The first H2H between AEW and WWE main roster is upon us! Will TKs bold prediction come to reality ?
WWE upped the ante huge bc announcing the 30 min overrun will be commercial free!
So I was wondering a few things:
Which show are you watching live?
WWE Smackdown
AEW Rampage
Neither
Both
0voters
Who will win the ratings battle?
WWE
AEW
Tie
0voters
Personally I’m likely to watch neither although I would highly lean to Smackdown. With the commercial free aspect and Becky vs Sasha and Brock and Roman I’m more likely to watch.
Not as interested in seeing CM Punk vs what is essentially a jobber who has no chance of winning and Jericho tag match when Jorge is just standing outside. No one has or will ever care about Junior DS in a wrestling ring. Also I can’t see a purpose to watching Ruby beat Bunny either.
I never watch WWE live. I dont care to watch rematches or matches that will have inevitable non finishes. So I will definitely watch Rampage.
That said, I think Tony Khan was stupid for tweeting anything. Rampage doesnt look that strong of a lineup and even if SD is on FS1, they should get the better rating.
To be honest, I dont watch Rampage anymore. Nothing against the show, but I’ve hit my limit in how much wrestling I can consume in a week. I do watch SD, but typically I watch it afterwards on Tivo and it takes me about 45min to get through as I dont watch any multi person matches or any pointless rematches.
I only occasionally watch Dynamite live, that’s it. I can’t imagine anyone who doesn’t review a WWE show watching it live, seems like a terrible experience.
If I had to pick a show to watch live next Friday it would be Rampage, I don’t understand how adding another 30 minutes makes WWE seem more appealing. Seems like a stupid idea to me.
I’ll say Rampage does beat SD slightly. WWE will not do a great job explaining to their fans the show is on FS1 and Rampage gets a bump from all the hype
Count me among the folks that for whatever reason just can’t do wrestling on Fridays. It wasn’t always this way for me (my cargo shorted doofus teen self was all in for ECW on TNN), but I think for a certain type of viewer it’s just content overload. Sorta like how there are people that will watch the NFL in every broadcast slot (Thu, Sun, Mon) and there are people that just want to watch their team, the playoffs or just “the big games.”
Anyhoobastank, for THIS Friday, I think SmackDown has more to offer, but I have more faith in Rampage being a more entertaining show. Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks and Sonya Deville vs. Naomi are pretty cool hooks. Here’s hoping we get a satisfying version of their final product.
I haven’t watched any WWE since I dipped in to watch E win the title. So I won’t be watching SD, and we always watch AEW live, since it’s my gf promotion of choice.
I kinda want to make this poll a more fair comparison:
Friday Night SmackDown from 8-10 on FS1
AEW Dynamite from 8-10 on TNT
But look at that…Dynamite isn’t on Wednesday this week it’s on Saturday night. How well timed for WWE. Call me a homer but NO CHANCE they try this maneuver if Dynamite wasn’t on a Saturday this week and next.
This is bully tactics by WWE. They are the semi truck trying to run the small 2 door off the road at 10pm on a Friday. It didn’t work on Wednesdays head to head and now they send their premier show out to attack a 10pm cable offering. Really strong of WWE. But like a real bully, they waited til a week when not even the 8-10pm show on Wednesdays could be used as a weapon for ratings comps.
Let’s be honest, this shouldn’t even be close. A Friday night wrestling show (the 2nd level show at that) in the fall at 10pm on cable shouldn’t be close to the prime time “A show”. Maybe FS1 will not have the same audience but for the WWE truthers out there - how strong are you that you are trying to make this a comparison as a show of strength. Or did you fall for the Tony Kahn bait and get worked up like a good little mark for tribalism.
I dare WWE to do this on a week Dynamite runs at a normal time slot. Then we could compare AEWs A-show on prime time on cable to Smackdown at the same time slot on cable (not Fox). Who remembers what Smackdown ratings were before the move to Network TV?
I genuinely think the problem is that most WWE fans won’t change the channel to FS one. In the past it’s been established that because of various issues - perhaps related to the fact that AEW fans are higher intelligence - most of them don’t realize they have to change the channel and it’s too cumbersome for them to do it so they won’t.
Meltzer ran a whole thing about this before and had no other explanation other than basically WWE fans are too stupid or lazy to know how to change the channel and do it correctly. So, I think that will hurt as well.
It is clearly a bully tactic by then, but this is nothing new.
Most of this is spot on, this has been Vince’s strategy since the 80’s. Wasn’t Survivor Series created to counter Starcade?
But, I just can’t get behind the bold. AEW is not ECW, they are not the little engine that could. Just based on a simple Google search, Shahid Khan has a net worth of 8.7 billion, Vince has a net worth of 2.2 billion. This is one billionaire messing with another billionaire, and in the grand scheme of things, this means nothing. If AEW wins that half hour, what changes? If WWE wins that half hour, what changes? Fans online will use it to argue on tik tok and twitter? Who cares. All this posturing by both sides is two billionaires (or I guess technically in one case the son of the billionaire who I think it a billionaire as well) having a pissing contest and trying to show who’s you know what is bigger.
For me, bullying is when one entity with a ton of power exerts that power over something or someone with significantly less power. Its not one giant making a move against another giant, especially when the one giant (the khan family) is significantly more successful and powerful then the one making the move against them. The McMahons are not even in the same stratosphere as the Khans when it comes to power. I think wrestling fans really under estimate the power and resources of the Khan family.
Re: people changing the channel. Smackdown does the rating it does because it’s on Network not cable. If it was on cable it would no be above 2Mil especially not on a Friday night. That’s the comparison I’m most curious in, SD on FS1 vs. whatever avg of the past month of Dynamite you want to use.
Oh I agree with you wholeheartedly this is a misnomer with regards to who is actually more successful and wealthy in macro. AEW in my mind remains the little engine that could because it is still on its rookie TV deal, and is still growing its corporate partnerships. Regardless of Shad Kahn, companies are not just partnering with a new Wrestling company blindly. I think it’s helped in several ways expedite their process (i.e. TV network) but if we are just comparing the business of a Pro Wrestling Company it is definitely the little engine that could vs. the dominant WWE dynasty.
@kliq when you throw in that much of the McMahon influence was political ties, and they tanked their influence by facilitating Trump/Jan 6th stuff…this family is hanging on to its power by a thread. I keep trying to warn that even a status quo TV deal will tank the stock and therefore the family net worth. As CM Punk once said (an I paraphrase) “He’s a mega-millionaire that should be a billionaire”
If history is any indication I will probably fall asleep watching SD and catch up on Rampage some time Saturday night. Rampage is turning into the kind of show I can listen to John and Wai’s recommendations and skim through it for good matches at a later date. SmackDown, oddly, feels like more of a “can’t-miss” product right now.
I think the biggest issue with Rampage right now is that they aren’t differentiating it enough from Dynamite. The last few weeks specifically played like just being extra hours of Dynamite. Started with Grandslam, and has continued for the last couple of weeks.
I’m not sure how you achieve it - but I think AEW should do something to make it feel fresher fun that. Especially by not having promos during Dynamite that reference taping the match later that night.
I don’t think a taped show is a negative - but openly promoting it as such, is.
Agree. Smackdown had some decent matches (sadly it will likely have crap finishes) like Becky vs Sasha and the Roman and Brock thing is incredible. Easily the best angle in wrestling right now.
However you will get a bunch of non-finishes and you have to be okay with that.
AEW Rampage has a weaker line up. Punk vs a jobber and Jericho isn’t even fighting Jorge but rather JDS who no one cares about. Bunny vs Ruby is as close to Becky vs Sasha as The Miz is to Daniel Bryan.
However you will get finishes.
So it depends on what do you want:
Either some marquee matchups and hot angles with crap finishes, or some lacklustre matches and angles with definitive finishes.
I also think anyone that actually thinks rampage will beat smack down in the ratings took a good hard look at what happened this past Friday.
Also now factor in that this coming Friday we already know the card for rampage and it won’t have a build up that can be any better from Dynamite, whereas WWE has advertised Brock Lesnar and almost certainly him and Roman and Becky and Sasha will be in the final half hour
I do think that Rampage does have the fact that it’s the first live AEW content in ten days. I’m sure they’ll advertise something else this week to draw extra attention too.