Monthly News Thread (October 2019)

[M.C.G. 31]

I think AEW is in the honeymoon phase right now. While I watch it and enjoy it, it is very light (thus far) on the 'entertainment' side and heavy on the sports side. It's a nice change but may hold it back once people get over the spots.
It's very much the anti-WWE which is cool but Im not sure most want the Anti WWE as much as they just want a GOOD show.
For now it's awesome to have more than one option again.

All my opinion of course.

I mean, I thought I’d feel the same but I love it. The presentation, the storylines, taking time to build things, the chaotic nature of it all. I love it. I didn’t expect to. Everyone here knows I was highly critical and skeptics of it in the shows leading up to it and the first two shows have completely won me over (helped by the colossal failure that was HIAC 2019).


The Habs were on last night. HIAC is what made me decide to give AEW a real chance live rather than watch hockey and they won me over completely.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

I think AEW is in the honeymoon phase right now. While I watch it and enjoy it, it is very light (thus far) on the 'entertainment' side and heavy on the sports side. It's a nice change but may hold it back once people get over the spots.
It's very much the anti-WWE which is cool but Im not sure most want the Anti WWE as much as they just want a GOOD show.
For now it's awesome to have more than one option again.

All my opinion of course.

They have a few of the best promos in the business with Jericho Mox and MJF and the end to last nights show was pure "entertainment" not wrestling.

 

[The Apologist]

They have a few of the best promos in the business with Jericho Mox and MJF and the end to last nights show was pure "entertainment" not wrestling.

Fully agreed. Jericho is a huge part of the reason I started watching. mix is good too but I'm not sure I would put him in the same category.
MJF? meh. And I don't really care if I'm in the minority there. I personally don't think playing the egotistical heel is super hard in wrestling. Making people hate you is easy. Making them like you?
But after Jericho, Mox and maybe Cody, the mic skills get thin.

Id say the same thing about the WWE right now though. It's as if the wrestlers themselves don't believe in their characters. How are we supposed to believe in them?

Anyway, again, my opinion.

 

[The Apologist]

I mean, I thought I’d feel the same but I love it. The presentation, the storylines, taking time to build things, the chaotic nature of it all. I love it. I didn’t expect to. Everyone here knows I was highly critical and skeptics of it in the shows leading up to it and the first two shows have completely won me over (helped by the colossal failure that was HIAC 2019).


The Habs were on last night. HIAC is what made me decide to give AEW a real chance live rather than watch hockey and they won me over completely.

And I may get there too. I'll see where the storyline goes. I'll see what they do with IC and Mox and the gang.
I'll tell you this, my boys absolutely went nuts over the Private Party vs Young Bucks match. For me it seemed like a great PPV match, not sure they'll be able to carry that intensity, those spots, the back and forth every week, month after month, year after year forever.

I hope it sticks because the WWE right is terrible. We need the variety and excitement to keep wrestling from becoming stale. I just worry about what happens when the newness wears off.

 

[Jussi]

Someone's not saying something you like so he is obviously being paid for it!

Some people think I work for Whatculture Wrestling here so...

And I thought it was already discussed that here that there's a link with Meltzer and AEW?

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Some people think I work for Whatculture Wrestling here so...

And I thought it was already discussed that here that there's a link with Meltzer and AEW?

And it was refuted because it’s not true. All Meltzer did was a do an interview for TNT about AEW.

 

[The Apologist]

Some people think I work for Whatculture Wrestling here so...

And I thought it was already discussed that here that there's a link with Meltzer and AEW?

It was discussed but the link was refuted or at least wasn't very solid .
Metzler may just enjoy AEW more. WWE has been stale for so long and honestly can't help themselves but to destroy everything good that falls into their lap so I can't really blame him.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Also, Fox sports EVP was talking about expectations for Smackdown ratings wise. They understand 4m was an extraordinary circumstance and they were previously doing 1.2m or so on Fox on Friday nights. They’d like better than what Smackdown was doing on USA on Tuesdays but they’re realistic. It sounded like the expectation weekly seems to be around 2.5m or so and above once the show gets settled in. Maybe a bit higher (2.7m min) but they want the demo and a higher lead in for their affiliates too. So it doesn’t seem like they’re totally unreasonable and expecting 3m weekly on Friday nights.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Specific numbers will be available soon

AEW dipped, just above 1m viewers
NXT fell below 800k
AEW doubled NXT in the 18-49 demo again


Considering the competition, not awful. I wonder if those are just TNT numbers or TruTV factored in as well.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

And here we are

AEW - 1,018,000
NXT - 790,000

AEW 18-49 male - 0.66
NXT 18-49 male - 0.29

AEW 18-49 (m & f) - 0.46
NXT 18-49 (m & f) - 0.22

AEW 12-34 male - .39
NXT 12-34 male - .14

AEW 12-34 (m & f) - .33
NXT 12-34 (m & f) - .15

NXT only beat AEW in 50+ demographic for a second straight week (.4 vs. .3). Absolute slaughter in the demographics again.



Also, the baseball game had a bigger impact than it did last week.

Last week, the single game that started at 8pm that was ranked #1 on the night had a shade under 4-million viewers.

This week, the TWO baseball games saw the 4:55pm game had a bit more than 3.3-million viewers, but the 8:30pm game that started after the first one had a bit more than 5.8-million viewers. So I think both shows kind of felt the wrath of that one there.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

And here we are

AEW - 1,018,000
NXT - 790,000

AEW 18-49 male - 0.66
NXT 18-49 male - 0.29

AEW 18-49 (m & f) - 0.46
NXT 18-49 (m & f) - 0.22

AEW 12-34 male - .39
NXT 12-34 male - .14

AEW 12-34 (m & f) - .33
NXT 12-34 (m & f) - .15

NXT only beat AEW in 50+ demographic for a second straight week (.4 vs. .3). Absolute slaughter in the demographics again.



Also, the baseball game had a bigger impact than it did last week.

Last week, the single game that started at 8pm that was ranked #1 on the night had a shade under 4-million viewers.

This week, the TWO baseball games saw the 4:55pm game had a bit more than 3.3-million viewers, but the 8:30pm game that started after the first one had a bit more than 5.8-million viewers. So I think both shows kind of felt the wrath of that one there.

CORRECTION:

AEW - 1,140,000 (TruTV correction)

 

[GKJ]

Lacey Evans vs. Nattie was the highest rated segment of Raw this week

 

[M.C.G. 31]

AEW number in Canada was approx 150,000 which is up from 109,000 last week.


In the industry, that’s the equivalent of 1.5m American viewers.

 

[KaseMeOutside]

“NXT - which used to be this cool brand - is looking really uncool in comparison [to AEW].” - Meltzer


Also says they can’t go on the road and make this work on the same level of AEW. Says they should still have hotter crowds but they can’t go into nicer buildings. They’ve historically had problems drawing on the road.

At the end of the day NXT is still WWE and To a chunk of the audience it's not going to be seen as cool. Or people rather get behind a new underdog company.

 

[KaseMeOutside]

CORRECTION:

AEW - 1,140,000 (TruTV correction)

Considering initial expectations if AEW can maintain a million plus that would be very good

 

[M.C.G. 31]

CM Punk pulled all his merchandise from PWT

 

[Disclose]

CM Punk pulled all his merchandise from PWT

Welcome back Punk

 

[Fro]

There goes the dream

 

[BiolaRunner]

Lacey Evans vs. Nattie was the highest rated segment of Raw this week

And this is how you know Raw sucked

 

[Cor]

The second plan for HIAC was for Wyatt to take a “foley type bump” off the cell, and pop back up after the referee stopped the match

It was meant to be a horror trope, where the killer is believed to be dead, but turns out isn’t.

It’s also confirmed that Vince McMahon was indeed laughing at the crowd reaction

The WWE is trying to put distance between the match to avoid backlash

 

[M.C.G. 31]

Ricochet was also part of the lowest viewed segment for the second time in the last 3-4 weeks I believe.

 

[M.C.G. 31]

The second plan for HIAC was for Wyatt to take a “foley type bump” off the cell, and pop back up after the referee stopped the match

It was meant to be a horror trope, where the killer is believed to be dead, but turns out isn’t.

It’s also confirmed that Vince McMahon was indeed laughing at the crowd reaction

The WWE is trying to put distance between the match to avoid backlash

They should have done the Foley bump. At least even back then we knew if Foley wasn’t getting up it was totally understandable. But to book him to pop back up afterwards would have led to the same crowd reaction. They should have done the lights gimmick and rolled Fiend under the ring.

 

[Sheppy]

Again, it's in the honeymoon phase... but the AEW crowds seem damn good so far.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

They should have done the Foley bump. At least even back then we knew if Foley wasn’t getting up it was totally understandable. But to book him to pop back up afterwards would have led to the same crowd reaction. They should have done the lights gimmick and rolled Fiend under the ring.

It depends on the lead up to it. The crowd reaction happened because Rollins completely dominated the entire time and they thought the crowd would notice more that the Fiend was popping up quickly on a lot of it. If they do the Foley bump off the cell where Fiend is chasing Rollins and he just turns it around into the Foley bump without all the ridiculous owning that Rollins was doing in the match, I think it would've been received a lot better. The problem was that they had the Fiend lie down and take a lot of offense in this when he shouldn't have been and the crowd knew that and had that expectation.