The WWE is a lot like game of thrones.......the wrong character stands tall at the end because hey **** the fans.

I know they were told Ali was winning...I'm assuming only Ali was told then.

What in the blue **** lol....

I subscribe to the WWE Network more for the old shows and stuff I missed more than anything else.

I understand that but in todays world you can't sell me on a 50 dollar show, when I can watch the other one for 10 bucks plus all this other shit.

The price point isn't good but you could watch 500 hours of recent WWE PPVs and get about 7 minutes of quality entertainment where with the AEW show, it is likely to be very entertaining about 75% or more of the time.

There just isn't any logic to $50 for a PPV. It's stupid.

It's just not logical to pay that much.

Even as much as the WWE is crap having a price point like that isn't going to help attract new people to the AEW product.

Whoever came up with that idea is a dipshit, it is not 2009 anymore.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Ashley Massaro recently died. Her affadavit when she sued WWE includes her being encouraged by Vince McMahon not to report that she was drugged and raped by US military staff while on tour in Kuwait. Content warning - this is sickening reading. (1/2) <a href="https://t.co/UFH7mvqSKW">pic.twitter.com/UFH7mvqSKW</a></p>&mdash; Chris Brosnahan (@ChrisBrosnahan) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisBrosnahan/status/1129794890492198912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 18, 2019</a></blockquote>
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So Ashley Massaro, who recently committed suicide, was drugged and raped on one of the tours to the Middle East for the troops...Vince and others basically talked her out of reporting it because they didn't want it to affect their relationship with the military and make them all look bad.

JFC.

I mean we already knew the company and Vince were complete shitbags but this is extraordinary in all the wrong ways. **** the WWE and **** Vince.

We shall see. There is enough buzz that it will still generate a good number of buys. The risk is if the show doesn't deliver, then the price point looks horrible.

I imagine once the tv deal kicks in and they are running more shows, you will see a big change in pricing. It seems like right now they want to generate as much as possible from PPV revenue because that's all they got for the most part. Not many shows for gate revenue yet and merch is still ramping up.

I wish the price was lower but I will be buying it to support them and hopefully enjoy a damn good show. I shelled out money to see All In in person and it didn't disappoint.

That's really not surprising when that happened.....the WWE and Massaro likely would have been raked over the coals and had their character assassinated in the media. That was when everyone was big rah rah military phase of the country.

Also Vince likes money and the military has a huge issue with sexual assault.

But hey if you are just now realizing that Vince is a shitty dude and wrestling is a scummy business where have you been for the last 40 years?

The hardcores that were always going to buy this...sure. But they are going to need more people than that for it to be successful. Many people are not going to be willing to pay prices like that when the WWE is selling their product for 10 bucks.

If the product is good, the pricing will work itself out. If the product is garbage, then it doesn't matter what it's priced. AEW is also going to be carried internationally so that will help a lot with overall revenue. I think the pricing in the UK is 15 GBP.

I would have preferred a cheaper price on BR Live with an option for an annual rate that would include all PPVs similar to what ROH does. That may well happen, who knows. They still need to make sure the first show doesn't suck. I think the show will be great but nothing is ever a lock.

But lets be real, how big is AEW's fan base right now?

I think in general wrestling fandom is down right now. Most people who watch this are going to be hardcore fans that just like wrestling. Getting those lapsed WWE fans is going to be extremely hard.

and the troops

don't forget the troops

I'd have to disagree. I think fandom for wrestling is up, but the perception is otherwise because WWE and Vince are stupid and self-destructive.

And while I never liked Massaro, what a horrible ordeal and man did they treat her like shit. Her poor daughter.

There is a lot more access to wrestling these days besides what you have available on tv. I can watch on demand pretty much any promotion in the world, including american indies, Japan, UK, etc. That makes it a lot easier for people to get exposed to alternatives to WWE. People seem to equate lower WWE ratings with lower fandom overall, which just isn't true these days. Some people stop watching wrestling altogether but I bet a decent chunk of the people spend the time watching other promotions these days while WWE's product continues to circle the drain.

LMAO That might've been the worst title reveal ever, Independents included.

Typical Vince. Can't just call the new Hardcore Title the Hardcore Title.

I think it's fantastic. The crowd's reaction to it was hilarious, but after that - I was definitely digging the action. Giving the lower card guys a comedic belt to fight over is something I'll actually tune in next week to see.

Oh I think it'll work, I just think acting like it's something new is hilarious.

I'm not sure what is worse, the current WWE product or my friend acting like AEW is going to be the attitude era reincarnated...

Then going on 20 minute diatribes about how PG wrestling and using women for more than sexual content is why the WWE sucks.

20 years since Owen fell. I was at the Over the Edge. I honestly thought it could have been part of an angle until I got home. Sad day.

Aew is going to be good just on the fact that they have less corny stuff. But wwe is the gold standard.

Nice little video AEW just put up on Youtube:

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Yep. Nothing corny about giant dicks running around at all.

Don't hate on the Cavalcade of Cocksmen. AEW will have corny stuff because corny stuff can be very entertaining. It will also have its fair share of serious stuff. That's how you build a great product overall. There needs to be some comedy mixed in.

AEW have kind of put themselves into this sort of box where you have a contingent that is hoping they do not go the route of TNA of bigging themselves up by pot shotting the E but also the contingent that wants them to bring down the big bad in some renegade act and they have seemingly been targeting that second batch as their audience which is the audience that wants them to specifically go to war with the E believing they can overtake them.

It is an interesting split to watch develop.

Oh I don't care really, but lets not say stuff that just isn't true. If they can make titles mean something again and have storylines that aren't trash, it'll already be a better product.

My biggest concern is them becoming another TNA that just likes to take potshots at the E, that shit gets old fast.

I don't think AEW has to go a TNA route at all. Will they? I'm not sure, but they don't have any reason to have a little brother syndrome like Ipmact had.

They've got a major TV deal, which is more than tna ever could say.

Spike was a pretty well thought of network at a time.......

I just hope they find some kind of good middle ground with all this. There was a time in wrestling where just having guys that could work meant something because most of the national dudes were not like that. Now everyone can work, the WWE has a roster of workhorses and we see how that is going...

Unless they can legit figure out characters none of it matters.

WWE couldn't wait to leave SpikeTV and being on that network sunk their ratings pretty bad. Not "we just turned Stone Cold heel" bad, but bad.

With all that said, the biggest issue they had was they let Bischoff and Hogan do all the legwork. Totally ignoring all the damage they had done less than a decade ago. Oh and Vince ****ing Russo.

They seem very cognizant of what happened with TNA. TNA had a ton of failings but the biggest failing was the latching onto any and all of the castoffs from WWE or the old guys from WCW. They pushed those guys ahead of much more talented guys like Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, etc. It seems like AEW is going out of their way to avoid signing too many WWE guys. I think they will be pretty selective. There are too many other talented guys in the Indies and Japan/Mexico.

The fact that no one cares enough about this to pirate it is bad news to me. I fully expected a stream up. No one is even talking about it. Yikes.

It'll be dead within a year or so.

Rhodes smashing that HHH ripoff throne with a sledgehammer rivals all the Revival skits in cringe.

Great show so far with Omega vs Jericho still to come. Dustin pulled a 0.8 Muta in his match.

Yeah not a good sign there are zero streams for this...and they're already doing the potshot stuff, good luck.

I'm not sure why people are complaining about no streams and this will be dead. Overall this is different and to me more entertaining than the crap WWE puts on weekly.

The Triple AAA tag match was great. Tons of action. Cody/Dustin match was emotional and just blood everywhere.

Hell I even enjoyed the Japanese 6 woman match. Those woman have some skills.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

There are no streams because they have been killing them all night.

There hasn't been one dud on the whole show. Every match has been entertaining.

And we end with a Moxley sighting.

That's nice they killed streams if they keep doing that they can forget my support because in 2019 I will not pay 50 dollars to watch anything on principle alone.

LMAO Wow.

Business picked up with Moxley coming out.

Great show you have to watch dustin cody was emotional. Omega vs. Y2j is awesome. Moxley is back.

Best NA show of the year easily...so good.

What a start for them.

I love that he will be able to go back into the Moxley character. Hopefully at some point we get a Moxley vs Havoc death match.

The other star of the show was MJF. Top level heel skills and he is only 23.

I didn't get to see it but I'm stoked about MJF's performance and Moxley is huge. I can't wait until they can build some stories around TV. It's going to be great.

MJF draws heat within seconds of getting on the mic. He is average to slightly above average in the ring but his mic work is insane.

MJF also made me laugh out loud in the battle royale. There was a guy in the match with no legs. MJF immediately attacked him to start the match and yelled at him, "oh I'm sorry Lt Dan". Great stuff.

LMAO I read about that. In this age drawing heat is an artform. Daniel Bryan is as good as they come at it but the whole Becky Lynch angle proved to me you can't just pick bad guys anymore. It has to be talent that does it. MJF will get better in ring with experience. Those mic plugs are huge. I love a good bad guy and the Lt Dan thing is ****ing hilarious!

A couple of apt comparisons for his mic work are a non-PG Miz and a young Jericho. He is already great at portraying the chickenshit heel. During the belt unveiling, he came down talking trash to Hangman and was surrounded by Hangman, Jimmy Havoc and Jungle Boy and immediately tried talking his way out of it. Was great stuff all around from him.

Speaking of Havoc, JR made me laugh when he said Havoc looked like a walking deathmatch. Excalibur immediately responded with, "well, he is".

I only found out about this new era today, have watched about 1.5 hours of video, plus the pre show, and tell ya what...

it's got a chance.

haven't seen the double or nothing ticket, but...

it's where tna went wrong, they got it right.

we'll see how moxley compares to austin in a couple years :D

You can laugh that's fine, I'm just being honest though. In 2019 I won't pay 50 dollars to watch h anything, that's a dumbass price point that is completely out of touch. It's not an AEW thing either as I wouldn't pay that for WWE/UFC etc etc.

Moxley is garbage and so is AEW. People paid $50 to watch this shit? LMAO

I was more laughing at your whining about them killing the streams. You don't want to pay the $50? That's fine. I sure as **** didn't. Don't ****ing cry like a bitch when they take down the streams. They don't want your support anyway.

Actually I have no idea. This might be the best thing to happen to wrestling since WCW was in its prime.

Competition is always a good thing.

I am going have to agree with you on this.

Their model is not sustainable to their veiwerbase. They really should have thought about that more.

The average viewer (or at least the "NEW" audience they are trying to pull outside of the smart marks) is NOT going to spend 9.99 plus $50 every time they have a pay per view.

So the viewer pays $120 year for Bleacher Reports streaming platform (seriously I didn't even know existed until AEW paired with them.) then on top of that pays 50 per event. So if AEW has 6 of these in a year that's 120 + 300. $420 to watch AEW in a year.

That's an absolutely ridiculous pricing model to the middle income families which I assume make up at least 40% of their demo.

That model will crash and burn. It's not realistic in this current 2019 age of streaming.

I'm gonna watch them on TNT but there's now way I'm paying for PPV's. Just can't afford it.

I've watched a ton of footage now. I LOVE MJF. He's great and only going to get better.

I hope they do well I just also hope they figure out something with their pricing or they are going to Lise out on a lot of business.

I have a subscription to Highspots and one of the main indies it streams is CZW. MJF really honed his craft in CZW. He and Joey Janela had a nice little program with each other. If you don't mind the 10 bucks a month, Highspots is a great deal as you get tons of shows from CZW, PWG (althought a little lagged in time), WxW, AAW, RevPro, etc.

Another thing that AEW has that is unique is a nice little stable of deathmatch wrestlers, the biggest 3 right now being Jimmy Havoc, Joey Janela and Jon Moxley. I doubt Moxley does a bunch of real hardcore matches but I would not be at all surprised if he did some short programs with Havoc and/or Janela. Some of his best work before going to WWE was in CZW where it was mostly deathmatch stuff.

Totally disagree. If they build a strong enough product and not over saturate the PPV's like Vince did and build out the undercard well when the weekly TV begins, they can make it profitable.

There's a certain section of fans that'll pay the price no matter what. Guessing they're betting on that number being pretty high. We'll find out here shortly.

I just saw a post-match video and Cody Rhodes said he knows it is hard to have people give up $50 and they will NOT have PPV's every month like WWE does. They know its hard to give up that kind of money but if the product is anything like last night I will have no problem doing that say once every 2-3 months.

I though I was a wrestling nerd but I maybe knew less than half the performers but damn that beats anything ive seen in a long time.

They've got a lot of PPV's booked over the summer, but I figure that will ramp down a lot when the TNT show kicks in.

Also so want jon moxley vs. Jimmy havoc ultraviolence match!

I can almost guarantee we will get Havoc vs Janela at some point. That will be fun as well.

Now moxley in new japan if we don't get him vs. Suzuki you fail at life.

Suzuki and Moxley would be amazing. I would most want to see Moxley vs Naito.

LMAO What the **** was Brock on tonight?

https://i.redd.it/irwjcsk8ju031.gif

Idk but that was the most cringe worthy/amazing thing I've ever seen

Baron. Corbin.

Jesus this company will never learn LOL.

From this video, looks like Moxley may face Juice Robinson in Japan:

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Also, there was a Being the Elite episode put up tonight on Youtube and the very end had a quick backstage encounter between Joey Janela and Jon Moxley. That may be a matchup at the Jax show next month.

So far, some of the projected matches for Fight for the Fallen are:

Brandi Rhodes vs Allie
Kenny Omega vs CIMA
Cody & Dustin vs Young Bucks

It's definitely a smaller card feel and I think they are going for that. MJF has to have a match after his performance at DoN, my guess would be with Jungle Boy or Jimmy Havoc. Then maybe a match with the Super Smash Bros (the guys that ran in after the Best Friends match) against Best Friends and/or Angelico & Evans.

Brock finally being himseflz he has kids so I can understand this. He’s a real nice person in real life too

If anyone is interested, Moxley is on Talk is Jericho available now...

Holy shit, what an amazing and surreal burial this is of Vince and the WWE. It's hilarious.

Its an hour and a half of him basically confirming everything everyone thinks......Vince is an old out of touch fool that really thinks the show is good, you can't get anything done because of all the red tape and the wrestlers input is not welcome at all.

He knew he wanted to leave the company in July 2018 when he was out with an injury

Refused to read a scripted promo because he believed it was idiotic/ridiculous whilst Vince believed it was great

Talks about the promos he read whilst feuding with Seth late last/early this year, and how they made no sense, tried to rewrite them and got frustrated when he couldn't

He talked about enjoying the Make-A-Wish stuff and how he became an adult in WWE

Says he thought him cutting the promo talking about Romans cancer was distasteful

Says he felt like walking out on the Raw where he got shots/vaccinated during a promo, and that was the day he 100% knew he was leaving and not coming back

Vince tried to talk him into saying another cancer remark about Roman, says it was so bad they could have lost sponsors, refused to say it (34 minutes into the podcast)

Says he was excited to return to wrestling when he was injured, but not excited to return to WWE

Says if there was no other promotion other than WWE, he still would have left

Vince "didn't know" he was unhappy, even with Jon/dean being open with his frustrations to Vince about scripts

Was happy to take bumps from Nia, but felt like it was them punishing him for leaving

They offered him a new contract, he didnt look at it

His goal in AEW is to be the best version of himself, looking forward to creative freedom

Says Tony Kahn is the exact opposite of Vince, likes him and the fact hes a huge wrestling fan

Talks about using social media now that hes out of WWE

He told Seth hes a wild animal thats been domesticated for too long when Seth was upset about him leaving (to clarify, he was referring to himself as the wild animal, not Seth) he explained it to Seth as it being the end of Harry and the Hendersons where Harry is set free

While I'm no longer interested in current wrestling I was a HUGE fan in the 80's all the way up through the Attitude Era. Recently I've been watching shoot interviews on Youtube and man the stories those guys tell bring back so many memories. The years have not been kind to most of them but the personalities and charisma is still shining. Jim Cornette, Nash, Al Snow, Sid and Hacksaw are my favorite shoots so far but there are tons that I still need to listen to. Highly recommended if you were a fan in the 80's-00's

Moxley's first few matches are now lined up. He will face Joey Janela at FyterFest at the end of June. He will face Juice Robinson for the NJPW US Title in Japan in June. Lastly, he will do a couple US indy dates in June against Darby Allin and Pentagon Jr. All 4 opponents will be great. Janela and Allin are both deathmatch guys, Juice Robinson has improved a billion percent in the last couple years and Pentagon is one of the best wrestlers out there.