MR. TITO: NOBODY Wants AEW to Fail – The Reality Check Required Reading for AEW Fans

Today, news broke that WWE and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) restarted their television rights talks for Monday Night RAW after they reportedly ended discussions in October. WBD, as you may know, currently hosts All Elite Wrestling (AEW)‘s programming in the form of Dynamite, Rampage, and Collision. That third show, AEW Collision, was created solely for the purpose of featuring CM Punk, as WBD executives seem to like him as a talent or draw. After all, Punk helped Dynamite during 2021-2022 get at or near 1,000,000 viewers and pushed AEW Rampage to its record level when Punk debuted.

Then, however, Tony Khan TERMINATED CM Punk following the events of All In 2023 at Wembley Stadium just weeks after AEW Collision began. This, on top of constantly pushing curse words unexpected on shows and pushing the violence tempo a bit too much. Worse yet, AEW Dynamite is struggling to get near or remain above 900,000 viewers, while Rampage and Collision are performing very poorly. With a lower viewed show that has language/violence issues, it’s likely that the show has low ad rates despite its almighty performance in that previous 18-49 demographic.

CM Punk is now with the WWE and viewership numbers have popped with him on their shows. Meanwhile, he’s behaving… No confrontations with trolling talents, thus far, and that’s amazing considering the legitimate heat between Triple H and CM Punk during the past. In case you missed it, Kevin Nash actually admitted that Triple H wanted to bury CM Punk at WWE Night of Champions 2011 on Nash’s recent Kliq This podcast. But now, Triple H and Punk are getting along and are ready to do tremendous business moving forward.

If you look at the 2024 business plans of the WWE or AEW, which would you desire as a television business partner? Right now, it’s WWE… AEW has not been doing well since the Wembley show, while WWE has had a rebirth since the Fall of 2020 with viewership, attendance, and merchandise.

So yeah, the odds of Warner Bros. Discovery jumping ship to the more highly viewed WWE have increased. Wouldn’t be the first time, as Viacom ditched ECW for WWE RAW during the year 2000.

HOWEVER – For anyone even reporting this news or even discussing it, we’re hearing feedback from the diehard AEW fans that “everyone wants AEW to FAIL”? Say what?

Who is saying that they want AEW to fail? Not me, not NoDQ as a whole, and not most wrestling fans I know.

You don’t find me EVER saying that. In fact, if you read my September 18th column entitled “The Most Positive Wrestling Column You’ll Read About AEW and Tony Khan”, you’ll see me praising the AEW promotion for creating a sense of competition, boosting wrestler salaries, and for accomplishing significant events as a new wrestling promotion in under 5 years. Then, a month later for October 19th – I wrote “My Advice for Tony Khan to Help Him Salvage AEW” in which I tried to help Tony, as he was clearly melting down on Twitter while everyone was still piling on him for the CM Punk exit. And if you read my columns of the past, you’ll see that I heavily suggested WWE needed a valid competitor during the 2010s because WWE became complacent and lazy on their booking.

So yeah, I’ve never EVER said that I want AEW to fail…

But, I’ll say this… If you consistently present a poorly created and presented product, I don’t have to watch. I’m not wanting you to fail, but I 100% have the choice to not watch your terrible shows.

During the 2000s and 2010s, everyone kept asking me why I didn’t cover TNA or Ring of Honor. Well, I didn’t enjoy their shows and believe me, I tried repeatedly to tune in. They did nothing for me… I watched several of Billy’s NWA shows and got bored quickly, so I stopped watching. Now, do I write columns to publicly tell everyone to STOP watching their shows or wishing them to fail? No, I just don’t want them and I don’t have to watch them either.

One of the main reasons why I cut cable during 2015 was because I could not endure watching 3 hours of RAW on Monday Night. It was torture to me. I much rather prefer the condensed 1.5 hour Hulu RAW or just catch clips on YouTube of the show. If those annoy me, I’ll watch less of them and just focus on the Paid Live Events (PLE). And if those annoy me and take up too much time, I’ll just watch the larger PLE events like Rumble, Wrestlemania, or SummerSlam. For the past year, WWE Smackdown has been awesome and I’ve been consistently tuning into that show.

See how that works? If your creative is good on your show, people will watch… If your creative is BAD, you’ll see less viewership.

The quantity of hours logged watching wrestling doesn’t not determine how “big” of a wrestling fan that you are. In my opinion, anyone who has the ability to waste their own time to withstand crap may have issues…

Right now, diehard AEW fans or “marks” are oddly desiring the enjoy the taste of crap sandwiches served to them by Tony Khan and the Elite fools supporting him. Numbers show that… Recent shows are struggling to even reach 850,000 while arena attendance has been very poor, even with “Buy 1, Get 1 Free” sales gimmicks.

And yet, anytime a longtime wrestling fan with an opinion displays theirs about AEW, they get nothing but attacks by the AEW mafia. Hell, anytime I write a column about WWE, I get attacked if I’m too positive towards WWE, not negative enough about WWE, or that I’m not covering AEW. Yet, when I cover AEW, you attack me…

And the usual doofus will keep writing response columns about each and every column that I write, whether it’s about WWE or AEW. For one, this AEW mark openly boasts that he does NOT watch WWE programming, whatsoever, and yet has the nerve to be a know-it-all about WWE. Then, when he speaks about AEW, it’s pure ignorance. Nevermind the declining numbers on TV, poor attendance in the arenas, or merchandise sales drop without Punk there… You know, FACTS… But just being in complete denial of AEW’s problems and immaturity.

AEW “fans” need to validate the following things for me:

(1) Has Tony Khan made any mistakes?

(2) What redeeming values do the Young Bucks bring to AEW, both as wrestlers and as executives?

(3) How did Kenny Omega win so many “Match of the Year” awards in New Japan, but can’t quite get near those honors now?

(4) Why is AEW signing so many WWE wrestlers well over the age of 45?

(5) Why haven’t any of the 2020-2022 WWE releases made it in AEW?

(6) Why is there such a large snitch culture backstage and feeding lines to Dave’s newsletter?

(7) What will impressing 1 newsletter writer do for your careers?

But you won’t answer those questions, or at least with any logic. No, you’ll attack me for even bringing up valid questions about why AEW is struggling right now.

AEW fans are like a cult… They are anti-WWE, they are in total denial of AEW’s 2022-2023 problems (losing Cody, Punk, and Jade), and they cannot comprehend facts even when it smacks them in the face. It’s like following a politician who purposely caters to a particular income segment, has increased federal debt, openly favors and dislikes particular demographics, and yet specific social issue stances are the hook to get you to ignore the previous items mentioned. Yeah, it’s a cult… You dislike the WWE machine so much that you’re clinging onto its antithesis even if AEW does not serve you well.

Trust me, AEW fans are miserable right now… They lost Cody, lost Jade, and CM Punk is making them look incredibly bad right now. Arenas are looking 1/4 full and now, the threat of not being on a major Cable/Satellite channel is real. Oh, and the AEW Fight Forever game wasn’t that good… You can keep playing it all you want, but the game drops frames, it glitches, and the controls aren’t as responsive as they could be. Keep telling yourself that “it’s like No Mercy”, but you’re fooling yourself.

AEW is having a really bad second half of the year and that’s because of the mismanagement of Tony Khan and his reliance on the support of his EVP “Player Coaches” (© Jeff Meacham). Tony is in over his head, while Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks are too divided on being active wrestlers and trying to help others.

Their mishandling of CM Punk was embarrassing… How are grown adults spreading gossip backstage at their workplace and leaking stuff to dirtsheets? Now, CM Punk was in the wrong because he took the troll-bait and threw nuclear bombs on them as a response. Trust me, as speaking from experience, if you take the bait and respond harshly in return, they’ll punish the responder rather than the instigator. Had Punk just let the Bucks and their Elite trolls be idiots, he could have documented it and presented everything to Tony or legal. Instead, Punk took matters into his own hands and shifted the punishment focus to himself. When Jack Perry got aggressive with him backstage, rather than getting physical with him in return, Punk should have immediately alerted all of the backstage agents and even Tony who were witnessing it. Instead, they saw Punk front face-locking Perry and then cursing out everyone afterward. They saw Punk’s response as a later even than Perry’s instigation.

BUT, the fact is that the culture that enabled Adam Page and Jack Perry, who are Young Buck flunkies, to mouth off to a million dollar superstar remains. And no cleaning house efforts have ever happened since, aside from firing CM Punk. No, in fact, the Elite have signed new multi-year contracts to start 2023 as a reward instead. AEW is SCREWED because of rewarding those bad actors, but once again, AEW fans adore those guys.

Keep ignoring AEW’s issues and you’ll remain miserable an an AEW fan. You’ll keep attacking my columns because you REFUSE to look in the mirror as a wrestling fan.

So no, I don’t want AEW to fail… Go read my previous columns trying to help them. But in their current state, I’ll be watching LESS AEW and writing LESS columns about AEW other than covering current events.

I want AEW to improve, but they, themselves, don’t want their own promotion to improve. What Tony and the EVPs are doing right now is embarrassing and Tony’s dad needs to step in and clean house of its management group.

Nobody BUT Tony and his EVPs want AEW to fail. That’s a fact, or at least it seems that way with declining business right now of scaring viewers, attendees of events, and merchandise buyers away. What a joke.

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