Quick Thoughts: Last Night's Dynamite

I've seen SO MANY PEOPLE complaining about anti-AEW podcasts, and I feel that. I mean, I really want to like Wrestletalk because the guys themselves are usually upbeat and entertaining. Alas, lately it feels like those guys really don't want to be there, at least as far as AEW is concerned. Like, there's already a lot of WWE to cover, and that's mostly what makes them money, so AEW has become little more than a pain in their collective asses.

Behold, the world's tiniest violin, my friends.

I honestly don't care that they don't like the product. In fact, I think the issue is more that they do like the product, but there's just too much product on TV between the two companies. Which, again, is not my problem in any way. However, if they -- or anyone else -- is going to present themselves in the "support all wrestling" vein, then at that point no one wants to hear them complaining about having to cover wrestling.

If they don't want to do that shit, I'm 100% sure that the real, working world is still out there for them.

So.

Here is my review of AEW Dynamite. Because, as they say, solve the problem you want to see solved. Regardless of my qualifications or lack thereof, I at least actually enjoy this show.

#AsForDynamite: Building Competitor Brands is *NOT* Easy

Watching the combined United Football League (UFL) struggle this week to build and maintain an audience reminded me of some of AEW’s recent struggles with ratings and attendance. 

The UFL is, of course, the fifth recent attempt at launching a spring league of American Football in the United States, following on from the AAF, XFL 2.0, XFL 3.0, and the USFL. This newest league is an amalgamation of the most successful half of the XFL 3.0 -- the one owned by The Rock -- and the most successful half of the USFL. It’s notable because it’s launched to markedly less overall fanfare amongst the general populace of football viewers than several of these other leagues. This has happened despite the UFL producing by far the best on field product of any spring football league in American history. 

It reminded me of AEW in the sense that AEW has also struggled to maintain buzz and overall audience despite producing the best, most consistent in-ring product of any major American pro-wrestling brand.

The (Live?) Album Project: Let’s Talk New Rock Bands

My wife and I saw Styx, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Sammy Hagar, Loverboy, and George Thoroughgood all in concert over the summer a couple of years ago. We had a LOT of fun, but we also realized -- inescapably -- that our favorite bands are all getting old now. These guys are in their mid-to late-70s or worse.

Like it or not, seeing these bands in concert is becoming a limited time proposition.

With that in mind, we launched the Live Album Project, both because we wanted to get recordings of our favorites before it gets too late and because we wanted to find some new favorite bands for the future.

#AsForDynamite: Alright. Even *I* Didn't Like That One.

I wrote earlier this week about how AEW is a young man's or woman's company, and then they throw *that* out there.

#AsForDynamite: AEW Is a Young Man’s Game

Before we get started this week, I’d like to acknowledge that the last two articles in this series got way too negative in their approach to the fanbase. I am therefore trying to keep it more upbeat this week. There definitely are times when, “Fuck all these assholes. Normalize tribalism!” feels like an appropriate response to the discourse around pro-wrestling. However, our charge as West Pointers is “to live above the common level of life” and “to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong”. It therefore matters little what other people are doing. I myself have long since been called to a higher standard.

#AsForDynamite: What Are We Doing Here?

Well friends, how are we doing?

I said on Twitter yesterday that I didn’t think that these #AsForDynamite posts were necessarily getting over, and since then -- happily -- we’ve seen a small but substantial uptick in readership. I mean, I’m still not sure that the world needs yet more bullshit in the pro-wrestling space, nor I am about to quit my day job to create yet another pro-wrestling YouTube channel. However, enough folks tuned into the last two articles to make me feel comfortable at least writing a mission statement for what we're now calling #AsForDynamite.

#AsForDynamite: The View from the Cheap Seats

My daughter Emma and I went to last night’s AEW Dynamite in Worcester, MA. The show was awesome. And now, since I’ve wanted to pitch a series of articles called “The View from the Cheap Seats” to AEW President Tony Khan for quite some time now, I’m gonna go ahead and shoot my shot.

To say the very least, I was *quite* surprised when AEW announced a show in Worcester. My daughter Emma is a freshman at Clark, located just two miles away from the DCU Center, and while she likes the university, we both agree that the town itself is kind of a dump.

With Emma during the Bucks' entrance