spookydust

i don't watch a lot of WWE these days. not because of some console war AEW v WWE bullshit, but because of a lot of what you see here. don't get me wrong, this match is one of the greatest examples of making chicken salad out of chicken shit i have ever seen, but there's a lot of shit to wade through.

i wouldn't fault anyone for turning off the sound so you don't have to listen to Jerry Lawler, JBL, and Michael Cole at their dirt worst as they call this match. they sneer through ugly, stupid jokes, heckle their little person counterparts, and do their best to turn the whole thing into a clown show.

but this is pro wrestling too. this is what pro wrestling was and all-too-frequently still is. pro wrestling is an exploitative business to its core, all the way back to its much-mythologized carnival origins¹. it should say something that Donald Trump, the exploiter-in-chief, the man who has never given anything and has only taken and taken and taken his entire life, that black hole of humanity, that endlessly sucking parasite idolizes the greatest carny to ever live, Vince McMahon.

to the point: they sent these men out to be a joke. they sent these men out so that almost 16,000 people in the Izod Center and 100,000 people watching at home would laugh at them. a sideshow. freaks. step right up to Vince McMahon's three-ring circus.

the combatants were El Torito - aka Mascarita Dorada, a 14-year veteran of Mexico's mini-estrella scene - and Hornswoggle, a 10-year veteran who Vince had brought into WWE with a leprechaun gimmick² 8 years prior.

by the end they had them on their feet. in the stands and in the back.

fuckin' pro wrestling.

1. and who are bigger marks than wrestling promoters themselves?

2. named "Little Bastard." no, i am not kidding.

AEW is doing their first overseas show at Wembley Stadium this summer. AEW's largest attendance to date is somewhere in the ballpark of 20,000 at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City. Wembley's capacity is around 90,000 depending on how it's configured.

this 70,000 attendee discrepancy led some wrestling old heads and journalists to speculate on how AEW could draw such a large number of fans and what "success" would look like.

some said just topping their max attendance would be a win. some said 40k. others compared WWE's numbers in Cardiff for Clash at the Castle (62,296), or for this year's Wrestlemania (~80k per night for a 2 night event).

some said AEW would struggle to break even 10,000 fans, which is about a large weekly TV crowd. people started throwing out wild ideas on how to entice people to come to this show.

this conversation was rampant and it seemed like nobody believed that this show was going to be a success, no matter how you measured it. this is not the first time i've felt like i live in a completely different reality when it comes to discourse about AEW. about 2 weeks ago, after a baffling take from Eric Bischoff¹ proposing bringing in widely despised retired wrestler Goldberg, i wrote this:

and today, Tony Khan² posted this:

so, for everyone playing at home: that's 50,000 tickets sold, before announcing a single match, before sales opened to the general public.

at this point, i wouldn't be surprised if they sell out the whole damn thing, but what ultimately matters is i was right, you jabroni marks.

1. erstwhile wrestling promoter who's worked for WCW, WWE, and TNA

2. owner of AEW, Very Online