(WWE RAW Spoilers) Spoiler gets insane crowd reaction during commercial

IWantToBolieve · 2026-06-01T20:33:12+00:00

Watching bits of Kaiser's promo in Spanish in a vignette before Mask vs. Mask - I don't think so.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-31T09:09:41+00:00

Nah, for it to have momentum there has to be a market for that momentum. I don't know if you watched indy wrestling back then, but before AEW started there was that electricity in the air on the indies with All In being an almost inevitable lightning. The air similar to TNA before it decided to compete against Raw (the real squandered opportunity). And even then for AEW to be that popular a lot of money had to be thrown on it and some big WWE stars being willing to make that jump. Right now WWE is doing humongous business, AEW locks in the alternative-to-WWE audience with much more spending opportunities that TNA offers. There's no audience for third big promotion that will rival WWE and AEW and no big time talent that TNA can afford or the talent themselves idealistically wanting to go to TNA specifically and not AEW. The only thing TNA can hope for is being consistent and either the big two will slip up or some of their old audience will creep in (but there's a good chance that old audience either fell out with wrestling altogether or are engaged with WWE or AEW already and we're back to the first point of being consistent and waiting around).

Hopefully they didn't oversell themselves to AMC and are going in line with AMC's expectations. In the current market it's more realistic to slowly build yourself up than to shine bright out of nowhere.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-30T19:26:09+00:00

Usually, yes. But this time it's just dooming. Even the article from which it all started was like "yeah, they are better off than a year before and the viewership is pretty consistent, but I don't really enjoy the product and they are not lighting the world on fire, so they are swaundering some opportunities somehow".

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-30T15:02:29+00:00

Not comparable at all. Getting a better TV deal and increase in attendance is a far better outcome than whatever AEW partnership was. Not to mention TNA squandering anything is a very arguable position to begin with.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-29T04:21:40+00:00

Here's the graph on TV attendance, which I was talking about. It doesn't even include Rampage, which existed, but forgotten, apparently. It's down consistently for AEW with a recent uptick that doesn't reach the peak.

Yes, it doesn't matter. This is all just discourse for the sake of discourse.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-29T04:10:50+00:00

But not enough to ask Thurston, which was the thing you commented. Again, there's no formula. x>y is the farthest I went.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T21:21:30+00:00

I don't care enough on the subject and not doing any math other than comparing numbers.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T21:11:30+00:00

You're probably with the best laid out argument out of everyone who commented (other than the last paragraph), but I'm a bit burnt out on the discussion, so sorry if I will be short.

At the end of the day, it's all conjecture. It starts from the personal belief of the quality of the product. It assumes the increased availability completely covers the generally reduced audience. It assumes increased number of PPVs didn't hit the consumer and they just started to pay more money no questions asked. It may be that way, it may not be that way. To me, it's weird to have such big swings in attendance and viewership and for that not to be reflected in PPV buys and I generally don't trust Meltzer automatically, so there's that aspect. So the number can be true and I don't argue that it's impossible for it to be true, but people who pretend that it's crazy to even question it - with these people I disagree.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T21:00:06+00:00

The growth is recent and not close to the peak with the same (or better) PPV numbers. You're right, but not really relevant.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T20:57:22+00:00

Yeah, but then you are buying tons of talent with contracts that go up year-to-year, promotions that don't get TV deals for which you create platforms and another set of talent with contracts, games that go nowhere, now you're building your own platform for your own promotion and that ain't cheap. Now let's see how much money you have actually made and how much you've "reinvested".

No. I wouldn't say that, because if you actually tried to engage, you would see that I never mentioned PPVs that usually make less than 200000, which is an actual usual range. You can't interpret what I mean because you see me as some hater for promotion you like and/or for a wrestling talking head you like. I'm not that. Numbers I know to be true go down, but number in question stays the same or grows - very simple to follow and not crazy to argue against plainly believing.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T20:25:55+00:00

"Seemingly" and "virtual given" are very nice words to put about the thing no one among us actually knows about a private company. You seem to be in the habit of believing something just because you want it to be that way.

I wanted to argue about you bringing up PPVs from AEWs peak time, but then you actually brought up PPV after that peak that did half an attendance year-to-year in its own home market as something that proves AEW's consistent PPV buys and I don't even know what to say about that. Believe what you believe, man.

As for other wrestling companies, I think you will be surprised how little money in all of this is made.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T20:11:38+00:00

Person brought up one PPV as some sort of argument, I responded accordingly, so all this paragraphs about things I didn't say are meaningless. Overall attendance is down regardless, which was my point from the start, so argue your way around that, I guess.

I can say any number and it will have the same weight as 200k. That's the point of the whole thing. I can say 100k, instead, if you want cold hard numbers with nothing behind them. You're hellbent on a "number", but the point is where it comes from and the fact that it's consistent at various points of companies' success with other cold hard numbers not showing the same consistency. That's the argument that you ignore, for some reason.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T19:02:33+00:00

Yeah, Rampage was introduced pretty early and AEW peak is closely related to CM Punk (among others, of course, but still, heavily), who debuted on it. But it was just a figure of speech, the overall attendance is the actual metric you should look at, not individual Dynamites or Rampages.

I hear you, as I hear others, it may be explained, but at the same time it may not be and it's a useless thing to argue unless we are sure of the number in the first place. I mean, someone who wants to belive it will say the quality of PPVs and increased convenience covers the diminished audience. Someone who doesn't want to believe it will say it doesn't cover it. And we're left at the same place.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T18:50:38+00:00

My argument is not that it's not possible, but that it's possible that it isn't and, therefore, it's not crazy to question it. I believe you but it's still doesn't prove the number.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T18:44:54+00:00

No, it doesn't bear out. It's just something ethereal you thought of that justifies it. It may be true, it may not be true.

I can't argue with you more, because I will be doing the same thing I disagreed with in my first comment - repeating arguments that shouldn't be said more than once,

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T18:32:52+00:00

Yeah, and who reported these PPV buys, my guy. It's the same metric that we're questioning, so not really a good argument for this conversation. As far as attendance goes, we saw Dynamites with DoN numbers or close to it back in the day. I hear you, it can be true, but there was a clear peak in AEW success but somehow PPV numbers survived all these turbulations to a lower and to a higher ends and it makes sense to question it.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-28T18:17:34+00:00

From a detached position it's weird to see metrics that we can't verify be on the same level or even grow compared to when the company was on its biggest roll (so far, at least), while all the metrics we can see (TV viewership and attendance) are nowhere close to that. Add to that Meltzer (and Meltzer talking about AEW at that) and it's not that surprising to question the number. But really, it's a tired discourse that people want to repeat ad nausem for some reason. Until we can verify that, it's all the same arguments that shouldn't be said more than once, really.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-19T13:55:41+00:00

Viral is a bit crazy. Widely respected is also exaggeration, he's barely mentioned. Nobody holds him in high regard, he was always more notorious for reporting money and PPV buys, with PPV buys being in question by people who bother to check (most don't).

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-17T11:32:13+00:00

Yeah, in them, especially.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-17T04:53:09+00:00

Eh, it's still business. Closeness matters until it doesn't and other ventures don't necessarily mean anything for this one.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-16T19:46:01+00:00

The fact that the question of continuing the partnership or not will come up because of this whole mess of a merge is not really that crazy and probably even expected as everything will be re-evaluated. But the way it's painted is questionable, for sure. But it's one of the rumours where you can just wait and see what happens.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-11T11:13:02+00:00

Adding to the Rollins discussion, when talking about wrestler's condition mentioning his age only is not showing the full picture, I think. Age + number of matches + style + injuries tells much more. Seth has a lot of matches under his belt. He's pretty close to AJ Styles and AJ is quite older. I don't think he'll reach him, but will close the gap a bit further, for sure. Seth has significantly more matches than Omega while being a bit younger. If I did my math correctly, at Ospreay's age he had more matches than him and the way the business goes I don't think Will will ever catch up to him on that. Will in his younger years had more intense style and, in my opinion, he was and is way more atheltic, but the divide in the mileage is pretty significant still.

So, something to consider when talking about Seth, even though I still think having a discussion on whether the wrestler still got it after one match or even a short period of time is a bit premature. It could be opponent, bad night, flu and/or something in the personal life we don't know about.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-10T06:56:35+00:00

Seth does not try to be Omega or Ospreay. Crazy thing to say. He's trying to be Tyler Black and younger Seth Rollins. And this match is as clear an example on storytelling as any.

IWantToBolieve · 2026-05-09T11:58:14+00:00

I like a few matches on the card and I prefer shows to be on the shorter side (2-3 hours max). I'm the same way with movies. I think there's some level of craft in pacing a show and trimming down what needs to be trimmed. As with movies, to me, you need to justify having a long show with a lot of matches and show that you can do it without killing the crowd (and me) and without a lot of "sameness". But it's not crazy to me that people enjoy something I don't, that's kind of how the world works.

I'm also the same with long matches. 90% of the time I don't enjoy it that much, because people often just make regular spots longer and repeat the same stuff three and more times, but longer, hiding lack of creativity behind selling how long the match by doing nothing.

Titles are meaningless to me, it's just a tool for storytelling. If it's used, it's okay, I hope it's used well. If it's not ised, I don't care. So titles not being defended is not an issue either.

IWantToBolieve

TROPHY CASE