Ah numbers. Those wonderful enigmas that dictate our entire lives. As important as numbers are, they are shockingly easy to manipulate. After all, the addition of one “0” can be the difference between being poor and being rich. Ironic for a number that is the literal representation of nothing. The genesis of this blog post began from a comment thread of a YouTube short. This comment thread provides a fascinating look at how two people talking about the exact same set of numbers can come up with vastly different conclusions.
First, I will provide context for the non-wrestling fans. Since the fall of WCW (World Championship Wrestling) in 2001, WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) was the only real option for televised professional wrestling in the United States. There were a handful of small or international alternatives, but WWE was the only wrestling company with consistent weekly television available to a wide audience. Some companies made valiant efforts to fill the hole left by WCW. TNA (Total Non-Stop Action) arguably had the strongest run as an alternative to WWE, but never came close to conquering the giant. A revolution of sorts began through wrestlers working for New Japan Pro Wrestling and/or Ring of Honor starting to make a name for themselves completely outside the WWE system. Further adding to the revolution were certain talents opting to leave WWE and bet on themselves working the independents rather than be squandered. Cody Rhodes, son of the American Dream Dusty Rhodes, chose the path of independence and in a move that shocked the wrestling world, asked to be released from his WWE contract. Cody has never been able to rise above mid-card status in WWE and was saddled with the TERRIBLE Stardust gimmick. That’s a fun Google rabbit-hole if you’d like more information. Cody made his way to New Japan and Ring of Honor where he fell in with the Bullet Club stable, specifically the Young Bucks. Thanks to a Twitter bet with a well-known wrestling journalist Cody and the Bucks self-funded and self-promoted (with some production help from Ring of Honor) their own independent wrestling show, All In. One year and one billionaire later, All Elite Wrestling was born. AEW promised to be a major alternative and competitor (although no one in AEW would ever claim to be competition unless it was convenient at the time). Now that AEW just started its fourth year in existence, the newness and mystique has worn off and people have been left with a less than ideal picture of the supposed revolution in wrestling.
Here’s where we get into the numbers. The first bit of controversy came when AEW didn’t really stack up to WWE’s viewership, which is no surprise considering the massive head start WWE has. Around this time, AEW started touting that they were leading in the “demo”. In this case “the demo” is shorthand for the 18–49-year-old male demographic of the total audience. AEW strongly touted that they were leading in the demo ratings compared to WWE, with Chris Jericho (an AEW wrestler) beginning to refer to himself as the “Demo God”. While all this was true, it’s worth noting that when AEW was talking about WWE, they were referring to NXT (WWE’s developmental brand). It’s also worth noting that WWE programming is aimed at a younger audience with a rating of TV-PG until very recently while AEW had a rating of TV-14 since its inception. This is one of many examples where a statement about numbers can be factually true but takes on a different scope when more information is provided.
Now to the main controversy of the comment thread. Firstly, the point I was making in the video was that AEW is having a growth issue because they are catering to a particular niche wrestling fan. These fans are people who in all likelihood would watch AEW no matter what they put on television, and who supported the original AEW wrestlers before AEW even existed. Numbers can help illustrate this. AEW’s debut episode in 2019 garnered 1,409,000 viewers. That is an impressive debut to be sure! However, consider that the same week’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw (which was in a low viewership point at the time) had 2,571,000 viewers. This is not a fair comparison but keep these numbers in mind. Another important number is 5 million. 5 million is the approximate average number of wrestling fans that watched WWE Monday Night Raw during the Attitude Era (approximately 1997-2001). This is the same time the Monday Night War with WCW Monday Nitro was taking place. What this means is that during this time, with an active competitor on equal (sometimes greater) standing, and without the advents of streaming or DVR technology, WWE still managed to regularly attract 5 million people on average to watch their weekly program. Why is this important? Yes, The Attitude Era is over, but ask yourself why did WWE’s viewership essentially get cut in half before AEW even existed?
Jim Cornette is a former wrestling manager/personality/booker/promoter and general savant of the world of professional wrestling. Because he has worked in the wrestling industry since the days of the territories all the way into the mid-2000s in some capacity, he has a unique perspective that few people have. Jim still contributes to the wrestling world through his podcasts The Jim Cornette Experience and Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru along with his co-host Brian Last. Jim has said repeatedly that when WWE changed the nature of professional wrestling, particularly after the Attitude Era, many wrestling fans found themselves not enjoying the product anymore. Wrestling had become too cartoony, too phony (as Jim would say) and all-around so nonsensical that many fans would rather not watch at all. Add the fact that the UFC and MMA in general were taking off around the same time, many fans left the “fake” sport of wrestling for the real combat in the cage. Jim Cornette has also explained that if a major company had enough money and a substantial television presence, they could eclipse WWE so long as they presented pro wrestling like it used to be. He concedes that wrestling will likely never go back to where it once was with viewership because the business has “been killed” and is so far gone that many lapsed fans will never come back. There are plenty of lapsed fans who want to watch wrestling, however, there’s just nothing they want to watch on right now. I was one of them. AEW was a beacon of hope for those of us who wanted to watch good pro wrestling but has failed to deliver on this. This is where we get back to the numbers.
The commenter on the video stated that AEW viewership was up. This may be true comparing any two random weeks, but when one looks at the bigger picture, viewership is stagnant at best. Remember AEW’s first episode rating? They have failed to reach or exceed that number in three years of programming. They’ve gotten somewhat close a few times. Their only episode of AEW Rampage that broke 1 million viewers required wrestling superstar CM Punk to return to a wrestling television program after a 7-year absence since leaving the WWE in 2014. Rampage on average garners around 500,000 viewers on any given week. It’s also worth noting that AEW Dynamite’s rating was down 55,000 viewers from the previous week when that comment was written. The latest episode of Dynamite as of this blog post has the lowest rating of 2022 by far losing 231,000 viewers from the previous week, which was already lower. Now, the commenter did rightly point out that it’s a different world. Cable television is slowly dying with streaming technology taking center stage and while these numbers are low compared to previous wrestling numbers, they are still good for the network they’re on. TNT and TBS regularly praise AEW’s ratings. That is certainly a positive spin on AEW’s numbers, but it didn’t address the point I was making. The point I’m making is that AEW is catering to the niche fan to their detriment. In fact, they don’t have to cater to this subset of fans at all, because they are mostly viewers who will tune in to AEW tv anyway. Ready for some more numbers? Of each weekly episode of Dynamite, most episodes have fewer viewers by the end of the program than when it started. Historically in wrestling, the opposite happened. This is why the main events are so important. They are the reason most people are watching through to the end of the program if your show is planned correctly. Jim Cornette often shares the segment ratings when reviewing an episode of wrestling television and consistently, AEW’s viewership tapers off during segments that Cornette would deem “bad pro wrestling”. AEW has plenty going for them. Wrestlers like CM Punk and MJF see viewership spikes when they are on TV. Fans drop off when the next segment starts with some silly character or “garbage” match that no one really cares about, or some poorly booked segment that leaves even devout fans scratching their heads. What all these different numbers ultimately point to is that AEW is not presenting the kind of wrestling that the silent audience of lapsed wrestling fans want, and there’s no way you can argue. Just look at the numbers.
Even if you aren’t remotely interested in professional wrestling, this example highlights a simple fact. If AEW could just “add the zero” they would eclipse the WWE dynasty that has ruled wrestling arguably since the 1980s. They would demolish them with just one little number that literally means nothing. It’s what it would take to get that zero that proves to be an exceptionally daunting task. Yet, by simply changing my verbiage I can present this as easy or next to impossible. AEW is currently watched regularly by .27% of the population of the United States. If they were to add the proverbial zero, they would be watched by 2.7% of the population. .27% is approximately 900,000 people. 2.7% would be 9,000,000, which is higher than Monday Night Raw’s most viewed episode in history. It’s simultaneously a difference of one “0” and 8.1 million people. Numbers can always have a spin to them. “Only one percent of people who took this drug showed negative side effects” tells me the sample size of that group is huge, and they are using the percentage to soften the blow. Turning it to “0” in a way. “6.57 million people died from this illness” tells me they want to drive this home, but how big is the sample? For this unspecified example, the percentage is 1.05% slightly rounded up. Numbers can be used in a variety of ways for good or ill. The key is to figure out which numbers to use and which ones to turn to “0”.
