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Originally Posted by The God of TPWW
So they can quadruple Dynamite's ratings instead of triple?
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And somehow Raw will still be the one failing and needing help, while AEW is on its way to the moon.
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Originally Posted by xrodmuc316
Naw, by 2024 their average aged fan will be older than the demo. How valuable will they be drawing 900,000 viewers with a low demo?
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Lol, this is actually a very good point. They are actually going to have a lot of viewers slip into the older demo. I’ve been critical of the idea of putting so much weight on the demos for cable in this era, but the only thing AEW really has to “brag” about is that demo. When you take that strength away and you’ve got a lot more people in a still weak 50+ and a slimmer 18-49, and still don’t have any women, what good are you?
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Originally Posted by Slik
Impact with an all-time low viewership of 48,000 viewers and a .01 in 18 to 49 (13,000 viewers)
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Wrestling is drying the fuck up. With AEW coming along, there are three more hours of wrestling on national television a week, plus the countless they do for Dark and Elevation. You also had NXT go national. That’s another hour or two, depending on whether or not you count the previously established hour.
This is not good for wrestling. I’ve been saying that since the start as people yell at me for not seeing how TK has been anything but a bonus for wrestling and wrestling fans.
If the product was good, it could be a thing where all tides rise, and help the genre’s popularity overall. Like when a style of music catches on, or superhero films become trendy. But the thing is, the evidence states that this stuff is not demonstrably a hit when it comes to creating new fans. It is stretching the current fan-base as far as it can go, beyond dedication and sustainability. And the products cool off, due to exposure and an inconsequential context to their content, and they fans themselves have less and less investment.
ROH took a major blow. Impact Wrestling is scraping scary new lows. AEW is not growing, no matter how anybody lies to you. WWE is even hitting new lows. Throwing new wrestling into the mix is going to run into the problem it has to compete with so much. And the established stuff needs to compete with it. But the hope would be that something
good could stand out, strike hot, make fans en masse take notice and really demonstrate what other promotions haven’t been doing.
My concern is that I’m not actually sure the star power is out there if you remove AEW from the equation. I’ve assumed that AEW wrestlers could just ask for a release and get it, but would they? Danielson and Punk signed with this company in the first place. The best chance was recently when Danielson, Punk, Lesnar and Samoa Joe were free agents. Before that, it was that 2018/2019 period where AEW was starting up, and Danielson, Punk, Mysterio, Steen, Orton, Usos, Styles, Nakamura, Moxley and a few others were either initially free or had their deals come up. Right now, who do you really have? Adam Scherr and Windham Rotunda? John Hennigan? I guess Styles, Nakamura and Steen are about to have their deals come up.
And let’s just say you can poach Danielson, Punk, MJF, FTR, JR, etc. Are hardcore fans going to get excited about the new product or deride it for being predatory? You could let talent work AEW still (for a while), but that becomes an obstacle. In some ways, the best time to start up a new wrestling thing might be in 2024, or something. Depending on when Punk and Danielson’s deals are up. And MJF’s too. Is that when Jacob Fatu’s MLW thing is up too? Not that that would be too hard to get out of.
I dunno. I’m not even trying to be cynical. I’m the guy who was the most excited for AEW when it started. I’m the guy who was hoping that The Rock would start his own wrestling promotion, even before he bought the XFL. I’m not actually a negative person. But I am an honest person. And I don’t see how anyone can look at the landscape of wrestling right now and say “This is good!” If you love wrestling, I just think you should want it to be better, instead of making excuses for it when it is clearly not working.