There’s a chance for it to look visually impressive, but it’s a bit of a mythbuster in terms of AEW’s UK presence. If you were Tony Khan, with the perceived positive of it being your largest crowd to date aside, you’d be able to see there is still lots of work to do. But he seems more interested in yelling at people and taking self-owning shots at Nick Khan.

They’re opening up more seats and now attendance looks like it’s gonna push the 60k mark. There’s no objective way to perceive this as anything other than a win.

How are the 52 Dynamites a year drawing? Seems 1 show in another country is a real flashy distraction to avoid noticing the declining attendance and ratings :rofl:

Best to ever do it. TK.

And Tony Khan announces they’ve cleared 60k in ticket sales

Not bad, but also kind of weird there are already 1600 resale tickets available, at a lower price than face value, during a presale... :rofl:

:eek:

Well.

I feel like a lot of people shit on things AEW says/does, like the sales numbers for All In for example, simply because they know TK or one of the wrestlers is going to spaz out publicly about it. It's internet 101. I should know as I fish for reactions all the time.

Its impressive for sure but it amounts to flash in the pan status. One show does not necessarily amount to long term success. Not to mention that if the show winds up being flat it could be pretty detrimental.

I liken a show like this to the US Women's World Cup. The final will draw huge ratings and trend (:roll:) on social media but its just the novelty of the spectacle. Afterwords, no one cares unless you have a plan and can hold onto a chunk of that audience.

Yeah, the show sucking will hurt them. I can imagine talent will get snippy if they miss out on spots too. Can’t wait for that wave of drama.

Tony Khan buying up them tickets.

The big issue we'll see AEW struggle with is as the novelty has run its course and AEW isnt doing "1st time ever" houses how (or can) they keep filling the seats. No one is immune to this issue. Its not a uniquely non-WWF issue. I suspect however that it will be a massive issue for this company. Maybe not in the UK though. The product seems very UK friendly as far as historical tastes are concerned.


As they tour theyll do well in just about any city thats a wrestling town but will people come back each time? Ehhhhh

I don't care about AEW in the slightest... but I'd still go to a live show in a heartbeat. I think that was one of my conclusions from my couple of months of watching them... that the television show wasn't that great as a television show, but as a live show it would probably be very enjoyable, probably more than a typical RAW/SD/House Show.

WELL THE TRUTH COMES OUT.

What do you mean by that?

Destor is a notorious "continentalist" who treats anyone outside of North America as beneath him or anyone of North American descent.

The ticket sales are a great outcome for AEW.

WWE has used overseas tours as money makers and worldwide brand builders for decades. AEW doing similar is good business for a less than 5 years old company. Whether this event makes money or loses it is probably largely irrelevant but if they sell 50k+ tickets it’s probably at least a break even and has potential to materially increase brand reach and loyalty.

For the record, this is the same thing that has irked me since day one. They do a flashbang to get attention, pretend it means they are red hot, and berate anybody who doesn't buy in to their viewpoint fully.

the UK has always been a good market for more technical products

Again WWE are in 3 different countries for their next premium shows. WWE in the freezing cold US market mud!

Cool, where are all the examples Triple H and the wrestlers having a tantrum over that?

I’m not on twitter but I’m sure they are on there somewhere.

Bingo

You would be incorrect.

There's something to be said about Punk's whole shtick in WWE being about change and he never really did anything about it. Like a politician, he benefited from the gimmick but that was the extent of it. In contrast, Cody Rhodes, along with the Bucks, were able to forge a new alternative with TK. Sure it's not as big as WWE and it might never be. But it's still a place for wrestlers to make a living. While I don't know much about the backstage politics of the new place, the way Punk swooped in and tried to influence his way to the top, it felt very disrespectful and self serving. The way he behaved at the press conference, any normal employee would've gotten released. Now that they're creating an entire new show around him, it might as well just validate his insanity further.

Yeah he’s a huge loser but he draws. I can’t wait for him to come back.

There's no denying that he's a very valuable asset. Even in his prime, he didn't look out of place when he was feuding with Cena or defending his title against The Rock. That being said, it feels like he's being rewarded for his bad behavior. Which doesn't sit well with me. And this is coming from someone who started watching wrestling again during the summer of Punk angle.

I'm a bit late on the commentary party around this, but the biggest difference between Lynch's broken nose, and Baker's black eye, is the EVERYTHING ELSE AROUND IT!

The the base images themselves are a "time and place" thing, and the difference between a National Geograpic photographer getting the perfect image to set a mood, and a police photographer proccessing someone into the drunk tank.

Seriously, Britt does look like she was invoved in domestic abuse... but not in the Adam Cole prob'ly beat her way. All jokes about his mass loss aside, it looks like she downed a couple bottles of hard liquour, thought about an argument or comment only tangentially related to her man, and then started fucking Adam up out of the blue, folks tried to pull her off, and she got in a legit drunken fight with all of them talking about how what she's doing isn't their business. Somewhere along the way, cops were called in the alley behind the bar, and she got a shiner from the multiple people she's trying to grapple with or the police. Someone posted this pic to instagram instead of trying to help one side or the other. And now, in addition, she has a similar looking mugshot at the local police precint.

This, as opposed to Becky being in an arena, getting massive hardway, but continuing the angle while wiping blood from her nose with her forearms and talking mad shit to the opposing team of wrestlers. And in spite of the gusher, she's still full kayfabe "I'LL COME BACK TAKE ALL YOU BITCHES ON MYSELF" swagger. In a well lit arena. Surrounded by fans and giving the aura of badassery.

Well I only have your word for that and you’ve got a bit of a reputation for being mildly negative about AEW.

Being negative about AEW is not the same thing as being incorrect about them. AEW certainly does have a record of its executives having tantrums when WWE runs opposition (Omega and Tony Khan have both done this). WWE can surely be petty in their own way, but the tantrums are textbook AEW at this point.

I think the tantrum's been well covered at this point. Why do we think the ESPN guy decided to post something completely untrue? *gets in to the spirit of the thread* ESPN more llike extremely small penis nerds

I think he either heard a passing remark from someone no selling AEW and made a flippant remark or got told it would be a funny joke.

It’s not a planted lie. Nick wouldn’t set a buddy up with false information like that. Plus it is so easily verified as false if false. There’s most likely a sting of truth about AEW scaling back the building and/or concern about the ticket sales, and that rubbed TK the wrong way.

Either way, TK reacted in a way that would make an enemy smile. It’s not winning him any allies, that’s for sure.

Can you explain what the 'sting of truth' about there being concern about ticket sales were, when that number was immediately far exceeded? Very confusing statement.

He may have 'heard a passing remark' but who would have been making such a remark? Why did an employed sports journo pay attention to this remark? Seems like a really bad boo boo.

Because no one gives a fuck about AEW. Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte sold 85k tickets within hours. 35k isn’t getting any sports journo’s panties wet. It’s just nerd wrestling fans who want to rep for the little engine who could.

He may have heard ticket sales weren’t going well and they were going to scale the building back to meet those numbers, which is what they’re obviously going to try and do. It’s just where that line is. Then you have to contend with what’s sold versus what the actual attendance is. Would be funny if the number ended up being 45k.

But yeah, read any article about wrestling and feel the disgust a lot of journalists have for it. Could simply be this Coppingher guy just doesn’t give a shit enough to get it right, could be that he has inside information that TK doesn’t like.

WWE sold something like 59k thousand in the presale for Clash at the Castle. About 64k ended up attending. Whatever the number of tickets sold for AEW may not not jump that drastically by day of the show.

Is there an official number out there? People seemed satisfied with 35k at first. That number could imply an attendance of 38k by the end. I’m sure if things are that bad, TK is buying them up himself, but it’s not insane to think that a 40k cap was realistic if you wanted to be honest about things.

They've sold like 70k tickets???

And how is that, exactly? Because I dont blindly cheerlead for them? I watch Dynamite, ive bought many of their PPVs, and have posted about lots of things they have done that I have enjoyed.

But that has been the point all along right? I think their public relation skills absolutely suck. They do everything possible to look like idiots.

And why do you only have my word for it? Ive never seen WWE wrestlers or Execs do something like brag about not being racist because they employ people of color. Ive never seen WWE personal telling people who offer the slightest criticism to go fuck yourself or shove it up your ass. Ive never seen anybody in WWE spaz out over AEW running a show. There are countless websites that cover everything wrestling, where are all the stories about Triple H berating fans on Twitter?

If they werent so childish, and werent led by a spoiled weirdo, they would be so much more enjoyable.

Have they? Who is saying that? Meltzer? AEW themselves? Had they at the time? The number I remember seeing was 35k. Maybe they’ve sold more since then, but 35k for Wembley might make a reporter turn up their nose a bit. Especially if there is heat between them and certain AEW parties.

It’s way more likely than a conspiracy theory that suggests Nick Khan is throwing his friends under buses because…well, for no reason if they sell more than 40k tickets.

It’s Tony Khan having a meltdown because things don’t go 100% his way, per usual.

You quoted a post that said 45k in this thread last week, so well done in not remembering that. Last official announcement was 60k on Friday. Various estimates over the weekend from looking at Ticketmaster have been anywhere now from 70k to 75k but obviously those can be unreliable.

It's good this though, good to visit a place thread to chat with people who have, say, 2,500 posts in the thread and they don't have the first clue what's actually going on, or what they've even said themselves.