXT threw away a Takeover level PPV this week and only drew that number that doesn't look good.


More worrying is there is close to 50% walkaway from both shows by fans.


2 million on a Monday 1.5ish on a Wednesday and 2m on a Friday wrestling isn't adding new viewers whats the chances it's the same 2 million people watching it all.



Wrestling in general isn't a draw anymore anywhere on TV.