By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW Dynamite Hits
Tony Khan acquires ROH: An advertised major announcement from Tony Khan that was actually delivered by Tony Khan. This was a notable improvement over a wrestler showing up or someone else making the announcement rather than Khan. More importantly, the announcement lived up to the hype, at least for this viewer. As always, when promotions hype major announcements or mystery partners, the imaginations of viewers start to run wild. So while the ROH announcement worked for me, there are surely some viewers who felt like it was a letdown, but I suspect that the majority of AEW viewers were satisfied. The announcement raises dozens of questions that still need to be answered. The deal gives AEW a deeper video library, which can only help if they launch their own streaming service or make them more attractive to a potential streaming partner. Only time will tell whether AEW positions ROH as a second major brand or if they make it a farm system. My bet is on the latter, but it could create jobs and even save the jobs of some of the wrestlers who haven’t been making the cut for Dynamite or Rampage appearances due to all of the talent acquisitions that Khan has made. It is worth noting that the timing of the announcement is questionable. Yes, the latest major announcement tease likely led to more viewers for Dynamite’s go-home show for Revolution, but it also overshadowed the pay-per-view hype. Is there a reason aside from trying to put more eyeballs on the go-home show that this announcement wasn’t saved until after the pay-per-view? Either way, it’s an exciting deal and it will be fun to see what Khan has in mind for the ROH brand going forward.
CM Punk and MJF: Punk is back in full force as one of the best talkers in the game. The recent “Will you be my Valentine?” promo was terrific, and he followed that up with another gem that made his character seem introspective and caring. While some viewers have complained that they felt Punk looked too gullible, he did show some apprehension before he reciprocated when MJF hugged him, and his willingness to forgive MJF was set up perfectly by the line that he’s trying to be the good guy. It would have been hypocritical for his character to lay out some of the heinous things that he’s done during his career only to completely reject a seemingly vulnerable MJF. Meanwhile, MJF taking lines from a classic Punk promo was really well done in that it rewarded the hardcore fans who caught it, and yet still made perfect sense to those who never saw or simply forgot that Punk promo. Much like Punk’s recent Valentine promo, it worked on both levels. As much as I enjoyed this segment, I did come away wondering why the MJF character would go through so much work just to fool Punk for one week. Sure, he got to give Punk a big beatdown days before their dog collar match, but you’d think that his diabolical plan would have actually helped him win the match rather than infuriate Punk beforehand.
Wardlow vs. Cezar Bononi: The match was more of the same with Wardlow using his powerbomb symphony to destroy Bononi quickly. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But the real fun was Wardlow stopping Shawn Spears from taking his usual post match liberties on a fallen opponent. Wardlow finally intervened by stopping Spears from using his chair, and it led to some really good storytelling through facial expressions. Spears looked pissed for a moment, only to back down like a cowardly heel when Wardlow glared at him. And then there was the added touch of Spears looking back at the chair as he was leaving the ring, only for Wardlow to show that he was watching him. The backstage follow-up with MJF slapping Wardlow across the face while Spears smirked in the background was great. Wardlow’s babyface run should be big.
Bryan Danielson vs. Christopher Daniels: A good professional wrestling match. As simple as that may read, it’s intended to be high praise for these two ring generals. It played in perfectly with the ROH announcement, and I loved the way that Danielson flipped the switch once the match was over by going right back into heel mode.
AEW Dynamite Misses
Tag Team Casino Battle Royale: Two tag team battle royals in back to back weeks was overkill, especially when it felt painfully obvious that the teams of The Young Bucks and Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish would advance to the Triple Threat for the AEW Tag Titles. It was great to see Darius Martin back and positioned strongly in his return from ACL surgery. This was the more entertaining of the two battle royals, but it also went on forever because it featured too many teams, and it was even more predictable than the first battle royal.
“Hangman” Adam Page, John Silver, and Alex Reynolds vs. Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly, and Bobby Fish: The Page vs. Cole feud just hasn’t gotten out of second gear. The match was fine and they put some heat on Cole afterward. But I don’t think Tony Khan did this title feud any favors by booking Cole take the recent unsanctioned match loss to Orange Cassidy. I’m also over seeing Page pal around with the Dark Order. Heck, I’m over the Dark Order, period. Cole lost a lot of momentum late in his NXT run because he had done everything there was to do. He got the change of scenery that he needed by signing with AEW, but the peak of his AEW run is still when arrived as a pay-per-view surprise. It hasn’t been all bad and I’m sure he and Page will have a hell of a match on Sunday, but they just haven’t built up enough momentum for Cole’s character heading into the match to make this feel as big as it should.
Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter vs Thunder Rosa and Mercedes Martinez: I like the idea of Rosa pinning Baker to drive home the idea that she has the number of the AEW Women’s Champion. This was not a bad match, it just felt a little flat. For that matter, the Baker vs. Rosa feud was placed on the back burner for too long. The one year anniversary of their lights out match is in two weeks, and they just didn’t do enough between then and now to keep the feud fresh in the minds of viewers. I am looking forward to their match, but instead of feeling epic due to the near one-year wait, it feels like they would have been better off having the match months ago.
Don’t get it. Buying ROH would be like Facebook buying MySpace. It’s already dead.
I know. People will make an argument about the tape library but that really only has value as an add on. I think I read somewhere that after the first year all those old wcw/ecw/territory shows barely got watched on the WWE network
In the end I suppose it depends on what the price was. But anything over maybe $5mil and Kahn overpaid
That ROH announcement was another dud delivered by someone who should never be allowed in front of a live mic. It’s blowing smoke up the ass of the tiny IWC while not registering at all with anyone who isn’t already watching AEW.
The ROH acquisition is useful for AEW but I honestly don’t understand why any viewers would care.
It seems like something that only hardcore AEW fans would be interested in, and they are a captive audience already.
Like most things that happen on this show, I cannot imagine that the casual viewer would relate to this news in any way. Then again, sadly I can say that for most of the AEW product. In fact I would go further and say that this philosophy is actively turning potential new fans away.
On the positive side, AEW knows its audience. But the downside is that audience will never ever grow while TV time is wasted on so much onanistic indulgence.
Will never grow vs is shrinking consistently. Our culture is an assemblage of niches, and the idea of the “mainstream” and “monoculture” is past tense. I think AEW will be fine if it never reaches 5 million viewers because those days are behind us.
Yellowstone is smashing records on cable TV, and doing it on a channel that literally doesn’t have another first run show. The season 4 premier, on the freaking Paramount Network, was the most watched season premier of any cable show in history. The season averaged 7.83 million viewers, just over double its season 3 numbers, with a finale that pulled 9.34 million. They also get 3x/4x the “key demo” that AEW gets.
The NFL saw the most watched non Super Bowl game in the last 40 years, Chiefs vs Bills, happen this season.
IndyCar racing saw their best ratings in decades and F1 racing was setting records all of last season.
Cobra Kai season 3 (early 2021) saw 41 million unique accounts watch the show, and season 4 (late 2021) had around 20 million unique viewers of the show in the first 3 days of release.
Marvel movies pull in enormous numbers and continued to do so in the middle of a pandemic. They’re as mainstream as it gets.
The top tier shows/events are still drawing big, and often increasing, ratings. It’s not a matter of if something can draw as well as it has in the past, it’s a matter of you’re either really good or nobody is going to watch. If your show is compelling and well done, people will absolutely watch and it will be mainstream.
AEW isn’t really good, and they pander exclusively to the IWC neckbeard loser crowd, so they’ll never grow. There was a less than 0% chance that announcing that they purchased ROH was going to move the needle.
WWE spent too much time signing all the indy darling/ROH types and spent years in decline. They may not be able to recover, but they’re at least going the right direction again with the focus on young athletes with physical size and big personalities on NXT 2.0 and the main roster focus being almost entirely on guys like Reigns, Lesnar, Lashley, McIntyre, Priest, etc.