Why Is AEW Dealing With Noticeable Attendance Issues? | The Still Real to Us Show | Episode #762 – 9/19/24

0:00 It's welcome everybody. Welcome to this week's edition of the Story of the Show EPISOD number seven hundred and sixty two, September nineteenth, twenty twenty four. Welcome to this week's edition of ass R T You. I am one after the show, I am Jeffy Pact. We joined every single week from my cost the onely Doctor Trey Franklin, Doctor Trey. I gotta admit it's kind of strange not doing a preview and prediction or recap interview my friends.

0:41 Yeah, I was thinking about that before we came on air, and you know, life kind of catches up sometimes you ye a little crazy, a little hag ticket. I went, wait, is there any pay per view event or p A league going on this weekend that I've unaware of? Do we have to do a preview a prediction show or do we just get to talk about, uh a fan being lawn darted into an opponent during a Monday night show. Yeah? I'm not sure wwe wants to make that a thing, because, as we know, the Internet day and age and all that stuff, people tend to take things a little too seriously. And I think anytime you encourage using a fan as a lawn dart, even though it's a plant. For those who didn't know it was a plant, I'm welcome to twenty twenty four. I don't know, I don't know how about how I feel about that doctor try.

1:32 Yeah, I mean, it'll probably happen on the indie somewhere. I mean, it's not the first time fans have been used. I mean the days of was it Mad Dog for Shan's leg being used during a match? You know, We've seen the plants be used before, but I've just never seen somebody get ray mysterioed out of the crowd. You know, it's been a good long time, thankfully that we haven't had a situation where like a fan tried to get involved in a or go after a wrestler. I think the ones that come to mind was, I know there was like a seth rollins entrance on a raw where he was coming out and a fan got involved. Obviously, the most recent famous one was the one when Brett Hart got attacked when the Heart Foundation was going into the Hall of Fame and then that dude got his ass handed to him, rightfully. So the one I always think of is I think two thousand and two ladder match ic title Eddie Guarrero Rob Van Dam. Guerrero is climbing the ladder to go after the title, and a fan they're in Canada, because I think the guy was like wearing a Toronto maple leafs hockey jersey pushes Guerrero off the ladder and Guerrero takes several swings at him.

2:37 I actually just read a story too. I think it was maybe Mark Henry mention this that if you strike a fan when you would come in the ring in we that they would get fine ten thousand dollars the wrestlers. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. But yeah, where there was the house show where somebody jumped in on it was Awestin in Triple H leave. Yeah, they went to attack Austin and Triple H like took them down. Yeah, And I don't know if the fine is because you in his insuies like that where like two guys are squaring off and then the you know, Triple Acer is beating up the guy trying to attack Austin if you're kind of breaking k fav. I don't know if that was event's rule, because you know, Evins had weird rules about breaking k favorite times, so I don't know what that's like in the On the Indies, I've seen fans get involved. I've seen punches get thrown, but you know, I mean, I've had fans threaten to show up out, you know, to meet me outside in the parking lot, to knife me and stuff like that, but I've never had anybody not back. I've had one lady put her hands on me and actually swing at me because I had her so riled up. But on the Indies, if you cross that barricade and touch a wrestler, they're going to beat the crap out of you. That's just what and the whole locker room will empty to do it.

3:54 You know what's funny about this type of source of entertainment, Doctor Trey, is if I went to a movie and I want to star Wars movie and let's just say Darth Vader's watching it with me, movie ends, I'm not challenging Darth Vader to a lightsaber duel out in the hallway. Well think about Like it's hard to compare to the movies, but like in Broadway, like if you go to watch Cats and I've never seen cats, I'm sure there's a event that you've wanted to Yes, obviously I've wanted to dress up and do the whole production. But I'm sure there's a villain in Cats. Could you imagine sething in the front row, a calling that person names throughout the entire show, be challenging him to a fight, and then see jumping up on stage to go after the villain in Cats because apparently to him, the Cats are still real.

4:42 Yeah. No, I mean it's a very odd source of entertainment that we know and love and enjoy. And I guess is it because we are? Okay, I guess I'm gonna say we. I really shouldn't hear because I'm not the fan that like goes to the event. I'm like, damn, I hate that John Moxley, you know, why is he doing this? Brian Danielson. I find a lot of an entertainment in it. But I know what I'm watching is is wrestling the most immersive form of entertainment that we have in the world? Then? Uh? That and maybe music in the sense of like when they bring the fan up on stage to sing for them, But I mean wrestling, especially like on the Indies, maybe not so much the bigger shows when you got you know, fifteen twenty thousand people and you're you know, the front row is still about twenty feet set back on the indies, it's like five feet six feet maybe eight feet. You know, you really get a one on one interaction with the performers, and I don't you don't get that anywhere else, Like you can actually have somebody like me in your face calling you names and you're firing back insults as well.

5:49 I mean, honestly, that's I've told this story before. That was one of the things that hooked me as a kid was going to a WWF live event watching Jimmy Hart bring King Harley Race out to the ring and me throwing a spitwat at him and him turning around and walking towards me, and that little interaction is kind of what hooked me because you're not going to get that one on one, you know, feeling in any other genre other than maybe you know, the music scene when you know bands are kind of breaking in. Yeah, now it's it's bizarre, but I mean it's it's very funny. We're going down on this avenue because there's something I want to bring up here that I have on the rundown here that really ties his song in, which is hilarious. But do you think that there's times Doctor Trey and You've done this on the independent wrestling scene that wrestlers go too far? Because I think of MJF, who I think is one of the best modern day heels in the company, in the entire professional wrestling today, obviously the best one in AW and you go back and I forget what pay per view it was. I think it was like a full gear where MJF takes an alcoholic drink and throws it on a kid, and the people went like nuts about it. The kid was not a plant. They had to send out Amanda Huber, John Huber's wife Brodie Lee, who was handling like community relations at the time, to go out there smooth things over. Reportedly, Tony Kahm was very upset by the entire situation, did

7:21 not like that he did that, And I was like, you know, the wrestling fan in me loves this because it's nineteen seventies, nineteen eighties type of professional wrestling in the twenty twenties, but also it also makes me think like, Okay, MGF went too far there. You don't throw a drink, let alone an alcoholic drink on a child to gain some heat. There are certainly ways to go about this, and I feel like we talked about this on that show when this incident took place. Do you think nowadays have wrestlers or do wrestlers go too far where they exude these types of emotions? Yeah, I mean I think you get caught up in the moment, especially for like the guys I don't want to say the guys in my generation, but people like you know, the wrestlers that are in their thirties and forties who kind of grew up on that type of wrestling.

8:13 You get caught up in the moment and you'll start to say something or do something that was fine in the air that we watched, but now like the line has been pulled in a little bit, Like you don't want to throw a I don't like throwing drinks of any kind at kids. For me, I always tell the you know, the guys on my show, like, hey, work the kids, you know, get them fired up, get them to love you, get them to hate you, because that's what hooks the parents as well. But there are lines you don't want to cross. But it goes for the fans as well, Like there are lines that you know, you don't want to say things to a wrestler that you wouldn't say to a stranger in the streets, you know, in a sense, like you don't want to call it their sexuality or their race or the things like that, which thirty years ago, thirty forty years ago, was perfectly fine to do at a wrestling show. But now it's like, you you got to watch that line a little bit.

9:01 But it goes both ways, like there are ways of getting you know, heats without crossing that line, but sometimes in the heat of the moment, you just react and it's almost there's a second nature to it because it's ingrained into your memory the stuff that those dastardly heels did back in the seventies, eighties and even the early nineties. See, it's so funny that you bring this up, because here we are, and the lead story I wanted to discuss here this week was w wei's decision to do fewer house shows. So TKO president Mark Shapiro came out during a recent conversation YEA with Goldman Sachs for a conference they were holding in regards to the plan to do less house shows for World Wrestling Entertainment. He said, quote the w brand. While we still have to grow it, it's on fire right now. We don't need to carry these marginally profitable events. What was three hundred last year will be roughly two hundred and fifty this year, and next year will be close to two hundred. So in twenty twenty five they will have two hundred live events.

10:02 Those include the television shows that he's talking about. So fifty two weeks in the year, you know you've got Raw, SmackDown, NXT. Now it's going to be less house shows on Saturday, Sundays, Fridays, Mondays. I don't even know if they do the Friday and Mondays swing anymore. They used to do like one crew would do TV on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. I felt like sometimes they used to run house shows against opposite against Raw. I think that they're down nowadays just to Saturday and Sundays and the house shows. To me, I'm very torn in this doctory because one, I love that the wrestlers are going to be getting more of a break to be home spend time with their families, because you really hate to hear those stories where you know they were on the road three hundred and fifty days a year, barely saw their families. Like anytime I watch an A and e Wa biography, it's that like I was home once or twice a month to see my kids growing up. Like that's extremely hard on a family.

10:56 And most of the time, families don't last long. Most of the time, marriages don't last long. And most of the time, unfortunately, there is some sort of substance abuse issue or personal issue that's going on that makes the situation situation even worse. Keeping those guys on the road because they become creatures of habit creaches of the road, and the road can do adasctively things to you as time goes on. But the wrestling fan of me is kind of upset about this because and I don't do house shows anymore, so it's kind of hypocritical for me to say this. But if you're a family and you can't get to a raw, you can't get to a smack down, you can't get to an NXT, and you're because the closest arena where they do television is two hours away. But they're gonna come to a very small arena near you that fits you know, a couple thousand, and you get to see that means the world to a lot of those people. And it's these interactions that you're talking about. And then I used to love seeing seeing the interactions that would take place off of television that you normally don't see in television. You've seen Cody Roads bring a lot of fans into the ring nowadays and they mimic his the part in this theme song where the arms go back, everybody goes oh, and everybody loses their mind. You have very funny moments where there's these funny interactions. A lot of videos of Rhea Ripley with fans at ringside filming and how much fun she plays with all of them. You lose that stuff as time goes on and you're not gonna have that anymore.

12:20 So it's a very interesting thing here, doctor Trey, because longtime wrestling fans like you and I know how much househo shows and how show loops are important to professional wrestling. You find you in the craft. You come to a smaller town and you get to get a little bit closer to the fan base than you normally would if there was a television taping. But we're also in a new age of professional wrestling thanks to AAW where AW T and A even is just solely a television company at this point. They don't tour, they don't do house shows, they don't do loops, they don't go overseas to do house shows tours, and that is very appealing to a lot of these wrestlers nowadays because they work their asses off every weekend on an independent scene to get to these big wrestling promotions, and then this is their full time job and they want to be home with family.

13:09 So I'm really torn on this, and we're going to dig a little bit deeper into this, but here you've got TKO president of Mark Shapiro saying about this and their desire of cutting it down from three hundred to two fifty this year to two hundred next year. Where do you stand on this entire thing as a wrestling fan and as someone who obviously wants to keep in mind the health of the professional wrestlers as well. I mean, as a wrestling fan, it is sad because I mean, you live in certain areas and you're not going to get a raw or SmackDown come to your ara. I know, like when I lived in Oklahoma as a kid, like we didn't get many Like you got to go to Oklahoma City, which is like an hour and a half drive, and if your your parents work and they don't go for work till five o'clock and the show starts at like seven, and it's like you can't make it.

13:52 So getting the house shows was the thing to do. And you know, some of. My best, you know, my favorite memories even as a young adults, were from house shows. Like I remember as a teenager getting on Ken Shamrock when he was a babyface and me making fun of him having zero personality, and it was just ironic that it was a short time after that that he turned heel. I remember going to a TNA show in Fayetville, North Carolina and getting and watching Tyson tom Coo interact with the fans during a match with Samoa Joe, and some of that stuff is just funny as hell. And then you know, there's some great videos of stuff of just some funny moments that guys do at house shows on the loops just to keep themselves entertained.

14:35 Like that that. Part of what of wrestling is what really drives it home to fans and makes some lifelong fans. But you know, as somebody who's worked in the independent scene and somebody who you know runs business, you know, is ran businesses and managing businesses, I get the other side. Do you want to keep your performers healthy? Less house shows keeps them healthier and more able to performm you know, on TV, you're not losing them for months on end to injuries because you're cutting down the war it's air on their body. And as a business I get it, like if I'm going to and I hate saying using this town is my go to but it's just a funny name. But if I'm going to Paducah, Kentucky for a house show and we're only going to make like a five thousand dollars profit, is it really worthwhile to go to Paducah, you know, and just saving those resources and using that for you know, other areas of marketing, branding, merchandise, TV, you know, putting those assets to use in other areas.

15:35 So it's a double edged sword because you know, from a fan point, it sucks because it's you're losing those opportunities. But from a business I totally get it as well. Dave Meltzer from The Wrestling Reserver Radio said the following in regards to the house shows, This comes to us from Wrestling Ink as well, saying, quote, the house show business is marginally profitable, but they're looking at it profit margins, and the profit margin of USC is forty percent. Meltz explained, if you cut out the expenses of house shows, it takes the percentage down even though the profits are higher. He said, you could really make an argument when the money comes from television, it makes no sense to around house shows because you're risking the health of the talent. Melzer continued, note and then being booked on house shows is now seen as a good thing as opposed to the old days when it was necessary part of the schedule end quote. So a lot of changes in professional wrestling, doctor trade. This is the evolution of professional wrestling. I mean, how often do we see a story of a major injury that takes places takes place on a house show?

16:31 Most recently from the NXC standpoint of record, Jade toward her acl again on a house show. I always think of Seth Rohalms blowing out his knee on a European tour, which mind you will continue and then Soreya slash page. Her career ended at a house show shortly after Christmas time, I believe in like Long Island, New York, during an attack team match, and she never wrestled in the we again and obviously wrestled in aaw but that took place on a house show. Would those bumps with those bruises where those injuries have taken place on television? Possibly one will ever know if there was already wear and tear taking place, But there are these higher risks of injuries taking place on non televised events rather than those that take place on televised events. I guess if there is a silver lining to it, so, I mean, w is doing really good business right now. They don't need to be running house shows. As much as it sucks to see that, the house show business is potentially changing for the good stuff that you tend to see from time to time on the house shows and the loops and going into talents that you may not to may not be able to doctor trey. I think the final end result in this entire thing, from my standpoint is, in the long run, this is a good thing. For WA.

17:42 It's a good thing for the health of the talent, both physically and mentally. And more importantly, this evens the playing field with AW. If you're a wrestler who is a veteran who doesn't want to do the house show loop anymore and you want to just do televisions, you don't have to go to AW. You can just stick with W now and potentially make better money than you would in AAW. So I think this is the right move for AW, or excuse me for WE ultimately, because now again the competitive field is being leveled with the things that make AW stand out more than W would if I was a free agent professional wrestling. And we've seen it. It's in sports as well. I mean in baseball, the spring training, you know, you're not seeing those guys out there as much as you did in the eighties and nineties.

18:30 In the NBA is kind of the same thing. I mean, look at the NFL. The NFL not only cut one preseason game completely, but you watch a preseason game and you're definitely not seeing Aaron Rodgers, You're not seeing Patrick Mahomes. And if you do this for about three minutes, because they don't want to risk the chance of injury in something that doesn't really mean anything to the product. As a whole. I mean I saw an interview with beyond Or with Jay Cargills talking about how the travel schedule in WWE is so much more difficult than AW. Well, yeah, they didn't really have to travel schedule at AW. Uh and this one's not as bad currently as it was just a couple of years ago. So it does level the playing field, it does equal things out. And you know you've heard t KO and even Triple h and and Nick con mentioned that there going. This is a television product, So why risk the health of your talent on non televised events if your business is being a television product.

19:29 I mean, you don't see the guys from you know, The Walking Dead out there trying to kill zombies during you know, Halloween season in Universal Studios, so you know. They're not practicing that. So just if you're a television product, do a television product and you know, cut back down. But I still do think you need some ring time and live audience feel to hone your craft. But you can definitely scale it back and make it fit your product. Uh, you know, product as a whole. Do you think these last things here Doctor trying to Starling. Do you think these changes would have been made if the aw's business model didn't reflect no house shows and just being a television product. I think it would have eventually, just because eventually events.

20:10 Would have died, so yes, or screwed everything up. Yeah, but I think that the merger. I mean, UFC is not running house show loops, and it's one of those things where like our products, the products are very similar. UFC is a pay per view event driven product with some television ww's Intellvision product with some pay. Per view, but you don't need the house loop stuff. And if your main competitor and even your secondary competitor TNA, aren't. Running these house show loops like you are, then it does. Put you at a strategic disadvantage when you're going to cultivate new talent to bring them in. If you can scale it back and say, look, you know your. Young kid, sign with us, You've got n next, you'll do so a little bit of touring in Florida main roster a little bit, but not nearly to the levels of what it was before. It is more inviting, but it may make sense for a business model to adapt the new format that everybody else has been going to.

21:05 Switching gears here, Doctor Trey. It's it's a little over two months out, but it's one of my favorite things to look at over the last several years because I find the booking of this entire thing to be very interesting and strategic for WWE, and I think you're starting to see the direction potentially of where things may be going for this match, but obviously they're hyping up a lot right now. Tickets went on sale, I believe, last week over in Vancouver for We Survivor series of Wargames and the Wargames matches historically, each year they've had a men's match, they've had a women's match. And as I was watching Raw this past Monday night and I saw Damian pre skinning attacked by the judgment day jay Uso making the save, some interactions with Ilia Dragonoff, it got me starting to think, like, what is the early nod right now for the Wargames matches this November. Going back even a couple months ago, I was talking about the direction of the Solo Socoa new bloodline Roman Reign's return, and I felt like you could do a new blood Line versus old blood Line taking place at Sarava series war Games, and I think that is still obviously an option.

22:09 I think it comes down to the blood lines again, the bloodline storyline and the Judgment Day storyline. I could see a men's situation where again you've got New blood Line two point zero blood line. God, I just shivered a little bit thinking about NXC two point zero and then the og blood line with Roman Jimmy Sammy Zay jay Uso taking on the Jacob Fatu, Tangaloa Tamatunga and Solosakoa in a War Games match. I think that is potentially the most concrete option that's out there, and I think would get the fans very, very excited. The second one is the Judgment Day of JD McDonough, Dirty Dumb, Finn Balor Carlito taking on like team Damien Priest, which I could see it being Damian Elie dragonoff jay Uso, and maybe one more so from the men's standpoint out to Trey and I don't think it's too early it ever to take a look and go, Okay, what is the direction they're going right now with these War Games matches?

23:06 What is your early feelings and vibes, because I think we're going to start to see that build take place a little bit the way that w WWE has been doing their creative booking on how at least the Men's Wargames match will look in late November. I still lean towards the Bloodline matchup, just because I think it's a bigger draw and a bigger attraction, and if that's what you want to make an event with, it makes a lot of sense. I don't know how we start moving some of these parts around because we have Sammy challenging Gunther for the world title, you have Jay and and you know just challenging for the intern Continental title. You know, do Jimmy's not back on TV, we haven't seen Paul Hayman yet, and it's two months out, So like, do we start moving that thing here in the next few weeks after bash It or not? What's the next what's the next event? I forgotry for the name.

23:57 Of it, the next event for. Bad Blood Bad Blood? Like, do we start moving it immediately after Bad Blood? Or Hey, do we take one of these these og Bloodline members that you know are on Raw and do we slide a Cody into their spot, you know, because we're seeing Cody and Roman team up at Bad Blood. But I think, you know, with the Steel Kh stuff a couple of weeks ago and everything else, I think that kind of is your precursor for where it goes. Judgment Day is not a bad backup plan. But to me right now, like it still feels like, you know, Rhea and Live and Finn and Damien and the rest of the guys are in it too, but just not you know, Dom's involved. But that's kind of a weird love triangle. If you throw Jimmy into it, then you got that. But I just Illia to a degree.

24:49 I just don't feel it's as stable a situation as what you can do with you know, Bloodline, og, Bloodline two point zero, whatever you want to call it, New Bloodline, Old blood Line, Bad Blood. What was the other thing, new Blood Rising. And the. Brood? What was it? What was it? The w CW I know is there's New Blood Rising? Was a papery? Was it just the new Blood? Yes, it was the new Blood and the Million Dollars Club or whatever the hell it was with the Magnificent Seven, I think it was as well. That was great ww got a leve old WSW. What about the women's match Dot Trey. I mean there's a lot of different things out there right now. I could see something with like Team Rea versus Team Live.

25:30 I think that is the most likely scenario. Maybe you see something with Team Naya versus Team Bailey over in War Games. Uh, could you see something with the what is it Pure Fusion collective with Sonya Deville, Shannon Basler and Zoe Star teaming with somebody or adding somebody to take on maybe damage Control? Uh? Do you put Bianca and Jade Cargill in that match? Maybe they join up with Team Rhea. What do you think is the direction right now for women's match for War Games? Well, it's interesting because you're having the loser leaves SmackDown match, you know Friday, you know Friday on SmackDown, So you know, does does one of those women between Bailey, Naomi, Nia, and Tiffany get moved over to Raw and I.

26:14 Fa'st the case is that? Then? Do a Team Rea versus Team Live type situation? I mean, if you did Team Ria and you did Ria, Bianca, Jade, and you know one other random person, let's say Natalia, you know, just because for old time sake, and then you got Team Live but with Alba Fire and Isla Don and then you know, Sonya Deville. You know, then then there you go. You could do something like that. I think the raw women's division seems to be deeper right now than the SmackDown side, especially if you move one of those four ladies over from SmackDown to Raw. So I think it will be some kind of conglomeration. And not the AW group. Yes, amalgamy, heir, there you go.

26:57 I'll go with amalgamy, some kind of amalgam of raw women in that Survivor Series match. It's one of my favorite things to predict right now because I think in mid September, definitely October time, you could start to see the direction of everything and then there's some lead dogs, some lead horses, and I think it's a really important match. I think it's really cool to see, of all things, a WSW type match or you know, WSW developed match has a huge standing at a major big four WE pay per view, and I think it does. It's it's probably, you know, the last thing you look forward to before the road to WrestleMania begins.

27:38 Doctor Trey and I think it's a really nice way from the WE calendar side of things to really close things out and end the year on a high note because that match has been and that pay per view has been a lot of fun the last couple of years that they switch from or added war games to the Survivor series. Yeah, I just wish they'd bring the top back to the cage. Agreed, one hundred percent agree. But how the hell's e got to jump off with a garbage can on her? Yeah, but then if you throw a bron breaker into the match, you get the throwback to win either Doctor Death or the Roadwars. Did the military press of a guy into the top. Of the cage? Isn't that how JJ Dillon like broke his collar bone? Yeah? I think so. Yeah, I think he did. He do a doomsday device off the top of and they like there's no room.

28:20 Was it a doomsday device? It was something like that where like the Roadwarers hit it and they couldn't get the flip. Right because he just basically landed on his arm right. On his shoulder, neck and collar bone. Yeah, yeah, I remember that one. JJ Dillon always seems to talk about that when it comes to war games, switching gears to AW Doctor Trey. There is a lot of concern. We've discussed this and I'm starting to see it on social media a lot. More is the attendance woes for AW television is not great. They did a show in Kentucky recently at the Rapperino where the University Kentucky Wildcats played basketball. Well, I believe that it is like a between a sixteen to eighteen thousand seed arena, and they only had two thousand people the most recent collision that they taped, I mean they barely had like anyone there. I mean it was awful. It was not a good look at all. And that is something that we tend to see more often lately when it comes to attendance for television shows. For all the wrestling, we say this every week. I feel like Dynamite is a musty show. I think you can do without rampage, you can do without collision. That is stuff that you're also seeing play out in viewership and it does not bode well for attendance. For going back to our initial story to kick off the show here, if you're just a solely television product, you need to pack the house pretty

29:51 damn well. And there's some videos recently where I saw him. We're coming up on the a five year anniversary of Dynamite, and I was looking at those early years of AW Dynamite and the place was absolutely packed to the rafters legitimately, and it was like a really welcome sight to see. We've been critical of all the wrestling when needed, because there's times that the creative is not very good, the booking has not been very good, but we also praise them when the match has been very good. The booking has been very good and they've done a good job. And I feel like for the most part this year, AW has had a really good swing since like Revolution in March to now to present time, but for whatever reason, it's not panning out well on the television the ticket sales, and that's very concerning Doctor Trey. They're going to be a Grand Slam, which we're going to talk about here in just a few minutes as well next week this upcoming Wednesday for their annual show at Arthur Ashey Stadium in New York City, and that show originally had between like sixteen to eighteen thousand people on the initial show, and I think as time went on, it dwindled a little bit, but it was still in a very high range.

31:06 I think at one time it was the highest. It was like the most people that attended a dynamite And I think that record may have been broken by I want to say the United Center in Chicago. I think Rampage when Punk came back. Oddly enough, that was the record I believe for a live event television show for AW. With that said, Doctor Trey, the noticeable attendance issues is concerning. Do are you concerned? Are you seeing these photos? And what does AW need to do to fix this outside of just better creative I. Mean, obviously it's concerning. Like when you see pictures of a fifteen thousand seed arena and half the arena's tarped off or blacked out or whatever you want to call it, and you've only got two to three thousand people in the building, it not only is bad for business, but it's bad for morale. Like, you know, these guys go out there and bust their ass and they're putting their bodies in the line, and they look out into the arena and three cores in the arena's empty.

32:07 It's gonna kind of you know, give you a little shock to the system. For me creative wise, when you look at AW, I just kind of go back to the old adage we've brought in the show. Who's your hot attraction, who's your guy that is driving viewership? Who's your must see person, Who's the guy that you go man, I have to see what this person does. And one of the issues I've had with AW over the years is when somebody kind of gets hot and you feel like they're really pushing them boom all of a sudden, they're not on TV for a little bit and they're kind of shooting themselves into the foot in a sense. Like I did not watch Dynamite last night, so I don't know what happened on the show. But did we have Swerve on the show? Did we have Adam Page? Do we have any of the stuff that has really grabbed our attention?

32:59 Was theready Full Ryan Danilson not on the I don't think it was on the show last night, Like it's The Osprey Show right now, which he's the hot guy. But when swer was hot, then you take the belts off him. He's not on TV. Hang Man, was hot? Not on TV? When you find that hot hand. You kind of have to ride that horse into the ground until the next one comes up. And you know, we saw that during every great boom of professional wrestling in WWF, it was whoever got hot, they rode that guy into the ground until the next guy was ready to take up. There's always been transitions set up for that.

33:40 I just don't think aw's ever kind of figured that out so far. Yeah, there's a lot of things that I mean, I watched Rampage and Collision for this podcast, so I can stay up on it, and you know, there's there's parts of it that are entertaining, Like I have been watching Collision last this entire time. I've never missed a Collision episode, and over the summer, I felt like the outrunners are really starting to get a lot of momentum, and now you're seeing that play out on AW television. The fans are behind them. I think they're one of the best sellers merchandise wise and AW and it's like, that's really cool to see. And I don't think they would have had that opportunity if it was you know, just they were if they weren't on, if there was just Dynamite or Rampage, So to see them get that opportunities is really cool and that's how like the acclaim started to get bigger as time went on, and you've seen that with other aw wrestlers. But Collision is like extremely it's gotten very unwatchable. It was it was not a solid show.

34:35 There are things that are bright spots, but it is missing a lot of what I would say like the a talent in a sense like FTR is there. There's a lot of obvious talented wrestlers, but you don't have the full gambit of people that you want to pay a ticket to see. And that was kind of what the original premise of Collision was. This is gonna be opportunity to see guys and girls that you typically don't see often. Scorpio, Sky, Miro, you know, people that were off television for a while. They are could be featured on just solely Collision, and that just has not happened. And that's concerning, you know the fact that there is going back to that, like where is Scorpio's guy? Where is Miro? I mentioned on the last week's show, where is Wardlow? Like where where are the Where's Keith Lee?

35:21 Where are these people who have been off television for months and months and months, and why does an AW give some sort of injury update or a timeline of when they will be back or what's going on with them. Ricky Starks is another, and that's just issues with with all lead wrestling creative in general. It's just it's a week show. It needs some some bump to it. That's where I would start, is you know it. And that's another thing that will bleed into this is is the AW Warner Brothers Discovery deal, according to reports, is basically a foregone conclusion for being complete. It's got to come back. Collision will remain, Dynamite will remain. The one thing that may be gone is actually Rampa, and there's rumors that they're going to have a show called Shockwave that'll be airing on FS one and which I guess will be another form of Rampage. The thing is, if I wasn't doing a podcast, I would probably just watch Dynamite and I probably would just check out Collision and Rampage on YouTube or highlights or read about them or social media ware to get caught up on it and get that time back. It's it's concerning from that standpoint. So you got to make those show shows more creatively appealing. And you can't just throw these matches together all the time and hope that someone's going to tune and want to check out Mark Brisco ticket on the Beast Mortos for no freaking reason. The second thing is I think AW needs to start looking at smaller venues to do their shows.

36:45 Wwe just did this recently with their debut in Saint Louis where with NXT where they had a bigger arena I believe it's called the Enterprise Arena. This ticket sales weren't going well, so now they're gonna be going to a smaller venue called the Factory. You got to start doing that with a to begin with. And yeah, I just think that they need to start making these shows more appealing overall and aesthetically appealing as well. I've noticed on these shows Doctor Trey that it's it's kind of echoey in a way. There's there's you can tell there's not a lot of crowd noise. That's concerning the last thing I'll say, which is a little off topic here, going back to the YouTube stuff. To check out AW and YouTube, I'll check out the WA numbers for their videos and their numbers get anywhere between like one hundred thousand viewers to five hundred thousand viewers. The AAW stuff ranges between like twenty thousand and eighty thousand viewers on YouTube.

37:45 I'm really starting to wonder if you know, AW will be a really nice solid number two, will never really truly compete with w They'll push W but they'll never truly compete with WAE. But as a company is if they start to not improve more, I think more people are gonna abandon ship here and watching AW, especially if WWE's doing a better job. Yeah, I mean the thing with AAW and this has been kind of the same. The sentiment I've been echoing for years is they're a really cool niche product, but they've never really done anything to broaden their appeal. And it's a little bit like you watch one AW match, you watch five eight dimensions, they all kind of have the same formula to them. They're all kind of very similar.

38:35 The guys are all kind of the same size, Like there's nothing really stands out. And that's why when you see somebody. Like the Outrunners catch fire, why they're different from everything else. When Dan Hausen was getting his little bit of a push. He was different from everything else. The acclaimed we're different from everything else on the show Bang Banggang. When they got hot for a little bit, they were different from everything else in the show. That's what catches people's attention, is like, if everybody looks the same and it's built the same and wrestles the same, I'm going to pay attention to stuff that's different. And that's one thing about WWE that they've always had that smorgus board of wrestling. They got a little bit of comedy, a little bit of drama. You got your giants, you got your high flyers, you.

39:18 Got your tags. Like they've had a little bit of everything, where AW kind of has their own little formula, but it doesn't appeal to mass culture so far. And that's the one thing I think they've always kind of missed out on is as much as they try to be different from WWE, the thing that makes WWE great is their mass appeal, and I think Aw's always kind of missed out on it, which also goes back to when somebody gets hot, I got to market this guy. I got to get him out there on everything I can possibly get him out on. To get people to tune into our product, and then they tune in to C MJF and they go, Oh, this Osprey guy's fantastic. I want to see more of him as well. Oh I also like this guy. Oh, I also like these guys. That's how you grow your base.

40:06 And I don't think AAW has really done anything in five years to grow their base audience, where WW is always looking to expand their base and grow it in different markets in different ways. There was a quote from a interview with Q T. Marshall and it was something like he said, I wish our fans had like friends to tell their friends to watch the show, which was like a very interesting line to me, but he was basically saying like these are just die hard too. This is their niche product, and they wish their fans had friends to say like, hey, check this out, which I thought was bizarre, but yeah, I mean it's it's noticeable. It's really noticeable. The attendance was from AAW and I don't know, I really really really want the company to do well, and I think anytime we have these conver stations, people call us out for saying like that we're not fans of AW and that is far from the truth. I literally have never missed a dynamite, rampage or collision in the entire existence of AAW. I wanted to succeed, I wanted to improve it as push professional wrestling to be better. It's push we to be better, and I want them to be better.

41:19 But they can't keep running out these shows where like collision and rampage are just complete throwaway shows because the attendance is now suffering from it. It's extremely noticeable when you watch and listen at home on a Saturday night or on a Friday night, or even with some of the dynamites as well. So hopefully AW turns it around. They're not going anywhere. They're reportedly staying with Warner Bros's Discovery, which is a good thing. They will be featured on TNT, TBS, True TV, according to reports. That deal has not yet been announced, but they're gonna be making hundreds of millions of dollars to remain again, so obviously TNT, Warner brother Discovery likes what they see from AAW and hopefully they use this opportunity to continue and be a substantial player in the world professional wrestling. With that said Doctor Trey.

42:06 AW Grand Slam is this Wednesday, and right now it is a very very stacked card. You've got John Moxley taken on Darby Allen, You've got the Young Bucks taken on Will Ospring, Kyle Fletcher, you potentially have Brian Danielson taken on Nigel McGinnis. How much is riding on the line for this upcoming Wednesday's episode of Dynamite AW Grand Slam for it to be a success. AW is going out there, guns are blazing. They're gonna have back to back weeks with some big shows. You've got the Grand Slam this week. In two weeks will be the five year Anniversary that is already gonna be headliner. Or they're gonna have Ricochet versus Will Osprey for the International Championship taking place on that show. And then I think there's Title Tuesday in a couple of weeks when they go head ahead with NXT with the MLB Playoffs taking place.

42:48 But looking at on the short term right now, how much is on the line for Aw's Grand Slam event to be success this Wednesday. I think it needs to be an attendance success. Like I'm hoping they draw really, really well. As far as the show itself, I don't think as much as writing on these shows in the next couple weeks as far as television wise and what we see, as much as it is the promotion aspect of it. Like, you want to make sure that you're drawing some viewers in, you want to make sure you're drawing your attendance in. But the other thing is like, when you're running these special shows so frequently, you lose the specialness factor. It's a little bit like a Tony con special announcement or a major announcement. Well, if you do want every couple of weeks, then you start losing that factor of how special is it or how meaningful is it? You know, some of these matches I look at, I'm like, man, why aren't you saving this for a poe to draw people into buy this instead of giving it away for free? You know, the wrestling is going to be great. If aw Never sucks at wrestling, they're good at that. Their issue is can I get the butts in the seats and can I get the butts to watch on TV? And I'm hoping that the promotion gets that part in. So as long as that part successful, the wrestling takes care of itself.

44:13 Yeah, it's it's an interesting time for AW. It's it's so much it's it's like it's up, it's down, it's up, it's down. As the product itself, it has stayed very, very constant, but it's the business side of it that's getting very noticeable. Doctor Try. That is is concerning for me as a fan because you know, if if business dwindles, how will this affect aw's bottom line. Will they be able to keep the surplus going with the television deal and keep the wrestlers that we like under contract. It's interesting, it's five years is coming up here, And do you think we've identified what the identity of AW is at this point?

44:54 I think, you know, I gotta say earlier like they are a like a new era super indie show. Like I think that's what they are, and I think they're I think for a lot of those guys, that's they're fine with that. That's what they know. That's what they kind of. Grew up in this business doing, was the super indie shows. But you know, if you're running an event in Arthur ash Stadium, you know what's around Arthur ash Stadium. A whole bunch of media and why aren't these guys, Why aren't you getting these guys on Good Morning America? Why aren't you getting these guys on ESPN? Why aren't you. Getting those guys out there to promote your show to make people tune in to watch. And that's the issue I think they have with AW is that they're they're they're They're branding is centered on those diehard fans and not, you know, the the younger generation that WW is drawing.

45:48 In interesting discussions this week as the business model professional wrestling continues to evolve and change and has to be picked apart a little bit here and there, whether it's changes in the business model of World Wrestling Entertainment or potential chains that need to take place in the business model of all Elite wrestling. It is an intriguing time for professional wrestling. It's a very successful time for professional wrestling, but we wanted to see it remain successful. For that to happen, changes definitely need to be made with both companies, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. I think there's a lot of things that we and AW could be doing right now to make things better. And you make a case that house show business going away is better for we and maybe looking at some smaller venues and getting some more constant, consistent creative is one that will really benefit all elite wrestling so interesting times indeed for the world that we love known as wrestling Doctor Trey.

46:41 With that said, let's get a couple plugs and sponsors out of the way. You could download the show every Thursday or Friday at Real Guy Radio dot com, Wrestle chattinget on X and the still growth the show iTunes feed. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to help USC on charts on iTunes. You could follow us individually on X for myself at SRTU Jeff and for Doctor Try Franklin at The Doctor Trey. And of course don't forget to follow show on X at SRTU podcast. With that being said, what's going on the one for world of Doctor Franklin this week? Well, like Jeff said, you can follow me on X at The Doctor Trey. You can find me on Facebook at Instagram Doctor Trey Franklin. When you're on Facebook, check out rock a City Championship Wrestling. We got a big show coming up this Saturday, A Rocket City. Next Saturday, I'll be a Spartan Pro or Spartan Championship Wrestling and gas in Alabama, so be sure check them out. And then the newest show that I'm a part of, game Time Wrestling and Warrior Alabama. Jeff, I got to cut my first promo video since my surgery. It felt good to actually be in front of the camera talking smack trying.

47:39 To drop people in. But check those guys out on Facebook, game Time Championship Wrestling as well, so. You go support all the great things at support SRTU. Thank you for downloading this week's show. Anything we discussed, feel free to hits up on Facebook, Facebook dot com. Slash is still wrote us show or hit us up on x once again at SRTU podcast. With that being said, have a good rest of your week, have a good weekend, spread the word about it s r t U and until next week for doctory Franklin, I'm Jeff Pack. This is the story of the show.