The Guru

They got Sonjay Dutt folks. Watch the tides turn now.

He's a gashead

Who’s realistically expecting AEW to uproot WWE?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="und" dir="ltr">AEW: 883,000</p>&mdash; Bryan Alvarez (@bryanalvarez) <a href="https://twitter.com/bryanalvarez/status/1410696509482422272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">AEW Dynamite last night on TNT in the show’s return to its normal time-slot was watched by 883,000 viewers. 452,000 were aged 18-49 (about a 0.35 rating).<br><br>Will have more details later.</p>&mdash; Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/status/1410695827069284362?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

R.I.P

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Haha this rules<br><br>Darby Allin To Be Part Of 'Jackass 4' <a href="https://t.co/IAIP2sFG0M">https://t.co/IAIP2sFG0M</a></p>&mdash; Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) <a href="https://twitter.com/SeanRossSapp/status/1410335479313186817?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 30, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

883k for their big return to Wednesdays? Yikes.

Lol, how is 883k for AEW considered good, but 1.58 million across THREE HOURS for WWE on a Monday considered bad? Fucking wrestling fans.

There’s no growth. This thing isn’t making new fans. It isn’t attracting lapsed fans who switched off a WWE product. It’s not going anywhere. If WWE is considered “cold” with it’s low viewership, declining ratings and unappealing fans — what must AEW be with just a fraction of that? Those sexy 49 year olds driving this product.

Wow, AEW silences the haters and losers again! Almost triple the rating of NXT 😮

Funny that you of all people doesn't know what the word triple means.

665,000 tripled would be 1,995,000 million.

AEW after all the excuses about competition, timeslot, and day got 883,000 for a hyped up return to their normal timeslot. That is still down over 300,000 from when they started being unopposed 2 months ago. That is still down over 600,000 from their debut.

So nope, they didn't Triple Anything, Triple A.

SmackDown did 5x the rating of AEW using that maths.

Lol at NXT still being within striking distance of AEW.

And what do you get if you add 665k to 883k? 1.55 million people. It’s the same audience, even on two different nights. Gertner was right.

Seeing this wedged between many Noid and X-Rod posts I won’t read makes it even better. Glorious!

He's talking about the key demographic ratings. AEW's 0.35 vs. NXT's 0.13

Not like this is the first time you and Noid/Nerfect completely missed the point of ratings talk and continue to showcae why both of you are the two biggest dumbfucks in this thread.

Smeat back with a motherfucking vengeance

I'm not certain of how the nelson ratings actually work. I don't think that I've ever been apart of the tracking until I started using Sling and opted into the system. My whole entire life I know of approximately zero people who are knowingly apart of the the nelson tracking system. From my understanding it's an educated guess from a small group of around 20 thousand or so homes in the US. I know there has been some drama about this recently from Sean Ross Sapp or one of the other journalists but regardless, I don't think that the Nelson system can give an accurate representation of those who watch the program they are reporting. In 2021 most people that I know in the 20's/30's age range don't subscribe to any cable service at all, at least in NYC, and steam what they want to see from Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Amazon or on occasion the free year of Paramount, Peacock or Discovery that they get from their cell provider.

All of that into consideration is why WWE is still a big get for tv providers because 1.5 million or so estimated live viewers even though it's a quarter of what it once regularly was is still a success. Though WWE ratings are dropping every week and have done so for 20 years,.

AEW have at least maintained a larger portion of their estimated neislon audience, which is a lot more impressive than dropping lower and lower each week. I would esitmate AEW's median number to be around 800k give or take, with a peak thus far at I think 1.1 or 1.3. I believe WWE'S peak is in the 8.0 region and at one time had many shows in 4.0-5.0 area. Now WWE is in the 1.5 area and dropping every week.

So that's the perspective that makes this senseless AEW bashing make zero sense.

yeah i say they have a better count of who's watching now with streaming, if you have hulu live youtube live or sling, unless you opt out they know what you are watching.

Every day I wake up and think of how great it feels to be a fan of the best damn wrestling company on the planet.

Are we back to this bullshit yet again??

He didnt say shit about demos, and you are a dumbfuck for defending it when it had nothing to do with you.

Seriously, the fuck is wrong with this place that somebody says something wrong and some other uninvolved person gets sooooo goddamned upset they gotta jump in.

You know how Trips should have prefaced that he was talking about demos? He could have included in his post the words "IN THE FUCKING DEMOS". He didnt jackass, he said " IN THE RATING".

All the whining about asking me to give examples of the Cultist behavior, well here you fucking go.

Somebody posts a lie, and I point out he is wrong, and you get so upset that you have to explain what somebody else meant to make your bullshit fandom known. Fuck Off

All the smart and cool posters knew exactly what I meant (due to clearly using the word "rating"), interesting 🤔

Wow, AEW creeping up on WWF Raw in the ratings also! "The Cold War" is heating up . . .

Smeat returning with new entrance music and a cape

Xrod and Noid are the Legion of Doom.

Does that make you Rocco?

I'm definitely Paul Ellering

Fun fact: after retiring from wrestling and failing to get the Authors of Pain over, Paul Ellering became a dog sled racer and competed in Iditarod.

Lol I remember reading that

AEW is garbage. TNA was hitting millions of viewers every week and they clawed their way and earned their spot on tv instead of having everything handed to them. Remember the weekly ppvs and the Fox Sports Net days. Of course their ratings tanked as well as soon as they got rid of Russo.

AEW wish it had TNA's ratings


Vince Russo > Tony Khan

Oh man, time to step on the throat of the man with absolutely no critical thinking skills whatsoever. Can anyone remember a time where Smeat actually posted his own thought on something? Not something he’s borrowed verbatim from another source. Not someone else’s thoughts. His. He calls other people dumbfucks, but he literally never applies his own thoughts to anything. Because he’s incapable.

I mean. He never does it. His response to anybody is always something like “that’s probably because [Observer factoid].” End thought. He can’t build on that.

Firstly, xrod is right. Triple A was trolling by calling the demo the rating, which is bullshit. Their rating is probably a 0.1 or some shit. Wouldn’t surprise me if it was 1/10 of TNA’s.

Also, I have brought up why the demos, as Meltzer lays them out, are fucking meaningless. You have to actually be a wrestling mark to subscribe to such shit. It’s a hangover from a period of time before advertisers cared about way more nuanced and specific metrics. Nielsen barely talk about the alleged “key demo.” You know why? Because 18-49 covers SO many people, of all different walks of life, with all different financial circumstances. It’s archaic to throw everyone in a box just because they fall into some random age bracket.

Women are now more prized than men. How does AEW do in that metric? Meltzer doesn’t talk about that, either because he doesn’t get the nuanced break-downs to actually talk about what these numbers might mean to advertisers in any serious sense, or because he doesn’t care to, because why ruin a good narrative when you have peons like Smeat to echo it?

If that demo mattered so much, why did it get its ass booted out of its time slot for hockey? Why did it get its ass shoved right off TNT? It’s because the people who watch AEW are largely the people who watch it. Sports like hockey will attract more unique viewers over time. Viewers that are more valuable than those within AEW’s “key” demo.

But don’t let common sense get in the way of the wrestling mark’s gospel.

You still watch ROH?

This is quite fucking true.

They would absolutely kill their mothers for that sort of attention. And I hate to say it, because I absolutely hate Russo, but my god would he do a better job than what AEW is doing.

The sad part is TNA could have hit way better ratings if they would have actually gave Russo FULL creative control. Unfortunately he had to deal with Jeff Jarrett and Dutch Mantel and then later on Bischoff and Hogan.

I'm not too hot on Hangman and Omega headlining the next PPV. But I am not hot on Omega at all right now. I am hoping the booking for Hangman is super interesting leading up, and with the fresh crowds that could help a lot. Hangman is ready to be the man for sure and Kenny needs a long rest and recovery from what I've read about his physical state. I think Hangman has a lot of great opponents for a long and successful title reign.

I like the aew company. They are close to amc, and I like the stock.

I just think Hangman vs. Omega is the logical way to get Hangman his big title win.

All Out is the same event where he suffered his two biggest losses - losing his AEW Title match in 2019 and losing the tag titles at 2020. The former set him off into a drinking gimmick and played into his decision to move into tag competition, the latter ended up causing him to fall out with The Elite after 4 years with them between the Bullet Club and Elite days. Befriends the Dark Order, but can't bring himself to join full stop. Seems to have an underlying fear that if he comes up short in a big match again, more friends will ditch him. Has to now go through his former tag partner at the same event where he's dealt with his biggest failings.

It'll be good, and I think the Chicago crowd are gonna be shit hot for Hangman so I hope they strike while the iron is hot. And yeah Kenny's been working hurt for months and while I'm sure it's tough to convince someone to take time off when they're finally gonna be getting back to performing in front of non-socially distant crowds, it'd be good for him to take a few months to clean up his nagging injuries and he can come back either tail end of 2021 or kick off 2022 with a big return.

AEW have made the same mistake as WWE and have assumed that the belt makes the man and not vice versa. He’s been booked into obscurity. They think they can flip the magical switch and just microwave someone. This is Dolph Ziggler winning the WWE Title out of nowhere. Except Page is not Ziggler good.

Omega vs. Page, if it happens, is going to be a pretty easy match to upstage. It’ll feel like such a forced and fake moment.

And that’s if it happens. People are clinging to it happening because they got the idea early on and they can’t face the fact this company can’t book. MJF was predicted by many to be the third champion in this company. Now look at him. Page was the babyface rising star. Now look at him. But they’re cradling that idea.

... Who have they given the belt to try to make? Did Page win the title and I missed it or something?

Not yet, but if that is the plan, that’s exactly what they’re doing. Page has not been built up for a World Title win. Or do you disagree? Didn’t you make the point that only Corgan seems to know how to actually build relative stars within the context of what he’s got?

If you want to get technical, I’d put Omega in that box too. If you didn’t know who he was, he won the belt out of nowhere.

You made the statement that AEW have made the same mistake as WWE based on something they’ve literally never done but you expect them to do.

They HAVE made the mistake WWE has made based on a future example you’ve created in your head.

That “If that’s the plan...” was a pretty vital part to leave out originally.

Either the plan is to try and make Page, which makes the 8 months completely irrelevant. Or they’re cutting bait because they can’t tell a story right. Take your pick.

Groaaaan. Come on, man. Don’t go picking that fight for the sake of it. If that’s the plan, and many people seem sure of it, then they have made that mistake. The booking doesn’t start when Page wins.

Nothing wrong with speculating about the future plans either. Since when has discussion on here been limited to retrospect?

Could be the latter. Let’s talk about it when it happens in real life.

Speculation and “They have already fucked up by doing this thing in the future” aren’t the same thing.

I’m not doing it for the sake of it. I’m doing it to prove the same point I’ve been trying to make to you (and Xrod before we became best friends) Even when you can just be right about saying “AEW is shit” and explaining why, you do a disservice to yourself when you do stuff like that.

For all their faults, AEW has only put the title on their top stars at the time. To try to shit on them for doing that dumb WWE thing where they put the title on a midcarder to try to get him over when they’ve literally not done it once is a bad fucking case to make. You twist things in a weird way to shit on AEW when you don’t need to.

In other news, Cassie and Jessie (formerly The IIconics) hosted Renee's podcast where they interviewed Tay Conti and Anna Jay and teased having a tag match someday.

You had to assume the IIconics were AEW bound with Cassie being married to Spears, but with Impact being the promotion with the women's tag scene you never know for sure.

Anyway, they're pretty bad in the ring but also have considerably more personality than anyone in the women's division not named Britt Baker. They could be foils for someone like Shida who will eventually cane the shit out of them.

IIconics vs. TayJay would likely be a bad match despite Tay's best efforts, but it would also make my peen happy.

That’s not what I said though. Don’t sling mud about twisting shit when you’ve got to do it to stick your point. I was clearly speculating. If they don’t do it, they fucked up the alleged plans. Just like WWE. If they do? Then it’s exactly what I’m speculating, and you know it.

All moot since I was speculating on the alleged creative direction (someone above just posted about it). And, as I said, I would pick at straws when it comes to Omega. He’s a guy that banks on what he’s already done, like Jericho and Moxley, but I think you can have him either way. He’s a guy that a lot of people would only know from AEW, and how strong a main eventer he is in that context is up to your interpretation.

On one hand, he main evented a lot of PPVs and they told you he was this amazing wrestler; on the other they did expect putting the belt on him to signify some sort of radical change in him being this next level guy. Never mind he did cheat to win the belt too, so he’s not exactly supposed to be seen on the level of a Moxley.

Am I wrong about any of that?

People who like AEW are the same sheep who voted for Biden. Brainwashed easily by the media aka Dave Meltzer. It's sad really. Same ROH bots from the 2000's just a new era of fans killing the business.

Adam Page has been very irrelevant since him and Omega split. As of today, him winning the title would just feel like he is the next guy in line, not the culmination of his arc into a top star. It certainly today doesnt feel like Page should be the guy.

That said, they do still have 2 months and when September 5th comes the feeling could be totally different.

What isnt going to get them there is him being encouraged by his Dark Order friends telling him how they believe in him while he is drinking backstage.

Have. Past tense. This thing has been done. You got called out and now you’re left arguing that it was just speculation despite every word clearly being in clear as fuck past tense English. But I’M twisting shit somehow. You can’t have an honest discussion. It’s not everyone else, it’s you. We’re done here.

Proper speculation.

(Probably not because AEW sucks. Doesn’t hurt to speculate though!)

lol @ Noid getting mad that #1-wwf-fan is not going in lockstep with his AEW hatred

Having only seen the quoted posts it also seems like he's decided that if Hangman doesn't win the belt, they fucked up the plans and if he wins, it means they also fucked up.

So they've already lost no matter what they do. Cool. Always nice to see good faith discussions.

they would be smarter to go to impact 1st an fight with fire an flave, an get better in the ring.

Have isn’t always past tense, champ. You can have something in the present tense. If Adam Page is “the guy,” they have (they are holding...as in now) the wrong idea. What you’re trying to do is pick a fight over me not adding the redundant context of “If AEW were to do that, then...” That’s bullshit and you know it.

You chose a reading, stuck to it, and call it calling someone out. Let me rephrase my obvious point: If AEW intends Adam Page to be the top guy in AEW, they sure have a shitty fucking way of going about it.

Nah, #fan doesn’t like AEW either. I get more annoyed at conversations that are based around semantics.

Those are the seeds they have sown. AEW fans were so certain he was the guy. Still are. But the booking has not led up to that. Call a spade a spade. Do you always give good faith to the WWE? Why the fuck would I put good faith in a company that continually proves to be anything other than what they promised? Who have they actually pushed right?

You can try and mock me as a poster all you want. At least I actually put thought into my views and try to actually explain them instead of trying to dismiss someone for having an opinion at all because I don’t like it.

Explain to me why this “push” of Adam Page is good. How is this going to make him a bigger star than he was at the outset of this promotion?

And before you say it, #fan, I did mean “have” in the past tense, because they have made that mistake if that’s the root they’ve decided to go down. The event doesn’t need to actually occur for the wheels to have been poorly set in motion. If you take back your horrible ex, you don’t need to wait until shit hits the fan for that to be called a mistake.

Point is: AEW fucking sucks and doesn’t know how to book.

I can’t believe they’re doing Christian vs. Matt Hardy as a main event feud in 2021. And that’s not because of Christian. I can’t believe I WISH a guy was in WWE.

Actually, the same goes for The Revival. It’s about a wash for how well they’ve been used at this point between the two shows. But if they were put back with Orton for a feud against, say, Matt Riddle, Jeff Hardy & Cedric Alexander, it could actually lend itself to some pretty cool stuff.

You can literally pull better stuff out of your ass than what AEW puts on with alleged effort.

Remember when Matt Hardy left WWE because he didnt just want to do the same old Hardy stuff?

Then a year later after "Broken Matt" bombed in AEW, now he is talking about wanting to end his career teaming with Jeff in AEW?

Seems fishy to me that all of a sudden he wants Jeff to help make him relevant again :rofl:

I used to be a fan of Matt Hardy, but he became an abomination.

Hangman has been one of the most protected guys on the roster. He’s been a winning machine since losing in the world title tournament to Omega. Think he’s only lost once to Brian Cage, which says a lot given that Hangman has worked a lot of TV on dynamite.

He’s also been promoted as the number 1 contender and so far he’s still been over when the crowds.

I don’t understand how a guy who’s consistently won, won the high profile and ppv matches, is prominently and regularly featured on TV, and only has losses against two former world champs, a main event tag team, and a guy who has only been pinned twice in the span of a year, is being force elevated by getting the belt they’ve been building him up to win since day one.

It’s a bad take. Hangman doesn’t need the belt to get over. They’ve already established him as a big player and he’s already over with a ready made storyline to the belt. That is not what WWE does.

<iframe id="reddit-embed" src="https://www.redditmedia.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/ochl0i/won_mjf_vs_sammy_guevara_main_event_peaked_the/?ref_source=embed&amp;ref=share&amp;embed=true" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups" style="border: none;" height="489" width="640" scrolling="no"></iframe>

So Wednesday nights and mjf are a decent draw

From what I watched of AEW at the start, Hangman just did not seem like "a star"..... like they were constantly trying to make him out to be more than he was and I wasn't buying it.... maybe he got better since then, I dunno....

I felt the same, but he's come a long way since then.

He doesn’t work like he should, in my opinion. He’s trying to be an indy guy, when he should be working more like a brawler. I miss brawlers in wrestling.

I felt that way at the very beginning, not really buying him as a top star, but he got super over after a few months during the time he was drinking beer with fans in the crowd... but had to stop that when COVID hit, and not having fans there hurt his momentum a lot

Feel like he's "cold" right now but hopefully they have something cool up their sleeves for his feud with Omega... and fans are coming back next week

They've got a couple months. Let's see what they can do.

yeah an dark order is not helping, that is a group that should have been split up months ago.

i think with all companys the fans will change views of wrestlers, an wwe can stop getting us to feal sorry for corbin.

The Dark Order should have never existed. Then, when it failed, I should have been disbanded before Brodie Lee was even in the company.

Wrong again. NWO, DX, Four Horsemen, Los Ingornobles, the Union, and Dark Order are amongst the top stables in the history of wrestling.

Horsemen has Arn
Dark Order has Uno

DX had Chyna
Dark Order has Cabana

NWO had Scott Hall
Dark Order has John Silver

The Union had Test
Dark Order has Alex Reynolds

I stand corrected.

I heard on Cornette’s show that their recent TV main event had a tombstone piledriver from the second rope that didn’t end the match?

What happened to this company being a more serious product? Between things like that, Jericho crying and the hilarious botches, they are TNA 2.0

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">So, for the non (or lapsed) wrestling fans, I'm going to explain why this guy is at the centre of the greatest, most agonising, most wholesome pro-wrestling story in years. And it's a story that's about to hit the home stretch. <a href="https://t.co/8RMOYMKXJr">pic.twitter.com/8RMOYMKXJr</a></p>&mdash; Chris Brosnahan (@ChrisBrosnahan) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisBrosnahan/status/1411638991343042562?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 4, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

This tweet thread is brilliant.

Read that thread. Good stuff.

*tries to read this*

It looks like one of those annoying clickbait articles fucked a Noidpost, and its baby posted on Twitter.

Also, lol at how they don't mention one of the people in the pictures is Cody. (not helping the whole "He's not really one of us" vibe I get with these Bullet Cult guys). Not as lol is how we completely gloss over the known sex pest in the pictures, as well.

Cringe. Lapsed fans are not interested in that shit. This is not going to make any new wrestling fans. It’s a bad story.

To be fair, nothing will make new fans.

Gotta disagree here. Nothing in the current climate will make new fans.

Tony Khan was on Busted Open Radio and dodged some questions about their lack of logic, particularly when it comes to tag wrestling. Such a wormy bastard, lol.

Ok. Nothing will change the current climate then.

I don’t think it has to be that way.

Right, right... The Rock gonna save everything by starting his own federation, right?

It's time for Hogan to come back and save wrestling again!


https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/i..._eDOKS8JS88KMT

Pointing at your crotch to advertise "Micro" wrestling not a good idea...

Not at this point, unfortunately. Would have been the best shot. The guy did buy the XFL, but that was likely because it was at fire sale price. We’ll see what happens if/when live events normalize.

(I know you were being a jack-ass, but I’m going to treat it as a serious question)

Wrestling’s best chance is something...else. Whether it comes from The Rock, international investors, another billionaire or a network deciding to get involved. Neither WWE nor AEW is the best we can do. Creatively or commercially.

Assuming that AEW is the best possible alternative is the big hurdle that I hope someone else can overcome when pitching to network executives. If the assumption is that AEW is doing the best wrestling possibly can...we’re all in trouble.

I could see a streaming service try to eventually "go in" on wrestling. Whether Netflix or Amazon Prime or whoever... just one more thing to try to "set them apart" from their increasing amount of competitors in the streaming world.

Would be more of a Lucha Underground type thing with "seasons" rather than an ongoing every week/every month thing.

I’m doing my best to become a millionaire and save wrestling, guys. Bare with me.

Kinda surprised a streaming service hasn't taken a shot at "hosting" a rasslin show already. People would watch it. People will watch anything.

psst WWE on Peacock already exists

*dives back into casual forum*

It wouldn’t surprise me if the WWE were working on something with Netflix in conjunction with this Vince series.

There's a Vince series now?

I heard some biopic was on the way, didn't know it was a Netflix thing... or that it was a series and not just a film?

yeah i was thinking amazon was going to buy impact when impact went to twitch

I don't see Amazon or Netflix getting involved with a weekly rassling show, cause frankly ain't nobody got time/interest for that anymore. If they do get involved with something it will be something released in seasons.

I’m sure I heard Netflix was doing a biographical series.

Who doesn’t have time for it? Raw and SmackDown are still watched by millions of people worldwide, whether we like it or not. I can see the argument for specials, but I don’t get the appeal of a seasonal release versus one that is year-round.

It doesn’t seem to fit the current aesthetic of those platforms, but as they get more and more “(x) Platform Live” options going, wrestling is a pretty logical part of that expansion.

The appeal is to try to get new fans/lapsed fans who don't want to commit to watching something every week but would happily binge watch a season of whatever if it got good reviews.

The weekly format will only ever draw the current niche market, which continues to shrink.

Why is Tony Khan bragging about how he got a refund for the exploding deathmatch botch??

https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/20...at-revolution/

Besides, didnt they already tell us it was Kenny's fault :rofl:

Seriously, Khan seems like such a Self Mark Doofus that he will just spill the behind the scenes details to anybody in order to appear cool.

“I was trying to be too safe and I let the professionals handle the stuff and they are guys who don’t understand wrestling,” Khan said. “It was professional pyrotechnic guys. They totally s--t the bed, these guys. I ended up not paying them. It was like $100,000 they ended up refunding for all the expenses of the match. So I didn’t end up paying for the (exploding) barbed wire deathmatch, which I shouldn’t have. They screwed up royally. We put together something great. Kenny and Jon worked their asses off and all they had to do was set up the final explosion. This is because we used professional pyrotechnic people who are supposed to know.”

It was hard to listen to khan's appearance on busted open. Like, I was legitimately embarrassed for him.

He completely dodged Bubba calling him out on the false promises of wins and losses counting and the sports style presentation. Those being my biggest disappointments with aew.