What I saw of the MJF feud was really good. Having him wrestle weekly against nobodies was a terrible idea though. Especially in hindsight once he kept getting injured.

He's been pretty clear he doesnt want to be a part time worker...he should consider it, clearly.

Course there's the hypocrisy issue if he were to go partime, but lets be real, he's way past be able to avoid that

The dude can still talk, 100%.


Everything else tho? GTFO. It's that simple, honestly.

I know wrestling is about suspending disbelief, but there is a line. I saw that dude get mauled in a fight, then toyed with in another fight to the point of not even being able to defend himself against being tickled. There is no way I can take his character of the best badass can beat everybody seriously ever.

I have an easier time believing Kane could actually control fire than I can Phil being a world beater, and that is before he "exploded" his foot by doing a 2 foot stage dive.

He says good zingers, but it doesn't change the fact that he is just not believable as a rough and tough guy like they are portraying him.

Punk’s good in the ring. He is old and does shine a light on how unspectacular almost all of the roster is though. If there’s a credibility issue with him, there’s a credibility issue with almost every other guy there. Plus that he’s got the biggest dick makes them all look pathetic.

He’s also been presented as the enemy. Even if fans don’t really believe it, he’s made the company and its management look foolish, which has ruined church for some people.

But these numbers aren’t necessarily a CM Punk problem. Would Kenny Omega be doing better on Saturdays? This could very well be an AEW problem and/or a Saturday night problem with Punk holding that thing up as much as he can.

Destor’s right when he says CM Punk can grab attention but struggles to keep it. Always been that way. Some guys can be very good professional wrestlers and just not be long-term answers as draws.

I’m interested to see what Collision does next week. Joe tends to pique interest too. It’s a big show for them. But this is why the roster split idea never works, and trying to turn your own audience against its biggest star is just nightmare promoting.

Collision is a better show than Dynamite. But it’s cold and on a Saturday. Dynamite isn’t very good. No steak. Why would I watch it? Why would I buy PPVs featuring half-and-half? Why am I following this shit at all? There’s too much of it and too much that isn’t good. That makes the stuff that would work ineffective.

Punk is not good in the ring and he hasn't been since he came back. It's weird that you can't admit that.

Oh, wait. You don't actually watch. You don't know that he sucks. Forgot you are basing your opinion on highlights and podcasts.

Plenty of guys who were bad in the ring could draw. I think the more salient issue here is 50% of their audience proved that if they cared enough they could make Saturday nights available and based on what theyve seen theyve decided to not do that anymore.

Id argue if they saw the makings of Punk v Omega at least half of those who walked would still be there. Thats what they tuned in for on night 1 and when they realized it was just swept under the rug they knew there was nothing worth seeing and went about their business.

Obviously Saturday's were always going to be a tough sell. You will never bring in new non wrestling fans in on a saturday night. Its a rough slot. What we can also say is the promise of cm punk being on tv isnt going to bring in established pro wrestling fans either.

Part of me thinks that they see SD doing so well in the Friday night death slot that they probably thought people would tune in on Saturday too.

SD! isnt doing all that hot when you really take a look at it. Theyre pulling gpod cable numbers on network TV. Meanwhile here's AEW running cable in an even worse slot.

A network hit should be drawing 10 million not 2

Yeah the most watched show on TV is pulling sub 10 million numbers these days.

Nah ncis regularly pulls 10 million

I take that back. 1 show in the last year has pulled over 10 million outside of spots. Yellowstone pulled 11.5 or so. After that it drops down to sub 10.

NCIS ratings for the last year are an average 9.8.

You couldnt pay me to watch that shit but its on season fucking 20 and can fart 9 million viewers. I truly dont understand it

if i handed you $9.80 we'd call it 10. The show is a hit regardless.

There are just a large number of people who like that genre in general. A ton of the juggernaut TV shows are in the law/fire/med drama genre. It's been that way for decades. In the case of NCIS, it's been so long that people are just invested in it. You think 20 years is wild? Think about the soaps. Y&R has been running with the same characters since the 60s or something. People have watched their entire lives. Insane.

Then look to other major network offerings. In 2023 the top 20 shows excluding sports the no20 spot averages 6.92 million.

its outlandish. Nbcs line up is like 6 firefighter shows and they fucking draw. Like...tf.

My point is SD!s rating isnt particularly impressive for network. Those numbers are as influenced by friday as anything. You put sd on thursday i bet they draw 4.5mil day 1. So if youre on the outside looking and thinking "oh man weekends are doing just fine!" You're insane. Friday is the death slot its always been they just have the advantage of being on network tv. You put smackdown on cable and it would be pushing piss poor numbers.

Yeah, I know it's semantics. And it's def a hit. But it's also in a different class of show running in a way better time slot. You can't measure SD by that same standard. SD is literally in what is historically the worst timeslot in history. Friday nights are notoriously terrible for TV.

Meanwhile SWAT, Fire Country, Blue Bloods and Jeopardy double those viewers in friday primetime.

SD! beats them in demo and thats what advertisers want it, but eyeballs? Its half its head to head.

I get that. That's my point. SD probably would draw 4.5 mill. But what they are drawing on a Friday is great specifically for that day. They are second place out of the networks on Friday. What I'm saying is that AEW probably saw that and figured hey if SD can pull what they do on Friday, maybe we can do pretty good for a Saturday night for cable. And right now they still kinda are. I dunno what last weeks place would have been considering Showbuzz shut down, but if you compared it to the prior Saturday they'd have probably finished like 6th or 7th place for the night.

Thats why I said earlier I'm curious as to what college football will do to them. The bigger draws than them on Saturday cable are sports. College World Series pulled 5 times the number and no one watches College Baseball compared to Football. They lost half their viewers going up against that though and it pulled 2.5 million and won the night. Imagine what happens when they are going up against the game of the week in football season when it's pulling 10-15 million on a Saturday, let alone the other games on too. Considering the 50% drop off already, the numbers then could get absolutely abysmal. They might lose to Impact.

What is Collision? Does AEW have 3 shows now?

No they don't. SD had 2.35million. Bluebloods won with 2.91. Swat had 2.73. Fire Country 2.36. Ain't nobody doubling up shit. Do you even look at the numbers or are you just guessing?

Yes they have a 2 hour show on Saturday nights now with CM Punk as the headliner.

SD DESTROYS them in the demo. It beats all of them combined.

Pulled the most recent sweeps numbers

So no. All those shows, when marketing is in full swing, double smackdowns viewership

It edges them in demo by .2

I'd wager that if Nielsen could tell if you were sleeping and didn't count you if you were, SD would win the viewer numbers on Fridays by a wide margin too. Those other shows would lose half, if not more, of their audience. It's all geezers asleep in their recliners. All my older family members are passed out with CBS on by like 8:30 on Friday lol

Like i said its not like sd! Is lighting the world on fire fridays. Wrestling isnt all that hot and nothing is hot on fridays. And damn sure not on saturdays

So Im pulling the current numbers and you go back and find some old numbers that match up with your point. No point continuing with this.

nielsonis horseshit and legally cant be used in court any longer because its THAT horseshit. So i agree. But if we're talking one mans horseshit data to a like horseshit data...yadda yadda yadda

youre pulling numbers from july when the shows are airing reruns. Im pulling sweeps numbers, i.e. when the shows are airing the content people watch yes

Why would you pull summer numbers for non live events? Lol. Its like youve never heard of tv before

Do i need to explain what sweeps are while im here?

Yes please.

a sweep is when two teams play in a series of games, and one team wins all of them.

Sweeps are the answer to the issue of trying not to compare apples to oranges. So what they essentially did was created multiple periods (that last about 3 weeks now) throughout the year that essentially function like a farmers market for advertisers.

During this peroid each program puts forward its best programing. So that could mean having celebrity guest stars or the culmination of long story arcs, whatever. The strength of these peroids are what advertisers look at and completely set the price of local ad spots entirely. Though national ads weigh these against annual averages (though not of reruns.)

This allows them to evaluate each show at their best and is when the networks spend the bulk of their advertising budget to draw in potential new viewers.

For wrestling maybe you dust off an old legend for a special appearance or have a world title match on free tv. Perhaps blow off an angle of free tv. Maybe a gimmick match.

Old people. They don’t stream or go online or play video games or go out or fuck. They just watch the news, game shows and whatever reminds them of Matlock or In the Heat of the Night on traditional TV.

I love gameshows...fuck you norn fan :mad:

One also sweeps with a broom.

Hmm. My lady’s grandma is single. Just sayin’. I was gonna hook her up with Seph because of their shared need for soft foods but Destor may be in the lead now.

i can totally eat applesauce while i watch jeopardy

Odd that WWE seem to have their main stuff for “Season Premieres” (for a show that doesn’t have any time off) and Drafts in October (or other non-sweep periods).

What are some things they’ve ran to specifically coincide with sweeps?

Looking at this past sweeps they had a title tourny for the bulk of it. Each week featuring some ppv level matches. Aj styles had an advertised return. Etc. Them running 52 live events a year is a big boon for advertisers though. You arent just paying for 22-26 weeks of heavy traffic instead you're paying for weekly mid sized traffic. There's something to be said for consistency.

Also worth noting that having a big roster shake up in oct means everything is fresh for nov sweeps

Another obvious one that slipped my mind: wrestle mania lead up is during sweeps

Even if it makes no sense in terms of the what they’ve done with Survivor Series for the majority of the last decade.

The entire ratings process doesnt make any sense in 2023 or 2013. Cant see any reason why the booking wouldnt be equally stupid, its the industry standard after all.

YOOOOOOO this Motherfucker really did get his Daddy to buy showbuzz daily just so he could shut it down and make his own fucking chart :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEWDynamite?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEWDynamite</a> was the #1 show on cable/satellite this Wednesday!<br>Check out the data below! <br><br>See you on TNT for the special 100th episode of<br>Friday Night <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEWRampage?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEWRampage</a><br>TONIGHT <br>+<br>Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, and we have a huge night of wrestling on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEWCollision?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEWCollision</a> TOMORROW! <a href="https://t.co/gkitOkXTU4">pic.twitter.com/gkitOkXTU4</a></p>&mdash; Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) <a href="https://twitter.com/TonyKhan/status/1677381195129311232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 7, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

That all important 25-54 demo LOL holy shitballs hahahaha

Holy fuck, you’re not lying. Where are the news shows?

LOL where indeed

Collision Ratings...

https://i.imgflip.com/7s8jb6.jpg

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Cumdorx

lolol

I’m starting to think Destor was on the money when he said that if Collision does half of what Dynamite does, it’s the better show. 580k for Collision seems like a comparatively good number.

Like AEW fans have anything to do on a Saturday night

Dynamite sucked, by the way. Something like 825k viewers.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AEWCollision?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AEWCollision</a> stays flat, under 600k<br><br>P2+: 579K - Flat vs. last week<br><br>18-49: 258K - Down 8% vs. last week<br>18-34: 81K - Down 24% vs. last week</p>&mdash; Alfred Konuwa (@ThisIsNasty) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThisIsNasty/status/1681328533334007808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 18, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

https://pa1.aminoapps.com/6432/fdc12...8eabb1c_00.gif

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Staying flat is pretty good. Collision is a show I think could actually find an audience.

746,000 for NXT, Dom Dom drawing the house!

BLOOD & GUTS!!!!

https://i.imgflip.com/7t82p0.gif

NXT gonna catch Dynamite.

Collision 417,000

https://i.imgflip.com/7v4l2r.jpg

lmao that ones pretty good

NXT up to 778k. They keep going up and they'll overtake Dynamite soon.

I bet TK is plotting his next HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT. I'm sure it will be a GAME CHANGER.

Triple H gonna win the marathon.

https://i.imgflip.com/7vuol6.jpg

476k :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Way closer to Dynamite than it should be.

Punk getting the highest quarters of the night, with the show showing improvement in every quarter except for one drop-off. It’s obvious this show works better than Dynamite. Pretty sure you’d think they’d be getting Punk to run the Wednesday show in order to maintain their lead-in and possibly grow their numbers.

It’d be interesting to see what happened if The Elite got Saturdays. The show would obviously suck, but you might get more of that breed of smark at home and willing to follow them into the grave.

I still don't understand why they have 3 weekly shows.

Love this idea. But could you imagine the fit the Elite would throw?

My guess is that Tony Khan needed an increase on his television revenue, but there wasn’t a reason for WBD to break the bank on retaining them without the promise of more content.

It almost makes the idea worth it on its own lol.

482k for Collision

870k for Dynamite

AEW probably gonna have a Bray Wyatt tribute show.

Another desperate attempt.

Bo Dallas better check over his shoulder. I wouldn’t put it past AEW to kill the whole family.

Nonsense. Clear what’s happened here. WWE are so shook by AEW holding the biggest show of all time so they’ve killed Bray off to dent the spirits of the wrestling community.

It’s certainly easier than putting on a good product.

It is supposed to rain tomorrow in London. Tiny Khan about to cut a promo on God, TK will NOT TAKE THIS SHIT!!!!!!

There’s your scapegoat as to why the product presented under the tent sucks.

871k for Dynamite. This is both with a post and pre PPV bump.

HOLY SHIT!!!! After that biggest wrestling show ever that totally shows what a red hot product AEW is, they gained 1000 viewers from last week!!!!! They also went down .02 in the MUH DEMOS from last week, but what can you do?

All that matters is what place they finish in for the night anyways right, so...

LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

obvs need more cm punk. he is their savior after all :|

You joke, but he is heads and shoulders the most significant performer they have. AEW continuously depriving fans of him is probably getting tiresome for them.

His show draws like 480,000 viewers, he is not important.

Put anyone else in that slot.

You are absolutely right. They could put literally anybody there, and they will not draw. That is exactly why there is no reason to be putting up with all the drama Phil causes.