>>12526142What smarks never grasp is tournaments by themselves are not a draw, never have been in the US.
Back in the 80s-90s tournaments drew (relatively speaking) in Europe because the CWA put all the top guys in Europe in the tournament and there was decades of oldschool purist presentation. It was niche but steady because it was the big event of the year with all the big European names.
Japanese wrestling culture is similarly more purist but even then the G1 has always had the top champion & challengers enter the tournament establishing the prize of the tournament as worth something of its own, and it still took years for it to be a draw (and still only is really a draw for the finals, the rest is just to fill out the calendar).
King Of The Ring was always one of the lowest drawing PPVs of the year until 99 because people weren't interested in a tournament for a pointless prop crown, it was only by 99 when a- WWF was red hot, b- the main events filling out the card were stacked, and c- there'd been several years of the KOTR winner becoming a big deal soon after, that people started watching it. Before that it was always bottom 3 or outright bottom drawing PPV.
You can't make people care about a meaningless tournament. Especially a brand new one with zero build, zero prestige. The Continental Championship is a meaningless new belt, ROH title is a dead belt, Strong title is the lowest title in NJPW.
Then the entrants- Danielson used to be a name but has done nothing in AEW, Moxley is the only guy to have won a singles title in AEW in the entire thing, then you're scraping the barrel with a Tag Champ, Trios Champ & 2 ROH champions. Add that the format is unfamiliar to most western audiences, that means 2 things- exposition & reduced stakes per match until the final round.
Tournaments need filling with multiple bigname viable winners, for an established title with stakes, knockout format so each match matters, and to run for several years, before they draw.
