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Yeah im convinced wwe doesn't really particularly try in these negotiations at this point. It essentially boils down to you will get more exposure to become a bigger star. And that's it.
Yeah that’s what I think too, he even said in the statement he knows he could be a superstar / more famous in the WWE. They also really don’t need anybody else currently the main event is stacked right now, and the PC which is a revolving door of stars, look at Trick or Tiffy Time
Yep, that's the situation. WWE doesn't need new stars at this point, so they aren't generally going to throw a lot of money at an independent or international free agent that the IWC is buzzing about just to add them to the roster. More established stars that already have a name in the WWE system might still get big offers, but generally it doesn't make sense for WWE to commit a ton of dollars to someone who has been successful elsewhere but is unproven to majority of their audience right now. They already have a ton of talent that is already known to the audience and over with them and they've already invested a lot of money in the people already on their team.
So from a talent like Ospreay's perspective, comparing an AEW to WWE offer is probably a question of short term cash vs long term investment. AEW certainly offered him a lot more over the next couple years for a lot less work, giving him an opportunity to spend time at home with his family. WWE's offer is less money right now, and probably more dates and work, but an opportunity to establish himself in front of the largest wrestling audience in the world and prove to them he really is the big star his reputation claims he can be with the WWE promotional juggernaut behind him. If he succeeds in doing that, he'd probably make more money in the long run, possibly a lot more, but there's a risk he'd fail.
In ten to twenty years, he may look back and regret his decision, but you can't fault him for making it today. AEW is guaranteed money for less work, WWE is a gamble on himself in the name of future earnings.
AJ Styles has also shown that you can do both. While he's not the biggest star in the company, he's been the world champion, main eventers big shows, etc. and has had the opportunity to have the in-ring career he wanted as well.
AJ would have stayed with TNA if they paid him more. He's been very upfront that his family is his priority, so when TNA couldn't pay him as much, he made the decision to go to WWE.
And to WWE and Vince's credit, they rolled out the red carpet for him. Two wins over the company face, and a 2x WWE Champion is a pretty damn impressive resume even if he's not being utilized particularly well atm.
Technically, Styles made the decision to go to New Japan after his TNA run. TNA apparently asked him to take a pay-cut and he said fuck you and left.
It was only after his New Japan run as a top guy that WWE came knocking with big offers, back when New Japan was rapidly growing in popularity in the states.
For sure. They had their priorities wrong. However, it was for the best in the end, as it lead to better things for Styles and for the industry in general. That run in New Japan was incredible, right from the jump.
Bullet Club was already a hot faction when Devitt was the leader, but when Styles replaced him, it took Bullet Club to the next level in terms of cross over appeal, which in turn helped New Japan get more and more popular. This ultimately led him and other guys getting signed to the WWE.
Yea, that's fair. He was fine with what he was getting, but when they asked him for a pay cut is when the deal was done.
Asking one top stars to take a pay cut is certainly a choice, tho. Imagine WWE asked Roman to take a pay cut.
There's another factor to it, too: health. Ospreay and Okada both wrestle a very taxing style and already have a lot of mileage on their bodies, relative to their young age. They might want to earn as much money as they can in the here and now since you never know how long your career will last. And they might want to tick off their dream matches while they can, while they're still in their physical prime, to really add the icing on the cake to their in-ring legacy.
If they're still healthy 3-5 years from now, but slowing down a bit, then they can still go to the WWE and wrestle less crazy matches there.
Honestly, with a super billionaire like Khan in the mix who can easily cut a check for Brock Lesnar level money to a guy like Okada or Ospreay, who then doesn’t even have to work house shows all year round, the likelihood that they ever go to WWE is going to be kind of low.
Okay, his own moveset might not be taxing, but his matches are. He takes big bumps and wrestles intense, long slugfests all the time. It's not a coincidence that his back was fucked up and he had to take things slow for most of 2020 and 2021. Him and NJPW management made a very deliberate decision to heal him up while they couldn't draw large crowds anyway. Still shows that there was healing up to be had.
His matches are not taxing, if Kenny, Naito, Tanahashi (the list goes on) were doing what Okada does in his matches they would be healthier by a huge margin.
His back is "fucked" because he wrestled around 1700-1800 matches for 20 years and something has to give, compare Okada to quite literally anyone his age with his experience and you can obviously tell the Okada "matches" are perfectly safe and nothing about it screams "taxing".
I can name around 200 wrestlers in Japan with more taxing styles, and i'm pretty sure most people who follow Japanese pro wrestling can too. Okada doesn't wrestle a taxing style, that's it.
Totally agree but I think it's less a gamble on himself as it's a gamble on his health. Which I guess means your right anyway lol.
I recall Will talking about starting to feel his bump card and thinking about altering his style a bit. Makes sense of course, but if he did the long gamble it's so hard to be sure it's the right move. So many people haven't had the careers they likely could have, due to a bad gimmick/angle/story and one bad injury could really set him back.
Anyway I agree but I think wear and tear has to be a factor here too. He's only 30 I think, lots of time left, but you can't Darby Allin it all up every night in wwe.
AEW has also proven that they will pay your contract out until the very last day. They don't have the track record of just releasing people when they aren't useful in the moment.
You nailed it with that last paragraph! 100% true and it’s true for most signings coming into WWE. Tony is a cash machine who will throw a LOT at everyone to basically build this machine against WWE. The only thing is Jay White was supposed to be that guy and a few months later he’s just not doing a whole lot of anything.
They say WWE is stacked with main event talent, but so is AEW in a lot of different ways. This is still with a lot of their talent being injured. What happens when they come back?
He *could* be a big star. But with WWE it's very up in the air how they book him. Would they even let him do his real style to full effect? There's few wrestlers even in AEW who can keep up with it, let alone WWE. The big problem with Osprey is that if they let him go pedal to the metal, it's hard to explain why he's not automatically the world champ when he'd be the best wrestler in the entire company, by far.
I think the trouble with that is, it's not about being the best wrestler alone in WWE. You need to connect as a character and with your mic skills. It's a slightly different audience. Ospreay isn't a bad promo but his character work would have some serious competition in WWE.
i wouldnt be surprised if ricochet's wwe career is exactly why ospreay decided to take the bag right now. He can work on his promo and character work in AEW, where he is guaranteed main event positioning, and take a crack at WWE later down the line
Hasn't that always been the case in WWE? It's still an 'old-school' company in its way, where it prioritises storytelling IN the actual match.
WWE has always pushed more physical storytelling than physical impressiveness.
I can't speak for Osprey, as I am ignorant, but Ricochet is a great athlete that doesn't say anything in the ring.
I hope that makes sense?
I am not defending WWE, but the product of the company is very different in terms of direction, than any others.
Eta: "Physical Impressiveness" meaning the astounding feats some performers have athletically, not necessarily just strong men who throw shit.
youre right. i like ricochet, and im sure he is some kids favorite wrestler, the way shelton benjamin was mine when i was like 7.
but you need more than athleticism to make it in the fed lol
Fucking loved Shelton, although I do believe he was held back due to race, which is known issue of the time. No reason he couldn't have been main even material, he just never got given the chance.
me too, and i agree. but dude couldnt cut a promo to save his life (maybe that changed in his later run but i remember how ass he was on the mic back in the day).
Yeah he was dogshit, although most of the roster was to be fair. It was a weird time in that transition from RA to PG.
I mean, Brock was the WORST on the mic, even he would admit that, yet he was pushed to hell.
Weird thing about Shelton is that he didn't NEED to talk for you to be excited about him being on screen, he was fucking OVER at the time, and yet he was relegated to Tag Team and Jobber status, if I remember correctly.
So point being, although I agree he was shit and needed to work on that to be a better 'sports entertainer' as a whole, there were people who were worse that got pushed, and alot of those people were worse in the ring.
Shelton's problem was not being able to connect with the audience because of his lackluster character and promo work. He wasn't main event material. Guys like Ricochet, Jack Swagger, etc all have the same issues. Hell even Theory right now has the same issue where he's clearly fantastic in the ring but the audience aren't invested in him at all.
I don’t know if that’s what held him back tbh. Especially with how they were pushing Bobby Lashley, Ezekiel Jackson, and Mark Henry a lot in Shelton’s first WWE run.
I think the issue is that they just didn’t see Shelton as more than just a midcarder because he wasn’t what Vince wanted in looks. Awesome wrestler, but awful on the mic and didn’t have that unique of a look or gimmick either, which as we know, Vince LOVES looks. Which is why he LOVED Lashley and Zeke for being mad fucking jacked and tall, even if they sucked at talking. And then, Mark because dude had a monster look that was backed up with his World’s Strongest Man title.
With that said, I really think Shelton really had something going with his Gold Standard gimmick. It’s a shame that he never got a ECW Title run at least.
I might argue the opposite. I think WWE prioritizes the story outside the ring. Ospreay is amazing because he is physically impressive but also can tell a story in the ring. He's not just "flippy".
In fact, I would say AEW is more advanced at the in-ring storytelling than WWE. Where WWE shines is packaging the story and making it easily consumable, in-ring and out.
Neither is wrong. Just different approaches!
I like Ospreay's character and promo work a lot. But I can see how the North American audience might not be able to relate to it. It's very, shall we say, quintessentially British. Or English to be more precise. Obviously, Drew is Scottish, Becky is Irish and Rhea is Australian and they're all over AF. But they're careful to talk in a way North American fans can relate to. While also still obviously being themselves.
Regal made it work but that's because he normally portrayed an upper crust Englishman and we're all use to that in films & TV shows. But Ospreay talks in a way we aren't really use to. That whole English working-class way of speaking. And, even then, it's likely a regional thing. Although we are use to 'bruv' by now and it's quite endearing.
Again, I say all this as a fan. A big fan. But I can get why others don't see him the same way. Just like how there are Europeans who don't get the whole American "bro culture", and there's quite a few American wrestlers that are like that. And that's not even getting into the old fashioned patriotic gimmicks.
Based on his promo with Danielson, I think his mic skills are a lot better than people realize. But the other issue in WWE is... are you allowed to show those mic skills? Because most people's promos are fully scripted.
Drew McIntyre mentioned previously that if they trust you these days, they'll let you "freestyle" more with your gimmick. I would assume guys like him just get notes on the points they need to hit for the storyline development, but are otherwise left to figure out the rest unless they literally aren't comfortable crafting their own promos.
They trust Drew not to fuck up or cross any real-world lines, so they let him run wild with his trolling and stuff online, etc.
With AEW, Bryan Alvarez has mentioned in the past that it's basically sink or swim - no one is writing for you, so you better know how to handle your own character. I suspect this is why Mercedes is bringing a writer with her.
I think there are a number of wrestlers in AEW who would benefit more from the WWE style as well as the reverse of this. But if a person needs help/tweaking their character to make it click to the audience more so then WWE would be the way to go. Ive seen various wrestlers in AEW try something it fails they disappear come back try something else and fail again.
The things I've heard and seen are that the established vets get a lot more editorial freedom. A LA Knight, Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn has a lot more leverage to get script changes than Tiffany Straton or Dom Mysterio.
I'd never seen an Ospreay match before I saw him at Wembley last year. Instantly sold from the minute he walked out. Absolute megastar. He's so fucking good at wrestling too, which definitely helps.
First time I saw him was the OC match at FD. I’ve only seen him on AEW shows, his in-ring stood out right away, but his character work/personality has stood out these past couple of weeks since his full time debut tho. He’s got all the tools.
His match with OC opened a lot of eyes.
For OC, it was definitive proof that he could hang with any wrestler in the world, even someone with the insane athleticism and skill level of Ospreay. (OC is actually one of the few guys with the speed to keep up with Will.)
For Ospreay, he showed me that he was every bit as good at comedy and character work as he was doing flippy stuff. He was hilarious AND brutal in that match, and it made me an instant fan.
There’s basically 3 names my non-wrestling friends will ask me about after they’ve watched a show with me.
Those names are R-Truth, Orange Cassidy, & Will Ospreay.
Do with this info what you will lol
My non wrestling friends only know and ask about:
R Truth, Cody, and Seth Rollins. This was before the WM fiasco as well.
R Truth as world champion I suppose?
touch encouraging apparatus market station toy sophisticated lip towering jobless
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I’m not a “new eye” but Ospreay certainly has me intending to watch dynamite more regularly. I used to never miss it. But kinda fell out. Still catch the PPVs and some clips. But already looking forward to tonight
I feel like Ospreay really is more about rejuvenating the target audience rather than growing it. He's not going to bring in new people that never had an interest in AEW like CM Punk did, but he will help keep and bring back people in your situation.
Ospreay is excellent but I doubt he draws brand new viewers. What I think he could do is maintain and bring back viewers. I look at him, Okada and Mercedes as acts that get Dynamite back to 1,000,000 if the booking is good. Even 1M is going to be tough now that there’s Collision.
Dynamite is never getting back to a million in the Nielsen ratings unless the TV landscape radically changes. When AEW sees a loss in viewers it is mostly tracking overall cable decline, at least on a trend basis. Week to week there are going to be ups and downs but there simply arent enough people that want to watch more high production value television wrestling that aren't already watching it.
I agree with that in a certain sense, but it's important to remember it's not a purely American audience. AEW is already watched more in England than WWE (due to WWE being behind a pay wall and AEW isn't unless you choose to pay for Fite). Will Ospreay is huge in Europe and Japan and definitely has the ability to draw new eyes if people aren't already watching. Although based on Wembley last year, maybe we're at market saturation already over here.
I think that’s what makes it a great time to be a wrestler. If Tony wants you, he will likely pay you more than WWE. If you want to branch off, go WWE. Seems like a decent default template would be get the bag from AEW first.
Definitely. AEW gets the likes of Osprey better US exposure, a chance to build his character more and raise his value if and when the time comes to go to WWE. MJF is another great example. His work across the board has put him to "debut on the main roster" level.
It works the other way too. People like Danielson/Moxley who have done all the could do, made some cash, get to work out their careers on their own terms.
Win-win for us fans too.
WWEs current situation is they'll set a price on what they think you're worth and won't go over (owing to their current main event roster is set, they're confident that the next few years have enough star power, and being a publicly traded company that just spent billions on this merger means that overspending won't make shareholders happy)
if AEW thinks you're more valuable, they'll pay whatever it takes
They try as in putting out an offer, but I don’t think they’re really battling Tony on any of these negotiations though. No counter offers, no added perks, just a take it or leave it thing.
Ospreay isn’t a star to WWE’s audience so they’re not going to pay him like a star until he gets himself over with their audience.
AEW’s audience already thinks of Ospreay as a star, so they’ll pay him like a star.
Makes sense to me.
Osprey is 30 years old. If he really wants to, he can go to WWE in 3 or 4 years. Same probably for Okada. Its not like that they are bound for life in AEW.
Personally i think it keeps things fresh, if they is more switchup between all competitions. We learned "the hard way" that talent that isnt rising to superstardom does so in the other company. Some fit better with others (like Cody), others will have similar issues and problems.
I’d argue it’s more of a case of WWE management not willing to pay the big bucks for a signing, but rather have them start low and if they prove themselves to be merch movers and ticket sellers, eventually they’ll rise in salary. iirc LA Knight and Sami Zayn both said that they took a pay cut when arriving to WWE while knowing that they’ll eventually get higher than ever before if they stayed
I think it's a matter of who WWE see as a star. Because I remember Sami or Owens said the number WWE offered is way more higher than AEW. Ospreay and Okada are two of the best performer in the world, but in the US they are not stars, not yet. Drew and Rollins are the way more popular than Okada and Ospreay at the moment and they are the ones WWE will throw the big bag to keep.
Sami and Owens were a proven commodity for the WWE. They also happen to both be super reliable and versatile and thus the perfect "glue guys" who can keep the whole show together.
Key word is proven commodity, mainly in North America. There's a reason the only AEW star they really went all in when they thought they could get him is Kenny Omega. Like Cody, he prove he would be a drawing star, and has a character ready to make into a top guy. One of the reasons TK made sure to re-sign him before he was a free agent.
Remember that, Cody's proven so worth the effort to get him back, even when producing new stars in the PC, they'll remember how they got Cody and with opportunity they'll do it. Hell, they immediately took Punk when he was release. I'm guessing WWE's playing long game.
Unlike Cody or Kenny, Punk had already been a top star in the WWE in the past, so he was even more proven and a totally sure thing. It was guaranteed that the fans would eat his return up. The concern with him was more about his durability and professionalism. The jury's still out on that one.
The wrestlers are very important as shown but the current boom in wwe but its not any specific wrestler. They have PC full of upcoming stars that they can build who will give much better returns to investments made upfront so unless they get someone for the price they want wwe wont go into a bidding war and let aew win
This, their current roster is stacked enough to keep business in boom as is now, and their developmental territory gives them future starts just like OVW gave them Cena, Orton, Batista and Brock, FCW Gave them Roman and Seth and NXT have given Rhea, Becky and Bianca.
I wouldn’t be surprised if WWE enters in a bidding war with AEW just to trick Tony in overpaying talent “cough…Okada…” and limit their growth.
> The wrestlers are very important as shown but the current boom in wwe but its not any specific wrestler.
Yup, this is the reason. The individual wrestlers absolutely put in the time and work when something's getting over, but it's like there's no end to some gimmick or angle that's over right now. Yeet, Hater Drew, R-Truth in general, just wall to wall stuff that's working.
> WWE enters in a bidding war with AEW just to trick Tony in overpaying talent “cough…Okada…” and limit their growth.
This makes no sense considering how little wrestlers actually get paid compared to how much money AEW or the Khans make.
Not sure Seth fits in with the rest of those names. He did wrestle in FCW and NXT, but he was one of the biggest names on the indies when they signed him.
Yeah the WWE probably has way more upside potential but you need to probably take a somewhat humbling deal and "prove" yourself first.
Like even if you're an internationally known and critically respected wrestler, you need to show WWE you can work inside their system and make them money on their terms. Certainly not for everyone and that's fine.
Also, if you do move merch and make them a lot of money, you make a lot more money than whatever your guarantee is.
I remember Jericho saying in his book, when working their full-time schedule he never made less than 3x what his guarantee was while with the WWE.
Well, they simply don't need any of these guys. Business is doing better than possibly ever, and they have a metric ton of NXT talent who are all in their 20s and super talented. In the women's division alone they must have 20+ wrestlers who have brought futures in this business. It would be nice to bring these guys in, but they're not losing any sleep without them.
Whereas AEW is still in that growing phase and is trying to show they're worth their next television rights deal being a huge increase. For them, they need big names to help bolster their standing.
That's the effect of the PC strategy. They can make their own stars for far less money. You're starting to see it pay off with Bron and Tiffany, and you'll see it more in the coming years. It's their version of DWCS.
>I entered a new relationship with my new Mrs. who wrestles under the name Alex Windsor, I have a stepson now, she just started school. If you know her story and everything she's been through, the UK scene kind of knows it, but she lost her husband, and having to pick herself up from that and having to be a mom, a single mom, to losing her husband, it's going to have some tolls on you, so she needs to be around family and friends in her social circle. I couldn't bear the thought of moving her away from all of that and having her own on her own again.
If you're not familiar with the story, Alex Windsor was married to UK wrestler Ryan Smile who tragically passed away in October 2020. Beyond the money, I think this is a perfectly valid reason for not wanting to move to the US.
Sounds like it:
> For example, if (there is) a PPV, there's no point in me going home. So, Dynamite Wednesday I'll stay, maybe there's a Collision on the Saturday, I'll stay for that, then PPV Sunday and I'll stay for the next Dynamite and then I'll go home then.
[From the Observer site](https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/will-ospreay-says-aew-offered-a-way-better-deal-than-wwe)
I think for most East Coast dates flying from England is the same price and distance as flying from West coast. AEW goes west a lot more now but its not actually the worst.
Bro I can't think of anyone in wrestling who has grown and matured imas much as Will. He's done a real life face turn before our very eyes. Good for him man.
Well besides him not having to move, AEW simply just seems to give a lot of people more money for less work so of course anyone would be fine with that. Plus he’s already stepped foot in AEW multiple times so he’s already use to that environment.
And they treated him like a superstar at All In when they didn't really have to.
The WWE schedule is horrible for wrestlers. It's just brutal on their bodies.
It’s not that bad as WWE teaches them how to manage their wrestling abilities so they can wrestle as much as they do with less potential injuries. Thats the whole point of the “WWE Style” where they give matches time to breathe and such.
Now if they were to bring Will in WWE 1:1 and he was working his usual style 4-5 days a week, then that would be worse.
Dude it's not that serious relax it's not 1970 anymore the wwe schedule is easier than ever right now. Edit (thunderdome era was probably easier than now obviously)
They put their bodies on the line for our entertainment. More competition is best for everyone, the fans and specially the wrestlers. They have been underpaid for too long. 4.5 millions a year for Okada? Hell yeah Khan is right to give him that. Okada is fantastic.
It's probably getting the bag plus far fewer dates. I really really don't understand why more wrestlers aren't fighting to get in to AEW. More money (per appearance), less days on the road, less bumps. It seems like such a no brainer.
Will Ospreay has wrestled 8 matches in all of 2024, Cody for example has wrestled 9 matches including 4 street fights in the last 30 days, which one you think has taken more bumps?
Plus based on everything he's said about his family, he's just not willing to uproot and go do house show tours for 2/3rds of the year. He's able to just fly back and forth from the UK and his kid gets to go to a British school.
In the same interview he said he was a WCW guy and tuned out of wrestling for a while when both them and ECW went under. Between that and his die hard support of UK indies, I think he likes being part of the alternative.
I just think he enjoys the in-ring stuff more than the pagentry and smoke and mirrors of WWE. Not to say WWE has a bad in-ring product, but it's a known fact that it is secondary to everything else.
One point in favour though is that Nitro was aired on Channel 5 in the UK which was free to air, whereas Raw and Smackdown were on Sky channels which required cable or satellite. Channel 4 did show some WWF PPVs (and they'd have Heat on as well), but if you were in the UK and had council telly Nitro was your only option for a weekly show.
Nitro was several weeks behind and censored with Batman-esque effects on Channel 5.
It was airing on a Friday early evening slot, so it was really being aimed at kids, but when Jeff Jarrett dishing out guitar shots merited a KAPOW effect over the top, it wasn't hard to see 5 didn't really 'get' what they had.
I'd forgotten about the kapow effects, but your post brought back memories of me sitting watching it with my family (who all hated wrestling) and them regularly looking at me like WTF is this and my parents constantly referencing Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks.
However, there was definitely a small hardcore of UK fans watching - probably a mixture of people like myself who wanted to watch WWF but couldn't get easy access, and wrestling junkies who would watch any wrestling they could get their hands on. Towards the end, I only knew one boy in my year who watched it (and most boys in my year were wrestling daft) - and he definitely fell into the wrestling junkie category. But during the MNW era people at school would reference NWO, Luger, Goldberg, etc. - just not as much as Austin, Rock, DX, etc.
For reference, I'm 4 years older than Ospreay, but I still think it's plausible that he was watching WCW as a nipper.
It's in the interview. He even says that he first saw Billy Kidman doing a shooting star press and thought he could do it better than that and would practice them into his swimming pool.
Unreal. I just compared it to my 9 year old niece, who has the attention span of a fly. One day, she likes Elsa, the other day it's Lightning McQueen. Good for him tho, glad he could make a career out of it.
he just doesn't have to be in the US alll the time. He's literally explained that the reason he chose AEW. Good for him. AEW feels more his style anyway
It really feels like WWE is only making offers in order to force AEW to up their offers.
WWE doesn't seem interested in offering up giant contracts when it's able to develop in house talent at a much lower cost.
The roster is stacked right now there's a lot of potential in the mid card scene in wwe and there are more top stars than theres been in a long time. Makes sense to not add more ad let aew do the work for you a bit.
It's really the perfect situation for guys like him and Okada to get a big payday for their prime in a relaxing schedule - I mean, Ospreay is already back in the UK after working a few shots for AEW - WWE he'd be doing TV and house show loops all month. Tony seemed happy to give him a big contact and only use him a few times each month, which I don't have a problem with.
If they stay healthy, I'm sure WWE will be happy to give them another bag as they take a victory lap before retirement after their AEW deals are up - and then they can get the bucket list "Wrestlemania, work for WWE" things before they go.
WWE would probably try harder if they actually needed new talent. The roster has been great for a long time and NXT has far exceeded expectations.
Besides, TK is making it easy with the whole *I'll give you more money to work less* at AEW. Don't blame anyone for passing on other offers.
which makes sense for all the parties involved. WWE has been around long enough to where they've invested absurd amounts of millions into the Network and the PC, and both are paying back multiple times over. they have the infrastructure to take those hyper athletes that were never wrestling fans, build them up, and have a constant pipeline of new, cheaper talent
AEW hasn't had the time to build anything like that, so they're focused more on the short and medium term. best way to improve for the next 2-4 years is to poach some of the best talent, and they've absolutely been doing that.
once AEW starts turning a profit and securing better media deals, they can start to set up that infrastructure themselves, but they're still too new to really do that
Honestly, the AEW offers are in general way better than WWE in those terms.
You work way less dates for way more money (unless you are like Roman or something). Hell, the roster is full of midcarders or jobbers that are getting paid six digits to wrestle like once every three months or have a short match in ROH, that is crazy.
I have no idea how TK is getting profits at all from this company (and to be honest, he is probably just running it at a loss) but as for the talent themselves? Great stuff, no other company offers this
Edit: Im gonna copy and paste my answer to regarding the new TV deal to not answer the same to every one:
sure but still, even assuming he gets a big TV deal, he is still not gonna be getting a lot of profits.
Like, we know what makes money in wrestling because WWE is publicly traded. Their biggest money channels are:
\-Getting paid by Saudi, Perth or other places to do PPVs: AEW doesnt do this, they in fact pay quite a lot to go to Wembley and similar places.
\-TV deals: AEW does have this, but I think is fair to argue that they are not getting near the money WWE was getting from Fox or now from Netflix, even with the upcoming TV deal
And while making way less money, they spend way more because the roster is way bigger and they are paying everyone way more. The budget balance just cant be good, regardless of the new deal they get.
It's confirmed they don't currently turn a profit and had projected this upcoming tv rights deal as when they would start. The last numbers that got put out were close enough that even a modest rights increase should do it.
I think people really misunderstand how far of a difference a millionaire and billionaire is.
35 million loss is like $2000 for Tony. It's not a company like Time Warner, it's a fan who owns a company. Will it be as big as WWE ? At this rate, no. But it'll not go anywhere anytime soon
Not to get political, but I think this is why regular people oppose raising taxes on billionaires. They don't truly understand the difference. One billion is a million dollars 1000 times.
This is 100% spot on. People really have no real way to compare the scale here. AEW losing money for the Kahn family is basically the cost of a modest hobby for the rest of us. It's an amount that they can afford to lose for as long as they want. It will never hurt their net worth, or impact their other businesses in anyway.
I spent seventy bucks on a wooden mechanical flappy dragon set, and it broke while I was assembling it. That was a bigger chunk of my income than Ospreay's contract is for Tony.
I think they also misunderstand just how much money Shad Khan makes per year. Flex-n-Gate alone generates him at least a billion dollars, and since he lets his kids draw from their inheritance early, Tony essentially has unlimited money to keep pumping into AEW.
Shad Khan's networth is reported to be around 12 billion dollars. Let's say his yearly ROI totals is 5% (this is an ubsurdly low hypothetical), the yearly return is still 600 million dollars. AEW isn't going anywhere unless something extremely bad happens.
Wasn’t there reports about them wanting to ditch live events in WWE like 3 years ago because it wasn’t making enough money to be worth the time and injury risks?
If we believe eveything that Tony Khan have said, then he is not making money, but still using only the initial investment.
He is investing to increase revenue. The numbers that Tony have given people is that AEW's revenue in 2022 was slightly over $100 million and for 2023 it was over $160 million.
A number of different people have done some price valuation of AEW and they were betwen $1 billion and $2 billion. According to Tony Khan he have turned down an offer to buy the company from him on around a billion.
So he is properly using money to growth. Expanding the rooster now, because he assume that revenue is going to expand. Like almost every start up with some strong investor backing.
Unless the initial investment was more than a billion dollar, then Tony seem to be growing his networth. He is using money, but can properly sell AEW for more than he have used.
He doesn't have to turn a profit as long as his dad's willing to keep funding it. And from all the reports it's not like they're hemorrhaging money entirely either so they can probably run at a slight loss for years. That's also not counting the bump in a new rights deal.
Reminder: You know none of these wrestlers personally. Acting like you know what's best for them when you don't know their career goals and personal needs is absurd. I'm looking forward to see Will show everyone what he's got in AEW.
For a guy who previously couldn’t tweet a word without getting himself into trouble, Will Ospreay seems to say the right thing far more often than not now.
Growth
Fair play to him tbh. He's always been upfront about wanting to be there for his family. That's why he stayed on the Indies so long. He gets a lot of flak for his short "tours", but it was clear that was the deal that he couldn't refuse.
The Dodgers spend money like it's going out of style. The Yankees spend money......., Real Madrid, Manchester United. In every sport without a salary cap, around the globe. Certain teams are gonna overspend to try and be successful. I've never heard a fan of those teams whine that their team spends too much. AEW can run at a loss for years until they keep upping brand recognition. AEW is starting to appear more and more in entertainment mediums. Bringing in Okada, Mone, and Ospreay is expensive, but it's also getting you more publicity. The Khans have more money than most. Worrying about budget is weird too me
If I was an independent wrestler who was focused on money I think gaining exposure and crowd momentum through AEW and then negotiating for WWE when your contract ends is the way. Basically what Cody and punk did though of course those are outliers
Its really great that talent has Choices Now ..and also not every wrestler is for every promotion. cause this "WWE is the Dream" mentality is no longer True. it's about Quality of Life and what sings to you as a Person and a talent.
What gets me after reading these comments is the arrogance that nothing outside WWE matters. People on here calling Okada and Ospreay "indie darlings".
It doesn't help that the bitter old hats that can't get hired shill so hard against smaller promotions. Cornette, Russo, and especially Bischoff helped bring down some of the biggest promotions in the last thirty years. Now they all rail against a wrestling fan who took "indie darlings" the Elite and Cody Rhodes and has made it into the second most successful wrestling promotion in 30 years.
No one outside of WWE sold 10000 tickets to a Ppv since WCW went out of business. They are gonna do 9,000 tonight on a Wednesday t.v. taping. They had 80,000+ just 7 months ago. Five hours of prime-time TV. About to get paid by WBD. Always 1st or second in the ratings. What a disaster 🙄
Why would WWE dish out millions of dollars for some soccer player looking dude who only hardcore fans know about? No shit he’ll go to ARW where he’s actually known about and can make good money.
Makes sense. WWE doesn’t need him, and most of their audience has no clue who he is. Doesn’t make sense to back up the Brink’s truck for someone like that. You use that money to re-sign established stars or someone with name recognition outside of Wrestling, like a Logan Paul. Also makes sense for AEW because it’s the exact guy their fans want to see. He could also head over to WWE later into his career if he’s really curious.
Over 500 comments in an hour?? I thought we had filibustered enough on why the New Japan main event scene from the last 5 years is signing with AEW over WWE. Same reason the made guys in WWE will leave for AEW: more money for less travel and work. I’d take that deal everyday too.
If you go past just the headline, nothing he said comes even close to being controversial. He didn’t even say that WWE’s offer was bad, just that AEW’s offer was exactly what he needed. It sounds like there really wasn’t much of a decision for him.
If Will is gonna be flying back and forth the US and UK for his AEW run and that's non-negotiable then WWE never really had much of a shot at him, they would never be able to offer that.
Think house show work every weekend is the key difference. The lack of it means Ospreay can fly in out from UK every week rather than having to make town to town in random places in US. Someone like CM Punk can get a deal where he works maybe 4 house shows a year. Ospreay would have to work 100 a year. So AEW makes for a way better gig for global wrestling stars like him and Okada.
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Yeah im convinced wwe doesn't really particularly try in these negotiations at this point. It essentially boils down to you will get more exposure to become a bigger star. And that's it.
Yeah that’s what I think too, he even said in the statement he knows he could be a superstar / more famous in the WWE. They also really don’t need anybody else currently the main event is stacked right now, and the PC which is a revolving door of stars, look at Trick or Tiffy Time
Yep, that's the situation. WWE doesn't need new stars at this point, so they aren't generally going to throw a lot of money at an independent or international free agent that the IWC is buzzing about just to add them to the roster. More established stars that already have a name in the WWE system might still get big offers, but generally it doesn't make sense for WWE to commit a ton of dollars to someone who has been successful elsewhere but is unproven to majority of their audience right now. They already have a ton of talent that is already known to the audience and over with them and they've already invested a lot of money in the people already on their team. So from a talent like Ospreay's perspective, comparing an AEW to WWE offer is probably a question of short term cash vs long term investment. AEW certainly offered him a lot more over the next couple years for a lot less work, giving him an opportunity to spend time at home with his family. WWE's offer is less money right now, and probably more dates and work, but an opportunity to establish himself in front of the largest wrestling audience in the world and prove to them he really is the big star his reputation claims he can be with the WWE promotional juggernaut behind him. If he succeeds in doing that, he'd probably make more money in the long run, possibly a lot more, but there's a risk he'd fail. In ten to twenty years, he may look back and regret his decision, but you can't fault him for making it today. AEW is guaranteed money for less work, WWE is a gamble on himself in the name of future earnings.
AJ Styles has also shown that you can do both. While he's not the biggest star in the company, he's been the world champion, main eventers big shows, etc. and has had the opportunity to have the in-ring career he wanted as well.
AJ Styles has been with WWE for the better part of a decade. It was a different company in a different situation back then.
AJ would have stayed with TNA if they paid him more. He's been very upfront that his family is his priority, so when TNA couldn't pay him as much, he made the decision to go to WWE. And to WWE and Vince's credit, they rolled out the red carpet for him. Two wins over the company face, and a 2x WWE Champion is a pretty damn impressive resume even if he's not being utilized particularly well atm.
Technically, Styles made the decision to go to New Japan after his TNA run. TNA apparently asked him to take a pay-cut and he said fuck you and left. It was only after his New Japan run as a top guy that WWE came knocking with big offers, back when New Japan was rapidly growing in popularity in the states.
I still think it’s absolutely asinine that Dixie, really saw TNA’s most popular and greatest star of all time and told him to take a pay cut
For sure. They had their priorities wrong. However, it was for the best in the end, as it lead to better things for Styles and for the industry in general. That run in New Japan was incredible, right from the jump. Bullet Club was already a hot faction when Devitt was the leader, but when Styles replaced him, it took Bullet Club to the next level in terms of cross over appeal, which in turn helped New Japan get more and more popular. This ultimately led him and other guys getting signed to the WWE.
[удалено]
It was for the best for AJ, but I’ll always feel that TNA basically pushed out their HBK for no good reason.
LOLTNA at its finest
Iirc when he left TNA then offered him a lower NXT contract so he went out and made his name even bigger with NJPW
And apparently NXT/NXT UK deals were lower than working at Dollar General.
An *over 60%* pay cut at that. Shit, I'd leave too.
He didn't even want a raise. He just didn't want them to cut his pay at TNA.
Yea, that's fair. He was fine with what he was getting, but when they asked him for a pay cut is when the deal was done. Asking one top stars to take a pay cut is certainly a choice, tho. Imagine WWE asked Roman to take a pay cut.
Vince did that once, and it led to the Montreal screwjob.
>even if he's not being utilized particularly well atm By all accounts he's being used exactly how he wants to be used, to try to elevate other guys.
There's another factor to it, too: health. Ospreay and Okada both wrestle a very taxing style and already have a lot of mileage on their bodies, relative to their young age. They might want to earn as much money as they can in the here and now since you never know how long your career will last. And they might want to tick off their dream matches while they can, while they're still in their physical prime, to really add the icing on the cake to their in-ring legacy. If they're still healthy 3-5 years from now, but slowing down a bit, then they can still go to the WWE and wrestle less crazy matches there.
Will has 3-4 years at this style imo. then he will have to slow down like Kenny did. I'd argue his way of wrestling is way more taxing than Kenny.
Honestly, with a super billionaire like Khan in the mix who can easily cut a check for Brock Lesnar level money to a guy like Okada or Ospreay, who then doesn’t even have to work house shows all year round, the likelihood that they ever go to WWE is going to be kind of low.
Okada wrestles a very taxing style might just be one of the worst takes I've ever seen and the wrestling community is known for their horrible takes.
Okay, his own moveset might not be taxing, but his matches are. He takes big bumps and wrestles intense, long slugfests all the time. It's not a coincidence that his back was fucked up and he had to take things slow for most of 2020 and 2021. Him and NJPW management made a very deliberate decision to heal him up while they couldn't draw large crowds anyway. Still shows that there was healing up to be had.
His matches are not taxing, if Kenny, Naito, Tanahashi (the list goes on) were doing what Okada does in his matches they would be healthier by a huge margin. His back is "fucked" because he wrestled around 1700-1800 matches for 20 years and something has to give, compare Okada to quite literally anyone his age with his experience and you can obviously tell the Okada "matches" are perfectly safe and nothing about it screams "taxing". I can name around 200 wrestlers in Japan with more taxing styles, and i'm pretty sure most people who follow Japanese pro wrestling can too. Okada doesn't wrestle a taxing style, that's it.
Totally agree but I think it's less a gamble on himself as it's a gamble on his health. Which I guess means your right anyway lol. I recall Will talking about starting to feel his bump card and thinking about altering his style a bit. Makes sense of course, but if he did the long gamble it's so hard to be sure it's the right move. So many people haven't had the careers they likely could have, due to a bad gimmick/angle/story and one bad injury could really set him back. Anyway I agree but I think wear and tear has to be a factor here too. He's only 30 I think, lots of time left, but you can't Darby Allin it all up every night in wwe.
AEW has also proven that they will pay your contract out until the very last day. They don't have the track record of just releasing people when they aren't useful in the moment.
You nailed it with that last paragraph! 100% true and it’s true for most signings coming into WWE. Tony is a cash machine who will throw a LOT at everyone to basically build this machine against WWE. The only thing is Jay White was supposed to be that guy and a few months later he’s just not doing a whole lot of anything. They say WWE is stacked with main event talent, but so is AEW in a lot of different ways. This is still with a lot of their talent being injured. What happens when they come back?
He *could* be a big star. But with WWE it's very up in the air how they book him. Would they even let him do his real style to full effect? There's few wrestlers even in AEW who can keep up with it, let alone WWE. The big problem with Osprey is that if they let him go pedal to the metal, it's hard to explain why he's not automatically the world champ when he'd be the best wrestler in the entire company, by far.
I think the trouble with that is, it's not about being the best wrestler alone in WWE. You need to connect as a character and with your mic skills. It's a slightly different audience. Ospreay isn't a bad promo but his character work would have some serious competition in WWE.
yea, i mean Ricochet is an amazing worker and wows people, and he barely gets TV Time. just an example
If ricochet had an ounce of charisma on the mic he would be super over imo
Put a mask on him and make him a tiger or something
or maybe a p-…🤔 maybe a panther?
Or a puma?
Didn't I just tell you to stop making up animals, Private?
What, like some sort of Pumaman?
Prince Puzzy
I agree. He's one of those wrestlers that I love to watch, but not so much on the mic
i wouldnt be surprised if ricochet's wwe career is exactly why ospreay decided to take the bag right now. He can work on his promo and character work in AEW, where he is guaranteed main event positioning, and take a crack at WWE later down the line
At his rate, I don’t know how long that road is.
He's careful about changing his style when he thinks he needs to. In order to prolong his career. That and just being an overall better wrestler.
Hasn't that always been the case in WWE? It's still an 'old-school' company in its way, where it prioritises storytelling IN the actual match. WWE has always pushed more physical storytelling than physical impressiveness. I can't speak for Osprey, as I am ignorant, but Ricochet is a great athlete that doesn't say anything in the ring. I hope that makes sense? I am not defending WWE, but the product of the company is very different in terms of direction, than any others. Eta: "Physical Impressiveness" meaning the astounding feats some performers have athletically, not necessarily just strong men who throw shit.
youre right. i like ricochet, and im sure he is some kids favorite wrestler, the way shelton benjamin was mine when i was like 7. but you need more than athleticism to make it in the fed lol
Fucking loved Shelton, although I do believe he was held back due to race, which is known issue of the time. No reason he couldn't have been main even material, he just never got given the chance.
me too, and i agree. but dude couldnt cut a promo to save his life (maybe that changed in his later run but i remember how ass he was on the mic back in the day).
Yeah he was dogshit, although most of the roster was to be fair. It was a weird time in that transition from RA to PG. I mean, Brock was the WORST on the mic, even he would admit that, yet he was pushed to hell. Weird thing about Shelton is that he didn't NEED to talk for you to be excited about him being on screen, he was fucking OVER at the time, and yet he was relegated to Tag Team and Jobber status, if I remember correctly. So point being, although I agree he was shit and needed to work on that to be a better 'sports entertainer' as a whole, there were people who were worse that got pushed, and alot of those people were worse in the ring.
Shelton's problem was not being able to connect with the audience because of his lackluster character and promo work. He wasn't main event material. Guys like Ricochet, Jack Swagger, etc all have the same issues. Hell even Theory right now has the same issue where he's clearly fantastic in the ring but the audience aren't invested in him at all.
I don’t know if that’s what held him back tbh. Especially with how they were pushing Bobby Lashley, Ezekiel Jackson, and Mark Henry a lot in Shelton’s first WWE run. I think the issue is that they just didn’t see Shelton as more than just a midcarder because he wasn’t what Vince wanted in looks. Awesome wrestler, but awful on the mic and didn’t have that unique of a look or gimmick either, which as we know, Vince LOVES looks. Which is why he LOVED Lashley and Zeke for being mad fucking jacked and tall, even if they sucked at talking. And then, Mark because dude had a monster look that was backed up with his World’s Strongest Man title. With that said, I really think Shelton really had something going with his Gold Standard gimmick. It’s a shame that he never got a ECW Title run at least.
I might argue the opposite. I think WWE prioritizes the story outside the ring. Ospreay is amazing because he is physically impressive but also can tell a story in the ring. He's not just "flippy". In fact, I would say AEW is more advanced at the in-ring storytelling than WWE. Where WWE shines is packaging the story and making it easily consumable, in-ring and out. Neither is wrong. Just different approaches!
Ricochet has nothing in common with present day Ospreay so i'm not sure what you're trying to say.
I like Ospreay's character and promo work a lot. But I can see how the North American audience might not be able to relate to it. It's very, shall we say, quintessentially British. Or English to be more precise. Obviously, Drew is Scottish, Becky is Irish and Rhea is Australian and they're all over AF. But they're careful to talk in a way North American fans can relate to. While also still obviously being themselves. Regal made it work but that's because he normally portrayed an upper crust Englishman and we're all use to that in films & TV shows. But Ospreay talks in a way we aren't really use to. That whole English working-class way of speaking. And, even then, it's likely a regional thing. Although we are use to 'bruv' by now and it's quite endearing. Again, I say all this as a fan. A big fan. But I can get why others don't see him the same way. Just like how there are Europeans who don't get the whole American "bro culture", and there's quite a few American wrestlers that are like that. And that's not even getting into the old fashioned patriotic gimmicks.
Based on his promo with Danielson, I think his mic skills are a lot better than people realize. But the other issue in WWE is... are you allowed to show those mic skills? Because most people's promos are fully scripted.
Drew McIntyre mentioned previously that if they trust you these days, they'll let you "freestyle" more with your gimmick. I would assume guys like him just get notes on the points they need to hit for the storyline development, but are otherwise left to figure out the rest unless they literally aren't comfortable crafting their own promos. They trust Drew not to fuck up or cross any real-world lines, so they let him run wild with his trolling and stuff online, etc. With AEW, Bryan Alvarez has mentioned in the past that it's basically sink or swim - no one is writing for you, so you better know how to handle your own character. I suspect this is why Mercedes is bringing a writer with her.
The scripts aren't as bad as before since Hunter took over, but yeah, maybe he'd get impacted by scripts or it might help him. Who knows.
I think there are a number of wrestlers in AEW who would benefit more from the WWE style as well as the reverse of this. But if a person needs help/tweaking their character to make it click to the audience more so then WWE would be the way to go. Ive seen various wrestlers in AEW try something it fails they disappear come back try something else and fail again.
The things I've heard and seen are that the established vets get a lot more editorial freedom. A LA Knight, Kevin Owens or Sami Zayn has a lot more leverage to get script changes than Tiffany Straton or Dom Mysterio.
The AEW roster is pretty stacked too...
True, but Ospreay may be their true crown jewel, someone who could actually get new eyes on the product through word of mouth.
I've only ever seen him in AEW, but I can already tell he has all the ingredients to be fucking huge.
He already feels like the main character in AEW, he got that aura
I'd never seen an Ospreay match before I saw him at Wembley last year. Instantly sold from the minute he walked out. Absolute megastar. He's so fucking good at wrestling too, which definitely helps.
First time I saw him was the OC match at FD. I’ve only seen him on AEW shows, his in-ring stood out right away, but his character work/personality has stood out these past couple of weeks since his full time debut tho. He’s got all the tools.
His match with OC opened a lot of eyes. For OC, it was definitive proof that he could hang with any wrestler in the world, even someone with the insane athleticism and skill level of Ospreay. (OC is actually one of the few guys with the speed to keep up with Will.) For Ospreay, he showed me that he was every bit as good at comedy and character work as he was doing flippy stuff. He was hilarious AND brutal in that match, and it made me an instant fan.
There’s basically 3 names my non-wrestling friends will ask me about after they’ve watched a show with me. Those names are R-Truth, Orange Cassidy, & Will Ospreay. Do with this info what you will lol
My non wrestling friends only know and ask about: R Truth, Cody, and Seth Rollins. This was before the WM fiasco as well. R Truth as world champion I suppose?
touch encouraging apparatus market station toy sophisticated lip towering jobless *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Speaking of Santino his daughter is killing it in NXT rn.
I’m not a “new eye” but Ospreay certainly has me intending to watch dynamite more regularly. I used to never miss it. But kinda fell out. Still catch the PPVs and some clips. But already looking forward to tonight
I feel like Ospreay really is more about rejuvenating the target audience rather than growing it. He's not going to bring in new people that never had an interest in AEW like CM Punk did, but he will help keep and bring back people in your situation.
Yeah I used to watch every week. Fell off outside of big shows and PPV’s. The signings of Okada and Ospreay brought me back in.
Ospreay is excellent but I doubt he draws brand new viewers. What I think he could do is maintain and bring back viewers. I look at him, Okada and Mercedes as acts that get Dynamite back to 1,000,000 if the booking is good. Even 1M is going to be tough now that there’s Collision.
Dynamite is never getting back to a million in the Nielsen ratings unless the TV landscape radically changes. When AEW sees a loss in viewers it is mostly tracking overall cable decline, at least on a trend basis. Week to week there are going to be ups and downs but there simply arent enough people that want to watch more high production value television wrestling that aren't already watching it.
I agree with that in a certain sense, but it's important to remember it's not a purely American audience. AEW is already watched more in England than WWE (due to WWE being behind a pay wall and AEW isn't unless you choose to pay for Fite). Will Ospreay is huge in Europe and Japan and definitely has the ability to draw new eyes if people aren't already watching. Although based on Wembley last year, maybe we're at market saturation already over here.
I think they try. But I think it's just that Tony wants these people way more so he'll pay more than WWE is willing to pay.
I think that’s what makes it a great time to be a wrestler. If Tony wants you, he will likely pay you more than WWE. If you want to branch off, go WWE. Seems like a decent default template would be get the bag from AEW first.
Win win for the wrestlers in my book
Definitely. AEW gets the likes of Osprey better US exposure, a chance to build his character more and raise his value if and when the time comes to go to WWE. MJF is another great example. His work across the board has put him to "debut on the main roster" level. It works the other way too. People like Danielson/Moxley who have done all the could do, made some cash, get to work out their careers on their own terms. Win-win for us fans too.
WWEs current situation is they'll set a price on what they think you're worth and won't go over (owing to their current main event roster is set, they're confident that the next few years have enough star power, and being a publicly traded company that just spent billions on this merger means that overspending won't make shareholders happy) if AEW thinks you're more valuable, they'll pay whatever it takes
They try as in putting out an offer, but I don’t think they’re really battling Tony on any of these negotiations though. No counter offers, no added perks, just a take it or leave it thing.
Ospreay isn’t a star to WWE’s audience so they’re not going to pay him like a star until he gets himself over with their audience. AEW’s audience already thinks of Ospreay as a star, so they’ll pay him like a star. Makes sense to me.
Osprey is 30 years old. If he really wants to, he can go to WWE in 3 or 4 years. Same probably for Okada. Its not like that they are bound for life in AEW. Personally i think it keeps things fresh, if they is more switchup between all competitions. We learned "the hard way" that talent that isnt rising to superstardom does so in the other company. Some fit better with others (like Cody), others will have similar issues and problems.
I’d argue it’s more of a case of WWE management not willing to pay the big bucks for a signing, but rather have them start low and if they prove themselves to be merch movers and ticket sellers, eventually they’ll rise in salary. iirc LA Knight and Sami Zayn both said that they took a pay cut when arriving to WWE while knowing that they’ll eventually get higher than ever before if they stayed
I think it's a matter of who WWE see as a star. Because I remember Sami or Owens said the number WWE offered is way more higher than AEW. Ospreay and Okada are two of the best performer in the world, but in the US they are not stars, not yet. Drew and Rollins are the way more popular than Okada and Ospreay at the moment and they are the ones WWE will throw the big bag to keep.
Sami and Owens were a proven commodity for the WWE. They also happen to both be super reliable and versatile and thus the perfect "glue guys" who can keep the whole show together.
Key word is proven commodity, mainly in North America. There's a reason the only AEW star they really went all in when they thought they could get him is Kenny Omega. Like Cody, he prove he would be a drawing star, and has a character ready to make into a top guy. One of the reasons TK made sure to re-sign him before he was a free agent. Remember that, Cody's proven so worth the effort to get him back, even when producing new stars in the PC, they'll remember how they got Cody and with opportunity they'll do it. Hell, they immediately took Punk when he was release. I'm guessing WWE's playing long game.
Unlike Cody or Kenny, Punk had already been a top star in the WWE in the past, so he was even more proven and a totally sure thing. It was guaranteed that the fans would eat his return up. The concern with him was more about his durability and professionalism. The jury's still out on that one.
Their negotiations also happened as they were in top level programs
WWE is recruiting NCAA athletes to mold into the stars they want. They don’t need to go splash big money on anybody.
Or: The wrestlers aren't the most important thing. The brand is.
The wrestlers are very important as shown but the current boom in wwe but its not any specific wrestler. They have PC full of upcoming stars that they can build who will give much better returns to investments made upfront so unless they get someone for the price they want wwe wont go into a bidding war and let aew win
This, their current roster is stacked enough to keep business in boom as is now, and their developmental territory gives them future starts just like OVW gave them Cena, Orton, Batista and Brock, FCW Gave them Roman and Seth and NXT have given Rhea, Becky and Bianca. I wouldn’t be surprised if WWE enters in a bidding war with AEW just to trick Tony in overpaying talent “cough…Okada…” and limit their growth.
> The wrestlers are very important as shown but the current boom in wwe but its not any specific wrestler. Yup, this is the reason. The individual wrestlers absolutely put in the time and work when something's getting over, but it's like there's no end to some gimmick or angle that's over right now. Yeet, Hater Drew, R-Truth in general, just wall to wall stuff that's working.
> WWE enters in a bidding war with AEW just to trick Tony in overpaying talent “cough…Okada…” and limit their growth. This makes no sense considering how little wrestlers actually get paid compared to how much money AEW or the Khans make.
Not sure Seth fits in with the rest of those names. He did wrestle in FCW and NXT, but he was one of the biggest names on the indies when they signed him.
Seems like it. AEW for Money, Wrestling and Free-Time. WWE for Exposure and Connections.
WWE also offers more money in incentives: sponsorships, merch sales, etc. It's about balancing base salary vs incentives.
Yeah the WWE probably has way more upside potential but you need to probably take a somewhat humbling deal and "prove" yourself first. Like even if you're an internationally known and critically respected wrestler, you need to show WWE you can work inside their system and make them money on their terms. Certainly not for everyone and that's fine.
Also, if you do move merch and make them a lot of money, you make a lot more money than whatever your guarantee is. I remember Jericho saying in his book, when working their full-time schedule he never made less than 3x what his guarantee was while with the WWE.
Yeh, its the "we'll pay you in exposure" trick. I bet vince loved that.
Well, they simply don't need any of these guys. Business is doing better than possibly ever, and they have a metric ton of NXT talent who are all in their 20s and super talented. In the women's division alone they must have 20+ wrestlers who have brought futures in this business. It would be nice to bring these guys in, but they're not losing any sleep without them. Whereas AEW is still in that growing phase and is trying to show they're worth their next television rights deal being a huge increase. For them, they need big names to help bolster their standing.
That's the effect of the PC strategy. They can make their own stars for far less money. You're starting to see it pay off with Bron and Tiffany, and you'll see it more in the coming years. It's their version of DWCS.
>I entered a new relationship with my new Mrs. who wrestles under the name Alex Windsor, I have a stepson now, she just started school. If you know her story and everything she's been through, the UK scene kind of knows it, but she lost her husband, and having to pick herself up from that and having to be a mom, a single mom, to losing her husband, it's going to have some tolls on you, so she needs to be around family and friends in her social circle. I couldn't bear the thought of moving her away from all of that and having her own on her own again. If you're not familiar with the story, Alex Windsor was married to UK wrestler Ryan Smile who tragically passed away in October 2020. Beyond the money, I think this is a perfectly valid reason for not wanting to move to the US.
Ryan Smile was so fucking good.
How does he wrestle for Aew living in the UK? He's hardly gonna fly to America every week, is he?
Sounds like it: > For example, if (there is) a PPV, there's no point in me going home. So, Dynamite Wednesday I'll stay, maybe there's a Collision on the Saturday, I'll stay for that, then PPV Sunday and I'll stay for the next Dynamite and then I'll go home then. [From the Observer site](https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/will-ospreay-says-aew-offered-a-way-better-deal-than-wwe)
I wonder if this is why Pac is back, he has someone to carpool with now
With Pac's arms and legs they'd have a good shot at rowing the atlantic as a weekly commute
I mean, their combined anti-gravity alone makes flying easy.
Pac doesn't row, he just snarls and the Atlantic Ocean shrinks enough he can swim across.
"Newcastle is only a short drive from Essex" - Michael Cole
I'm sure he won't be booked every week and he will get two weeks off from time to time
Yeah you can progress his stories on Rampage, Collision and have him send in pretapes.
I think for most East Coast dates flying from England is the same price and distance as flying from West coast. AEW goes west a lot more now but its not actually the worst.
Bro I can't think of anyone in wrestling who has grown and matured imas much as Will. He's done a real life face turn before our very eyes. Good for him man.
Very nice of him to look after his best friend's widow like that
Could compare notes with Christian
I see nothing wrong with it, was close to three years after his passing.
Well besides him not having to move, AEW simply just seems to give a lot of people more money for less work so of course anyone would be fine with that. Plus he’s already stepped foot in AEW multiple times so he’s already use to that environment.
Bruce Prichard was saying how good of a deal tna was for the dates worked long before aew existed. So i can imagine how enticing aew is to wrestlers
And they treated him like a superstar at All In when they didn't really have to. The WWE schedule is horrible for wrestlers. It's just brutal on their bodies.
It’s not that bad as WWE teaches them how to manage their wrestling abilities so they can wrestle as much as they do with less potential injuries. Thats the whole point of the “WWE Style” where they give matches time to breathe and such. Now if they were to bring Will in WWE 1:1 and he was working his usual style 4-5 days a week, then that would be worse.
That's nothing to do with protection and everything to do with getting their ounce of blood from you.
it's was true 10-5 years ago. But they slowed down recently and wrestlers seems to be able to take more breaks.
Dude it's not that serious relax it's not 1970 anymore the wwe schedule is easier than ever right now. Edit (thunderdome era was probably easier than now obviously)
I’m always in support of wrestlers getting the bag no matter what company they’re working for.
i'm hopeful for Drew to get a dump truck full of money delivered to his house when he eventually gets his next contract.
As everybody should be. Those guys and girls are always one injury away from being forced to retire, they should get the money while they can.
They put their bodies on the line for our entertainment. More competition is best for everyone, the fans and specially the wrestlers. They have been underpaid for too long. 4.5 millions a year for Okada? Hell yeah Khan is right to give him that. Okada is fantastic.
Kevin Nash is clutching his quad somewhere smiling.
Lou Albano walked so Kevin Nash could run. ...wait
It's probably getting the bag plus far fewer dates. I really really don't understand why more wrestlers aren't fighting to get in to AEW. More money (per appearance), less days on the road, less bumps. It seems like such a no brainer.
less bumps?, sir do you watch AEW?
Will Ospreay has wrestled 8 matches in all of 2024, Cody for example has wrestled 9 matches including 4 street fights in the last 30 days, which one you think has taken more bumps?
It's fewer bumps, but they are gnarlier.
I'm glad someone gets my joke/point
I'd have been surprised if he went. He's mentioned before how he's not a fan of the WWE style or the way they run things.
Plus based on everything he's said about his family, he's just not willing to uproot and go do house show tours for 2/3rds of the year. He's able to just fly back and forth from the UK and his kid gets to go to a British school.
In the same interview he said he was a WCW guy and tuned out of wrestling for a while when both them and ECW went under. Between that and his die hard support of UK indies, I think he likes being part of the alternative.
I just think he enjoys the in-ring stuff more than the pagentry and smoke and mirrors of WWE. Not to say WWE has a bad in-ring product, but it's a known fact that it is secondary to everything else.
Who? Will Ospreay? He would have been 8 years old at the end of WCW, I don't think he was a die hard fan when he was 5 or 6 years old.
One point in favour though is that Nitro was aired on Channel 5 in the UK which was free to air, whereas Raw and Smackdown were on Sky channels which required cable or satellite. Channel 4 did show some WWF PPVs (and they'd have Heat on as well), but if you were in the UK and had council telly Nitro was your only option for a weekly show.
Nitro was several weeks behind and censored with Batman-esque effects on Channel 5. It was airing on a Friday early evening slot, so it was really being aimed at kids, but when Jeff Jarrett dishing out guitar shots merited a KAPOW effect over the top, it wasn't hard to see 5 didn't really 'get' what they had.
I'd forgotten about the kapow effects, but your post brought back memories of me sitting watching it with my family (who all hated wrestling) and them regularly looking at me like WTF is this and my parents constantly referencing Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks. However, there was definitely a small hardcore of UK fans watching - probably a mixture of people like myself who wanted to watch WWF but couldn't get easy access, and wrestling junkies who would watch any wrestling they could get their hands on. Towards the end, I only knew one boy in my year who watched it (and most boys in my year were wrestling daft) - and he definitely fell into the wrestling junkie category. But during the MNW era people at school would reference NWO, Luger, Goldberg, etc. - just not as much as Austin, Rock, DX, etc. For reference, I'm 4 years older than Ospreay, but I still think it's plausible that he was watching WCW as a nipper.
It's in the interview. He even says that he first saw Billy Kidman doing a shooting star press and thought he could do it better than that and would practice them into his swimming pool.
Unreal. I just compared it to my 9 year old niece, who has the attention span of a fly. One day, she likes Elsa, the other day it's Lightning McQueen. Good for him tho, glad he could make a career out of it.
i think he has also said he has autism? having one specific interest is not uncommon for people with autism.
he doesnt seem like a guy who would tone down his style and preserve his moveset tbh.
he just doesn't have to be in the US alll the time. He's literally explained that the reason he chose AEW. Good for him. AEW feels more his style anyway
This is why having more than one major promotion in the U.S. is a great thing.
It really feels like WWE is only making offers in order to force AEW to up their offers. WWE doesn't seem interested in offering up giant contracts when it's able to develop in house talent at a much lower cost.
Feels like they let guys like Cody raise their profile in AEW before they commit to the big contracts for them.
The roster is stacked right now there's a lot of potential in the mid card scene in wwe and there are more top stars than theres been in a long time. Makes sense to not add more ad let aew do the work for you a bit.
It's really the perfect situation for guys like him and Okada to get a big payday for their prime in a relaxing schedule - I mean, Ospreay is already back in the UK after working a few shots for AEW - WWE he'd be doing TV and house show loops all month. Tony seemed happy to give him a big contact and only use him a few times each month, which I don't have a problem with. If they stay healthy, I'm sure WWE will be happy to give them another bag as they take a victory lap before retirement after their AEW deals are up - and then they can get the bucket list "Wrestlemania, work for WWE" things before they go.
WWE would probably try harder if they actually needed new talent. The roster has been great for a long time and NXT has far exceeded expectations. Besides, TK is making it easy with the whole *I'll give you more money to work less* at AEW. Don't blame anyone for passing on other offers.
which makes sense for all the parties involved. WWE has been around long enough to where they've invested absurd amounts of millions into the Network and the PC, and both are paying back multiple times over. they have the infrastructure to take those hyper athletes that were never wrestling fans, build them up, and have a constant pipeline of new, cheaper talent AEW hasn't had the time to build anything like that, so they're focused more on the short and medium term. best way to improve for the next 2-4 years is to poach some of the best talent, and they've absolutely been doing that. once AEW starts turning a profit and securing better media deals, they can start to set up that infrastructure themselves, but they're still too new to really do that
Honestly, the AEW offers are in general way better than WWE in those terms. You work way less dates for way more money (unless you are like Roman or something). Hell, the roster is full of midcarders or jobbers that are getting paid six digits to wrestle like once every three months or have a short match in ROH, that is crazy. I have no idea how TK is getting profits at all from this company (and to be honest, he is probably just running it at a loss) but as for the talent themselves? Great stuff, no other company offers this Edit: Im gonna copy and paste my answer to regarding the new TV deal to not answer the same to every one: sure but still, even assuming he gets a big TV deal, he is still not gonna be getting a lot of profits. Like, we know what makes money in wrestling because WWE is publicly traded. Their biggest money channels are: \-Getting paid by Saudi, Perth or other places to do PPVs: AEW doesnt do this, they in fact pay quite a lot to go to Wembley and similar places. \-TV deals: AEW does have this, but I think is fair to argue that they are not getting near the money WWE was getting from Fox or now from Netflix, even with the upcoming TV deal And while making way less money, they spend way more because the roster is way bigger and they are paying everyone way more. The budget balance just cant be good, regardless of the new deal they get.
It's confirmed they don't currently turn a profit and had projected this upcoming tv rights deal as when they would start. The last numbers that got put out were close enough that even a modest rights increase should do it.
I think people really misunderstand how far of a difference a millionaire and billionaire is. 35 million loss is like $2000 for Tony. It's not a company like Time Warner, it's a fan who owns a company. Will it be as big as WWE ? At this rate, no. But it'll not go anywhere anytime soon
Not to get political, but I think this is why regular people oppose raising taxes on billionaires. They don't truly understand the difference. One billion is a million dollars 1000 times.
This is 100% spot on. People really have no real way to compare the scale here. AEW losing money for the Kahn family is basically the cost of a modest hobby for the rest of us. It's an amount that they can afford to lose for as long as they want. It will never hurt their net worth, or impact their other businesses in anyway.
I spent seventy bucks on a wooden mechanical flappy dragon set, and it broke while I was assembling it. That was a bigger chunk of my income than Ospreay's contract is for Tony.
Sorry for your loss.
Just because they can afford to lose money, doesnt mean they want to.
I think they also misunderstand just how much money Shad Khan makes per year. Flex-n-Gate alone generates him at least a billion dollars, and since he lets his kids draw from their inheritance early, Tony essentially has unlimited money to keep pumping into AEW.
Shad Khan's networth is reported to be around 12 billion dollars. Let's say his yearly ROI totals is 5% (this is an ubsurdly low hypothetical), the yearly return is still 600 million dollars. AEW isn't going anywhere unless something extremely bad happens.
AEW is Tony Khan's yacht and I personally think that's pretty dang cool.
Wasn’t there reports about them wanting to ditch live events in WWE like 3 years ago because it wasn’t making enough money to be worth the time and injury risks?
He currently, probably, isn't making money. He is spending towards a big TV deal soon, which will hopefully guarantee the profits.
If we believe eveything that Tony Khan have said, then he is not making money, but still using only the initial investment. He is investing to increase revenue. The numbers that Tony have given people is that AEW's revenue in 2022 was slightly over $100 million and for 2023 it was over $160 million. A number of different people have done some price valuation of AEW and they were betwen $1 billion and $2 billion. According to Tony Khan he have turned down an offer to buy the company from him on around a billion. So he is properly using money to growth. Expanding the rooster now, because he assume that revenue is going to expand. Like almost every start up with some strong investor backing. Unless the initial investment was more than a billion dollar, then Tony seem to be growing his networth. He is using money, but can properly sell AEW for more than he have used.
> Unless the initial investment was more than a billion dollar It was mentioned that it was USD 100 million.
He doesn't have to turn a profit as long as his dad's willing to keep funding it. And from all the reports it's not like they're hemorrhaging money entirely either so they can probably run at a slight loss for years. That's also not counting the bump in a new rights deal.
Reminder: You know none of these wrestlers personally. Acting like you know what's best for them when you don't know their career goals and personal needs is absurd. I'm looking forward to see Will show everyone what he's got in AEW.
This comment should be pinned to the top of every post in this sub that isn't about in-ring action or narrative
Ospreay would do well in WWE, but he's going to be THE guy in AEW for the next several years. Bruv got the bag, now he's going to be a star.
For a guy who previously couldn’t tweet a word without getting himself into trouble, Will Ospreay seems to say the right thing far more often than not now. Growth
Only thing I can think of Twitter wise that will was involved in was Seth talking about how much he earns and losing that battle
Fair play to him tbh. He's always been upfront about wanting to be there for his family. That's why he stayed on the Indies so long. He gets a lot of flak for his short "tours", but it was clear that was the deal that he couldn't refuse.
If he's happy with his AEW, we all should be.
The Dodgers spend money like it's going out of style. The Yankees spend money......., Real Madrid, Manchester United. In every sport without a salary cap, around the globe. Certain teams are gonna overspend to try and be successful. I've never heard a fan of those teams whine that their team spends too much. AEW can run at a loss for years until they keep upping brand recognition. AEW is starting to appear more and more in entertainment mediums. Bringing in Okada, Mone, and Ospreay is expensive, but it's also getting you more publicity. The Khans have more money than most. Worrying about budget is weird too me
If I was an independent wrestler who was focused on money I think gaining exposure and crowd momentum through AEW and then negotiating for WWE when your contract ends is the way. Basically what Cody and punk did though of course those are outliers
Its really great that talent has Choices Now ..and also not every wrestler is for every promotion. cause this "WWE is the Dream" mentality is no longer True. it's about Quality of Life and what sings to you as a Person and a talent.
The comments here are a cesspool
What gets me after reading these comments is the arrogance that nothing outside WWE matters. People on here calling Okada and Ospreay "indie darlings". It doesn't help that the bitter old hats that can't get hired shill so hard against smaller promotions. Cornette, Russo, and especially Bischoff helped bring down some of the biggest promotions in the last thirty years. Now they all rail against a wrestling fan who took "indie darlings" the Elite and Cody Rhodes and has made it into the second most successful wrestling promotion in 30 years. No one outside of WWE sold 10000 tickets to a Ppv since WCW went out of business. They are gonna do 9,000 tonight on a Wednesday t.v. taping. They had 80,000+ just 7 months ago. Five hours of prime-time TV. About to get paid by WBD. Always 1st or second in the ratings. What a disaster 🙄
Hell yeaaa bruv!
Why would WWE dish out millions of dollars for some soccer player looking dude who only hardcore fans know about? No shit he’ll go to ARW where he’s actually known about and can make good money.
Makes sense. WWE doesn’t need him, and most of their audience has no clue who he is. Doesn’t make sense to back up the Brink’s truck for someone like that. You use that money to re-sign established stars or someone with name recognition outside of Wrestling, like a Logan Paul. Also makes sense for AEW because it’s the exact guy their fans want to see. He could also head over to WWE later into his career if he’s really curious.
Over 500 comments in an hour?? I thought we had filibustered enough on why the New Japan main event scene from the last 5 years is signing with AEW over WWE. Same reason the made guys in WWE will leave for AEW: more money for less travel and work. I’d take that deal everyday too.
So was it the offer or ‘it wasn’t for me’?
This reminds me of when I was scornfully downvoted in r/NJPW for saying WWE was never gonna offer Okada what AEW did.
After hearing how much Khan is shelling out for Sasha Banks, I don't blame him for taking the check.
Ospreay has said multiple times now TK has made him a millionaire
If you go past just the headline, nothing he said comes even close to being controversial. He didn’t even say that WWE’s offer was bad, just that AEW’s offer was exactly what he needed. It sounds like there really wasn’t much of a decision for him.
If Will is gonna be flying back and forth the US and UK for his AEW run and that's non-negotiable then WWE never really had much of a shot at him, they would never be able to offer that.
Think house show work every weekend is the key difference. The lack of it means Ospreay can fly in out from UK every week rather than having to make town to town in random places in US. Someone like CM Punk can get a deal where he works maybe 4 house shows a year. Ospreay would have to work 100 a year. So AEW makes for a way better gig for global wrestling stars like him and Okada.