When AEW burst onto the scene in 2019, it was a fresh new challenger to WWE. After years of stagnation under Vince McMahon, a large contingent of the wrestling community had grown tired of WWE’s desire to stick to a specific formula. Matches were predictable, often boring, and lacked the physicality of The Attitude era.
As such, AEW’s brash approach to in-ring production and its penchant for violence helped it quickly rise to become the second-biggest wrestling promotion on the planet. However, since Paul Levesque was given more power within WWE, the company has experienced a massive resurgence and is arguably the hottest it has been in over 20 years.
That resurgence has come at the expense of AEW, whose television numbers and ratings have steadily dropped over the last two years. According to Dave Meltzer in a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the decline in popularity and viewership has become a discussion point within AEW’s locker room.
“The locker room in some instances is better,” Meltzer wrote. “I think the difference is most get along, and most like Tony Khan, but there is a concern about attendance and popularity that wasn’t there in the past. The locker room generally gets along.”
A major turning point for AEW came almost a year ago when CM Punk was suspended and ultimately fired for a backstage scuffle with Jack Perry at “All-In In London.” Punk eventually returned to WWE, taking his diehard fanbase with him. That move hurt AEW’s brand in multiple ways and expedited the company’s decline in popularity.
Put simply, there was far too much drama backstage, which is why Meltzer provided an update on the current locker-room harmony. Nevertheless, the concerns surrounding the company’s popularity are legitimate. AEW hasn’t broken the 1 million-viewers mark in over a year and has rarely hit 800,000 viewers.
Of course, when the dominant wrestling product experiences a massive surge, other companies will feel the trickle-down effect. AEW must continue to evolve its offering, employ smart wrestling people and stick the course. Eventually, it should overcome the current cold spell and begin drawing in a new set of fans.
How Khan gets that message across to concerned employees remains to be seen, but for now, there’s no question that AEW remains the “best of the rest” when it comes to wrestling promotions.
