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What do you think about AEW’s bad ratings over the last few weeks?
The short answer?
I have to think Tony Khan will not be happy with this number after signing Okada, Ospreay and Mone. I know I wouldn't be. Why are they languishing? The answer is waiting for him in his mirror. I hope he sees it. https://t.co/IGrFxf2u2t
— Dave Scherer (@davescherer) March 14, 2024
The longer answer is that it comes down to good booking and characters that people can invest in to draw in the people that aren’t watching now. AEW’s core audience will watch whatever Tony Khan puts on TV, and that is a great thing. That audience should be served as they are the backbone of his company. With that said, the fans who aren’t watching now have little to no idea who Will Ospreay or Kazuchika Okada are, so just putting them on TV and expecting the fans to just know who they are is bad, bad booking. Tony Khan’s main problem, if his goal is to truly grow the company, is that he thinks everyone knows as much about what’s going on in wrestling as does. He thinks they all read a website where less than 100 people rate the quality of the TV shows. He thinks that that they watch Japanese wrestling matches and spend most of their waking hours thinking about wrestling. That isn’t reality if he wants to attract people who don’t do those things. He already has the people that do. If he could add quality booking and characters non-five star fans could invest in, he could grow his business. But Tony doesn’t seek out the advice of people who don’t share his vision of wrestling so that’s why the new hires and his five star match mania has limited his audience to what it is now. It’s possible Tony doesn’t care. It’s possible he will keep spending money to see what he wants to see and is fine with keeping AEW right where it is now. If that’s the case it’s his choice, but it’s sad to me to waste such potential.
Why did Tony Khan think it was a good idea to put the AEW Title Match on early and the women’s match on last? Didn’t he know that he made it easier for people to turn the show off?
I think he knows that now since that’s exactly what happened. His thinking probably was that he wanted the angle with new hire Mercedes Mone to be the main event of the night. My guess (and that’s all I can do since I have no idea how his mind works) is that he thought having Mercedes appear would actually lead to the Big Business that he claimed it would. I would hope he knows now that he is wrong.
If AEW wanted people to care about Okada, why did they put him with The Young Bucks?
That’s a great question because I am with you, two weeks in and The Bucks are dragging Okada down. It’s established that most of the time, a significant chunk of viewers change the channel when the Bucks come on their TV. Why Tony Khan would put a potential star hire in with them is something that makes zero sense to me. Then again, Tony also put Ospreay in a 51/49 match with Kyle Fletcher, which did nothing more than make Ospreay look ordinary to the casual fan, so I have no idea what his idea of booking is.
Sasha Banks leaving the WWE on similar terms as CM Punk, how long till Mercedes Mone becomes "difficult to work with" or any other receiving end of political shenanigans (similar to Punk) within AEW?
I think that will take a while. In Punk's case, he walked into a nursery school with childish wrestlers who had a direct line to a hack "reporter" so when they wanted to smear Punk, all they had to do was reach out with lies and he did the rest. The women's division, as I see it, doesn't have that dynamic. The division is also in major need of improvement so I think Mercedes won't have the same kind of children attacking her that Punk did, well unless for some reason The Lollipop Guild gets a bug up their ass about her. If so, all bets are off. They have their hack reporter ready to pounce if that happens.
What has happened to Chris Jericho? I used to love him now I just want him to go away.
I totally get how you feel. Jericho is totally overexposed now, 100 percent. He could have followed the Terry Funk helping ECW at the start lead but instead he just keeps showing up and I think he could use a break, preferably a long one.
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