Same source also mentioned HBO as a possible choice since its also part of Warner Media.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">HBO is under the WarnerMedia umbrella. There’s a lot of talk in the tv industry that they want to make HBO more mainstream. More widely distributed. This is just me thinking now.. maybe you put AEW “PPV” events on HBO.</p>&mdash; The Fight Oracle (@fightoracle) <a href="https://twitter.com/fightoracle/status/1116136058566131714?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Pro Wrestling Sheet also stated hearing the same from one of his sources.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I heard the same thing over the weekend from a trustworthy source, but hadn’t been able to work on confirming yet since I’ve been sick since getting home.</p>&mdash; Ryan Satin (@ryansatin) <a href="https://twitter.com/ryansatin/status/1116130796480466946?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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I don’t get HBO. If their regular TV is on HBO, I’m out.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Word is <a href="https://twitter.com/AEWrestling?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AEWrestling</a> will debut the same week as WWE Smackdown moving to Fox. AEW will be on Tuesdays.</p>&mdash; The Fight Oracle (@fightoracle) <a href="https://twitter.com/fightoracle/status/1116174553993109505?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Maybe weekly show on Tuesdays on TBS or TNT and occasional 'ppv' on HBO

I've been running PPV shows on HBO on TEW for years bro.

Fucking great idea.

That makes total sense. You can tell Warner was always the goal. The deal is probably going to be quite lucrative. It sounds like it’s pretty “done.”

I don't like AEW airing TNT or TBS, as they already pulled the plug on wrestling before. I just don't trust them.

The PPVs being on HBO on the other hand is brilliant. That would be a great move that would ensure they know they will get a minimum amount of $ guaranteed with option for bumps based on subscriptions or solo buyrates. Either way, it would be pretty awesome.

I don't know if they have the exact same decision-makers, but dude -- they're run by the same company.

The whole "TNT fucked over WCW" bullshit is just that. They pulled the plug on a company costing them $60 million in losses, an almost exponential decline, with no revenue stream even giving a glimmer of hope that it could be rectified. Killing off WCW made perfect sense. They were losing money on each show, their PPVs never got above a 0.25 after 1999. People lean on the ratings, but they were decreasing, they weren't going to get better (Vince had all the difference-makers) and advertisers frowned on wrestling in the first place.

Now you've got an entirely different landscape. Cable has shifted, dramatically. There are chord-cutters and live entertainment is one of the few things that seems to be testing well with people. That is why Vince is able to charge so much for his bullshit programming. Vince has also worked his bollocks off to make WWE palatable for advertisers in these dying days of cable, where nostalgia for things like wrestling could be an attraction in itself, as opposed to a mere actuality when it first happened.

There's no Eric Bischoff in AEW, so I think they'll be fine not pissing off the hand that feeds them. And the world is so different now. It's not the same environment, and it's not the same management as WCW, and it's not Warner's personal losses given that the Khans are going to pumping their own money into it in order for it to succeed, and they'll wear the losses if the Warner money stops coming in.

Couldn't agree more with the above post. WCW died because it was a shitshow and the people providing the toilet paper didn't want to wipe up any more when they could see the company doing nothing but eating vindaloo.

All the rumours from the start have slowly started to look true, one at a time. The Khans involvement. Turner as TV. Two hour prime time. JR and Jericho. The other piece that came out was that the money figures for this TV deal were the biggest for any TV deal ever in wrestling, with the exception of WWE's latest deals with USA and Fox. If that's true, they will have serious money at their disposal, and that the big offer alone, if true, speaks to the fact that television is changing and comparisons to 18 years ago don't apply.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Turner in Advanced Talks With <a href="https://twitter.com/AEWrestling?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AEWrestling</a> for Weekly Pro Wrestling Show<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEW?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEW</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DoubleOrNothing?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DoubleOrNothing</a> <a href="https://t.co/0wRttCbaKq">https://t.co/0wRttCbaKq</a> <a href="https://t.co/tJzfeyI2Gm">pic.twitter.com/tJzfeyI2Gm</a></p>&mdash; TheWrap (@TheWrap) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheWrap/status/1116349579065118721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The most watched cable channels in 2018 per @TheWrap were:


1. FOX News
2. ESPN
3. MSNBC
4. USA
5. HGTV
6. TBS
7. TNT
8. History
9. Hallmark
10. Investigation Discovery

That’s the list I saw. I remember reading somewhere that USA gets to top entertainment (unless you consider FOX News entertainment) because of WWE though, and that when they lose SmackDown they will drop. I haven’t fact-checked that myself though.

But if that happens coupled with AEW doing better in its time slot than The Big Bang Theory or whatever, then it could be quite beautiful that AEW ends up on the #1 entertainment channel on cable.

The foot traffic through those Turner channels seems to be about 900,000 people, on average. That is almost half the audience of SmackDown right there. With some promotion, some stars, some special-feeling shows behind them, AEW could perform surprisingly well.

Think Meltzer stated they'd drop to around 8th without WWE based on their current programming lineup.

The more WWE drops, the more it hurts USA Network's chances of improving their rankings. At the same time, it also means the threshold needed for a successful replacement show gets lower the more WWE drops.

I understand they are all owned by the same people. I just don't trust that they wouldn't up and decide they don't want wrestling suddenly again.

And I think you guys are misremembering. They sold WCW cause it was losing money, yes. But they sold it for WAY less than they could have because they didn't want "hillbilly wrestling" on their network. It didn't match with their vision for a sophisticated network.I

That's all I was saying.

Darby Allin has signed as well

That's not true though, lol. That's the Bischoff story he tells to make himself look like less of an idiot for devaluing their assets in record time. The fact that WCW was losing money is all that matters. They're not cutting "hillbilly wrestling" if it is making them all rich. WCW wasn't making them rich, thus it had the reputation it had.

When Vince McMahon shopped WCW to networks in 2001, under his umbrella, no one wanted it. Who would they have sold it to? Who was buying? I think you are misremembering. They were fucking dead. Don't let Bischoff fool you into thinking it was some big AOL/Time Warner conspiracy based around elitist tastes or anything, lol. He ran a once profitable promotion into the ground with incompetent decisions.

Rumor going around the net is that AEW recently gave a multi-million offer to Dean Ambrose.

Never heard of the source before (Slice Wrestling) so no clue how reliable or not it is although probably leans more towards fake since none of the more reliable outlets have mentioned anything about Ambrose's post-WWE future.

I've heard Slice Wrestling in connotation with something else, but I can't remember what news piece it was.

Seems unlikely that AEW would not offer Ambrose a contract.

Lol why

Probably a good signing given the freshness of him to WWE's marketing machine. I haven't been into the guy for a number of years now, but hopefully the change of scenery does him well.

I was just doing some random reading and saw that WWE's production and talent costs for Q2 2016 were $21.5 million. That's with WrestleMania being in it. A TV contract for $100 million per year with TNT would put them well into the green out the gate, and prices them at about half of what WWE is.

Whether you like him or not, he’s got massive name recognition. That is extremely valuable to a start up wrestling company.

Bootleg Brian Pillman ain't worth multi million

Well, I see the point, but I doubt he will be using that name in AEW. :p

At this point, I think it's good AEW spend big bucks on talent. You need to coerce them to jump over. It's good for the perception of the company. And they need some stars to lock down this TV, which makes them viable and makes this a money-maker for the Khans in the first place.

Throw the money at Brock or Orton though.

* Brock vs. Jericho

* Brock vs. Cody

* Brock vs. Omega I

* Brock vs. Omega II

* Brock vs. Omega III

* Brock vs. Cain Velasquez

* Brock & Omega vs. Cain Velasquez & Jericho

* Brock vs. Hangman Page

* Brock vs. Pentagon

* Brock vs. CM Punk II

* Brock vs. CM Punk III

* Brock vs. Fenix

* Brock vs. PAC

* Brock vs. The Young Bucks

* Brock vs. Goldberg IV

That's about two years of Brock booking there, and that's without them getting any New Japan guys in. Fuck, can you imagine Brock vs. Ishii or Brock & Suzuki as a team against Omega & Jericho at some point? Fuuuuuuuck.

Oh, man, that's what you do:

Brock is the reason that Omega & Jericho have to join forces. When Jericho is going to do stuff with Fozzy or something, Brock takes him out. Jericho returns with a vengeance and helps Omega out in a segment against Brock. Lesnar needs a partner, but he doesn't team with just anybody. He needs a ruthless son of a bitch. He needs...Minoru Suzuki.

I hope AEW end up working with New Japan, but technically Suzuki is a freelancer, isn't he? I'm sure he wouldn't want to piss of New Japan, but once Jericho and Omega crossover I'm sure there wouldn't be heat for Suzuki wanting to do the same.

Don't tell me Brock & Suzuki vs. The Sexy Beasts doesn't get you a little bit hard.

Lol no, that is public filings. Bischoff and ESPN Classic were the buyers with the current TV contracts. That deal fell through cause they didn't want wrestling on their network, thus no tv contracts.

That is not just Bischoffs story, that is what happened. Also, WCW lost money it's entire existence save for 3 or 4 years when Bischoff ran it.

Yes the bottom fell out, but that happened at the very end of Bischoffs run in 1999. 2000 and 2001 when they were losing Millions of dollars, Bischoff was in charge of nothing, he was a consultant mostly working with Hogan, and an on air talent.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...361-story.html

Bischoff isn't even mentioned in the story.

https://www.broadcastingcable.com/ne...ng-south-87767

Or that one.

https://www.multichannel.com/news/tb...yer-wcw-135673

$75 Million to keep it on the air, and retain a minority ownership.
$5 Million to get it off the air, and get rid of it entirely.

Ambrose would entice me to watch AEW. I think he’s one of the guys who suffered the most over recent years from WWE’s shit booking and campy style. I’d like to see him in a new environment more than most.

He's just not that good. Solid upper mid carder. Can headline in a pinch.

That sounds pretty good to me.

Just give me non-WWEized Jon Moxley promos and I'll be a happy camper

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Lol, the first two articles basically back up what I've been saying. The first line of the first article describes WCW as "money-losing" and the second one even overestimates how much it lost and then says that deals to buy it aren't going through, either because they don't have the money or because WCW doesn't have the TV.

In the third one, you've got Siegel saying that the merger didn't prompt the deal. And it didn't end up with Fusient, did it? They probably could have sold it to Jerry Jarrett for a bit more than what Vince paid and it would have just become TNA and would still be a fucking joke.

Have the guys in Fusient Media or whatever they were called actually come out and confirmed the story of trying to buy WCW and for how much? I read $75 million in that article, but then I read $20 million elsewhere, and even that was pulled without the TV.

Who else was interested in buying WCW besides Jerry Jarrett and Fusient, and how serious were those options in 2001? I know Jarrett made some real money in wrestling, but was his offer substantially much higher than Vince's?

Dean's one of those wrestlers were you can kind of point to a moment in time where they jumped the shark. The match with Brock is really the thing that altered his perception within that company. He was never the same.

The Jericho feud then underperformer (remember the stuff with "Mitch?") and then he was a lackluster WWE Champion, on the Mania pre-show with Corbin. A couple of Shield reunions and here we are.

My whole point is Eric Bischoff didn't fool me, or blind my eyes, or whatever phrase you used.

Bischoff wasn't quoted as saying the progamming "no longer matches the high-income demographic" TBS and TNT are targeting.

Or Brad Siegel saying The merged AOL Time Warner "is a very different business than WWF," he said. Wrestling "is their business, exclusively. As the company continued to grow and evolve, we realized wrestling was not a core business for us. [And] it was better operated outside the confines of [Time Warner]."

Saying Eric Bischoff ruined it and tricked me into thinking otherwise is silly.

Oh, I see. He’s the main perpetrator of the idea that a successful WCW was going to be cut. My apologies.