I know we meme about it, but I actually don't think ratings matter all that much considering WWE's are still going down YoY.
The true sign that AEW is going down is that they can't fill arenas like they used to. Attendance is always the most important metric, WWE's "boom" doesn't coincide because of ratings (Which are generally following the same trends) rather that their attendance and merchandise has hit levels it hasn't seen since peak periods.
Meltzer hinted at AEW woes, but of course, he'll defend them when people talk about ratings because it's not really all that important. When you talk attendance, you get his true opinion. He fucking called them WCW 2000 bad a couple of weeks ago for a reason. WCW 2000 still had decent ratings for their slot, but torpedoed their attendance.
Russo DID bring ratings up in 1999, but in his three months there, he did more damage to house shows and attendance than WCW did the months prior (which was already a problem). It's part of the reason why he actually did need a filter. AE didn't actually make a ton off TV rights, rather that Rock and Austin were selling 10K avg. on House Shows and a shit ton of merch. Sure, the shit was compelling for the time, but people were willing to spend money directly on the product.
Anyway, AEW's biggest issues lie in the fact that they can't draw like they used to and refuse to fix anything. Phil had a point. The end of the day working for "good matches" doesn't fucking do anything when the matches and programs aren't drawing anything. When Meltzer had credibility, he used to call shit like this out. Steamboat vs Flair is a legendary match, but he acknowledged that the program didn't draw shit and Funk vs Flair was far more important because Crockett made money off of it.
