I can understand being mad Punk was a flop in there, but I don’t know how I feel about being mad at a fighter trying to do their best to stand out. There probably wasn’t much you could do with Mike Jackson after this, but I get why he did what he did.

Well with Jackson they felt like he disrespected the sport. Punk spent a lot of the fight in the fetal position completely helpless; it just doesnt look profesional at all. Had Jackson finished him the 1st, in one of the dozen or so opportunities he had, he'd at least gotten a 2nd pro fight out of it. Instead he just humiliated both mma and pro wrestling for 3 5 min rounds. I dont agree with the NC but i wouldnt have booked him again either.

Exactly, he was beaten so embarrassingly and thoroughly that no amount of Dana White decrees will ever change the fact that Phil took an L.

Hmm, I get what you are saying, but I can just understand why Jackson was showboating. There was probably a happy middle-ground and larger picture that Jackson was missing in humiliating Punk.

I always liked that argument that Mike Jackson disrespected their sport anymore than Dana White by giving an undeserving sideshow like Phil a UFC contract, then tried to position him against the weakest possible opponent he could find AFTER he got wrecked by a guy who came from Dana White's reality show (not the Ultimate Fighter reality show, the lesser known "Lookin' for a Fight" reality show).

That Mike Jackson high on weed so easily toyed with Dana White's disrespect to the sport resulted in Dana White fudging the record book does not save Phil any face whatsoever. He probably contacted Dana after every UFC PPV crying about it until 2 years later Dana hooked his friend up with a favor.

That motherfucking FEDBAD COLTBAD ELITEBAD hater is forever 0-2.

I think his 0-1 record is far more embarrassing than a 0-2 would have been.

Wait Punk's opponent got banned from UFC for life after that?

(I do not follow UFC at all.)

Yeah. Lifetime ban.

I can see Dana White being mad at himself, CM Punk and Punk’s camp too.

He was embarrassed by it for sure. I think he masked a lot of that with anger. It was humiliating for everyone involved. If he booked jackson again that would just be another cycle of people talking about the punk fight

If Jackson got destroyed (which would probably happen), it doesn’t help matters.

Dana only had himself to blame. Everybody saw it as a bad idea from the beginning. I get you like to masturbate furiously to yourself over how bad Punk was (thinly veiling that you believe you're much tougher), but it's a matter of an already past-his-physical prime guy with basically zero fight training fighting on a professional stage. Even against a can, no amount of time with Duke Roufus would've prepared him to do anything more than fight mediocrely at a low-level amateur tournament.

Oh im much much tougher. You probably are too

The valley between us is so wide we couldn't see one another in the distance.

Also punk trained in a world renowned camp full time for 4 years. "Basically 0 training."

But to one point youre right, rare as that is. Dana is to blame. They wanted a gate and not integrity and they got it.

Wikipedia says Mike Jackson fought in April against a dude named Drew Barry? Was his lifetime ban like the one Lisa got from the Springfield Historical Society?

If Tony Khan gets really desperate he could get Mike in to be the third Buck.

I have never met Destor, but I can confidently say Destor is much tougher than Phil.

I had no idea. Just looked it up and apparently when Dana says never its as credible as a wrestling retirement :lol:


Apparently he won by dq by getting kicked in the balls.

I would love a modern day Dudley Boyz gimmick where clearly unrelated people pretend they are brothers based on their last names.

No embellishments: i dont think theyre are many adult men who arent. its easy to see a guy on tv and buy what you're being sold. They deliberately sell you that wrestlers are tough. Its the business model in its simplest form.



Punk is all work. There's no truth to it at all. He's all smoke and mirrors. He's the example of if you sell something well enough people will buy anything. And kudos to him for that. He's a great promo. In an alternate dimension he's probably the best manager of all time.

100%, I knew he had no credibility going back to wrestling, but figured MAYBE they would have him be the biggest chicken shit cheating heel ever. Instead they literally book him as the toughest best guy, which is even easier to prove fake than proving Undertaker is actually alive in real life.

You could've booked in really great ways. Pitting him against tougher (kayfabe) guys and having go over chicken shit AND THEN bragging about how tough/skilled he is...thats some heat. After the crowd turns him baby down the road maybe you can move forward organically. Instead we get a tired shtick that cant reasonably be bought. If the nature of the business is the suspension of disbelief i dont know how we're supposed to move forward.

But tbf ive seen people on this forum no less claim the bucks are an all time great team so maybe some people will buy literally anything you sell them.

It was Dean Barry, by the way. I got confused with Drew Carey, who could probably take them all.

Punk as a manager would actually be fire. Never even thought about that before.

The Young Bucks fucking suck. Just a reminder if people needed it.

Punk was a great commentator too. His shelf-life in wrestling might not be long, but he’s an worthy investment for those non-physical roles.

I think him in the booth could be heenan-esqu. He certainly gets what the guys need to get over

JR might be getting a little bit past it, but I would have loved to have seen what a JR/Punk team could have done. Ian Roccaboni and Punk could be great too.

Loved when Punk was in the booth in like 2011. Would be on board with him doing that

If things smooth over with this current situation, I’d like to see him brought back that way.

Objectively given how prone he is to injury even if youre a massive punk supporter you have to admit booking him at the top of your card is completely irresponsible. He's not going to work hurt. Fair enough; but he is going to get hurt. This is clear.

I think the role for him are personalized programs underneath. A follow-up to the stuff with Hobbs, team him with Starks, split them off, etc. He doesn’t need another World Title.

Making him a special attraction might be ok...i guess. I dont like the idea of building up guys to feed to him when you cant use that momentum upward but 2 or 3 matches a year he could probably handle for another 5 years or so. Clearly his body is going to fall apart pretty soon. Thats not a knock on him. Everyone implodes at some point. His expiration date is just clearly visible now.

Well he was only back for, what? 1 and a bit matches in front of people? I don’t think he would want to depend on himself that way anymore.

Wonder if Vince's saga has caused a uptick in both WWE and AEW. A good chunk of people started watching WWE. Did that trickle to AEW? Either way, hopefully the uptick continues.

That is entirely possible. If somebody tunes in to one show and likes what they see, it certainly can inspire them to check out a show on a different night. It also helps that AEW is on a standard package cable channel. It is far easier to find TBS than Destination America or whatever channel Impact is on nowadays.

Plus, people tuning in and NOT seeing Phil is a ratings positive for sure. As long as he is gone AEW shows will be much better, as evident by the immediately rising ratings without that turd :lol:

This is possible. It’s just “wrestling” to a lot of people. You’ve just got more eyeballs on wrestling in general.

1.59 million for RAW

Not surprising at all seeing as how there were two high quality (at least on paper) Monday night football games.

It'll jump back up to 2 next week

Pretty rough number. Triple H’s product seems more vulnerable to NFL switchover than Vince’s.

Is WWE dead?

Just #2 by a distinct margin to the much preferred AEW.

I don’t follow American football. I’m not sure if this is a special occasion or anything, but I’m getting the vibe there is a lot of “general interest” floating around Triple H’s product, but it hasn’t hardened into fan loyalty. Yet. But he should probably think about how sticky his product is versus just riding this wave of shock debuts/returns, etc.

there are people that will shell out $200 / month ONLY to watch US Football and eschew all other viewing habits. it's rabid fanaticism, just as bad, if not worse, than soccer hooliganism.

Don’t forget super high level creative genius kidnapping/stalker angles that have always drawn huge.

Dale always wanted a stalker but nobody cared about him enough. Now we bear witness to the resulting salt.

What are you talking about? Drave stalks me all the time ranting about how much I love Bret The Shitman Shart.

You do love the Shitman.

Just saying. I'm important enough for a stalker.

Drave is a shining beacon in these troubling times of TPWW. He can stalk who he wants.

Now I’m just picturing him as Dexter Lumis

I could do it. Mohawk instead of the blonde slick over tho.

All I gotta do is put on some Bret Shart promos. It will draw Dale in from anywhere.




Downside.... I'll be asleep by the time he arrives.






NEW PLAN!

It’s fucking disgusting.

Wasn’t Dexter Lumis with a mohawk just Crimson?

Question: is the ratings gap on par with previous week 2 MNF games? Doesnt feel like this is a reflection on the product but tradition. Has wrestling not dropped against the NFL in the last 20 or so years? This is an earnest question

Always has.

The drop seems bigger this year though. I don’t know if it is, but a reported 1.59 seems very low.

The question specifically i would have isnt the final number but drop vs drop. If the ytd viewer is lower pre drop then the nfl hit would obviously be lower. But if we say they lost 1mil last year and 1 mil this year then its the same nfl fans coming and going as usual.

The only difference is they did it in week 2 this year instead of week 1 like they always did before.

Well the week 1 game was a nail bitter. Typically ratings are about what happened last week and not this week (because how could they not be)

Bills vs Titans was set to be a pretty monumental game.

And even when it became clear it wasn't a contest, watching Josh Allen go to work is still more entertaining than Bianca with henchwomen vs Damage Control.

Peacock is getting some games too, even on their $5 tier. As more people cut the cord and move to more accessible ways to watch, I expect it to get hit even harder.

1.03 for Dynamite.

Ouch.

Down but still over 1 million. You’d probably have expected 1.1 mil for a show that was hyped to the max and had a guaranteed World Title change on it. You can probably be happy with this number compared to other AEW numbers in a vacuum, but it doesn’t bode well for the product being hot or going anywhere. We’re probably back down to <1 mil next week.

I am not sure what is more random, them being up last week or them being down this week.

I think it’s them being up last week. That actually seems to be something of an anomaly. This week they just didn’t hype a show that drew any more interest than that.

This week had four title matches (although Jericho versus Claudio wasn't really hyped for very long) and an expected MJF promo. Tops in the 18-54 demographic.

The big issue is that they went against the major networks and their season premieres like The Conners and The Goldbergs for ABC and NBC had their season premieres of the Chicago Series.

CBS had Survivor debut and Fox had the season premiere of the Masked Singer.


All things considered, I'd consider the 1.03 to be a huge success actually.

No. Even without debuts of shows, they've shown consistently that this is where they will float.


Next week, without "debuts" their number will either stay flat or go down. I'm not a ratings nerd or anything like that, just looking at historical data.

AEW WAS ON TV WITH OTHER SHOWS THIS WEEK, OTHERWISE MORE PEOPLE WOULD HAVE WATCHED! #LFG!!!!!!!!!!!

Premieres are a big night for TV. Its a leg up these shows have over year round wrestling.

Over a schmilly again. That’s very good. RIP WWE.

I think a year ago i said these shows would meet around 1.5


I think 1.25 might be more accurate now

Under no circumstances do I think that it's a GREAT thing for AEW that it was 1.02. But I am surprised it was not worse.

It was a night for premiers, but that’s down to AEW’s scheduling too. Plus, and this goes with the news too — these things don’t necessarily need to cut into AEW’s audience. People will watch premiers and news that have no interest in wrestling. Or they may not necessarily watch live. Wrestling is supposed to have the edge on cable for being live entertainment.

It was a big night for TV, but there isn’t necessarily a massive sample of people who would have watched AEW Dynamite Grand Slam if it weren’t for The Goldbergs.

2.5 million for SD, it's highest rating since 2020.

Just rumors about Bray being there and the ratings are through the roof.

But, Tiny said Rampage was going to be the best wrestling show Friday night :'(:'(:'(

522k for Grand Slam. Another win for AEW in the Friday Night Wars.

You know we give him a lot of grief but I imagine it is pretty disheartening to put on the best wrestling show ever every 3-4 days and still get trounced in the ratings every time. Ungrateful fans!

I’m curious to see how these television deal negotiations go for AEW. I’ve long thought that WWE could very realistically make a play for those slots themselves. Whether with something like NXT Global on Wednesday nights and Level Up on Fridays or with a relaunched WCW. Triple H having more power now makes that ever slightly more likely.

The downside to WWE making a play is how that affects USA/FOX relations. They’re paying a lot of money for what they’re getting and may not want WWE going out and diverting resources to yet another network. But the argument could be made by WWE that expansion helps them all and that the wrestling programming is already there, so they might as well take it over and make it as sponsor-friendly as possible.

WWE has the freedom to low-ball AEW on the price. FOX and USA might not like that, but could also receive auxiliary programming as part of their deals (an FS1 series, etc.), and if it’s something like NXT that has got a viewership of around 660k or whatever, that penetration might not be as threatening to FOX and USA if WWE signs a package deal with Warner Bros Discovery.

Or is WWE very happy with AEW just sucking over there and making them look good by comparison?

Insert Skinner meme about the fans being wrong.

What is it that The Elite’s stans used to say about Jim Cornette? “Out of touch?” I don’t know how you have ratings and ticket sales this tepid and claim to have a finger on the pulse.

AEW has NEVER been that not. 1.4 million for wrestling is not a great number, and I will not back down from that. You should be able to throw out a net and snag that many people even tangentially interested in this shit.

If all the talent that apparently want out of AEW get out, WWE finds themselves in a similar situation to AEW. They already have enough talent. Is it worth it signing Buddy Murphy and Andrade back to deals to…what? Job to Seth Rollins or Gunther?

I wonder if this affects NXT, Level Up and all that. The current USA Network show could use a bit of help in terms of star presence and story-driven stuff. Doing a program where Black and Murphy return to NXT and begin a rivalry could be something. Throw in Andrade and Zelina. I guess you could have them all feud with each other, but that being Triple H’s response to The House of Black could be pretty funny. Black, Andrade, Buddy Murphy, R-Truth, Zelina, Carmella & Corey Graves as the top faction in NXT. Book it.

No matter how hard Tiny and the Dubbalos try to spin WWE being scared of them, I think WWE could give 2 shits about AEW. Triple H may not be as cavalier in not being worried in the slightest like Vince was, in that Vince even said he was going to give AEW more talent by firing more "game changers", but aside from that, AEW is a dud.

Tiny is such a good Booker that even with a bloated roster, he books TWO Title matches on his show with zero build, where NEITHER challenger is even a part of his AEW roster. I mean, you can't make this shit up lol.

Yeah, you’re not wrong. WWE went from offering Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis $500k apiece to giving Matt Riddle $400k when it became apparent AEW was a big fat nothing. When it was an unknown quantity, there was a possible threat of a billionaire-funded promotion that could give talent a place to work that wasn’t WWE. Then they opened with a Battle Royal featuring Glacier for a World Title shot.

The more talent that AEW has and can’t book, the more miserable people there are and the more WWE benefits off their mess. It may not be WWE’s prerogative to lighten their burden.

1.674 mil for Raw.

I don't care how much I like wrestling, I will never watch Rampage because that's a fucked time slot and I either have shit to do or forget about it entirely.

1.67 million for RAW this week

990k for Dynamite. At least not many people saw that trainwreck of a show.

Also, just your semi-regular reminder that even if the news draws more people, it doesn’t necessarily need to cut into other programming. People can watch the news before or after wrestling, check their phones for updates or look outside.

Naw, if there wasn't a hurricane Dynamite would have won the Monday Night Wars!

Just a reminder that 1 million people is a terrible number for wrestling. AEW underachieves.

Their upcoming show looks horrible too, from the perspective of being able to attract fans on its front anyway.

* Billy Gunn is the biggest draw for the show, but even so they are overtagging the scissoring thing like it’s the Fandango dance. Silly Attitude era stuff, but it does feature guys who are over.

* Darby Allin vs. Jay Lethal is a Rampage match. No one thinks Lethal has a chance, and if he does win to book heel vs. heel against Jericho, it will feel wrong. No one cares about Jay Lethal in AEW.

* Wheeler Yuta has been the one guy who can drag MJF segments into the mud. This is another Rampage match — an exhibition for MJF without any real doubt as to what the outcome should be.

* Luchasaurus has a squash. Yes, Christian will talk — I guess that joins Billy Gunn as an Attitude era guy saving this. But Luchasaurus squash also reeks of Rampage.

* Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara vs. Bryan Danielson & Daniel Garcia is going to take two former WWE main eventers who have largely had their appeal destroyed and bog them down in ROH shit. AEW has done a horrible job with Danielson. No one cares about Garcia and no one cares about Guevara anymore.

Does anyone feel the need to watch this show?

nope, sure don't

What will be the excuse next week?

There should actually be some good wrestling on the show, but the booking around it is atrocious.