Like many of you out there, I am beyond sick of this lame ass tribalism bullshit that we continue to see with a lot of WWE and AEW fans.
I have no idea why we’re still dealing with it, but we damn sure are, over a quarter of the way through 2024.
Then I started thinking about it. Thinking about it some more. Then, thinking about it even more. I started to think about why we’re still dealing with tribalism the way we are. It has been about four-and-a-half years since the debut episode of AEW Dynamite, and it has been about three years since NXT was moved from Wednesday nights to Tuesday nights, effectively killing the “Wednesday Night War.” Surely, we should’ve all been able to move on by now, right?
That’s when it hit me.
The solution? No. My daughter threw a toddler basketball at me.
Those partaking in the tribalism are merely doing so because they don’t understand the people on the other side.
It’s a tale as told as time. Dogs vs Cats. Bloods vs Crips. East Coast vs West Coast. Ford vs Chevy. Hatfields vs McCoys.
That’s when it hit me.
My daughter threw something else at me? No. The solution.
I want to bring people together. If I can’t teach the world to be a thug in harmony or to be a thugsta just like me, then I at least want to be able to get hardcore WWE fans to understand hardcore AEW fans, and vice versa.
I’m going to be talking to you, the WWE diehards. I will also be talking to you, the AEW diehards. I’ve come up with some questions that I want to ask you, and if you’ll indulge me, I want you to answer those questions. Then, the folks on the other side of the fence can read your responses, and hopefully, we can all begin to understand each other and what makes us all tick.
I’ll start with a question for WWE fans, then pose one for AEW fans, then another for WWE fans, and so on and so forth until I’m finished.
Let’s begin the healing process.
WWE fans, why does it bother you so much that another company is around? Let’s be completely honest with each other right here and now, shall we? No matter which company you’re a fan of, and no matter which company you prefer… WWE is the #1 wrestling company in the world in almost every measurable statistic. Even if you hate WWE with all your might, they have more people watching their product, are making more money, have a bigger “reach” domestically and internationally, etc.
Those are undeniable facts, whether you like it or not.
If you’re a hardcore WWE fan, that’s all that should matter to you. “Your” company is on top of the wrestling world. Not only that, but this is the biggest and the best time of the year for WWE, so everything you love about the product is being given to you tenfold.
So… why does it matter that AEW is also doing their thing?
It shouldn’t matter to you that AEW is celebrating the signing of this free agent or the crowd reaction to that match, or anything else for that matter. Let them do their thing, and let their fans enjoy it. In no way, shape, or form should it bother you that AEW… or any other wrestling promotion… exists and is doing things that their fans enjoy.
AEW fans, why do you focus so much on people (Eric Bischoff, Jim Cornette, etc.) that diss the product? This is somewhat similar to the previous question. I don’t think a single day goes by that I don’t see an AEW fan on social media ranting and raving about something that Eric Bischoff or Jim Cornette said on their podcasts. It usually ends up being several tweets long, and it will probably include responding to people that reply to the tweets, and might even see the topic revisited later in the day. To those people, I have a simple question for you…
Who fucking cares?!?!?
If I like something, I don’t give a Kentucky Fried Fuck whether or not you like it. I promise you… it’s not difficult to ignore people that you already know don’t like something. The dumbest part of the entire thing is that I GUARANTEE you that you’re going to read the aforementioned rants and will see words like “irrelevant” used to describe people like Bischoff, Cornette, Vince Russo, Disco Inferno, and so on. If those people are even half as irrelevant as you say they are, why are you spending so much time focusing on what they’re saying? They’re irrelevant, after all.
Stop being so fucking sensitive all the fucking time. People are going to dislike the things you enjoy, whether they’re being honest about it or are just trolling for entertainment. That’s part of life. It happens in every aspect of life, but holy shit, Eric Bischoff said that he didn’t like the main event of that one random episode of Collision because he felt it was a “spotfest” and now, your entire life has been flipped upside down and you just have to rush to social media to put Bischoff down. That’ll teach him!
Don’t listen to those podcasts. Don’t read those news articles. Don’t follow those accounts. Don’t reply to those tweets and posts.
It truly boggles my mind that I even have to say that to people.
The problem here is that it goes beyond AEW fans. It starts right at the top, with none other than Tony Khan himself, who has spent WAY too much time tweeting about critics, both named in this entry and otherwise. He’ll spend hours tweeting and responding to anything remotely negative that is said about AEW. You can call that standing up for his company all you like, but he comes across like a whiny, petulant child, especially when a lot of his responses are nothing but memes and GIFs. If he isn’t going to shut the fuck up, I guess it wouldn’t be expected that the fan base would do so, huh?
WWE fans, why does a former WWE talent going to AEW automatically means that talent sucks all of a sudden? Daniel Bryan. Edge. Samoa Joe. Sasha Banks. Adam Cole. The Revival. Chris Jericho. Christian. Cesaro. Paige. Toni Storm. Ruby Riott. Dean Ambrose. Keith Lee. Rusev.
What do those people all have in common?
At some point in the last few years, they went from being under WWE contract to being under AEW contract.
What else do those people have in common?
They were all praised by WWE fans when they were under WWE contract. That list is nowhere near complete, but it consists of several future Hall Of Fame performers, and almost all of them have been champions at some point in WWE or NXT.
Then they went to AEW, and all of a sudden, they’re no good. Bryan was “boring.” Toni had “no personality.” Sasha “wasn’t worth the money she was asking for.” Cole “didn’t look like a star.”
The list goes on and on. None of these complaints were being shared by any of you when those names were in WWE. For the love of all that is holy, Daniel Bryan was as close to being “untouchable” and universally loved as any WWE performer that has ever lived, but he has seen a ton of negativity since he signed with AEW. Weird, huh?
Don’t be like that, folks. You sound like those weirdo women who praise their significant other to no end, only for the relationship to come to an end, and all of a sudden, that significant other is called every name in the book, has their genitalia made fun of, and is viewed as the polar opposite of everything they were viewed as for years.
It’s perfectly fine to be a fan of so-and-so in WWE and then NOT speak negatively about them when they’re no longer in WWE.
By the way, AEW fans, you’re not exempt from this. We’ve all seen what you said about Cody Rhodes when he left AEW, and then what you said about Jade Cargill when she left. You damn sure didn’t have that same energy for them when they were in the AEW fold.
All of you… cut it out.
AEW fans, why do things like television viewership “not matter” to you unless it’s when your company was beating NXT? This one is really funny to me. Television viewership and ratings matter to a lot of people. They also don’t matter to a lot of people. Either way, it remains an important piece of news in the world of wrestling, getting reported as soon as the numbers are released.
When you look at the current viewership for Dynamite, the numbers aren’t terrible, but if we’re being honest, they aren’t great, either. A couple years ago, it would be seen as a major disappointment if Dynamite pulled in less than one million viewers weekly. Recently, the show is fighting to hit the 800,000 viewer mark. Again, not terrible, but not great.
Rampage is a bigger problem. In the early stages of the show, 600,000+ viewers was seen as a good week. The show airs on Friday nights, which isn’t a great night for the target demo, and it’s usually taped, so results are already online before it airs. Now, though, Rampage is getting in the 300-350k mark when it airs in its regular time slot. Percentage wise, that’s a big dip.
Collision was never going to be a hugely successful show, and even AEW fans knew that. Saturday nights are terrible for wrestling, and the viewership numbers have proven that. After a debut episode that saw 816,000 viewers, the show was getting 345,000 viewers only two months later. Recently, the show seems to have settled in at around the 400,000 mark.
I bring those numbers up for a reason. When you mention AEW’s viewership decline, AEW diehards will come at you with every “reason” in the book. They’ll say that viewership numbers don’t matter. They will mention that WWE isn’t exactly pulling in Attitude Era numbers these days. They’ll talk about the stiff competition AEW shows often go up against when it comes to “real” sports.
That first reason is why I’m talking about this now.
Viewership numbers don’t matter.
They don’t matter?
You folks were the EXACT SAME PEOPLE who would do cartwheels every Thursday afternoon when the news came out that more people watched the previous night’s episode of Dynamite than watched the previous night’s episode of NXT?
So… viewership matters, but only when it’s good news? Is that how it works? Get the fuck out of here. If you can’t be honest with how things are going, why even bother? Stop making lame excuses. The viewership numbers are down for AEW, all across the board. Those are facts. WHY the viewership numbers are down is up for whatever debate you want, but to say that the stats don’t matter is asinine.
Like I did in the previous entry, I want to flip it for a second. WWE fans, you’re not immune to this, either. Raw hasn’t averaged 2 million viewers since the night after WrestleMania 39, and hasn’t hit that number for a “regular” episode since February 20th of last year. Smackdown hasn’t hit the 2.5 million viewer mark since August 25th, 2023. You can say that the year-to-year numbers are pretty much even from last year, and that the percentage decrease isn’t what AEW is seeing, but the fact of the matter is still that numbers are down. That needs to be talked about.
WWE fans, why do you need things spoon fed to you? We’ve all seen the arguments again and again and again. Hell, I even dedicated an entire column to the topic in August 2022. For those unaware, the debate goes like this…
Wrestling companies like to debut new names, often without any backstory or explanation of who these people are, why fans should care about them, and so on. WWE has done it countless times with NXT call-ups, but this truly became an issue when AEW started doing it with their new signings from the independent scene or from other countries.
The hardcore AEW fans know who the new additions are. Whether they’re so-and-so from an independent promotion, a luchador from Mexico, or a puro star from Japan, the fans know who they are. They might not be 100% up to date on their career and know what the wrestler likes to eat for breakfast, but they know who they are, what they do, and what to expect.
Unfortunately for the more casual fan that is trying to become a regular AEW viewer, they generally have no idea who these people are. A wrestler’s accomplishments and accolades before they made it to television in North America mean precisely zero to casual fans. That’s not a knock on the wrestlers themselves. It’s just a harsh truth. Casual wrestling fans don’t have the time or desire to read a biography and watch a playlist of greatest matches for every new name they see.
It goes beyond that with a lot of the complaints from hardcore WWE fans, though. When you read their complaints, you picture them sitting there with their arms folded, expecting to be given a guided tour on everything needed to know about a new wrestler.
Why?
In this day and age, with every bit of information that has ever existed living on the internet for easy consumption, there’s no excuse to be completely unaware of someone’s existence before they appeared on your screen.
To be fair, I am an advocate for a promotion giving you some information, yes. WWE always excels at video packages and vignettes, which would be great to build a foundation of knowledge for fans when it comes to a new wrestler. AEW has announcers like Excalibur and Taz, who are encyclopedias of wrestling knowledge and history, so they would easily be able to paint the picture of who this New Japan star is or why we should expect big things from this independent champion.
To sit there and expect everything to be fed to you, though?
I understand that you might not be able to do that as a show is airing live. That’s fine. However, it’s not a difficult task to do some research after the fact. So-and-so is making their AEW debut on an episode of Dynamite. Okay, cool. Watch the match. Did you like what you saw? Are you intrigued? Okay, cool, part deux. Google and YouTube are right there. You have two days until Rampage, another day until Collision, and four additional days until the next episode of Dynamite. Read some stuff. Watch some stuff. Learn some stuff.
Now, for the flip side…
AEW fans, why do you hate the idea of things being spoon fed to people? You feel like you’re in the “Cool Kids Club.” I get it. You know who these wrestlers are, but the casual fans don’t. Hooray!
I just don’t understand why you get completely offended at the mere idea that a wrestling promotion should put a little work in when it comes to introducing debuts and new signings to their audience.
As I said, I think all companies should do their best to introduce new talents to the audience. Even a small independent promotion can do so by using social media to showcase highlight videos of a debuting talent, giving fans that will be in attendance at the next show a chance to see what’s what. It’s not hard.
You guys are SO focused on that “Cool Kids Club,” and AEW is SO focused on catering to said club, that you’re probably stunting the growth of the company completely. Not being welcoming to others, and placing hurdles in front of them that prevent them from becoming real fans of the product, have those pesky television viewership numbers jogging in place for a long, long time. When numbers go up, it’s a minuscule amount, but when numbers go down, it’s also a minuscule amount.
What does that tell you?
It says that the shows are, for the most part, seeing all the viewers they’re going to get. The fans that watch AEW programming are tuning in to watch, no matter what, but those casual and/or new viewers aren’t sticking around, if they’re showing up at all.
Big free agent signing? Maybe you’ll be a teeny tiny viewership spike, but it’s almost guaranteed to be back down the following week and in the weeks to follow… until the next teeny tiny viewership spike caused by the next big free agent signing. It has happened time and time and time again, and it can’t be ignored, no matter how tight your blinders fit.
The problem with being in a small club is just that… it’s a small club. When you’re trying to grow a business and find success in a field that almost nobody has found real success in for the last 25 years, fighting to keep that “Cool Kids Club” going is a really stupid idea.
WWE fans, why are so many of you still supporting Vince McMahon in any shape or form? First and foremost, with everything going on involving Vince’s legal issues, this is a terrible time to be publicly supporting Vince in any way. The court of public opinion is a powerful thing, and fairly or unfairly, once they’ve latched on to an opinion about someone, it’s difficult to shake that opinion off. Right now, that public opinion of Vince McMahon is very negative.
I continue to see support for the man, though. I’m sure many of you have seen it, as well. Those people say that the Janel Grant lawsuit is a joke, that it was a consensual relationship between her and Vince, only for him to turn around and end it, which hurt her feelings, so now she’s lying to get revenge and a hefty pay day… that type of stuff.
For the time being… and I know this sounds crazy… but let’s forget about the lawsuit for a moment. At this point, it’s all speculation, anyway. Let’s focus on things that we know happened for an unequivocal fact because we watched it. For now, let’s focus on WWE’s on-screen product.
When was the last time Vince McMahon did anything in that aspect that deserved praise or defending? The “PG Era” gave us some of the worst storytelling and booking decisions in the history of the company, usually because that senile old bastard changed the script for the show a million times every week, including after the show had already gone on the air. Viewers were turning out in droves. Vince’s definition of “humor” wasn’t hitting whatsoever. The “Guest Host” nonsense was b-r-u-t-a-l. The people chosen to be called up from NXT made no sense whatsoever. Two hour shows felt like four hour shows. Three hour shows were moving by at the pace of old people fucking in a vat of molasses.
Throughout company history, almost every good thing that has happened was either someone else’s idea completely, happened “accidentally,” or was something that happened after Vince’s initial idea completely failed. If he isn’t the biggest fraud in the history of the business, he’s firmly planted on the fraud Mount Rushmore.
If he may very well be a piece of shit human being… and if he has built his kingdom on the hard work and ideas of other people, succeeding in spite of himself… then why are we still celebrating him today? Haven’t we smartened ourselves up to the bullshit by now?
AEW fans, why do you place Tony Khan on such a high pedestal? Okay, AEW diehards… I want you to try as hard as physically possible to be as objective as you can here. Ready?
Tony Khan is almost singlehandedly holding AEW back.
He is turning people off with the way he carries himself on social media. The way he has handled all of the backstage drama in his own company has been comical, at best, and absolutely incompetent, at worst. He lacks any desire to end the aforementioned “Cool Kids Club,” instead forcing it to continue and snowball into a bigger and bigger problem. He completely fails, far more often than not, to introduce any sort of storyline or reasoning for the things we see on television, instead just making matches at random and expecting that to be a sustainable programming model. The AEW roster is more bloated than a dead body stuck inside of a home for a week during the Arizona summer, as he continues to sign more and more names while admitting that he doesn’t want to cost anyone their jobs because of the “family business” that he runs. While he has gotten better with this part recently, he spent way too long wearing almost every “hat” in AEW, running things and handling jobs that he had no business running and handling, and it showed. The touring model that he has either created, or at least signed off on, is horrendous, leading to domestic troubles in selling out 3,000 seat venues and having embarrassingly low ticket sales on a regular basis. Outside of tweeting about things, he seems to be allergic to the word “promotion,” with numerous stories from all over the country where people stated they never saw any commercials or heard any radio ads for upcoming shows, even on the day of, as those terrible ticket sales were happening.
Do I need to make that paragraph any longer?
If you had to make a list of the “problems” AEW faces today, TK is directly responsible for just about all of them, and yet, he is a modern deity in the eyes and minds of rabid AEW fans.
Why?
I get that he’s responsible for AEW being a thing in the first place, so he will always get whatever share of the credit he deserves for that. It’s everything beyond that, though, that I don’t understand.
Imagine for a second that Tony Khan was to AEW what Ted Turner was to WCW at one point. He’s the big boss, but he is almost completely hands-off, outside of funding everything and making the occasional call for the company to take the next logical step in its growth.
Now imagine that TK has the Ted Turner role, while one or more non-wrestlers have the Eric Bischoff (relax) hands-on role, dealing with all of the day-to-day decision making.
After all that, imagine that there are one or more non-wrestlers handling the creative roles for the on-screen product, coming up with actual storylines and reasons for everything that fans see on television and pay-per-view.
Are you really telling me that, if all those things were in place, AEW wouldn’t be in a much better position right now?
I’m not saying Dynamite would be pulling in five million viewers a week, and that AEW would be heads and shoulders above every other wrestling promotion on the planet in every measurable metric that exists. Just that they would be a lot more advanced than they are today, with the handcuffs holding them back never existing in the first place.
Okay, folks, it’s time for some answers. WWE fans, I want you to answer the questions dedicated to you. AEW fans, I want you to do the same. Maybe we can get both sides to understand the other a little bit more.
Probably not, but hey, it’s worth a shot.
As always, feel free to hit me up in the comments section below, or on Twitter (@HustleTheSavage), and let me know what’s on your mind. Now, let’s keep things rolling with my Weekly Power Rankings, before I close things out with the list of songs I was listening to when I put this column together.
Weekly Power Rankings
The Rock: Promises made, promises kept. This will end up going down as one of the most memorable WWE segments in years. Everything about it was almost completely different than anything we’ve seen on WWE programming in what seems like decades. The camera angles were different. Rock whooping Cody Rhodes’ ass in the rain made Rock seem like a comic book villain in a dark DC movie. Rock cursed several times, including the super duper rare F-bomb on WWE television. Cody was busted open. This was so, so good. The only thing that would’ve made it better is if we had any sort of explanation as to where in the blue hell Jey Uso was. He was in the ring, just finishing his main event match, and then we get Cody brawling with The Bloodline in the concourse of the arena… and the whole thing aired on the screen in the arena, as the crowd reacted to everything going on. Was Jey in the ring the entire time? Did he fall asleep? Does he not like Cody Rhodes anymore? Where was Seth Rollins? Why is Jadakiss as hard as it gets?
Swerve Strickland vs Konosuke Takeshita: It wasn’t an official #1 Contender match for the AEW World Title, but it was a #1 Contender match for the AEW World Title, and both men wrestled as though a shot at the AEW World Title was on the line. Simple concept.
Will Ospreay vs Katsuyori Shibata: Ospreay continuing to prove that he should probably have the label of “Best Wrestler In The World” right now. No surprise there. Initial logic when he signed with AEW was that we would probably get him going after the World Title at this year’s All In(nit) show at Wembley Stadium. That makes perfect sense, but it would also be tough to keep him away from the top of the card for the next five months. We’ll see how it plays out.
CM Punk, Drew McIntyre & Seth Rollins: One of the most completely unhinged promo segments anywhere in a long time. My goodness. Right away, it was reported that the whole thing was scripted, at least in the fact that they had a general outline of what they were doing and where they were going. You would be perfectly fine if you thought it was a shoot, though. There were plenty of real emotions there, with all of the genuine tension between the three men involved. When Drew referred to himself as “The Chosen One,” leading to Punk daring him to say the name of the man who gave him that nickname (Vince McMahon), my eyes nearly bugged out of my skull. More of this, please.
NXT Prime Ticket: We’ve seen these video packages on NXT programming before, but this one was great. Trick Williams and Carmelo Hayes didn’t need their match at Stand & Deliver to receive additional hype, but that’s what Prime Ticket delivered.
Ricochet vs JD McDonagh: Every so often, WWE will have Ricochet perform in an absolute banger of a match out of nowhere, and it looks like he might be on the verge of a push because of it. He has one reign as the Intercontinental Champion and one reign as the United States Champion, so he does get pushes, but they generally tend to go nowhere. Is he going to get another push after this performance? It wouldn’t surprise me. The post-WrestleMania scene opens the door for a bunch of new directions to be visited, so it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he’s back in contention for a midcard title sooner than later.
Adam Copeland vs Matt Cardona: Huh? An honest-to-goodness, genuine surprise? That type of thing is awesome in this day and age. Nobody saw Cardona’s AEW return coming, but there he was, answering Adam Copeland’s open challenge for the AEW TNT Championship. This would’ve been super cool, even if the match itself sucked. Fortunately, the match was also good, making the entire thing fun. I don’t think anyone in their right mind thought Cardona was going to win, but in this instance, that didn’t hurt a match.
Private Party vs The Young Bucks: I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that this was such a competitive match, but I was nonetheless. Don’t get me wrong… that isn’t a complaint at all. This ended up being a lot of fun, although I wish Private Party was being pushed more. Marq Quen made his big return after a lengthy injury hiatus earlier this year, but nothing has really happened with these guys since.
Andrade vs Giovanni Vinci: If this match would’ve gotten five more minutes, it would’ve been fantastic. It’s hard to add time to matches on a show that is going to feature the lengthy Rock/Cody fight and the lengthy promo battle between CM Punk, Drew McIntyre, and Seth Rollins. Kudos to Andrade and Vinci for what they were able to put together in a relatively short period of time, though.
Shawn Spears vs Dijak: He’s competing for the NXT North American Title at Stand & Deliver, so it could be happening very soon, but damn, can we get a push for Dijak already? The guy is on fire, both in the ring and on the mic. He has come so far from the Retribution days. That could’ve been a career killer, but he has shown himself to be too talented to be ruined by the mentally challenged Vince McMahon.
Jade Cargill: Once again, she just LOOKS like a superstar as soon as you see her enter an arena. Even more important, she now has a match at WrestleMania, and it might be the perfect way to make it happen. Teaming with Bianca Belair and Naomi to take on Asuka, Kairi Sane, and Dakota Kai will allow her to have her spots, but also have five other people involved that can handle more of the heavy lifting. It’s one of those situations where she will probably be the most memorable part of the match, win or lose.
Dustin Rhodes vs The Butcher: Paul Levesque and Tony Khan… once again, I am calling on you to come to some sort of an agreement that would allow Dustin Rhodes to appear on-air at WrestleMania to get involved in what Cody Rhodes will be involved in over the weekend. Just do it. That has the potential to be an all-timer if it’s done right.
Bron Breakker & Baron Corbin vs Otis & Akira Tozawa: One team that was put together as a bit of a joke, only for them to find a way to make it work and be entertaining, facing… a team that was put together as a bit of a joke, only for them to find a way to make it work and be entertaining. The only real difference is that Breakker and Corbin are actually receiving a legitimate push in NXT, while the entirety of Alpha Academy is mainly there to be comedy players, which is a shame.
Duke Hudson vs Josh Briggs: NXT hasn’t generally been the home for a lot of “Big Man vs Big Man” matches. The Takeover days seemed to always feature smaller statured talents, but now, there seems to be a bit of a shift. Hudson is listed at 6’5″ and 253 pounds, while Briggs is at 6’8″ and 268 pounds. Throw in Baron Corbin (6’8″, 274), Dijak (6’7″, 270), Oba Femi (6’4″, 270), Von Wagner (6’5″, 255), Bronco Nima (6’5″, 300), plus more, and it seems like there’s more of a focus on getting larger men sprinkled throughout the NXT roster.
This Week’s Playlist: “Feel It” by d4vd… “Mary Boone” by Vampire Weekend… “Split Screen” by Kings Of Leon… “Talkin In Screw” by Maxo Kream & That Mexican OT… “What He’ll Never Have” by Dylan Scott… “Waiting On A Twist Of Fate” by Sum 41… “Landmines” by Sum 41… “I Can’t Wait” by Sum 41… “Dopamine” by Sum 41… “Not Quite Myself” by Sum 41… “Rise Up” by Sum 41… “Paint It Black” by Sum 41… “Secrets” by Amira Elfeky… “Drag Me Out” by Archers… “U Better Recognize” by Sam Sneed & Dr. Dre… “No Better Love” by Young Gunz & Rell… “My Love Is The Shhh!” by Somethin’ For The People, Trina & Tamara… “All I Do” by Somethin’ For The People… “Game’s Pain” by The Game & Keyshia Cole… “Up Jumps Da Boogie” by Timbaland, Magoo, Aaliyah & Missy Elliott… “Ha” by Juvenile… “Gone Ride With Me” by Juvenile… “Follow Me Now” by Juvenile… “Back That Azz Up” by Juvenile, Lil Wayne & Mannie Fresh… “Can’t Get Enough” by Tamia