"Not good news for Tony Khan" - Wrestling world furious after AEW show faces major loss in viewers over the weekend
Following the AEW Full Gear pay-per-view, there was a lot of hype following episodes of Tony Khan's promotion. Unfortunately, there was a huge rating drop for Rampage, and the wrestling world is unhappy about it.
This past week's episode of Rampage was at an unusual time. The special Black Friday edition of the show was at 4:00 PM Eastern Time rather than the usual 10:00 PM Eastern Time.
One of the biggest takeaways from the show was the shocking heel turn of Dark Order's Preston Vance. He turned on his own faction and joined forces with Rush and Jose the Assistant.
Apart from this, FTR successfully defended their ROH Tag Team Championships against Top Flight. Following the title match, ROH World Champion Chris Jericho and his faction celebrated his victory against Tomohiro Ishii on Dynamite. The party was cut short by Claudio Castagnoli, who challenged The Ocho to a title match. If Claudio loses, he will need to join The Jericho Appreciation Society.
The episode averaged 391 thousand. Alfred Konuwa of Forbes reported the news via Twitter and mentioned that this was 12% down from last week and 9% from last year's Black Friday edition episode.
12% vs. last week &One Black Friday deal that no one was buying was apparently #AEWRampage. Fast Nationals are finally in…and they are grim.
P2+: 391K ⬇️12% vs. last week &⬇️ 9% vs. last year
18-49: 129K ⬇️28% vs. last week & ⬇️46% last year.
18-34: 44K ⬇️43% vs. last week & ⬇️5% vs. last yr.
The wrestling world was stunned by this report. They felt that this was bad news for Tony Khan.
These numbers spell DISASTER!!!
YIKES!!!! twitter.com/ThisIsNasty/st…
No 400k? twitter.com/ThisIsNasty/st…
@ThisIsNasty How is this possible? Rampage featured the hottest angle in the business where some jobber turned heel on a dorky stable and then removed his mask. No way these numbers are real.
@ThisIsNasty Not Good news for Tony Khan
Some defended Tony Khan's promotion as it was at a different start time.
@ThisIsNasty Yeah it's a crappy number, but it isn't that far down from that far from last week's crappy number. A time slot change has a hit for any program, people are creatures of habit.
Clearly due to the early start time. As I said before the superior show #Smackdown, didn't even see anybody talking about #AEWrampage on my feed during work or before SD. Still had 390 or so that watched it early. I guess that's... something. twitter.com/ThisIsNasty/st…
Konuwa replied to these fans by stating that the Fifa World Cup was in the same time slot, and that drew a viewership of 15 million.
You can blame it on holdays/airing in the afternoon, but USA vs. England did 15M in the same timeslot. 🇺🇲
Some felt that AEW majorly focused on attracting hardcore fans, and thus the casuals did not tune in.
@ThisIsNasty They attract hardcore fans, WWE gears toward casual fans. AEW don't understand that. That's why they won't grow their audience
"Just realized as an afterthought none of the best of 7 matches are on Rampage. One more in a line of messages Rampage is missable. A big % of the audience have gotten the message. Perplexing ahead of negotiations next year. A lesson of 2018 was how key rebuilding Smackdown was," tweeted Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics.
Just realized as an afterthought none of the best of 7 matches are on Rampage. One more in a line of messages Rampage is missable. A big % of the audience have gotten the message. Perplexing ahead of negotiations next year. A lesson of 2018 was how key rebuilding Smackdown was.
Few fans felt that the show did fairly well than they expected.
@ThisIsNasty Considering the time, I’m surprised they did that well. It was a horrendous episode
@ThisIsNasty That’s way better than I expected. Figured 225-250
@ThisIsNasty I have to be honest with you. 400k would still be bad, but I was seriously expecting sub-300k potential here.
Tony Khan's show created a new record
This past week's episode of Dynamite featured the fallout from the AEW Full Gear pay-per-view. Prior to the episode, All Elite President Tony Khan took to Twitter to announce that the show had created a record in the United Kingdom.
"After a great Full Gear, we got great news from ITV @JohnWilliams004, #AEWDynamite recently set a new record on 11/11 for UK tv ratings with 210,000 viewers!" Tony Khan tweeted.
After a great Full Gear, we got great news from ITV @JohnWilliams004, #AEWDynamite recently set a new record on 11/11 for UK tv ratings with 210,000 viewers!
Dynamite is live TOMORROW on @TBSNetwork for Thanksgiving Eve in Chicago, thank you everyone worldwide watching @AEWonTV!
This upcoming episode of Dynamite is a show to watch out for as the new AEW World Champion MJF will make his first appearance on television since winning the title.
What was your favorite segment from this past week's episode of Rampage? Let us know in the comments section below.