RCBH928 wrote:you had a real quick turn of opinions about AEW, you started highly praising them now you seem to be upset by their product. I know you are only judging what you see but that was very short lived. Reminds me of TNA in around 2009-2010 when some people thought they might take on WWE, how they were majorly wrong. Although I have to say in 2009-10 TNA roster was probably better than WWE.
got to give it to Vince and WWE, they crushed all their competitors....
I saw the direction the winds were blowing. A lot of people have been criticizing AEW's product of late, like they've all started to see what I was seeing when I started complaining about them in this thread. There's been a pretty MASSIVE momentum shift recently. Vince McMahon just "retired", though most people think he stepped down due to the allegations against him and the investigations into his activities that have put him in hot water. Triple H has taken control of the company in terms of creative and talent management while Stephanie McMahon and Nick Kahn will be handling the corporate side of things as co-CEOs. I have to state this again because it's monumental news:
THE VINCE MCMAHON ERA IS OVERThey removed all signs of his name behind the scenes, including taking his name off of his office (presumably Stephanie's office now). They built a NEW office for Triple H. I think they just took Vince's name off the website as a WWE talent as well. Stephanie publicly announced his retirement on Smackdown like two or three weeks ago
There is a renewed interest in WWE with Triple H in charge. Already, he has re-hired some of the people that were fired under Vince's watch. Also, the product from WWE has gotten a bit better since he took over, not in a massive way, but you can clearly see changes. WWE's SummerSlam PPV was a huge success, and was a FAR better pay per view than AEW's Forbidden Door. Forbidden Door SHOULD have been AEW's best pay per view of the year, but wasn't. The Brock Lesnar/Roman Reigns match exceeded expectations and felt like something from WWE's Attitude Era. The show also had some exciting changes and debuts for the women's division. Some say SummerSlam marked the beginning of Triple H's influence on the product.
AEW feels cold right now. The company isn't generating any buzz, the quality of the product fluctuates up and down, and their women's division is honestly the worst in all of professional wrestling right now with a poorly utilized roster and two champions that literally no one cares about in Jade Cargill and Thunder Rosa (her stock has fallen dramatically since becoming champion with some pretty awful matches, poor crowd reactions, and rumors of her sandbagging opponents).
Also, with the guy running Warner Bros. Discovery doing cuts to shows, movies, and HBO Max, there is some concern for AEW's future. It wouldn't be shocking if they had to go to another network. At the very least, they will NOT be making more money on the next TV contract they get with the current network given their poor performance in ratings and demos recently. AEW is NOT growing. Meanwhile WWE's post SummerSlam show got a pretty big boost in ratings and demographics. It was something like 2.2 million viewers, more than double what AEW is getting on their Wednesday night flagship show right now.
AEW is starting to feel like where TNA was many years ago when they started losing momentum. Tony Khan in a lot of ways is showing the same flaws as Vince McMahon. He wants to do everything himself and can't cut it. When AEW started it was supposed to be run by Kenny Omega, Cody Rhodes, and the Young Bucks with Tony Kahn bankrolling everything...then Kahn just decided to seize full control over everything for himself. He controls everything in AEW, while also trying to run Ring of Honor and it just feels like a big mess. He keeps throwing Ring of Honor matches on AEW shows and the fans don't seem to give a crap about them. He's trying to do all of the booking and creative by himself for AEW as well as Ring of Honor and it's been terrible. Triple H, to his credit, has stated that he has a team of people he plans on working with in order to make WWE succeed in the wake of Vince's retirement
Things can change rapidly in pro wrestling, and AEW kind of feels like yesterday's news right now