10 Genius Ways Tony Khan Can Get The AEW Magic Back
3. Rebrand Rampage
Rampage is dead.
This is cynical, but it really does feel as though Tony Khan has deliberately positioned it as an inessential show with the intention of preserving Dynamite as the must-see flagship. How else to explain Ari Daivari in two consecutive Friday night main events?
Perhaps he's worried about overloading his audience ahead of crucial rights fees negotiations. If the viewing audience feels overwhelmed - there is too much of a good thing - he can rely on Dynamite to feel hot by sheer comparison. Rampage performs well enough in a woeful time slot, so there's little incentive to load it up - but wasn't AEW formed to get away from such George Barrios thinking?
There are a few options to explore, examples of which follow:
- Actually try, like he did in late 2021, and trust the audience to watch all three hours of weekly TV. It worked then; why can't it now?
- Make certain things exclusive to the show, like the TNT or Trios titles. The audience should feel like they're missing out on something cool if they don't watch on Fridays.
- Rebrand the show entirely, with a different name, logo, everything, under the tacit promise that it's a new, apologetic beginning.
Khan needs to do something. Rampage is mundane in and of itself, but it might also have a detrimental effect on AEW as a whole. How often does he produce a very good and well-received show on Wednesday, only for the audience to not exactly anticipate another one seven days later?
His booking has been better, but Friday nights and the almost total lack of conversation they generate undermine the hype.