But, Tiny said Rampage was going to be the best wrestling show Friday night :'(:'(:'(

522k for Grand Slam. Another win for AEW in the Friday Night Wars.

You know we give him a lot of grief but I imagine it is pretty disheartening to put on the best wrestling show ever every 3-4 days and still get trounced in the ratings every time. Ungrateful fans!

I’m curious to see how these television deal negotiations go for AEW. I’ve long thought that WWE could very realistically make a play for those slots themselves. Whether with something like NXT Global on Wednesday nights and Level Up on Fridays or with a relaunched WCW. Triple H having more power now makes that ever slightly more likely.

The downside to WWE making a play is how that affects USA/FOX relations. They’re paying a lot of money for what they’re getting and may not want WWE going out and diverting resources to yet another network. But the argument could be made by WWE that expansion helps them all and that the wrestling programming is already there, so they might as well take it over and make it as sponsor-friendly as possible.

WWE has the freedom to low-ball AEW on the price. FOX and USA might not like that, but could also receive auxiliary programming as part of their deals (an FS1 series, etc.), and if it’s something like NXT that has got a viewership of around 660k or whatever, that penetration might not be as threatening to FOX and USA if WWE signs a package deal with Warner Bros Discovery.

Or is WWE very happy with AEW just sucking over there and making them look good by comparison?

Insert Skinner meme about the fans being wrong.

What is it that The Elite’s stans used to say about Jim Cornette? “Out of touch?” I don’t know how you have ratings and ticket sales this tepid and claim to have a finger on the pulse.

AEW has NEVER been that not. 1.4 million for wrestling is not a great number, and I will not back down from that. You should be able to throw out a net and snag that many people even tangentially interested in this shit.

If all the talent that apparently want out of AEW get out, WWE finds themselves in a similar situation to AEW. They already have enough talent. Is it worth it signing Buddy Murphy and Andrade back to deals to…what? Job to Seth Rollins or Gunther?

I wonder if this affects NXT, Level Up and all that. The current USA Network show could use a bit of help in terms of star presence and story-driven stuff. Doing a program where Black and Murphy return to NXT and begin a rivalry could be something. Throw in Andrade and Zelina. I guess you could have them all feud with each other, but that being Triple H’s response to The House of Black could be pretty funny. Black, Andrade, Buddy Murphy, R-Truth, Zelina, Carmella & Corey Graves as the top faction in NXT. Book it.

No matter how hard Tiny and the Dubbalos try to spin WWE being scared of them, I think WWE could give 2 shits about AEW. Triple H may not be as cavalier in not being worried in the slightest like Vince was, in that Vince even said he was going to give AEW more talent by firing more "game changers", but aside from that, AEW is a dud.

Tiny is such a good Booker that even with a bloated roster, he books TWO Title matches on his show with zero build, where NEITHER challenger is even a part of his AEW roster. I mean, you can't make this shit up lol.

Yeah, you’re not wrong. WWE went from offering Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis $500k apiece to giving Matt Riddle $400k when it became apparent AEW was a big fat nothing. When it was an unknown quantity, there was a possible threat of a billionaire-funded promotion that could give talent a place to work that wasn’t WWE. Then they opened with a Battle Royal featuring Glacier for a World Title shot.

The more talent that AEW has and can’t book, the more miserable people there are and the more WWE benefits off their mess. It may not be WWE’s prerogative to lighten their burden.

1.674 mil for Raw.

I don't care how much I like wrestling, I will never watch Rampage because that's a fucked time slot and I either have shit to do or forget about it entirely.

1.67 million for RAW this week

990k for Dynamite. At least not many people saw that trainwreck of a show.

Also, just your semi-regular reminder that even if the news draws more people, it doesn’t necessarily need to cut into other programming. People can watch the news before or after wrestling, check their phones for updates or look outside.

Naw, if there wasn't a hurricane Dynamite would have won the Monday Night Wars!

Just a reminder that 1 million people is a terrible number for wrestling. AEW underachieves.

Their upcoming show looks horrible too, from the perspective of being able to attract fans on its front anyway.

* Billy Gunn is the biggest draw for the show, but even so they are overtagging the scissoring thing like it’s the Fandango dance. Silly Attitude era stuff, but it does feature guys who are over.

* Darby Allin vs. Jay Lethal is a Rampage match. No one thinks Lethal has a chance, and if he does win to book heel vs. heel against Jericho, it will feel wrong. No one cares about Jay Lethal in AEW.

* Wheeler Yuta has been the one guy who can drag MJF segments into the mud. This is another Rampage match — an exhibition for MJF without any real doubt as to what the outcome should be.

* Luchasaurus has a squash. Yes, Christian will talk — I guess that joins Billy Gunn as an Attitude era guy saving this. But Luchasaurus squash also reeks of Rampage.

* Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara vs. Bryan Danielson & Daniel Garcia is going to take two former WWE main eventers who have largely had their appeal destroyed and bog them down in ROH shit. AEW has done a horrible job with Danielson. No one cares about Garcia and no one cares about Guevara anymore.

Does anyone feel the need to watch this show?

nope, sure don't

What will be the excuse next week?

There should actually be some good wrestling on the show, but the booking around it is atrocious.

1.59 million for RAW

3rd hour 1.413 million, just slightly above the 1.409 million Dynamite debuted with

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">WWE Raw On 10/3 Records Lowest Key Demo Rating Since July, Viewership Number Also Down <a href="https://t.co/C2AA5rOrUt">https://t.co/C2AA5rOrUt</a></p>&mdash; Fightful Wrestling (@Fightful) <a href="https://twitter.com/Fightful/status/1577393516178976768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 4, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

At this point I think that’s just the reality of a 3hr show on Monday.

Ughh. I don’t really want to see WWE die. This is tough.

lol As soon as Monday Night Football is over they'll go right back up to where they were before it started and you all know it. This happens every year. They are competing for the same audience and football is a way bigger deal.

They def might want to reconsider the 3rd hour at some point though.

3rd hour was doomed once rasslin shows in general started doing their big angles earlier in the show. All the cool shit has already happened and the possibility of an overrun is gone. There is no reason to stay up to 11 anymore.

Very similar to the gripe I have of AEW blowing their load early more often than not. Especially when everything is announced in advance. When I know what you're doing and I know all the good stuff is over, I can tune out.

You are right. But also, back in the BAH GAH HEYDAY, football wasn't quite the issue for them as it is now. In fact, WWF was becoming a problem for Monday Night Football IIRC. I'm sure the competition hurt them a bit but not nearly in the way it does now.

By the time you get to the end of 3 hours, things have lost importance. But we’re like a decade in and USA wants that time. Dialing the show back would help numbers, but I don’t think either party really cares. WWE sells shorter versions of the show internationally (sometimes in edition to the live 3 hr version).

1.04 million for Dynamite

Oof.

Up!? Guess the backstage drama brings eyes to the show. Certainly wasn’t the lead in from last week’s episode.

It’s 2 more Nielsen boxes who tuned in this week because they felt bad about last week’s number.

twitter, if used properly, could lead to very compelling angles. Shame they are afraid of real heat.

Hardly anyone in the wrestling bubble even half-heartedly tries to use Twitter correctly.

Why social media policies in wrestling companies aren’t a norm is weird to me.

It seems weird but yeah how easy it is to start an angle via a tweet is crazy. More rasslers should run with it.

Reminds me when I was a kid, my best friend's dad was a local wrestler for a decently big fed here (cant remember the name now).


He had a few characters he'd play, but when he played his heel character, it was baaaaaaad.


A few times, we had event security escort us to his car long before the show ended because of it. Wild, scary for a kid, but good god it was fun.




This type of heat needs to happen more. The closest example of recent interactions would be Riddle & Rollins, which has been awesome.

Did the football suck this week? If not, this Raw generated a bit of interest. 1.824 mil. DX was advertised, as was Seth/Lashley. Bray Wyatt’s return possibly garnered some buzz and Sami Zayn carried the day.

Rampage: 404k

Battle of the Belts: 317k

1.82 for Raw.

Man, the ratings just keep going up and up!