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[DE.]

Apparently the crowd were pretty furious about Stone Cold failing to appear on the show and started chanting "AEW" at the end. What a start. 

[Guest]

Quite liked SD and I think the angle with Brock was decent, just depends how it goes into the coming weeks.

[DE.]

Haven't watched the HIAC PPV yet but apparently the entire arena were chanting "we want refunds" at the end so I'm guessing they did their usual and buried Bray Wyatt. The sooner people start switching in their droves to Dynamite the better, as it's the only way WWE will change course at this point.

 

[Miller11]

1 hour ago, DE. said:

Haven't watched the HIAC PPV yet but apparently the entire arena were chanting "we want refunds" at the end so I'm guessing they did their usual and buried Bray Wyatt. The sooner people start switching in their droves to Dynamite the better, as it's the only way WWE will change course at this point.

 

The only thing I remotely cared about on the show was Wyatt.

Don’t want to “spoil” it, but it was absolutely terrible.

[DE.]

I'll watch it in a few hours, but at least I'll be prepared for the disappointment. I mean, considering they only advertised 4 matches for the show I expected it to be poor, but it sounds like it went way beyond that. 

[Guest]

Can't get my head round why they would book that match in that way.

If you don't want Wyatt to go over, then don't book him in a match against Rollins. Farcical.

[Mike E]

I don't get it. At all.

They had a perfect narrative staring at them imo. Wyatt beats Rollins and is champ. Wyatt acheives what he couldn't before.

Wyatt calls out Taker as something else he couldn't do. Taker accepts, as the only one who can go to the dark places Wyatt can to 'save' WWE. Wyatt retires Taker at Survivor Series.

Boom.

But this shit?

Edited October 7, 2019 by Mike E

[Miller11]

I think I’m done with the main WWE product now. There are a few wrestlers I like on there, but it’s just the same old faces in the same old feuds week in week out, despite their hugely bloated rosters. It’s just so boring. I don’t think Heyman and Bischoff are going to be doing anything too radical, besides I’m not sure what would work. I’ll likely watch Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania. Maybe the odd match that grabs my attention after the event, or any anniversary show or the like where they feature legends.

Didn’t think I’d be saying this, but AEW tops the list for me at the moment (this could change rapidly). I’ll also watch NXT U.K. time permitting and all takeovers. I watched a bit of MLW, which I quite enjoyed, but not to the extent I would commit to regular viewing. I’m really intrigued by the NWA Studio Wrestling idea, so I’m going to try and catch some of that. This on top of fairly regular attendance at indy shows I’m pretty spoilt for choice at the minute, so I won’t miss Raw and Smackdown at all!

 

[DE.]

Have now watched HIAC and yowie wowie, what a fuck up.

First two matches were great. Sasha/Becky had an outstanding cell match and the tornado tag was solid. Then the show began falling apart.

Orton/Ali was OK, but it had no storyline build so meant nothing.

Bliss/Cross Vs Kabuki Warriors - would have been better if Asuka or Kairi had been built up in any meaningful way. Match itself was fine but again, meant nothing due to lack of build.

OC Vs Viking Raiders/Strowman - boring, throwaway match that should have been on Raw.

Corbin Vs Gable - feels like we've seen it a hundred times already. Another match that simply isn't PPV quality.

Bayley Vs Charlotte - match was okay but Charlotte wins the title again? Yawn.

Seth Vs Wyatt - I don't even know what to say. What's sad is that I thought they did the first part of the match pretty well. The red lighting throughout was stupid and gimmicky, but the actual match during the first period was good. Bray was shown to be inhumanly powerful and Rollins was getting increasingly desperate, spamming weapons and finishers to no avail. Then came the part of the match where Bray was just laying on the floor for what felt like an hour. The crowd started to turn and once the bell was rang for a DQ that was game over. HIAC is No DQ and supposed to be utterly brutal by default, they literally build the PPV on it being the most brutal, destructive match a wrestler can be in. To stop the match due to a wrestler going "too far" just devalues the entire gimmick and to do it in the main event, practically the only match anyone was looking forward to (except maybe Becky/Sasha) ... I just shake my head at this company. Run by absolute buffoons and they couldn't have picked a worse time to once again enrage their own fans with a bullshit booking decision.

On the plus side it was nice to hear some loud "AEW" chants as the post match angle played out. WWE did its best last night to get more people watching the opposition, that's for sure.

Oh, I also thought the red cell looked rubbish. In fact the entire arena and setup looked poor.

Edited October 7, 2019 by DE.

[Mike E]

They didn't just come 'near as dammit' to killing Wyatt's push (I'll give them tonight to save it), but the whole HIAC gimmick!

It was was built upon Mick Foley nearly actually dying twice in the space of 10minutes FFS!

Edited October 7, 2019 by Mike E

[Guest]

A lot of people hating it, but having just caught up with last nights Raw I really liked the Last Woman Standing match, probably Lacey's best match since she came onto the scene and was nice to see some unexpected spots in a mid-card women's match.

The Tyson Fury stuff is pathetic, hate it when they bring in real life fighters to pretend to do the job they already do.

[Mike E]

I note they avoided Seth and Wyatt altogether.

It's a bold strategy, Cotton.

[DE.]

Love how they completely exiled Rollins and Wyatt from Raw and saved the "highlights" of the match for the very end of the show, lasting about 30 seconds. They know they fucked up really badly this time - the only question is whether they just drop the whole thing or try to restart it when people have had a little time to calm down.

As an aside Raw was boring as usual. I'm at the point where I may just stop watching it and stick with Dynamite/NXT going forward. 

[Miller11]

Well... I’ve just spent the last hour watching the Premiere of NWA Power. I thought it would have some kitch, curiosity value, but I wasn’t expecting that!

It was absolutely brilliant! For those unfamiliar with the concept, it’s a throwback to the old ‘studio wrestling’ the NWA used to put out way back when. Just a ring in front of a studio audience in Atlanta. No entrances, no fancy sets... yet it’s the freshest, most interesting show I’ve seen in a long time.

For all the talk of AEW portraying itself as a sports program - don’t bother now, you won’t match up to this. A few pre and post match interviews, a bit of a brawl, and plenty of good old fashioned wrestling.

The roster is pretty well balanced. Some names you may be familiar with:

Nick Aldis, Thom “Bram” Latimer, Ken Anderson/Kennedy, Rock n Roll Express, Aaron “Damian Sandow” Stevens, James Storm, Trevor Murdoch, Eli Drake, Colt Cabana... and Jim Cornette on commentary.

It won’t be to everyone’s tastes, no doubt about it, but if you are tired of the over the top WWE nonsense, give it a look. For me it strikes the perfect balance of retro nostalgia and quality wrestling. And it’s only an hour long and broadcast via YouTube.

[tomphil]

On 08/10/2019 at 13:01, JoeH said:

A lot of people hating it, but having just caught up with last nights Raw I really liked the Last Woman Standing match, probably Lacey's best match since she came onto the scene and was nice to see some unexpected spots in a mid-card women's match.

The Tyson Fury stuff is pathetic, hate it when they bring in real life fighters to pretend to do the job they already do.

I can't stand the guy but he's tailor made for that circus he really is and from his paymasters point of view it is a desperate and probably wise attempt to get people over there to know who he is before he fights Wilder again in the hope of boosting PPV.

After he drew a pathetic 3 thousand sold tickets in his last fight they are now desperate to drum up some interest and try and get something back for their huge investment.  ESPN backed the wrong horse there but hopefully they'll convince him to piss off to WWF full time !

What was more astounding was reading comments of people over 15 who actually thought it was real ?

[DE.]

Don't work yourself into a shoot, brother. 

[DE.]

Another great AEW Dynamite show this week. It's on another planet when compared with Raw or Smackdown. 

Private Party/Young Bucks was an incredible tag team opener, a PPV quality match. Good on the Bucks for putting Private Party over. It looks like the Bucks are going to be more involved in the main event storyline than the tag team tournament so it makes sense for them to bow out early.

Jericho's promo was brilliant. The difference between scripted and non-scripted promos is night and day and it's obvious which one wins. The way Jericho shut down the "we the people" chants was top notch veteranism. 

Allin/Havoc was OK, although I thought Havoc got too much offence in and I don't really buy Darby Allin as a legit world title contender. As a challenger to help put Jericho over it's fine though.

The women's tag match & Moxley/Spears were both solid matches, and I thought the ending to Moxley/Spears with PAC attacking Omega and Moxley opting against doing any fuirther damage was well done. 

Main event tag match was pretty good and the ending brawl was much better than last week's. Have to admit Allin skateboarding down the ramp and then crashing into Jericho got a chuckle out of me. 

Overall another great show with the announcers already sounding very comfortable and adding to the product hugely. Makes a huge difference to WWE were in the past ten years it's been more enjoyable to watch the show on mute. 

[DE.]

So as far as viewership figures go, AEW dropped roughly 400k viewers to around 1.1m. I'm sure they expected this though as the debut was always going to have an exceptional viewership due to the hype and casual curiosity. They'e putting on great shows so I think around 1m is going to be their base figure going forward which is a solid position to start from. 

NXT dropped a little but not much. Looks like about 750-800k will be their average. Interestingly it seems like there is little to no crossover between NXT/AEW audiences, as one dropping doesn't seem to affect the other in any way.

Smackdown meanwhile lost 1m viewers, falling from 3.8m to 2.8m last Friday, and I expect that number will be even lower this Friday. I think FOX wanted over 3m viewers regularly for Smackdown when they signed their deal with WWE, but unless the quality of the show dramatically improves I think they'll be looking at 2-2.5m being the regular viewership within a month or two. 

[Mike E]

10 hours ago, DE. said:

So as far as viewership figures go, AEW dropped roughly 400k viewers to around 1.1m. I'm sure they expected this though as the debut was always going to have an exceptional viewership due to the hype and casual curiosity. They'e putting on great shows so I think around 1m is going to be their base figure going forward which is a solid position to start from. 

NXT dropped a little but not much. Looks like about 750-800k will be their average. Interestingly it seems like there is little to no crossover between NXT/AEW audiences, as one dropping doesn't seem to affect the other in any way.

Smackdown meanwhile lost 1m viewers, falling from 3.8m to 2.8m last Friday, and I expect that number will be even lower this Friday. I think FOX wanted over 3m viewers regularly for Smackdown when they signed their deal with WWE, but unless the quality of the show dramatically improves I think they'll be looking at 2-2.5m being the regular viewership within a month or two. 

Wednesday nights will be affected by MLB for a few weeks, mind. Figures might pick up after.

[DE.]

True, there may still be some fluctuations ahead. By and large I think 1-1.2m is AEW's current audience though, which is pretty good. TNA at their peak were getting somewhere in that ballpark and most of their shows were terrible, on a lesser channel and with significantly less promotion or money behind them. The wrestling audience has declined pretty sharply since then, largely thanks to WWE and TNA driving fans away with shitty booking and shows, but hopefully AEW can bring at least some of those fans back on top of what they already have.

[Guest]

I think if AEW could fix sound/entrances then I’d be massively more into it. Constantly struggling to hear music or mics etc..

[DE.]

AEW posted a slight decline but largely stable 1.014m viewers this week, whilst NXT dipped to 712,000. It was a fairly stacked card this week for AEW so they may be a tad disappointed with that number (with no baseball competition either). WWE will be hoping NXT's decline doesn't continue for too much longer. 

I guess this shows that there really are a lot of former wrestling fans who will simply never get back into the product. If a new, hugely hyped and well produced show on TNT isn't enough to bring them back then I don't think anything will. I imagine during basketball season Dynamite will probably fall below 1m, whilst NXT could very well drop to 500k or less. 

[Guest]

Seriously, if you haven't yet, please watch last nights NXT. Don't go on social media or read any spoilers before hand. Great show, couldn't reccommend more highly.

[DE.]

I usually watch Dynamite on Thursday and then NXT on Friday - the latter has been a bit bland the last couple of weeks so I'll look forward to watching it tomorrow.

[Miller11]

I’m going to watch both later today. NWA power dropped off a little this week I felt. The first two shows were incredible though and it’s still my show of choice.

The ‘war’ between AEW and NXT is interesting. It’s largely just silly online arguments between staunch fans of each brand. I don’t think either company is really pushing the other, or worrying about what they do... yet. They are just doing their own thing.

Meanwhile the main WWE programmes appear to be doing nothing but annoying everyone.