General Wrestling Discussion

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Meltzer talked on his latest podcast about how live attendance for anything but Raw and Smackdown has utterly shit the bed. AEW is way down and they can only really sell out smaller venues or places they haven't been before at this stage. NXT has sold 1500 for a venue that holds 8000, another show only has 750 tickets sold. The annual NJPW show in San Jose that usually sells out has only sold 700 tickets so far.

I can sort of understand AEW and NJPW because they are ice cold at the moment but even though i don't watch NXT i get the impression that the product is fairly good at the moment. Maybe wrestling is just heading into another lull period?
 
trent said:
Maybe wrestling is just heading into another lull period?
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tony has his hand in too many positions within his own company. it just screams control freak. And yeah NXT is okay but there's still dumb ideas floating around in that company as a whole, like a turd that wont flush. like wendy choo being an "evil sleepytime honk-shoo" character. just let the bitch work.
 
Well Intentioned said:
Well. Give it time.
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AEW's ratings are only going to get lower from here on out, itll survive as long as Shahid keeps funding it (unfourtnately),the fact is in its current form AEW can't do business
WhimsicalTrolli said:
Wasn't the issue that Vince was phasing him out into a early retirement? Apparently they left in good terms but the silm Jim deal macho gave to wcw ruined their friendship. I didn't take till Mattel doing an action figure for the two to reconcile.

It's kinda similar to edge departure where the older wrestler wanted to do more but the company wanted them to do less on the road or flat out retire.
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i always found that amazing, Savage just kind of dipped out of wrestling for good after 2000 (aside from that one match in TNA), never appeared in a non-wrestling capacity throughout the 2000s until his death, you have guys like Taker,Austin,Hogan still in the public eye to some degree after their retirements, it must of been a nasty falling out if he just never even considered Vince after WCW folded, the closest thing I can think of today is Batista,but he still wishes WWE well and he's still known for his stuff in Hollywood
trent said:
Maybe wrestling is just heading into another lull period?
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gotta disagree here, at least in terms of the WWE its doing great, I could easily see it continuing to be hot for at least another few years, NXT is smaller, but thats because its developmental, AEW sucks but its earned its reputation, TNA is kind of doomed to perpetually being small, but it still has its dedicated fanbase
 
Caddo Cobgang said:
i always found that amazing, Savage just kind of dipped out of wrestling for good after 2000 (aside from that one match in TNA), never appeared in a non-wrestling capacity throughout the 2000s until his death, you have guys like Taker,Austin,Hogan still in the public eye to some degree after their retirements, it must of been a nasty falling out if he just never even considered Vince after WCW folded, the closest thing I can think of today is Batista,but he still wishes WWE well and he's still known for his stuff in Hollywood
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I'm happy he didn't continue to wrestle in the 2000s, when he returned to WCW in 99 he lost a step and looked totally washed.
 
trent said:
I can sort of understand AEW and NJPW because they are ice cold at the moment but even though i don't watch NXT i get the impression that the product is fairly good at the moment. Maybe wrestling is just heading into another lull period?
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I think it's more that the American wrestling market is oversaturated at this point.

There might be more wrestling on TV than ever but the difference this time is that almost all of those promotions view themselves as National brands and you can't regularly cycle out talent every six months like the regional promotions did 30+ years ago (outside of NXT which is just effectively the WWE C-show at this point)

So, unless you're keeping talent and storylines hot, the product is going to get stagnant. WWE/NXT has basically been the only company to stave that off completely. For every 1 or 2 good things AEW had going over the last year, WWE had doubled that.

NXT really shouldn't be booking 8000 seat arenas anyway, outside of Royal Rumble/WrestleMania/Summerslam weekends.
 
Preferred Penne said:
Another gem from WWE Vault: Kurt Angle vs. Christian at the Funkin' Dojo from August 1998. Angle is supposedly a raw rookie but he looks like a ten-year vet.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=PtF1CwacfCc
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3 factors at play there.

1. A Funk is the trainer. You really couldn't ask for better teachers.

2. It's Kurt. He's a fucking freak.

3. It's.. It's Christian. Best worker in the biz. Just ask Christian.

Also Dory had his last match, supposedly, this year on August 24th at 83 years old. Little factoid.
 
Rick The Stick said:
3 factors at play there.

1. A Funk is the trainer. You really couldn't ask for better teachers.

2. It's Kurt. He's a fucking freak.

3. It's.. It's Christian. Best worker in the biz. Just ask Christian.

Also Dory had his last match, supposedly, this year on August 24th at 83 years old. Little factoid.
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Great Kojika is still wrestling occasionally at 82. He is working that Masanobu Fuchi schedule of showing up a couple of times a year to work. I think he is the oldest currently active wrestler since Dory retired.
 
ive been warming up to Gable as of late, I kind of thought of him as the Jannetty to Jason Jordan when they were a tag team in NXT, boy was I fucking wrong, Chad would be one of my picks to dethrone Cody for the title at some point, even if its just one of those brief 2-month heel runs I think he could do some good things
I.B. Niggin said:
NXT really shouldn't be booking 8000 seat arenas anyway, outside of Royal Rumble/WrestleMania/Summerslam weekends.
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that much is true, most people are already in the wrestling mood during Rumble/Mania season so theyll catch Stand and Deliver before Mania starts for example, id say this 3.0 era of NXT is pretty good in terms of being able to promote, even my brother-in-law who is generally a casual wrestling fan is familar with a lot of the talent in NXT
 
ElHijodeDeficienciaCogni said:
Great Kojika is still wrestling occasionally at 82. He is working that Masanobu Fuchi schedule of showing up a couple of times a year to work. I think he is the oldest currently active wrestler since Dory retired.
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On one hand, I'm a mark. I think it's impressive for these old farts to still be able to get in there, no matter how limited.

On the other, I don't wanna hear about someone's grandad dying in the ring because they just couldn't let go or, God forbid, still needed the money.

Wrestling's weird.
 
Rick The Stick said:
On one hand, I'm a mark. I think it's impressive for these old farts to still be able to get in there, no matter how limited.

On the other, I don't wanna hear about someone's grandad dying in the ring because they just couldn't let go or, God forbid, still needed the money.

Wrestling's weird.
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Pretty sure Kojika wants to die in the ring. He still books himself in BJW death matches, and he still takes the bumps. Like Kojika was wrestling while Rikidozan was wrestling. He started wrestling three years after Inoki and Baba started and outlasted their in-ring careers by decades. Hell he still moves and works better than Masanobu Fuchi who is only 70 years old.
Kojika.jpg
 
trent said:
Meltzer talked on his latest podcast about how live attendance for anything but Raw and Smackdown has utterly shit the bed. AEW is way down and they can only really sell out smaller venues or places they haven't been before at this stage. NXT has sold 1500 for a venue that holds 8000, another show only has 750 tickets sold. The annual NJPW show in San Jose that usually sells out has only sold 700 tickets so far.

I can sort of understand AEW and NJPW because they are ice cold at the moment but even though i don't watch NXT i get the impression that the product is fairly good at the moment. Maybe wrestling is just heading into another lull period?
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I'm not sure how you can deduce wrestling is going into a lull period because NXT isn't doing gangbusters.

I'd want more details on the NXT shows because my first impression is that its Meltzer trying to equate NXT to AEW.
 
Well Intentioned said:
I'm not sure how you can deduce wrestling is going into a lull period because NXT isn't doing gangbusters.

I'd want more details on the NXT shows because my first impression is that its Meltzer trying to equate NXT to AEW.
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The first mistake is not disregarding everything coming out the mouth of a known AEW propagandist that swears up and down he's a journalist, like that's something to brag about.
 
How does AEW continue to stay afloat? You know what the WWE does and always has done incredibly well? Merchandising. I still have all of my Jakk’s Pacific toys I had as a kid that must’ve cost my parents a small fortune. I have seen a few Bullet Club shirts in the wild over the past ten years, but I constantly see nWo and other WWE branded apparel all over the place. It’s like as time goes on, AEW ceases to exist.

I hear more people talk about CZW and GCW events than AEW.
 
Looney Troons said:
How does AEW continue to stay afloat? You know what the WWE does and always has done incredibly well? Merchandising. I still have all of my Jakk’s Pacific toys I had as a kid that must’ve cost my parents a small fortune. I have seen a few Bullet Club shirts in the wild over the past ten years, but I constantly see nWo and other WWE branded apparel all over the place. It’s like as time goes on, AEW ceases to exist.

I hear more people talk about CZW and GCW events than AEW.
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So long as the Khan's continue to dump money into it, the doors will stay open, just like Ted Turner with WCW. Although that comparison sort of falls flat when you consider the fact that WCW was still making a decent profit even in it's dying days. It just wasn't enough of a profit to sway executives who were already bias against wrestling and were looking for an excuse to cut them off.
 
Magic Sun Daddy said:
So long as the Khan's continue to dump money into it, the doors will stay open, just like Ted Turner with WCW. Although that comparison sort of falls flat when you consider the fact that WCW was still making a decent profit even in it's dying days. It just wasn't enough of a profit to sway executives who were already bias against wrestling and were looking for an excuse to cut them off.
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i like to think that WCW would still be around had the execs been interested in keeping it and not be biased against it. i wonder what that big bang ppv would've been like
 
Looney Troons said:
How does AEW continue to stay afloat? You know what the WWE does and always has done incredibly well? Merchandising. I still have all of my Jakk’s Pacific toys I had as a kid that must’ve cost my parents a small fortune. I have seen a few Bullet Club shirts in the wild over the past ten years, but I constantly see nWo and other WWE branded apparel all over the place. It’s like as time goes on, AEW ceases to exist.

I hear more people talk about CZW and GCW events than AEW.
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Mostly their TV deals and live gate for the bigger PPVs. All In Texas went on pre-sale today and already sold $1 million worth of tickets.

I'd imagine that their mid/low card guys are getting paid a fairly average salary and are just there for the steady money they wouldn't get in the bingo halls, that's a huge advantage. You can pay the likes of Serpentico and the Renegade Twins 50k a year and use them as main talent on RoH and as jobbers on AEW occasionally and it fills time on your TV show for fuck all money. You'd have a few huge contracts which would put a dent in their coffers but apparently WBD covers some of the cost of putting on the TV shows so that would soften the blow on that.

They are probably making a loss but it more than likely isn't in 10s of millions and if they can become an established brand with their new TV deal and MAX streaming then advertisers will throw cash at them.

Then you have the fact that the Khans empire was allegedly worth at least 4 times what pre-TKO WWE was. That puts the in a position to run AEW as a loss making business for decades if they want to. The wrestling company is basically a side hustle to all the rest of their shit.
 
Hijo de D. Woodchucks Jr. said:
The first mistake is not disregarding everything coming out the mouth of a known AEW propagandist that swears up and down he's a journalist, like that's something to brag about.
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Yeah, that's where I was going with that.

The fact that things are getting so dire that even Meltzer has to acknowledge that AEW is drawing shitty sure is a sign, though.

Whatever happened to the Snowman swearing up and down booking bigger venues was, ackshully, a good thing because of discounts or marketing or whatever. Are we entering a period of cost cutting for AEW? Is the cocaine monomania psychosis wearing off?
 
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