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I saw Tony Khan's interview on the site. He kept saying that Double Or Nothing would be on PPV but when I checked all of the outlets, I can't find it. Where will it air?
If you tell me we will both know. I have checked around and it’s not listed anywhere yet. I even looked on their Twitter page and people that asked that same question weren’t given an answer. They have less than a month to get the word out. They should do that as soon as possible. People can’t buy a show that they can not find.
Speaking of AEW, I looked for tickets to their show in Jacksonville and saw ringside tickets from 279 dollars to over $800. Isn’t that pretty excessive? Would you charge that much if you were them? What would you charge for the PPV?
Well, if they can sell them, no. If they can’t, yes! Personally, I wouldn’t pay that much to see the second event of any company, but they aren’t marketing to me. I get that they need to generate revenue and all but if it were me, I would go with lower prices at first. If the idea is to build a following and make yourself marketable to a TV network, I would rather say we sold more PPVs (at a lower price) than much fewer at a higher price. If it’s me, I go $19.99 to start and try to get people to get behind my product.
Re: the recent WWE earnings conference call, I guess it was inevitable that Vince McMahon would blame everyone and everything else for the poor TV ratings and general drop in interest in WWE and its programming - the backlash against Saudi Arabia would surely be one contributing factor - but wouldn't Vince's sophistry connected to the absent talent, to wit: "When talents are out, you don't have storylines" be a huge slap in the face to the talent that IS still there and not being used properly to suggest it is the talent that dictates the story and not the other way round? I know the answer is "because Vince..." but his words read as thoughtless and rash to me. However, is it really beyond Vince's comprehension to supplant the absent talent with the active talent so you DO have the storylines? It makes you wonder why people would want to work for Vince if he doesn't value anyone outside of his chosen few.
The funny thing is, Vince usually says that the brand is the draw. He says people come to see WWE, etc. Now, it’s the talent’s fault. It’s a cop out, in a lot of ways. One, the talent never worked harder than it does now. But beyond that, this isn’t “real” sports. The talent can only do what the people telling the stories tell them to do. It’s not the wrestlers’ fault that the creative is dull. But, Vince never blames himself, even when he should.
In the Q1 2019 earnings call, Vince McMahon said that talent absence has hurt WWE’s ability to create storylines and draw ratings. Between Takeover, WrestleMania (which had two battle royals) and Axxess that is about 30 matches in a three-day period so how can a lack of talent be the problem? And now that everyone is back, the ratings are lower than this time last year. I know he’s never going to admit the truth and say the poor booking is totally his fault but does Wall Street really believe Vince’s ridiculous claims?
I don’t think Wall Street does buy it anymore, at least a lot of people there anyway. The stock is WAY down since the announcement and did not bounce back on Friday. I think at least some on Wall Street are seeing some warts on WWE. I wrote a column about this a few days ago, which you can read by clicking here.
When WWE decided to move Aleister Black Cesaro and Andrade after the shake up why not add some excitement and make it as a trade like pro sports do instead of just quietly doing it hoping we don’t notice?
That is a great idea. I don’t know who they would have had do the trade though since they got rid of GMs, but they definitely could have come up with a storyline reason for it happening. Them ignoring things like this is part of the reason fans are tuning out. They don’t want their intelligence insulted.
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