Is AEW too niche?

I'll just copy and paste what I mentioned the other day in another thread.


I personally love how AEW isn't watched by everyone and is it's own niche thing. The same way I'm glad some of my favorite bands aren't huge bands and aren't listened to by everyone.

I don't mind the long matches & tournaments unless it's some dufus like Alan Angels going 50 with 50 Kenny Omega. In what universe is that not a 2 minute squash. Or how about bald & bankrupt bowling ball long Jon Silver & his long haired friend getting tag title shots on pay per view. Then it's a big problem because ye have folk that never get wins or are barely even featured on TV in big positions on Dynamite or worse PPV.

I honestly feel like they have a bit of an identity crisis with how niche they are compared to the amount of niche elements they present.

They have their core audience at this point, which may fluctuate slightly, but will always pretty much stay in the same parameters. And 90% of the audience are smarks. However, there are varying levels to it. There's the subsection that's mainly ex-WWE fans or fans of both companies (likely the overwhelming majority), and then there's the full-on hardcore indie and puroreso nerds like Khan himself. And a lot of Kahn's booking feels like he's trying to prove his hardcore smark cred, like the G1 clone tourney; except it has to be watered down to a degree for the wider audience, so it loses a lot of the luster of something like the actual G1 and feels diluted.

So yeah... a lot of times it feels like Kahn is playing to the smallest sub-section of the audience, but doesn't do it particularly well, and it kinda drags the product overall down.

AEW gotta switch it up a lil bit tbh. Overall its still good but it can be much better.

Yes. They cater to small groups of fans, mainly the hardcore internet fans, rather than the majority. They promote the cookie cutter Japanese wrestlers as megastars. Sure they're huge in Japan but not to a US audience where only three people have heard of them. I get that AEW is promoted more towards adults, hence the constant bloody matches and swearing but is there really that big of a community that are into broken glass spots, excessive amounts of items wrapped in barbed wire, drinking blood etc?

100%. That's why their audience will never grow. That's why doing live shows country wide dosent work. It's an indy promotion with a big budget.

You must have watched ECW wrong because ECW was chock-full of stories. Some of the best feuds and story telling came from ECW. Not just random "bangers" as you like to call them. Pro wrestling has always been about telling stories. I don't think that part is up for debate.

Random matches without a story can be fun but that also gets boring. If there is nothing compelling connecting your program on a week to week basis then what is the point. Think of old promotions without television. They had long term stories to keep fans attending the shows on a weekly basis. They needed to keep their fans invested in the characters and the stories. Without a program, the fans had no reason to attend the next show.

I think there is ten easy things they could be doing to serve the audience that wants more story, explanation and not compromise the in ring.

1. Vignettes for debuting talent. Wardlow came off like a big star initially because of vignettes but they really haven’t done that since. Even if it’s something like showing some highlights from Komander in Mexico with a line or two from him. That’s it. Don’t just put the guy on tv and have him lose. It doesn’t do anything for him but paint him as unimportant to a portion of the audience.
2. By all accounts Tony is still the Booker of everything, that’s just too much for one man. Give some of the lower card to a few other guys, give ring of honor to another team so they can start giving some of these young guys, project guys some story, a direction. Too
Many guys have no momentum/don’t mean anything cause they only show up to job or pop up on ROH to beat an enhancement talent.
3. Recap videos, not all the time but take 60 seconds every few weeks to recap a big feud.
4. Give the special guests, and guys from outside promotions a 30 second highlight package or a quick promo. A large majority online seem to not care about this CMLL feud cause they haven’t made their intentions clear or why they are here.
5. Go back to making the decisions characters make, make sense.
6. Again goes back to handing off some booking, but stop taking these major acts off tv for weeks at a time then back for 2-3 weeks then off for weeks. Can be good to get acts off tv once in awhile but there is a big group of guys who always feel like their momentum is stifled because tk has too much to book.
7. Get a social media manager and get to tk to see that his social media presence has damaged his company in the eyes of many.
8. Find a way to try and cut tickets prices a big, do family four packs etc. Go back to doing the meet n greets in cities before the show to type it up. People are admitting the prices are too high and they aren’t aware they are coming.
9. When Kenny Omega comes back, get him back in the main event scene. He is a non wwe guy that a large majority of the fan base see as a big deal, that has spent a large part since losing the belt in the mid card and tags.
10. Go back to long term booking, back to dropping seeds for feuds, pick like four guys that you want to be main event level in 1-2 years and start a trajectory for them.

To me these are little changes that don’t completely change the identity of the company, that would make myself more invested and seen others online, podcasts etc say. It’s stuff that they honestly did way better when the company started.

nope. just like you were incorrect to assert that ecw was made up of just senseless banger after banger, you're wrong in asserting JCP was not storyline driven. all of its major matches were. each top billed match at starccade 94 had reason and story.