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Rich

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Yeah Dixie carter used to always trumpet the +3 & +7 numbers (days after live viewing people watched on pvr).  

What makes wrestling valuable to stations right now is the believe it’s sports like presentation makes it less likely to be PVR’ed.  It’s not really true. 

But if we assume many people did pvr the shows last night the numbers are all the more impressive.  

I read the AEW demos actually beat most RAW’s. That’s....remarkable. Ofcourse it’s likely ratings cool off and in a few weeks we’ll know the base numbers.  And you hope to build from there. 

TNT said they’d be happy with 500,000. So they are ecstatic today. 

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Couple of thoughts on Dynamite...

- A lot of guys didn't see any screen time. I like that. We don't need to see everyone every week.

- I like the look/feel of the arena and the production. Like TUP mentioned, it feels like wrestling.

- Tony Schiavone and JR on commentary was very good to great. I've been so so on JR in AEW up to this point. A friend of mine and I were talking a while back and we agreed that it felt like JR just wasn't happy with the broadcast team and took the Homer Simpson approach ("If you don't like your job, don't quit. Just go in every day and do a really half-assed job"). Now that he's got Tony with him, he sounds more engaged.

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Also, just read that AEW had 109,000 viewers on TSN2. Someone on twitter did the math and that's equivalent to just under 1,000,000 US viewers. That's impressive on no promotion aside from a press release AND going up against opening night of the NHL season. For perspective, Raw gets about 250k-300k on Sportsnet from what I was reading.

Edited by ediger
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5 hours ago, ediger said:

Also, just read that AEW had 109,000 viewers on TSN2. Someone on twitter did the math and that's equivalent to just under 1,000,000 US viewers. That's impressive on no promotion aside from a press release AND going up against opening night of the NHL season. For perspective, Raw gets about 250k-300k on Sportsnet from what I was reading.

Really impressive especially considering the show didnt even appear in the guide and I saw a lot of confusion online about that (buddy told me it did appear on MTS guides on Wednesday morning but never did appear on SHAW guides).

For those that subscribe to Wrestling Observer, Dave Meltzer did a deep deep dive on the business aspects. Ill post some notes a bit later.

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I highly recommend subbing to Dave Meltzer.  I could go on a rant about guys *in* the business who dont...ugh anyway...some notes:

- Interesting, AEW hurt NXT but not by much.  AEW's audience was a lot of "new" fans, especially young fans.  It didnt draw a lof of nostalgia viewers (old Nitro fans) as it didnt skew old (like WWE does).  It skewed young and whooped NXT in the key demo (in fact, RAW & SD too).  AEW will surely decline next week and the key is, if they can keep those younger viewers to any degree because they dont have the 50+ crowd.

- AEW started with 1.6 million.

- As noted, AEW did 109,000 in Canada and was 6th for the night.  Wrestling is rarely top ten.  RAW, with Hogan & Flair did what was described as a "monster" rating of 227,000.  So normally they do not do that.

- Dave was a bit cool on Jake Hager feeling they have to be careful with anyone perceived as a WWE failure.

- Finn Balor was the NXT surprise and shows WWE's inherent strength in having an huge roster of "stars" to cycle in and out.

- Dave was also super negative on Mox attacking Kenny and it not being a DQ.  I think thats over-thinking it but I'd have had the announcers say something like "the official is being incredibly lenient here but he doesnt want the debut main event ending in a DQ", which is similar phrasing to what I'd have done in the women's world title match in terms of risk of c/o and dq since no one believes that will happen but its still teased.

- AEW had a strict "no anti-WWE" signs for their audience (as well as no profanity and politics).  One sign (Vince fears ratings) slipped through and was confiscated.

- Dave thought Kenny saving Riho was was odd since AEW has no plans for intergender.  But its exactly what I would have done (and thus, Kenny would do) in that it adds realism.  Riho is his protege and partner and everyone knows he scouts/books the women.  So it adds realism and gives Riho the rub.  The only other thing would have been to have the next contender attack but you dont want too many attacks like that and they saved it for the main.

By the way, Luchasaurus is going to be huge.

- Big story on CMLL, too big to fully detail.  But their top guys Rush & brother Dragon Lee were fired.  Lots of politics as they are top guys in ROH who have a relationship with CMLL (and New Japan).  So pressure could be coming.  Both are highly sought after by WWE and AEW.

- The Punk/Cabana lawsuit (they sued each other) was settled out of court.  Doesnt sound overly amicable as Punk buried him online.  

- Punk tried out for a WWE sportscentre-like show on FS1, produced by FOX.  WWE has little to do with it to the extent, Jim Ross was offered a spot on the show.  FOX wants it to be like the UFC show they did which talked honestly (and negatively) about newsworthy UFC topics.  WWE will hate that.  Punk still says he has no interest in wrestling.  He is (or was) close friends with one of the Bucks but was publicly negative on AEW.  Vince would take him back but others (likely Hunter) hate his guts.

- Cain Velasquez met with WWE and was close to a deal.  The Brock segment on RAW was Heyman's way of building to something with Cain.  Apparently it hit a snag though.  Cain loves Lucha and wants to be a masked superhero.  WWE wants him for the UFC story of Cain vs Brock.  AEW also wants Cain and would let him do more of what he wants to do.

- Dave has a nice bio of Rick Bognar (fake Razor) who passed away at 49 and was well known in Canada (worked with Jericho, Storm, Callis etc, was hired by WWE at Bret Hart's recommendation). 

- ROH signed Matt Taven to a big deal.  Marty Scurll is the next guy up with a deal expiring in Nov.  They want him to stay.  AEW would want him as well.

- AEW signed a deal with Hot Topic to carry merchandise at every store in North America.

- WWE working hard on NXT Japan

- Goldberg got $2 million for his match with Undertaker

- Some reports that Austin is open to one more match (possibly Saudi Arabia due to the money)

- WWE accidentally billed Flair as a 17-time World Champion when they always bill him as a 16-time World Champion.  The real number is more like 20-22

- Edge is also considering wrestling again.  He was cleared for some contact (the spear) but nothing else and quite possibly never would be.  Apparently, he negotiated both sides (I assume that means AEW?) and got a great deal from WWE to do some work for them.

- Stephanie told FOX her eldest daughter (Aurora, 13) is already training to wrestle.

- Strowman signed a 4 year deal at $1.2 million per year.  Anderson & Gallows signed 5 year deals at $750,000 per after turning down $500,000 per and were going to leave.  Styles got well over $1 million per year.  AEW has been very good to WWE wrestlers.

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4 hours ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Really impressive especially considering the show didnt even appear in the guide and I saw a lot of confusion online about that (buddy told me it did appear on MTS guides on Wednesday morning but never did appear on SHAW guides).

For those that subscribe to Wrestling Observer, Dave Meltzer did a deep deep dive on the business aspects. Ill post some notes a bit later.

Depends on how old your cable box is or what type it is.  My older cable box showed MLS soccer but my newer one did show AEW.  Either way, it's a good number considering how last minute it was added.

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1 minute ago, bigg jay said:

Depends on how old your cable box is or what type it is.  My older cable box showed MLS soccer but my newer one did show AEW.  Either way, it's a good number considering how last minute it was added.

Really?  I have a brand new box, just got it this summer.  Showed MLS soccer...hmmmm

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Fast nationals.  Full ratings out Tuesday. 

Big number for wrestling.  But it under performed compared to industry expectations of 4.0-4.5 million.   

The key demo did a 1.35 which makes the minimum 1.0 (required by fox) in doubt.  But they did a heck of a job promoting.  And had a great angle. 

Speaking of Cain, talk that he isn’t signed yet (he’s working an indie this weekend). But he met with AEW this week and showed them his wwe offer.  AEW passed so whatever wwe is paying is really big. 

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6 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Speaking of Cain, talk that he isn’t signed yet (he’s working an indie this weekend). But he met with AEW this week and showed them his wwe offer.  AEW passed so whatever wwe is paying is really big. 

Truthfully, he's probably a better fit (right now anyway) with the WWE, in my opinion.

The angle with Brock writes itself and neither guy is expected to put on a technical masterpiece. 

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6 minutes ago, bigg jay said:

Truthfully, he's probably a better fit (right now anyway) with the WWE, in my opinion.

The angle with Brock writes itself and neither guy is expected to put on a technical masterpiece. 

I agree.  It’s the money angle. I think aew offered him the opportunity to do something he preferred. But that wouldn’t have been what fans wanted necessarily.  

It doesn’t help wwe with their big problem of creating stars though.  If I’m heyman my long game is brock winning the Cain feud, being dominant and eventually losing to Riddle at a future WM.  

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17 minutes ago, ediger said:

Jericho's promo was pretty great. Typically I'm not a fan of promos mentioning that things are scripted but I didn't mind it in Jericho's. It almost came across as "those guys have writers and creative teams; we're more real". I'm fine with that.

It also nipped the chant in the bud immediately. 
 

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