AEW may be finished running house shows
Date: 6/9/2023
From this week's Observer:
"AEW ran what may be its last house shows for a long time over the
weekend. With them adding Collision, I don’t see house shows likely and
there aren’t any more left on the schedule. Plus, as the word gets out
that the top stars aren’t on these shows, unlike WWE which features top
stars on its house shows, it would get harder to draw. The 6/2 show
which went against Smackdown and Rampage on TV, in Tupelo, MS, drew just
1,576. The 6/3 show in Huntsville, AL, drew 2,237."
My comments:
This
is similar to what happened with WCW. WCW signed a bunch of people from
WWF with the promise of reduced schedules. And that worked fine for
Nitro, but they also wanted to run house shows. I remember going to a
WCW house show and expecting to see people like Sting, Hulk, Macho,
Piper and so forth. Instead, it was basically one match with main
eventers and a bunch of mid and lower card guys.
The AEW house show line-ups they had were awful. Not only were the top stars missing, but even the secondary stars were mostly missing. They even resorted to putting people like Pat Buck out there, who aren't on TV. Kenny and The Bucks not showing up looked real bad in particular, because they are EVP's and should be setting good examples for everyone else, yet they couldn't be bothered. There's no good excuse for it either since AEW talent only works one day a week as is. Some of these shows also competed with Rampage, which had the better line-up most nights and was free to watch.
This is a blow to AEW. House shows are really the core of what running a wrestling company is. Obviously, they have a reduced role nowadays with amount of wrestling and non-wrestling entertainment options out there, but they are important ways to catch fans in smaller areas and spread brand awareness to people who may not even know about your show. There's also a lot of talent on the AEW roster who needs to be doing these kinds of shows regularly to learn how to really work.
The AEW house show line-ups they had were awful. Not only were the top stars missing, but even the secondary stars were mostly missing. They even resorted to putting people like Pat Buck out there, who aren't on TV. Kenny and The Bucks not showing up looked real bad in particular, because they are EVP's and should be setting good examples for everyone else, yet they couldn't be bothered. There's no good excuse for it either since AEW talent only works one day a week as is. Some of these shows also competed with Rampage, which had the better line-up most nights and was free to watch.
This is a blow to AEW. House shows are really the core of what running a wrestling company is. Obviously, they have a reduced role nowadays with amount of wrestling and non-wrestling entertainment options out there, but they are important ways to catch fans in smaller areas and spread brand awareness to people who may not even know about your show. There's also a lot of talent on the AEW roster who needs to be doing these kinds of shows regularly to learn how to really work.
No comments:
Post a Comment