Wrestling Thread
- Thread starter Laparkafan
- Start date
I try to give the women wrestlers a little grace for their meltdowns. Wrestling fans are just the worst overall, especially the ones online.
It doesn’t help that she’s probably getting heckled since she announced her eating disorder
Well at least now Busted Open doesn't have to pretend they aren't WWE shills anymore.
Maybe I won't have to occasionally see a Dave LaGreca moronic screaming take on wrestling now. Obviously he won't be doing that for WWE or TNA (if TNA is even allowed to be discussed) and there probably will be no AEW conversations on there now.
No more asinine creative pitches for AEW from Bully Ray now too I assume. Like the classic pitch of Jon Moley should be a wife beater story.
I don't know what the hell multiple talking head shows are going to possibly talk about regarding WWE 7 days a week though. WWE pumps out a lot of content but not that much. Maybe they'll freshen it up some and make it interview heavy. But you know the questions will be softballs like "if you were a hot do and you were hungry would you eat yourself?"
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Saw one of the original plans for Blake Monroe was fighting Tiffy at Summerslam for the useless US title. So I looked up Blake Monroe on Cagematch and she still has yet to make her televised in-ring debut on the main roster. She hasn't had a TV match since her NXT finale on April 21. She debuted on the main roster on May 22, that's now two months ago! What the hell are they doing with her??
And she’s pretty awesome. She could be helping out the women’s roster, no doubt.
I scrolled back several months on Busted Open's YouTube page and here's the views for AEW videos in 2026: 13K, 10K, 12K, 11K, 8.3K, 24K (JerIcho's return), 15K (HOOK interview). On the WWE side, a Lizzy Rain interview did better (17K) than anything AEW had to offer minus Jericho. I don't know where AEW fans go for their content but your larger channels will go where the money and clicks are - that's not going to be with AEW. I think wrestling fans in general would rather watch talking heads discuss Chad Gable than Kyle Fletcher or Oba Femi rather than Kevin Knight. It is what it is. Ya'll acknowledge AEW is very niche and the fanbase is dedicated but smaller but then act surprised Busted Open isn't 50% WWE, 50% AEW content. It'd be like me complaining that Eddie Trunk talks about KISS and Metallica too much when I want him to talk more about Jinjer.
I think Bischoff was grifting and you could tell by the thumbnails used but the audience isn't really there in general to focus a lot of time and energy on AEW if you have a successful YT discussion channel.
I think Bischoff was grifting and you could tell by the thumbnails used but the audience isn't really there in general to focus a lot of time and energy on AEW if you have a successful YT discussion channel.
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If Cass Elliot would have shared half of her ham sandwich with Karen Carpenter would they both still be alive today?
An AEW fan listening to Busted Open would be as fruitful as a person who wants to catch some women's wrestling turning on this week's episode of WWE Raw.
Even that jdfromny guy that constantly rags on both companies talks more wwe b/c he knows it gets more clicks to talk about Roman/punk/cody/oba
Wrestling fans in general but especially AEW fans stopped listening to him because they got sick of all his idiocy. Guy is lucky to get 40K on YouTube these days regardless of which promotion it is, he used to be getting more than double that regularly. 100K wasn't exactly uncommon for him on there back in the day. Who wants to listen to a guy for 2+ hours talk about how everything in wrestling sucks?
Looking more and more like Bayley is other done with WWE or they are keeping her at home/catering until she decides to re-sign. Money hungry WWE isn;'t going to pull someone from a Meet & Greet otherwise.
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Ya this is more likely the case but he is really mourning this wwe channel and using it as an excuse why he sucks all he does is yell and cuss.
When do these 90 day folks debut? At the ppv?
Consider the source but the Wrestling Observer says there are as many as seven wrestlers ready to sign with AEW. Will any debut this weekend? Who knows.
MCMG I would think debut in Detroit this Wednesday. I could see perhaps a vignette during the PPV so it won't be one of those "worst kept secret" type deals. IF they don't do that then it's just a "surprise" debut in Detroit. It's crazy how convenient the timing is of this Detroit show.
I could see Santos Escobar debuting as a CMLL wrestler to confront Andrade to set something up for Grand Slam Mexico, which is two Wednesdays from now. Though I don't know if CMLL would wan their splash new hire to debut in AEW instead of CMLL even though AEW would have more visibility.
I don't know who else AEW would be interested in from the slow of 90-day availabilities from this week.
New Day isn't part of these 90 day folks but assuming hey go to AEW then they will almost assuredly debut at the first Dynamite legally possible.
I've also read this particular writer on there has a pretty poor track record. Basically what I read is that anyone but Dave and Alvarez are pretty unreliable. Not that Dave and Alvarez are exactly beacons of truth by any means...
Ya that seems logical not sure about the other of the 7 but ya 7 seems like an arbitrary number to put out there.
I mean if you know of 7 names that are going to sign that's not really arbitrary though.
I assume one will be Steve Maclin. I've heard there have been discussions but nothing signed. He'd be a good veteran guy to throw in ROH and/or have a job like a trainer or producer. I don't really see any role for him as a wrestler in AEW though unless they want to add another jobber in the Don Callis Family.
Netflix has an out after 5 years, I believe. The Netflix started deal started in 2025. Sometime 2029 would likely be when Netflix makes a decision on the remaining 5 years. TKO would probably want to make their changes ahead of then so they could show things are turning around.
Especially with Netflix increasingly signaling they don't want to commit to entire sports seasons but rather smaller packages of specific events. I know WWE isn't necessarily a sports league but it's sports adjacent and much more heavily reliant on live viewership like sports are.
That's just my speculation, of course.
I agree my thinking also is the 5 year out clause - if things don’t improve they probably think Netflix will bow out.
The fact this rumor even exists indicates that Netflix might already be indicating they aren't happy with the #s WWE is producing. Or I could all be a bunch of BS too.
I don't like citing the #s Dave likes to cite every week for US viewership of Raw on Netflix because I can't verify it, but he claims they are doing under a million a week in the US. Keep in mind the numbers Netflix releases every week are globally. So that 2.4 million or whatever it was that Netflix did last week was for the entire world and over 7 days.
And it's not just Raw and Unreal either, which is easy to forget since Raw and Unreal is the only thing we get on Netflix in the US if I remember correctly. WWE basically completely overhauled their entire international distribution infrastructure to put all their live content on Netflix outside of the US. Raw, Smackdown, NXT, PLEs, SNME, etc. - all of it is on Netflix outside the US. They lose Netflix and not only do they need to find a new US TV home for Raw, they will have to negotiate new media deals for all of it in god knows how many countries (there are 195 total countries on planet Earth according to Worldometer).
It's not just a 5-year out clause either. Netflix can either sign up for 5 more years for the original length of the contract of 10 years or they can then double down for an additional 15 years for 20 total years. If Netflix says that doesn't work for me brother after 5 years then WWE is going to have their own recreation of the Red Wedding from Game of Thrones.
I'd be interested in seeing what the numbers are for how many people are actually watching as Netflix's measurement system doesn't tell you how many unique viewers are watching. It's just total # of hours viewed divided by length of program. So if you only watch half of it you only count as half a viewer. Because the three big things with Netflix are ad sales, growing subscriber counts, and reducing churn - people who sign up but don't stay signed up year round.
I don't really know how much growth Netflix can really have in continuing to bump up their total # of subscribers. As of the end of 2025 they had 325 million as they "only" added 25 million for all of 2025.
Money they can charge for ads is going to be really dependent on viewership, so any notable drop to viewership is going to lead to a decrease in ad rates. And wrestling has historically seen lower priced ad rates relative to their viewership numbers because folks us wrestling fans aren't exactly making money like viewers of live sports do. And people who are on plans with ads actually are more profitable users than ad-free users, so ads are pretty massive for Netflix.
WWE should be really good at reducing churn amongst its viewers since it's year-round programming. But if they aren't getting the #s Netflix wants to begin with, then they aren't reducing churn as much as Netflix would want.
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The numbers might be fine but I think Netflix believed they'd grow. Pro wrestling doesn't really work that way unless it's a major boom period (Hulkamania, Attitude Era, Monday Night Wars). And in today's world, you can literally watch clips of WWE and AEW and pretty much be caught up.
On Bayley, she got everything she wanted out of WWE and there's nothing left for either side in the relationship. What'll hurt WWE the most is when she's done, she'd be a great coach in NXT and appears to have close ties in the locker room. Everyone focuses on Mercedes as if Bayley has one friend. The woman knows other people lol. If TK is smart, he immediately offers her a coaching role once she's done.
On the flip side, WWE didn't give her faction much to do and even after repeatedly saying she hates the 'Role model' theme, it's been kept in place almost like a troll. I think she's been frustrated for a while but still, if you're WWE what else do you do with her? In many ways she's the perfect candidate to finally make the switch.
On the flip side, WWE didn't give her faction much to do and even after repeatedly saying she hates the 'Role model' theme, it's been kept in place almost like a troll. I think she's been frustrated for a while but still, if you're WWE what else do you do with her? In many ways she's the perfect candidate to finally make the switch.