I don't really feel like AEW fills a gap. I think NXT is consistently better, nailing the 2-hour format. AEW will put on some great matches but I actively don't care about anyone in it.

What bit of the market is it providing for?

The grown up male market that is sick of watching little kid crap. Hence why it's destroying NXT in the target demo.

im with you rat.

3/4 of the show is people i dont care about doing flips and kickouts with nothing done to make me care about them. the rest include people that i didnt enjoy in wwe (cody, ambrose) or old people getting time in the same way wwe does that stupid thing i hate where they get all the focus despite not being any good (jericho, goldust, ddp). the only two people in that entire promotion after 3 weeks that I feel are good in the ring, good as characters, and i care about are neville and kenny.

Having two people calling the matches that haven't been good at their job since 2002 at the latest is a problem too. JR has been actively ****ing up peoples names for years in NJPW and has continued it here. He's legitimately terrible at this in his old age and it's depressing to see the voice I grew up with stick around so long that it's come to this.

outside of kenny and pac the in ring stuff has been super sloppy. i was watching it last night with some friends while we were waiting for food. the person that hadn't watched since like the angle days was asking if it was like the minor leagues where they work out the kinks before they go to the real show and was surprised when told that this was their real show (it was the tag match that opened).

It's not a show for me.

it is a show for others though. obviously some people like that style of wrestling, the nostalgia, the memes like lilbitothabubbly, and the shots at wwe. they have been looking for something new for a while and they are having fun.

the cool thing about wrestling is that there's so much of it now that you can find whatever works for you. I've been watching NWA and NJPW and enjoying it a lot. I was watching a lot of nxt but i find Walter, Bazler, and Finn Balor to be snoozers so I haven't been too invested since they went live (but oh buddy did I love the DIY/Revival -> DIY split -> feud -> DIY/Black storyline -> relinquish the title couple of years).

If AEW isn't for you don't sweat it. Find something that is and enjoy it. There's lots of good wrestling on right now if you look for it.

Jericho is one of the greatest heels of all time. He was a face way too often in WWE.

I'm with you regarding Cody in WWE but to me he's a completely new wrestler since leaving. "I didn't like Stunning Steve in WCW so I'm not going to be entertained by Stone Cold."

I thought Ambrose was pretty good in WWE. Never thought he was great but he was pretty good and its yet to be seen how well he will do in AEW.

I'm on the Tony Schiavone bandwagon. Brings me back to the days when he was commentating on WCW and before that NWA. I agree that JR shouldn't be commentating but so far he's done better than I expected and hasn't done anything where I'm thinking they just have to get rid of him. I understand why they hired him since he's a big name and a familiar voice to many.

The opening tag match was Private Party vs the Lucha Brothers. I found that match to be incredibly entertaining. I'll agree with you that mistakes were made and there was a strange botch towards the beginning. Private party is young. One of the members was born in 1997 so very young but with potential and still capable of delivering very entertaining matches.

One thing I like about AEW is that they have a lot of true tag teams dedicated to tag team wrestling. Perhaps WWE has improved in this area in recent years but their favorite thing to do is just put two big name superstars together and put them over the actual real tag teams. Over the years I was a big fan of the Rock N Roll Express, the Road Warriors, the Steiner Brothers, Harlem Heat, the New Age Outlaws and the Dudleys. WWE had pushed tag team wrestling to the side for quite some time.

I really like MJF. I think he has greatness written all over him. I also like what I've seen out of Sammy Guevara. I don't really have much of an opinion on Pac or Kenny yet. The jury is still out on them.

Oh, and I'm a big Jake Hager mark. Loved the Real Americans Gimmick (Cesaro is a REAL American?). Love that he's fighting in Bellator, and I love that he's a freakishly large athletic dude.

It's not all bad of course. There are a LOT of breaths of fresh air. I agree that such a heavy tag team focus is really nice. Tag Team wrestling is my favorite and for a long period of time a couple of years ago I thought the Revival were the best in the world at it. I'm also a big fan of how they announce matches through the week so you know what's coming during the show instead of pretending that nobody books anything and it all happens on the fly like in WWE main roster.

WRT Jericho, I think he's one of the 5 greatest of all time. Nobody was able to reinvent themselves so many times the way he did. He was relevant on TV in America as a Cruiserweight in WCW, in the Attitude Era, in the Agression Era, as a cold/calculating heel in the mid-late 00s, as a troll in the early-mid 10s, and then struck gold again as a goofball a few years ago with KO/scarf/catchphrases. I'm probably one of the biggest marks for him on the board overall and was one of the first people to call out "cool dad jericho" as a goldmine of comedy. I just think he's now 48 and doesn't really have it anymore (his elbow finisher is just awful) so him being the main focus point and first champion falls in line with the same problems I have with the announce crew (and the problems ive had with wwe for ages).

WRT Cody, I feel like I gave him a pretty reasonable shake when he struck out on his own. I watched him in NJPW and he's just not that entertaining but keeps booking himself as a main attraction.

I'm very happy that it exists, that it's got a good following, and hope that it succeeds even if it hasn't been for me yet. I also hope that as more and more experienced is gained in making a show it'll become more like things I enjoy too. The best thing for wrestling would be for there to be multiple promotions that push each other to be better. NJPW coming to the US is another nice step in this direction.

It's destroying NXT in the ratings because it is a fancy new thing. How NXT is "little kid crap" I have no idea.

The problem with most of those matches is that for them to work it has to be really seamless otherwise it looks like tonnes of spots being forced. I thought the opening two matches were meh, trying far too hard to force it.

I've been watching AEW weekly and passing on NXT, but I agree more with SR and JH.

They really need to focus more on character development/promos/squashes and not make every show 2 hours of spotfest/kickout epics. It's not effective when I have little to no investment in these wrestlers (yet).

After the Britt Baker/Jamie Hayter match, there was a very brief backstage segment where Hayter is being interviewed, and Brandi Rhodes comes over and beats down Hayter real fast. It was an extremely interesting (and confusing) little bit, then they went to commercial break. When they came back from break it was Moxley/PAC time and the incident just went unreported and unmentioned on TV for the rest of the episode.

What is that? That's a really poor job by AEW and especially JR/Schiavone by not questioning what the heck happened there. Presumably AEW will pick it up next week, but that's something that should always be followed up on after the commercial.

That fancy new thing very likely would've went up in ratings had there been no WS/NBA.

NXT's under WWE's umbrella. WWE's seen as for little kids. This is easily seen when you break the demographics down. Young people actually had a higher rating this week on AEW than last despite the competition. 50 and over (only demo NXT beats AEW in) lost viewers this week because that's baseball's demo.

So you're talking about peoples perspective, nothing to do with the actual show? NXT has consistently put on amazing takeovers for years, since the change to a two hour show it's been great because it's gotten rid of the filler episodes.

I do want to say I don't want to get into an NXT > AEW or anything else argument (though I clearly did this myself) I'm happy there is competition in a niche of wrestling I enjoy more than RAW/Smackdown (and takes about 1/3 of the time to keep up with). I doubt NXT ever goes this way if not for AEW.

I was referring to ratings since you did to open that part of your post and the ratings prove that people view NXT as WWE and that's why it's unlikely NXT will beat AEW any time soon. Do I think it's the same? No. From the four weeks I've watched, NXT has topped RAW/SD! every week.

I'm not going to **** on NXT as a show because it's good. I'm just more interested in seeing AEW. Also, I really don't enjoy any of TUE so that's a turn off.

NXT is rated TV-PG. If they really want to channel the attitude era like you are insinuating they will have to be at least TV-14 like AEW.

I don't think WWE is ever going TV-14 again, now that it's publicly traded.

I also think WWE has bigger issues to fix (or at least did when I stopped watching more than a year ago ... things may be better now, I don't know).

I agree. WWE made the change to become family friendly for a variety of reasons and it is now tied to that business model. It would be a herculean task to change now and as long as they are making money they will continue being family friendly. However, this means that AEW has a huge competitive advantage especially as it relates to the target demographic.

Clearly.

Jake Hager about to fight some tomato can in Bellator and LAX are there with him.

Cody got the nickname "3 Star Cody" after he left the WWE. I think people have seen more than enough of his recent work in NJPW and ROH to know what to expect. His match against Dustin was all good but he's been nothing but cringe and average apart from that.

If you're interested, Hager kneed the guy in the balls 3 times and caused a no contest.

Also someone forgot to tell Hager and Bellator that "We The People" was dead and buried and a stupid idea from bad creative...

That's the problem with fighting some of these low level guys. They will use whatever excuse they can to just quit the fight. What incentive does the guy have to get beat on some more? Try that in the UFC and you'll be lucky to get a fight again. Also, LoL Dan Miragliotta was reffing so gotta add the stupidity factor in there.

Yeah it was very obvious the dude wanted out of the fight. The first 2 shots weren't even near his balls.

I just hope "Knee The People" catches on.

LMAO @ "Knee the People"

My epic 20 thousandth post:

AEW last Wednesday opposed by NXT beat SD! in viewers. 963k to 888k.

SD!'s debut had 4.2 or 4.4 million viewers. While this last show was on FS1, Big Dave and Bryan predicted that this show would come in between 1.7m and 1.9m based on past shows on FS1 and situations. To say SD! was a disaster is an understatement.

and bump for Wednesday night!

Who's ready for the big contract signing between Cody and Jericho or the crowning of the first AEW tag champs...or Moxley "with a live mic"?!?!

That's pretty amazing. Still, I wouldn't draw too much from it and will see how they do on Fox in future weeks. The other major don't have that great of line ups for the target demo, IMO. Smackdown should be able to do ok. It finished 9th in the target demo on cable, but it lost to NBA Games and popular shows like Live PD. I'd say whoever thought Smackdown on FS1 would outdraw Live PD (1.5 million viewers) is ****ing insane. Also keep in mind MLB crushed the ratings Friday night.

BTW, this is one of the things I hated about the UFC being on Fox. They loved to move shows around and would at times bury UFC on cable networks like FX where nobody was looking for UFC.

Feel like Ricky Morton deserved that just for still trying to pull of that haircut anytime after 1990 really.

Hard to disagree.

They're recreating the Ric Flair/Mean Gene limo ride when he was supposed to face...Vader was it?

Yeah for 93 Starrcade on the way to the arena.

I don't mind this too much but we're getting a contract signing later, can we get more talent involved in the show or something?

Kabuki Warriors are on the other channel.