The Wrestling Thread

[Reprise]

I guarantee AEW could still be doing great PPV buys and attendance rates in a decade and people will still be saying "BuT wHaT aBoUt tHe Tv RaTiNgs?" and saying the company is dying.

Meanwhile WWE will still be relying on the same fossils and people will be saying it's amazing, even though it's 70% promos and the matches are in slow motion and they use a million rest holds (sorry, "selling")

Edit: Also just to add that the comparison is apples and oranges, since that 0.5 (that's their lowest btw, not their average) doesn't include the Max figures which are believed to be around 0.5-0.7 on average too. WWE's figures (the 2.7) is from Raw on Netflix I guess? I honestly don't know what it refers too to be honest, since WWE is on Netflix now and they like to boast about global figures more now than just domestic US ratings.

[RCBH928]

I wouldn't worry about AEW. They are not going away anytime soon.

https://x.com/KXNGAO/status/1938592573485978097

One could have said the same thing about TNA. Had better ratings than current AEW (1.0) and a hard to believe roster with Ric Flair, Hogan, Aj Styles, Sting, Kurt Angle,Scott Steiner, Booker T. Went south real hard.

[RCBH928]

I guarantee AEW could still be doing great PPV buys and attendance rates in a decade and people will still be saying "BuT wHaT aBoUt tHe Tv RaTiNgs?" and saying the company is dying.

Meanwhile WWE will still be relying on the same fossils and people will be saying it's amazing, even though it's 70% promos and the matches are in slow motion and they use a million rest holds (sorry, "selling")

Edit: Also just to add that the comparison is apples and oranges, since that 0.5 (that's their lowest btw, not their average) doesn't include the Max figures which are believed to be around 0.5-0.7 on average too. WWE's figures (the 2.7) is from Raw on Netflix I guess? I honestly don't know what it refers too to be honest, since WWE is on Netflix now and they like to boast about global figures more now than just domestic US ratings.

low rating -> low income -> inevitable death. I think that ratings called Nielson ratings, its a company that monitors people watching tv. each 1 point is 1% of house hold. Currently there are 124 million households (usa). so 1=1.24 million. so raw's 2.7 rating is about 3.3M viewers.

I used to complain about WWE boring shows. You should have seen the mid 90s raw. Mid-card vs jobber all show long then the finale is 1 star vs low card wrestler. After monitoring the business for a long time and how successful Vince is, looks like people like boring repetitive shows week in week out. Thats his formula and it worked great for him.

I must say ECW was best in ring action on weekly basis I have ever seen, but hardly picked up and died eventually.

[Reprise]

Oh neilson ratings? Yeah, I feel those are losing relevance. They don't take into account streaming figures and that's the direction all major wrestling promotions are going in. WWE is on Netflix, AEW is on Max and their PPVs are on Amazon, Youtube and Triller. TNA is on streaming (I think?). Nobody will care about neilson figures in 5 years time. I personally haven't used traditional TV in nearly a decade. All the major television channels here have their own designated streaming apps. I used to watch WWE on the Network and *cough* pirate Raw and Smackdown, and watch AEW on Triller. Now I watch all of WWE on Netflix and AEW on ITV+.

I watched WWE in the mid 90s and it was bad. They had to change and adapt, because WCW came along and put on a better show than them. WWE blew them out of the water once they learned to change.

ECW was good and I enjoyed a lot of it, but it could also be downright awful. I think people view it through rose tinted glasses now. People like to attack AEW's "nonsensical" or chaotic booking, but ECW was regularly just making shit up as they went along to the point where a PPV card would just randomly change on the night because reasons. Also, they had loads of terrible matches. For every Jerry Lynn vs RVD they would put on, they would have a million Sabu vs Sandmans or terrible tag team matches.

[Raging Justice]

AEW has its core audience and WWE has theirs. Ultimately, it doesn't matter that both of them are putting out a shitty product right now. They each have enough fans to keep them afloat. In that sense, AEW really is no different than WWE now. It's just another soulless wrestling company that coasts on its core fanbase. Tony Kahn has the same level of passion for wrestling as Triple H, which is very little.

AEW hasn't even been around that long and already has lived long enough to become the villain. They are just like WWE in being a stale, lackluster product with bad booking and creative. Both companies are being run by bookers who don't care.

"Meanwhile WWE will still be relying on the same fossils and people will be saying it's amazing, even though it's 70% promos and the matches are in slow motion and they use a million rest holds (sorry, "selling")"

At this point, Toni Storm, Mercedes Mone, and Jon Moxley feel like fossils. Frankly, WWE has been shaking things up more in 2025 than AEW has. AEW clearly has the more stale product right now. Tony Kahn only pushes the same people and never does anything noteworthy with any of his titles. He just sticks them on someone and forgets about them for months and months and months ESPECIALLY if they are women because he doesn't want to do the work of properly booking a women's division so instead we just get endless boring title reigns with Toni Storm, Mercedes Mone, and Athena over in ROH. And I could just as easily criticize AEW matches for being too over the top while WWE matches at least maintain a sense of realism. AEW matches sometimes look like an overly choreographed circus, and that's not even bringing up the constant blood and gore which I know for a fact turns people off, because I know casual wrestling fans who have told me this.

AEW has its flaws, as does WWE. I would love a third option that could combine the strengths of both companies with a better product, but that option doesn't exist. Frankly, pro wrestling in 2025 sucks and I'm tired of the WWE vs AEW stuff because they both suck right now. Though AEW sucks a little bit worse.

[Reprise]

[Raging Justice]

This is true. Part of the problem is that a lot of fans didn't grow up during a time when wrestling was good. They literally don't know what they are missing unless they are the types who love retro stuff and go looking for older stuff to watch.

On another note, people are now referring to recent weeks as "The Punk Humiliation Tour"

He never should have come out of retirement. His runs in AEW and WWE have forever tarnished his legacy. Although he really only has himself to blame. His own words and actions are coming back to bite him in the ass right now. That's karma. It's a bitch. His defenders during his AEW run are now changing their tune saying "maybe Omega, Page and the Bucks were right". Punk will be remembered in the same light as some of the people he loves to bad mouth, although he ends up looking worse because his career can't even compare to someone like Hulk Hogan. Punk apologizing to Saudi Arabia in the most non sincere way possible, then being caught on camera shoving a child is just peak Phil Brooks

[RCBH928]

Oh neilson ratings? Yeah, I feel those are losing relevance. They don't take into account streaming figures and that's the direction all major wrestling promotions are going in. WWE is on Netflix, AEW is on Max and their PPVs are on Amazon, Youtube and Triller. TNA is on streaming (I think?). Nobody will care about neilson figures in 5 years time. I personally haven't used traditional TV in nearly a decade. All the major television channels here have their own designated streaming apps. I used to watch WWE on the Network and *cough* pirate Raw and Smackdown, and watch AEW on Triller. Now I watch all of WWE on Netflix and AEW on ITV+.

I watched WWE in the mid 90s and it was bad. They had to change and adapt, because WCW came along and put on a better show than them. WWE blew them out of the water once they learned to change.

ECW was good and I enjoyed a lot of it, but it could also be downright awful. I think people view it through rose tinted glasses now. People like to attack AEW's "nonsensical" or chaotic booking, but ECW was regularly just making shit up as they went along to the point where a PPV card would just randomly change on the night because reasons. Also, they had loads of terrible matches. For every Jerry Lynn vs RVD they would put on, they would have a million Sabu vs Sandmans or terrible tag team matches.

-I think Neilson will evolve to do studies to track viewers on all platforms.

-Did WWE network only post archived material? i thought they had all the shows and ppvs streamed.

-When Vince was doing Billy Gunn vs Aaron Ferguson , Bischoff was having all time classic Macho Man vs Ric Flair as the starter match of Nitro He was going to bankrupt Vince if things continued his way. Vince has to thank god that The Rock and Steve Austin just happened to appear at that time. HE resorted to mimic nWo with DX and have sable do striptease to attract attention

-I didn't watch all ECW, while story lines and organization was a mess, in ring action never seemed to fail. It was exciting because you had no idea what you are about to watch unlike WWE that you can tell that outcome of each match. I used to watch so much wrestling, I can foretell who will win the match and how (pin, DQ, interference)

[RCBH928]

This is true. Part of the problem is that a lot of fans didn't grow up during a time when wrestling was good. They literally don't know what they are missing unless they are the types who love retro stuff and go looking for older stuff to watch.

On another note, people are now referring to recent weeks as "The Punk Humiliation Tour"

He never should have come out of retirement. His runs in AEW and WWE have forever tarnished his legacy. Although he really only has himself to blame. His own words and actions are coming back to bite him in the ass right now. That's karma. It's a bitch. His defenders during his AEW run are now changing their tune saying "maybe Omega, Page and the Bucks were right". Punk will be remembered in the same light as some of the people he loves to bad mouth, although he ends up looking worse because his career can't even compare to someone like Hulk Hogan. Punk apologizing to Saudi Arabia in the most non sincere way possible, then being caught on camera shoving a child is just peak Phil Brooks

-This is why pro-wrestling is a great business! By the time the 8 year olds become 20 year olds and tired of the old formula, there a new wave of 8 year old customers who are watching wrestling for the first time and its so all exciting for them! Never ending supply of customers!

-IMO, the biggest problem with modern wrestling is the characters just suck. I would watch Macho Man all day long over something like Moxley or Kofi Kingston . Something about society and pro-wrestling changed but characters are very dull.

[Reprise]

In regards to characters, it's because a hell of a lot of wrestlers now just play themselves. The ruthless aggression era in WWE pushed this pretty hard.

Characters in the 80s and 90s were so bombastic and over the top.

I remember Paul Heyman explaining that the best characters are based on wrestlers' own personalities, but turned up to 11. He would use people like Stone Cold Steve Austin as an example of that.

The problem is I think perhaps too many people do that and lack the charisma or a unique factor to pull it off.

We once had Sting, the Undertaker, the APA, D-Generation X, Mankind, Booker T, The Godfather, The Rock, Stone Cold.

And they were swapped for guys whose whole gimmick is either "my name is [insert name here] and I want to be the best"