The Secret Reason Why AEW Can Beat WWE
At Blood & Guts, MJF and Chris Jericho proved that the boring Content Era is not infallible...
AEW is never going to reach WWE's level as a global conglomerate synonymous with the very industry they monopolised for almost 20 years.
WWE exists to make this an impossibility. The company is too established and has future-proofed itself against failure by generating quite incredible sums of money for its weekly live output and vast archives. Years and years before content became king, WWE had already produced thousands upon thousands of thumbnails and failed upwards into a new, massively lucrative revenue stream amid severe TV viewership decline.
The company is a money-making machine, and it matters little that this manifests in such soulless, disposable, over-produced output. Streaming, rights fees, merchandise, countless international TV deals: this is a traditional interactive live event company that no longer needs to sell a single ticket to draw more money than any company ever. This used to be depressing. The events of last week, however, just might indicate that effort still matters.
And this following point is no exaggeration, though it may scan as one: after the events of last year, in which WWE descended from "generally bad show that misuses generations of talent under insane micromanagement" to a Vince Russo level of crazy pills incompetence, WWE has reached the very bottom of its viewership, and that bottom range was still sufficient enough to hoist the decaying corpse that is Monday Night RAW to the top of Showbuzz Daily.
But AEW can defeat WWE's flagship shows in the 18-49 Nielsen demos.
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