What´s Happening in AEW?

Relationship with his fans, metrics and creative

Credit: https://wrestlingheadlines.com/ddt-pro-star-konosuke-takeshita-returning-to-aew-next-month/

Since Punk won the AEW World Championship in the T-Mobile Arena at Double Or Nothing, Khan´s promotion has been having his most chaotic run, it feels like a hangover of the peaking they had from July 2021 to I would say May of 2022.

CM Punk basically gone from the promotion, The Elite suspended indefinetly, some bad rounds of ticket sales and a lot of divisive thoughts on Khan´s booking from the fanbase paints AEW´s situation as not great.

So you will ask me, Is time to panic? My answer is no

With all the shitstorm of backstage unrest, Triple H basically tampering a big amount of AEW wrestlers, injuries and people who are waiting for some vacations (Moxley) the main event scene is left with a few people and some of them won´t be able to give the same level in 6 months to a year (Jericho).

The structure of the show since the Dynamite after the All Out scandal has been peculiar for the sudden change of focus on certain guys like Ricky Starks, Hangman Page, MJF, Wheeler Yuta, Daniel García been the main character of a feud that have Bryan Danielson and Chris Jericho, Darby winning in singles matches and The Acclaimed getting that main spot that a lot of tag teams have been lacking since the Bucks lost the belts vs the Lucha Bros at All Out 2021.

The originals of AEW are actually doing sustantial things with this time having a main storyline driver that is MJF winning the AEW Championship, AEW hasn´t had a main storyline driver since Hangman winning the AEW belt by beating Kenny Omega add that his time they are heating up babyface to actually have other main driver storylines that can draw interest on seeing the shows too see them grow match by match, promo by promo and storyline by storyline.

About the ratings, they are doing really well, they just average their best demo number since April and the best overall viewership of the year with the TV audience engaged with the main storylines of the shows.

So all is going perfect and everything is great? My answer is NO

There´s still have some bad stuff like certain segments that not land, the lack of big tag matches are still affecting the energy of the crowds and the show, sketchy booking techniques usually use from other places and also the lack of different styles of matches that slowly are getting back. Also why not mentioned it, a lot of Kenny Omega, Young Bucks and Punk fans won´t be hyped for the shows because it doesn´t have their favourites and nobody really knows what will happen with them. Talent basically saying shit to other talent in twitter.

About the ticket sales, I´ve been talking about the bad round of november since they went on sale and I directly say that 3 are horrible with 1 directly should be reschedule no matter what. In my opinion is a mix of 4 main issues:

1. The product hasn´t been hot because of injuries and creative decisions.
2. The tickets prices are too high.
3. Rampage is diluting markets that Dynamite could have and even draw more because Dynamite as a brand is bigger than Rampage.
4. Some markets are oversaturated.

One thing that makes me think the previously mentioned factors are big reasons why they are struggling in November is how well Seattle, Chicago and Full Gear ticket sales are doing. It aren´t sell outs but are good. We will have to see next round that is Indiana in the last week of November as well as the venues they will run on December, I have heard rumblings about The Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, I wouldn´t be surprised if they use the Bojangles Arena in North Carolina and the UBS Arena in New York (MJF´s hometown).

As a fan, ¿What I want to see going forward?

Here I list some thing I would like to see, obviously not all will happen but at least a high percentage would be good:

• Konosuke Takeshita receiving a major push
• Six Man Tag matches and Big All Star Tag Matches in Dynamite & Rampage
• Keep the focus on the young, new and originals wrestlers, build them well so are ready to be money drawing stars.
• Keep it simple with the Women´s division, the tags usually work well for them. Also let´s stop the bullshit, Hayter is over and usually have solid matches, she´s the one.
• Don´t do the Money In The Bank gimmick, is better to have a well built match.
• Some big feuds for Wardlow to elevate the TNT Championship at the level that Cody and Darby had it during their run.
• Things like IronMan matches and 2 out of 3 falls matches would be good.

So here it is, my general view on AEW, I think they will be fine but correcting a lot of the bad stuff would really help them and make their metrics go even more up.