I mean Wednesday nights as a whole. Look, if you want to find negative you can, you’re not wrong with what you are saying. But compare Wednesday nights for both companies to just a year ago. I’d say both should be pretty damn happy, as should the wrestling industry as a whole.
100% agree with this, less TV time means you can cycle through your talent and keep them feeling fresh. This is my biggest issue with WWE main roster.
I’m not being negative. Because we’re speaking of ratings, I assumed you meant both were flourishing in terms of ratings. If you meant that you simply enjoy both shows, then my mistake for misconstruing.
My point was just in that NXT is not flourishing when it comes to ratings. Not being negative, just reading the number and demos. Hard to think otherwise when it’s their lowest number since May.
1 Like
Let me ask you, what do you define as a success for both NXT and AEW? Is there a certain number?
I don’t really want to delve into number specifics. I don’t have the energy right now to start visualizing data the way I’d like to. One day.
However, conceptually, success would be defined as holding a steady number on a week-to-week basis. Being generous. They fluctuate a lot. 6/24 it’s 786k, GAB 1 792k, GAB 2 759k, 7/15 631K. So, they lost 128K following their special to see follow up. And drop another 15k the week after. AEW also has these instances. However, this week was a great number.
I’ll also give leeway to the pandemic. Look the ratings up yourself on a week-to-week. There’s pretty frequent fluctuation. I also did not say the ratings themselves are bad. These aren’t inherently bad numbers. But flourishing would indicate a steady hold/growth of your audience. NXT would actively succeed if they grew in the key demo, and climbed maybe around 720-750k? AEW, staying around this number or higher? Ballpark, because I’m exhausted.
Point being though, from a number’s POV, NXT had a bad week. Like, marginally so.
1 Like
You’re right, 35th in the demo isn’t flourishing. At all.
2 Likes
For the record, I just want to clarify that earlier when I said “negative” I didnt mean you were being negative, I meant that you were just pointing out a negative. Not sure that makes sense lol, but point being I wasnt trying to insult you because when I read it back I could see it reading that way.
I dont disagree with anything you are saying to be honest, I just think we are assessing different things.
If we are doing a straight comparison between weeks, you are right. There is fluctuation, and they are not able to hold their best numbers week over week.
That’s not what I’m looking at. I’m looking at a year ago when Wednesday nights just had NXT on the WWE network. Now, 1 year later we have USA paying WWE for NXT which is their #3 brand (I assume) and we have TNT paying AEW for Dynamite (again I assume) and together they are bringing in about 1.5 million viewers a week in the US. Sure, both shows fluctuate, and the pandemic definitely plays a factor, but if you went back a year ago and asked both companies if they would be happy with where we are now, while I’m sure WWE would prefer NXT be beating AEW in the main demo and overall viewers on a regular basis, I do think that they would be pretty happy with turning Wednesday night into the biggest wrestling night of the week when it used to be pretty much nothing. This is what I mean by flourishing.
I actually think the opposite. WWE doesn’t want Wednesday to be the biggest wrestling night of the week at all. Monday and Friday viewership dropping big time while losing to a start up on Wednesday is not ideal for them at all
For some reason I thought it was on Tuesday. I guess because I usually watched it on the network a few days later.
AEW are having new guys fall at the first hurdle. That’s a lot worse than two established guys facing off against each other out of nowhere. Guys in NXT aren’t going to be on NXT for that long either if WWE have bigger plans for them so getting to big NXT matchups before they’re called up makes sense. People have to remember AEW are just competing with WWE’s non-mainstream stepping stone. You’re also not actually seeing all the top stars every week like you’re suggesting. Even with 2 hours. NXT still have a lot they can get to, Lee has Kross coming up, then you can have Ciampa coming back more motivated for Kross, Gargano and Balor are basically waiting around now, Dijakovic could also get involved with Kross for revenge. Things are there for NXT to get to. AEW’s main event scene however is just trash. Jericho was a good champion but now both he and Cody are desperate to convince people to be nice to the underarm because those guys are pretty okay. Moxley has always been a shit champion and Brian Cage looked like he was gonna do something but before they could establish him as a big deal they gave him a random belt and had him lose his first big match. That’s shitty booking. Having established guys lose won’t hurt them that much but a guy that you’ve only started pushing ending up a flop will hurt him. He doesn’t have much to fall back on.
AEW’s booking is generally laughable. Everyone is being brought into the middle. My main issue with NXT is their presentation and lack of in ring segments to mix things up but in terms of booking matches, AEW isn’t close in my opinion. Robert Stone would be going 50/50 with Jericho if it were down to AEW.
1 Like
I disagree, rushing into feuds makes things stale, and is worse than a new rising star losing a championship match. I’m not arguing that AEW booking has been perfect, but at least they put story behind matchups so you want to see them. Also I call hogwash on the notion that guys won’t be in NXT long so you need to get to the big match. 1.) No you don’t they don’t need to run through every big match on NXT they could not face each other and then meet up on the main roster. 2.). The idea that guys are not on NXT for long isn’t true. Riddle/Cole came out of no where and Riddle had another 7-8 months on NXT, and is the only guy Cole faced that isn’t still on NXT. Ciampa has been in NXT 5 years, Balor was only just moved back to NXT was he leaving again after a couple months such that he needed a Cole match with no story? Lee has been there 2 years, and would have been fine to move up without having the title match, heck I thought they should have moved him up around the Rumble instead of putting the NA title on him.
1 Like
I guess we have different ideas of what’s worse. I think 2 established stars clashing isn’t terrible as either will still at least survive it and neither will feel like a failed attempt at a push. You prefer it the other way where the guy just about to get a push has his legs cut from under him. That’s an AEW trademark though. Everyone gets a push for little while, then back to insignificance they go. That’s what I’d call stale and pointless.
I would argue most NXT guys don’t count as established, and I’d rather the AEW story and loss, then more story to, no story, loss, more no story. Which has been NXT basically since going to USA. I don’t think a loss to the champion hurts a guy getting a push as long as it is followed up well. The second part of that remains to be seen, but I don’t think Cage for instance feels done by any means. Guys need to lose at some point.
So, we’re criticizing AEW for booking their champion to look strong? I get it, we are used to having baby faces get outsmarted at every possible turn. We are used to seeing champions lose constantly. We have seen decades of bad booking become accepted as normal. But, shouldn’t the top guy in a company be unbeatable? Do you think New Japan will book Evil to look like a putz? Or will they have him defeat his first few opponents easily?
3 Likes
I think my issue with Moxley is largely a problem with the age of AEW as a company. He keeps beating guys that have really yet to be well established in the company. AEW doesn’t really have a lot of history for their guys to work from. So with some guys out for the pandemic, and other top acts otherwise engaged so they need to bring in new guys. I agree Moxley needs to win right now.
2 Likes
I think Jericho lost the title too early but Moxley should be strong and keep winning. Make title changes special and events that happen rarely.
1 Like
“Lose at some point” doesn’t mean “lose as soon as possible”. Build up more credibility so the loss doesn’t hurt him.
Yes the champion should look strong but at no point has anyone suggested that a wrestler just started his big push should lose his first big match. Mainly because it’s stupid. Of course we have to treat things differently and change around how things work because it’s AEW though… building up strong heels is bad…
Well, considering that the guys Moxley has beaten are Jericho, Hager, Lee, and Cage, we can look at who’s career has been adversely affected.
Jericho: probably still as over. Maybe he could have held it for a while longer, but it hasn’t hurt him one bit.
Hager: his boring in ring work hurts him more than his record, besides, he was never a top contender, but a placeholder
Lee: The Dark Order is a midcard stable. No one in that group is a legitimate contender for a heavyweight champion belt. But, because of the history between Ambrose and Harper, you could get a pretty good match out them.
Cage: still in a program with Mox. Gonna be interesting to see where this goes, actually.
But, like Drew McIntyre on raw, the lack of an audience does hurt the perception of Moxley with the belt. I mean, I think they’re both doing some good things. But, without a reaction from a live audience, we really can’t tell
2 Likes
I’m curious, if there was no pandemic and we had fans, do you think guys like Brodie Lee and Brian Cage would have still been in the same positions, challenging for the AEW title so soon?
I think they’ve only been used in this role, because of the situation. I think Double or Nothing probably would have been Moxley vs MJF. So I don’t have a problem with how they lost or them moving down a bit.
They do have a problem with heels though. Their heels aren’t heelish enough.
1 Like