>>14562329So true, there's more to being a star/fixture than winning 90% of your matches. It helps, but you can also get/stay over having great music, ring gear, poses/hand signs, a unique finishing/signature move and so on. Look at Jay Lethal for example, guy has completely disappeared from TV despite bring in his wrestling prime. Old ass music with no lyrics, generic ring gear, no new moves added to arsenal in years....just a boring, boring guy who nonetheless has an incredible amount of talent waiting to be tapped into
>>14562296They need to re-capture the fan excitement but Tony Khan is very reticent to allow wrestlers to get over with non-ring things. When Jericho talked about being the guy who "pioneered" the wrestling sing-a-long entrance, it's not that he was lying, he was telling on himself
https://www.ringsidenews.com/2023/03/22/chris-jericho-says-judas-pioneered-fans-singing-along-with-pro-wrestling-entrances/Fans have been singing, humming, clapping along to music for decades now. But AEW in particular does not have many participatory themes other than Jericho, (at PPVs) Adam Copeland and americlapping along to Willow's theme. It's as if wrestler-specific themes are foreboden from having lyrics, unless it's licensed music. Weirdest shit. Anyway
The artificial limits placed on non-wrestling time along with match cards that are routinely shuffled around -- so if AEW is coming to your town in a month, you will genuinely have NO IDEA if your favorite 3-4 wrestlers will appear, have a match, anything at all -- make it hard for fans to justify taking the day off work (day of/day after) and coming to the show on Wednesday night. Ditto for fans tuning in at home when their favorites disappear with zero explanation whatsoever, they're just expected to Google it themselves and read dirtsheets. Many fans are instead choosing to not tune in at all.
It can't be fixed overnight, obviously, but it won't be fixed at all at this rate. Wholesale change is needed
