The OtherArena

[corrado]

Here's a great article on Britt Baker which details the process by which her current acclaimed gimmick took shape:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2887241-how-aew-star-dr-britt-baker-became-wrestlings-top-new-heel-by-being-herself

[Yakuza Rich]

AEW got beat by NXT in the ratings again, but won the key demo.

While we need to wait for more time to pass and for the quarantine to end to further derive a more accurate analysis, this tells me that AEW has started to drive off the fringe fans of their product which are outside the 18-49 year old demo. The 18-49 year old demo still likes the product, but I'm guessing it's more about being driven away from WWE.

Looking at the ratings you can see where the fans outside the demo gave up on AEW...when they did the Matt Hardy nonsense.

And now it looks like those fans have given up on wrestling altogether for now. WWE drove them away and AEW showed they are more of the same.




YR

[corrado]

Well hopefully this week's show does better in the ratings, because it was probably their best show in many weeks.

Sammy/Darby was great. I think whoever wins next week's match between Darby and Cody wins the tourney. That should be fun.

I liked that mixed Broken Matt Hardy with Normal Matt Hardy. And of course Normal Matt hardy had the better promo. They actually did a bit of that on one of the Being the Elites from last week. Have Broken Matt in one bit. And then Normal Matt in another. Matt's smart enough to realize that there's not much you can do with Broken Matt Hardy.

Of Course the Bubbly Bunch was hilarious. With the prize of the film flam challenge being Walgreen's hand sanitizer. Hilarious. Jericho's small dog steals the show again.

And Chris jericho stole the show on commentary again. I'm pretty sure Tony Schiavone was trying hard not to crack up. Jericho was all over the place, going bonkers. You'll never hear commentary like that on a WWE production.

[corrado]

It did return to besting NXT in viewers, as well as leading the demo again.

There was some debate today with Meltzer and WWE hanger-on Ryan Satin going at it over whether it was right for Omega's enhancement talent opponent to kick out of the V-Trigger, with Meltzer defending Omega and Satin questioning him. Yeah that was kind of odd to have someone who probably won't be an AEW regular, kick out of one of Omega's big moves. That should actually be saved for one of the stars, or the big men like Wardlow and Brodie Lee. Even the Kip Sabians and Jimmy Havocs shouldn't be doing that.

[corrado]

Very odd finish to Cody/Darby. Darby hit his coffin drop but Cody pinned him anyway. Yeah they have to have Darby beat Cody one of these days, although by the end of the show, its clear why they did it.

I think the best stuff this week came from the filmed segments. Britt Baker giving us some more inspiration from her dentist's office:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0dZzffxpcw

The latest Bubbly Bunch which featured cameos by a diverse group of people:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i31ZpAo1sng

And Jon Moxley alluding to his wwe wife, and giving some sound advice at the end of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5QEG0vIGj8

I liked the main event. Dustin was solid as always. Archer was good. Flashes of his G1 performance from last year.

[corrado]

Another great main event. Very insane at times.

There were a few troubling things about the show. Seeing kids watching the streetfight. Some things with masks during the course of the show. Altho MJF's Burberry mask was hilarious. Still bringing small kids to a wrestling show at this time, doesn't seem very wise at all.

Though the fact that the small crowd sounded very loud, compared to the WWE's shows. Makes it stand out a little bit.

But I do think they have no choice but to keep producing shows. Whether it be Live or taped. This past week's 18-34 ratings not only beat NXT, but also a certain show named "Monday Night Raw". When your upstart show's demos beats the flagship show of the WWE, that means you have to keep on doing what you have to do.

[Yakuza Rich]

AEW Dynamite ratings at their lowest, yet. 654K viewers to NXT's 604K viewers.

I've raised the question before...is a live audience, particularly when there is very little in the way of new and live shows, worth ~30% of AEW viewers?

I tend to doubt that it is, particularly since NXT viewership is fairly flat.

But, if I'm wrong it would be interesting to see what wrestlers and what segments pick up the ratings. And if there is no concrete conclusion (if the ratings go back to normal), what does that say about AEW? Do they need to get even more fan involvement? Are they struggling to create legitimate superstars?

Meltzer claims that the people that Cornette doesn't like are the ones drawing the biggest ratings. I don't know where Meltzer gets that from because from what I've been told, Jericho, Moxley and Cody are drawing the best ratings and nobody else is even close (or at least on a consistent basis). I would assume that Meltzer is talking about Orange Cassidy, the Young Bucks and Omega...but again, they are not on the top of the ratings list according to my source.

I was told that Orange Cassidy is their #2 merch seller behind Jericho. So I wonder if Dave got that mixed up.

This would explain the OC push, but selling merch and drawing viewers/fans are two different things. The Bullet Club t-shirts made tons of money, but more than half of the buyers bought the shirt for cosmetic purposes and had no idea who the Bullet Club were or ever saw them wrestle.

The best case scenario is something like the bWo shirt which was ECW's all time leading shirt seller, by far. That was something that was going to propel Stevie Richards into main event status before Terry Funk dropped a guardrail on the back of his neck and Richards took off to WCW so he could get his neck surgery.

But I don't see OC in the same light as Richards despite both of them relying on comedy. Richards was a serious wrestler who was very good on the mic and had the story of the guy who grew up a pro wrestling nerd and would do whatever Raven asked from him and it was never good enough for Raven who became jealous of Richards' popularity. And then Richards was to get his big chance and the ECW fans were majorly behind him. But they put the belt on Terry Funk, then the injury and the signing with WCW and it was all gone.

We don't know anything about OC because AEW has done nothing to give us some background information or give us his motives. And since he doesn't talk, we know less about him and it's more or less a gimmick that people will get tired of eventually.





YR

[Yakuza Rich]

Ratings bump for Dynamite with AEW getting ~705K viewers to NXT getting ~594K viewers. But AEW had one of the better ratings of any show on TV for the night.

I tuned in when they went to the women's match. I thought the booking was solid (Rose caned Shida the week before, Rose goes over in the match, but Shida exacts revenge and shows to be a legitimate threat to Rose by putting her thru a table).

Unfortunately, the execution was goddamn awful. Started out well, but Britt Baker got hurt...again. Then an awful exchange with Rose vs. Shida. After the match the table spot was terribly done.

The Moxley promo was okay. The Shawn Spears segment was meh. Sometimes that stuff works great, but often times it doesn't. It wasn't awful, I just didn't care about it.

I seriously don't get Broken Matt Hardy whatsoever, so I stopped watching. I tend to think Matt Hardy may be worse for ratings than anything Orange Cassidy or Joey Janela could do because it reeks over WWE nonsense (yes, I know he started the gimmick elsewhere).






YR

[corrado]

Apprently Britt may have suffered a torn ACL in that match, and could miss 6-9 months. What a shame. She became one of the most entertaining wrestlers in AEW, after a slow start. Due to her commitment to her heel role, and her interactions with Tony Schiavone. Hopefully she gets to do some remote stuff in her absence.

Another injury as a result of carelessness was Fenix getting hurt during a dive attempt which saw very few wrestlers try to protect him. He was replaced in the ladder match by Joey Janela. Also, there was a nice little vignette with Pac appearing so he might be returning soon.

The most memorable part of this week's show was clearly the show-closing brawl setting up the Stadium Stampede match. Which saw the returns of the Young Bucks and Adam Page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLeGER8YjoA

I linked this because this points out a big difference between AEW and WWE. If this was WWE, there would be hundreds of camera angles, and camera switches in a matter of minutes. Here, mainly during the revelation of Adam Page arriving, there's just a couple of switches and nothing dizzying about it. Just mostly continuous actions, and if this was WWE, it would be something like this:


https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/gommgl/if_the_brawl_between_the_inner_circle_and_the/

Hilarious.

[corrado]

So the winner of the Casino ladder match was a debuting Brian cage. Cage has been rumored to be AEW Bound for many months. He also has the services of Tazz helping him out. Which is continuity from darby rejecting Tazz's help the past few weeks. A lot of the ladder match was sloppy, although Orange Cassidy was very entertaining. I think this would've been something that benefitted from a crowd. Particularly Orange Cassidy's bits which would've gotten a loud reaction.

MJF/Jungle Boy was amazing. Such a great match. I could see this being something that sets up a rivalry for the ages. And both are so young too!

Well guess they had to throw Cody a bone with the TNT title. The design of the belt leaves a lot to be desired. But the announcers did say that due to the pandemic, its still an incomplete design.

Shida/Nyla Rose was great. One of the best AEW women's matches. They did make the right call with Shida winning the title, after the very very tragic death of Hana Kimura.

Moxley/brodie was great. Great finish with Moxley getting Brodie with the sleeper, and then the ref calling for the bell. God way to protect him.

And then of course the Stadium Stampede match. Meltzer and others were hinting that this was going to be a spectacle and they were right. One of the most fun matches I've seen in a long time. Everyone had a standout moment. Even Jake Hager and the refs! In times like these, and especially after this past week, it's nice to take your mind off of everything and just enjoy a throw everything against the wall type match.

[Yakuza Rich]

I paid $50 for DoN.

I hated the Casino Ladder match. It's too bad that Darby Allin, who came close to downright killing himself, had all of that taken away from Orange Cassidy, Cabana and others with their goofy shit. To make matters worse, the goofs were so bad at executing the ladder spots to get to the chip that it made them look like idiots. Way to go, guys.

The only thing that saved it besides Allin was it being Cage's debut and he looked impressive. He has a presence about him. I tend to hate the entire concept that somebody who has a manager with him is known to do so becuase they need a mouthpiece. It just comes off as the Pro Wrestling handbook instead of a manager there to actually help the wrestler ala Bockwinkle and Heenan and Flair and Dillon.

MJF vs. Jungle Boy was really good. It had some things they needed to clean up like some of the early sequences where both guys shoulders were on the mat and there was no pinfall attempt and MJF visibly helping Jungle Boy pull him into the ring. But, so much of the sequences and spots were so well done. This reminded me of something you would see out of Bryan Danielson or Benoit, but they weren't doing it at this young of an age.

But the bigger part of this match was the incredible storytelling and heel-face psychology. Not only was MJF working on JB's arm, but JB was working on MJF's lower back. Then JB could have won via count-out, but wanted to beat MJF in the ring like a true babyface would (I couldn't believe that none of the announcers actually referred to that). Then MJF using Aubrey Edwards to cause JB to slip up on the top turnbuckle.

Just great, great stuff.

The other stuff, as a whole, I was more or less nonplussed by.

Too much smoke and mirrors in the Cody match. This needed to be more along the lines of the Cody vs. Allin match. Instead it came off more along the lines of The Miz vs. Mark Henry. They needed to get Cody a meaningful victory, but keep Archer strong and I don't think they did it

Ford and Statlander shouldn't be on PPV and I would give limited time on TV until they can actually execute 5 quality minutes of wrestling. Then bump them up to 10 minutes, then 15 minutes. Instead, most of the women's division is rotten and they are terribly trained and lack experience.

If I didn't pay $50 for the PPV, I would have clicked the channel after the Spears vs. Dustin match. Just an abomination and you can kiss Spears ever having a chance of being over, again. And of course, being Cody's friend he'll continue to get plenty of air time on Dynamite.

I just don't think you can do comedy on PPV's because people are paying money to watch something that, at best, is slightly amusing. And the PPV's are geared to provide closure to feuds, see something spectacular and possibly change the landscape of the promotion.

However, Rose v. Shida saved the show. I couldn't believe it, particularly how awful they looked on the previous episode of Dynamite. I'd probably give them the game ball after the shitty ladder match, the disappointing Cody match and the dumpster fire Dustin vs. Spears and Statlander vs. Ford matches.

Personally, I was disappointed in Moxley vs. Lee. It was setup like a WWE style hardcore type of match where they do some stunts on very safe landing areas. Sorry, Moxley is a shitty brawler. This needed to be like a Bruiser Brody vs. Ron Bass, wild, stiff brawl and instead it was more like a Shane McMahon vs. Edge type of brawl.

The main event was more based on being epic. I'm more of the type that likes PPV main events that tell a story and change the landscape of the promotion for the next 6 months or so. A lot of contrived stuff, but very eye popping spots that you couldn't look away.

I can't say I hated it, but I think they are going to program their fans to expect this for every PPV and soon they won't be able to top it. This would be better if it was setup more like a War Games where it's a once a year special PPV designed to settle differences between 2 factions and then the rest of the PPV's would feature more traditional wrestling.

Personally, I don't think it was worth the $50. Too many awful matches and even with the Stampede being a unique set of circumstances, I believe that Dynamite will feature similar spots over the next few months, so it's not like I would only see those spots from AEW talent on a PPV.

I also question using the ladder match, even if it was executed seriously, as the first match of the PPV.

It certainly wasn't bad, but it's another case of a product that is basically a rival to the WWE instead of an alternative that really lacks a Bill Watts/Eddie Graham/Heyman type to help develop these guys into better wrestlers with more sound booking.






HoC

[corrado]

A mixed bag of a show this week. So on the anniversary of Scott Hall debuting on Nitro, the team formerly known as the Revival, made their much-anticipated debut, actually saving their social media arch nemesis, the Young Bucks. I guess they're going to slowburn this feud to an eventual PPV match.

Another great Britt Baker segment. She's been on a variety of shows and podcasts, talking about how she's influenced by the 1998 Chris Jericho heel run. And tonight was no different with her saying she's a conspiracy victim, and thinking referee Aubrey Edwards was the mastermind. Hilarious.

I liked the ending of the battle royal to determine the #1 contender to the TNT title. I do think its a bit early for dissension between MJF and Wardlow. Like a long time before they should slowly feud. It was great hearing Wardlow actually utter a word. Cody vs Jungle Boy should be a banger next week. I do very much like the slow burn to a main event push for Jungle Boy.

And then there was the ending. It started out well with the Inner Circle Pep Rally and again even Jake Hagar was great here. And obviously Tyson vs Jericho was a given. It has more sizzle than Tyson vs Lance Archer. But once Tyson brought out his entourage of odd fellows and UFC castoffs. It started to sink. And to make matters worse, they have nearly 40 people try to stop them in the ring. So much for social distancing. I would've just done Tyson sucker punching Jericho. Or even Sammy. And have him walk out. Instead of testing the social distancing waters.

Nonetheless if there's anyone in wrestling today, who will try to put this over, and make sure it's not a dud. It's Jericho. I trust him to do everything in his power to make sure it will be unforgettable and not forgettable.

[Yakuza Rich]

I didn't watch the show. Very tired from not getting any sleep the night before. Good to see the Revival going to AEW. Honestly, I would go with a slowburn feud between the Revival and the Young Bucks in part to get the Young Bucks up to speed on how to work a traditional tag match as much as anything.

If this turns into another feud where the match on PPV is some hardcore rules match, then AEW will be just what they are...a promotion that does just enough to get on TV and sell some PPV's, but will never gradually improve upon those numbers to take on the WWE because they don't understand how to make the most out of what they have got.

And I'm not anti-Young Bucks either. They're just a limited team that works best using tornado rules and these matches with tons of spots and no transitions. That can work, but when every team wrestles that way it completely loses its luster.

I like what they've done with Wardlow. I thought they were going to have him like every single bodyguard that has been in the WWE that just stares and makes super intense faces. But he's been more cool and collected. The issue with Wardlow is that he does make MJF look short. But I don't see Wardlow being over at all at this point that people would really care if he split from MJF or not.






YR

[Yakuza Rich]

Ratings up substantially...for both NXT and AEW.

AEW: 827K
NXT: 701K

This is why I'm always skeptical of the Nielsen ratings. Not to say that they must be wrong because the ratings were up, but there's little reason as to why both shows went up.

AEW going up after the PPV and with Tyson makes sense. NXT I'm a little more skeptical on unless some of those NXT viewers were actually AEW viewers being cannibalized by NXT.

Next week will be interesting with Tyson and all leading to next week's show. That could be the chance for AEW to pull away from NXT.






YR

[corrado]