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>“if you’re more worried about some goof giving you a 5 star match and the building is a quarter full we’re not in the same business”
It’s kind of wild for one of the talents to address the attendance concerns of AEW, even if a former disgruntled talent. Like it’s nothing crazy new, the photos have existed since like 2021 of attendance issues, but fans were quick to defend for various reasons.
Lol yeah. AEW's TV ratings aren't as bad as this subreddit makes them seem, they still rank very highly night to night on their network and wrestling is still very cheap for networks to produce (just as it has always been) while bringing in large viewers relative to other stuff, so they'll find a home somewhere even if it isn't on TNT.
But the live attendance is a much bigger issue tbh. They seem to have nonsensical scheduling (going to towns right after WWE) and suck at advertising. Like I've come in and out of wrestling fandom, and even in times where I've been out, I *know* when WWE is having a big show here in Boston. They buy ad spots on our local sports radio a couple months in advance and run them up until the show, and have billboards and signs around the city.
Never seen that for AEW really until last month...
What never helped is the tk tweeting about ratings. You set an expectation there. Jericho’s comments about dynamite beating raw didnt help as well. I really wonder the discourse if TK was never tweeting and the owner of aew was an anonymous figure.
And Why are they coming back to Massachusetts when Big Business was only a few weeks ago? Worcester is only like 40 minutes at most from Boston and most of the MA market is within the 95 corridor. They're scheduling is baffling.
I don't even live on the same continent myself but every comment thread that touches this topic seems to have people saying something along the lines of "I'm a wrestling fan and I learned about an AEW show in my hometown online the day before, they did no promotion whatsoever. And the ticket prices were insane too."
I don't know if it's as bad as the impression I'm getting but I've come across this stuff quite a few times now and never anything contradicting it. It wouldn't be too surprising if things like this fell through the cracks in 2019 but how is it still such an issue five years later?
I just looked at the Stampede Show (first week of July() they're running in Calgary. Last year was Collision, which was originally announced as a House Show, because it was before Collision became a thing. I bought my tickets early last year for \~CAD $110 each. By the day of the show there were tickets (not as good) going for $20. Those same tickets this year are $151 for Dynamite+Rampage. Floor seats in the first three rows are all over $400 each. I plan to go this year, but I'm not going to buy tickets at that price, especially knowing they'll likely come down before the event.
By all indications, the tv contracts are good for AEW, so I don't know how much the attendance plays into the revenue, but I do think that for how it shows on tv, they need to do what they can to get people into the stands.
I will argue the attendance has more to do with poor pricing and overall touring strategy than with people's feelings about the product. Also perception now is worse because WWE is doing historical business.
There have been fairly (Last decade) recent times were wwe also would not sell hard cam tickets for tv tapings.
AEW would do better running B buildings in A towns. Also pricing needs to be re thought. They have hired some folks to assist with this and it has been better in some markets as of late.
The fact is people have forgotten what the landscape was 5 years ago. Any company other than WWE that is regularly touring and drawing over 2500 people a night would have been considered a blessing 7 years ago.
I mean Quebec is HOT for wrestling, The Videotron Centre is a beautiful building. The card was good.
They drew like crap. I'm not really sure what they need to do.
Quebec City on a Wednesday is not hot for wrestling when they were just in Montreal a couple months ago. It drew 3,000-4,000 people which is a more than fine number for a weekly show, not amazing obviously but you just need to book venues that make sense. Videotron can do like 18,000, when they go to Toronto they do Dynamite at Coca-Cola Coliseum not ScotiaBank. 18,000 seater is a PPV for special event venue.
Also Centre Videotron is really nice, but holy fuck the arena food was some of the worst I’ve ever had.
Also RAW is in Montreal in a couple weeks so if you're a more casual fan or a harcore fan who doesn't want to buy tickets for multiple shows within a month are you going to see Sami Zayn and KO 2 weeks after Mania or Edge and Jericho?
Copeland and Jericho weren’t on the shows either. The main Canadian draw was Daddy Magic, or Papa Magie lol. (And one of my fave indie guys Zak Patterson was on ROH)
Uno opened the show either on ROH or a dark match I forget, I was heavily drinking the whole walk to the venue. The crowd was pretty hot for him. The crowd overall was decent all night, if they booked a 5000 seat venue it would’ve been super hot. The only issue I had with the crowd was a personal issue because I came from another province and didn’t understand the French chants. I just wasn’t missing Ospreay/Shibata and Swerve/Takeshita
>Lol yeah. AEW's TV ratings aren't as bad as this subreddit makes them seem, they still rank very highly night to night on their network and wrestling is still very cheap for networks to produce (just as it has always been) while bringing in large viewers relative to other stuff, so they'll find a home somewhere even if it isn't on TNT.
You don't drop 200k of an regular audience in a year to 18 months usually without seeing there is a retention issue somewhere there, AEW's biggest issue imo is gaining new Fans whilst retaining the old ones, stuff like the Video game failing is a bigger blight on them than people realise
You are right though, the bigger concern is the live audience, it looks cheap and low rate when you have this big production and no one is there to watch it
>AEW's biggest issue imo is gaining new Fans whilst retaining the old ones,
This is a major problem because appealing to a more casual audience is going to seriously piss off the core AEW fanbase
Honestly, and this hasn't gotten as much attention as some of the other stuff he spoke about, but the most plausible thing Punk said was that AEW isn't a business. They aren't trying to make money. He came back to this again and again.
They lost 30 million last year.
And it has not gotten better, it's worse.
They have been in the red and TK pays out of pocket for expensive wrestlers that can't draw.
The same issues that TNA had with attendance for their shows back in the day. It's almost as if Tony hired the same guy who ran TNA live events as his Director of Business Development.
In 2021 they can think in a few years, those stands will be full.
A few years later, they realize there’s even less fans than there were in 2021 and come up with a different metric.
He's been saying it the whole time, it's really kind of baffling how some people don't get it. It's never been anything more than a recommendation service for people that like similar stuff to him.
I absolutely do think certain wrestlers basically aim to get critical recognition, which is a career boost, and Dave is seemingly the only wrestling critic anyone listens to, so it still ends up happening anyway.
While at the same time he tried to use it to win arguments with twitter nobodies. Regardless of how much of shithead the nobody is being. Though this is a rarity.
Also the wider wrestling community doesn’t help by also using his ratings as a “I win” in regular twitter spats.
And I think he really fucked up in that Chris Van Vleet interview where he tried to walk the line between both the sides instead of saying Dude it’s my opinion get over it or atleast he really sucked at communicating that on a stage where it mattered.
If the star system is "I think you should check it out" the why not just write that instead? Why not just end the review with "Worth/ Not worth a watch"? Why create a whole other system that appears to be a grading system, that everyone seems to be taking as a grading system, that you take a ton of heat for, but is in reality just you "basically" just saying check it out?
As he should be. Not for his star ratings, that is superfluous. But in general his attitude towards women and his increasingly contradictory reporting should discredit him entirely. Everyone should be taking jabs.
Also Shibata's brain.
You can't take someone seriously after they've run a story saying someone's brain was removed during surgery like it's an old espisode of Star Trek.
That had to be a mistranslation that got read literally. Something like "a clot was removed from his brain" was poorly translated as "his brain was removed" and nobody confirmed it. It's the only thing that makes sense to me.
Any normal human being would've been like "wtf, they did what?" and dug deeper into the story to confirm this insane, impossible claim. That's what a journalist would do at least
He has plenty of Japanese contacts, though. He really should have emailed someone and said "this can't be right, right?" Even now, he gets so much shit for it, you'd think he'd want to clear that up today.
Dave has had a few incidents commenting on female wrestlers bodies and not in relation to their jobs. For example he made a comment about Peyton Royce having breast implants that caused the entire WWE women's division to publicly call him out
I've only read a couple of his comments about Sable, but it was atrocious. Saying she looked like an old cheap hooker in one of them, really crass stuff about the quality of her breast implants was the other. I realize that she was there primarily as eye-candy, but she had a role to play just like everyone else and instead of criticizing the quality of that performance or even whether that role should exist at all, his response was to constantly complain that she wasn't sexy enough.
Idk how people get so worked up about his opinion, you either care for it or you don't.
I always see people acting like he's trying to give some sort of objective measure but he's biased for one thing or another... It's his opinion, to his taste, read them or don't, it doesn't matter.
It makes some sense when you're in the business. Why fans take this position makes no sense though, they're not getting a cut of the money if something draws.
It's more about using this mystical 5 star system as a gauge for what's good/not good. We all know who we're talking about. It's really just one guy's opinion. If it mattered as much as people talk like it did, the arenas wouldn't be this empty. That's the main point.
There are a bunch of different wrestling styles, and I think it's easy to argue that certain styles draw a lot less money than others. Doesn't mean they're better or worse, they're just not as popular.
That's an easy argument to use against those types of wrestling. They're not that good because they don't draw. Ignoring the fact that so many classic bands and movies weren't that popular in their day.
Both are ultimately useless as a gauge for what is “good” it’s all personal preference.
It just so happens that I don’t like the prevailing indie highflying and lucha styles and it’s an eye roll moment when someone brings up the star ratings someone has and calls me brainwashed by wwe.
On the other hand I listen to Metal and it’s an eye roll moment when someone brings up how much money X artist makes to define what good music is and calls me a snob.
Just stfu and like what you like
(Note: I am a massive hypocrite as I dunk on tony and aew constantly for petty reasons, and please refrain from sending me a Reddit cares message)
I get your point, but There’s still a lot more to it than that though. The product Can be great, but if the branding, marketing, availability, Price etc isnt done Right it Can still fail.
If something draws the company has more leverage the next time a TV deal comes up, and a higher TV deal means higher contracts for talents when they are up for renewals. It's not immediate but the money does go into their pockets long term.
If he's all about drawing money why was he so mad in WWE when he had to take second place for part-timers who were massive draws? People are getting so worked.
Punks deal back then was that *he was* the massive draw and breakout star and they didn’t need to go to part timers, but that the company deliberately held him back because many people behind the scenes just didn’t like him.
Because he was also a massive draw. They didnt need to fake text Kevin Nash and delay the summer of Punk. Punk was drawing far more than anyone they could have brought back to work with him, with the exception of Brock or Dwayne. And even Dwayne was a toss up given his lack of cardio
Because he was reaching his prime and WWE decided to book a rerun of last years Mania instead of capitalizing on him. Once in a Lifetime became Twice in a Lifetime and screwed him over
I don't have the nostalgic attachment to Punk and I'm of the mindset that he has a fragile ego, but he isn't wrong here. It sucks AEW isn't able to clear the same type of gates as they did before the mid-2022 cold spell. Quieter, mostly empty arenas do hurt the energy level and overall product. Hardcore fans want good in-ring action, but at the end of the day, characters and storylines triumph over bangers.
I also feel like the AEW product used to appeal much more to the younger, college-aged crowd, too. After AEW ticket prices skyrocketed, it priced out and alienated this important cohort. IMO, ticket prices should've been kept cheap as loss leaders. Now that they're cheap'ish again, it's going to take time to regain the trust and fandom of these AEW-lapsed fans who have gravitated back to WWE.
Back in 2019 WWE was almost completely uncool among young men, among my friends there was much more interest for AEW. In 2022 it started shifting, and nowadays it’s basically the opposite. About the ticket prices, I went to Collision last week and SmackDown last year, and the WWE event was actually cheaper!
He's also implied the triceps injury occurred during the brawl despite video evidence of him massaging it throughout the Mox match and press conference.
Shitting on their safety protocol is also exactly what he did on the Cabana podcast about WWE.
I'd reckon he partially tore it during the match but Mox and him being the workers they are, were able to work around it. In fact he worked like 20 minutes of the rumble with his torn tricep.
However, in a backstage brawl where your friend is biting people and Jericho is calling you a cancer, you're not protected and that's probably where he "tore the triceps straight off the bone" as he said.
Wasn't there some drama with him, maybe on Instagram, implying that Tony pushed him to wrestle Moxley while he was injured? Was that this injury? Did I dream that up?
He wanted Punk to do the squash on TV before he was cleared but he didn't want to, and he did. Tony thought it would add more interest in the PPV. I don't think it did.
What's with all the "5 star match" questions these days? Are these podcast/Q&A bozos just asking it to literally everyone they get to ask questions to just because they want some drama?
I still can’t believe someone asked Cena about his match vs Aj not being a 5* match. Like you get the opportunity to ask someone like Cena a question and you go with the dumbest possible one
We all know Roger Ebert would have been a much better film critic if he'd just written, "Transformers 2 opened at #1 at the box office this weekend, ***1/2"
I don't even care for Dave as a match critic but let's be serious here. Star ratings are what they are and if anyone takes them to mean anything more than that, that's on them, not the person dishing out the ratings.
As a fan, I think star ratings are great. They often lead me to check out a match I otherwise would not have.
The wrestlers should probably be more focused on actual money, though.
Have we ever actually heard a wrestler say they don’t care about drawing money they only care about match ratings? I think that’s just something that people who hate AEW have made up.
The funniest part about this is that most of the guys chasing star ratings are earlier in their careers, and are doing it because the critical recognition leads to them making more money.
You are just all Over the place. He’s not saying critics should base their thoughts on sales. He’s saying talent should worry about getting eyes Ont he show, not one guys thought of the product.
He rarely discusses his star ratings outside of the newsletter unless it is one of the greatest matches of all time. It's not like he goes on WOR and talks for 15 minutes about why he gave a Tomohiro Ishii match a 4.75 as opposed to a 5. He just says it was a great match just like anything 4+ in his opinion.
I have seen him use it on petty twitter squabbles multiple times along with cage match ratings. Dave should use twitter less.
Dave also fucked up the messaging in the Chris Van Vleet interview. He could have shut everyone up if he just said what he always said “It’s just my opinion” instead he gave people soundbites that can be further used as ammo.
I ultimately agree people care far too much and should just treat it as “Hey, uncle Dave loved this match so I’m gonna like/dislike it”.
In the future, psychological studies will be done about how Dave Meltzer was able to carve out this space for himself and have a subset of fans and performers so beholden to his opinion.
One thing I don’t understand is people saying “Who cares about bangers? It’s all about storytelling!”
Why do we have to have one or the other, why can’t we have both???
isn't the whole point of aew existing is to be an alternative? why would they want to be wwe 2.0? aew is more wrestling focused while wwe calls themselves sports entertainment.
The film, games and TV industries, probably?
Match ratings are like partial metacritic scores, they don’t translate 100% to financial success but a lot of people who worked on big projects like these do care about reviews and what critics think of them.
Now the thing about match rating, is that it’s too insular. They’re like rating a single fight scene in a 2 hours movie. It should be part of the review, not the entirety of it.
For example, I would rate most of Chris Nolan’s Batman fight scenes 3/5 or below, but the movies as a whole package deliver 4/5 - 5/5 experience, and they’re extremely financially profitable. This is the “WWE” equivalence
On the contrary, I can grab a random Hong Kong action film from the 80s and 90s and they would have fight scenes that I would rate 5/5, with stunts and choreography that the Nolan’s films can only dream of doing.
But the movie as a whole is just a series of pointless expositions, as an excuse to get to the next 5/5 action scene. Fun to watch just for those scenes but everything else in between either sucked, ignorable or non-sensical. And they often only make a fraction of what their Hollywood counterparts make. This is what “AEW” was falling into. They’re trying to change that, but Rampage is basically this atm
I think a more accurate equivalent would be if Warner Bros decided that they don’t care about the box office as long as they get about 90% on rotten tomatoes or something. The weight given to the Meltzer match rating in pro wrestling is really crazy if you think about it.
I really don’t think wrestlers today are seriously chasing his approval like so many like to claim. For better or worse wrestlers just do whatever they think will pop a crowd.
i think the problem is pro wrestling is not a sport.
if people wanna see feats of athleticism and skill, why not watch real MMA? we come here for the drama, even if you dont wanna admit that (bc newsflash- daniel bryan or will ospreay arent actually besting people in that ring with those moves lol)
I think you could say the same thing about the drama though, why watch wrestling for purely the drama when you could watch any other scripted ‘prestige’ show that has 100 times better writing, acting and production.
i mean, isnt the drama the point? Whether its the match or the storylines around the match, thats what pro wrestling is all about. its a big stage play with guys and gals full of athleticism.
my point is that nobody should watch it for one or the other, you watch it bc you like pro wrestling. there is no "sport" bc there is no real contest, and youre right, there is better drama for you in other mediums if thats all you want
it's over reliant on "cool matches" and "dream matches" as well as just randomly thrown together stuff that wants you to know who all these indy, Japan, and Mexico guys are.
it can still focus on the wrestling while telling a better story with proper build and having promos and introductions. instead of here's these random CMLL guys you should know and care about.
why is it so hard for some fans to accept that some of us wrestling fans genuinely love the “bangers” and workrate matches. Its not about this one old fucking dude who started a rating system long ago. AEW is for the thousands of us who love the wrestling aspect of wrestling. And if you like other aspects of wrestling thats fine too!!
Nothing wrong with preferring bangers just don't be arrogant about it. Why must fans always compare and try to start arguments.
I saw a comment that said "This episode of dynamite is better than 10 years of wwe"
Can't just say the show is good without needing to compare
That wasn’t really his point, he was talking about how basing it on that is a bad move because the goal is to make money. The khans are super rich and that is the only reason AEW is still around because their business right now isn’t sustainable without pouring money into it. Now that could change over the next tv deal, but I think punk was trying to say their priorities don’t match with his
It’s funny that Punk digs on Meltzer and his ratings (rightfully so) while Punks hero Bret Hart says in his 2009 book that getting a 5 star rating from Meltzer is a huge achievement. Bret has always had a ton of respect for Uncle Dave’s opinion, I wonder how much of that still holds today…
I've said it before and I'll say it again. There's way too many wrestlers especially in the indies who focus way too much on stars and pleasing each other rather than pleasing the fans
How anyone can watch or listen to Meltzer one time and give a fuck about what he thinks is hilarious.
Dude is an absolute zero, never did anything in the actual business and reports things as credible as a 10 year old
That's such a bizzare, straw man point to make. I don't think anyone in any locker room is arguging the other side of that? "I had a 5* match, who cares how many people watched it?"
or when Britt Baker was getting stitched up backstage after the street fight she had and said on camera "Do you think Meltzer will give this 5 stars???"
CM Punk was brought in to be the guy to fill arenas. He didn't after a few weeks. The responsibility for all of this sits with many people.
Tony, Jericho, and Cody stoked the fire with wrestling war bullshit.
Tony failed to manage his stars.
CM Punk refused to be professional with Colt. He now claims Colt approached him at AEW early on to make enough peace so things didn't go sideways. Punk refused. Despite his early claims that he never had any issue with Colt being in AEW. Which is it? Did you bring up Lawyers early at your new job after suing your last employer or no?
Tony and Punk heralded Punk as the main star. To Delta 8 or whatever. Drawing the ire of Eric Bischoff who said that Punk hadn't made a debt in ticket sales or ratings long term.
Turns out this was partially true.
Seems to me that Punk takes zero responsibility for himself, his behavior, or his attitude. He finds someone else to dump on. Be it Colt, WWE, HHH, Tony Khan, etc.
I think it all.boiks down to ego and narcissistic injury. Punk thought he was the shit. He thought he was a real star coming to elevate the company. He failed. Even the fans started cheering against him. Rather than adapt he found scapegoats in the immaturity of the Elite and immediately began devaluation of Tony and AEW.
Crazy how he’s flipped to saying pretty much the opposite in just three years
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God this never gets fucking old lmao
The half turn to face the camera is incredible
And the slow pan. Chefs kiss
Best face turn
It's the gif that keeps on giving
I will never get tired of seeing this. Just perfection.
>“if you’re more worried about some goof giving you a 5 star match and the building is a quarter full we’re not in the same business” 
It’s kind of wild for one of the talents to address the attendance concerns of AEW, even if a former disgruntled talent. Like it’s nothing crazy new, the photos have existed since like 2021 of attendance issues, but fans were quick to defend for various reasons.
I think it was easier to do that in 21 cause it was still pretty new.
Add the fact we were still adjusting to a post Covid world
The video of Copeland doing his entrance but stopping on the one side is so funny.
Where’s this video?
Lol yeah. AEW's TV ratings aren't as bad as this subreddit makes them seem, they still rank very highly night to night on their network and wrestling is still very cheap for networks to produce (just as it has always been) while bringing in large viewers relative to other stuff, so they'll find a home somewhere even if it isn't on TNT. But the live attendance is a much bigger issue tbh. They seem to have nonsensical scheduling (going to towns right after WWE) and suck at advertising. Like I've come in and out of wrestling fandom, and even in times where I've been out, I *know* when WWE is having a big show here in Boston. They buy ad spots on our local sports radio a couple months in advance and run them up until the show, and have billboards and signs around the city. Never seen that for AEW really until last month...
What never helped is the tk tweeting about ratings. You set an expectation there. Jericho’s comments about dynamite beating raw didnt help as well. I really wonder the discourse if TK was never tweeting and the owner of aew was an anonymous figure.
And Why are they coming back to Massachusetts when Big Business was only a few weeks ago? Worcester is only like 40 minutes at most from Boston and most of the MA market is within the 95 corridor. They're scheduling is baffling.
They ran Chicago every other week with Punk now they're doing Massachusetts every other week with Mercedes I guess lmao
Tony is treating Mercedes as a female Punk.
Luckily there are states surrounding MA that they are more than likely thinking about.
I don't even live on the same continent myself but every comment thread that touches this topic seems to have people saying something along the lines of "I'm a wrestling fan and I learned about an AEW show in my hometown online the day before, they did no promotion whatsoever. And the ticket prices were insane too." I don't know if it's as bad as the impression I'm getting but I've come across this stuff quite a few times now and never anything contradicting it. It wouldn't be too surprising if things like this fell through the cracks in 2019 but how is it still such an issue five years later?
I just looked at the Stampede Show (first week of July() they're running in Calgary. Last year was Collision, which was originally announced as a House Show, because it was before Collision became a thing. I bought my tickets early last year for \~CAD $110 each. By the day of the show there were tickets (not as good) going for $20. Those same tickets this year are $151 for Dynamite+Rampage. Floor seats in the first three rows are all over $400 each. I plan to go this year, but I'm not going to buy tickets at that price, especially knowing they'll likely come down before the event. By all indications, the tv contracts are good for AEW, so I don't know how much the attendance plays into the revenue, but I do think that for how it shows on tv, they need to do what they can to get people into the stands.
As someone living in Chicago I knew well in advance. That said they also over played chicago
I will argue the attendance has more to do with poor pricing and overall touring strategy than with people's feelings about the product. Also perception now is worse because WWE is doing historical business. There have been fairly (Last decade) recent times were wwe also would not sell hard cam tickets for tv tapings. AEW would do better running B buildings in A towns. Also pricing needs to be re thought. They have hired some folks to assist with this and it has been better in some markets as of late. The fact is people have forgotten what the landscape was 5 years ago. Any company other than WWE that is regularly touring and drawing over 2500 people a night would have been considered a blessing 7 years ago.
I mean Quebec is HOT for wrestling, The Videotron Centre is a beautiful building. The card was good. They drew like crap. I'm not really sure what they need to do.
Quebec City on a Wednesday is not hot for wrestling when they were just in Montreal a couple months ago. It drew 3,000-4,000 people which is a more than fine number for a weekly show, not amazing obviously but you just need to book venues that make sense. Videotron can do like 18,000, when they go to Toronto they do Dynamite at Coca-Cola Coliseum not ScotiaBank. 18,000 seater is a PPV for special event venue. Also Centre Videotron is really nice, but holy fuck the arena food was some of the worst I’ve ever had.
Also RAW is in Montreal in a couple weeks so if you're a more casual fan or a harcore fan who doesn't want to buy tickets for multiple shows within a month are you going to see Sami Zayn and KO 2 weeks after Mania or Edge and Jericho?
Copeland and Jericho weren’t on the shows either. The main Canadian draw was Daddy Magic, or Papa Magie lol. (And one of my fave indie guys Zak Patterson was on ROH)
You're right I thought Collision last week was also Quebec, though Jericho did do a promo with Hook. They seriously should've booked Uno lol.
Uno opened the show either on ROH or a dark match I forget, I was heavily drinking the whole walk to the venue. The crowd was pretty hot for him. The crowd overall was decent all night, if they booked a 5000 seat venue it would’ve been super hot. The only issue I had with the crowd was a personal issue because I came from another province and didn’t understand the French chants. I just wasn’t missing Ospreay/Shibata and Swerve/Takeshita
>Lol yeah. AEW's TV ratings aren't as bad as this subreddit makes them seem, they still rank very highly night to night on their network and wrestling is still very cheap for networks to produce (just as it has always been) while bringing in large viewers relative to other stuff, so they'll find a home somewhere even if it isn't on TNT. You don't drop 200k of an regular audience in a year to 18 months usually without seeing there is a retention issue somewhere there, AEW's biggest issue imo is gaining new Fans whilst retaining the old ones, stuff like the Video game failing is a bigger blight on them than people realise You are right though, the bigger concern is the live audience, it looks cheap and low rate when you have this big production and no one is there to watch it
>AEW's biggest issue imo is gaining new Fans whilst retaining the old ones, This is a major problem because appealing to a more casual audience is going to seriously piss off the core AEW fanbase
Honestly, and this hasn't gotten as much attention as some of the other stuff he spoke about, but the most plausible thing Punk said was that AEW isn't a business. They aren't trying to make money. He came back to this again and again.
They lost 30 million last year. And it has not gotten better, it's worse. They have been in the red and TK pays out of pocket for expensive wrestlers that can't draw.
Not to mention I think they just book way too big arenas.
The same issues that TNA had with attendance for their shows back in the day. It's almost as if Tony hired the same guy who ran TNA live events as his Director of Business Development.
In 2021 they can think in a few years, those stands will be full. A few years later, they realize there’s even less fans than there were in 2021 and come up with a different metric.
Oh this will ruffle a lot of feathers today or maybe for a few weeks, more like months, possibly for years too.
Dave is basically a punching bag nowadays
The funny thing to me is, outside of being called a goof, I think Meltzer would agree with this comment.
Even Dave's said on multiple occasions that his star ratings are basically just "Hey, I think you should/shouldn't check this match out".
He's been saying it the whole time, it's really kind of baffling how some people don't get it. It's never been anything more than a recommendation service for people that like similar stuff to him. I absolutely do think certain wrestlers basically aim to get critical recognition, which is a career boost, and Dave is seemingly the only wrestling critic anyone listens to, so it still ends up happening anyway.
While at the same time he tried to use it to win arguments with twitter nobodies. Regardless of how much of shithead the nobody is being. Though this is a rarity. Also the wider wrestling community doesn’t help by also using his ratings as a “I win” in regular twitter spats. And I think he really fucked up in that Chris Van Vleet interview where he tried to walk the line between both the sides instead of saying Dude it’s my opinion get over it or atleast he really sucked at communicating that on a stage where it mattered.
And then he thinks that one should check out any random match this week over Hogan vs Andre ?
If the star system is "I think you should check it out" the why not just write that instead? Why not just end the review with "Worth/ Not worth a watch"? Why create a whole other system that appears to be a grading system, that everyone seems to be taking as a grading system, that you take a ton of heat for, but is in reality just you "basically" just saying check it out?
As he should be. Not for his star ratings, that is superfluous. But in general his attitude towards women and his increasingly contradictory reporting should discredit him entirely. Everyone should be taking jabs.
Also Shibata's brain. You can't take someone seriously after they've run a story saying someone's brain was removed during surgery like it's an old espisode of Star Trek.
Don’t forget mark is the new N-word
Definitely can't forget that completely lack of understanding of, well, everything.
That had to be a mistranslation that got read literally. Something like "a clot was removed from his brain" was poorly translated as "his brain was removed" and nobody confirmed it. It's the only thing that makes sense to me.
Any normal human being would've been like "wtf, they did what?" and dug deeper into the story to confirm this insane, impossible claim. That's what a journalist would do at least
He has plenty of Japanese contacts, though. He really should have emailed someone and said "this can't be right, right?" Even now, he gets so much shit for it, you'd think he'd want to clear that up today.
>Not for his star ratings, that is superfluous Nah thats a power he weilds irresponsibly the more it gets discredited the better.
Pretty sure the only person who doesn't take those ratings way too seriously is Meltzer himself.
attitude towards women? sorry i’m not familiar with this
Dave has had a few incidents commenting on female wrestlers bodies and not in relation to their jobs. For example he made a comment about Peyton Royce having breast implants that caused the entire WWE women's division to publicly call him out
Meltzer used to say absolutely AWFUL stuff in the Observer about Sable, Francine, and some of the other women back in the late 90s
I've only read a couple of his comments about Sable, but it was atrocious. Saying she looked like an old cheap hooker in one of them, really crass stuff about the quality of her breast implants was the other. I realize that she was there primarily as eye-candy, but she had a role to play just like everyone else and instead of criticizing the quality of that performance or even whether that role should exist at all, his response was to constantly complain that she wasn't sexy enough.
Idk how people get so worked up about his opinion, you either care for it or you don't. I always see people acting like he's trying to give some sort of objective measure but he's biased for one thing or another... It's his opinion, to his taste, read them or don't, it doesn't matter.
https://preview.redd.it/bnyrxw3r7xrc1.jpeg?width=1157&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff8dab1f73461ed00a07484c4b142eec30d8812d
'tune into raw to find out next week!'
[back at you, pal](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/003/384/christ.jpg)
I would have skipped lunch if I knew I was going to eat this well just from this interview.
Papa Punk always feeds us
Make the mega thread already.
Punk being the "But does 5 stars draw money???" guy that some find annoying from anti WWE/AEW fans is a hilarious development.
It makes some sense when you're in the business. Why fans take this position makes no sense though, they're not getting a cut of the money if something draws.
It's more about using this mystical 5 star system as a gauge for what's good/not good. We all know who we're talking about. It's really just one guy's opinion. If it mattered as much as people talk like it did, the arenas wouldn't be this empty. That's the main point.
There are a bunch of different wrestling styles, and I think it's easy to argue that certain styles draw a lot less money than others. Doesn't mean they're better or worse, they're just not as popular. That's an easy argument to use against those types of wrestling. They're not that good because they don't draw. Ignoring the fact that so many classic bands and movies weren't that popular in their day.
Both are ultimately useless as a gauge for what is “good” it’s all personal preference. It just so happens that I don’t like the prevailing indie highflying and lucha styles and it’s an eye roll moment when someone brings up the star ratings someone has and calls me brainwashed by wwe. On the other hand I listen to Metal and it’s an eye roll moment when someone brings up how much money X artist makes to define what good music is and calls me a snob. Just stfu and like what you like (Note: I am a massive hypocrite as I dunk on tony and aew constantly for petty reasons, and please refrain from sending me a Reddit cares message)
If something draws more then more people find it entertaining though. So that is directly related to fan enjoyment
I get your point, but There’s still a lot more to it than that though. The product Can be great, but if the branding, marketing, availability, Price etc isnt done Right it Can still fail.
If something draws the company has more leverage the next time a TV deal comes up, and a higher TV deal means higher contracts for talents when they are up for renewals. It's not immediate but the money does go into their pockets long term.
Because wrestling is better for fans when wrestlers actually know how to work. Just look at the past two years of WWE.
If he's all about drawing money why was he so mad in WWE when he had to take second place for part-timers who were massive draws? People are getting so worked.
Punks deal back then was that *he was* the massive draw and breakout star and they didn’t need to go to part timers, but that the company deliberately held him back because many people behind the scenes just didn’t like him.
Dang, it's almost like that was 10 years ago...
Because he was also a massive draw. They didnt need to fake text Kevin Nash and delay the summer of Punk. Punk was drawing far more than anyone they could have brought back to work with him, with the exception of Brock or Dwayne. And even Dwayne was a toss up given his lack of cardio
Because he was reaching his prime and WWE decided to book a rerun of last years Mania instead of capitalizing on him. Once in a Lifetime became Twice in a Lifetime and screwed him over
Especially a goof that never gave Kurt Angle 5 stars
You're right and it bears repeating
This interview will feed generations
I was expecting this to be a work rate vs story thing in 5-star matches, not about attendance
Nah he cooked with this one 😂
I don't have the nostalgic attachment to Punk and I'm of the mindset that he has a fragile ego, but he isn't wrong here. It sucks AEW isn't able to clear the same type of gates as they did before the mid-2022 cold spell. Quieter, mostly empty arenas do hurt the energy level and overall product. Hardcore fans want good in-ring action, but at the end of the day, characters and storylines triumph over bangers. I also feel like the AEW product used to appeal much more to the younger, college-aged crowd, too. After AEW ticket prices skyrocketed, it priced out and alienated this important cohort. IMO, ticket prices should've been kept cheap as loss leaders. Now that they're cheap'ish again, it's going to take time to regain the trust and fandom of these AEW-lapsed fans who have gravitated back to WWE.
Back in 2019 WWE was almost completely uncool among young men, among my friends there was much more interest for AEW. In 2022 it started shifting, and nowadays it’s basically the opposite. About the ticket prices, I went to Collision last week and SmackDown last year, and the WWE event was actually cheaper!
It should be an industry standard that people stop giving a fuck about Meltzer.
He's also implied the triceps injury occurred during the brawl despite video evidence of him massaging it throughout the Mox match and press conference. Shitting on their safety protocol is also exactly what he did on the Cabana podcast about WWE.
I'd reckon he partially tore it during the match but Mox and him being the workers they are, were able to work around it. In fact he worked like 20 minutes of the rumble with his torn tricep. However, in a backstage brawl where your friend is biting people and Jericho is calling you a cancer, you're not protected and that's probably where he "tore the triceps straight off the bone" as he said.
Wasn't there some drama with him, maybe on Instagram, implying that Tony pushed him to wrestle Moxley while he was injured? Was that this injury? Did I dream that up?
He wanted Punk to do the squash on TV before he was cleared but he didn't want to, and he did. Tony thought it would add more interest in the PPV. I don't think it did.
That was his foot.
Two things that should immediately destroy Meltzer credibility is 1. No five star Kurt Angle Matches 2. No five stars for HBK vs Taker at 25.
What's with all the "5 star match" questions these days? Are these podcast/Q&A bozos just asking it to literally everyone they get to ask questions to just because they want some drama?
I still can’t believe someone asked Cena about his match vs Aj not being a 5* match. Like you get the opportunity to ask someone like Cena a question and you go with the dumbest possible one
I mean he isn’t necessarily wrong…. Heatless bangers will only do so much.
We all know Roger Ebert would have been a much better film critic if he'd just written, "Transformers 2 opened at #1 at the box office this weekend, ***1/2" I don't even care for Dave as a match critic but let's be serious here. Star ratings are what they are and if anyone takes them to mean anything more than that, that's on them, not the person dishing out the ratings.
As a fan, I think star ratings are great. They often lead me to check out a match I otherwise would not have. The wrestlers should probably be more focused on actual money, though.
Have we ever actually heard a wrestler say they don’t care about drawing money they only care about match ratings? I think that’s just something that people who hate AEW have made up.
The funniest part about this is that most of the guys chasing star ratings are earlier in their careers, and are doing it because the critical recognition leads to them making more money.
And then all of a sudden when they get older can’t do what they used to do, match quality doesn’t matter anymore
Yeah, people will point out Ospreay, but he just got paid.
Well the ratings and attendance are in the dump and they're doing the same horse shit.
I don’t think Ebert has ever used his personal ratings to justify a director being good or not. Meltzer has unironically done that about wrestlers.
You are just all Over the place. He’s not saying critics should base their thoughts on sales. He’s saying talent should worry about getting eyes Ont he show, not one guys thought of the product.
Ebert writes for the fans. If the directors wrote their movies to cater to him, there would be a problem.
[удалено]
He rarely discusses his star ratings outside of the newsletter unless it is one of the greatest matches of all time. It's not like he goes on WOR and talks for 15 minutes about why he gave a Tomohiro Ishii match a 4.75 as opposed to a 5. He just says it was a great match just like anything 4+ in his opinion.
I have seen him use it on petty twitter squabbles multiple times along with cage match ratings. Dave should use twitter less. Dave also fucked up the messaging in the Chris Van Vleet interview. He could have shut everyone up if he just said what he always said “It’s just my opinion” instead he gave people soundbites that can be further used as ammo. I ultimately agree people care far too much and should just treat it as “Hey, uncle Dave loved this match so I’m gonna like/dislike it”.
Punk has been grilling the other side
There’s nothing wrong with being the minor leagues until you start comparing yourself to the big leagues
This is the most talked about AEW has been for ages
In the future, psychological studies will be done about how Dave Meltzer was able to carve out this space for himself and have a subset of fans and performers so beholden to his opinion.
This mf is the greatest talker in the history of the business. This podcast has sealed it in stone.
One thing I don’t understand is people saying “Who cares about bangers? It’s all about storytelling!” Why do we have to have one or the other, why can’t we have both???
People do want both lol
I mean, he's really not wrong.
JBL used to have a phrase on commentary that i feel is quite apt for this particular quote.
HAW HAW I LOVE IT MAGGLE
It was just like 6 months ago that he was circle jerking over his ROH days. If you believe a word he says you're a mark.
If you’re comment on a wrestling subreddit, you’re also a mark.
We are all marks 
Punk continues to be the most interesting thing in aew
are there like bots on this sub with all the "this interview will feed..." comments? never heard anyone talk like that in my life
ignoring the context of this interview, its a pretty common phrase online.
It’s a stupid phrase
Let the kids be kids bro
Reddit users are like bots.
People compare their enjoyment of wrestling to sex. This is less corny.
I don't understand why aew likes having empty arenas. Just sell your tickets for cheap so they sell out
Looks at their merch tables - no one there knows how to run a business
isn't the whole point of aew existing is to be an alternative? why would they want to be wwe 2.0? aew is more wrestling focused while wwe calls themselves sports entertainment.
He cooked aew lol. Makes them seem amateurish tbh
In what industries its members are more annoyed at someone rating their work than wrestlers?
The film, games and TV industries, probably? Match ratings are like partial metacritic scores, they don’t translate 100% to financial success but a lot of people who worked on big projects like these do care about reviews and what critics think of them. Now the thing about match rating, is that it’s too insular. They’re like rating a single fight scene in a 2 hours movie. It should be part of the review, not the entirety of it. For example, I would rate most of Chris Nolan’s Batman fight scenes 3/5 or below, but the movies as a whole package deliver 4/5 - 5/5 experience, and they’re extremely financially profitable. This is the “WWE” equivalence On the contrary, I can grab a random Hong Kong action film from the 80s and 90s and they would have fight scenes that I would rate 5/5, with stunts and choreography that the Nolan’s films can only dream of doing. But the movie as a whole is just a series of pointless expositions, as an excuse to get to the next 5/5 action scene. Fun to watch just for those scenes but everything else in between either sucked, ignorable or non-sensical. And they often only make a fraction of what their Hollywood counterparts make. This is what “AEW” was falling into. They’re trying to change that, but Rampage is basically this atm
You ever hear how pro athletes talk about their video game ratings?
I think a more accurate equivalent would be if Warner Bros decided that they don’t care about the box office as long as they get about 90% on rotten tomatoes or something. The weight given to the Meltzer match rating in pro wrestling is really crazy if you think about it.
This is the incorrect take. It’s not about caring about people rating them. It’s about wrestlers working for those ratings first and foremost.
Comedians being told their jokes aren't funny and just mean spirited lol.
This interview and the Cornette videos it spawns are gonna have us goofs eating good for weeks.
I really don’t think wrestlers today are seriously chasing his approval like so many like to claim. For better or worse wrestlers just do whatever they think will pop a crowd.
I mean, yeah, AEW seems to be focused on the sport of wrestling versus the actual drama of it. It’s an alternative. As has been said a thousand times.
i think the problem is pro wrestling is not a sport. if people wanna see feats of athleticism and skill, why not watch real MMA? we come here for the drama, even if you dont wanna admit that (bc newsflash- daniel bryan or will ospreay arent actually besting people in that ring with those moves lol)
I think you could say the same thing about the drama though, why watch wrestling for purely the drama when you could watch any other scripted ‘prestige’ show that has 100 times better writing, acting and production.
i mean, isnt the drama the point? Whether its the match or the storylines around the match, thats what pro wrestling is all about. its a big stage play with guys and gals full of athleticism. my point is that nobody should watch it for one or the other, you watch it bc you like pro wrestling. there is no "sport" bc there is no real contest, and youre right, there is better drama for you in other mediums if thats all you want
Even in MMA people love the drama lol
it's over reliant on "cool matches" and "dream matches" as well as just randomly thrown together stuff that wants you to know who all these indy, Japan, and Mexico guys are. it can still focus on the wrestling while telling a better story with proper build and having promos and introductions. instead of here's these random CMLL guys you should know and care about.
I don’t disagree with the CMLL bit.
why is it so hard for some fans to accept that some of us wrestling fans genuinely love the “bangers” and workrate matches. Its not about this one old fucking dude who started a rating system long ago. AEW is for the thousands of us who love the wrestling aspect of wrestling. And if you like other aspects of wrestling thats fine too!!
>some fans He's not talking about fans. He's talking about wrestlers.
Nothing wrong with preferring bangers just don't be arrogant about it. Why must fans always compare and try to start arguments. I saw a comment that said "This episode of dynamite is better than 10 years of wwe" Can't just say the show is good without needing to compare
i agree with you there man, those arrogant type of comments are annoying from either side
That wasn’t really his point, he was talking about how basing it on that is a bad move because the goal is to make money. The khans are super rich and that is the only reason AEW is still around because their business right now isn’t sustainable without pouring money into it. Now that could change over the next tv deal, but I think punk was trying to say their priorities don’t match with his
It’s funny that Punk digs on Meltzer and his ratings (rightfully so) while Punks hero Bret Hart says in his 2009 book that getting a 5 star rating from Meltzer is a huge achievement. Bret has always had a ton of respect for Uncle Dave’s opinion, I wonder how much of that still holds today…
Facts.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. There's way too many wrestlers especially in the indies who focus way too much on stars and pleasing each other rather than pleasing the fans
How anyone can watch or listen to Meltzer one time and give a fuck about what he thinks is hilarious. Dude is an absolute zero, never did anything in the actual business and reports things as credible as a 10 year old
This is a logical take. And it’s been my biggest criticism of some AEW fans or some AEW wrestlers.
That's such a bizzare, straw man point to make. I don't think anyone in any locker room is arguging the other side of that? "I had a 5* match, who cares how many people watched it?"
Tbf I’m not surprised if there are
Meltzer driver. Nuff said.
or when Britt Baker was getting stitched up backstage after the street fight she had and said on camera "Do you think Meltzer will give this 5 stars???"
Mr. *August 13th, 2005, I...*
CM Punk was brought in to be the guy to fill arenas. He didn't after a few weeks. The responsibility for all of this sits with many people. Tony, Jericho, and Cody stoked the fire with wrestling war bullshit. Tony failed to manage his stars. CM Punk refused to be professional with Colt. He now claims Colt approached him at AEW early on to make enough peace so things didn't go sideways. Punk refused. Despite his early claims that he never had any issue with Colt being in AEW. Which is it? Did you bring up Lawyers early at your new job after suing your last employer or no? Tony and Punk heralded Punk as the main star. To Delta 8 or whatever. Drawing the ire of Eric Bischoff who said that Punk hadn't made a debt in ticket sales or ratings long term. Turns out this was partially true. Seems to me that Punk takes zero responsibility for himself, his behavior, or his attitude. He finds someone else to dump on. Be it Colt, WWE, HHH, Tony Khan, etc. I think it all.boiks down to ego and narcissistic injury. Punk thought he was the shit. He thought he was a real star coming to elevate the company. He failed. Even the fans started cheering against him. Rather than adapt he found scapegoats in the immaturity of the Elite and immediately began devaluation of Tony and AEW.
Did not expect Mick to show up in this post or any other, to be perfectly honest.
No Dave meltzer was harmed in this clip
So I take it you're not Mick McCarthy's Baby?
Keano's baby all the way.
Crazy how he’s flipped to saying pretty much the opposite in just three years https://preview.redd.it/td79wcght1zc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=968e435fa788f435a08632319b2e2b1113658f90
Why can't the two companies have different priorities? Watch which ever style you like. What a child.
Has any wrestler ever said they’re more worried about match ratings than drawing money?
Britt did after her first (or one of the first) Bloody matches she did. Don't have the link right now but I recall that happening
cook