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CI Wrestling Thread #56

Outrunners had a good showing - the only reason they lost is b/c 8 teams ganged up on them. Fans were definitely hyped for them.
 
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AEW was a fun show last night. I enjoyed the evening. One whole side of the arena was cut off which made it more intimate. They also had more of a variety of merch than AEW had in Chicago for All Out.

Ospreay is crazy over.

Jack Perry was liked in Lexington but hated in Chicago (there were so many 'F Jack Perry' chants at All Out)

Richochet not being billed from Kentucky is crap.

Moxley is such an amazing promo. No wonder he was so frustrated in WWE.
 
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I personally think Mox on the mic is terrible - he’s trying to be a modern version of Steve Austin but the last few weeks he’s just rambling nonsense

Also here’s an example of TK’s incoherent booking…

Mox challenges Darby for his world title shot at grand slam since db isn’t cleared

15 mins later Nigel challenges db at grand slam
 
AEW was a fun show last night. I enjoyed the evening. One whole side of the arena was cut off which made it more intimate. They also had more of a variety of merch than AEW had in Chicago for All Out.

Ospreay is crazy over.

Jack Perry was liked in Lexington but hated in Chicago (there were so many 'F Jack Perry' chants at All Out)

Richochet not being billed from Kentucky is crap.

Moxley is such an amazing promo. No wonder he was so frustrated in WWE.
You said Mox wasn’t going to be part of bcc but then he had them turn on db so which is it?
 
Just finished watching Dynamite and the whole Danielson thing confused me too. He can't wrestle Darby but is going to wrestle Nigel?

As always Christian was good, the tag team thing was cool but again the winners didn't make sense. Guess Fletcher will eat another pin.

Thought the Rupp crowd was pretty good despite their not being a ton of people there. And really What? chants.

Anyway Dynamite did 716,000 and a .21- up from last week. Finished second the the Video Music Awards.
 
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They're making it harder than it needs to be. Maybe because Nigel looked good in London so they wanna keep that going. I have a feeling Darby is going to become a top guy soon which great for him but I'm torn because he's small and a dumbass but he's pure AEW and I like his story. I remember when Punk called him out by name on night one. Really thought Darby would get a huge push then and it didn't happen.

Not to steal K-mac's gimmick but during the Giulia/Chelsea Green match NXT reached 709K. With a debate on that had something like 67 million people watching, that's impressive for a debut match. Ready for WWE to ditch those women's tag titles, create an IC type title for the women, and call it a day. I'd have no issue with that, as long as they end the tag division.
 
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They're making it harder than it needs to be. Maybe because Nigel looked good in London so they wanna keep that going. I have a feeling Darby is going to become a top guy soon which great for him but I'm torn because he's small and a dumbass but he's pure AEW and I like his story. I remember when Punk called him out by name on night one. Really thought Darby would get a huge push then and it didn't happen.

Not to steal K-mac's gimmick but during the Giulia/Chelsea Green match NXT reached 709K. With a debate on that had something like 67 million people watching, that's impressive for a debut match. Ready for WWE to ditch those women's tag titles, create an IC type title for the women, and call it a day. I'd have no issue with that, as long as they end the tag division.
Not to mention they already have installed the nxt North American women’s title a few months ago
 
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Not to mention they already have installed the nxt North American women’s title a few months ago
True. You give someone like Lyra a midcard title, bring Giulia up to take it at WM, and let her legitimize it. It's possible. Gunther did it with the IC title and I didn't give a shit about the Raw title on Rollins but I do now, esp. if you throw Drew or Punk into that mix.
 
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Just finished watching Dynamite and the whole Danielson thing confused me too. He can't wrestle Darby but is going to wrestle Nigel?

As always Christian was good, the tag team thing was cool but again the winners didn't make sense. Guess Fletcher will eat another pin.

Thought the Rupp crowd was pretty good despite their not being a ton of people there. And really What? chants.

Anyway Dynamite did 716,000 and a .21- up from last week. Finished second the the Video Music Awards.
When did you hear a what chant? I didn’t hear that. But I also wouldn’t be surprised if they had to edit out some of the stuff from what the crowd was yelling.
 
that was camera side and blocked off and that was the Rampage portion.

It wasn’t like the huge crowd that was at All Out but decent for one portion.

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Those photos look a little depressing. The background is so void of any light that it's like seeing a wrestling show in the middle of a desert on a moonless night. If things begin to improve, they'll start lighting it up again but that more or less resembles the inside of a movie theater.

Don't think it's gotten much attention but Meltzer said the WBD deal is done. Makes sense as we kept hearing end of summer. I'm guessing Max is apart of that as well. Obviously great for AEW but I think from TK's perspective he's just going to power through with the "sicko" way of wrestling and attendance/ratings be damned because he's got the full backing of a network. So if you love it, great. If you want changes in what you're watching, probably not happening.
 
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The thing they did for Collision in Texas for a few weeks was great. The place held about 1,200 people and they sold it out almost every week and it looked good on TV.
They really need to look at booking smaller venues where they have a better chance of filling it up. 3,000 people in Memorial Coliseum would have been cool.

Overall they just need better marketing and PR. You hear over and over "I had no idea they were running in insert city here."

I think everyone knows I work at WLEX and since Lexington Center is a sponsor of BBN Gameday there were commercials running in that show for the last month. Other than that I never saw one TV or radio ad for it. Or anyone doing media for it.
 
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AEW promotion is the shits and has been for some time. I'd like to see them use their former WWE guys as promotional tools more with specific instruction given to them. Casuals recognize Jericho, Moxley, Danielson, Copeland, and Christian. When Jericho was on KSR a couple years back to promote his book, he didn't mention AEW once. Casuals might not recognize Darby, Swerve, MJF, and Ospreay right now. You lure some casuals in, maybe they begin thinking "Darby is a crazy sob. WWE doesn't have anyone like that. He'd been perfect for the Attitude Era doing those insane bumps." "Swerve is just cool as shit." "MJF seems to have it all and he's how young? Damn, I didn't even know he existed."

One would think you should use your younger talent more to promote but Swerve, Darby, Page, Ospreay, etc. don't bring in new viewers. AEW just doesn't know how to do it. Debut MJF on SD tonight and on 9/13/25 he's an absolute megastar, known all over the world, and the entire wrestling world is talking about him weekly. But as it stands? A tiny portion of wrestling internet talks about him and your hardcores and social media personalities who obsessively follow and talk about every show know how good he is.
 
I get Chicago they booked for punk and Boston for Sasha’s return but ya otherwise I don’t see another reason not to just run the show weekly in Jacksonville.
 
I get Chicago they booked for punk and Boston for Sasha’s return but ya otherwise I don’t see another reason not to just run the show weekly in Jacksonville.
Probably financially viable but also traveling is an effective marketing tool to not simply rely on television, I suppose.

I saw where Triple H said WWE will do less live shows.
 
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AEW promotion is the shits and has been for some time. I'd like to see them use their former WWE guys as promotional tools more with specific instruction given to them. Casuals recognize Jericho, Moxley, Danielson, Copeland, and Christian. When Jericho was on KSR a couple years back to promote his book, he didn't mention AEW once. Casuals might not recognize Darby, Swerve, MJF, and Ospreay right now. You lure some casuals in, maybe they begin thinking "Darby is a crazy sob. WWE doesn't have anyone like that. He'd been perfect for the Attitude Era doing those insane bumps." "Swerve is just cool as shit." "MJF seems to have it all and he's how young? Damn, I didn't even know he existed."

One would think you should use your younger talent more to promote but Swerve, Darby, Page, Ospreay, etc. don't bring in new viewers. AEW just doesn't know how to do it. Debut MJF on SD tonight and on 9/13/25 he's an absolute megastar, known all over the world, and the entire wrestling world is talking about him weekly. But as it stands? A tiny portion of wrestling internet talks about him and your hardcores and social media personalities who obsessively follow and talk about every show know how good he is.
Yup look at the outrunners for example -2 to 3 months ago they were jobbers and they did a couple cool vignettes and posted some on x and now they are a top 10 merch seller and got to be in the casino tag match on dynamite.
 
Yup look at the outrunners for example -2 to 3 months ago they were jobbers and they did a couple cool vignettes and posted some on x and now they are a top 10 merch seller and got to be in the casino tag match on dynamite.
True but then you run into another issue. Start-and-stop booking will eventually end the positivity surrounding them at the moment. If you're going to promote these guys for example, they gotta be your guys and you gotta put your trust in them. If they were to defeat the Bucks and win the titles, AEW is doing something right. If they disappear back onto a show with 200,000 pairs of eyes, that's just more of the same.
 
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Smackdown Premiere on USA tonight

Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes vs. Solo Sikoa - Steel Cage Match- Will open the show
Kevin Owens and a mystery partner vs. Austin Theory and Grayson Waller.
Andrade vs. Carmelo Hayes.
 
Smackdown Premiere on USA tonight

Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes vs. Solo Sikoa - Steel Cage Match- Will open the show
Kevin Owens and a mystery partner vs. Austin Theory and Grayson Waller.
Andrade vs. Carmelo Hayes.
there’s a ton unannounced unless the cage match is 45 minutes.

Guessing they’ll be something with Nia/tiffy too.
 
Makes sense…when you’re a company trying to turn your best profit…

BREAKING: WWE has announced plans to decrease their live shows significantly in 2025

TKO President Mark Shapiro had the following to say on the situation:

“What we’re doing is cutting events at WWE. We’re taking away our low marginal, marginally profitable events, especially untelevised events that Vince McMahon had put in place to grow the brand.

WWE is on fire right now. So we don’t need to carry these marginally profitable events. What was 300 events last year, will be roughly 250 this year, and next year, we’ll be close to 200.”
 
Pretty sure USA was muting OTC chants thinking they were holy shit chants. Guy returns after several weeks and I barely heard the chant because it would start anddddd mute. Is there not some sort of meeting between the network and WWE beforehand to make sure segments aren't ruined? USA and Fox treat the WWE crowds like a drunken ECW audience.
 
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Where's my video package?? LOL Just kidding.

Am I the only one who doesn't care about Joe Hendry?

Meme wrestler.

Was that in front of a green screen? At least actually burn a house down.

It was a real house, it was the same house Swerve "bought"

Saw somewhere MJF and swerve are taking time off - I thought MJF just came back from time off from surgery.

Gonna be interesting without 2 of their better stars being out for a bit to see who fills the shoes.

MJF is filming a movie, according to Fightful

AEW promotion is the shits and has been for some time. I'd like to see them use their former WWE guys as promotional tools more with specific instruction given to them. Casuals recognize Jericho, Moxley, Danielson, Copeland, and Christian. When Jericho was on KSR a couple years back to promote his book, he didn't mention AEW once. Casuals might not recognize Darby, Swerve, MJF, and Ospreay right now. You lure some casuals in, maybe they begin thinking "Darby is a crazy sob. WWE doesn't have anyone like that. He'd been perfect for the Attitude Era doing those insane bumps." "Swerve is just cool as shit." "MJF seems to have it all and he's how young? Damn, I didn't even know he existed."

One would think you should use your younger talent more to promote but Swerve, Darby, Page, Ospreay, etc. don't bring in new viewers. AEW just doesn't know how to do it. Debut MJF on SD tonight and on 9/13/25 he's an absolute megastar, known all over the world, and the entire wrestling world is talking about him weekly. But as it stands? A tiny portion of wrestling internet talks about him and your hardcores and social media personalities who obsessively follow and talk about every show know how good he is.

**** Jericho.

I can not stress this enough, Moxley is terrible at media.

But Danielson, Copeland, and Christian do tons of media as does Mercedes. I know Samoa Joe did a bunch back when he was champion, not sure about any other time. Though Copeland not so much right now since he's recovering

Lexington, KY crowd for AEW this week was once again complete trash that will once again be on the short list for worst crowd of the year. Really wish AEW would stop going there. Every single time they;'ve been there it's been trash and they never deserved a second show to begin with, much less a third.
 
Meanwhile, NXT has had to move their second CW show out of St. Louis and into an auditorium that only seats 3K people at max. Which will obviously be less than 3K when setup for wrestling. This looks like the type of place TNA would book




Why did FOX elect not to renew Smackdown? Smackdown viewers are poor, basically.
GXaKRXOXgAAsKNT
 
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The way Dynamite's been, that's something AEW may need to look at. Beats blacking out 80% of Rupp. I will agree Lex just might not be into AEW. They should've ran Cincinnati instead. Do a Moxley homecoming show.

Punk + Chicago will always work. Orton and St. Louis? Ehh. I've enjoyed NXT more lately but I'm not sure they'd ever make doing what AEW does work. It's the training grounds for "tomorrow's superstars." Doubt that'd bring in a couple thousand per week. The PLE's usually do well though.

I know you like slapping NXT around but it's just a MUCH higher quality version of OVW with more money. The fact that AEW in America is closer to NXT (ratings, attendance) than Raw and SD is slightly concerning. I'd really like to see the total amount of money WWE is paying the NXT roster compared to what TK is paying his roster.
 
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