Tony Khan did no market research for the Australia show. None. 0.

Random memory: People telling me I didn’t understand video games and that the AEW video game would be fun. :lol:

Where are those people right now?

Non-ironically, I thought I'd like it because I'm a No Mercy fanatic. However I only played it for a day, and then never played it again.

I don't think I've watched AEW now since All In 2024, and even then I've been sporadic since World's End 2023. Nothing makes me feel invested in it... I like MJF, but even he can't keep my attention because nothing in that company seems to matter.

It was never going to be anything like No Mercy. You were better off just playing No Mercy.

MJF feels like a try-hard edgelord. The act is tired. I’m pretty sure the face turn was done to sabotage him. And it worked.

So their former World Champion Samoa Joe comes back from being off filming Twisted Metal, and they think the best use for him is...

In a tag team match against Kip Sabian and Nick Wayne :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Joe’s going to be an interesting case when his contract is up. Artistically, people would assume he’d go back to WWE, but Tony must pay him by the truck. Plus he gets to serve as a spy for Triple H and Nick Khan.

I can’t believe Kip Sabian still works there. Joe vs. Christian reeks of TNA. Taz being on commentary cheering Joe on doesn’t help.

I don’t know if Tony is really trying to make a big deal out of Collision or if he’s trying to destroy the show. They announced a Ricochet interview, a Chris Jericho match, a Harley Cameron segment and a “Mid-South Street Fight” between the most boring heel faction of all-time and the most boring face faction of all-time.

AEW couldn’t sell 2,200 tickets for Dynamite and Collision this week.

Joe vs Christian reeks of good TNA though.....

Back in its golden age when Christian was a main eventer....

Had a lot more potential then than now. I might go back and watch some. TNA have a lot of their PPVs up on YouTube. Better Joe/Christian, less Wayne/Sabian.

Big Boom AJ copping flack from the sicko squad because he appeared in a toy company spot wearing a WWE belt. :lol:

I hope he’s one of the “WWE super fans” they show in the crowd at the Royal Rumble cheering on all his favorite WWE Superstars.

GCW sold more Hammerstein tickets than AEW. :lol:

AEW so deadly

Tony Khan trying to do damage control on the Brisbane show. Says it was always scheduled to be a TV show. Why wasn’t it advertised as that then? He said TNT came to them about airing after the All-Star game and they saw it as a tremendous opportunity. So why was it advertised by AEW in its regular slot?

The whole show is going to get clowned.

TK also says that they don’t have “all the numbers” yet, but they’ve been told they’re doing better than some other sports. Yeah, by Sean Ross Sapp. They know they are doing better than some things…but they don’t know what the numbers are?

Dead in the water.

Fixed it for accuracy.

Now that Johnny Curtis is making appearances in NXT again, the game is truly over.

Chris Jericho refutes the notion that he hurts careers. He then went on the list a bunch of derailed careers he claims to have helped.

Has ANYONE from an AEW Chris Jericho faction ended up better for it? Not Sammy, not Hager, not Santana, Ortiz, MJF, Sammy again, 2.0 or whatever they were called. Daniel Garcia has been pushed down people’s throats, but he’s arguably in a worse spot creativity.

No one benefits from working with the guy anymore.

I read that Mark Davis randomly turned heel and became part of the faction he had turned against on Dynamite so I just had to watch some clips for a laugh.

Cope is wheezing and pointing to a tiny crowd they can’t show in wide shot referencing himself as being the only guy over. He challenges Moxley to a PPV a month away…because. Gotta give the guy time to prepare, I guess.

Jay White cuts one of the worst promos I have ever heard challenging Moxley’s group to a “good ol-fashioned Brisbane Brawl.” Ah yes — that old classic. It’s going to be “2 on 2, anything goes” against a faction with 5 people in it. White is also teaming up with long-time friend Edge, as opposed to HIS ACTUAL FACTION.

Can Juice Robinson and The Gunns get out there please?

Nah, I can’t anymore. This show is fucking unwatchable. I was going to do a point-by-point thing but it’s not even worth watching the clips. Much more fun to comment on the news and high school drama.

Jimmy Korderas pointed out that MJF’s promo on Dustin Rhodes (oh yeah, he’s feuding with the other Last Outlaw now — yes 2 guys in AEW have the same nickname) reminded people that Cody left and went to the other company. Any other promotion in history would have (and did) cop shit for that. WCW and TNA used to get roasted for channeling the spirit of more over WWE guys.

MJF lashed out and called Korderas a “bald grifter” and said he had been brainwashed by his old boss into pretending other companies don’t exist.

Not sure MJF should be going after people’s hair. And now they don’t just look like the drunk ex leaving voicemails for Cody and Punk, but they’re also displaying small dick energy against former WWF refs.

Did anyone have “Stone Cold” Jim Korderas on their bingo card?

It looks like Elias is going to AEW with a knockoff Wyatt Family gimmick. :lol:

This promotion is the gift that just keeps on giving.

Was just thinking of Elias the other day and what a big spotlight/push he got... only to never win any titles or really do anything but lose...

He wasn’t the worst wrestler that ever lived, but the whole Elias gimmick was really overrated.

James Romero is posting some great AEW-related content. A lot of Aussies upset about having their seats downgraded with Grand Slam being moved to a smaller building.

The sickos tried to do AEW a solid by blaming the confusion around Grand Slam’s PPV status on fans. AEW then sends out a tweet (which they have since edited) calling it a PPV. :lol:

Hey he was the 24/7 Champion! Give him some respect!

AEW's in-ring product is still very much what I enjoy in my wrestling and I still watch Dynamite most every week. But I'm more in the "DVR and just watch the matches" territory now.

The promos/segments are largely just not doing anything for me at all. Like MJF/Jarrett as a match interests me because I've come to appreciate Jarrett so much more as time has gone on, he understands the assignment better than just about anyone in wrestling. But watching them try to out-edgelord each other in promos is just intolerable.

Death Riders just make me groan. Actually liked like they got their segment over with very quickly last week, and I shouldn't feel that way about the world champ. A stable that includes Mox, Claudio, and PAC shouldn't make me feel dread but it just feels like the same fucking thing every week with them and it's getting go away heat.

TK's worst moments as a booker are when he gets so insistent on following through the angle he wants to do regardless of crowd reaction, roadblocks etc. It's very obvious Death Riders are deadening the crowd and yet he keeps ramming ahead with it.

I assume he wants Darby to take the belt off Mox to "save" AEW from this terrible reign and bring the title out of the briefcase. Except Darby's not going to be back for months. So that means this terrible angle is just gonna keep going even though the crowd is rejected it at every turn. Balls.

Tony says he is a stats guy. He said ratings are the best indicator they have as to what fans want. Nope.

Dude’s a liar. Also, can you remember the last time TK said anything intelligent, witty or insightful? He’s not very talented when it comes to wrestling. It’s a bought position in a vanity project. AEW’s legacy will be that it was there for a bunch of wrestlers and dirt sheet writers working to tell this guy with all the money in the world that he has talent.

Wrestling fans used to get upset John Cena and Roman Reigns were “shoved down their throat.” That language doesn’t pop up as much anymore, but it would be appropriate to say that Tony is trying to shove a lot of less talented people down our throats. AEW is a lot of things people claimed they used to hate about WWE.

And the wrestling is ass.

It looks like Ricky Starks and Miro might have gotten free of the company.

Ricky Starks will go straight to WWE, the writing's been on the wall for a while there. Feel like Ethan Page is getting moved to the main roster soon, which would leave a nice vacancy for Starks to come in and do his thing.

Miro I'm less sure of because it's seemed he's had a lot of personal shit going on. If he wants back in WWE I'd be surprised if they said no but I could just as easily see him exploring opportunities outside of the business, doing streaming or other things. Or just getting paid bank to do signings and work indy squashes. Hopefully he's happy wherever he ends up.

Random "unrelenting passage of time" factoid: As of April 1st, Cody's announced departure date (February 15, 2022) will be the exact midpoint of AEW's company history.

Pretty sure Rusev could easily walk back into WWE if he wanted to... and he'll probably end up in the exact same position as Andrade....

Guy who leaves WWE for AEW because he's unhappy with his position.... but then is unhappy at AEW and comes back to WWE to find themselves now not in as good a position and possibly worse than before they left.

Between WWE releasing a bunch of people and now AEW releasing a few, it seems like Tiny Khan will overpay for some new toys for sure!

Seriously though, AEW will likely sign Cedric so they could have the whole Hurt Business collection. Maybe Blair Davenport depending on if her and Will Ospreay dont have bad feelings. I could also see giving the Good Brothers another run.

Tony is also likely to sign whoever best convinces Tony they think he is a cool guy and they should be friends.

For THE WWE, Triple H loves Black, and Starks will certainly get a shot. Not too sure about Miro. Yes he started in NXT, but he was a tailor made Vince push until he lost weight and got himself over as a babyface, so not sure if Triple H will want him.

Tony is going to give Cedric a 7 figure deal.

WWE is rubbing their hands with glee.

Starks, Black and Rusev would all be good WWE additions.

WWE already fumbled Rusev

And they'd be glad to do it again

I think Starks will get more concentrated focus on him in WWE, especially given he’s gonna have two big backers in Cody and Punk. But for all that people seem to think the WWE grass is greener under Triple H than Vince, it should also be said that it’s an era with not only very few potential top spots (almost always the case in WWE), but with PPV cards being the shortest they've ever been. There’s just far fewer opportunities to get actual high profile bookings in the first place.

Is a Ricky Starks or a Miro walking into a PPV match when the World Champion didn't even get booked at the Royal Rumble? Not only not booked in a match - he didn't even appear.

There's not really a role you can slot Ricky Starks in to that I don't think they have someone else filling to the same or even higher standard. They have a stacked main event picture, and a decent amount of people they clearly see as the future prospects.

If/when WWE bring him in, I'm sure he would be featured prominently at first, everyone will talk about how AEW "dropped the ball" with him and how now he's going to be booked like a real star. And then quietly forget about all that when he misses four or five PPVs in a row, and settles in to around the same level he plateaued at in AEW.

I’d expect a good NXT run from him, who knows on the main roster. I’m wishing him well, he’s a great talker, good look, decent wrestler. Not sure his ceiling is as high as it’ll be promoted as being.

And there he is! Absolute

Gunther was on the Royal Rumble. He was shown walking into the building in a suit with the belt over his shoulder. PPV isn’t what it was. You don’t get paid extra based on buys. It’s a streaming special. TV spots are presented like PPV matches at times.

Good for Starks. Keen to see what he does in NXT.

They've gone out of their way to not say his name, even the YouTube videos say "The NXT debut that shocked the world".

My immediate takeaway is not that they're giving him something from the NXT name generator but rather that they're emulating the Scott Hall WCW debut. You know who he is, but you don't know what he's here.

Ricky Starks is his real name (well, Richard Starks, but nicknames fall under the same issue), back in the day that would cause a bit of a legal roadblock from WWE since you can't trademark a real name and they wanted to own it. Jade Cargill kept her name. Brian Pillman Jr. didn't but it was his own idea as he deliberately wanted to do something totally different rather than get a standard second generation gimmick.

He debuted so insanely fast after his release that I could buy maybe they're still sorting out the backend legal/IP stuff but I'd assume in due time he's Ricky Starks and this was a clever workaround in the interim.

Could be either or. Not like the name Ricky Starks is particularly known or anything..... I guess neither was Jade Cargill, but from what I have gathered she was a "bigger deal" than Starks ever was.

It’s probably just to drive interest. They’ve known he’s been coming in for a long time.

They need to get Danhausen next.

Danhausen for EVOLVE/co-hosting Halloween Havoc with Shotzi.

Lol Bubba Ray Dudley questioned the importance of 5 star matches and Dave Meltzer tried going off on a tirade about ECW never being profitable and drawing a crowd above 5500. Find someone who fights for you as hard as Dave fights for AEW.

Saw a weird segment on Reddit where the woman heels refused to leave the ring when this face, Rosa went to mke the save

Haven’t seen it, but could be more petty backstage bullshit.

We’ve seen a lot of men jump ship for greener pastures. What happens when some of these women have their deals coming up and they look at the lay of the land? Mercedes Mone has creative control and has literally dropped a video where she stooged herself off as a mark for herself (she mocked the idea of going back to WWE “to lose”). She gets paid obscene amounts of money to lock down the division and mean nothing as a draw.

Why wouldn’t you ask for Sasha Banks money? She doesn’t draw any more than Kris Statlander or Willow Nightingale. The locker room is a mess. Britt Baker might be gone but it’s possible the problems still exist. Why wouldn’t you score points with the more professional entities and sign with either WWE or TNA?

The best chance Tony has of keeping these women is by either paying them insane amounts of money or WWE and TNA reject some of the talent because they’re more valuable as faulty torpedos in AEW’s own sub.

Just saw the Rosa/Bayne/Ford stuff. That was unprofessional as fuck. Looked like Bayne & Ford were trying to bury her. Shits all over the entire product and the fans who still pretend to enjoy it.

Apparently AEW doesn’t do production meetings. :lol:

Ryan Nemeth is suing AEW and CM Punk. It’s absolutely hilarious. You have to read it.

Man he took some SERIOUS shots at Tony in that lawsuit. All the stuff people have been saying for years, Shad funding AEW to keep Tony contained and away from the real businesses, Tony being a fanboy mark, Tony not looking out for his employees, just good shit!

His deep admiration for Punk (bordering on obsession). He says Tony was heartbroken when Punk left AEW.

Oh, and Tony running the football teams into the ground makes its way in there. Alienating players and the like.

Maybe #1Fan really was Tony Khan, that dude loved him some Punk! :rofl:

It would make sense. Have you ever heard Tony Khan say anything smart, insightful or witty?

Christopher Daniels caught punching himself on camera to spread his blood for a shot.

Very late reply given how my vampire hours don't often seem to jive with TPWW being "on the air", and I'm usually greeted with a prompt telling me the site is unavailable.

Anyway, simply assuming you aren't just trying for internet snark points and actually making a point instead of being facetious;

one: Yes, according to Meltzer... though not exclusively. He's just usually the loudest. He has their ear.
and two, it isn't so much "everything means nothing". It was more about how the downfalls and snare traps AEW finds itself pulled into are generally explained away by apologists. Apologists who are in-house people who can actually DO shit about it instead of shrug off any attempts to fix said issues. Apologists who attend the shows and tapings because they are balls deep in the sunk cost of wanting to be there when the ship gets righted so they can scream to all the doubters "I told you so!" and stay willing to torture themselves in the meanwhile with settling for mediocrity or below just to somehow spite WWE in their minds.

As I stated before, the thing about the ratings isn't so much about how ineffectual ratings are. It's about how those numbers are ONLY being important when they benefit AEW, and then those exact same numbers can be "ignored" when AEW is clearly at a loss... and then that loss is hung on any number of extravagant excuses outside of the one common factor of the product just not being good and needing improvement or direction or actual marketable, pushed talent they don't squander potential in or overhype even when nobody is buying in except the hardest of the hardcore "SiCkOs" that Tony crowed about and included himself among.

AEW is not good for the wrestling business. Well, cleaning it up might leave a nice smell and some benefits. The WWE ID program, for example. But a lot of the things that are being spun into positives — wrestlers being paid way too much money, too many fools being given too much freedom, bad content being generated every week — is an overall detriment to wrestling. I enjoy wrestling, so I want it to be better off.

Plus it’s fun to point out the lies and the schadenfreude as people come around to the light side is nice.

Competition is always good for business. Wrestlers being paid more is not a bad thing. More bad/lazy content would be generated if there was no competition.

Why is competition good for the business when it is against WWE, but when WWE runs Saturday Night's Main Event on the same day as Small In, they are evil?

No who said that?

The kids gloves go when it’s AEW. TNA used to get a really rough time (from myself included). If people kept that same energy with AEW? Woof.

CM Punk is a monster for trying to get Colt Cabana off AEW shows. It didn’t even turn out to be true — more Observer/Young Bucks slander — but Punk was the devil for that. Mercedes Mone is allowed to go and bully House of Glory announcers. Tony can throw a fit about New Japan’s commentators.

AEW had every advantage in the world, except being good.

AEW is the drizzling shits but that doesn't change that competition is good for business.

Objectively there is no competition. Great Value knock offs arent competition. You only buy them if the real product is sold out. Thats a consolation not a competitor

And meanwhile WWE is completely exposed. They gained nothing by going to netflix. They were drawing the maximum number of potential viewrs on cable. But AEW isnt about to bring in anyone new. And thats gotta be the name of the game for growth. You have to pursue non-wrestling fans. Every wrestling fan is apparently already watching. And there's not that many of them.

Bingo. The idea of AEW poses a threat. Billionaires and TV networks still pose that threat. But WWE ended up firing a bunch of talent they initially signed to bigger deals than they normally would when AEW was exposed as nothing more than nuisance and the embodiment of “the grass isn’t always greener.”

I disagree that Netflix has been bad for them. And I think there are wrestling fans that aren’t back to watching current weekly wrestling. WWE have set the wheels in motion with things like the WCW Vault. But bringing back certain fans is going to take time or be nearly impossible.

AEW has reached its maximum appeal, in my opinion. There doesn’t seem to be a significant YouTube appetite for it, so streaming isn’t great for them.

When i saw exposed i mean their ratings didnt change. Theyre brining a comparable number of people as they were. Conventional wisdom for the last 5 year minimum has been the cord cutting millennials have never had cable in their adult lives and many teenagers live in households that have never had it.

Which is to say these people have not had any avenue to watch Monday night raw some in their lifetime. So by removing the gate keeper it would be reasonable to assume the ratings would automatically grow since 99.9% of cable owner have netflix and not vice versa.

Netflix certainly assumed that.

But instead whats happened is roughly the same number who were watching are watching. So the migration happened. The raw viewers simpley booted netflix.

No one was being gatekept.

There's still some foreign markets that havent migrated yet so the number should still grow a bit but its still the same number of apples going into the bin. Give or take obviously. There's been some gain but its fairly minor.

Given the debut's numbers we know there's audience that was willing to watch but after week 3 they were long gone and not coming back.

So that has to be the marketing question going forward: how do we reach that audience who was curious but quickly passed on what was on offer.

Now we're in full agreement that AEW sure as fucking shit has not single goddamn clue what the answer to that question is. But it is the question WWE should be trying to answer

In my opinion is a broader less hardcore product. Which is to say AEWs solution is even further in the wrong direction than anyone realizes. Theyre making a push for the die hards die hard product. There's a hard cap there and i think the WWE netflix deal has exposed just how hard that cap is.

Meanwhile AEW is at a separate cap altogether. Theirs is the one TNA used to enjoy: the "hey, its wrestling. I'll watch any wrestling" cap. AEW couldnt draw less if they paid their workers to fling shit at the front row. Theyve reached the bottom.

I could see Wrestlemania doing big numbers for Netflix maybe. I think that most people realize that everything else is just kind of meaningless filler... but Wrestlemania, I feel like that "name" means something to both lapsed-rassling fans and even non-rassling fans.

The lapsed ones might watch just because they already have access to Netflix.

Non-rassling fans might see a notification that Wrestlemania is live and check it out due to curiosity.

Weekly shows, yeah, they will pretty much always have a hard cap.

I hope mania crushes it

I always figured Raw would do about the same on Netflix domestically as it did in cable. Wrestling fans weren’t likely the ones cutting cable. It makes sense that a lot of younger people don’t have access to cable, but there’s network TV, the internet and piggy-backing off other services. I don’t think the audience of people going “Man, I really want to watch Raw but I just can’t until it is on a streaming service” was ever that high. I don’t think that’s the market Netflix is going after.

Subscription-based models are often about retention. They’re probably getting around 3 million globally for Raw, 800k for NXT, another 1.5 million for SmackDown, tens of thousands for classic content and then you’ve got the current PLEs — what? Another 1.5 million? Not necessarily unique viewers, but a healthy base that overlaps with other initiatives.

The numbers could also be way higher over time too.

Oh there’s also that thing where Netflix metrics gathered are for accounts vs. how cable approximates viewers. I haven’t look too far into it, but when Netflix says 3 million or whatever, it could be 1:1 but even 1:4 in some cases when a family is watching or something.

I’m interested to see how the data Netflix gives WWE affects their programming. You’d imagine that over time, trends and patterns would become even more prevalent than they would on cable. If we see someone odd pop up a lot more than would seem usual, or a big star is somewhat downplayed — it would be interesting to know if the data reflects bizarre interest or disinterest in that person.

I mean, cable has the minute-by-minutes, but you are still counting on a real-time navigation of that, hangovers from segments, lead-ins, etc. The same is true for Netflix, but people can more readily go and find someone, re-watch something, that sort of thing.

Saraya is the latest to want out. She basically came out and said she had pressure put on her to make her anti-WWE comments at the start of her run.

It goes to show that Tony’s money eventually leaves people feeling unfulfilled.

My favorite AEW trope is "WOW look what we did, we started from scratch!".

Yeah, from scratch, with an unlimited budget and no need to ever turn a profit.

Tony and AEW really want us to praise him because he has a rich daddy that lets him spend money.

AEW still trying to act like they are new and exciting, yet they can't even beat NXT anymore. The whole thing is a literal larp of Tony Khan being a successful business owner. Whatever goodwill AEW had at the start is long gone, and at this point anybody who pretends otherwise are just playing make believe with Tony Khan.

Dave tried to get that flying again a few months ago. He was praising Tony growing AEW from $0 in revenue to whatever he was making up it’s getting now.

Tony spends more and more as time goes on. I don’t think Ken Jeong worked the PPV for free. But AEW’s profitability is trivial if Beatnik — or whatever the trust fund company he and his sister were gifted is called — pays AEW and eats all the unwanted costs.

It’s going to cost so much money to get his wrestlers to re-sign with AEW when their deals are up. If you were a woman working for that company, why would you accept anything less than Mercedes Mone money when she doesn’t move the needle and gets paid what she does?

Tony’s got no talent. His positions are bought positions. Being a promoter or a booker requires knowledge and talent. Tony’s knowledge scope is limited to secondary and tertiary source texts outside his immediate AEW experience. Plus he just has no actual talent. And that’s fine for a human being. It just doesn’t fly for a promoter who wants to be the center of everything.

People used to scoff when he was compared to Dixie Carter lol.

Never forget just how bad that Fight Forever video game was. The developers bit off the TNA Impact video game’s intro to let audiences know how bad they knew it was.

Watching Smackdown right now, and this was one hell of a prophetic post, YEAH!

I will again admit I was wrong about Eli Drake.

Lol at CM Punk walking past Drew on SmackDown. “That’s a shame.”

Hung Bucks back on TV. Got to love it.

Do viewers express their love by tuning out?

AEW has been doing so well on MAX that WBD decided to rebrand the streaming service without a mention of them in any PR material.

AEW Collision got cut off for Black Adam. :lol:

Oof no one even likes that movie.

Black Adam, a movie that bombed at the box office, a movie that received poor reviews, and a movie that was not even advertised to air on Saturday night, still outdrew AEW LOL.

Collision is like the new Rampage, cancelled :lol:

WBD doesn’t give one shit about AEW. They’re more hyped about Jackie Redmond being involved with the hockey.

Is the botched Collision up on MAX yet? It’s tricky to push the “AEW is killing it on MAX” narrative if Collision is that inconsequential.

Dave is still trying though. His latest tactic is to claim that if Dynamite gets 300k on Dynamite then it is more popular in the US than Raw on Netflix. This ignores that Raw is a global product and also accidentally betrays that Dynamite doesn’t get anywhere near 300k on MAX. If it did, we’d hear its overall popularity touted.

Segments like the awkward Hangman/Ospreay promo won’t help. What was worse about that — the talking or the haircuts?

Ospreay is the newest AEW maacot. He cannot stop putting himself in front of a microphone and talking about how bad WWE is compared to AEW.

Ratings and Ticket Sales be damned BRUV!

How about he works out how to stop running away his own audience before lashing out? It’s clear he is insecure about signing with AEW. He also dobbed himself in. He’s admitted he has never met with or spoken to Triple H. Those talks obviously didn’t get very far in. The Motor City Machine Guns sound like they were a higher priority.

I heard how bad the Hangman/Ospreay promo was so I had to check it out. Lol at Ospreay whining because he flies in from the UK every week. Hangman has the most pretentious delivery this side of Kenny Omega and Keith Lee.

The sickos are crying because WWE does weekend blocks of shows and now AEW’s flailing Texas PPV has to go against NXT. What did they think running a “challenger brand” looks like?

WBD is splitting up into two separate public companies. Yeah, they’re…uh…not in great shape, are they?

One of them will be.

The restructure will shift off all the debt and failing assets leaving warner in an extremely favorable spot. Unclear how it will impact AEW since their contract would fall into both Global (the tv branch with all the debt) and Streaming (since it airs on max.) If Warner can pull this off though the Streaming branch will be in a great position. Stocks rose 9% on the announcement because the markets know whats going on here. Assuming the IRS allows the move (and thats questionable since this is clearly a ploy to offload the 37 billion debt accrued in the Discovery merger.) The tv side if theyre lucky will be sold off in a fire sale at best and implode into bankruptcy if not under the weight of the debt.

That said the way Sazlov has manipulated this debt in the last 4 years should have volumes written about it. Its been a magnum opus of corporate finance and if this move goes through will have taken him from COE of a failing and debt ridden Discovery to the CEO of a sustainable and profitable WB ready for sale in an IP hungry market. Its pretty insane. WB Global btw retains ZERO IP rights. Just debt and TV stations.

As far as AEW it wont ve until 2027 where any fall of out of this could impact them and there's no way to forecast what that impact would be. I dont think the TV side survives though. Once it goes belly up everyone who matters will be hired by the surviving WB Streaming & Studios and the debtors will be fucked.

Comcast did this last year but from a healthier position but the precedent does imply this will move forward.

Worth noting the WB Global entity will get 20% of the Streaming & Studios company to sell off to pay down some of that debt AND theyre getting a loan to help that effort too. So they'll become a debtor to themself fundamentally but as long as WBS&S stay risk adverse it shouldnt be an issue for their health. Especially since selling WB S&S by 2030 is clearly the goal.

Yeah, no shit what they’re trying to do man. Studio & Streaming is not a guaranteed success. They ended up in that spot in the first place. They’ve been clear about trying to become add-ons to Netflix and/or Amazon Prime. Leasing out or outright selling assets/the entire company is no doubt on the cards, but WBD is essentially dead. Global Networks is just there to cop debt, thrash about and maybe declare bankruptcy.

AEW is such small fish. It could skate by due to irrelevancy or be cut tomorrow to pinch a penny. Not a great situation for them to be in, but they were proud to sign with a dying entity (and it’s doubtful anyone else wants them).