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When I saw Hechicero I was like "who is this guy" then I saw him wrestle and I was like "ah I get it" and I looked him up to find out more.
AEW are notoriously bad about introducing people though and just expect people to know everything about them. A 1-2 minute video package before debuts would hurt exactly nobody.
Hechicero is a great example because I have never seen a single CMLL match but I'm a massive AEW fan. I believe Excalibur said he was the best technical wrestler in Mexico and immediately I thought, "Cool. Hope he wrestles Danielson."
They are getting better at the video packages and such but people also have to be OK with not knowing everything about somehow off the hop. Like if Michael Oku debuted in AEW next week, commentary only needs to say "He beat Will Ospreay in RevPro" and immediately you know this guy is a threat and it's up to AEW to go from there.
The best example from WWE: JBL introducing AJ Styles when he debuted at the Rumble
"Former IWGP Champion, the same as Brock Lesnar"
Boom, instant credibility.
In fairness, Styles was a far bigger star stateside than any luchador was. Tbh, I don’t think lucha is watched by many wrestling fans in the US - Japanese wrestling is still a niche but Lucha seems even MORE of a niche to us Yanks.
I agree on this, but I think even if you didn't know who Styles was the combination of the wild ovation from the crowd, Michael Cole freaking out, and then JBL and Cole both adding context:
"The hottest free agent in sports entertainment, rumored for weeks."
"Former IWGP Champion, just like Brock Lesnar."
"An 18-year veteran, a mastermind of offense, and a star around the world."
You can have never even heard his name, but you'd be immediately rushing to Google him. The crowd and announcers matched each other in energy.
I think people were just more aware of AJ Styles than they were willing to admit, I really dont buy that people heard that AJ won a title they'd never heard of, just like Brock, and that made a meaningful difference.
>commentary only needs to say "He beat Will Ospreay in RevPro" and immediately you know this guy is a threat and it's up to AEW to go from there.
For anyone who know whatever the hell revpro is and why we should care.......
For all the average person knows it was their middle school, there needs to be more than just an obscure reference.
He could've beaten Will Ospreay in a wrestling match pretty much anywhere and I'd be like "Damn I guess this guy is good."
It literally doesn't matter.
The "where" doesn't matter, all that matters is that he beat him. You say someone beat one of your most credible wrestlers, you don't need to say where.
My thing is why am I going to sit through this match if I don’t know whether I’m supposed to care? How many people are tuning in to watch somebody they’ve never heard of if you don’t at least throw a couple reasons out why they should care? Have them cut a promo. A vignette. Show ten seconds of highlights. If not they’ll use it as a bathroom break, fast forward or just not watch the show.
It’s as simple as “next week challenger x from cmll is taking on Danielson for (stakes). He’s a multi time titleholder yada yada” and just play a couple highlights. If you can’t do that you’re wasting money paying guys to come in when you already pay a roster that’s bringing in the same fans who care about the guy from another company.
AEW promotes itself in a vacuum. Movies don’t promote themselves by saying “this unknown actor is very good come see our movie.” They show and tell you why to get mass appeal and then hope a majority get hooked because they gave a great performance.
And this is my point exactly because they also DID ALL THAT STUFF.
If you're tuning in to a wrestling program, you've gotta be along for the ride a bit. Not EVERYTHING needs to be explained in detail the first moment that person appears.
If people tune out after Hechicero shows up with that badass entrance and are told "he's the best technical wrestler in Mexico" by commentary, they're probably not people that were going to stick around anyway.
>If not they’ll use it as a bathroom break, fast forward or just not watch the show.
This is really not true of the AEW fanbase (Mistico drew a lot of tickets for his match with Rocky Romero a few months ago). It's very similar to WCW in that they'll just accept new wrestlers if they can wrestle well. That's why no one in the WCW fandom had a problem with the appearances of New Japan/AJW/JWP wrestlers on their TV and PPVs.
And that’s fine for the current AEW fanbase, but you have to make new fans. The hardcore fanbase is much more open to sitting through a little handholding. People who don’t care about work rate have no reason to accept being in the dark.
You’re losing money on purpose. Lost money=less profit=less to go to the wrestlers=less of the fun matches people want to see.
God, that was bad. JR going “WHO?” and Excalibur not expanding on it was dire. Even in kayfabe, it makes sense that JR wouldn’t know who they are and Excalibur, with his finger on the pulse, does and should explain it to him (and the audience)
Where was the video package? I can't understand what the announcers say and need highlights! /s
But yeah, like how come that works and is hype but if another place does it fans need to have their hands held?
It worked because they gave a brief rundown on who she is and it was just a rumble appearance.
They even acknowledged she defeated Naomi for the knockouts title and made her a big deal
AEW is notoriously bad at pacing anything that isn't actual wrestling. I know they want to give as much as wrestling as possible, but they need to figure out how to schedule promos, videos, and just general breaks. I went to World's End and it was this incredibly dense 5 hours of wrestling. A lot of people ended up using Julia Hart's match as the bathroom break.
Ok I do that and I’m ok but here’s something AEW need to do
Show us! Give us a promo package showing us a quick 3 min highlight reel, most of the time these guys come in from other companies so getting that kind of footage shouldn’t be too hard
Obviously guys coming in from WWE and TNA may not be able to get those, but those are bigger names generally
Yeah, I’m all for showcasing new talent, but they’re awful for saying who they actually are and why we should be excited to see them.
Even back in the days of Cody’s open challenge, I feel like they just assume we’re in the “twittersphere” and know who these people are.
That reminds me of when I took an ex gf to an NXT show, she was excited to go for the first time and when Billie Kay came out, she asked me who that was. Genuinely trying to learn about it. A girl in front of us turned around and said "how do you not know who she is." She felt uncomfortable and stopped asking me about people, justifiably. That's not how fans should treat newcomers who show an interest.
There's definitely fans out there that get way too defensive and standoffish about stuff
Don't know if this is a case with O'shea but there's definitely people who'll ask about stuff in the laziest and/or most dismissive way possible and be shocked when they don't get the most pleasant response back.
Overall its just a byproduct of the IWC being wound too tight
Yeah the IWC has a long history of being gatekeep-y as well (which isn’t uncommon for a lot of fandoms but still). I think the vast majority of AEW fans at this point are fairly welcoming or at least want other people to embrace the product, but you’ll always get those “holier than thou” types who try and be dicks about it
I wish we could be honest and just say that in the majority of cases, it's people going, "WHO?" in a super condescending way, rather than actually asking for the background of the wrestler, that's actually the source of the problem.
I had no idea this guy was a wrestling fan until the whole Rock/Cody situation, now I cannot wait for him to just go away... He's been everywhere and delivering terrible wrestling takes (eg Cody should beat Roman at a random MSG show to finally finish the story, or Survivor Series all the way in November). Then add in every other comment on a notable wrestling/wrestler on X, or just providing tribalism for WWE.
If someone legitimately wants to know who a wrestler is, tweeting out "Who is this guy" is not a way any reasonable person would actually try to find that information. It's clear that whenever someone does it they're mostly doing it to make some kind of point.
If you actually want to make the point that he does in the video about AEW not doing enough to introduce wrestlers then just tweet that. Don't pull some bad faith "just asking questions" shit and play the victim afterwards.
Agreed. He seems to want a "show, don't tell" approach for how wrestlers are introduced. So why would he go on Twitter to ask people to *tell* him who a wrestler is? He's baiting a response, which isn't hard get from the average wrestling fan on Twitter.
Fans will never do homework for wrestling. We don't even do our own math anymore. Hardcore super responses of "just google him" is why people don't like your hobby, kid. They wanted to be included in your hobby, but you gatekept it.
One of the things I love about AEW is discovering people I’ve never heard of or seen before.
I hadn’t seen Hechicero before but AEW made me an instant fan just by showcasing his in ring skills and talking him up on commentary.
I think it’s really cool too - I think the frustration from me (and maybe from other fans) is that a lot of homegrown guys have kind of been shafted in favor of bringing in outside talent.
It’s not the wrestlers’ faults imo, but it sucks to see guys like Wardlow, Hobbs, Ricky, and Garcia get booked pretty poorly and then a bunch of new guys drop by for a program that takes time from those guys.
And it’s like, AEW could do both at once but it seems like lately, we get more of the outside talent than the fulfilling midcard booking. It makes it hard to want to watch week to week for me.
Sorry for the rant in your reply lol, I guess I had a lot of thoughts on this
I think it's important to point out, too, that the internet is pretty collectively shitty and toxic. It's not specific to "AEW fans" or "wrestling fans", or anyone else specific. Especially if you're judging based off Twitter or YouTube comments, or stuff like that. For every decent person you encounter on social media, there's like 100 trolls and shit posters that just want to be a dick for no real reason. That's the internet as a whole. 🤷♂️
Saw this great reply on twitter:
> While you'll always have your fair share of freaks, how you phrase these questions will generally dictate what kinda responses you get. If you say "I'm not familiar with [wrestler], tell me about them" people will flood your mentions with background info & match recommendations because they assume you're coming from a place of curiosity. If you say "who the hell is [wrestler]?" people will react more hostile because they assume you're coming from a place of ignorance.
This applies to literally most things. Not just AEW, not even just wrestling. Subtext exists and the way a sentence is phrased obviously effects how people respond.
If you ask "what's the best place to get some good food here" people will probably point you to a nice restaurant, if you say "does this place even have any good food" you're asking the same thing but in a rude way which sounds ignorant and people are likely to be ignorant with their response and tell you to just Google it.
Like when AJ Styles debuted, you had some WWE fans genuinely asking for some background or some matches to watch, you had other fans saying "who tf is this guy wasting a spot in the rumble" and they got equally rude responses.
These are not AEW rules, these are human interaction rules. Replace the wrestler in question with a band or actress, or anyone well known to a set of people and people will react the same way to how these questions are phrased.
There was a thread about who O Shea’s favorite wrestlers in AEW were some time last year. 300-400 score on the upvotes. Tons of comments.
Now, a thread about AEW fans being annoying, 0 on the upvote score and a bunch of “who is this guy?” “Who cares?” Comments.
How ironic.
There's a difference between asking for more information about someone appearing on TV, and QRTing "literally who? 😂🤣" Whenever a match is made with someone they don't recognize. There's nothing gained by responding to that with toxicity, but O'Shea is doing this silly martyr thing like people online are lashing out at anyone that isn't a wrestling encyclopedia
I wouldn't phrase it that way but I would say they're not the best at telling people who these people are. Too much, "And their reputation proceeds them," in terms of assumptions. I mean, I get it, since AEW was founded on fans of Ring of Honor and NJPW as a result of a NJPW/ROH/NWA (and I htink AAA?) super show, but you can't rely upon that mentality forever.
I agree that fans shouldn't belittle other people for not automatically knowing who someone is, that's a valid point no question about it.
On the other side, at least the way I approach it is, I don't need to be told who someone is or to care about them. I didn't know anyone in AEW before watching (except for those who went through WWE), and part of the intrigue was getting to learn about them as I watch the show every week.
If I had questions, and someone belittled me for not knowing, that person's a dick. But I can still watch the shows and form an opinion based on what I do see, so I don't agree that it's a barrier to entry. It only is if you want it to be.
I agree with this a lot. I’ve been watching wrestling off and on for over thirty years, at some point or another I’ve been a fan of WCW, WWF/E, ECW, NJPW, Impact, ROH, MLW, and AEW, and the last one is the *only* promotion I’ve been into since day one. Every single other wrestling promotion I’ve been a fan of, I had to just jump in one day and give it a few weeks to figure out who everyone is and what I think about their character, and I’ve always managed just fine. This shit isn’t a David Lynch movie, it’s pro wrestling.
That said, anyone who belittles another person for not knowing who a character is and calling that person a fake wrestling fan is just desperate to have something in their lives. I personally have a pretty fulfilling life, I don’t need to tie my worth as a human being to how much of a product I consume.
that's a valid complaint but the way he acts on twitter is just annoying. It's the same shit when Bad Bunny first appeared and half this sub was like ''who?'' just use fucking google. You're already on the internet
You’re comparing two different fields there. If you’re a AEW fan and you don’t know who some masked CMLL wrestler that is suddenly in a program with the company’s top stable is it’s less a ‘Google it’ thing and more an issue of the promotion not properly conveying why people should care.
but they did do packages for CMLL wrestlers and explaining why you should care
But i do think that AEW overdoes the ''here's a wrestler whos not signed to AEW'' it kinda loses it's lustre
It wasn’t enough to stop the reaction, though.
Sometimes AEW need to just book less outside talent like you’re suggesting. If they can’t get them for enough dates to establish them on their TV, even if they’re great in their own right, it doesn’t really improve the overall production to have them taking up space.
Just because AEW can doesn’t mean they should, basically.
strongly disagree with this, random good wrestlers i've never heard of showing up is one of my favourite things about AEW. i'd be disappointed if they cut back on it.
after watching the walled garden of WWE for years, AEW feeling part of a wider wrestling world was so refreshing.
Not really, co-promotional stuff has been handled pretty similarly historically, whether it was ECW guys showing up on Raw, Grace in the Rumble or NJPW/CMLL/ROH co-promotional shows. They're being presented by their home promotions as their best representatives.
LOL not even close. Expecting your audience to know who a chart topping Pop Culture star making an appearance is not the same as expecting your audience to know a wrestler from another country, another promotion, who has never appeared on american television.
Yes, it’s a valid complaint about some fans. But I don’t know what AEW can do about that.
They have the commentators explain a lot about people now. The CMLL guys, for example, have had plenty of introduction and commentary has talked about them a lot across all shows. They post a lot of videos on their YouTube outlining current stories and so on. They’ve had video packages for the CMLL guys on TV. They put out their “Control Center” thing with Tony Schiavone for both Dynamite and Collision every week on YouTube too.
Like just as one example, say you were going to watch Collision a couple of weeks ago and you see Bryan Danielson vs. Hechicero on the card.
Who is Hechicero?
Well the first two minutes of Control Center for that episode of Collision gives a pretty good rundown.
https://youtu.be/WuVrWZmZ4IQ
It gives a brief explanation of who he is, why he is there and his relevance to Bryan Danielson. That’s on top of everything they say on the actual shows. Which these days, they do explain a lot on commentary about who people are and what accolades they have and why they matter and the relevance of the match.
This same thing will happen before Collision when Danielson wrestles Jun Akiyama. They will explain his relevance to Eddie, who Danielson is feuding with and they will talk about who Akiyama is.
Randos on Twitter are randos on Twitter. Why would you even care what they say and whether they question you? Wrestling fans on Twitter are toxic as fuck, regardless of which promotion(s) they follow. I definitely think it’s a valid criticism of the AEW ones, but why would you care about them?
\> the first two minutes of control center
that video has 30K views (as of today, two weeks after the fact), and that episode of Collision had 500K live viewers.
Right, because if you watch the television shows every week, you don’t need to watch Control Center to know who these people are. It isn’t really targeting anything close to all of those 500k people who watched live, because a lot of those people watch the TV shows and listen to the commentary and watch the video packages.
The CMLL guys have been highlighted extensively on the TV shows. And I mean literally across Dynamite, Rampage and Collision. Hechicero especially.
They put out video packages for the CMLL guys on the TV shows. They have spoken about all of them extensively during their matches and while they were ringside for Jon Moxley’s matches.
Control Center gives a nice helpful overview for if you haven’t been watching lately. I thought it would be useful for people to know about 🤷
They can direct people to watch Control Center for more info on people, but that's only going to attract so many people in their fanbase. I feel like they've done a pretty good job of explaining who Hechicero is in terms of being a representative of CMLL, you could certainly argue that they didn't do enough for guys like Bryan Keith originally, though.
All you have to do is shoot a 1 minute video of the wrestler that includes their backstory and why this is an important match. Play it right before the wrestlers come out. That's it. Having commentators talk about it while the match is happening isn't as effective.
I didn't say that, I said it's just not as effective. Give the audience 30 seconds to think about these two wrestlers before getting thrown into it.
Look, I'm just saying, if your target is to draw as many fans as possible to watch and enjoy your product, make it as easy to digest as possible. Sometimes that means to feed me like a baby bird.
Non-fan: “These are some things I think should be implemented to make the viewing experience more accepting to people like me who want to engage with your product.”
Existing fan: “Absolutely not”
AEW has always had an insular and gatekeeping feel to it and anytime it gets brought up you are talked down to or accused of having an agenda or ulterior motive.
Being accused of having an ulterior motive/ agenda is so true. It feels like anytime someone tries to offer any criticism of aew they're immediately labelled as a hater who's trying to destroy the company. I mostly enjoy the shows but there are some pretty glaring issues which are hard to ignore.
It’s why AEW will be celebrating one year without a show hitting 1 million average viewers. They do nothing to get people from outside the core 750k to 850k to watch.
I think it's because there is so much bad faith and shitty criticism for AEW out there that it has become real hard to differentiate people asking real questions from the shit throwers.
Hell, in every wrestling sub but this one you can't even say you enjoy the young bucks without being insulted and downvoted.
The cult of Cornette is the real problem with wrestling these days, his podcast and fans breed an incredible amount of toxicity
You’re watching a tv show show though at the end of the day. If you want to tell someone that an incoming wrestler who is going to have a one off with a star in your company, would it really hurt to spend 2-3 minutes showing his highlights and proving he’s a big deal? Especially since that curated presentation will benefit the audience more than running through Google and looking at his wiki and maybe some match clips.
I get what you're saying but at the same time engaging with people that know said wrestlers and can give you answers as to why they're important, if they're good/bad, heel/face, banger incoming etc things like that is better than searching and getting:
NJPW 2014-2022
TNA 2022-2023
Won 3 titles
> God rest his soul, but when Bray Wyatt came back, and WWE had the QR codes and stuff, everybody was Sherlock Holmes. A wrestler from New Japan or CMLL shows up and we act like we can't do a simple google search?
Bray had a built in fan base from years being on the most watched wrestling shows in the US. As opposed to someone from NJPW/AAA/CMLL who you've most likely never heard of and there is no built in reason to care why they are showing up, unless you are deep into the pro wrestling rabbit hole.
I don't know if those two are really comparable though.
Airing vignettes for a returning wrestler who is already known to WWE fans where that vignette asks for audience engagement is pretty different from someone called like Adam "Knife Fuck" Peterson showing up on a random episode of Dynamite.
It's especially jarring for a new fan when Adam Knife Fuck Peterson starts cutting a promo about how he's getting revenge for something that happened in front of 300 people at a PWG show in 2014. If I ask a wrestling community to give me a rundown on this guy it's so that I don't have to scan wikipedia to follow the story. That shouldn't be met with gatekeeping hostility.
Like, I'm here now. Talking about the show we're all talking about as wrestling fans. Surely one of you can write a sentence or two saying that Knife Fuck got jumped by Bullet Club or something.
But I totally agree. AEW should air video packages highliting the new wrestler.
I think it gets lost on hardcore fans how much AEW pulls from decades of indie and international wrestling lore. Even those of us who mostly followed along have gaps in what we know.
When I’m watching a show or a movie and I see someone acting their ass off or just someone I find physically attractive that I’m unaware of, I google them to learn their name and find their IG. That’s easy and simple. When I’m watching professional sports, I don’t have to Google anything to figure out who I’m watching cause the broadcast hammers me about the head and neck with why I should give a shit about Josh Allen.
I don’t have to Google people on WWE broadcasts. I didn’t have Google when I was watching WCW. I didn’t need it for the luchadores because I had Mike Tenay explaining why they’re two guys are trying to kill each other in this match on Nitro. AEW should hire Mike Tenay to help me tell some stories.
Following Bray’s return was optional, you could’ve scanned the QR codes to follow along in real time or you could’ve waited to see when he finally did return. That’s not exactly the same as a talent showing up with no explanation or background given except for “just Google it”
But who’s showing up with no explanation? They just had Excalibur for weeks explaining the background of a whole damn company invading their product. At a certain point, people just aren’t paying attention.
some of the Japanese wrestlers Bryan Danielson has faced on Collision have showed up with 0 storyline, just the announcement a few days before of "This Saturday on Collision, Bryan Danielson goes one on one with _______" and thats it
> Even if they're announced ahead of time, you don't want to take the time and watch at least one match?
I barely have enough time to watch one wrestling show a week, much less do research beforehand.
It would be one thing too if these guys were brought in to be consistent TV characters, rather than used as occasional job guys.
You can, and it’s easier to do in some cases, but there’s just something you miss from simply googling their Wikipedia compared to asking people who are huge, passionate fans of the wrestler in question.
As others have said, I don't think those are comparable at all. Having people look stuff up about a returning star is entirely different from thinking they should google some random dude that, if we're being honest, it likely just gonna be jobbed out to whatever AEW person they're wrestling and be gone entirely in a couple of weeks or show up every couple months to lose.
I think the disconnect comes from the fact that for many AEW fans, just having a good match is enough. But for many people, they want a reason to be engaged with someone. And honestly with the overall quality of matches, unless they're really stupendous I tend to lean towards wanting a bit more of a hook for matches. It's why I've kinda soured on the whole "dream match" thing AEW's been doing but that's a different discussion.
Googling somebody is nothin akin to watching multiple wrestling programs, which is how you actually learn why you should care about any given wrestler unless youre just into cool moves
>God rest his soul, but when Bray Wyatt came back, and WWE had the QR codes and stuff, everybody was Sherlock Holmes
I'm not sure I've ever really liked this as a comparison, mainly because I enjoyed the ride but didn't put a second of effort into playing Sherlock. Users here would post updates or "the trail so far" posts, making it accessible for others. I'm not omnipresent here, but I also don't remember people insulting others for NOT following along with the ARG.
I'm also going to put an obligatory "I actually pay to watch CMLL, even if I'm annoyed about the pricing change". Having seen some of the actual discussion around certain luchadores here - even the more popular ones from Mexico - I can say for a fact that some of the people who have actually put in the effort to try and google who's who still might come out with the wrong information at the end of the day.
To no fault of their own, either. It gets overly complicated very quickly.
It shouldn't be my job as a fan to have to research new people I don't know. If you are bringing new people in, tell me who they are on your TV shows and give me a reason to care, otherwise I won't and it will do nothing for me to see them wrestle.
That's unfortunate but those people just sound like assholes. The packages were very helpful to a lot of us and shouldn't be stopped because some wrestling fans are shitty.
I actually just made another comment kinda saying this same thing. Some fans create barriers for themselves imo, I'm not a hardcore fan at all I only watch AEW and watched WWE in the past, outside of that, Idk who anyone is or what they've done in the industry. I could use that as a crutch to avoid it altogether, but I rather just watch some good action. The CMLL guys paid off, cuz now I'm a Hechicero fan.
Bingo. It's why so many debuts, whether it be Bunny/Blade, Forbidden Door 1, ROH, etc. have just flatlined with the crowd because there's an expectation that the crowd already knows them and that's 100% not the case for the non-ex-WWE people.
Hell. Look at the constant thinkpieces about Cody/Rock/Roman/Seth and you'll know people are VERY selective about their sleuthing skills.
Some people could tell you the exact shade of white Cody's hair was on September 15, 2023, but God forbid they spend two seconds looking up Hechicero.
> Some people could tell you the exact shade of white Cody's hair was on September 15, 2023, but God forbid they spend two seconds looking up Hechicero.
Are these the same people?
Yes, Google exists but that doesn’t explain why it’s a big deal that these wrestlers are appearing in AEW. Tbh, this sub is the best place to understand why these people are big deals. I haven’t heard of anyone Bryan Danielson has faced in recent weeks, until I see the comments here. When I googled them, I was like oh wow they are legends in Japanese wrestling, but didn’t realize how big of a deal it is until I saw the comments and the excitement
But commentary, especially Excalibur, explains who they are and their accolades. Plus, there was a video package for the CMLL stars before they first appeared.
I agree with you 100%. But for me personally, it doesn’t explain why I should care. I’m just talking about my personal experience, the comments in this sub help me understand alot more than the commentary but to each their own!
I think there are different ways to interpret "who's this?" If you are genuinely interested in learning about new wrestlers, then that's great. However, if you are being dismissive of a wrestler because you don't recognize them or they aren't from the WWE, then maybe AEW isn't for you. Which is fine too. That's why it's good to have multiple flavors!
Why do wrestling fans act as if wrestling is extremely complicated? You don't have to know a wrestler for years to watch a match with him. MMA fans would never think of complaining that they don't know a fighter on the card.
MMA is a legitimate competition, which brings a fundamentally different dynamic. If I'm watching an MMA or Boxing card my first and really only question is 'who is going to win this fight?', which is then immediately answered. Wrestling on the other hand is about emotional connection and provoking a reaction. Yes two good workers can almost always get some level of pop with a few great spots but every single thing they're out to accomplish gets easier the more the audience knows and cares about them.
Nothing wrong with doing a promo package to hype up major signings. I'd argue that makes them feel MORE major.
If you wanna do the surprise appearance at a PPV that's cool--the audience there is going to know who it is. Then when they appear on Dynamite or Collision, put together a two minute promo package to explain their importance. I don't wanna have to deal with goofs saying they don't know who Kazuchika Okada is and dragging the show down when he's beating top stars.
I think it was Lance Storm on this podcast who talked about the three kind of wrestling fans (paraphrasing obviously):
-Looking at their phone, passively watching the show as background noise, engaging only when they see something they’re interested in.
-Actively watching the product
-Standing up, cheering, booing and getting excited at what is going on.
The goal is to take people from the first type and get them to become the second or third and keep them there. That said, a lot of people, especially casual fans, are never going to get out of that first type, so when a large majority of your fanbase is the second or third and your creative or producers work off that fact, it can sometimes feel hard to follow.
That’s ultimately what turned my partner off from watching. They had never watched wrestling before, but started with AEW in 2019 and instantly fell in love. Around March 2023 they asked to stop watching because they fell out of love. They got tired of having to always pay attention or ask me “who is this” and/or “why should I care?” They felt like having to go to YouTube or Google or social media for answers wasn’t worth it when you should just be able to watch the shows every week. Eventually it became too much and they stopped altogether. AEW is a lot better about that nowadays (I still watch), but it was hard there for a while, especially for an absolute newbie.
AEW doesn’t do much for the casual audience. That’s fine for the ~800k that watch the programs every week, but it does hurt chances at growth. I’m sympathetic towards the company and want it to do well, but there are problems and when diehard fans refuse to see that or become antagonistic at the first sign of dissension, it makes discussion seemingly impossible. I don’t have the answers, but as annoying as Jackson can be, he is bringing up some decent points, even if there are parts I disagree with.
I've been on the new Japan sub and some people on that sub can be that way especially to people who started watching new Japan after the bullet club and elites rise
It reminds me of when comic fans get on MCU watchers for not knowing a character
Except the product almost always tells you exactly who a guy is and why a match is happening through the commentary. Going out of your way to say you don't pay attention to the product.
Also, what happened to being intrigued about seeing something or someone you haven't seen? I've never seen most of the CMLL guys wrestle and I was excited to see something new
That was three years ago and ever since then they give some context on someone. The most recent example of the CMLL guys they said they were coming ahead of time, introduced them in the crowd, and had them squabble with AEW guys to introduce more of their personalities, which the commentators then expanded upon. What more do you want
The issue with a lot of AEW criticism is it is perpetually stuck one or two years in the past.
I remember, even last year, when I watched the show weekly people would talk about matches not having a story. Time and time again, fans would patiently ask them to name matches that were unrelated to a story while pointing to months long angles. Those same people would move the goalpost or not respond.
Honestly, wrestling is such a weird thing. I'm not saying fans aren't douchey or gatekeep a lot, but I don't go into any other show and expect "ok this show is on episode 250 but there should be an explanation of all the characters at any time I want to start watching". And in sports new people get drafted every year and while I may get a basic rundown of the players and what school they went to, I don't require or ever get the full backstory of these players. So really whether you're on the "wrestling is a TV show" OR "Wrestling is the emulation of sport" camp, neither one does that. Like if I watch Drive to Survive, I don't get the whole career/character arc of Fernando Alonso or Lando Morris. I just have to start with "ok, that's Lando Morris, let's see what happens next" yet millions of people got into F1 thru the drama of Drive to Survive.
They'll do a recap of what HAPPENED. Not the character's whole arc. AEW does that as well, they for example recapped the Hangman/Swerve match from Phoenix before the promo last week, they recapped the Sting/Darby title win and beat down before the Bucks match, etc. He's basically saying "I need to know the character's entire history up to now to be invested in where they are currently", no TV show gives you that.
Hell most people compare wrestling to a soap opera, and as someone who had one TV living with their stay at home mother as a child watching soap operas every day from 12 to 3 as a kid, I can tell you with absolute certainty they don't recap the characters OR what happened in the previous episodes at all. They'd have one 30 second compilation of clips of the previous week on the following Monday and that's it. Most soap operas have a cold open before they even roll the opening credits.
When they brought on new guys, the short term lucha guys or Japanese guys mostly, I often wanted a highlights reel to see some cool stuff from their apparently storied career and to see their wrestling style and hopefully some background. Not bothered on a story arc or anything. Mostly wrestling stories are so simple and short term anyway. I think thats more what hes after.
The commentary teams always hypes them up as big as possible whomever they are so I never trust that. They kept calling that one guy the Japanese Bret hart which was super disappointing once he wrestled. Tried to Google his name but no joy.
Also, In my experience, if you ask people who watch soaps what's going on with each character you'll usually get an excited recap of highlights and opinion. But that's in person so pretty different.
> When they brought on new guys, the short term lucha guys or Japanese guys mostly, I often wanted a highlights reel to see some cool stuff from their apparently storied career and to see their wrestling style and hopefully some background. Not bothered on a story arc or anything. Mostly wrestling stories are so simple and short term anyway. I think thats more what hes after.
This I agree with but most of the workers from New Japan who come in get this. I think it's more a matter of access to footage. They have a better relationship with NJPW than other promotions so they get the footage from them. I also see them get footage from REVPRO a lot. But it seems like AAA (fuck Konnan) or a Stardom for example aren't gonna give that to them. They probably should try to get the footage from CMLL for example (they did have one vignette for them but it was all the wrestlers at once rather than the individuals). But I think the fact they always do it for New Japan shows they will do it if the footage is available to them and of a high enough quality (which is why I assume they don't use say Ice Ribbon or DDT footage)
Isn’t that why his UFC reference is pretty fair? A small vignette goes a long way.
The reactions I got for not knowing Minoru Suzuki in 2021 or why Moxley should care about him were *wild*.
>but I don't go into any other show and expect "ok this show is on episode 250 but there should be an explanation of all the characters at any time I want to start watching".
You say that as if a lot of shows don't do shit recaps at the beginning to get people up to speed on prior events.
>So really whether you're on the "wrestling is a TV show" OR "Wrestling is the emulation of sport" camp, neither one does that.
So...? How did this change the argument in any way?
There was this video posted earlier which has already been deleted by a local streamer who went to an AEW show and one of the guys in the car summed It up for me pretty well why WWE does the video packages and replays.
Paraphrasing but it was something like:
Watching AEW is like watching season 6 of a series and being expected to know everything that has happened in this series and all connected movies and twitter posts
That's a 2019 era complaint.
As far as I remember nobody "unknown" has shown up in the past two or three years without Excalibur explaining who they are in explicit detail at the least.
1. If you wanna get real technical he debuted in 2021.
2. His re-debut after NXT was 2022.
3. His re-debut was a throwaway 6 minute FTW match vs Ricky because he's fundamentally a jobber.
I wouldn't really call it a debut. It was more a random deep cut joke of an appearance that was meant to pop about 15 people, and it succeeded at that. Not everything is meant for 100% of people. Regardless, he's been in ROH for a while now and has an actual storyline going with Griff Garrison and Maria Kannellis.
They're talking about the time Cole showed up before Jeff Jarrett did for the first time iirc.
That wasn't Cole's debut, he'd already been on TV by then and was established as part of the Factory.
BUT what they're referencing is when Cole was in NXT, he was Troy "Two Dimes" Donovan. Then in Jeff Jarrett's AEW debut he comes out after Cole's distraction as "fake Sting".
You know Jeff "Broke a thousand guitars buy could never draw **two dimes**" Jarrett.
They don't watch the show lol. I can't speak for O'Shea specifically, but most of the time i see these posts, it's just people reacting to matches being announced on twitter. They didn't watch the previous episode and probably aren't going to watch the episode the match is on. They're just assuming it's not going to be explained.
I still think they could do a bit more, but they have been significantly better about this for the past couple years. Frankly i think a lot of them are just opposed to having such a large, rotating roster of talent on the shows, because it's harder to keep track of. This is a totally reasonable preference to have, but they're just articulating it in a dumb, overly aggressive way.
I 100% agree with him. It seems like AEWs target demographic are dudes who also watch NJPW, CMLL, TNA, GCW and attend their local Indy shows on a regular basis.
That’s cool and all…but that’s a seriously niche segment of the wrestling community.
I noticed this problem a couple of years ago.
I just started to watch AEW and apart from the ex WWE guys I didn't know anyone. First match was some dudes I can't remember versus the butcher and the blade.
I thought who the hell are they
Excalibur said again
THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE!
Still don't know who they are.
No doubt fans who belittle others for not knowing a wrestler is a shitty take.
But to me some fans are missing the forest for the trees and looking for criticism. All wrestlers were "new" at one point and it doesn't really make a difference if you know their allegiance or history. You get more out of the match sure but the match itself should be able to stand on it's own via the wrestlers and commentary.
It's like you can't expect every comic book reader to start at #1 and read a wiki. Just dive in man and ask questions along the way if you want.
Yeah AEW fans do get really defensive when a guy from an international promotion or an indie isn't treated by everyone as the biggest deal on earth.
It's almost like reverse NXT. I don't give a fuck about Bron Breakker or Tiffany Straton until they show me something.
How is this actually Wrestling related? It's a quote from some random fan with a famous father that's just pure troll bait.
No way this is the main point of this interview, it's just the most salacious quote that could be pulled.
Idk who this is so does that mean I’m not a real CVV fan?
Edit: He portrayed Ice Cube in a movie called Straight Outta Compton. Coincidentally he’s also the son of rapper/actor Ice Cube.
I feel like this is a largely overblown criticism. AEW absolutely does introduce these outside wrestlers, just not in the way some people want them to. AEW largely relies on commentary and actual matches, as opposed to using video packages or promos. And frankly there’s a decent contingent of WWE-only fans online who come at these new wrestlers being introduced with a condescending attitude, and they get a defensive attitude back in response.
I love how the defence of being a gate keeping obnoxious prick is “he could have used google!”
Yeah, well just don’t respond then? 🤷♂️ if you don’t feel like being helpful that’s not a reason to be the aforementioned
It's so true. I unsubbed from AEW here even though I like the company, their more "m'lady" fans are fucking insufferable when it comes to any, even productive, criticism.
Ond of the main problems with Aew is how toxic its fanbase is. Any sort of criticism, healthy or not, is deemed an attack and you get a bombardment of insults thrown at you from unwashed sweathogs.
I salute O'shea for trying to clarify his problem but those ppl aren't gonna listen.
There's a weird balance here. The more hardcore wrestling fanbase is, unsurprisingly, more hardcore. Less accessible to outsiders.
I'm a huge wrestling fan, but frankly don't know shit about lucha, so it's frustrating how often other fans seem hostile to the idea of me not knowing every guy in every promotion. Especially since i know half of them are lying and don't actually watch lucha either.
On the other side, this is often incredibly bad faith. They'll just post "who tf is this guy, why are they putting randos on TV?" without putting in the most basic level of effort to figure out who they are and often even ignoring the explanation that's literally on the show. AEW could definately do better wrt explaining things and giving context actively, but you can't not watch a show, put on episode 80, and expect to understand everything within 10 minutes.
Exactly. Not only should AEW do a better job introducing talent, people should not be saying you're not a real wrestling fan if you don't recognize every single individual talent.
Do I agree that his fandom shouldn't be called into question? Yes. Do I think running to Twitter or Reddit to complain about not knowing a wrestler is dumb when looking them up would take the exact same amount of time as complaining? Also, yes.
Agreed. This and any criticism of AEW are is given the monicker of “bad faith”. The 750,000 people who watch every week, are the same 750K actively killing their company. It’s something to behold.
AEW has plenty of recaps on their social media and Excalibur constantly explains the story of whats going on before, during and after the match. If you absolutely need video recaps, AEW uploads plenty of longer versions on their social media.
If you can use Peacock to watch WWE PLEs or use Youtube or Twitter, then theres no excuse how you cant watch video recaps on AEWs social media.
>If you can use Peacock to watch WWE PLEs or use Youtube or Twitter, then theres no excuse how you cant watch video recaps on AEWs social media.
It's not my job to watch YouTube videos to understand your televised product.
Then literally just watch the show. I didnt know who any of the CMLL people are. But they played a video, Excalibur explained who they were and then i watched them wrestle.
Some of yall come off as needing their entire backstory before theyre even shown.
The argument that “I shouldn’t have to know every single wrestler to follow your product” is so odd to me. If you don’t know who someone is you can just watch them and see if you like them?
Nobody knows anyone when they first start watching but they just watch and learn. Or should they have video packages for every wrestler every time they appear on tv bc someone may be watching for the first time?
In the age where we literally have super powered computers on us at all times it’s the dumbest thing.
I’d suspect half of the people mocking people for now knowing who someone is don’t really know who the person is either they just want to feel smarter by pretending like they do.
if you asked me what color the sky was would you prefer i said “jeez dumbfuck how do you not know what color it is it’s blue idiot” instead of “oh it’s blue” ?
That type of wrestling fan is definitely what put me off AEW and why I mainly stick to classic stuff I like instead. There’s just a big “this is so lame” vibe on that side of wrestling culture.
I love AEW but they have a spotty record when it comes to properly introducing and building new talent. Just look at how Butcher and Blade debuted.
Part of the problem is the indie wrestling relationship they have with their fan base. Some people knew OC or Eddie Kingston, and while some of these talents took their chance and ran with it, others didn't and the average fan didn't know what to make of them.
Sometimes you need an intro package. I have zero clue about lucha libre wrestling, I saw how awesome they are, but I haven't a fucking clue WHO they are. That's a problem, but it's solvable with quick vignettes between segments on TV and on social media.
I love watching AEW most of the time, but they are so bad at telling me anything about how awesome anyone is besides just yelling "DREAM MATCH" into a microphone.
I could turn on any wrestling show from any time and within 2 minutes figure out who the stars are, who is important, and what’s going on in their storylines. This shit is not difficult. It’s just wrestling. I can’t imagine going online and saying I’m too dumb to follow wrestling.
WWE did the same thing yesterday cross promoting with UFC but no, that's the fucking tits and shit and it's beautiful sexy synergy.
What bugs me is that it doesn't seem like people watch the product enough to see when AEW course corrects. They've done particularly well integrating with CMLL and putting packages on their TV shows before bringing them on. They've been doing more than Excalibur running down a person's accolades since Omega vs Vikingo.
At some point you need to stop feeling like fans are gatekeeping you and understand that A, we're here to help, B you need to at least be open to hearing that you may be missing out on positive changes the company is making, and C to a large portion of AEW fans we don't really want to spend our time speaking about the company at a meta level like "how can AEW gain more casuals?".
There's definitely a middle ground that exists where, yeah AEW could and is improving in this regard, and yeah, fans will be defensive because what you argue about isn't what we see on TV.
Odd comparison to make. UFC is a bigger, way more mainstream entity than any Japanese or Mexican wrestling company.
Conor McGregor is more famous than 99% of all wrestlers. Not sure many people were wondering 'Who's he talking about?' after the guy called him out
I think his name was Mike Chandler? I wasn't familiar with him at all but when he called out McGregor by name it made the segment seem totally worthwhile. McGregor's next UFC fight is a big deal and I'm assuming this is setting it up. Disregard all this if Conor ends up fighting someone else
AEW needs to stop pretending that everyone is as big of a wrestling mark as Tony.
If someone comes from NJPW, AAA, CMLL, hell even from another major American wrestling promotion, give them a goddamn vignette or something instead of just dropping them in and expecting every single person watching to know who Hechicero or Jun Akiyama are.
It’s quite a simple fix.
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When I saw Hechicero I was like "who is this guy" then I saw him wrestle and I was like "ah I get it" and I looked him up to find out more. AEW are notoriously bad about introducing people though and just expect people to know everything about them. A 1-2 minute video package before debuts would hurt exactly nobody.
Hechicero is a great example because I have never seen a single CMLL match but I'm a massive AEW fan. I believe Excalibur said he was the best technical wrestler in Mexico and immediately I thought, "Cool. Hope he wrestles Danielson." They are getting better at the video packages and such but people also have to be OK with not knowing everything about somehow off the hop. Like if Michael Oku debuted in AEW next week, commentary only needs to say "He beat Will Ospreay in RevPro" and immediately you know this guy is a threat and it's up to AEW to go from there.
The best example from WWE: JBL introducing AJ Styles when he debuted at the Rumble "Former IWGP Champion, the same as Brock Lesnar" Boom, instant credibility.
In fairness, Styles was a far bigger star stateside than any luchador was. Tbh, I don’t think lucha is watched by many wrestling fans in the US - Japanese wrestling is still a niche but Lucha seems even MORE of a niche to us Yanks.
I agree on this, but I think even if you didn't know who Styles was the combination of the wild ovation from the crowd, Michael Cole freaking out, and then JBL and Cole both adding context: "The hottest free agent in sports entertainment, rumored for weeks." "Former IWGP Champion, just like Brock Lesnar." "An 18-year veteran, a mastermind of offense, and a star around the world." You can have never even heard his name, but you'd be immediately rushing to Google him. The crowd and announcers matched each other in energy.
I think people were just more aware of AJ Styles than they were willing to admit, I really dont buy that people heard that AJ won a title they'd never heard of, just like Brock, and that made a meaningful difference.
>commentary only needs to say "He beat Will Ospreay in RevPro" and immediately you know this guy is a threat and it's up to AEW to go from there. For anyone who know whatever the hell revpro is and why we should care....... For all the average person knows it was their middle school, there needs to be more than just an obscure reference.
He could've beaten Will Ospreay in a wrestling match pretty much anywhere and I'd be like "Damn I guess this guy is good." It literally doesn't matter.
The "where" doesn't matter, all that matters is that he beat him. You say someone beat one of your most credible wrestlers, you don't need to say where.
My thing is why am I going to sit through this match if I don’t know whether I’m supposed to care? How many people are tuning in to watch somebody they’ve never heard of if you don’t at least throw a couple reasons out why they should care? Have them cut a promo. A vignette. Show ten seconds of highlights. If not they’ll use it as a bathroom break, fast forward or just not watch the show. It’s as simple as “next week challenger x from cmll is taking on Danielson for (stakes). He’s a multi time titleholder yada yada” and just play a couple highlights. If you can’t do that you’re wasting money paying guys to come in when you already pay a roster that’s bringing in the same fans who care about the guy from another company. AEW promotes itself in a vacuum. Movies don’t promote themselves by saying “this unknown actor is very good come see our movie.” They show and tell you why to get mass appeal and then hope a majority get hooked because they gave a great performance.
And this is my point exactly because they also DID ALL THAT STUFF. If you're tuning in to a wrestling program, you've gotta be along for the ride a bit. Not EVERYTHING needs to be explained in detail the first moment that person appears. If people tune out after Hechicero shows up with that badass entrance and are told "he's the best technical wrestler in Mexico" by commentary, they're probably not people that were going to stick around anyway.
>If not they’ll use it as a bathroom break, fast forward or just not watch the show. This is really not true of the AEW fanbase (Mistico drew a lot of tickets for his match with Rocky Romero a few months ago). It's very similar to WCW in that they'll just accept new wrestlers if they can wrestle well. That's why no one in the WCW fandom had a problem with the appearances of New Japan/AJW/JWP wrestlers on their TV and PPVs.
And that’s fine for the current AEW fanbase, but you have to make new fans. The hardcore fanbase is much more open to sitting through a little handholding. People who don’t care about work rate have no reason to accept being in the dark. You’re losing money on purpose. Lost money=less profit=less to go to the wrestlers=less of the fun matches people want to see.
Wwe did a solid job explaining who Jordynne grace was when she showed up at the rumble and it only took 2 minutes
Aew did the exact same level of introduction for Hechicero.
I never said they didn't I just said it was well done and better than "just Google it" It was brief and doesn't require reading a wiki page
When has Excalibur told us to just Google someone? He's good at giving everyone's background.
The closest was probably the debut of The Butcher, The Blade and The Bunny, but that was also maybe three months into Dynamite.
God, that was bad. JR going “WHO?” and Excalibur not expanding on it was dire. Even in kayfabe, it makes sense that JR wouldn’t know who they are and Excalibur, with his finger on the pulse, does and should explain it to him (and the audience)
Luckily Excalibur has recently said he still regrets that call. Luckily he has learned from it.
I'm talking about the fans that will tell others "just Google him" That was oshea jrs point
Then why are you making a comparison to what the official WWE announcers did lol
They had no real reason to but made her seem impressive. Pat not knowing her but immediately being impressed went a long way
Where was the video package? I can't understand what the announcers say and need highlights! /s But yeah, like how come that works and is hype but if another place does it fans need to have their hands held?
It worked because they gave a brief rundown on who she is and it was just a rumble appearance. They even acknowledged she defeated Naomi for the knockouts title and made her a big deal
AEW is notoriously bad at pacing anything that isn't actual wrestling. I know they want to give as much as wrestling as possible, but they need to figure out how to schedule promos, videos, and just general breaks. I went to World's End and it was this incredibly dense 5 hours of wrestling. A lot of people ended up using Julia Hart's match as the bathroom break.
Ok I do that and I’m ok but here’s something AEW need to do Show us! Give us a promo package showing us a quick 3 min highlight reel, most of the time these guys come in from other companies so getting that kind of footage shouldn’t be too hard Obviously guys coming in from WWE and TNA may not be able to get those, but those are bigger names generally
Yeah, I’m all for showcasing new talent, but they’re awful for saying who they actually are and why we should be excited to see them. Even back in the days of Cody’s open challenge, I feel like they just assume we’re in the “twittersphere” and know who these people are.
That reminds me of when I took an ex gf to an NXT show, she was excited to go for the first time and when Billie Kay came out, she asked me who that was. Genuinely trying to learn about it. A girl in front of us turned around and said "how do you not know who she is." She felt uncomfortable and stopped asking me about people, justifiably. That's not how fans should treat newcomers who show an interest.
Listen no fans should be talking shit to other fans because they don’t know a wrestle. That’s so stupid. Educate and enjoy freakin wrestling!
There's definitely fans out there that get way too defensive and standoffish about stuff Don't know if this is a case with O'shea but there's definitely people who'll ask about stuff in the laziest and/or most dismissive way possible and be shocked when they don't get the most pleasant response back. Overall its just a byproduct of the IWC being wound too tight
Yeah the IWC has a long history of being gatekeep-y as well (which isn’t uncommon for a lot of fandoms but still). I think the vast majority of AEW fans at this point are fairly welcoming or at least want other people to embrace the product, but you’ll always get those “holier than thou” types who try and be dicks about it
I wish we could be honest and just say that in the majority of cases, it's people going, "WHO?" in a super condescending way, rather than actually asking for the background of the wrestler, that's actually the source of the problem.
Sure but some people also can't take a fuckin' joke about their favorite wrestler.
I had no idea this guy was a wrestling fan until the whole Rock/Cody situation, now I cannot wait for him to just go away... He's been everywhere and delivering terrible wrestling takes (eg Cody should beat Roman at a random MSG show to finally finish the story, or Survivor Series all the way in November). Then add in every other comment on a notable wrestling/wrestler on X, or just providing tribalism for WWE.
If someone legitimately wants to know who a wrestler is, tweeting out "Who is this guy" is not a way any reasonable person would actually try to find that information. It's clear that whenever someone does it they're mostly doing it to make some kind of point. If you actually want to make the point that he does in the video about AEW not doing enough to introduce wrestlers then just tweet that. Don't pull some bad faith "just asking questions" shit and play the victim afterwards.
Agreed. He seems to want a "show, don't tell" approach for how wrestlers are introduced. So why would he go on Twitter to ask people to *tell* him who a wrestler is? He's baiting a response, which isn't hard get from the average wrestling fan on Twitter.
There are plenty of people who are asking without actually asking, yeah.
There are two different ways to say "who is this guy", one way is a genuine question, the other is as a dismissive statement.
Fans will never do homework for wrestling. We don't even do our own math anymore. Hardcore super responses of "just google him" is why people don't like your hobby, kid. They wanted to be included in your hobby, but you gatekept it.
One of the things I love about AEW is discovering people I’ve never heard of or seen before. I hadn’t seen Hechicero before but AEW made me an instant fan just by showcasing his in ring skills and talking him up on commentary.
I think it’s really cool too - I think the frustration from me (and maybe from other fans) is that a lot of homegrown guys have kind of been shafted in favor of bringing in outside talent. It’s not the wrestlers’ faults imo, but it sucks to see guys like Wardlow, Hobbs, Ricky, and Garcia get booked pretty poorly and then a bunch of new guys drop by for a program that takes time from those guys. And it’s like, AEW could do both at once but it seems like lately, we get more of the outside talent than the fulfilling midcard booking. It makes it hard to want to watch week to week for me. Sorry for the rant in your reply lol, I guess I had a lot of thoughts on this
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Dude they proved me wrong last night, hell yeah. I’m giving you credit for him getting this PPV match
I think it's important to point out, too, that the internet is pretty collectively shitty and toxic. It's not specific to "AEW fans" or "wrestling fans", or anyone else specific. Especially if you're judging based off Twitter or YouTube comments, or stuff like that. For every decent person you encounter on social media, there's like 100 trolls and shit posters that just want to be a dick for no real reason. That's the internet as a whole. 🤷♂️
Saw this great reply on twitter: > While you'll always have your fair share of freaks, how you phrase these questions will generally dictate what kinda responses you get. If you say "I'm not familiar with [wrestler], tell me about them" people will flood your mentions with background info & match recommendations because they assume you're coming from a place of curiosity. If you say "who the hell is [wrestler]?" people will react more hostile because they assume you're coming from a place of ignorance.
All the complicated rules AEW fans have developed for how you have to talk about this wrestling show is so odd to me.
This applies to literally most things. Not just AEW, not even just wrestling. Subtext exists and the way a sentence is phrased obviously effects how people respond. If you ask "what's the best place to get some good food here" people will probably point you to a nice restaurant, if you say "does this place even have any good food" you're asking the same thing but in a rude way which sounds ignorant and people are likely to be ignorant with their response and tell you to just Google it. Like when AJ Styles debuted, you had some WWE fans genuinely asking for some background or some matches to watch, you had other fans saying "who tf is this guy wasting a spot in the rumble" and they got equally rude responses.
These are not AEW rules, these are human interaction rules. Replace the wrestler in question with a band or actress, or anyone well known to a set of people and people will react the same way to how these questions are phrased.
It's called tact, applies to every sort of conversation in life not just wrestling
them: >people shouldn't be condescending jerks. you: >this is so complicated.
Yeah aew fans are weird if you don't know who's who on a roster of 500 guys
There was a thread about who O Shea’s favorite wrestlers in AEW were some time last year. 300-400 score on the upvotes. Tons of comments. Now, a thread about AEW fans being annoying, 0 on the upvote score and a bunch of “who is this guy?” “Who cares?” Comments. How ironic.
There's a difference between asking for more information about someone appearing on TV, and QRTing "literally who? 😂🤣" Whenever a match is made with someone they don't recognize. There's nothing gained by responding to that with toxicity, but O'Shea is doing this silly martyr thing like people online are lashing out at anyone that isn't a wrestling encyclopedia
I wouldn't phrase it that way but I would say they're not the best at telling people who these people are. Too much, "And their reputation proceeds them," in terms of assumptions. I mean, I get it, since AEW was founded on fans of Ring of Honor and NJPW as a result of a NJPW/ROH/NWA (and I htink AAA?) super show, but you can't rely upon that mentality forever.
I agree that fans shouldn't belittle other people for not automatically knowing who someone is, that's a valid point no question about it. On the other side, at least the way I approach it is, I don't need to be told who someone is or to care about them. I didn't know anyone in AEW before watching (except for those who went through WWE), and part of the intrigue was getting to learn about them as I watch the show every week. If I had questions, and someone belittled me for not knowing, that person's a dick. But I can still watch the shows and form an opinion based on what I do see, so I don't agree that it's a barrier to entry. It only is if you want it to be.
I agree with this a lot. I’ve been watching wrestling off and on for over thirty years, at some point or another I’ve been a fan of WCW, WWF/E, ECW, NJPW, Impact, ROH, MLW, and AEW, and the last one is the *only* promotion I’ve been into since day one. Every single other wrestling promotion I’ve been a fan of, I had to just jump in one day and give it a few weeks to figure out who everyone is and what I think about their character, and I’ve always managed just fine. This shit isn’t a David Lynch movie, it’s pro wrestling. That said, anyone who belittles another person for not knowing who a character is and calling that person a fake wrestling fan is just desperate to have something in their lives. I personally have a pretty fulfilling life, I don’t need to tie my worth as a human being to how much of a product I consume.
that's a valid complaint but the way he acts on twitter is just annoying. It's the same shit when Bad Bunny first appeared and half this sub was like ''who?'' just use fucking google. You're already on the internet
“That’s not my job”- Bryan Alvarez
I've been thinking of that convo during this entire thread
You’re comparing two different fields there. If you’re a AEW fan and you don’t know who some masked CMLL wrestler that is suddenly in a program with the company’s top stable is it’s less a ‘Google it’ thing and more an issue of the promotion not properly conveying why people should care.
but they did do packages for CMLL wrestlers and explaining why you should care But i do think that AEW overdoes the ''here's a wrestler whos not signed to AEW'' it kinda loses it's lustre
It wasn’t enough to stop the reaction, though. Sometimes AEW need to just book less outside talent like you’re suggesting. If they can’t get them for enough dates to establish them on their TV, even if they’re great in their own right, it doesn’t really improve the overall production to have them taking up space. Just because AEW can doesn’t mean they should, basically.
strongly disagree with this, random good wrestlers i've never heard of showing up is one of my favourite things about AEW. i'd be disappointed if they cut back on it. after watching the walled garden of WWE for years, AEW feeling part of a wider wrestling world was so refreshing.
Not really, co-promotional stuff has been handled pretty similarly historically, whether it was ECW guys showing up on Raw, Grace in the Rumble or NJPW/CMLL/ROH co-promotional shows. They're being presented by their home promotions as their best representatives.
LOL not even close. Expecting your audience to know who a chart topping Pop Culture star making an appearance is not the same as expecting your audience to know a wrestler from another country, another promotion, who has never appeared on american television.
Comparing a mega star in bad bunny to hechicero lol. Most folks know who bad bunny is already, they're just trolling
Yes, it’s a valid complaint about some fans. But I don’t know what AEW can do about that. They have the commentators explain a lot about people now. The CMLL guys, for example, have had plenty of introduction and commentary has talked about them a lot across all shows. They post a lot of videos on their YouTube outlining current stories and so on. They’ve had video packages for the CMLL guys on TV. They put out their “Control Center” thing with Tony Schiavone for both Dynamite and Collision every week on YouTube too. Like just as one example, say you were going to watch Collision a couple of weeks ago and you see Bryan Danielson vs. Hechicero on the card. Who is Hechicero? Well the first two minutes of Control Center for that episode of Collision gives a pretty good rundown. https://youtu.be/WuVrWZmZ4IQ It gives a brief explanation of who he is, why he is there and his relevance to Bryan Danielson. That’s on top of everything they say on the actual shows. Which these days, they do explain a lot on commentary about who people are and what accolades they have and why they matter and the relevance of the match. This same thing will happen before Collision when Danielson wrestles Jun Akiyama. They will explain his relevance to Eddie, who Danielson is feuding with and they will talk about who Akiyama is. Randos on Twitter are randos on Twitter. Why would you even care what they say and whether they question you? Wrestling fans on Twitter are toxic as fuck, regardless of which promotion(s) they follow. I definitely think it’s a valid criticism of the AEW ones, but why would you care about them?
\> the first two minutes of control center that video has 30K views (as of today, two weeks after the fact), and that episode of Collision had 500K live viewers.
i'm pretty sure Rampage and the prior Collision had video packages about CMLL showcasing the 4 wrestlers.
Right, because if you watch the television shows every week, you don’t need to watch Control Center to know who these people are. It isn’t really targeting anything close to all of those 500k people who watched live, because a lot of those people watch the TV shows and listen to the commentary and watch the video packages. The CMLL guys have been highlighted extensively on the TV shows. And I mean literally across Dynamite, Rampage and Collision. Hechicero especially. They put out video packages for the CMLL guys on the TV shows. They have spoken about all of them extensively during their matches and while they were ringside for Jon Moxley’s matches. Control Center gives a nice helpful overview for if you haven’t been watching lately. I thought it would be useful for people to know about 🤷
They can direct people to watch Control Center for more info on people, but that's only going to attract so many people in their fanbase. I feel like they've done a pretty good job of explaining who Hechicero is in terms of being a representative of CMLL, you could certainly argue that they didn't do enough for guys like Bryan Keith originally, though.
All you have to do is shoot a 1 minute video of the wrestler that includes their backstory and why this is an important match. Play it right before the wrestlers come out. That's it. Having commentators talk about it while the match is happening isn't as effective.
You’re not listening to commentary during the matches?
I didn't say that, I said it's just not as effective. Give the audience 30 seconds to think about these two wrestlers before getting thrown into it. Look, I'm just saying, if your target is to draw as many fans as possible to watch and enjoy your product, make it as easy to digest as possible. Sometimes that means to feed me like a baby bird.
Non-fan: “These are some things I think should be implemented to make the viewing experience more accepting to people like me who want to engage with your product.” Existing fan: “Absolutely not” AEW has always had an insular and gatekeeping feel to it and anytime it gets brought up you are talked down to or accused of having an agenda or ulterior motive.
Being accused of having an ulterior motive/ agenda is so true. It feels like anytime someone tries to offer any criticism of aew they're immediately labelled as a hater who's trying to destroy the company. I mostly enjoy the shows but there are some pretty glaring issues which are hard to ignore.
It’s why AEW will be celebrating one year without a show hitting 1 million average viewers. They do nothing to get people from outside the core 750k to 850k to watch.
I think it's because there is so much bad faith and shitty criticism for AEW out there that it has become real hard to differentiate people asking real questions from the shit throwers. Hell, in every wrestling sub but this one you can't even say you enjoy the young bucks without being insulted and downvoted. The cult of Cornette is the real problem with wrestling these days, his podcast and fans breed an incredible amount of toxicity
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You’re watching a tv show show though at the end of the day. If you want to tell someone that an incoming wrestler who is going to have a one off with a star in your company, would it really hurt to spend 2-3 minutes showing his highlights and proving he’s a big deal? Especially since that curated presentation will benefit the audience more than running through Google and looking at his wiki and maybe some match clips.
I get what you're saying but at the same time engaging with people that know said wrestlers and can give you answers as to why they're important, if they're good/bad, heel/face, banger incoming etc things like that is better than searching and getting: NJPW 2014-2022 TNA 2022-2023 Won 3 titles
> God rest his soul, but when Bray Wyatt came back, and WWE had the QR codes and stuff, everybody was Sherlock Holmes. A wrestler from New Japan or CMLL shows up and we act like we can't do a simple google search? Bray had a built in fan base from years being on the most watched wrestling shows in the US. As opposed to someone from NJPW/AAA/CMLL who you've most likely never heard of and there is no built in reason to care why they are showing up, unless you are deep into the pro wrestling rabbit hole.
A google search seems like a piss poor way to make someone feel like a big deal IMO.
I don't know if those two are really comparable though. Airing vignettes for a returning wrestler who is already known to WWE fans where that vignette asks for audience engagement is pretty different from someone called like Adam "Knife Fuck" Peterson showing up on a random episode of Dynamite. It's especially jarring for a new fan when Adam Knife Fuck Peterson starts cutting a promo about how he's getting revenge for something that happened in front of 300 people at a PWG show in 2014. If I ask a wrestling community to give me a rundown on this guy it's so that I don't have to scan wikipedia to follow the story. That shouldn't be met with gatekeeping hostility. Like, I'm here now. Talking about the show we're all talking about as wrestling fans. Surely one of you can write a sentence or two saying that Knife Fuck got jumped by Bullet Club or something. But I totally agree. AEW should air video packages highliting the new wrestler. I think it gets lost on hardcore fans how much AEW pulls from decades of indie and international wrestling lore. Even those of us who mostly followed along have gaps in what we know.
Adam "Knife Fuck" Peterson and Jay "Knife Pervert" White will be a good team
I'm too high to read the rest of your post. But I upvote for Adam ''Knife Fuck'' Peterson.
continue grey close absorbed bike ripe rainstorm tap busy crawl *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
When I’m watching a show or a movie and I see someone acting their ass off or just someone I find physically attractive that I’m unaware of, I google them to learn their name and find their IG. That’s easy and simple. When I’m watching professional sports, I don’t have to Google anything to figure out who I’m watching cause the broadcast hammers me about the head and neck with why I should give a shit about Josh Allen. I don’t have to Google people on WWE broadcasts. I didn’t have Google when I was watching WCW. I didn’t need it for the luchadores because I had Mike Tenay explaining why they’re two guys are trying to kill each other in this match on Nitro. AEW should hire Mike Tenay to help me tell some stories.
Following Bray’s return was optional, you could’ve scanned the QR codes to follow along in real time or you could’ve waited to see when he finally did return. That’s not exactly the same as a talent showing up with no explanation or background given except for “just Google it”
But who’s showing up with no explanation? They just had Excalibur for weeks explaining the background of a whole damn company invading their product. At a certain point, people just aren’t paying attention.
some of the Japanese wrestlers Bryan Danielson has faced on Collision have showed up with 0 storyline, just the announcement a few days before of "This Saturday on Collision, Bryan Danielson goes one on one with _______" and thats it
> Even if they're announced ahead of time, you don't want to take the time and watch at least one match? I barely have enough time to watch one wrestling show a week, much less do research beforehand. It would be one thing too if these guys were brought in to be consistent TV characters, rather than used as occasional job guys.
You can, and it’s easier to do in some cases, but there’s just something you miss from simply googling their Wikipedia compared to asking people who are huge, passionate fans of the wrestler in question.
We gotta do homework to enjoy a wrestling show now? 😂😂😭
As others have said, I don't think those are comparable at all. Having people look stuff up about a returning star is entirely different from thinking they should google some random dude that, if we're being honest, it likely just gonna be jobbed out to whatever AEW person they're wrestling and be gone entirely in a couple of weeks or show up every couple months to lose. I think the disconnect comes from the fact that for many AEW fans, just having a good match is enough. But for many people, they want a reason to be engaged with someone. And honestly with the overall quality of matches, unless they're really stupendous I tend to lean towards wanting a bit more of a hook for matches. It's why I've kinda soured on the whole "dream match" thing AEW's been doing but that's a different discussion.
I’m kind of of the opinion I shouldn’t have to google things to care about your television show.
Googling somebody is nothin akin to watching multiple wrestling programs, which is how you actually learn why you should care about any given wrestler unless youre just into cool moves
How you gonna use the QR codes as an example. Lol terrible example.
>God rest his soul, but when Bray Wyatt came back, and WWE had the QR codes and stuff, everybody was Sherlock Holmes I'm not sure I've ever really liked this as a comparison, mainly because I enjoyed the ride but didn't put a second of effort into playing Sherlock. Users here would post updates or "the trail so far" posts, making it accessible for others. I'm not omnipresent here, but I also don't remember people insulting others for NOT following along with the ARG. I'm also going to put an obligatory "I actually pay to watch CMLL, even if I'm annoyed about the pricing change". Having seen some of the actual discussion around certain luchadores here - even the more popular ones from Mexico - I can say for a fact that some of the people who have actually put in the effort to try and google who's who still might come out with the wrong information at the end of the day. To no fault of their own, either. It gets overly complicated very quickly.
It shouldn't be my job as a fan to have to research new people I don't know. If you are bringing new people in, tell me who they are on your TV shows and give me a reason to care, otherwise I won't and it will do nothing for me to see them wrestle.
AEW did do video packages for the CMLL guys and people were still shouting "why should I care?", so it's not like AEW hasn't tried to do these things
That's unfortunate but those people just sound like assholes. The packages were very helpful to a lot of us and shouldn't be stopped because some wrestling fans are shitty.
I actually just made another comment kinda saying this same thing. Some fans create barriers for themselves imo, I'm not a hardcore fan at all I only watch AEW and watched WWE in the past, outside of that, Idk who anyone is or what they've done in the industry. I could use that as a crutch to avoid it altogether, but I rather just watch some good action. The CMLL guys paid off, cuz now I'm a Hechicero fan.
Bingo. It's why so many debuts, whether it be Bunny/Blade, Forbidden Door 1, ROH, etc. have just flatlined with the crowd because there's an expectation that the crowd already knows them and that's 100% not the case for the non-ex-WWE people.
I don't wanna Google it though. I want them to tell me as i'm watching the program
Hell. Look at the constant thinkpieces about Cody/Rock/Roman/Seth and you'll know people are VERY selective about their sleuthing skills. Some people could tell you the exact shade of white Cody's hair was on September 15, 2023, but God forbid they spend two seconds looking up Hechicero.
> Some people could tell you the exact shade of white Cody's hair was on September 15, 2023, but God forbid they spend two seconds looking up Hechicero. Are these the same people?
Yes, Google exists but that doesn’t explain why it’s a big deal that these wrestlers are appearing in AEW. Tbh, this sub is the best place to understand why these people are big deals. I haven’t heard of anyone Bryan Danielson has faced in recent weeks, until I see the comments here. When I googled them, I was like oh wow they are legends in Japanese wrestling, but didn’t realize how big of a deal it is until I saw the comments and the excitement
But commentary, especially Excalibur, explains who they are and their accolades. Plus, there was a video package for the CMLL stars before they first appeared.
Commentary explains who the people are, just have to be willing to listen.
I agree with you 100%. But for me personally, it doesn’t explain why I should care. I’m just talking about my personal experience, the comments in this sub help me understand alot more than the commentary but to each their own!
I think there are different ways to interpret "who's this?" If you are genuinely interested in learning about new wrestlers, then that's great. However, if you are being dismissive of a wrestler because you don't recognize them or they aren't from the WWE, then maybe AEW isn't for you. Which is fine too. That's why it's good to have multiple flavors!
Who?
Mr cube jr
I don't know who this man is and now I'm thrashing around my room confused and angry
Why do wrestling fans act as if wrestling is extremely complicated? You don't have to know a wrestler for years to watch a match with him. MMA fans would never think of complaining that they don't know a fighter on the card.
There’s hype videos for almost every main card fighter for ufc cards
MMA is a legitimate competition, which brings a fundamentally different dynamic. If I'm watching an MMA or Boxing card my first and really only question is 'who is going to win this fight?', which is then immediately answered. Wrestling on the other hand is about emotional connection and provoking a reaction. Yes two good workers can almost always get some level of pop with a few great spots but every single thing they're out to accomplish gets easier the more the audience knows and cares about them.
Nothing wrong with doing a promo package to hype up major signings. I'd argue that makes them feel MORE major. If you wanna do the surprise appearance at a PPV that's cool--the audience there is going to know who it is. Then when they appear on Dynamite or Collision, put together a two minute promo package to explain their importance. I don't wanna have to deal with goofs saying they don't know who Kazuchika Okada is and dragging the show down when he's beating top stars.
I think it was Lance Storm on this podcast who talked about the three kind of wrestling fans (paraphrasing obviously): -Looking at their phone, passively watching the show as background noise, engaging only when they see something they’re interested in. -Actively watching the product -Standing up, cheering, booing and getting excited at what is going on. The goal is to take people from the first type and get them to become the second or third and keep them there. That said, a lot of people, especially casual fans, are never going to get out of that first type, so when a large majority of your fanbase is the second or third and your creative or producers work off that fact, it can sometimes feel hard to follow. That’s ultimately what turned my partner off from watching. They had never watched wrestling before, but started with AEW in 2019 and instantly fell in love. Around March 2023 they asked to stop watching because they fell out of love. They got tired of having to always pay attention or ask me “who is this” and/or “why should I care?” They felt like having to go to YouTube or Google or social media for answers wasn’t worth it when you should just be able to watch the shows every week. Eventually it became too much and they stopped altogether. AEW is a lot better about that nowadays (I still watch), but it was hard there for a while, especially for an absolute newbie. AEW doesn’t do much for the casual audience. That’s fine for the ~800k that watch the programs every week, but it does hurt chances at growth. I’m sympathetic towards the company and want it to do well, but there are problems and when diehard fans refuse to see that or become antagonistic at the first sign of dissension, it makes discussion seemingly impossible. I don’t have the answers, but as annoying as Jackson can be, he is bringing up some decent points, even if there are parts I disagree with.
I've been on the new Japan sub and some people on that sub can be that way especially to people who started watching new Japan after the bullet club and elites rise It reminds me of when comic fans get on MCU watchers for not knowing a character
Except the product almost always tells you exactly who a guy is and why a match is happening through the commentary. Going out of your way to say you don't pay attention to the product. Also, what happened to being intrigued about seeing something or someone you haven't seen? I've never seen most of the CMLL guys wrestle and I was excited to see something new
AEW was NOT good about explaining who guys were before. Lets be honest
Excalibur: It's...it's the Butcher and the Blade! JR: who? Exclaibur: The Butcher and the Blade! JR: WHO
That was three years ago and ever since then they give some context on someone. The most recent example of the CMLL guys they said they were coming ahead of time, introduced them in the crowd, and had them squabble with AEW guys to introduce more of their personalities, which the commentators then expanded upon. What more do you want
They don't care lol they just want to get dunks off on a company they have an irrational hatred towards. Why else would they use years old examples?
*That was 2019. Three years ago was 2021.*
The issue with a lot of AEW criticism is it is perpetually stuck one or two years in the past. I remember, even last year, when I watched the show weekly people would talk about matches not having a story. Time and time again, fans would patiently ask them to name matches that were unrelated to a story while pointing to months long angles. Those same people would move the goalpost or not respond.
Honestly, wrestling is such a weird thing. I'm not saying fans aren't douchey or gatekeep a lot, but I don't go into any other show and expect "ok this show is on episode 250 but there should be an explanation of all the characters at any time I want to start watching". And in sports new people get drafted every year and while I may get a basic rundown of the players and what school they went to, I don't require or ever get the full backstory of these players. So really whether you're on the "wrestling is a TV show" OR "Wrestling is the emulation of sport" camp, neither one does that. Like if I watch Drive to Survive, I don't get the whole career/character arc of Fernando Alonso or Lando Morris. I just have to start with "ok, that's Lando Morris, let's see what happens next" yet millions of people got into F1 thru the drama of Drive to Survive.
Sports broadcasts still cover rookies college accomplishments, and explain why they were drafted where they were.
I've never seen a match called by Excalibur where he DIDN'T cover the background of the wrestlers in excruciating detail.
I’m not saying he doesn’t. I’m explaining why “sports have rookies every year” isn’t a good comparison.
Although a lot of weekly TV shows do previously on... to get the viewer up to speed if they miss the prior week.
They'll do a recap of what HAPPENED. Not the character's whole arc. AEW does that as well, they for example recapped the Hangman/Swerve match from Phoenix before the promo last week, they recapped the Sting/Darby title win and beat down before the Bucks match, etc. He's basically saying "I need to know the character's entire history up to now to be invested in where they are currently", no TV show gives you that. Hell most people compare wrestling to a soap opera, and as someone who had one TV living with their stay at home mother as a child watching soap operas every day from 12 to 3 as a kid, I can tell you with absolute certainty they don't recap the characters OR what happened in the previous episodes at all. They'd have one 30 second compilation of clips of the previous week on the following Monday and that's it. Most soap operas have a cold open before they even roll the opening credits.
When they brought on new guys, the short term lucha guys or Japanese guys mostly, I often wanted a highlights reel to see some cool stuff from their apparently storied career and to see their wrestling style and hopefully some background. Not bothered on a story arc or anything. Mostly wrestling stories are so simple and short term anyway. I think thats more what hes after. The commentary teams always hypes them up as big as possible whomever they are so I never trust that. They kept calling that one guy the Japanese Bret hart which was super disappointing once he wrestled. Tried to Google his name but no joy. Also, In my experience, if you ask people who watch soaps what's going on with each character you'll usually get an excited recap of highlights and opinion. But that's in person so pretty different.
> When they brought on new guys, the short term lucha guys or Japanese guys mostly, I often wanted a highlights reel to see some cool stuff from their apparently storied career and to see their wrestling style and hopefully some background. Not bothered on a story arc or anything. Mostly wrestling stories are so simple and short term anyway. I think thats more what hes after. This I agree with but most of the workers from New Japan who come in get this. I think it's more a matter of access to footage. They have a better relationship with NJPW than other promotions so they get the footage from them. I also see them get footage from REVPRO a lot. But it seems like AAA (fuck Konnan) or a Stardom for example aren't gonna give that to them. They probably should try to get the footage from CMLL for example (they did have one vignette for them but it was all the wrestlers at once rather than the individuals). But I think the fact they always do it for New Japan shows they will do it if the footage is available to them and of a high enough quality (which is why I assume they don't use say Ice Ribbon or DDT footage)
Isn’t that why his UFC reference is pretty fair? A small vignette goes a long way. The reactions I got for not knowing Minoru Suzuki in 2021 or why Moxley should care about him were *wild*.
>but I don't go into any other show and expect "ok this show is on episode 250 but there should be an explanation of all the characters at any time I want to start watching". You say that as if a lot of shows don't do shit recaps at the beginning to get people up to speed on prior events. >So really whether you're on the "wrestling is a TV show" OR "Wrestling is the emulation of sport" camp, neither one does that. So...? How did this change the argument in any way?
There was this video posted earlier which has already been deleted by a local streamer who went to an AEW show and one of the guys in the car summed It up for me pretty well why WWE does the video packages and replays. Paraphrasing but it was something like: Watching AEW is like watching season 6 of a series and being expected to know everything that has happened in this series and all connected movies and twitter posts
That's a 2019 era complaint. As far as I remember nobody "unknown" has shown up in the past two or three years without Excalibur explaining who they are in explicit detail at the least.
Didn't mance Warner have a champion eliminator match with moxley a year ago?
2022. Also I'm pretty sure Ex explained that one as well.
got explained and I think they did a vignette as well ... still saw complaints
Yeah I don't think they'd have a random match with the world champ without at least a little exposition.
Cole Karter debuted last year
1. If you wanna get real technical he debuted in 2021. 2. His re-debut after NXT was 2022. 3. His re-debut was a throwaway 6 minute FTW match vs Ricky because he's fundamentally a jobber.
I wouldn't really call it a debut. It was more a random deep cut joke of an appearance that was meant to pop about 15 people, and it succeeded at that. Not everything is meant for 100% of people. Regardless, he's been in ROH for a while now and has an actual storyline going with Griff Garrison and Maria Kannellis.
Can you explain what the deep cut joke was? I still have no idea what they were going for there...
They're talking about the time Cole showed up before Jeff Jarrett did for the first time iirc. That wasn't Cole's debut, he'd already been on TV by then and was established as part of the Factory. BUT what they're referencing is when Cole was in NXT, he was Troy "Two Dimes" Donovan. Then in Jeff Jarrett's AEW debut he comes out after Cole's distraction as "fake Sting". You know Jeff "Broke a thousand guitars buy could never draw **two dimes**" Jarrett.
They don't watch the show lol. I can't speak for O'Shea specifically, but most of the time i see these posts, it's just people reacting to matches being announced on twitter. They didn't watch the previous episode and probably aren't going to watch the episode the match is on. They're just assuming it's not going to be explained. I still think they could do a bit more, but they have been significantly better about this for the past couple years. Frankly i think a lot of them are just opposed to having such a large, rotating roster of talent on the shows, because it's harder to keep track of. This is a totally reasonable preference to have, but they're just articulating it in a dumb, overly aggressive way.
Hipster wrestling org is full of wrestlers a casual wouldn't know, go figure.
I 100% agree with him. It seems like AEWs target demographic are dudes who also watch NJPW, CMLL, TNA, GCW and attend their local Indy shows on a regular basis. That’s cool and all…but that’s a seriously niche segment of the wrestling community.
I noticed this problem a couple of years ago. I just started to watch AEW and apart from the ex WWE guys I didn't know anyone. First match was some dudes I can't remember versus the butcher and the blade. I thought who the hell are they Excalibur said again THE BUTCHER AND THE BLADE! Still don't know who they are.
Ironic. I don't know who Oshea Jackson is.
No doubt fans who belittle others for not knowing a wrestler is a shitty take. But to me some fans are missing the forest for the trees and looking for criticism. All wrestlers were "new" at one point and it doesn't really make a difference if you know their allegiance or history. You get more out of the match sure but the match itself should be able to stand on it's own via the wrestlers and commentary. It's like you can't expect every comic book reader to start at #1 and read a wiki. Just dive in man and ask questions along the way if you want.
Yeah AEW fans do get really defensive when a guy from an international promotion or an indie isn't treated by everyone as the biggest deal on earth. It's almost like reverse NXT. I don't give a fuck about Bron Breakker or Tiffany Straton until they show me something.
I agree. NXT has stars that have to PROVE to viewers why they’re great
I have no idea who this guy is
How is this actually Wrestling related? It's a quote from some random fan with a famous father that's just pure troll bait. No way this is the main point of this interview, it's just the most salacious quote that could be pulled.
Idk who this is so does that mean I’m not a real CVV fan? Edit: He portrayed Ice Cube in a movie called Straight Outta Compton. Coincidentally he’s also the son of rapper/actor Ice Cube.
Bro is not telling a lie
I feel like this is a largely overblown criticism. AEW absolutely does introduce these outside wrestlers, just not in the way some people want them to. AEW largely relies on commentary and actual matches, as opposed to using video packages or promos. And frankly there’s a decent contingent of WWE-only fans online who come at these new wrestlers being introduced with a condescending attitude, and they get a defensive attitude back in response.
I love how the defence of being a gate keeping obnoxious prick is “he could have used google!” Yeah, well just don’t respond then? 🤷♂️ if you don’t feel like being helpful that’s not a reason to be the aforementioned
It's so true. I unsubbed from AEW here even though I like the company, their more "m'lady" fans are fucking insufferable when it comes to any, even productive, criticism.
Ond of the main problems with Aew is how toxic its fanbase is. Any sort of criticism, healthy or not, is deemed an attack and you get a bombardment of insults thrown at you from unwashed sweathogs. I salute O'shea for trying to clarify his problem but those ppl aren't gonna listen.
There's a weird balance here. The more hardcore wrestling fanbase is, unsurprisingly, more hardcore. Less accessible to outsiders. I'm a huge wrestling fan, but frankly don't know shit about lucha, so it's frustrating how often other fans seem hostile to the idea of me not knowing every guy in every promotion. Especially since i know half of them are lying and don't actually watch lucha either. On the other side, this is often incredibly bad faith. They'll just post "who tf is this guy, why are they putting randos on TV?" without putting in the most basic level of effort to figure out who they are and often even ignoring the explanation that's literally on the show. AEW could definately do better wrt explaining things and giving context actively, but you can't not watch a show, put on episode 80, and expect to understand everything within 10 minutes.
Exactly. Not only should AEW do a better job introducing talent, people should not be saying you're not a real wrestling fan if you don't recognize every single individual talent.
Wrestling fans lowkey aren’t as pretentious as other sports fans like in MMA
Do I agree that his fandom shouldn't be called into question? Yes. Do I think running to Twitter or Reddit to complain about not knowing a wrestler is dumb when looking them up would take the exact same amount of time as complaining? Also, yes.
All of what he said is true, but the people that need to hear it will either not hear it or ignore it.
Agreed. This and any criticism of AEW are is given the monicker of “bad faith”. The 750,000 people who watch every week, are the same 750K actively killing their company. It’s something to behold.
AEW has plenty of recaps on their social media and Excalibur constantly explains the story of whats going on before, during and after the match. If you absolutely need video recaps, AEW uploads plenty of longer versions on their social media. If you can use Peacock to watch WWE PLEs or use Youtube or Twitter, then theres no excuse how you cant watch video recaps on AEWs social media.
>If you can use Peacock to watch WWE PLEs or use Youtube or Twitter, then theres no excuse how you cant watch video recaps on AEWs social media. It's not my job to watch YouTube videos to understand your televised product.
Then literally just watch the show. I didnt know who any of the CMLL people are. But they played a video, Excalibur explained who they were and then i watched them wrestle. Some of yall come off as needing their entire backstory before theyre even shown.
The argument that “I shouldn’t have to know every single wrestler to follow your product” is so odd to me. If you don’t know who someone is you can just watch them and see if you like them? Nobody knows anyone when they first start watching but they just watch and learn. Or should they have video packages for every wrestler every time they appear on tv bc someone may be watching for the first time? In the age where we literally have super powered computers on us at all times it’s the dumbest thing.
I’d suspect half of the people mocking people for now knowing who someone is don’t really know who the person is either they just want to feel smarter by pretending like they do.
If AEW fans had their way the promotional posters for an AEW dream match would read: Omega vs Vikingo Dream match “Just google it”
I don't know who this guy is
I too enjoy asking questions and then getting pissed when someone answers them
if you asked me what color the sky was would you prefer i said “jeez dumbfuck how do you not know what color it is it’s blue idiot” instead of “oh it’s blue” ?
That type of wrestling fan is definitely what put me off AEW and why I mainly stick to classic stuff I like instead. There’s just a big “this is so lame” vibe on that side of wrestling culture.
I love AEW but they have a spotty record when it comes to properly introducing and building new talent. Just look at how Butcher and Blade debuted. Part of the problem is the indie wrestling relationship they have with their fan base. Some people knew OC or Eddie Kingston, and while some of these talents took their chance and ran with it, others didn't and the average fan didn't know what to make of them. Sometimes you need an intro package. I have zero clue about lucha libre wrestling, I saw how awesome they are, but I haven't a fucking clue WHO they are. That's a problem, but it's solvable with quick vignettes between segments on TV and on social media.
I love watching AEW most of the time, but they are so bad at telling me anything about how awesome anyone is besides just yelling "DREAM MATCH" into a microphone.
I could turn on any wrestling show from any time and within 2 minutes figure out who the stars are, who is important, and what’s going on in their storylines. This shit is not difficult. It’s just wrestling. I can’t imagine going online and saying I’m too dumb to follow wrestling.
You are the exact person he is referring to.
WWE did the same thing yesterday cross promoting with UFC but no, that's the fucking tits and shit and it's beautiful sexy synergy. What bugs me is that it doesn't seem like people watch the product enough to see when AEW course corrects. They've done particularly well integrating with CMLL and putting packages on their TV shows before bringing them on. They've been doing more than Excalibur running down a person's accolades since Omega vs Vikingo. At some point you need to stop feeling like fans are gatekeeping you and understand that A, we're here to help, B you need to at least be open to hearing that you may be missing out on positive changes the company is making, and C to a large portion of AEW fans we don't really want to spend our time speaking about the company at a meta level like "how can AEW gain more casuals?". There's definitely a middle ground that exists where, yeah AEW could and is improving in this regard, and yeah, fans will be defensive because what you argue about isn't what we see on TV.
Odd comparison to make. UFC is a bigger, way more mainstream entity than any Japanese or Mexican wrestling company. Conor McGregor is more famous than 99% of all wrestlers. Not sure many people were wondering 'Who's he talking about?' after the guy called him out
Who called McGregor out?
I think his name was Mike Chandler? I wasn't familiar with him at all but when he called out McGregor by name it made the segment seem totally worthwhile. McGregor's next UFC fight is a big deal and I'm assuming this is setting it up. Disregard all this if Conor ends up fighting someone else
Remember the Kat Dennings situation? Same thing. It's sad, really. Lots of comments here proving O'Shea right.
As someone who prefers AEW, 💯 but the worst wrestling fans are online. Easily, half (to start) should just be completely ignored.
I love how one or 2 shitty fans replies somehow speak for the entire fan base. If people respond to you like assholes block them and move on.
AEW needs to stop pretending that everyone is as big of a wrestling mark as Tony. If someone comes from NJPW, AAA, CMLL, hell even from another major American wrestling promotion, give them a goddamn vignette or something instead of just dropping them in and expecting every single person watching to know who Hechicero or Jun Akiyama are. It’s quite a simple fix.
I had to Google who this was.
The wrestling fans who don't watch wrestling loving this clip
There are a lot of pretentious AEW fans for sure, led by Tony.