I thought they were D-Lo Brown type builds and didn't buy them as monsters. It turns out that Rezar is more like a ripped Vader esp knowing now that he has fought MMA professionally.

I think they're exceeding expectations already. They have a charity event in Jacksonville, FL on July 13 in a venue that houses 5k people and have sold 4k tickets during pre-sale while the only promotion for it was through their We Are The Elite series and possibly Twitter.

Don’t forget All In last year, but I guess that wasn’t an AEW event, but the Double or Nothing show sold out a 17000+ arena in one day.

There is absolutely demand for a second major US-based wrestling promotion. WCW didn't die because there weren't enough fans for two companies.

I want AEW to succeed because not only will it give me more good wrestling to watch, but its success will force Vince to be creative in a way he hasn't been since the last time he faced real competition.

Doing well with 3 shows spaced way the hell apart and having a weekly TV show and national touring brand couldn't be more different.

Wrestling ratings are nowhere near back then. There also has been a second US company the entire time. TNA did okay early on.

I wouldn't call AEW the XFL as their big shows instantly sell out. It's just gonna basically kill off and replace TNA/ROH instead of actually going against WWE though. AEW could easily survive as for them the biggest hurdle is TV taping costs when they start those. If it replaces WWE, it's because WWE ratings went even more to ****; there's a lot less casual fans nowadays.

Every WWE jobber from the attitude era is way more known by a lot than everyone but Jericho in AEW is their biggest problem atm. Nobody knows who Omega is outside of hardcore fans.

Obviously this is true but it does prove there's enough of a market for their product. They probably beat TNA right now and they're still going on with a weekly show (which is on twitch, lol but the alternative is some channel nobody gets so...).

They're going to instantly beat ROH too which was bought by Sinclair Broadcasting in June or July of 2011. No coincidence that I (and lots of other fans) ditched ROH in mid-2011 either. The product turned to **** because of the change of ownership and new way of distributing the product.

I have some optimism that having Jericho and snatching a couple of WWE names will attract some and maybe they stay for Omega, TYB's. I do hope Cody retires to run things somehow. I find him and his wife unbearable to watch.

regarding AEW, the roster overall is fine except for the too many friends and guys already over 40 and it's good to grow new stars, I just don't know why the hell anyone would tune in that's not already a hardcore watcher of those guys.

Everyone's gonna go OMG they leave to AEW, but there's only a handful of WWE/TNA/ROH guys I'd even consider at this point with the roster as there's only a handful of actual draws in wrestling at this point.

Then again AEW is basically hemoraging money with talent (I mean I like the pay the wrestlers things like health care and **** is good but also paying them well over whatever wwe would offer is wtf). Some of the rumors are hilarious (like 6M for Ambrose, yeah the guy on the shield nobody cares about, gjge). (I don't believe this rumor but they are torching money on fire over there for no reason)

Is Jericho really a bigger draw than Ambrose? I find that somewhat hard to believe. I'd have thought that if Ambrose joined he'd be far and away the biggest name on the roster to more casual fans.

There is also the fact that Ambrose out of the WWE where he can do more ****ed up stuff is a pretty valuable thing. A few hardcore matches with Havoc and the like definitely adds variety to shows.

I can only imagine it's good for the wrestlers as they are all lining their pockets. I can't imagine (m)any have much financial risk involved in the project and it sounds like everyone is on silly money. If it goes tits up it's hard to believe the bigger names are going to struggle to get new deals elsewhere.

The big question is whether Khan knows what he's getting into. The AAF folded after two months because they had no idea what they were doing. When things started of poorly, investors bolted and left everything high and dry. One of the owners took care of funding for a bit but ultimately just wrapped it up. They had no competition, some castoffs and more well known coaches, and tv time (including some on nfl network!). They had all these positives and still just were miserable from the start.

Make no mistake. AEW is going to bleed money for a long time. Years worth of time. They were reported to have a TNT or TBS deal lined up. A tv deal isn't some nice bonus they have which we should view as a hopeful sign. It's mandatory for them if they want to even have a chance at future success. It's the bare minimum.

Khan is doing the right things early to get talent. Actual benefits and increased salary are great. The question is whether he wants to pay those over the course of 3 years before seeing anything resembling a chance at success. It will not happen overnight. WCW during the war went into overdrive to give talent way more than WWF was at the time. It did a good job of getting them but in the long run the powers that be were tired of the money pit it created and got rid of it. Will he get bored or ride it out?

I am hoping for success for them because any company who starts off by treating their employees - and I use that term on purpose - well deserves a shot. Even if they don't make it, if they can force Vince's hand to give benefits to those that work *for* him similar to how WCW forced him to do guaranteed contracts then it will all be worth it. Plus, who knows. A second wrestling war could be fun.

Some interesting CM Punk news developing. It appears he did a run in at a Milwaukee indy show last night under a mask. Punk in AEW would cause quite a stir.



The booker has said it was Punk and there are pics on IG of Punk in those same clothes a couple of hours prior.

I think so. Jericho was champion when wrestling was actually popular and he's viewed and presented as a legend since 2010 in WWE so older and newer generations know him. Ambrose is part of The Shield who really never had a big run and was champion of the show nobody watches (SD!).

It was later reported that Punk has done this 3-4 times already. It was being filmed for some thing Colt Cabana was doing and was cut once they had their falling out.

fwiw I looked a bit and never found those reports.

This is funny.

Insert all of my lols here

Imagine being such a mark that you quit because you lost a title at mania

I believe the correct term is "bye felicia"

The formerly War Machine formerly War Raiders formerly The Viking Experience are now The Viking Warriors.

Soon to be the Viking Foundation, soon to be Viking World Order, soon to be Legion of Vikings, soon to be Viking House Party, soon to be The 1-2-3 Vikings.

Guy next door Owens could have been terrible but funny.

They were basically doing that the last few weeks and it was pretty good. KO seems like the type who can make basically anything work.

That sounds like a description of Tommy Dreamer's character. Owens is obviously a significantly better talent than Dreamer was though.

I don't know if I could have taken another week of him being the Big E replacement.

No, but he can burn lots of millions and still not give a **** so there's that. He's living the dream of all the people in the mid 30's who grew up in the attitude era with your own wrestling company.

The good news is that he's got a niche product that can sell out a show. The bad is I don't know how he can make money paying the talent that much.

Khan is an NFL guy, it's pretty obvious that AEW is a play in direct retaliation to Vince re-booting the XFL Khan is probably just a figurehead for a larger consortium of NFL owners. Even if the company fails, it forces Vince into a bidding war for talent, drains his resources and exploits political fractions and divisions within the fanbase (just like the XFL is attempting to do).

As someone who knows nothing about the NFL this seems fair, I feel like this is probably pretty OTT response in reality though, maybe falling ratings are enough of a threat?

For one team to take the loss on the chin also seems particularly odd.

Jericho has said that they're revealing the network they're going to be on very soon.

Billionaire guy has said that there's going to be surprises at the Double or Nothing show on 5/25 and I'm sure there will be as it's one of his only chances to hook people. I'll be watching for sure as I don't know a lot of these guys and want to see what's up. Also, this is on the 26th anniversary of the 2nd best tag team match to ever happen so it outta be good, right?

I don't see how their show won't knock it out the park. I kind of consider myself a fringe of "ITK" wrestling fan (just because where I'm from it takes effort to be into it relatively, get into it through wrestling youtube channels etc) and I'm going to watch and I know about japanese **** and rarely care enough.

That being said being successful is getting that weekly audience involved. No doubt they can do silly big one off shows. If they did them every week?