He just helped NXT become so big that they were able to sell a 3rd TV show to USA Network.
There’s also the actual dollars he helped bring in with ticket sales to the dozen or so Takeover events that he was in the main event or a title match on.
The defense for this is…a single opening quarter hour…which for all we know was just fan interest for the night’s card since who knew what was going to be starting the show…and even if they did, AEW got an 18-49 number that did better for the following quarter hour for Cody.
With all due respect, this is an absolutely ridiculous conversation.
Allin vs Janela earlier this month also drew a huge number. If Gargano is such a bigger star than Allin why don’t his quarter hour numbers reflect that?
My original point was AEW has done more in the Wednesday night war era to build Allin than NXT has for Gargano. The TV numbers reflect that. A lot less people watch Gargano every week
They built him from nothing though. Saying he has more growth than an established guy is another silly argument. It is like arguing Darby is a bigger star than Kenny because he has had more growth in the last year and a half.
I mean based on quarter hour numbers on the show you linked he is a bigger star than Jericho, Moxley, Cody, and Orange Cassidy.
He is on a show with more star power than Gargano is and it is the new exciting show. Gargano (as you mentioned) has been on top of NXT for several years. He isn’t going to have more growth.
Numbers vary too. Gargano Lumis did 800k this week in the same segment as the Darby and Sting Segment doing 840k.
NXT and AEW both began their weekly 2 hour shows at the same time. If Gargano was such a star you’d think he could grow even more. He’s been stale as hell because he’s been stuck in the same position for so many years.
And if his growth has topped out as you suggested, why not move him to the main roster where he can theoretically grow even more?
And that’s the crux of this whole thing, Gargano et al should have moved up by now. If he doesn’t work on the main roster let him go somewhere else and let fresh talent get opportunities in NXT. It’s like a guy in AAA baseball not wanting to get called up because he doesn’t like the manager in the big leagues.
Except that NXT is no longer really developmental. He has been in the top mix, where does he have to grow to on his brand? You keep saying the main roster. So let’s look at Moxley or Kenny where do they go to from being the top guy? In 3 years should they be in a different company because they have nowhere to go to? Gargano being a bigger star then Allin doesn’t make home a bigger star than the top guys on AEW. Never said “Gargano is such a star.” I said he was a bigger one than Darby. Neither one is a true star right now.
If I use Social media
Jericho has 3.9 followers on Instagram he is a star 10 times the size of Gargano but Gargano is supposed to outdraw him? Moxley is a bad read on social media because he doesn’t do much but he is also a way larger star than Gargano given his WWE run.
You are asking Gargano to
Be such a huge draw that he should have eclipsed a promotion hardcore fans were super hot on, that people want to see succeed.
My argument is only that he is a bigger star than Darby, not that he is being better utilized at current. But saying Darby is better because AEW has better ratings when he is an upper
Midcarder is ridiculous. He is a promising talent that benefits greatly from having a bunch of bigger stars that help him get eyeballs and look important.
I don’t think anyone is arguing he is in a worse position than Gargano, but let’s see Darby Vs Dexter Lumis draw well.
There’s no telling if Gargano is done growing. Did we think Finn Balor was suddenly going to become a much bigger thing in NXT? Lashley was middling out on Raw this time last year…could have said his star never returning…now he’s battling for the title at Mania. Did we think a Jey Uso singles run would garner some of the strongest hours of Smackdown in 2021 (I guess he’s the biggest star of them all)? Things change all the time and we have no idea what will happen if Allin is less focused upon at some point (ex. do we think Orange Cassidy is as hot as he was during his Jericho program?) Gargano is their 3x NA champion right now coming off a match Meltzer gave 4 3/4 stars last week and had the wrestling world raving about. Is he as big as he was when he won the title in Barclays? That’s a really hard level to stick at for any wrestler. And he’s now building a heel character that started with a turn two weeks before crowds disappeared on a show where crowd reaction is largely how Gargano and Ciampa grew to the levels they were at. But he’s still near the top of the card after all these years, reinventing himself, and still getting a ton of attention that suggests he’s going to be fine and being that he’s not still doing the same thing he was 3 years ago, there’s plenty of room for growth (especially when those fans return).
It’s why the tight box that a few quarter hours mean far more than they should is just a small, unclear sample size that we’re going to need far more of to know if he’s really that big. I don’t want to disparage the growth Allin has had, but this is some crazy level of recency bias.
I guess I just don’t even know what NXT is anymore. Like I mentioned earlier it feels like a place to hoard talent.
Just look at this “recruitment class”. There are some people who have been wrestling for many years, some newish people and some who have never wrestled. This is on top of all the talent they already have - guys on 205 live, NXT UK, etc. I just wonder about the reasoning behind all these signings.
My point was I don’t think Gargano, Ciampa, Cole, etc are any bigger than they were before NXT had a two hour show. Most of the talent on AEW feels like they are. Compare what NXT has done with their show with Dynamite, it feels like NXT has been stagnant for a while
The networks are paying for ratings, not social media numbers. WWE is finding that out with the bad bunny experiment - fine idea but his millions and millions of followers aren’t doing a lot for tv.
Keith Lee and Rhea Ripley and Io Sharai (and others) aren’t people who are bigger since first getting on NXT? I mean you can pretty much draw a straight line up from the moment the USA show started with Keith Lee.
It just feels like you have a low opinion of NXT (from a need to know if they’re developmental or otherwise?) and it’s tainting your opinion of their stars. The start of the TV show is just a particular set in time where NXT didn’t get the luxury of starting over, so plenty of their guys aren’t going to go along the same timeline of peaking as AEW’s will. That doesn’t mean his tide won’t turn again like it does for tons of wrestlers in a given company over time. It also doesn’t mean because he’s slightly lower than some impossible peak that he isn’t a star of that program.
The sad fact is that the biggest stars in AEW/NXT aren’t actually stars any more. Maybe one day they will be. But those shows just don’t have the reach. Sorry, they just don’t. Even the biggest stars on Raw or Smackdown are a way from the profile of 10 years ago
Nobody on the street knows who Allin, Moxley, Gargano or even Reigns are
This is very true. At this point they are the same level of star as actors on mid level TV shows. Fans know who they are but people who don’t watch have no idea.
Another thought I just had is “I wonder if NXT would have been more successful if they rebranded it for USA.” NXT has been the developmental program and people are used to it being that with call ups to the big leagues. So it is harder to view the top guys as stars when it is a lower level.
Just look at this “recruitment class”. There are some people who have been wrestling for many years, some newish people and some who have never wrestled. This is on top of all the talent they already have - guys on 205 live, NXT UK, etc. I just wonder about the reasoning behind all these signings.
So, what should WWE be doing? Yes, they have a large group of talent under contract. That is fact. I cannot argue that. But at the same time, I hear “they need to get younger” or “same old match-ups, need new matches”. Signing new talent helps with this, no?
Should they just not hire any new talent for a while? Seems unwise, but okay. No new talent then. But for how long? 6 months? A year? Until the performance center is empty? Seems rather stupid to turn people away that you think have potential.
So, the other way to reduce the roster then. Fire the wrestlers. Everybody loves when they do that and not at all blames the company for being horrible for doing so. (Look, I know the pandemic releases were not a good look, nor something I would have done, but it was overdue from a roster size standpoint.)
Get rid of people who have been there for 10 years or longer. Or split the signings between the three brands. Why does almost everyone have to go through NXT?
By the time Cole and O’Reilly are on the main roster (if that ever happens) there will be no stories left to tell between them.
Either treat NXT as true developmental - get guys in and move them when they’re ready - or treat it as a completely equal brand. They’re kind of in the middle right now
Your last statement is why they should have done a re-brand when they went to USA I think short of sending all your Raw and Smackdown guys to NXT and making it the same as those shows you will never get buy in for NXT from a lot of the WWE audience who think these guys are developmental nobodies. They tried the “equal brand thing” at survivor series last year and I saw a lot of comments about how “I don’t want to see these guys, they’re nobodies.”
I think if they re-branded, took the top NXT guys (UE, Gargano, Ciampa, Matt Riddle, Keith Lee, Dijak) and women, Then brought in guys from the main roster like they have with Balor (maybe a Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, Ricochet Seth Rollins, Cesaro, Owens, Nakamura, the 205 live guys). For extended programs or runs to get the née guys over, make it the high work rate wrestling focused show. Then have NXT be developmental and then have a draft once a year for call ups to
All 3 shows, and allow for “trades” in to allow roster mix ups. Keep a hard brand split, have this new show take over the “take overs”
Then you have a brand set to build stars. As NXT is now it is hard for them to build stars because to build stars you need to beat stars, which as a relatively unknown brand NXT lacks. There isn’t much hook for external folks tuning in past “good wrestling.
The biggest problem is when they get to the main roster they are treated as nobodies for months still, or get an initial push and get to be nobodies in 2 weeks or so. It makes NXT feel like a bush league and is perhaps the main reasons I stopped caring about it.
Okay…so by this artificial and extremely unneeded set of limits in place, Kofimania never happens? Sorry, Kofi. You’re unemployed because some people think there’s too many wrestlers on the main roster!
On the other front, Cole and O’Reilly right now are telling a completely different story then they have for the first 3 years down there. That’s leading us to think they can’t come up with anymore? And why on Earth do they have to go to the main roster and only tell stories between the two of them when there’s an entirely new set of wrestlers to work with?
I get people have criticisms with anything that doesn’t stay the same forever, but I have no idea why there needs to be some set in stone way a third brand needs to run. This all seems like overkill about a program coming off the best reviewed wrestling event of the year and their highest viewership of the year just because they’re the lower-rated show of two under-million viewer shows on Wednesday nights.
USA bought a developmental brand. WWE tried to at least give it a boost with a main brand wrestler coming down and a good showing at Survivor Series to raise its profile against a company that isn’t a developmental brand because they were being a good partner. It didn’t give them the win. Nonetheless, they’ve left a few guys down there for longer so it has a consistency, but otherwise is still acting as their developmental brand. This isn’t complicated or a problem for them. Are they also trying to put on a show with more urgency than the old one because they do want to compete? Sure. But man, the need for oversimplification with a brand that is still evolving (it’s not like we have a long history of what a developmental minor league system should look like in wrestling) just seems like an unneeded burden.
You are pretty much spot on with everything you are saying. I just want to add, WWE wants NXT to be a developmental brand that can also compete with AEW, so what they do is they combine a mixture of up and coming talent with established talent that are there to carry the brand (ie. Cole, Balor etc.). What this does is it takes some pressure off the up and coming talent, and it allows the established talent to be on top and most likely experience creative fulfillment which most of them likely wouldn’t experience on the main roster. If the talent are happy there, management is happy with the show, USA is happy with the show, and fans enjoy the product, I don’t see the issue.
I have never understood why so many fans are so butthurt by NXT, my best guess is that they are bitter NXT is preventing AEW from surpassing 1mil viewers. Who knows??
This is all a huge problem. You should not be wanting your “developmental brand” competing with anyone. You should be wanting to build new, fresh talent. 90% of these guys on the NXT roster, are not new, fresh talent and the ones that are, will never achieve anything, because WWE is too concerned with having it compete.
If you want to bring in these guys to learn the WWE style and how the main roster works, that is cool, I totally get it, but it should be 6 months in and then you’re gone. We shouldnt be getting these guys in there for 4, 5, 6 years. A guy like Omos should not be on the main roster. This guy could be a big deal if he’s used proper. He should be crushing guys in NXT and main eventing Takeovers, but who is going to accept this guy in a Takeover main event, when you still got Cole, Gargano, Balor etc.
As much as I love NXT and I still enjoy it, even though I’ve fallen out with it a lot since its gone to USA, I feel like I am watching guys that will never progress. They’re all stuck in the same position, just going around in circles, with the possibility to get called up to the main roster midcard.
That is part of it but they system also wouldn’t work with frequency of call ups if they started at the top. The issue is that WWE lacks a progression for performers. Generally guys get slotted in a spot and that doesn’t change.