Solomonster Reacts To AEW Ratings COLLAPSE And What It Does And Doesn't Mean 

2019 Dynamite Debut: 1.4 Million 2024: 500k. Anyone who says this isn't a cause for concern is delusional.

AEW lost 300K since they aired the footage of Brawl Out in an attempt to make CM Punk look bad

Crazy how the decline started when triple h got full control of creative

“That doesn’t work for me Brother” -Sheldon

Sheldon, Howard, Leonard and Raj-the 4 pillars of AEW

Vince leaving WWE was the worst thing to happen to AEW. AEW was a response to Vince Mcmahon's terrible booking. Now that Triple H vastly improved the product, AEW is now obsolete.

The worst thing to happen to AEW is Vince McMahon no longer controlling WWE. For over a decade many people thought they wanted an alternative and they got it and were excited for it. But once Vince was gone and HHH took over I think a lot of people realized that the alternative they wanted wasn’t a different company but a different booker. This isn’t the only factor, far from it actually but I do believe it is the biggest.

"oh they aired black panther and not tbbt. oh kendrick lamar had a concert. oh the show aired during the global nap time. oh people were too busy talking about aew online to tune in. oh people accidentally tuned in for a knitting competition instead." i swear any excuse but to admit the week to week produce isn't grabbing peoples attention.

I think airing the Punk/Perry brawl hurt the perception of AEW a lot

And having 600k next week isn’t any better, they literally lost 300k viewers from last year when they were hitting 800-900k viewership. That’s not good at all. They just need to focus on producing CONSISTENTLY (keyword here) good shows. The elite story being a flop isn’t surprising considering the young bucks aren’t a draw at all & neither is Jack Perry. Okada is great in this role but at what cost?

When the ratings are fully dependent on if Big Bang airs, WBD might as well show Big Bang, Young Sheldon, or a brand new Big Bang universe show in the AEW timeslot

“When Sheldon Cooper is your biggest draw, there’s a problem.” This statement perfectly summarizes AEW’s inability to produce stars or retain stars with drawing power or mainstream potential.

Because the true forbidden door happened, I believe in Joe Hendry

How anyone can sit there with a straight face, and no hint of irony, and say "well, they didn't have Big Bang Theory"??? If you're a fan of a tv show, it doesn't fucking matter what is on before it, you're tuning in for the TV show. If AEW has 600k/700k/800k Genuine, REAL fans, then Big Bang should have little to no bearing on the numbers

Adding belts as an excuse to have matches instead of storylines leading to matches is the top killer of AEW

The WAY the Punk situation was handled, from well before he was let go up until the most recent attempt to capitalize upon the situation, is a major factor. It speaks to the lack of confidence in Tony's leadership and to the lack of quality control in terms of the show's creative direction, both of which are endemic to the ratings tanking.

The results are in. Airing the Brawl Out footage was indeed their Fingerpoke of Doom. Viewership is down 39% since that episode. Meanwhile Raw just had their highest rating since that same month of April.

TK fucked around with his fan base and found out that there not going to come back not even the sickos. You can't have 4 to 5 weeks of sub par shows and one good show hoping they'll watch. Hopefully the number is better next week. Now I don't care about viewership if it's good it's good if its trash it's trash.

I mean.. they made Cody Rhodes & CM Punk want to return to WWE. Cody Rhodes who was freaking Stardust & CM Punk who we never thought would return to WWE after all the shit he talked.. it’s insane to think about

No BBT is not a valid excuse unless you’re also giving credit to BBT for all the times they drew a good number. Even then, it’s STILL not valid.

Clearly they need to make Sheldon the champion

The Jericho segments are abysmal

The problem is they don’t have any real stars on their show. You could say MJF but even he could only do so much and Tony doesn’t act look like making a top card of stars is his priority it’s just dream matches which okay but that only makes me want to the ppv and not the show.

People were looking for alternative from Vince and that came from HHH not Tony.

Never thought I would hear Solo monster say Kendrick Lamar

It's ok. Ratings don't matter.......or some stupid shit.

The problem for me is 80 percent of their roster is so damn unlikable how can I root for any of these people

Does Tony not realize that he doesn't have to book the show but he can still get what he wants? Just let someone else take over, he'll still be the boss and have the final say. He could hire a Booker watch and learn for a few years then if he wants to take the reigns again then so be it but he doesn't seem to have the type of experience needed for a job like that. There's more to it then just making matches.

The difference between AEW and NXT in terms of viewership is NXT has consistent quarters. AEW got boost for the first 15 mins then downhill till mainevent. NXT , RAW and Smackdown the lead in usually is lower than the actual show, they actually increase when the top of the hour is on, AEW how ever has so cold.

This is literally WCW and WWF from back in the day, 25 years later. WWE has been on fire creatively

Tony Khan needs to hire Scott D'Amore as a consultant.

Tony: "Don't worry, guys. Everything's *great* ! "

People can’t keep saying ‘but the show is still good’ no the show is bad and the ratings reflect that. The tv rating is a good indicator of the overall interest in the product regardless if people don’t watch live tv anymore

JDFROMNY said it best. There is no emotional investment in the stories in AEW. Every NXT has stories that the fans can get invested in.

Of course there’s people online be it here, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or TikTok that are making excuses. Poor ones. And going to that tired line they love to use to excuse AEW drawing poorly “just enjoy wrestling”

What's AEW's goal?..To be a big indie promotion or be the best mainstream promotion?...It feels like they are on the fence trying to be both at the same time..TNA actually made a hard push trying to get to the next level but just took too many bad turns..Lucha Underground made their own path and stuck by it

The company has been around since what 2019? The company isn't old but it shouldn't be having low ratings like this so soon in its life span

For me this one is a bunch of issues: The top of the card 2-3 years ago was the group of guys who mostly seemingly got to book themselves (jericho, elite, cody, moxley) or at least had a lot of control over their booking. Other than cody who did a lot to push new talent up the card the other top guys held onto their spots pretty tightly (Jericho still is clinging to it despite looking awful) and didn't give clean pushes to the younger guys the only one who has escaped that and truly been elevated from that time is MJF, now those older guys are injured or have go home heat and the younger guys are being booked by tony who is just not good at booking, or giving anyone other than orange a consistent push. And to add to all that the storylines are just kinda bad and confusing; partly because of injury rates and partly cause AEW takes a month out of the year to promote NJPW, and partly cause i just dont think anyone talented is writing this. I also think there are issues with the in ring product still: Refs look like idiots, to many crazy stipulations with no build up, a lot of injurys from the risky style, to many 6+ mans matchs, the whole womens division is still kind of a mess and sucks the life out of the show etc I don't watch the show nearly as often as i used to these days more or less will tune in for mjf and stick around till something stupid happens which tends to be the next segment if im even watching the show at all. PS: also to many factions like way to many pointless factions

I think one consideration is that they don’t have enough separation and structure for their shows. Dynamite and Collision should be separate brands with distinct identities, rosters, and titles that cover the basic four parameters-men’s main event, men’s tag, men’s midcard, and women’s. Dynamite Titles: World Tag International Women’s World Collision titles: Continental Trios TNT TBS

When the show began being built around the Bucks, Perry, and Okada, the goal should have been Okada’s journey to winning the title as a heel, then having him go on a main event run against Ospreay, Danielson, Swerve, MJF, and Omega. You have probably three years of storylines built into that run with the end goal to make your next top guy. You can weave the Omega and Bucks storyline in, you can have the eventual anarchy in the arena match (which I think happened wayyyy too early), you can have Okada retire Danielson at Wembley or wherever in one last epic bout, etc. The anarchy in the arena match should have featured the next main eventer they wanted to push who would pin Okada and set up the final battle. Instead, it’s just a bunch of moments with no real purpose to any of them.

Clearly, All In's main event should be Bazinga vs Will Osprey.

AEW Has no excuse for this low t v rating, This is sat and also pathetic in the same time.

TK needs to stop worrying about Triple H and WWE for a minute and instead worry about reruns of the Big Bang Theory.

I feel most sorry for is the AEW talent who likely saw that rating which is not good for morale because declining numbers creates uncertainty. That new TV deal is so vital to ensure they can still make a living.

“Forbidden Door” has outstayed its welcome.. Pointless storylines with wrestlers the audience doesn’t know about or care about …

IMO i don't think there is one magic bullet AEW's situation is a death from 1000 cuts. The have marginalized their current champion (Swerve) in favor of another company's champion (Moxley), they have 3 undercard champions so none if them mean anything, talent is pushed to the moon one month then forgotten about the next so fans don't get invested in them or the stories, 2 of your top stories are wink at the camera corny bullshit (EVPS and Jericho) one makes no sense at all (Ospreay vs his own faction even though they never really turned on each other), Talent is spread too thin between Dynamite, Rampage, Collision and ROH all seemingly having their own rosters, they routinely book 20 minute back and forth matches between 2 guys that has no reason to go 20 minutes thus nobody is seen as a star since it takes a top guy 20 minutes to beat a jobber. Formatting is terrible, they constantly jump from one segment to the next each in a different style so the whole show feels disjointed, the sound is atrocious, the commentary is bad, the list continues. it all adds up to Dynamite being a bad tv show, yes the matches can be good if not great but wrestling matches alone don't and can't make a good show.

Once CM Punk did that interview with Ariel Helwani before WrestleMania 40 weekend, AEW/Tony Khan went spiraling & never recovered from it & then once they aired that security footage of Punk & Jack Perry at All In they completely fell off a cliff

Too many titles. Too many matches featuring people who I have never heard of. Stories involving characters I just care about as they've become formulaic. Prime example Malaki Black. Man has been in a team for 2+ years now. Give him a singles run. Make him the world champion. Have the challenger have to come over House of Black in his matches. Speaking of which, god there are so many pointless stables.

I don't usually comment when it comes to wrestling. But for me personally i stopped wanting to watch aew from that one match where the guy was drinking someones blood? I don't remember who was involved but that was a turn off for me. The other one was when they released the cm punk footage. It felt unnecessary and it pretty much made me stop being interesting in anything aew related. I dunno but i do hope they can recover from this truth be told.

These are the excuses for AEW's low ratings I've seen so far: The weather being nice (🤣) Kendrick Lamar's concert in California (which happened like three hours BEFORE AEW even started 🤣) The Olympic Trials (which are primarily in the daytime as they start several hours before AEW comes on 🤣) Juneteenth (I don't know a single person who celebrates this as an actual holiday 🤣) Black Panther being on TV instead of The Big Bang Theory (which proves that show is needed for AEW to have an average rating above 600K🤣) Gee whiz AEW had terrible luck this week! Good thing NXT didn't go head to head with The Stanley Cup Finals or anything like that, I'm sure they would've lost the same amount. Oh wait....

As someone who has been cheerleading AEW since the beginning this goes beyond so much more than week to week good show/bad show discourse. There is an overall lack of faith in both the product and the people making decisions there. Just because it’s easy to point to the loss of CM Punk as a factor doesn’t make it any less true. Tony Khan let Cody walk and then fired Punk (deserved or not) only to have both of them show up in WWE to become important cogs in the machine there. Combine that with poorly timed debuts, signings that have fleeting importance, and booking decisions that leave you wondering who they are catering to. ROH is a dead brand. Nobody cares about CMLL. Why are you wasting precious TV time on this crap when you need to be establishing AEW’s position in the market? And maybe the most important question of all: Why is the best pure heel talent in all of professional wrestling (MJF) being positioned as a babyface? Did they use his title reign to establish and elevate a plethora of babyfaces on the roster into the main event? No. And who did he ultimately end up dropping the title to? Established veteran Samoa Joe. I want to love AEW. I always enjoy their PPVs. But the week to week television serves almost no purpose and doesn’t build anything for them long term. Even when they “try” they find a way to miss the mark. The Wembley footage was absolutely shown as a way to attempt to paint themselves and the Elite as the babyfaces (it didn’t) and then they immediately positioned themselves as heels anyway with everyone asking the relevant question of: If you were going to do business around this, why didn’t you do it with Punk there? JFC. The shoddy decision making just goes on and on.

“I guess summer didn't exist last year.” 🤣

Lol, of course they are gonna blame black people for AEW ratings.

All due respect, Dynamite last week was not a great episode. It’s been months since Dynamite has been great start to finish.

The Forbidden Door PPV would mean more if a splinter of the Bullet Club was in AEW year around with a storyline climaxing with the PPV. MJF should get Wardlow and put the band back together.

I feel like people are wrestled out. With so much else in life to steal time away people can only dedicate themselves so much to more than one company.

Sheldon, Leonard and Raj - Trios belt Penny - TBS champion Book it TK.

I finally found your channel 🙌 You’re knowledgeable my guy!

Listening to Solomonster cry is a good start to the day

I can't believe how much AEW dropped the ball on that Elite angle where they attacked Tony. Like it really felt that depending on how they handled it. It could be a huge story for the company to start to drive some interest. But they've just done nothing with the concept of a hostile takeover. And instead are just using it to have hardcore matches. I couldnt believe my eyes when I literally saw Tony on TV after the attack. No stakes or consequences to anything the elite does. No sense they're taking over.

As i see it there were are a couple reasons for AEW's decline. I think the biggest is the loss of Cody. They seemed to of lost direction when Cody left, say what you will about him but he has a mind for the business. Another is what they do with established main eventers Look at Moxley and Danielson for example, they came in with no goal, let them do whatever they wanted rather it made sense or not, and now they are just another guy on tv. The second is establishing new stars MJF was doing big numbers as champion. But then made him do the comedy stuff, which tuned a lot of people out, and the ones that liked it were a minority of the audience. And Look at Swerve now, he should of been the world champion all the way back in December, they wanted to long now he's an afterthought at times. And i put this separately, but I personally think the Young Bucks are and have been AEWs biggest problem. They aren't the big stars they think they are. They attached themselves to things to make themselves seem like a big deal, like the Bullet Club, but they are usually forgettable and unnecessary in most situations. And you can see they are all over AEW and people could care less about them. They are about as popular as Karion Kross.

The main problems with AEW shows is that there's no compelling long-term storylines. The Elite taking over is not clicking. What is their end goal? They have no good long-term stories compared to WWE's Austin vs Vince McMahon feud, Sami vs the Bloodline, WCW's NWO hostile takeover, and Sting vs Hogan feud 1997. Another big problem with AEW's bookings is TK booked matches with no story build to it. Nobody wants to watch banger matches with no build-up and hype. And usually TK would give out free ppv level matches on TV. More importantly, AEW rosters are bloated that TK is not using 70% of the rosters on TV. He focused too much on his new top Indie signees than creating new stars. We've been complaining about those issues for years, and TK is not listening to the criticisms. He needs to stop booking his shows like New Japan. That formula does not work in the US soil.

Since when is Juneteenth an excuse for low ratings? 💀

But people will still say ratings dont matter....unless they beat NXT, RAW or SmackDown

They lost me when Serve won the belt and then didn't become the focal point of the show instead they put the clown bucks and perry over him just terrible

Part of the problem is wrestling has been around so long its becoming harder and harder to come up with engaging original storylines to keep viewers tuning in. Thats why i think wrestling as a whole could benefit from an off season like in between Thanksgiving and Christmas when interest in the product would probably be at a low away. Maybe if your WWE in between Survivor Series and start of the new year when you start building to the rumble. But yeah i do think time off would help. Also just the fact that Tony wears too many hats. As the boss he should be hiring people and putting them in the right places to do the job for him and actually give them the power. He can still step in and fire and bring in new people if their ideas aren't working, but basically, he should relegate himself to being the guy who just signs the checks and thats it. Maybe he can still be an authority figure on TV if that's what he wants to do, but he needs to let other people run the day to day and no, the EVPs dont count. I mean people whos specific and only job is to do that. Not wrestlers who also have matches to think about during the week

I can tell you the reason I quit watching. They insist on putting people on every week that I don't care about. Everybody that I liked either barely appear or left. The constant random Japanese and Mexican wrestlers that no one knows being featured constantly just makes me not want to watch. That's not even mentioning the daniel garcias, Willow nightengales, and trent Barretas that I have no interest in seeing. The show is now just for the hard core of hardcore fans. That's fine but 500k is probably where you're going to be stuck if that's what you're booking for.

It’s pretty obvious that triple h has done an amazing job and has brought back the audience that WWE used to have

Sheldon Cooper is All Elite.

Crazy cause when i stopped watching they were doing at least 800k easy.

TNT should play a movie every week before dynamite to get the true rating

They will never recover from all the CM Punk drama, unfortunately

TK fired his 2nd or 3rd biggest star for Jungle Boy 😂😂😂. And Collision is absolute dog shit since then. Maybe TK will implement 4-5 Learning Tree segments , that should turn this ship around , haha.

I stopped watching Collision a few months ago because its a worthless TV show. Dynamite feels like Collision sometimes, and that's bad. But its still the show that they have all of their biggest stars so I stick around as long as those guys are around

There just isn’t enough going on in AEW to keep viewers invested. They put on great 4-5 star Meltzer every single week, but that is becoming a problem. It’s one of those situations where you love steak, but if you eat steak everyday you’ll eventually get tired of it. You still love it, but eventually you need a break from it. AEW is at that point now where a lot of people just need a break from weekly 4-5 star matches. Also, why is MJF in a meaningless feud against CMLL wrestlers? This is the best Tony can do for his biggest name? Sad.

I really think TK needs to find a way to change the medias narrative on his company. Really since brawl out, a lot of people tuned out. His online rants rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. TK needs to be in a backstage role and stop being an on screen figure. I feel like the general perception is that AEW is for the marks and they do too many foolish things to be taken too seriously, Also - “the elite” are just not NWO caliber. Having said all this - the women’s division is getting much better. The top of the card has some great talent. Matches are more entertaining than WWE. They need to find a story thst resonates and get the people we want to see on the show consistently. Also too many people from other companies and other belts we don’t care about. It all dilutes the product.

Hmm..and who might have been responsible for the false NXT rating numbers???

When the programs primary focus isn't storytelling there is no compulsion for viewers to return week on week. We can drop in and out without fear of missing anything that matters...

solomonster is a sicko

The ratings are proof AEW is a terrible product despite the fact there’s idiots in the comment and the host himself that say it’s a good and strong show. If that’s the case, why haven’t the ratings increased? Why are there empty arenas on their live shows?

Im sorry but AEW Dynamite has been absolutely terrible for the last 6 months. The Bucks reign of terror, Jericho's learning tree, Swerves boring title reign, Orange Cassidy, and trampoline spot fests are killing their company. What they've done to guys like Big Bill, Wardlow, Okada, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Ricky Starks is a crime tbh.

For AEW to fix things, requires objective self-critical analysis and reviewing, in all honesty, what AEW does right and what it does wrong. The problem is, Tony Khan and the Elites (Bucks and Perry) exist in a type of echo chamber where they are confident they are NOT the problem, even though ratings show they are. As long as Tony refuses to see himself, or the Elites, as part of the problem, then things will never get fixed. As they say, the first step to solving a problem is admitting there is one.

Honestly the biggest problem with AEW is fhat ghey still view themselves as the "competition" towards wwe and yes while they still are in some degree many of the audience don't view them as such anhmore. A majority of aew's original audience just wanted wwe to be good again and now that it is they gave up on aew, those are the fans aew has to try and bring back

🤣 gramps waking up at 1 am to Conrad Thompson selling him bluechew

Lol imagine everyone in the comments blaming Big Bang Theory when one of the biggest artists in the world (Kendrick Lamar) did a rare live concert on a national holiday. Blame Amazon. Blame Top Dawg Entertainment. But don’t blame that god awful show. 😂

I'm one of those type of fans to where I really don't care about ratings, demos & all this other analytical shit I just care about what's on my telly. However, with how these ratings are it's clear that there is something about AEW that just isn't working and they need to fix it

10 star bangers doesn’t draw eyeballs to the show. Have some storylines that creates buzz and interest. It’s kind of embarrassing how crucial Big Bang Theory’s lead in is for ratings.

I think one big problem is doing more PPV's. They have been killing it on PPV & I think it's taken away from TV matches they use to build to.

I think it boils down to a massive lack of build & story telling to get the audience to care about anything. Who tf ever thought we'd ever care about segments with Chad Gable & Otis & Maxxine & Tazowa? Simple interesting stories go a long way.

Its obvious why but this guy Tony khan doesn't care about the show. No story lines, pushing guys who weigh 140lbs. Always jobbing out guys like Brian cage, will Hobbs who gone missing, having "stars" againts jobbers so the out come is predictable. Chris Jericho the learning tree stuff is horrible, where is Ricky starks?? Bro this guy Tony sucks he is even worse then Vince I want aew to succeed so wwe can be good too, but Tony doesn't care which sucks

Focus on your company. Not going after another company and or another sport like UFC

I don't think they've had a story on the level of Hangman's chase and the Belt-collector since then. Swerve got the belt too late, imo, as much as I love Joe. While Okada is entertaining, fantastic even, his role is basically comedy right now. That's not going to hype people up either. The stories don't feel personal right now. There's no little details that pay off.

The problem is there but they can't ignore it. Someone over there has to acknowledge it. If they choose to ignore it it can only make things worse for AEW.

It’s trash! Nobody wants to see the Bucks, Jericho, Cassidy, 8 man tags and women kissing each other! They are DEAD! 😂

In the court of public perception aew looks and acts like the angry little brother. It's hard to come back from that. All of aews most mainstream exposure has been something negative or some kind of incident

I've been watching since the first episode back in 2019 the last two Dynamite shows I just couldn't sit through it anymore. I've been kinda of forcing myself to watch the last couple of months but I can't do it anymore. What ruined AEW for me is a combination of things from to many belts to a bloated roster. But the simple answer is it's booking and it's boring storylines. I've hit the point where great matches are not enough I want great angles that keep me wanting to comeback. Also the old AEW it felt like anything could happen that feeling is gone AEW feels so complacent now.

There are a lot of problems that have caught up to them. The biggest one is that this angle with The Elite battling Christopher Daniels/Tony Khan as authority figures feels like it's from an episode of Raw from ten years ago. The heel stable was also formed as it is on the basis of the real-life incident with CM Punk, which is dire because it makes you want to see him come back as the main babyface to oppose them, and there's been zero chance of that happening from the start. It's just a stupid angle. There are also just too many titles and random matches, but even worse, there are too many pushes that lead to nothing. What came of those segments about The Book of Hobbes? What came of Takeshita turning heel? Where is Ricky Starks? Where is Miro? We'll see if Trent even goes anywhere after the OC feud. Wrestlers don't seem to keep any momentum and really change.

Focusing on 5 star matches with the hottest free agents isn't a profitable strategy and AEW has killed all of its good will. Tony needs to Step down and they need to hire a real booker, as well as demote the Young Bucks into normal talent as soon as possible

So the real forbidden door is whenever they have the cast of BBT Show up and fight for the transcontinental title or whatever

when i was a kid my favorite hasbro figure was yokozuna, he was my champion. I didnt care what my friends said bc Yoko was my guy, he was my favorite figure. That is how Tony runs AEW, he has his favorites and doesnt give a crap about anyones opinion. Ive watched AEW from the start but here latley ive been skipping it and watching highlights. I used to do that with Raw but now i watch it from start to finish live bc of all the storylines.