I wish WWE would get Smackdown a digital airing possibility because I don't have cable so I never watch it. I'm not really interested in rewatching the whole show either when I can watch the 20 minutes clipped version on YouTube immediately after the show.

Saw a meme on reddit today saying if you want to watch all of WWE programming for a year in 2026 it would cost over 1k.

Not sure how true that is since it's a meme but I'm surprised SD isn't on any streaming service.

Yeah that is under the assumption that you would only subscribe to Netflix, ESPN, and Peacock solely to watch WWE. I myself will probably get rid of Peacock, but I would have Netflix and ESPN even without WWE. I suppose it just depends on how you look at it.

It's Netflix, ESPN, and a cable/streaming TV package, right?

But if you have the TV package, the ESPN stuff is included for the big events.

I have Netflix (~$19 a month, ~$233 a year) and YouTube TV ($89 a month, $1068 a year). This means I can get RAW on Netflix, SD on FOX, and the PLE stuff on the new ESPN app, through YouTube TV.

So that meme is correct in some cases. I do not know how much Hulu Live or a traditional cable sub cost. And I would guess RAW is also available if you have the cheapest Netflix plan. So it could be cheaper across the board.

That was a bullshit meme apparently started by a dude who steals PPVs anyway.

Ffs, you’re getting WrestleMania on ESPN. Even if you have to pay $30 for the app, including Disney+ and ESPN+, most people probably already having Disney+ anyway — you’re still coming out $20 ahead of AEW fans who still have to pay $50 a pop for PPV.

Somewhere in there I’m sure some of that shit gets bundled into your phone plan and the like. If you don’t want to pay it just watch the WWE Vault.

I guess I'll just watch the WWE Vault then.

There’s also a WCW channel. AAA’s shows have been going up on YouTube. I don’t know if Main Event is just international, but that has some good wrestling and can catch you up on Raw.

Do you really not have Netflix or cable?

No but even if I did I wouldn't watch wrestling on them for the most part.

That’s fair enough. But I guess that would mean you’re not really much of an active fan, right?

ppl here either like WWE or are not so much into it. No one here likes AEW.

WWE is kicking the ESPN deal in early. The Clash in Paris show is going to be the last mainline WWE PLE on Peacock. Wrestlepalooza will be the first PLE on ESPN. It’ll be September 20th against AEW All Out.

Saturday Night’s Main Event is going to be on Peacock exclusively going forward. There are rumors that WWE will be dropping a memento show for Peacock — possibly another “main roster show,” whatever that entails.

Should we be happy we get to pay $20 more sooner?

who's forcing you to waste $20 when you could buy something else like a new blow up doll to make you happier

Good point!

Lol people still whining about this. How were y’all watching wrestling before?

I already told you I was using peacock

Stephanie McMahon doing an ad read for a VPN on a podcast is the kind of unintentional comedy I enjoy

Were you expecting me to say I pirate it? Is that why you haven't responded?

Wrestlepalooza made Tony Khan change the time of All Out — fucking over many of the fans who bought tickets. Dave got into an argument with Bryan defending the move because he imagines PPV buys are going to hold strong despite every visible metric cratering.

Tony Khan fears AJ Lee like he fears a falling computer monitor, feared for his life!

AEW should just do PPVs at midnight on a Tuesday and say they’re clever doing it unopposed.

I love how Meltzer is like “WWE only hurts themselves by doing this” and then WWE does it again and AEW is in the same time slot as Good Morning America.

There’s no way Meltzer isn’t lying about the PPV numbers either.

Every other metric has crashed. It doesn’t make sense for PPV to remain stable and even grow. Their 10% conversion of TV viewers to PPV buyers seemed fantastic at the time. As in fantasy. 5% is what I remember the big promotions doing when they’re hot. If we just go with that number, that would mean a show doing roughly 600k viewers could expect about 30k PPV buys. They’re just not reporting that because LolTNA and they don’t want to be compared.

Dave has also seemingly shut up about HBO Max numbers completely now that they know they’re going to come out. Funny that.

Dave's new tactic is to lie about Raw's Netflix numbers, as opposed to lying about AEW's Max numbers.

According to Dave, there are "high level mathematicians", his words, on his wrestling forum, the one with the people smart enough to pay $14.99 a month to listen to Dave, that have figured out a formula that proves that only about 185,000 people watch Raw live.

This of course means Netflix is lying to all their stockholders about the number of people who watch Raw (just Raw, no lying about other shows apparently). The entire basis of this formula is that based on the amount of minutes watched, if you remove advertisement times from the total, that you can prove how few people actually watch live.

To Dave and the intelligent people who still have not figured out Dave has been scamming them out of money, it is impossible for the Raw numbers to be correct. WWE you see, simple cannot be successful on Netflix.

Dave and his minions of course ignore every possible variable. People either watch every single minute of Raw live, or watch every single minute Raw later. Nobody starts 15 minutes late, and thus misses the first few ad breaks, catches up to the live feed, and sees the remaining ads, thus has a different amount of viewing minutes than both somebody that watches every minute live with all the ads, or somebody that watches on a Wednesday afternoon with no ads.

There is also no acknowledgment whatsoever about the people who fast forward parts of the show, other than Dave stating "most people" do not know how to fast forward on Netflix. You see, in Dave's mind, everybody who doesn't subscribe for the right to listen to his stuttering umms and ahhs, well those people must be to mentally deficient to understand fast forwarding... :rofl::lol::rofl::lol::rofl:

:lol:

You’ve done a great job recapping it all.

Netflix and WWE are lying. It can’t be as simple as, say, 2.74 million x2 = 5.48 million. Those numbers rounded appearing as 2.7 million and 5.5 million respectively. That would be insane.

This guy also believes 350k are watching on HBO Max without question.

All you need to qualify as a mathematician in Dave’s book is to say nice things about AEW.

You know someone is an idiot when even Vince Russo can this easily destroy them.

The "Max" in HBO Max = the amount of viewers possible.

350k watching AEW on max seems reasonable. Wasnt that what RoH was pulling when they were with Sinclair? AEW is objectively more relevant than they were and there's a baseline of wrestling fans that will watch EVERYTHING no matter the quality as long as its accessible.

If NWA Powerrrr was on ESPN at 4am every 3rd Tuesday except for Tuesdays that are a multiple of 3 and then it would air Saturday 11am it would draw 350k. That shouldnt be a compliment.

Desty, love ya brah, but you are really bad with this TV stuff lol.

It’s like 1/10 of what Dave is suggesting.

Warner Brothers Discovery announced their highest viewed NBA game had 48,000 viewers on HBO Max. More people actually watched that game on TruTV, not just TNT, but legit TruTV than they did on Max. Yet if we are to believe the AEW Stans, Dynamite gets 7 to 10 times more viewers than the NBA, because THAT makes total sense! :roll:

Collision gets <200k on prime time TNT. Not sure what ROH was getting years ago, but they didn’t even get 200k on YouTube for the major show they put up.

Here’s how we KNOW AEW doesn’t get 350k on HBO Max:

* Warner Bros Discovery streaming services have about 1/7 of the usage rate of Netflix. WBD announces the numbers for all its top shows. If shows underneath were doing numbers like 350k then it would be on par with Netflix.

* Zaslav has pointed out what the big drivers for HBO Max are — movies, classic shows, new drama like The Pitt and White Lotus. Sports is expressedly not.

* 25% of content consumed on HBO Max is also found on linear television. Given the numbers of The White Lotus, we know that is mostly that.

* Rampage wouldn’t have been cancelled if AEW content was valuable to streaming. They would have a PLE deal. There is no streaming-exclusive content for AEW.

* Other business metrics have seen a notable decline. This doesn’t compute with an increase in viewership. You can tell by looking at the product that the Max numbers are insignificant.

* HBO Max numbers are about to get included by Nielsen. TK immediately stepped back from reports suggesting high numbers and even Dave has shut up about them. A 5-10% increase has been estimated for most simulcast sports, but not guaranteed.

For funsies I made an estimate the other week. I was pretty close with my Netflix numbers. When you figure in what AEW does on basic cable, move that to a Netflix-size streaming platform, downsize that for Max, factor in that it’s still on linear television and the HBO deal is US domestic, not global…I got about 35k views. Multiply that by 1.3 and you get 45k viewers.

35k puts them in that 5-10% increase range. It also keeps them below NXT most weeks, which is why you don’t get gloating from that side. It also matches what we see — no significant effects on attendance, merchandise, popularity and the lack of any sort of exclusive streaming content.

If that’s the case then my 35k estimate might be too high, which wouldn’t shock me.

Keep in mind that sometimes the numbers for active Fight Forever players on Steam is as low as 4.

Why do you bring up AEW and their rating in every single thread?

I can't speak for anybody else, but AEW ratings are funny to talk about. If the likes of Meltzer and the other "journalists" weren't so over the top batshit, maybe there would not be such a comical abundance. Until then, when there are narratives like Dynamite gets more viewers than Raw being put out, it is too absurd not to laugh at.

They’ve made the rod for their own backs. This is what happens when you set your watch to what the internet thinks about you.

There are times when I worry that we’re going to lose the lolcow. What else will we laugh at if AEW disappears? But I remind myself that it is going to be okay. We were fine before AEW and we’ll be fine after. It’s best for wrestling that it goes.

i'm kind of excited to see how wrestlepalooza (gay-ass name) turns out. first show on ESPN you know they're gonna want to make it look cool. such a dumb name though.

Rasslepalooza was the name of the "Wrestlemania" type event in the e-fed I used to play "back in the day".

So yeah, it is kinda bush league name.