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AEW is losing its audience. Live attendance is down overall. The ratings are down in both overall viewership and the key demo.
Last week AEW held a special event for tickets going on sale to the public for AEW All In Texas at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. and another sign of AEW’s dwindling popularity occurred at the event as several wrestlers were introduced outside of the venue with what appeared to be fewer than 100 fans in attendance. It was in stark contrast to the number of fans and atmosphere for the WWE Raw Netflix Kickoff event that took place days later. Although it was reported the company did $1 million in ticket sales, the number of actual tickets sold has not been announced.
AEW has a PPV coming up at the end of the month and then they join NJPW to present Wrestle Dynasty on Jan. 5 at The Tokyo Dome in Japan, but there’s very little buzz for those events. Meanwhile on Jan. 6, arguably the biggest Raw ever will take place on Netflix with C.M. Punk vs. Seth Rollins announced as the main event along
Already announced for the undercard is another huge match with Roman Reigns taking on Solo Sikoa in Tribal Combat along with a big women’s match, as Liv Morgan will defend the WWE Women’s World Championship against Rhea Ripley. Logan Paul also appeared at the Kickoff event and announced he will return to WWE as part of the Raw roster. The first Raw on Netflix already feels like it has the anchors of a good WrestleMania card at this time.
AEW needs to correct course and it needs to begin soon with WWE set to saturate the market with more content going forward. With Raw and Smackdown set to expand to three hours, frequent Saturday Night Main Event specials on NBC and Peacock, more NXT PLE’s, and the company exploring making more PLE’s two night events with WrestleMania and SummerSlam already scheduled to go two nights, AEW has to give fans a reason to tune in.
It starts with AEW CEO and booker Tony Khan picking a top star and sticking with them instead of playing musical chairs with his main eventers. Swerve Strickland appeared ready to hold that mantle, but his title reign was cut short to set up Bryan Danielson’s swan song. MJF was red hot as champion, but he ventured over into playing one half of a weekly buddy comedy with Adam Cole before losing the title to Samoa Joe at the end of last year. MJF went away for a while, but just hasn’t regained the spark he previously had since coming back to AEW in May at Double or Nothing.
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Jon Moxley as the current heel champion hasn’t gained a lot of steam. There hasn’t been one person that has stood up to him yet to create a true rivalry that would get people invested. Moxley is in his fourth reign as champion and he is a valuable main event player, but it doesn’t feel like he is going to be the wrestler AEW needs to turn things around from a business standpoint.
Tony Khan has been there and done that when it comes to pushing Moxley as the AEW World Champion. Wrestlers have come into the company and felt ready for a big push. Ricochet was very impressive upon his arrival in AEW, having great matches and carrying himself like a top guy in interviews and when setting up a big match against current NJPW World Hvt Champion Zack Sabre Jr. while making a surprise appearance in Japan at NJPW’s Power Struggle PPV last month.
On Dynamite this week, Ricochet was emasculated in the ring by The Hurt Syndicate as it appeared he wanted to turn heel and join the stable only to be spurned by the group. He then had a confrontation backstage where Strickland and Prince Nana got the better of him on the mic and Ricochet looked foolish letting off that high-pitched “Ah-ha” into the mic before leaving the interview. I’m not going to say Ricochet can’t come back from what transpired Weddnesday night, but it was a long way from the strong and confident top-guy persona he appeared to be cultivating.
There are plenty of other solutions on the card, but Khan has to be committed to truly changing the formatting of his TV program and focus on enhancing the talent instead of bridging one segment to the next with either a post-match attack or a fight backstage leading to another match, which has been a big crutch of AEW programming.
Khan signed wrestlers such as Jay White and Kazuchika Okada, but White has been largely a background player until he began a recent feud with “Hangman” Page that has now bridged into him joining Hangman and Cassidy in challenging Moxley for the AEW World Hvt. Championship at World’s End on Dec. 28. Okada has largely been known for playing a comedic sidekick to The Young Bucks during his time in AEW as opposed to one of the best wrestlers in the world.
Tony Khan has booked some great programming for AEW in the past and the company still presents great PPV events on a consistent basis, but the wheels are slowly falling off on the back end of things. Khan needs to find a way to utilize the talent around them and maximize their potential to grow his live event business and TV ratings. I’ve named several wrestlers, but there are many other examples of talent that Khan could push, but the booking has held them back.
“When the fans find out what we have in store, this thing is going to fill up and it’s going to be a great night when AEW All In makes its debut in America,” Khan told Fightful at the on-sale event for the show last week. If Khan doesn’t make rapid changes and improvements to the AEW product, it’s going to be difficult for reality to match Khan’s well-practiced bold hype.
Follow Sean on Blue Sky @seanradican.bsky.social. You can email him at pwtorchsean@gmail.com.
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