Wrestling Thread

American Dragon

All-Conference
Dec 1, 2020
3,766
2,174
47
For those who don’t think I ever criticize AEW, here is my thread of current dislikes.

1. I’ve been tired of The Death Riders for about 18 months now and still am. They should have turned on Mox last year. Now they are heels about 75% of the time and face with Ospreay the rest of the time. Don’t like that.

2. Don’t like that the best wrestler in the world needs help from a group to get even better. No one wants to see Ospreay bust out submission moves. He’s amazing. Let him be amazing on his own and forget about a random armbar

3. I don’t like the timing of this current PPV at all. Everyone knows Kenny is going to win. Why waste a match and give a possibility of injury to Kenny or Ospreay? Next month is all anyone cares about, at least for me. I’m considering not getting the PPV and that would only be the second one I’ve ever missed.

4. Toni, Mercedes and Thekla are awesome, but I hate that none of the other women have stepped up to be on their level. I guess Willow is closest, but she just isn’t there for me yet.

Other than those things, I’m pretty happy with AEW recently.
For point 3 - WBD wanted it, ain’t much AEW can do about that beyond being stupid and telling them no y’all are just going to have to settle for less money and lol at the thought of that happening.

For point 4 - I blame a lot of that on Tony Khan. No one ever really gets the time to do what they need to be able to do to even have an attempt to get on that level. How often does someone other than the four you mention get a live mic, for one major example?
 
Last edited:

American Dragon

All-Conference
Dec 1, 2020
3,766
2,174
47
Max numbers must be insane


Part promoter being a promoter, and next year or late this year is when they likely enter into media rights negotiation season as the deal they signed was for three years with a WBD option for a fourth year. Next year would be year three. Not sure when the exclusivity period would end that gives them the ability to negotiate with other companies.

But also they just did their best number in two years on TV not including Max at nearly 800K. If they only got like 100-150K HBO Max then they are doing numbers that rival or beat most of what they were getting in the company’s history. I would guesstimate 100-150K is probably the floor given the #s they do on HBO Max for PPV because If you’re already subscribed it’s silly to watch it on cable instead of Max because of the superior picture quality on Max. Unless someone really wants the PiP action, which is understandable.

If they are doing 250K+ on HBO Max then we’re talking 1 million+ territory, which they’ve only done 20 times, and three of those were the first three episodes.

And this is with the altered Nielsen ratings that have been worse for wrestling than what it was prior to Fall 2025. So it’s kind of difficult to compare what they are doing now with prior to the ratings change.

Dave claims to get the panel only numbers (which is what it was for years before Fall 2025), and I believe he said last week was somewhere around the 900K range but I could be remembering wrong. Obviously I have no way of verifying if that’s true or not so have to take it with a grain of salt.

But whatever measuring system HBO Max uses would be different than what Nielsen is doing, so it wouldn’t really be appropriate to combine the two even if we had the Max numbers.
 
Last edited:

American Dragon

All-Conference
Dec 1, 2020
3,766
2,174
47
Get paid for like two years for maternity leave then ask to be released. Unless she wanted to just be a stay at home mom without having to deal with wrestling anymore, I wouldn’t haven’t granted it either. I ain’t paying someone two years to be a mom just so they can go work another company as soon as they are ready to return to action.

 
  • Like
Reactions: GeraldV

Nightwish

Senior
Jul 10, 2025
590
844
93
One of the comments said AEW is only on the rise in Dave's pants.

I know they're posing the question for a response and it'll work but no lol. A slight uptick for AEW has nothing to do with a decline for WWE. They just started beating NXT again but only after NXT lost Oba, Trick, Sol, Evans, etc. But that's how social media works. You pose a crazy question but in the video admit that WWE attendance is still pretty good overall and AEW attendance is close to the same it's been. I'll revise this post if Raw and SD begin doing 6k and Dynamite adds another 3k every week.
 

American Dragon

All-Conference
Dec 1, 2020
3,766
2,174
47
WWE is just a bunch of snowflakes who can’t accept the fact that the PLE they themselves admitted was an average WWE PLE received an average grade. If you want better than an average grade then do better than average.
 

American Dragon

All-Conference
Dec 1, 2020
3,766
2,174
47
Remember when ESPN ranked this guy as the #1 wrestler under 30? And that was before they became a WWE media partner. Now he’s wrestling an undercard match against a comedy wrestler on the second biggest show of the year less than a year after besting John Cena in his final PLE match. What a fall from grace.

 

American Dragon

All-Conference
Dec 1, 2020
3,766
2,174
47
I personally don’t really have any interest in Bayley in AEW. Never been a fan of her work even dating back to NXT. I’d rather see AEW use the time to invest in younger talent with more to offer 5-10 years down the road.

But that would be a big splash hire that Tony Khan would be stupid to not make. I don’t think it’s a needle mover hire as far as the business side goes. She’d likely be a huge asset in the locker room though.

And hopefully she’ll be motivated to show out after WWE has treated her like garbage for years.

I’ll believe she’s leaving when it happens. She’s a complete *ucking pushover. They’ll give her the “aww shucks we sure will miss you” to guilt her into re-signing for less than the minimum just to continue to be a jobber then send her out in the media to spread their propaganda.
 
Last edited:

Glenn's Take

Heisman
May 20, 2012
12,831
15,071
113
Mike Santana debuted in NXT tonight. Or I guess technically returned. But as a WWE talent now.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GeraldV

American Dragon

All-Conference
Dec 1, 2020
3,766
2,174
47
A ring general he can put in the ring with anyone yet has zero title defenses, only 12 televised matches in 2026, and just four televised singles matches for the entire calendar year.

 

Nightwish

Senior
Jul 10, 2025
590
844
93
Man, that is ****** if you can’t give an honest take about an espn partner without getting your walking papers.
I think it's more likely that on the site side of things, keeping someone around who grades random games and events is kinda pointless. Of course it sucks to lose your job but the fact that's a job to begin with is absurd. At least with Lunardi, Bracketology became a thing towards the end of the season. I'd love to know the clicks those grade articles got for a random Duke game or a random PLE in May.
 

American Dragon

All-Conference
Dec 1, 2020
3,766
2,174
47
I saw that it was a cringe line. He def loves liv/rhea/iyo.
What he really meant by that is she’s a ring general because she’ll gladly cut time from women’s matches and accept the shortest match on the card to make more time for commercials and for the men to put on dumpster fire main events.

 

Laparkafan

Heisman
Sep 5, 2004
14,651
10,199
93
What he really meant by that is she’s a ring general because she’ll gladly cut time from women’s matches and accept the shortest match on the card to make more time for commercials and for the men to put on dumpster fire main events.


She just seems like such a good soldier no wonder they give her the belt. Isn’t that why aj left 10 years ago bc the time was too short?
Didn’t Nikki complain her sd match was too short?
 
  • Like
Reactions: American Dragon

American Dragon

All-Conference
Dec 1, 2020
3,766
2,174
47
She just seems like such a good soldier no wonder they give her the belt. Isn’t that why aj left 10 years ago bc the time was too short?
Didn’t Nikki complain her sd match was too short?
Yes. Triple H heard them loud and clear. Don’t like your short matches? Well try 0 minutes, let’s see how you like that then maybe you’ll shut up.