So the initial ratings came out for Dynamite this week and the reports don’t look pretty. I wrote up a very scathing review on this week’s edition, highlighting what I thought were the problems in this show as well as praising the CM Punk vs Bobby Fish match. However, with the ratings showing another decline, I want to talk a bit about why things probably aren’t growing and won’t be unless some stiff changes are made immediately.
First, I don’t think the ratings decline are a result of CM Punk or Bryan Danielson’s misuse. Quite frankly, I think they’re fine as-is just as long as they’re consistently having the best matches while avoiding goofy shit. The real problem is just about everything else except AEW’s video packages.
While AEW does have story lines, most of them are awful. There really is no good story line that feels like good pro-wrestling at the moment. It’s just a bunch of people who arbitrarily hate each other on camera but don’t really mean it except being directed to toss a chair or interrupt some interview to provide a sense of chaos. But just because person A beats up person B and then the following week reverses the roles does not mean it’s a compelling story line. For the most part this describes these “programs” most of AEW’s wrestlers are in.
A huge problem is that there is no motivation for why people do what they do in AEW. One of the fundamental reasons for a person doing anything is that there’s a motivation that drives them towards something. With wrestling there’s only a few basic motivations that should exist:
- Titles of any kind
- Money
- Revenge
The first two are directly related so when a wrestler shows up and says, “I’m not here for belts” it basically renders their purpose completely futile. Perhaps, that’s why CM Punk’s current run has been viewed as terrible because he “wants to help the young people”. I get that and I know he gets it but when you explicitly tell people the reason you’re around in a manner like this, it sounds silly. What does CM Punk get out of this? Why does he want to help the young people? Why wouldn’t he want to be part of tournaments that lead to world title matches?
That’s the primary reason, in my view, why his impact isn’t as big as it could be. Saying you want to help others is great and all but this is pro-wrestling. Even if the WWE and other companies have done their damnedest to destroy any notion of it being a sport, you still want to treat it outwardly as such. And with him returning from his stint in MMA, you would think that there’s a hunger that goes beyond the big bucks Tony Khan shelled out to get this guy.
So sure he signed up for the big bucks and the emphasis at the moment is having good matches. Good matches are such a niche market compared to a relatable figure. In CM Punk’s case, the relatable aspect on why he was over in the WWE is because he symbolized people who have been ignored because of politics in favor of some ass kisser. His matches weren’t the things that got him over, it was the character. And in Bryan Danielson’s case, it was being the underdog.
I think the mainstream audience, who would connect to characters like Austin, Rock, CM Punk, etc., did so as a result of their character, the motivations that led the character to say certain things or perform certain actions and they became the voice of that group of people.
In the case of AEW, they really have no one at that level because there isn’t anyone who takes themselves seriously and becomes a symbol that speaks to the mainstream audience. Instead, everyone is happy taking Tony Khan’s money, having their little creative input and putting on what they believe are good matches. But none of this stuff is doing anything to lock in a broader audience because people don’t care about good matches as much as their favorites who represent them winning (or losing).
Going back to the motivations of pro-wrestling, the wrestlers themselves should revolve themselves around those basics. But their real power comes in when they combine those motivations that link themselves to a segment of an audience. Imagine for instance, you have someone like Sonny Kiss, who, instead of acting like some goof with bad hair and doing the splits, is soft spoken, talks about being bullied for his/her identity and uses his/her difference to fight for people like him/herself. It’s simple but with the right tone of voice and style, this person could be very over. What I see is someone clowning around with a garbage goof (Joey Janella) in an endless feud that goes nowhere without any progress on Sonny Kiss’ character.
Same thing goes with Hikaru Shida who could be a great baby face for Japanese Americans/Asians. Her English isn’t great but she can talk about her dream of being an Asian who wants people in America to appreciate her culture. She could explain the Joshi Puroresu style or what she brings to the table. Like why bring a Kendo stick? What does her make up represent? Instead, she’s just a vanilla person in the ring who can’t speak well and just does moves like everyone else.
But AEW just doesn’t have anything like that. People want to goof around. Like look at the Elite. Who do they represent? As far as I can tell, they’re just a bunch of privileged white millenial kids who convinced Tony Khan to give them big titles and power. They can’t play as heels because they don’t understand what they are. They think goofing around and burying people in matches by doing a hundred kicks make them heels. It doesn’t. It just makes people want to turn the channel.
For instance, last night’s match did pro-wrestling no favors. It just insulted it by making it into a horrible farce. You have a bunch of generic job guys that no one can tell apart in costumes. This is like taking a random homeless person on the street and telling them to fix the economy. You know how they’ll fix the economy? Doing whatever helps them. And that’s exactly what happened.
People in these AEW audiences get behind them and it’s misconstrued as these job guys being “over.” But they aren’t. If they were truly over, you’d see people lining the street with their shirts or Hollywood knocking on their door giving them roles. Instead, I think people are changing the channel because when you see some idiot coming out in a horse outfit, you know it’s just plain stupid and you don’t want to be associated with it.
And here’s the thing. The Dark Order will remain job people that the majority of people out there won’t care about because they represent no one beyond a small group of people who have managed to convince themselves that they are worth something in the eyes of many. There is nothing relatable to the Dark Order outside of Brodie Lee’s passing. But since that’s been a while, you need to move on and start working on the future.
The problem with the Dark Order is that after Brodie Lee passed and they got jobbed out to The Elite, they should’ve disbanded. They lost all their momentum, their identity and their cause. Now, they’re just sticking around because Tony Khan can’t figure out what to do with a bunch of generic jobbers (at least until Bray Wyatt shows up; but I think that’ll be too late and too stupid).
But that leads me to my next point where the booking just absolutely stinks. There isn’t any stories nor angles I can get invested into here because there is none. People are saying that Adam Page should beat Kenny Omega for the title and at the same time calling it “good long term story telling.” No! Omega lost the momentum because he took a few months off so that his wife could have a child. Why should they wrap all their plans around a guy who does that? Because of a promise? That’s stupid! That’s not “long term good story telling.” That’s more like bad contractual obligations that should’ve been determined a long time ago.
But guess what? If they knew how to book a card and get to that spot, they wouldn’t be in this hell hole. It feels like every week there’s no consistency or that something gets side tracked. A lot of that is due to abuse of time. Matches go long, promos take forever, too many meaningless backstage segments with everyone rather than having matches with the people you are aiming to push for the top of the card. There’s no focus or that the focus gets derailed because people just trade back and forth since no one in this company gets good, sustainable momentum.
And momentum is the key. Consistent wins that build up. Right now, CM Punk is the only person who is legitimately building up a realistic score card. He’s started mostly at the bottom (although he got Darby Allin) and has been grinding his way back to the top. Even if his motivations are slightly suspect, at least his own booking makes some sense.
But then you get say Abadon vs Britt Baker for a no DQ match that may lead to a title shot. Why? What has Abadon done to deserve any kind of TV title? You can say that hey she’s beating up people on Dark and Elevation. But no one gives a shit about those shows in terms of wins/losses because the bulk of them consist of indy jobbers vs their lower roster. What major star has Abadon beaten in over a year? Suddenly, she pops up out of nowhere after not being seen on TV for over a year? Does Tony Khan expect people to watch Dark and Elevation too? Does he expect people to care what goes on those shows when he himself does not treat those shows as serious material by giving them the Saturday jobber show treatment from the 80s?
And just because you “farm wins” on Dark/Elevation shouldn’t mean you get ahead of the curve. This is far worse than killing level 1 boars in the forest to level up. When all you’re doing is beating job people, it’s still meaningless.
The thing about the job shows for the WWF back in the 80s was that they were used to market their stars and force people to go to house shows to see them in more meaningful matches. However, once the Monday Night Wars came out and TV/ratings became more important, those house shows became worthless outside of merchandising opportunities. And you couldn’t have job shows because you couldn’t expect people to care about people when the competition is putting on main event matches all the time.
But going back to this idea of momentum, the wrestlers who eventually got over did so because you could see their momentum build. People like Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were beating lower level guys and working their way towards the main event. They weren’t instantly thrust into a situation that they were in over their head. You need a situation where doubt exist because people need to have debate mentally in posing a question that makes the match meaningful. Does Fuego Del Sol stand a chance against Miro? Of course not because he’s a scrawny jobber! So no one gives a shit!
So again, the critical aspect here is that you can’t book based on what you (Tony Khan) perceives as being good matches because he’s too close to the people. People are telling him, “Tony is a great guy.” That’s not what you need to hear. You need to listen to the ground and see where how the puzzle fits. You need your S-tier, your A-tier, etc. Then you need to figure out how to move your people from one tier to the next in creating a hierarchy. The wins/losses stuff would be great if it actually meant anything. But I could take an AP Calculus test filled with nothing but 1 + 1 = ? questions and still should fail even if I get everything correct since none of those questions are relevant for Calculus.
Here’s the thing. Tony Khan needs to start cutting people or prevent certain people from ever making it to TV unless they get repackaged or improve. I have a list here that I think is where he needs to make his cuts:
Male Wrestlers
- Aaron Solo
- Alex Reynolds
- Brandon Cutler
- Brian Cage
- Chuck Taylor
- Evil Uno
- Fuego Del Sol
- Jack Evans
- Joey Janela
- Kip Sabian
- Luther
- Marko Stunt
- Matt Jackson
- Mike Nakazawa
- Nick Jackson
- Serpentico
- The Blade
- The Butcher
- Trent?
Female Wrestlers
- Abadon
- Anna Jay
- Bunny
- Big Swole
- Leva Bates
- Nyla Rose
- Penelope Ford
- Rebel
- Yuka Sakazaki
Most of these people add no value but probably subtract a great deal of value and belong either retired or on the indies back where they belong. There’s probably more but those are the most offensive to me. Yes, I’m cutting the Bucks but they either need to take a pure backstage role or be removed from their EVP position. You can’t tell me any of those people I’m listing are going to draw this company money one day because they won’t. I just see them as indy outlaw mudshow wrestlers.
Call me cold but I’d use the spare money to lock in some of the freed up Ring of Honor talent instead. There’s quite a few decent people that would make far better additions than the people I’ve listed above. The other option is to permanently relegate them into a non-TV/public role. But with whatever current gimmick they have, they can’t stay.
Now, you may ask why isn’t Orange Cassidy on that list? He’s just over enough where I’d relegate him to a permanent JTTS status as a kind of trainer. He would be the equivalent of a Barry Horowitz where he can get a win once in a while but on average he’s better off making someone else look good and helping with timing.
But again you need people who are going to work on a national level and can execute well enough. The people I’ve mentioned aren’t good at all and/or won’t change their style to become what a mainstream audience would want to see. So they can go back to their small indy promotions and continue goofing around for fun. But the whole burial of pro-wrestling needs to end. You need a degree of seriousness and unless you’re willing to change with the flux of talent from NXT and possibly ROH now, there’s just no room for anything else.
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