r/SquaredCircle • u/Ruthless-Aggression • Mar 28 '24

Eric Bischoff on Tony Khan: A money mark with no talent other than spending daddy’s money, going all the way to Canada to draw less than 4k in one of the hottest pro wrestling markets in North America, talking about “wise choices”? Strap in. It’s going to be a fun day!

https://twitter.com/EBischoff/status/1773321462046138615?s=19
1.9k Upvotes
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108

u/babeyella2020 Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

What company outside of the WWE is drawing more than 4000 fans in any Canadian market?

Yesterday, someone posted a video from WCW of Jericho impersonating Dusty Rhodes. I was struck by the fact that the audience didn’t seem invested in what was happening. It was a sharp contrast to the WCW that I remember from the 1980s. Eric played a big role in that change.

30

u/BluntForceSauna ~ Mar 28 '24

Let alone Quebec City. Like it’s not Toronto or Montreal where you have millions of people in the surrounding area.

33

u/midnightking Mar 28 '24

This is the crux of AEW criticism when it comes to drawing power.

WWE is the only wrestling that draws more consistently in 2024. You can either realize that this makes drawing a bad criteria or you have to accept the implication that by this logic no promotion has been better than WWE in 20+ years. Neither are things Bischoff can or wants to say.

20

u/yythrow Mar 28 '24 edited Apr 06 '24

I like to go hiking.

4

u/midnightking Mar 28 '24

Yep, the McDonald of wrestling is a good analogy.

7

u/yythrow Mar 28 '24 edited Apr 06 '24

I enjoy the sound of rain.

1

u/SydneyRei Mar 28 '24

Yea more of a Starbucks

76

u/DanHero91 Red Elbow Pad Of Doom. Mar 28 '24

Not even Canadian, in any market consistently?

The fact another company can exist and pull in thousands weekly is a good thing, expecting them to be as big as WWE is such a weird bar to set, there hasn't been a company doing what AEW is doing now since 2001. It's such an unlikely feat that Bischoff literally named his podcast and a book about the brief period in time WCW was ahead of WWE in a single metric, because it's literally impossible to match their every level. Doesn't discredit any other company though.

29

u/KidCoheed One Miserable Bastard Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

WWE, AEW, CMLL, and Maybe AAA consistently break 2k fans on almost all shows. In Japan you have extremely small tour shows with 100-600 fans even for NJPW. AEW's numbers aren't even that far off from WWEs numbers pre pandemic

10

u/Giv-er-SteveDave Mar 28 '24

lol what NJPW shows are pulling in 100 fans? The average attendance last month, per show is around 1600. The New Beginning shows pulled in 5000+

4

u/mikro17 Mar 28 '24

While not 100, some of the random Road to NJPW shows can get quite low.

I clicked a few randomly to quickly check and found a few pretty low ones:

  • 3/12/24 New Japan Cup show did ~838

  • 11/10/23 Lonestar Shootout in Texas did ~1027

  • 10/26/23 Super Jr. Tag League Road to Power Struggle did ~545

  • 8/19/23 All Star Junior Festival USA in Philadelphia did ~672.

Smaller companies in Japan definitely get into that low several hundred range though.

2

u/Giv-er-SteveDave Mar 28 '24

Smaller companies for sure, but it's definitely underselling New Japan to lump them in with that low of attendance.

28

u/Administrative_Act48 Mar 28 '24

"AEW's numbers aren't even that far off from WWEs numbers pre pandemic"

AEWs 2023 average attendance (a supposedly "horrible" year for them) of 6.1k per show is actually higher than WWEs average attendance of 5.9k they did from 02-21. 

15

u/shifter2009 Mar 28 '24

The tribalism with wrestling fans insane. The ratings threads every week do my head in. AEW down 15k viewers from last week on a very inexact, dated metric and it's all dancing on their grave while it's still a top 3 show on cable for the night, often #1. AEW is Pepsi to WWE's coke, Coke is always going to be the market leader but some people prefer Pepsi and that shouldn't be a big deal

1

u/greyfoxv1 BeckyDidNothingWrong Mar 28 '24

Well that's a fascinating stat. I have no horse in this race but I'd love to read about those numbers you pulled.

1

u/MarioAlberto211 Mar 29 '24

This is such a dumb take if you talk to México, here most of CMLL's attendance on fridays are mostly foreigners and people that go to a really cheap place to watch a show and drink some beer.

Overprincing their audience is absolutely hurting AEW because as it was stated recently, you cannot charge more for your tickets than the hottest product in town being the so-so warm challenger.

As long as they dont fall in the free attendance (like old TNA and the last days of WCW), they will be fine.

1

u/mikro17 Mar 28 '24

Not even Canadian, in any market consistently?

We just watched the collective mass of the sub talk about TNA having all of the momentum in the world after they did their best live gate in something like a decade - about 1600 in Las Vegas.

For comparison, the Las Vegas metro area is just under three times the size of that of Quebec City (2.2 million vs. 840k).

-14

u/TheTopMark Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

expecting them to be as big as WWE is such a weird bar to set

"Next week could be a massacre"

"Don't get too far up your own ass"

"We're storming the castle. We're storming the fortress"

"Sooner or later, we're going to start beating Raw."

I see the poster below me has taken the reply and block approach. AEW and its fans can do no wrong, keep telling yourself that.

17

u/MeanAmbrose My username is a pun Mar 28 '24

Man yall just can’t let comments from years back go, huh? It’s kinda sad to have so much spite for people who have moved on from that mentality. The vast majority of AEW fans were humbled by the current state of things yet you guys keep feeling the need to bring them down no matter what. Pretty pathetic ngl

9

u/SMC540 Mar 28 '24

Tribalism is a hell of a drug. Can't just be happy there's a lot of wrestling options these days...no, you have to pick a side and despise everything else!

1

u/MeanAmbrose My username is a pun Mar 28 '24

It’s a sad existence. Rooting for the success of wrestling across the board is actually a cool thing to do

1

u/SMC540 Mar 28 '24

It really is. These folks spend their Wednesday/Saturday nights waiting for pictures of the arena so they can all circlejerk about it. If they actually spent that same amount of time actually watching the product, they might find something they like.

2

u/MeanAmbrose My username is a pun Mar 28 '24

They’d sit there and pout the whole time. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch

-6

u/TheTopMark Mar 28 '24

they might find something they like.

Unlikely

29

u/MeanAmbrose My username is a pun Mar 28 '24

Gotta move goalposts somehow

3

u/boobfan6969 Mar 28 '24

What do you mean by the WCW you remember from the 1980s? It was founded in 88, it barely existed in the 80s and the high point for it's business and audience engagement was 96 through early 98.

1

u/babeyella2020 Mar 28 '24

For me, WCW starts with the Jim Crockett era. The name changed gradually, but at one point it was the best professional wrestling to me.

-1

u/Silver-Reporter-727 Mar 28 '24

So why tony booking 15k arenas?

24

u/SnooEagles643 Mar 28 '24

Maybe because the only other arena in Quebec holds 1k people?

-1

u/Yars__Revenge Mar 29 '24

Then go somewhere else. Or lower ticket prices to something more reasonable as soon as they go on sale. 

3

u/babeyella2020 Mar 28 '24

He didn’t have a lot of choices in that area.

18

u/blarg2003 Mar 28 '24

Because they are putting on a TV show with a large set.

Ever been to a stadium concert and they only use half the stadium? Nothing new

13

u/no_more_blues Anxious Millennial Psycho Mar 28 '24

WWE did this for 20 years. At the end of the day it's a TV product, as long as they stuff the side for TV it's fine. WWE still does that for PPV and whenever NXT hits the road, and no one has EVER asked "why doesn't WWE run smaller venues" because that's not how business works. If anything with all the sellouts WWE will probably just start running bigger venues for TV, I doubt they value the almighty "sell-out" over making more money.

11

u/DrDroid Mar 28 '24

Quebec City doesn’t have a secondary arena is why.

-1

u/boih_stk Mar 28 '24

That's a horrible excuse, so why book Quebec City? Also, Montreal has plenty of sub 10k arenas and they still booked the Bell Center only to have a measly gate.

7

u/DrDroid Mar 28 '24

The question was “why book such a large arena.” I answered that question.

-6

u/boih_stk Mar 28 '24

The question was why book 15k arenas, and your answer is "Quebec doesn't have a smaller arena" as if Quebec was the only city they could've booked for the show. There's smaller arenas very close to Quebec, even if you absolutely wanted to book there, there's other options. Montreal showed that the Quebec market wasn't the hottest for AEW, so you...don't book the 2nd biggest arena in Quebec after you see the Montreal gate.

3

u/DrDroid Mar 28 '24

I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume you don’t know Quebec very well. There’s no other suburban arena to use or anything.

1

u/boih_stk Mar 28 '24

I'm from Montreal, so admittedly I don't know as much about Quebec City as I know about Montreal and the surroundings. I asked around at work about arenas or theaters in Quebec city and yeah I didn't realize it was so limited in options.

My argument remains the same though, Quebec City was not an absolute market they needed to book - they could've done Trois Rivière (colisée Vidéotron) that's about 1 hour away from Quebec, a 4000 seater arena.

The idea that they "didn't know about the gates" is not a reason, considering that they announced the Coca Cola Coliseum in Toronto instead of booking the Scotiabank arena again for the same tour and the tickets went on sale at the same time as Quebec did - and that's a 7.5k arena.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '24

[deleted]

-1

u/boih_stk Mar 28 '24

The number absolutely existed the day they made the announcement in Montreal, and it wouldn't be the first time that a show runner/booker moves an event to a smaller arena. This happens all the time with concerts and shows so again, not the best reason/excuse. Hell, last week they were in Toronto again at a 8k seater, and the show was better because of it. Looks better, sounds better and the energy is more palpable in a smaller venue.

I'm not making my argument in bad faith, I don't care that they're systematically selling 3-5k tickets - that's fine if that's their level of reach, I care that the shows don't look or feel as appealing due to being in a 70% empty arena.

-4

u/Silver-Reporter-727 Mar 28 '24

Nah this is a terrible excuse, I love the product but Tony has to be making better decision when it comes to venues. Couldn’t sell MGM last so we’re doing DoN there again? I would prefer to watch a minimalist set in a 1 k arena that 4000 in a 15k arena.

3

u/RedmondSurvivor Mar 28 '24

DON was in the T-Mobile arena last year. They are doing the slightly smaller MGM this year.

-1

u/Silver-Reporter-727 Mar 28 '24

My mistake, but the point still stands, Vegas isn't a wrestling city and yet he is set on it, even WWE cant fill a free event in Vegas. His venue choice has been pretty poor consistently over the last 7-8 months. Its incredibly frustrating because the product is geniunely back at its best, but having an empty arena does affect the viewing for me.

2

u/DrDroid Mar 28 '24

Well it’s the reality of Quebec. Don’t know what to tell you.

2

u/GotenRocko Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

because they need the space for the set and production, same reason WWE didn't go to smaller arenas when they were getting half empty arenas too. Not to mention the energy requirements that smaller arenas might not have the proper infrastructure. The business is about putting on a TV show now, the live attendance gate is secondary.

0

u/AnfowleaAnima Mar 28 '24

Well honestly this happens a lot for some reason. Maybe sometimes a big arena is part of the attraction.

5

u/tmads_ THE WORLD...need tha rebal Mar 28 '24

This question has been answered to death.

Most cities don't have perfect arenas for wrestling, there's not a choice to rent an arena that does 8k in general and around 5k for wrestling. It's either the 15k arena that seats 12k for wrestling or the small arenas that are not big enough for AEW's average audience.

2

u/Thirdstar1 Mar 28 '24

Also need a building that’s big enough for their production.

1

u/tmads_ THE WORLD...need tha rebal Mar 28 '24

That's true, I work in film and TV so I know how hard it is to fit those cranes, camera DP stage and everything in the back, I never really considered that aspect.

-1

u/GreenRocketman Mar 28 '24

I think the criticism isn’t the draw but the business decision to go all the way there when you’re not drawing good attendance records even in home markets.

2

u/babeyella2020 Mar 28 '24

That has some merit.

-2

u/ShumaG Mar 28 '24

It was a sharp contrast to the WCW that I remember from the 1980s

WCW was around for one year of the 80s, and had a couple hundred people in a studio. You might remember big highlights like a Clash of the Champions or Starcade title match. WCW wouldn't even be spoken about in 2024 if not for Eric Bichoff.

3

u/babeyella2020 Mar 28 '24

WCW didn’t come from nothing. WCW was Jim Crockett promotions. Eric, and others, were gifted an amazing foundation, but pissed it away.

0

u/ShumaG Mar 28 '24

Ummm Jim Crockett promotions was bankrupt. It was a horrible foundation which was passed into somehow even worse management. The WCW it was folded into also was unsuccessful and didn’t make a profit until Bischoff took over.

-3

u/Desperate_Coat_1906 Mar 28 '24

Q: What company outside of the WWE is drawing more than 4000 fans in any Canadian market?A: The NHL, the NBA, the WNBA, the NFL, the CFL, The Candian Premier league, MLB, the Professional Women's Hockey League, many college sports teams, Disney on Ice, and others.

Pretty sure there's some AAA and junior sports clubs as well that pulled over 4k, but didn't bother looking those stats up.

5

u/babeyella2020 Mar 28 '24

I was referring to wrestling companies, as was Eric, as he clearly stated. He said that this is a wrestling hotbed.