Why WWE Is Hot And AEW Is Cold
Triple H is beating Tony Khan in 2023...but does Tony Khan *really* want to win?
WWE is hot.
The Bloodline saga is the primary driver behind the resurgence, though Cody Rhodes is doing great numbers at the box office and in the Nielsens on the Raw brand. Record gates are set every week. Arenas are quiet more often than not, and the dissonance is strange, but these people are buying tickets in staggeringly impressive all the same.
AEW, meanwhile, is cold.
The seat maps on multiple WrestleTix Twitter posts are heavy on blue. Last week's Dynamite slumped to the worst demo number in three years. Double Or Nothing, despite an electrifying last hour or so, was notable for its empty seats and comparatively flat atmosphere. Collision did a Rampage number three weeks in. A red-hot crowd is no longer a selling point of new alternative on the rise, a guaranteed weekly occurrence. PPV numbers are still fantastic, and late surges in ticket sales aren't uncommon where they were previously. Perhaps this reflects where AEW is at; the base connects with what has become an uneven product in a pattern as fitful as its quality output.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter has a theory, one supported by history. Whenever WWE gets hot, every other US promotion suffers. The more critically acclaimed Jim Crockett Promotions was ultimately mauled by the glitzy big time of Hulkamania, and by early 1999, the red-hot WWF turned the Monday Night Wars into a massacre.
Is it as simple as the promotion with more reach and visibility actually making use of its inherent advantage in the market, and AEW feeling smaller in comparison?
Production values and the optics of looking "big" matter a lot. Stars and stories are more important, as is the ability to strike the zeitgeist, but the big-time feeling matters. While Roman Reigns returning at SummerSlam helped, the introduction of the ThunderDome bolstered ratings on Raw as well. The idea that WWE belatedly looked as big as it could in the pandemic era boosted numbers in contrast to the über-bleak confines of the Performance Center. WWE feels big and is becoming bigger. AEW hasn't done many panoramic shots on TV very often in 2023 and feels in scope like the distant number two. The perception becomes reality truth is manifesting to a degree.
AEW however isn't just cold because WWE is hot.
CONT'D...(1 of 5)