How AEW's Numbers OBJECTIVELY Prove Its Success
To others, at least those with good-faith criticisms worth acknowledging, Dynamite is more uneven than the widespread fervour suggests, excessive in its danger, with a less-than-ideal emphasis on sports entertainment tropes.
But AEW, objectively, is a success. Twitter user @miber_OW created a meticulous and fascinating statistical graphic indicating as much.
The numbers tell the story of a restrained, long-term-oriented approach and a company that has, for the most part, delivered on its promises. At the Double Or Nothing ticket rally, Matt Jackson declared that "Our goal, our main objective, is to give you fans the best tag team division in the world." The tag division shares at least equal prominence with singles; Dynamite has presented 112 team-based matches to 170 singles across the men's and women's divisions.
The per-show match time average delivers on another promise - of "less soapy" TV, as stated on the initial TNT press release - by packing in 53:35 minutes of in-ring action. Only two episodes from the 55 have featured verbal in-ring segments. Only 6% of the matches, prior to last night's show, have been worked under a gimmick stipulation. 15% were contested for a title; the remaining 85% were booked with a grudge element or to shape the rankings system. Kenny "No longer a star" Omega holds the record for most victories (31) and, as we'll discover, either headlined or worked the longest (and often most-anticipated) match on all but one pay-per-view offering, all of which have drawn strongly and consistently.
As first revealed by Andy Murray in a fantastic editorial you can read here, AEW's almost completely robust clean wins-only policy yields what is a remarkable statistic in itself, and especially in contrast to WWE's woefully passé, brazen and deadening f*ck finish philosophy.
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