In your Opinion.... (NWA)
 

So let's play hypothetical and say NWA was the promotion to get the TNT time slot for Powerrr and they were able to sign Cody and Jericho to be apart of their show. Considering they would have a lot of names that former/ casual fans would recognize (from Impact, ROH and WWE), the matches and booking style would remain more or less the same (just add Cody/ Jericho into prominent spots) and let's just say they were pulling a couple thousand fans at small arenas as opposed to a studio show. How do you think they would be doing on a national network instead of AEW?

It would depend on the promotion, I think. The advertising promotion, I mean, not the promotion itself. I don't think AEW is doing especially well or any better than "other wrestling" would be doing in its time slot.

I think they'd have the better shot at striking a deal with New Japan.

That's a very interesting question. I'd assume probably somewhere what Impact was getting on POP TV early on or what TNT had as expectations for Dynamite early on as the best case scenario.

Even with them signing major names, feel they would still have a tougher hill to climb than AEW or other notable promotions due to the big clash of style compared to modern wrestling and WWE.

Powerrr's main appeal has been the old school feel to the show which works now but might not transition well in another setting. Same for if it had to switch from being a weekly 1 hour taped show to being a weekly live show with or without the extra hour.

AEW's being as successful as they have been soo far pretty much was due to them having inside connections with TNT and them catering to modern and lapsed Attitude Era fans who didn't like or were tired of WWE's style of wrestling dominating the scene. Powerrr would be catering to a fanbase that's more niche these days than what AEW is going after.

Theyd pull the 1 millionish diehard wrestling fans that watch anything they can get their hands on

This ^

I've never gotten the whole "AEW catering the the Lapsed Attitude Fan"

The Lapsed Attitude Fan would bitch about any match being over 10 minutes, want t&a out of their womens matches and care more about huge personalities than in ring action.

NXT and AEW are just splitting the smark audience and that why I don't think there will be a lot of total growth. It's just the same 1.5-1.7 million fans watching every week.

Seems its less towards that type of lapsed fan and more towards those that just miss when wrestling was more interesting and handled better from top to bottom. Like lower card stuff being given just as much care as top card stuff.

They might actually be catering more towards lapsed AE fans that stuck with WWE till around the PG era instead. That would put it right around the middle between pure AE and pure modern wrestling fans.

In regards to viewership, probably still a good 1-2 years away before any real long term growth happens. Took Nitro and RAW around the same time before they had the foundation set for the next era and same for NXT to develop into what it has become today in terms of status.

But they're not more interesting and it's not handled better. Stuff is dropped all the time. How many times has Pac attacked Michael Nakazawa? Everyone is 50/50. The women suck. The tag teams suck (for the most part). There are shitty gimmicks and stories (The Dark Order, The Nightmare Collective). You've got tag teams that don't get along (Kenny Omega & Adam Page).

It's so very similar to WWE, only with more PWG mixed in (which is not a good thing) and a late 90's Nitro look. It's meh on its best days. The best thing they've ever done is Cody vs. Dustin, and that was night one.

lol shut up Noid.

No one is watching wrestling again because of AEW. These boards and even more dead than they were prior to AEW starting up. Their threads go barely three pages.

The only people who are watching are people who still follow WWE regularly enough to know what is going on and are rooting against them. Which is fair enough -- good for those people -- but it's hardly good or anything that is going to turn anything around. It's hour eight and nine of WWE, only with less polish.

Are new fans really likely to find and join a random message board where the most active poster writes speculative essays about absolutely nothing in every single thread, often in reply to himself?

Surely they will just go to reddit like everyone else.

This post is everything.

I'd watch the NWA more if they left the dinky studio. It's a good environment but a lot of times the crowd is louder than everything else.

Ftr the nwa is my fav product right now

santa voll is the new super fan

The idea of NWA in a “big time” slot like that reminds me of the original XFL. Too much expectation for a niche audience. AEW works better in the slot because of the whole All In/Meltzer origin story building a cult following. NWA is built for the small time for the foreseeable future. And I’m fine with that. It’s cheap to produce and it’s fantastic.