>>12860214What's killing AEW isnt' because it's too similar to WWE, what's killing AEW is that their product in it's current form doesn't appeals to casuals.....it DOES appeal to lapsed wrestling fans and WWE die-hards. The ratings you see week after week are the AEW die-hards and not much else
What lapsed fans/WWE fans would have wanted to open the show:
Samoa Joe IN PERSON in the ring, talking shit, soaking up the chants -- maybe wearing a new ShopAEW shirt (on sale NOW for $30). Then MJF's music plays....crowd goes wild....music fades out. "Go check the Roster page on our website, he ain't there. And you know what? He's never coming back!" -- "My long reign is about to begin" blah blah.....let him leave the ring to BOOING for once. He could even rip of a fan sign (Pro-MJF, Pro-Samoa Joe even) for good measure.
Cole+Goons should have been at 9pm instead of opening the show. He could say all the same stuff, doesn't matter, but that's not who the fans wanted opening the show. They want the WORLD CHAMPION to open the show, in the ring.
Christian didn't need to be on this show. Let him open Rampage and have the floor - post clips on social media afterward. Waste of live TV time, especially if nobody was going to interrupt. And will look even worse if Copeland shows up on Collision for a match/confrontation/whatever. Friday Rampage: have Christian say "We'll be at Collision on Saturday, stay away from us Adam if you know what's good for you. You're done getting title shots!" --- Copeland shows, interrupt with Christian music + pretape backstage. Copeland doesn't show, do a quick Killswitch/Wayne tag team match against jobbers..
Time and time and time and time and FUCKING time again, it's been shown that the reason lapsed fans and WWE fans aren't staying tuned to AEW is because of the long drawn-out matches. So what does AEW give us coming off a PPV? Over 55:00 of matches, Raw had 51:00 for a 3-hour show. We really can't find a middle ground there? REALLY?
