It is just odd and wildly expensive to do all this instead of, I dunno, figure out who the common denominator of all the problems and just get rid of them.

Like Sammy has issues with half the roster, and has burned bridges with two companies AEW was doing business with, but gets a pass because he invited Snowman to his wedding.

There is always the hope that he shows up episode one, puts his hands in his Pockets, and gets mauled. I think that is the only appeal he has left.

I was under the impression that Orange Cassidy was very popular. This thread is very confusing

We're three years in to Orange Cassidy consistently getting one of the loudest reactions at TV every week, demonstrably being a ratings draw, being one of the top merch movers in the company, photos of kids dressing as him for Halloween, and countless anecdotes of him appealing to first-time viewers.

We're long past "it's too much of an inside joke" or "new fans won't get it" being worthwhile talking points.

Totally understand why some rasslin' fans don't like him. And that's perfectly fine. But anyone who acts like he's not one of the most popular acts they have really isn't arguing in good faith.

I like Orange Cassidy

Interested to see who else gets 'drafted' to Collision

Great point Rogeries!

PWInsiders reporting the following:

Hard Brand Splits were NEVER the plan.
The new media rights deal was NEVER planned to be announced at the upfronts.

Wrestling journalist make random guesses, if they are right than they act like they have sources, if they are wrong it is either plans changed, or it was never planned.

I mean :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

<marquee behavior="slide" direction="left">https://i.imgur.com/YE180YN.gif</marquee>

<marquee behavior="slide" direction="right" scroll amount="5">https://i.imgur.com/YE180YN.gif</marquee>

Lol at people arguing that a guy on a show that gets 900k viewers on a good week is a “draw.” This is why their shit is capped. This is why people farted in AEW’s general direction from the start. It’s why we cannot have nice things.

Attention is not approval, folks. Orange Cassidy getting the AEW fans +20k people laughing at what a joke wrestling is doesn’t equate to him being a draw.

Also, lol at Collision and the general mess this promises to be.

I’ve had this hope, but that would necessitate that Tony Khan be able to assess what works and what doesn’t in wrestling, then adjust his creative to reflect that. If he knew what to do, then Dynamite would probably be better. Rampage wouldn’t completely suck.

It’s going to be more of the same. More talent may get featured, which isn’t actually a good thing. What you need is better talent to be emphasized more. They’re different things, but people are acting as if Miro having a mid-card spot on Collision isn’t going to feel arguably more hollow than them not using him at all.

It’s just more. More for people to watch, more for people to absorb, more for people to process, more for people to try and forge an attachment to.

Sinking fucking ship trying to sell people on it being submersible.

I can get it if people don't like Orange, but he's clearly a popular part of the show and a great worker (my opinion). If you think he's ruining people's image of pro wrestling, I don't know what to tell you. If people don't like him, what sort of wrestlers, current or past, would you like to see instead? I think wrestling has always been a)goofy and b)a variety show. There's plenty of styles of wrestling that I don't like but I accept them as part of the package.

If you want my personal opinion, someone like OC is the best hope to get people invested in wrestling. People still think of it as pathetic gay shit for idiots. I don't know if you've noticed anything about popular culture, but ironic self-parody is pretty hot these days.

I think the issue is that OC is popular because of the antics and not the wrestling. Taking a chance at getting cursed here, but it's the same with Danhausen. I'm not surprised that they are over in the age of TikTok and Instagram.

* The show isn’t popular. Being a car crash on top of that doesn’t make you a successful draw.

* Cassidy is shit in the ring. So much daylight between his stuff and he indicates spots from a mile away.

* Wrestling hasn’t always been that. In fact, the more it leans into that the less successful it becomes.

* Some people aren’t going to be accomodating to shit they don’t want to watch. This might explain consistently decreasing interest.

* Orange Cassidy is NOT the best chance to get people back into wrestling.

* People might think that, but it’s BECAUSE of shit like this, not despite it.

* People don’t want ironic self-parody from their wrestling. It’s insincere, insecure and defeats the purpose of it existing.

A bunch of masochists still watch wrestling even though it is bad. Inside jokes aimed at fucking losers we are might pop us, but they are not going to make wrestling effective for anyone else.

The response to “You know it’s fake, right?” isn’t “Yeah, I know. Check out this Orange Cassidy guy who doesn’t even try to make it look good.” That’s MORE of a waste of time.

It’s also funny that interest in older wrestling — podcasts, YouTube channels, etc. are growing all the time. I’d rather listen to a 6hr podcast about wrestling than watch 2hrs of the current stuff. If you want to talk about ironic parody, podcasts going back over stuff that actually worked is way more in lieu with what culture is preoccupied with at the moment.

Yeah. I was hoping it would be the Bucks, their friends and "goofy" shit on Dynamite and something Jim Cornette would like on Collision.

I can't disagree with what you think about Cassidy, but I did ask if there's examples of who would be your platonic ideal of a modern wrestler? If you don't like Orange I still think AEW has lots of other wrestlers who aren't like him at all, he doesn't define the show, he's just one ring of of the circus. You don't think the show is popular, okay. It seems to me like Cassidy is popular with the audience that does watch, and I don't think he repulses people away from the other matches. Again, out of curiosity, what examples of wrestlers should be the model if you don't want to see Orange.

Podcasts are big, but they're either going to be current affairs and news like, or they're inherently going to be detailed stuff about the past just because how the nature of Time works. What sort of stuff are you interested in?

I'm just unaware of this era of realistic wrestling. I've never seen anything that's not immediately staged.

It would be so easy to do, but then you’ve got to deal with the backstage politics when things don’t go the way one party wants.

Could you imagine if the wrestling show on Saturdays did better than the sports entertainment on Wednesdays? Drama central.

We will see but as long as they put the guys who are criminally underused on collision and give them more of a push or direction I'm for it. House of Black, Miro, Andrade/Rush, Hobbs, Wardlow, Pac, Joe, FTR, Butcher and Blade, Ethan Page, Private Party.....

What sort of modern wrestlers now? I mean, I can’t say enough good stuff about Gunther, Rey Mysterio, Dominik and Brock. AJ Styles is always great. Lashley has improved so much. I enjoyed the shit out of Stand & Deliver, especially Bron Breakker and the Fatal 4-Way between Dragunov, McDonagh and the Lees. Chad Gable is great. I don’t know why you’re really asking. Orange Cassidy is truly bottom of the barrel for me.

I’m saying he is going to cap the show to a certain extent. He doesn’t run off the 800k or so people who watch every week. That’s such a little number for wrestling though. Some people just aren’t going to put themselves through that.

Fair answers, if I was looking to pick a fight I would point out that Rey Mysterio did an angle a couple of years ago where his eyeball was pulled out. It was insane and they didn't follow through with it, and it's water under the bridge now that he's doing a big soap opera angle, but it's worth talking about in an argument about kayfabe. It's fine if you like that style of wrestler, I think AEW also has wrestlers that fall into that category but I really don't think it's worth a row either, if you don't like them, you don't like them.

What I would say is that I don't think 800k is a notably small number. What's the ceiling, Smackdown at 2 million - with a much larger potential audience I believe? Smackdown is available to watch in far more many homes because it's on free TV, is that right? I don't know the proportions there or much about how US TV works beyond cable and 'over the air'? That's a show with the sorts of wrestlers you like, with a larger potential audience than Dynamite, and all the brand power and legacy of WWE, and the audience is 2 million

In light of that I still think it's remarkable that AEW is within reach of what WWE does on TV - I would expect them to be lower, and so did TNT. You can spend the next 4 years continuing to gripe about it but they're still ahead of business expectations so, there's just not much very interesting about any of this!

I didn’t like Rey’s eyeball stuff either. My point is about him as a worker. His shit is crisp as fuck — arguably getting better with age (he no longer seems to luck into the 619 every match). Anyone in AEW at that level disappears into the sea of sloppy unprofessionalism.

I don’t think SmackDown is the ceiling. I think they run people off too. But 800k compared to 2.4 million is pretty shocking. If WCW was doing 25% of what WWF was, they would be mocked mercilessly. David Flair bumping the rating 1% wouldn’t be applauded so readily.

I would have expected a promotion with $100 million, so much goodwill, a fresh start and national cable to be doing better. I don’t know where this low bar is coming from.

Why would I compare WWF vs WCW to WWE vs AEW? That was 25 years ago, 30 years ago. The target audience wasn't even born.

Name your numbers then, what should Raw and Smackdown be doing? What should AEW be doing?

from you?

One issue with OC is he's doing a fad gimmick. Reminds me of a modern-day DX but without the same platform. He may seem cool to a certain segment of the audience now, but he won't age well. Seriously, DX was fun at the time, but super shit when you go back and watch. The guys can all work in their way so they get away with the lameness, but fuck me it's bad.

I suppose wrestling is a business of "now," but I feel like timeless gimmicks are what will set you apart as trends inevitably shift.

Which version of DX are you talking about? I don’t think original DX was all that dated. Just a couple sophomoric douchebag heels. Post-HBK definitely doesn’t age as well in some aspects. The “I love cocks”/old man HBK awkward comedy reboots… yikes.

I dont mind Orange Cassidy at all. Sure I wish his character would evolve some, but that is an issue with pretty much the entire roster. At least he is different than the most everybody else who's only gimmick is "I wrestle good".

original dx is so lame and dated.

I meme'd today

https://i.ibb.co/XF2k3zw/Grid-Art-20...-204745413.jpg
upload images for free

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="qme" dir="ltr">�� <a href="https://t.co/wOxvVfYU9X">pic.twitter.com/wOxvVfYU9X</a></p>&mdash; Down with the KXNG♠️ (@KxngSpade) <a href="https://twitter.com/KxngSpade/status/1658837080410140673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 17, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

He's all those things to the same group of people who have watched aew from the start, and probably always will as long as it's around. He's not some big star thats bringing new eyes to the product.

That's the best thing I've seen in a long while.

The target audience definitely was born. You don’t even need to go backwards in time to see that AEW is not performing as well as it could/should be.

No, it comes from apologists and is based on nothing.

Lol, Mike Johnson is reporting that the AEW/CM Punk relationship is frosty again. This time it’s because Ace Steel was supposed to come back and now he’s not. As I’ve said, I’ll actually believe Punk is coming back when I actually see him. I don’t think many of these dirt sheets actually talk to guys Punk knows. I suspect a lot of the rumors have been things AEW wanted and weren’t necessarily going to get Punk to agree to.

The situation simply isn't comparable. You'd have to be at least 27 years old to even begin having a living memory of WCW. The WWE now is not the WWF of then either - WWF and WCW basically came up together. WWE now is a company that benefits from decades of victory and expansion.

Where do you think the numbers for WWE and AEW should be? TV ratings are universally down, both WWE and AEW have hit number 1 on cable (despite Raws figures steadily falling through the 2010s), it would be insane if AEW was able to pull comparable ratings to WWE with it's massive entrenched lead. Give a number!

WWE is also stale and we live in a globalized world. AEW has way more advantages than any other start-up wrestling promotion…ever. Certain things are antiquated (like when AEW fans compare AEW’s buyrates to ECW’s), but other things are still applicable. That whole discussion is a major smokescreen away from what I’m actually saying, since I don’t think I’ve ever said that AEW or WWE should be doing the exact same numbers that were done in the Attitude era. I just don’t think they’re doing optimal numbers. Very different arguments.

I’ve said before that I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that the primary show of a major wrestling promotion in a prime time basic cable should be able to beat Monday Night Raw — whatever number that is. Raw is on a more competitive night, has been on the air forever, is not WWE’s priority show anymore, and is 3 hrs long (which obviously handicaps the rating). They haven’t really come close to that number (outside their debut, which didn’t hook as many live viewers as possible).

I wouldn’t necessarily expect them to beat SmackDown on FOX, given the network advantage, but that is on Friday night. It wouldn’t be absolutely shocking for a TV show to get more than 2.4 million viewers even on cable. I think there are millions of people who would dip in and out of wrestling if it were better.

I just don’t like the argument that the numbers are what they are and wrestling is doing the best that it can. I think it does stuff that markedly limits its audience. It’s not just AEW. WWE has done it for years and still does it now. WCW did it. But I don’t think shrugging and saying that you can’t expect them to be as successful as they once were is satisfying coverage of that. Sounds like a cop-out.

The discussion isn't doing anything except asking, what do you think those numbers could get up to?

The follow up question is: for what purpose? There's a universe of competing entertainment that didn't exist in the 90s. If WWE and AEW are making enough money, what does more money do for them? Why does the show need to be bigger? Why do people have to put down whatever they're doing and start watching wrestling?

Should we be watching wrestling instead of Minecraft youtube videos? Those minecraft videos could be doing much better numbers! It's very disappointing that they're not attracting a more mature, affluent audience. Fucking embarrassing man.