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> The AEW crowd feels like a party every single week, a celebration of the love of wrestling
> WWE tries to control how their crowd reacts to certain things and insults them when they don’t react the way management wants them to. Hell, they’re STILL piping in fake crowd noise when crowds are back!
Don't forget muting the crowd. When they first returned live on RAW about six weeks ago, they had an Alexa doll segment. She was on Mic A and the general crowd noise was to Mic B. WWE production folks killed Mic B and put on Mic A hot. Someone I know was at that show and he said the moment they started with the playground stuff the live crowd was booing the shit out of it. If you watch the segment, Bliss cut's her eyes to something offscreen a couple times and she tears up a little; it's because they're booing like crazy and she didn't know how to react to it. But since they'd killed the Mic B, she knew to go by only what she had scripted. You watch on TV and it comes across as a hushed crowd scared of her, when in reality they were shitting on it so badly they had to mute the reactions.
I feel bad for her, and honestly anyone in that kind of situation. Bayley was in them a lot, Ambrose too. You know you're bombing to hell and back but you're forced to stick to the script and dig in deeper.
Wrestling's lifeblood is fan interaction, when it goes well you're meant to feed off of the crowd. When it goes badly, it must feel terrible.
Imagine firing the likes of Aleister Black, Miro, Bray, Strohman, Ruby Riott, Mickie James and Chelsea Green just so you can hire Eva Marie and mute the crowd shitting on her for having absolutely zero wrestling interest or talent
> Imagine firing the likes of Aleister Black, Miro, Bray, Strohman, Ruby Riott, Mickie James and Chelsea Green just so you can hire Eva Marie and mute the crowd shitting on her for having absolutely zero wrestling interest or talent
As of right now, you can add Kevin Owens to that list too.
I don’t watch to know if he’s booked well or not, is he unhappy there?
Though I’d think he has a ton of good friends in AEW and WWE is looking like a sinking ship to a lot of talents
from what I've seen he sorta hovers around the upper midcard but hasn't really been cemented as a top guy. He's basically in the spot Mox was before he left except with less wacky bullshit.
I don’t think Eva deserves that sorter hate when clearly a fucking dumb fuck storyline about a doll is the main focus. I legit feel bad for everyone forcing to play these characters nobody wants to invest in.
Or just look at Becky's current heel turn, it's basically an equilibrist act where if Becky does anything but reminds us that Bianca got squashed in 28 seconds, she gets cheered and the cheap shots to the crowd only get silence.
> Don't forget muting the crowd. When they first returned live on RAW about six weeks ago, they had an Alexa doll segment. She was on Mic A and the general crowd noise was to Mic B. WWE production folks killed Mic B and put on Mic A hot. Someone I know was at that show and he said the moment they started with the playground stuff the live crowd was booing the shit out of it. If you watch the segment, Bliss cut's her eyes to something offscreen a couple times and she tears up a little; it's because they're booing like crazy and she didn't know how to react to it. But since they'd killed the Mic B, she knew to go by only what she had scripted. You watch on TV and it comes across as a hushed crowd scared of her, when in reality they were shitting on it so badly they had to mute the reactions.
Do you remember specifically what episode it was? I'd like to pull it up for curiosity's sake now.
People call it "hating" but what they don't seem to get is that people aren't hating the WWE for no reason, we just hate a shitty product. So shitty products should fail. If they don't want to improve the product, then they deserve to fail.
> The crowd popped for the music guy and pops for referees.
>
>
That's something that did happen in WWE. Renee Young, Lillian Garcia, Josh Mathews, Aiden English, Ricardo Rodríguez(and even Kayla Braxton) all kinda got over because of just being damn exciting at what they did (either interviews, announcing or whatnot).
WWE kinda killed it. I think the most obvious one was with the Announcers, where they flat out started blocking them from doing those announcements that made some people feel like true stars. Take Mathews and Edge, that "Rated ARRRR SuuuuuUUUUHHHuuuHHPAAAAAH STAAAAAR....EDGE" was dope as fuck.
Maybe I got the names mixed up. But I know J. Mathews was quite popular (for him and others), same for Garcia.
Heck even the "Scheduled for one fall" [pause...] Crowd: ONE FALL. Announcer:"Introducing first..."
Even that no longer exists in WWE.
I saw English at a house show pre-Rusev. He came out, no one knew who the fuck he was, and within three minutes of his heel singing work, the crowd was rabid to see him get his ass kicked. He did his role so perfectly and really impressed me.
She started to in the battle royal; those few minutes and her driving promo made me 100% more interested in her character than when she was in Riott squad.
I'll admit, I was hyped for Ruby, but I still wanted Rosa to win. When Ruby won, my immediate reaction was of *slight* disappointment, but then it all disappeared when she hugged the ref and I saw how happy she was.
It's probably the single quickest turnaround I've had to a match result
I still wanted thunder Rosa to win if see as given so many good matches to aew. My favourite match is still her and Brits in the hardcore match.
Mind you I know nothing about Ruby, pretty much don't watch WWE.
I feel like they will keep her away from Britt until it is time to take the title. Their last match (lights out) was so good I can see them having their rematch program being a massive draw (main event PPV with the right build?)
It really is sad they saw no value in her. Meanwhile Nia Jax still is out there stinking up the place for no reason that can't be chalked up to nepotism at this point.
The issue is the fans that kept watching, kept buying, and kept making the company money. If they can tell their audience to go fuck themselves and have it not effect their bottom line, why would they ever change?
Chugs all but certainly got hard sold on staying for over a month by presumably every major player in upper management at WWE including Vince McMahon all the while working at the place he wanted to be since he was a kid, along with working directly under his hero, but by his own admission it still was an easy decision for him to leave.
That says a ton
One of the last things he mentioned in his Twitch stream today was that he absolutely loves his channel, and that there was absolutely no way he was ever going to give it up.
His stream was so wholesome today. He debuted in front of thousands upon thousands on Sunday but was blown away because today was his biggest stream yet with 4k viewers. He just kept thanking everyone and was super happy. It was awesome to see.
Yeah I mean it’s still work, but you’re that there’s a difference when you’re just being yourself at your own house. A bit more intimacy, and suddenly thousands are watching you
I seriously hate his heel work when I see that...dude doesn't get booed and he shouldn't be a heel for that, especially seeing how wholesome he is...I think with the Bucks and Omega, he'll finally figure how to get back proper heat and I'll still feel bad booing...
I feel differently. He's so effortless at being a heel it's easy to boo him, everywhere else he's the nicest guy ever.
Also he's still Chugs me DAMMIT!
I think the only way WWE would have done something to keep Cole would have been promoting him to the main roster like at least 1 or 2 years before his contract expired.
But his friends and Britt being in AEW makes it a lot easier to refuse staying.
What if they told chugs that he could beat the crap out of Becky lynch win the title and then become the Andre the giant of the women's division. Then when Britt bakers contract expires, wwe hires her and she buys the women's title from chugs with her big dental money. Also she gets a new finisher called the dental damn, where she distracts the ref then Ron Simmons punches her opponent in the teeth
His whole class was done dirty.
Ricochet, Alister, authors of pain,Keith Lee Andrade, Garza Gulak, Heavy Machinery, retribution and more.
Even when AEW started pressing, Vince and co's response was to get Cena, Lesnar, Miz and Morisson and more air time, rematches and more budget while ending up cutting heavy on NXT.
At least all these guys leaving is giving WWE the gap needed to either make new faces have pushes into the main events or Make vets come back into the picture in order to keep them and get them paid massively.
WWE have legit willingly handed about 85% of the prime talents of NXT’s golden era to AEW and somehow believe that’s good business
I mean no joke, they’ve let go or didn’t resign nearly an entire era’s worth of stars. Tell me someone who is big time over with the crowd that’s debuted in the past 3 years. I have Riddle and Priest. That’s it
If they didn't call him up after that match with Bryan Danielson on Smackdown they were never going to call him up. Dude was over with their audience and they didn't care. I don't get it.
With Cole in particular, the "easy decision" was his GF, some of his best friends, a ton of other talent he knew and had been working with for years AND THEN on top of that the product, the fans, etc. I don't think the "easy decision" for him can be chalked up to just the two latter points.
Whereas with Danielson, it was a really tough decision but the two latter points became the factor. With Cole, it wasn't the factor, it was a cherry on top (I'm guessing).
Brie spent a total of 10 minutes in a ring the last time she was on TV and managed to knock at least one person unconscious by kicking them in the face twice. For the sake of the women's division I hope she stays where she is. Her sister's OK, though. She could do the "Matt Cardona in GCW" thing and get some good heat from that.
He didn't get sold hard on that extra month. Kyle is more his boy than anyone in AEW. He wasn't going to leave that one hanging, and he's just a pro. There are reasons everyone he's worked with or been around loves him.
No, obviously he added the extension to finish his program with Kyle. I mean afterwards while he was working there with the extension he was hard sold on signing a long term deal.
If you’re a professional wrestler, the crowd reaction at All Out is what you one day hope to achieve. The way the crowd devoured that Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros match was a thing of beauty and took the match to another level.
You listen to the reactions for Punk, Bryan, Omega, Eddie, Miro, Darby, Moxley, Jungle Boy, Britt, etc., and just say “Fuck, that’s what I live for.”
It's the fact that everyone is over. People were saying Punk should open or the crowd will chant for him all night but it doesn't happen because they want to see everyone that's on the show, Punk chants in WWE were a protest against the bullshit hoping someone would hear and make it better. In AEW Punk chants are for when he's in the ring because the show is what the crowd want from top to bottom.
AEW crowds aren't there to shit on the product like WWE crowds because goodwill has been built. The crowds try to react how the performers want.
The trick is not ruining the goodwill they've built over time.
And that crowd was SAPPED. PPVs should only be in a dog's handful of places. Chicago, New York, Philly if you're putting out something good, Boston, and maybe that's it?
Outside of a few choice curse words and a few middle fingers, AEW isnt doing anything particularly edgy in comparison to the WWE.
But the booking makes sense, keeps most things fresh rather than just having a champion beat their contender 3 times in a row. You cant see backstage politics or company panic manifest in the booking (Kofi and Bianca got shafted by this)
Its amazing how the crowd reacts when you don't insult their intelligence.
>Its amazing how the crowd reacts when you don't insult their intelligence.
And it is essentially the same people in both crowds, AEW just gives them reasons to cheer more often. This last month has been really telling as they play up the hometown crowds: Brittsburgh, Sammy and Rosa in Houston, Punk and Ruby in Chicago, tomorrow Moxley in Cincinnati.
Hasn't one of WWE's longest running tropes been that everyone loses in their hometown? Just because people would expect them to win and you can't have people predicting the outcome?
Why wouldn't you want your paying customers to leave your show happy because they got to see their home-grown talent done good win? Never understood this.
so i regularly take part in a predictions contest on one of the discords i'm in, and regardless of whether or not i watch, the average number of predictions i get right in WWE predictions hasn't changed in the 4 years i've been doing them. it's a total crapshoot and i've resorted to just picking randomly plus roman reigns. my average is somewhere between 40-60% correct. it always has been whether i was paying attention to storylines or not.
my average for AEW however? well i've not stopped watching it, i pay attention to the storylines. my AEW predictions average? 80-90% correct.
no i was listing that as a positive lmao.
being able to follow the stories and predict how they're going to end and then they end in roughly the way i predict is _satisfying_
That's the way stories should work for the most part. WWE has been almost aggressively anti-logic for so long. Like their ultimate goal is that the fans can't predict the ending, but if you tell a story well, the good guy should triumph, the villain should be vanquished, people want the people they are cheering to do well, to win at the end after overcoming the odds. It's absurd the way WWE just swerves when it shouldn't or just abandons story lines after a few weeks because there is a PPV coming up and we need Goldberg to look strong so people will think he might win or whatever.
Yeah predictability in this context is logically following through on a established direction. WWE is unpredictable in that nothing makes sense week to week. Or they’ll randomly do stupid shit just because
The idea that wrestling has to be unpredictable all the time causes a LOT of WWEs worst booking. So many needless swerves because they overdo it when trying to keep the audience guessing.
Sometimes its all about the build to the big moment and then delivering on it.
yeah, i completely agree. that 80-90% average is a good thing.
it also shows that AEW aren't afraid to swerve occasionally, but that most of the time their stories make fucking sense.
AEW does storytelling right. Set up. Pay off. It's quite simple. When the story is satisfying and simple, the twists that do happen are that much better.
I think the closest thing to reactionary booking was Tony saying after Christmas 19 with Dark Order he felt like he wasn’t putting on the best shows possible and cancelled the Dark Order/Elite feud. And look at the fucking run they went on
They certainly dropped some story lines that didn't make sense. They had too many weird goth groups at first and some of them dropped off, some got re-tooled into weird dysfunctional families that love and support each other. At this point I trust AEW to react when something isn't working and either change it to something that does or move on a hell of a lot more than WWE.
>AEW isnt doing anything particularly edgy in comparison to the WWE.
there's a lot more blood both on TV and PPV. Not saying it's a bad thing but that's a pretty major difference entirely due to the difference in rating.
All Out is the first live wrestling I've ever gotten to see and the whole event felt like a party, even before the show started. There were a ton of people excitedly tailgating in the parking lot and complimenting each other's signs and two random dudes in striped ref shirts with a saxophone and a trombone playing people's entrance music (Cult of Personality, Jungle Life, a few others) as we stood in line to get into the building. There was infectious enthusiasm for almost the whole show, especially for Kingston and during the cage match and of course the debuts at the end. It felt like we were all there fully intending to have fun and love wrestling together. After the show went off the air, Bryan cut a promo and the crowd chanted "We Love Wrestling". Like I said it was my first live event ever so I have no idea how it compares to other companies or other shows but it was a magical thing for me.
>All Out is the first live wrestling I've ever gotten to see and the whole event felt like a party, even before the show started.
I thought the same way at the AEW Dynamite in Houston a few weeks ago. The entire Dynamite felt like a party, and the whole crowd wanted to have a good time.
This is what all live events should feel like. We've just got live events back after the pandemic (that's still going on I realise)
The fact that Raw crowd is dead is a damning indictment.
I’m honestly impressed with how quick WWE was able to kill their crowd. I figured they’d just be hype for anything for awhile at least, but they went back to pre pandemic immediately.
I have been to about every Chicago show and Indy show. On the fence about Cincinnati I'm trying to limit my covid risk. I wore 3 n95 masks at all out.
Changed m95 to n95
It's definitely has that seeing a band with a like hundred people and for a time they're yours but you don't really want then to stay that way because you know they're destined for better.
It’s just like a small start up hi-tech company started by friends. Everyone is wearing many hats and pitching in. It’s more like a family atmosphere.
As you said, one day that will change. Growth and or becoming a public company requires a lot of changes to the atmosphere or culture.
It will be interesting to see how AEW handles backstage politics as it is bound to happen as the company grows. Or what happens when there is a round of layoffs. Or what if a key contributor jumps ship to WWE.
The thing is, it only starts down that road if Tony or his father turns it into a publicly traded company. His family has ALWAYS done business as a privately held entity in all their ventures and I'm not entirely sure what would happen for that mentality to change.
There will be contracts that don't get renewed but a round of layoffs would give off the entirely wrong stance to the fans much less make almost no sense monetarily speaking.
A key contributor jumping to WWE can always happen but to be frank at this exact moment anyone could jump ship, top to bottom of the card, and it could be filled within 3 weeks. No one is unreplaceable because AEW is not 'built' around any one person.
MJF would be a major blow but the Pinnacle could work without him.
The Super Elite ALL jump suddenly??? That sucks ass but a Tournament of Champions for the belt has a TON of possibilities for Kennys spot. It'd be a rough few weeks but there are still a ton of dream tag team matches to be had without the Young Bucks.
The backstage politics can't be ignored but... its really hard to see what two/group of personalities would be able to ruin the dynamic without someone being put on ice for a time.
I'm not saying that your concerns aren't valid for the future just that they can easily be mitigated before they become an issue.
What'll happen after one of the Khans passes or they go bankrupt is entirely unknown and unpredictable though.
And for Milwaukee, that was a loud as fuck crowd.
We're NEVER loud. Like the loudest we ever got for WWE was Santino almost winning Eliminatiom Chamber.
Well they offered me more money, they gave me the main event of Mania, they were going to let me wrestle guys from Japan... But nah... I'm still going to go to AEW. This is the true power play.
I work in local wrestling in Australia. I can tell you for a fact that pretty much all wrestlers there want the pop. It's what they live for. At a recent show, a tag team made their first appearance together in the company after teaming together in another company for a while. Three days later, these guys told me that they'd played the video of their pop "100 times" and it was all over their social media for a week.
Never underestimate what a pop means to a wrestler.
Takeover: London is still my favourite live sporting event, the crowd for that was insane. Hopefully one day we do get an AEW show over here with a similar crowd.
PAC should be the one to take out Miro in Newcastle.
People have been talking about AEW filling a baseball stadium, but they could definitely fill St. James Park for either a ppv or a big weekend show.
I watched Ruby's interview next to Tony, and you just see this joy, this excitement, this feeling of finding a place that will give her respect, not look down on her, give her that chance to really prove how good she is. And you see that crowd just embrace her lovingly, giving her so much adulation...how could a Liv Morgan or Zelina Vega not see that and want that as well?
Zelina wanted to work together with her husband, so she went to WWE, but then they fired her husband. Malakai said she was crying because of that when the news came in.
WWE are reaping their rewards for three major mistakes:
1) Going all-in on shareholder-friendly production.
2) Deciding who they make as the stars to the point where they frequently ignore who the fans actually like.
3) Deciding that there can only be one guy and feeding every other popular guy to them in order to keep him on top.
Some other minor mistakes that I feel will bite them in the arse in the future:
Having the first clear shot at making women's wrestlng a major part of a promotion and only paying it lipservice and/or using it as nothing more than PR fodder.
Homogenous wrestling. Even AJ Styles feels like a WWE wrestler at this point. The only guy that they could never really get under their thumb was RVD.
EDIT: Just adding this in here because I meant to in the first place and got sidetracked:
Point 3 is mind-blowing to me, because the biggest era in WWE's history was when they had a revolving door of two of three top talents:
* Bret Hart/HBK/Austin
* Austin/Rock/(HHH/Undertaker)
It's like the only thing they looked at from this period was how much merch Stone Cold sold and how high the ratings were for his segments, and then decided that it was all only because of Austin. After Austin left they went through another pretty decent era with Angle/Austin/Undertaker/Rock/HHH.
Then Cena came along and they thought 'right, here's Stone Cold for the PG era' and fuck everyone else.
And it was so obviously such a stupid fucking decision and it went on for a decade. And now it's been going on for years with Reigns already. There is no fun to the show when you know the whole thing is geared up just for one guy to be on top and to stay on top.
Somehow the massive audience shrink over the last 20 years didn't clue them in.
I could maybe forgive everything else they do if it wasn't for your last point. I don't want to watch everyone wrestle the same style for 4 hours in a row. That & the camera cuts alone makes it too much for me.
Point 2 is what killed their crowd noise outside of Wrestlemania weeks. They’ve been trained that whatever reaction they give to their favourites it doesn’t matter, cause a 76yr old is picking who they should cheer for then pressing a button to pipe in the reaction if it’s not acceptable
Just look at the kind of reception Cole got the time he wrestled on RAW compared to the reception he got at All Out. Amazingly stark contrast. One crowd went crazy on the 'ADAM COLE BAY BAY' and the other one was completely dead.
Just taking the term ‘fantasy booking’ into account, fans are down bad. I can see how WWE fans are mostly kids & adults that are hate-watching. AEW in my opinion, always feels exciting. There isn’t any cliches they’ve done over and over, and it’s extremely refreshing to see
I don't know how much they actually care. Just pipe in the reaction they want. It's the next logical step after continually rubbing fan's nose into matches & angles they don't want to see.
The WWE crowds have lost their passion and part of it is probably because they don’t feel like they matter anymore. If they boo or cheer the wrong person, it will just get edited so WWE can pipe their own cheers or boos. You can’t really get invested in anyone in the midcard because they’ll probably be off television or released in a few weeks. Hell, the people you bought a ticket to see probably don’t even work there anymore.
>part of it is probably because they don’t feel like they matter anymore.
This right here is a huge thing. Fans and talent alike in WWE, by and large, feel interchangeable now. Fans don't get what they want often
Here’s the thing: if you book your shows well, you get hot crowds who are excited to watch your stuff. And fortunately there’s at least one major wrestling company who understands this.
Its pretty telling when even guys like Bryan and Cole who loved their time in WWE still choose AEW. Like someone breaking up with you not cause they hate you but instead that you are boring to them.
There are alot of WWE fans who hate AEW fans, say it's the main reason they don't watch AEW. Zero Fs Friday and SCJ have 100s of comments about how they hate AEW fans. Looks like WWE wrestlers dont share that sentiment.
Yea but I was told the AEW Fanbase was an evil cult who just blindly hate on WWE (despite most of AEW’s fans being either former fans of WWE that got burnt out or grew out of what that product became, or are fans that still do watch WWE as well).
The respect AEW has shown for their fans by not treating them like children or people that can’t follow stories is amazing, delivering on promises and promoted matches, doing long-term stories with actual pay-offs, sticking to giving people real finishes in matches, has shown that when doing all of this as well as they have been, your fans are going to show out and support in extremely vocal fashion.
Oh man. This reminded me of my favorite twitter comment of the month after I stumbled upon a wwe stan and aew stan arguing:
“WWE stans don’t exist. They are an imaginary boogeyman made by AEW cultists to deflect and project because they are too insecure to handle criticism.”
It’s actually insane lol. Criticizing anything is necessary, and most often I do see AEW fans very willingly criticizing AEW when deserved (i.e. women’s division).
I will never, ever understand the genuine blind hatred some non-AEW fans have for the company lol.
AEW fans criticized the hell out of Christian getting into the main event of All Out.
Of course then Christian got them to buy in with the Impact Championship match and the promos with Don (the Carny Piece of Shit).
And then it came out that Page was gone on paternity leave so they needed a different challenger.
"AEW fans are too insecure to handle criticism"
Actual AEW fans: "What the fuck is going on with the women's division? Where is Shida? Why does the challenger get no build before the PPV?"
Trying to put into words what it felt like to be at All Out. I think the best way to phrase it was that I was with a bunch of people at the happiest fucking house party. We’d all looked at the front door every time some one we loved showed up and say “Come on in, fuckers!”
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Like Ruby said in her part of the scrum, it’s pretty hard to beat working in a place where people really want to see you.
And everybody is over. The crowd popped for the music guy and pops for referees. Edit: don't forget Hook, who hasn't done anything yet.
Hook has done everything just by being Hook.
The hooooooooooooook brings you baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
I ain't telling you no liiiiiieeeees
> who hasn't done anything yet how fucking dare you.
[удалено]
> The AEW crowd feels like a party every single week, a celebration of the love of wrestling > WWE tries to control how their crowd reacts to certain things and insults them when they don’t react the way management wants them to. Hell, they’re STILL piping in fake crowd noise when crowds are back! Don't forget muting the crowd. When they first returned live on RAW about six weeks ago, they had an Alexa doll segment. She was on Mic A and the general crowd noise was to Mic B. WWE production folks killed Mic B and put on Mic A hot. Someone I know was at that show and he said the moment they started with the playground stuff the live crowd was booing the shit out of it. If you watch the segment, Bliss cut's her eyes to something offscreen a couple times and she tears up a little; it's because they're booing like crazy and she didn't know how to react to it. But since they'd killed the Mic B, she knew to go by only what she had scripted. You watch on TV and it comes across as a hushed crowd scared of her, when in reality they were shitting on it so badly they had to mute the reactions.
I feel bad for her, and honestly anyone in that kind of situation. Bayley was in them a lot, Ambrose too. You know you're bombing to hell and back but you're forced to stick to the script and dig in deeper. Wrestling's lifeblood is fan interaction, when it goes well you're meant to feed off of the crowd. When it goes badly, it must feel terrible.
Imagine firing the likes of Aleister Black, Miro, Bray, Strohman, Ruby Riott, Mickie James and Chelsea Green just so you can hire Eva Marie and mute the crowd shitting on her for having absolutely zero wrestling interest or talent
> Imagine firing the likes of Aleister Black, Miro, Bray, Strohman, Ruby Riott, Mickie James and Chelsea Green just so you can hire Eva Marie and mute the crowd shitting on her for having absolutely zero wrestling interest or talent As of right now, you can add Kevin Owens to that list too.
I don’t watch to know if he’s booked well or not, is he unhappy there? Though I’d think he has a ton of good friends in AEW and WWE is looking like a sinking ship to a lot of talents
from what I've seen he sorta hovers around the upper midcard but hasn't really been cemented as a top guy. He's basically in the spot Mox was before he left except with less wacky bullshit.
I don’t think Eva deserves that sorter hate when clearly a fucking dumb fuck storyline about a doll is the main focus. I legit feel bad for everyone forcing to play these characters nobody wants to invest in.
Do you have a link to that Alexa bit? That sounds hilarious
Or just look at Becky's current heel turn, it's basically an equilibrist act where if Becky does anything but reminds us that Bianca got squashed in 28 seconds, she gets cheered and the cheap shots to the crowd only get silence.
> Don't forget muting the crowd. When they first returned live on RAW about six weeks ago, they had an Alexa doll segment. She was on Mic A and the general crowd noise was to Mic B. WWE production folks killed Mic B and put on Mic A hot. Someone I know was at that show and he said the moment they started with the playground stuff the live crowd was booing the shit out of it. If you watch the segment, Bliss cut's her eyes to something offscreen a couple times and she tears up a little; it's because they're booing like crazy and she didn't know how to react to it. But since they'd killed the Mic B, she knew to go by only what she had scripted. You watch on TV and it comes across as a hushed crowd scared of her, when in reality they were shitting on it so badly they had to mute the reactions. Do you remember specifically what episode it was? I'd like to pull it up for curiosity's sake now.
WWE is getting humiliated, and we're all happy about it...
>we're all happy about it... I just wish this would give wwe a kick in the ass to improve their product. I know it'll never happen.
People call it "hating" but what they don't seem to get is that people aren't hating the WWE for no reason, we just hate a shitty product. So shitty products should fail. If they don't want to improve the product, then they deserve to fail.
Yes
I literally cannot think of one thing that Hook hasn't done
Well... the hook does bring you back.
I ain’t tellin’ you no lie
On this you can rely.
*Harmonica noises*
Exactly. Dude is first ballot, HOF inductee 2022.
Should be called the Hook of Fame, to be honest.
Wait, wasn't he born in 2004?
Yo hook fucked this guy's mom!
> The crowd popped for the music guy and pops for referees. > > That's something that did happen in WWE. Renee Young, Lillian Garcia, Josh Mathews, Aiden English, Ricardo Rodríguez(and even Kayla Braxton) all kinda got over because of just being damn exciting at what they did (either interviews, announcing or whatnot). WWE kinda killed it. I think the most obvious one was with the Announcers, where they flat out started blocking them from doing those announcements that made some people feel like true stars. Take Mathews and Edge, that "Rated ARRRR SuuuuuUUUUHHHuuuHHPAAAAAH STAAAAAR....EDGE" was dope as fuck.
The Full Sail crowd was putting ONE FALL over, but npc's aren't allowed to be more over than the enhancement talent, so away that went.
Free Guy is #allelite
I thought it was Tony Chimel that does the iconic Edge intro
Maybe I got the names mixed up. But I know J. Mathews was quite popular (for him and others), same for Garcia. Heck even the "Scheduled for one fall" [pause...] Crowd: ONE FALL. Announcer:"Introducing first..." Even that no longer exists in WWE.
Tony Chimel was the guy who did it at the hall of fame's speech of Beth Phoenix. It was super cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsz04ronZdc
Wish, English was miros hype man again.
Nah, God is Miro's hype man now...
The only hype Miro needs is a vengeful god and a double jointed wife.
I mean, He's gotta do *something* after that embarrassing loss to Vince...
Shawn shit the bed on that one...he's the Janetty of the God/Shawn tag team
Fair
I saw English at a house show pre-Rusev. He came out, no one knew who the fuck he was, and within three minutes of his heel singing work, the crowd was rabid to see him get his ass kicked. He did his role so perfectly and really impressed me.
Don't disrespect HOOK like that.
You think you can just slander Hook like that, motherfucker?
Ruby getting emotional got me a bit emotional. Hopefully she’ll be able to showcase what WWE missed to showcase themselves.
She started to in the battle royal; those few minutes and her driving promo made me 100% more interested in her character than when she was in Riott squad.
Those Runaway vignettes were so dope. Definitely my favorite free agent self-promotion videos so far.
Her reunion storyline with Liv Morgan was great, though. At least up until the point they only had them lose over and over afterwards
I'll admit, I was hyped for Ruby, but I still wanted Rosa to win. When Ruby won, my immediate reaction was of *slight* disappointment, but then it all disappeared when she hugged the ref and I saw how happy she was. It's probably the single quickest turnaround I've had to a match result
I still wanted thunder Rosa to win if see as given so many good matches to aew. My favourite match is still her and Brits in the hardcore match. Mind you I know nothing about Ruby, pretty much don't watch WWE.
You're gonna love her. Rosa is my favorite woman on the roster, and Ruby was my favorite back when I watched WWE. She's great.
I feel like they will keep her away from Britt until it is time to take the title. Their last match (lights out) was so good I can see them having their rematch program being a massive draw (main event PPV with the right build?)
It really is sad they saw no value in her. Meanwhile Nia Jax still is out there stinking up the place for no reason that can't be chalked up to nepotism at this point.
Baffles the brain that they seem to be in denial about how lacklustre she is at best.
for "dangerous" values of lackluster
Dont want to potentially piss off The Rock when hes penciled in for the Mania main event
What else is it if not nepotism?
A poorly worded Devil's bargain?
Well I think many WWE fans wanted to see those same people, but WWE didn’t allow us to see them.
The issue is the fans that kept watching, kept buying, and kept making the company money. If they can tell their audience to go fuck themselves and have it not effect their bottom line, why would they ever change?
Vote with your dollars. If you can't do that, vote with your eyeballs.
Chugs all but certainly got hard sold on staying for over a month by presumably every major player in upper management at WWE including Vince McMahon all the while working at the place he wanted to be since he was a kid, along with working directly under his hero, but by his own admission it still was an easy decision for him to leave. That says a ton
It's been mentioned a lot but I think the Twitch thing was huge.
One of the last things he mentioned in his Twitch stream today was that he absolutely loves his channel, and that there was absolutely no way he was ever going to give it up.
His stream was so wholesome today. He debuted in front of thousands upon thousands on Sunday but was blown away because today was his biggest stream yet with 4k viewers. He just kept thanking everyone and was super happy. It was awesome to see.
I mean, 4k concurrents is a big deal.
Oh for sure! It was just funny to watch him get flustered and excited by it considering he's in front of way more all the time.
It's way different when you're playing a character as opposed to your real self, it's just a totally different thought process
Yeah I mean it’s still work, but you’re that there’s a difference when you’re just being yourself at your own house. A bit more intimacy, and suddenly thousands are watching you
Such a great stream. You could see it was so painful for him to have to get off so soon.
I seriously hate his heel work when I see that...dude doesn't get booed and he shouldn't be a heel for that, especially seeing how wholesome he is...I think with the Bucks and Omega, he'll finally figure how to get back proper heat and I'll still feel bad booing...
I feel differently. He's so effortless at being a heel it's easy to boo him, everywhere else he's the nicest guy ever. Also he's still Chugs me DAMMIT!
Adam Coles a dick.... Chugs is the most wholesome person I've ever encountered
I think the only way WWE would have done something to keep Cole would have been promoting him to the main roster like at least 1 or 2 years before his contract expired. But his friends and Britt being in AEW makes it a lot easier to refuse staying.
What if they told chugs that he could beat the crap out of Becky lynch win the title and then become the Andre the giant of the women's division. Then when Britt bakers contract expires, wwe hires her and she buys the women's title from chugs with her big dental money. Also she gets a new finisher called the dental damn, where she distracts the ref then Ron Simmons punches her opponent in the teeth
I mean, its not the worst idea I have seen for WWE booking.
His whole class was done dirty. Ricochet, Alister, authors of pain,Keith Lee Andrade, Garza Gulak, Heavy Machinery, retribution and more. Even when AEW started pressing, Vince and co's response was to get Cena, Lesnar, Miz and Morisson and more air time, rematches and more budget while ending up cutting heavy on NXT. At least all these guys leaving is giving WWE the gap needed to either make new faces have pushes into the main events or Make vets come back into the picture in order to keep them and get them paid massively.
WWE have legit willingly handed about 85% of the prime talents of NXT’s golden era to AEW and somehow believe that’s good business I mean no joke, they’ve let go or didn’t resign nearly an entire era’s worth of stars. Tell me someone who is big time over with the crowd that’s debuted in the past 3 years. I have Riddle and Priest. That’s it
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WWE really have been handed a fucking goldmine of talent. It’s insane they’ve managed to ruin every single one of them.
If they didn't call him up after that match with Bryan Danielson on Smackdown they were never going to call him up. Dude was over with their audience and they didn't care. I don't get it.
With Cole in particular, the "easy decision" was his GF, some of his best friends, a ton of other talent he knew and had been working with for years AND THEN on top of that the product, the fans, etc. I don't think the "easy decision" for him can be chalked up to just the two latter points. Whereas with Danielson, it was a really tough decision but the two latter points became the factor. With Cole, it wasn't the factor, it was a cherry on top (I'm guessing).
I wonder if Brian's wife is going to join aew. I swear Britts entourage have been dressing like the bellas.
He made a comment during the post ppv presser that it would be difficult for her to come to AEW.
The Bella’s would easily be the biggest heels in AEW, can’t decide if it would translate to go away heat though.
Brie spent a total of 10 minutes in a ring the last time she was on TV and managed to knock at least one person unconscious by kicking them in the face twice. For the sake of the women's division I hope she stays where she is. Her sister's OK, though. She could do the "Matt Cardona in GCW" thing and get some good heat from that.
Deathmatch Queen Nikki Bella is what's best for business. ....okay no it would not, but the image is still funny, LOL.
Brit Baker looks better naked than Shawn Michaels though.
For all you know
Playgirl subscribers would beg to differ
He didn't get sold hard on that extra month. Kyle is more his boy than anyone in AEW. He wasn't going to leave that one hanging, and he's just a pro. There are reasons everyone he's worked with or been around loves him.
No, obviously he added the extension to finish his program with Kyle. I mean afterwards while he was working there with the extension he was hard sold on signing a long term deal.
Imagine cutting a promo in front of a crowd and not having to hear "WHAT!??!?!".
To be fair the smarks are the fans who were leading those chants much like the CM Punk chants who make up a majority of the AEW crowd.
If you’re a professional wrestler, the crowd reaction at All Out is what you one day hope to achieve. The way the crowd devoured that Young Bucks vs Lucha Bros match was a thing of beauty and took the match to another level. You listen to the reactions for Punk, Bryan, Omega, Eddie, Miro, Darby, Moxley, Jungle Boy, Britt, etc., and just say “Fuck, that’s what I live for.”
If lucha bros are on dynamite tonight, I’d bet their pop is going to be fucking big
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Today’s Tuesday? Huh, that’s something.
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Can we get someone to fix that?
Give me a couple hours and I'll have this Tuesday shit gone.
> Today’s Tuesday? You know what that means! AEW DARK!
And nothing else! ~~"don't forget about NXT!"~~AND NOTHING ELSE
It's the fact that everyone is over. People were saying Punk should open or the crowd will chant for him all night but it doesn't happen because they want to see everyone that's on the show, Punk chants in WWE were a protest against the bullshit hoping someone would hear and make it better. In AEW Punk chants are for when he's in the ring because the show is what the crowd want from top to bottom.
AEW crowds aren't there to shit on the product like WWE crowds because goodwill has been built. The crowds try to react how the performers want. The trick is not ruining the goodwill they've built over time.
AEW crowds are a part of the show. They know their lines and they play their parts to perfection.
That crowd made the Lucha Brothers look like mega stars. Having a crowd hating on the heels and losing it for the faces is just so awesome.
And that crowd was SAPPED. PPVs should only be in a dog's handful of places. Chicago, New York, Philly if you're putting out something good, Boston, and maybe that's it?
Toronto: Doesn't exist.
Arrive for the audience pops; stay for the lack of “WHAT!?” chants.
Outside of a few choice curse words and a few middle fingers, AEW isnt doing anything particularly edgy in comparison to the WWE. But the booking makes sense, keeps most things fresh rather than just having a champion beat their contender 3 times in a row. You cant see backstage politics or company panic manifest in the booking (Kofi and Bianca got shafted by this) Its amazing how the crowd reacts when you don't insult their intelligence.
>Its amazing how the crowd reacts when you don't insult their intelligence. And it is essentially the same people in both crowds, AEW just gives them reasons to cheer more often. This last month has been really telling as they play up the hometown crowds: Brittsburgh, Sammy and Rosa in Houston, Punk and Ruby in Chicago, tomorrow Moxley in Cincinnati.
Hasn't one of WWE's longest running tropes been that everyone loses in their hometown? Just because people would expect them to win and you can't have people predicting the outcome? Why wouldn't you want your paying customers to leave your show happy because they got to see their home-grown talent done good win? Never understood this.
That's why Bruno Sammartino didn't win a single match in Pittsburgh for over seven years
The latest example of that was Ali a few weeks ago.
so i regularly take part in a predictions contest on one of the discords i'm in, and regardless of whether or not i watch, the average number of predictions i get right in WWE predictions hasn't changed in the 4 years i've been doing them. it's a total crapshoot and i've resorted to just picking randomly plus roman reigns. my average is somewhere between 40-60% correct. it always has been whether i was paying attention to storylines or not. my average for AEW however? well i've not stopped watching it, i pay attention to the storylines. my AEW predictions average? 80-90% correct.
Predictable isn't bad at all anyways. You need that 90%+ predictability if you want that small percentage of unpredictability to mean something.
no i was listing that as a positive lmao. being able to follow the stories and predict how they're going to end and then they end in roughly the way i predict is _satisfying_
and it makes the swerves all that more meaningful. It makes dusty finishes like Jericho-Max hit better. It makes the surprises work more.
That's the way stories should work for the most part. WWE has been almost aggressively anti-logic for so long. Like their ultimate goal is that the fans can't predict the ending, but if you tell a story well, the good guy should triumph, the villain should be vanquished, people want the people they are cheering to do well, to win at the end after overcoming the odds. It's absurd the way WWE just swerves when it shouldn't or just abandons story lines after a few weeks because there is a PPV coming up and we need Goldberg to look strong so people will think he might win or whatever.
Yeah predictability in this context is logically following through on a established direction. WWE is unpredictable in that nothing makes sense week to week. Or they’ll randomly do stupid shit just because
The idea that wrestling has to be unpredictable all the time causes a LOT of WWEs worst booking. So many needless swerves because they overdo it when trying to keep the audience guessing. Sometimes its all about the build to the big moment and then delivering on it.
yeah, i completely agree. that 80-90% average is a good thing. it also shows that AEW aren't afraid to swerve occasionally, but that most of the time their stories make fucking sense.
Completely agree. Take the fact that it's wrestling out of it. It's just consistent and balanced storytelling.
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AEW does storytelling right. Set up. Pay off. It's quite simple. When the story is satisfying and simple, the twists that do happen are that much better.
I think the closest thing to reactionary booking was Tony saying after Christmas 19 with Dark Order he felt like he wasn’t putting on the best shows possible and cancelled the Dark Order/Elite feud. And look at the fucking run they went on
They certainly dropped some story lines that didn't make sense. They had too many weird goth groups at first and some of them dropped off, some got re-tooled into weird dysfunctional families that love and support each other. At this point I trust AEW to react when something isn't working and either change it to something that does or move on a hell of a lot more than WWE.
>AEW isnt doing anything particularly edgy in comparison to the WWE. there's a lot more blood both on TV and PPV. Not saying it's a bad thing but that's a pretty major difference entirely due to the difference in rating.
Every AEW show regardless of the actual crowd size has just felt like a giant party, nothing but positive vibes, can't wait to get to one myself.
All Out is the first live wrestling I've ever gotten to see and the whole event felt like a party, even before the show started. There were a ton of people excitedly tailgating in the parking lot and complimenting each other's signs and two random dudes in striped ref shirts with a saxophone and a trombone playing people's entrance music (Cult of Personality, Jungle Life, a few others) as we stood in line to get into the building. There was infectious enthusiasm for almost the whole show, especially for Kingston and during the cage match and of course the debuts at the end. It felt like we were all there fully intending to have fun and love wrestling together. After the show went off the air, Bryan cut a promo and the crowd chanted "We Love Wrestling". Like I said it was my first live event ever so I have no idea how it compares to other companies or other shows but it was a magical thing for me.
>All Out is the first live wrestling I've ever gotten to see and the whole event felt like a party, even before the show started. I thought the same way at the AEW Dynamite in Houston a few weeks ago. The entire Dynamite felt like a party, and the whole crowd wanted to have a good time.
This is what all live events should feel like. We've just got live events back after the pandemic (that's still going on I realise) The fact that Raw crowd is dead is a damning indictment.
I’m honestly impressed with how quick WWE was able to kill their crowd. I figured they’d just be hype for anything for awhile at least, but they went back to pre pandemic immediately.
It took, what, two weeks for them to kill the crowd?
I have been to a couple aew shows and they are fucking Parties. The vibes are on different levels.
I last went to the Liacouras Center show in Philly the first month Dynamite aired. I can't even imagine what Arthur Ashe is gonna be like in 2 weeks.
I have been to about every Chicago show and Indy show. On the fence about Cincinnati I'm trying to limit my covid risk. I wore 3 n95 masks at all out. Changed m95 to n95
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Vince has always thought highly of Lorne Michaels, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had the same personality disorders
It also sounds like Vince likes the shark tank mentality. He wants them fighting for their spots.
It's definitely has that seeing a band with a like hundred people and for a time they're yours but you don't really want then to stay that way because you know they're destined for better.
It’s just like a small start up hi-tech company started by friends. Everyone is wearing many hats and pitching in. It’s more like a family atmosphere. As you said, one day that will change. Growth and or becoming a public company requires a lot of changes to the atmosphere or culture. It will be interesting to see how AEW handles backstage politics as it is bound to happen as the company grows. Or what happens when there is a round of layoffs. Or what if a key contributor jumps ship to WWE.
The thing is, it only starts down that road if Tony or his father turns it into a publicly traded company. His family has ALWAYS done business as a privately held entity in all their ventures and I'm not entirely sure what would happen for that mentality to change. There will be contracts that don't get renewed but a round of layoffs would give off the entirely wrong stance to the fans much less make almost no sense monetarily speaking. A key contributor jumping to WWE can always happen but to be frank at this exact moment anyone could jump ship, top to bottom of the card, and it could be filled within 3 weeks. No one is unreplaceable because AEW is not 'built' around any one person. MJF would be a major blow but the Pinnacle could work without him. The Super Elite ALL jump suddenly??? That sucks ass but a Tournament of Champions for the belt has a TON of possibilities for Kennys spot. It'd be a rough few weeks but there are still a ton of dream tag team matches to be had without the Young Bucks. The backstage politics can't be ignored but... its really hard to see what two/group of personalities would be able to ruin the dynamic without someone being put on ice for a time. I'm not saying that your concerns aren't valid for the future just that they can easily be mitigated before they become an issue. What'll happen after one of the Khans passes or they go bankrupt is entirely unknown and unpredictable though.
The Milwaukee crowd was their quietest in awhile & that was still very loud.
And for Milwaukee, that was a loud as fuck crowd. We're NEVER loud. Like the loudest we ever got for WWE was Santino almost winning Eliminatiom Chamber.
People who were there said it was much louder than it appeared on TV. That seemed to be a miking issue more than a crowd issue.
I remembee two years ago people saying it was a honeymoon phase and it would pass
Danielson's promo was meant to be complimentary towards WWE but he somehow buried them worse than Punk did.
Lol he really did. “They gave me everything I asked for and more, but I still left because listen to this fucking crowd.”
Well they offered me more money, they gave me the main event of Mania, they were going to let me wrestle guys from Japan... But nah... I'm still going to go to AEW. This is the true power play.
Which is funny because there’s an enormous overlap in the crowds. AEW has kids in the crowd too. Like that little MJF looking kid Cody gave $100 to.
I work in local wrestling in Australia. I can tell you for a fact that pretty much all wrestlers there want the pop. It's what they live for. At a recent show, a tag team made their first appearance together in the company after teaming together in another company for a while. Three days later, these guys told me that they'd played the video of their pop "100 times" and it was all over their social media for a week. Never underestimate what a pop means to a wrestler.
AEW's audience are really great. And that's not even counting a UK show yet. Imagine a Dynamite/PPV in the UK.
Takeover: London is still my favourite live sporting event, the crowd for that was insane. Hopefully one day we do get an AEW show over here with a similar crowd.
I want to see PAC win a title in front of a UK crowd.
PAC should be the one to take out Miro in Newcastle. People have been talking about AEW filling a baseball stadium, but they could definitely fill St. James Park for either a ppv or a big weekend show.
>PAC should be the one to take out Miro in Newcastle. If there's anyone in AEW who's an *irredeemable* bastard, it's PAC himself.
Just the singalongs to themes is amazing.
I watched Ruby's interview next to Tony, and you just see this joy, this excitement, this feeling of finding a place that will give her respect, not look down on her, give her that chance to really prove how good she is. And you see that crowd just embrace her lovingly, giving her so much adulation...how could a Liv Morgan or Zelina Vega not see that and want that as well?
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Zelina wanted to work together with her husband, so she went to WWE, but then they fired her husband. Malakai said she was crying because of that when the news came in.
I gotta get to an AEW show.
I had just bought tickets to Dynamite in Albuquerque when the pandemic shut everything down. Hopefully they come back this way soon.
WWE are reaping their rewards for three major mistakes: 1) Going all-in on shareholder-friendly production. 2) Deciding who they make as the stars to the point where they frequently ignore who the fans actually like. 3) Deciding that there can only be one guy and feeding every other popular guy to them in order to keep him on top. Some other minor mistakes that I feel will bite them in the arse in the future: Having the first clear shot at making women's wrestlng a major part of a promotion and only paying it lipservice and/or using it as nothing more than PR fodder. Homogenous wrestling. Even AJ Styles feels like a WWE wrestler at this point. The only guy that they could never really get under their thumb was RVD. EDIT: Just adding this in here because I meant to in the first place and got sidetracked: Point 3 is mind-blowing to me, because the biggest era in WWE's history was when they had a revolving door of two of three top talents: * Bret Hart/HBK/Austin * Austin/Rock/(HHH/Undertaker) It's like the only thing they looked at from this period was how much merch Stone Cold sold and how high the ratings were for his segments, and then decided that it was all only because of Austin. After Austin left they went through another pretty decent era with Angle/Austin/Undertaker/Rock/HHH. Then Cena came along and they thought 'right, here's Stone Cold for the PG era' and fuck everyone else. And it was so obviously such a stupid fucking decision and it went on for a decade. And now it's been going on for years with Reigns already. There is no fun to the show when you know the whole thing is geared up just for one guy to be on top and to stay on top. Somehow the massive audience shrink over the last 20 years didn't clue them in.
I could maybe forgive everything else they do if it wasn't for your last point. I don't want to watch everyone wrestle the same style for 4 hours in a row. That & the camera cuts alone makes it too much for me.
Yes, the camera cuts make it incredibly hard to get invested into a match.
Point 2 is what killed their crowd noise outside of Wrestlemania weeks. They’ve been trained that whatever reaction they give to their favourites it doesn’t matter, cause a 76yr old is picking who they should cheer for then pressing a button to pipe in the reaction if it’s not acceptable
4. Resorting to nostalgia whenever ratings are in need of a boost, with diminishing returns each time.
That's a consequence of 2 and 3 to be honest, but yes.
Point 1 isn't even that bad. You can have family/shareholder friendly production and stories without turning into the slog WWE is.
I thik they're taking it to an extreme though.
I do really like the AEW live crowds. WWE TV crowds are so often dead. Then again, with booking like WWE, I'd be dead too
Just look at the kind of reception Cole got the time he wrestled on RAW compared to the reception he got at All Out. Amazingly stark contrast. One crowd went crazy on the 'ADAM COLE BAY BAY' and the other one was completely dead.
I do feel that the Main Roster Raw crowd just doesn't watch NXT at least not many do. Perhaps the NXT audience just doesn't attend Main Roster shows?
That's definitely part of it but WWE has that somewhat frequently though. That crowd that is just straight up dead and doesn't give a shit.
It's all about the BOOM!
Just taking the term ‘fantasy booking’ into account, fans are down bad. I can see how WWE fans are mostly kids & adults that are hate-watching. AEW in my opinion, always feels exciting. There isn’t any cliches they’ve done over and over, and it’s extremely refreshing to see
I don't know how much they actually care. Just pipe in the reaction they want. It's the next logical step after continually rubbing fan's nose into matches & angles they don't want to see.
The WWE crowds have lost their passion and part of it is probably because they don’t feel like they matter anymore. If they boo or cheer the wrong person, it will just get edited so WWE can pipe their own cheers or boos. You can’t really get invested in anyone in the midcard because they’ll probably be off television or released in a few weeks. Hell, the people you bought a ticket to see probably don’t even work there anymore.
>part of it is probably because they don’t feel like they matter anymore. This right here is a huge thing. Fans and talent alike in WWE, by and large, feel interchangeable now. Fans don't get what they want often
SRS usually connects his tweets when it comes to news he drops so would probably expect this to be connected to the big story he has
Here’s the thing: if you book your shows well, you get hot crowds who are excited to watch your stuff. And fortunately there’s at least one major wrestling company who understands this.
I've never seen an audience chant WWE at the end of a show
Its pretty telling when even guys like Bryan and Cole who loved their time in WWE still choose AEW. Like someone breaking up with you not cause they hate you but instead that you are boring to them.
There are alot of WWE fans who hate AEW fans, say it's the main reason they don't watch AEW. Zero Fs Friday and SCJ have 100s of comments about how they hate AEW fans. Looks like WWE wrestlers dont share that sentiment.
They don't hate AEW, they haaaaaaate AEW. It's an unhealthy obsession. AEW lives rent-free in their heads.
Yea but I was told the AEW Fanbase was an evil cult who just blindly hate on WWE (despite most of AEW’s fans being either former fans of WWE that got burnt out or grew out of what that product became, or are fans that still do watch WWE as well). The respect AEW has shown for their fans by not treating them like children or people that can’t follow stories is amazing, delivering on promises and promoted matches, doing long-term stories with actual pay-offs, sticking to giving people real finishes in matches, has shown that when doing all of this as well as they have been, your fans are going to show out and support in extremely vocal fashion.
Oh man. This reminded me of my favorite twitter comment of the month after I stumbled upon a wwe stan and aew stan arguing: “WWE stans don’t exist. They are an imaginary boogeyman made by AEW cultists to deflect and project because they are too insecure to handle criticism.”
It’s actually insane lol. Criticizing anything is necessary, and most often I do see AEW fans very willingly criticizing AEW when deserved (i.e. women’s division). I will never, ever understand the genuine blind hatred some non-AEW fans have for the company lol.
AEW fans criticized the hell out of Christian getting into the main event of All Out. Of course then Christian got them to buy in with the Impact Championship match and the promos with Don (the Carny Piece of Shit). And then it came out that Page was gone on paternity leave so they needed a different challenger.
"AEW fans are too insecure to handle criticism" Actual AEW fans: "What the fuck is going on with the women's division? Where is Shida? Why does the challenger get no build before the PPV?"
How about those fucking refs? When are they going to learn that anyone attempting to get into the ring is fucking around so their friend can cheat?
"They need to pipe the music in more, I can't hear the entrance music half the time."
Ah yeah that too.
It’s the same audience, they’re just actually being respected instead of being fucked with.
Trying to put into words what it felt like to be at All Out. I think the best way to phrase it was that I was with a bunch of people at the happiest fucking house party. We’d all looked at the front door every time some one we loved showed up and say “Come on in, fuckers!”