When AEW started in 2019, it was supposed to be a clear alternative to the way WWE did things, from the booking decisions to the focus on wrestling, and how wrestlers were treated backstage, with weekly segments built around the performers' long-term storylines instead of being thrown together by a billionaire sometimes two or three times on the day of a show.
And yet, five years into the future, it would appear that has changed, as, according to Brian Alvarez on the Wrestling Observer message board, Tony Khan has become far more likely to throw together shows the day of, with performers sometimes flown out with nothing to do, or asked to make a last-minute change to their schedules in order to get to a show last minute, even if it isn't nearly as bad as Vince McMahon before him.
“With that said, Tony switched the script on yesterday's PPV multiple times during the afternoon. Most people, not just the wrestlers, have no idea what they're doing until the day of the show, and sometimes not until an hour or so before the show. People are flown to towns and given nothing to do, others are begged the day before the show to please get to the town so they can do something last-minute. He knows what he wants to do for PPVs (although this often changes), but as far as week-to-week TV, everything is booked show-to-show,” Brian Alvarez wrote on the message board via Jack Cassidy.
“For most people he's incredibly difficult to get hold of. In some ways, it legitimately is more like 2019 WWE than it is 2019 AEW, where he was much easier to get hold of, he had very complex long-term storytelling, many people had a good idea of what they were doing and where things were going, and often most of the following week's entire Dynamite card was booked and announced before the previous week's Dynamite had even ended (remember when Excalibur would run down two dozen matches in 30 seconds for the following week?). It's night and day the changes, and people who work for the company, in all roles from the wrestlers to the office, talk about it ALL THE TIME.”
Fortunately for AEW performers, AEW being much better than WWE in 2019 is good news, as that situation sounded downright dire. Still, if TK wants to keep AEW as an alternative that is much more pro-worker, planning them out a bit better would probably do wonders for morale, as even if you don't want to give away the plans on the spot in the fear of them being leaked to the media, wrestlers should at least know if they are needed for a show so they can plan their lives out accordingly.
Tony Khan opens up about AEW's current media rights offers.
Speaking of the publishing duo behind The Wrestling Observer and F4W, Bryan Alvarez's partner in crime, Dave Meltzer, updated fans on the promotion's current media rights negotiations with Warner Brothers Discovery, which are going alright but aren't quite where they need to be in order for Tony Khan to sign on the dotted line.
“AEW’s future in many ways, future as far as profitability goes, or level of profitability is completely dependent upon this. I mean that is going to be their key revenue stream, can they can increase attendance? I mean they haven’t, but I mean could they if they get hot? Sure. But that’s minor for everyone right now. The better the television deal the more they can reasonably afford to bid on wrestlers, they could sign bigger name wrestlers when contracts are up and all that stuff. If they don’t get a better deal than they have now, they’ll be around but it would be harder to get as many top wrestlers to come over if the deal comes in low. There very clearly is very significant negotiations going on and WBD does want to keep the programming,” Dave Meltzer explained on Wrestling Observer Radio via WrestleTalk.
“I don’t think there is a chance that no one is going to want the show, I mean I know there is people who are waiting to hear that ‘nobody wants the show’, ‘he failed’, ‘now what’s he going to do’, I don’t think that’s going to happen. But as far as where it ends up, who would be interested, there’s a lot of stations out there and it’s a highly rated show. But the question is, is it worth to a station more than $125 million a year? Which to me is the key figure, I think if you’re at $110 (million) they’d break even or be profitable, maybe even a little lower but $125 (million) is healthy profits. If it’s $110 (million) and they give up the pay-per-views somehow that’s not a great deal.”
Would it be nice for TK to find a home where AEW can place their library and give fans all of their Pay-Per-Views for a small monthly fee a la WWE at Peacock? Most definitely, especially if he can land the sort of big-money extension that allows the promotion to grow even bigger and better moving forward.
Follow Us
Subscribe
