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IS THE AUDIENCE NUMBER OR DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION MORE IMPORTANT FOR WRESTLING TV SERIES, JJ DILLON, WHY ECW WASNT BIGGER DURING IT'S RUN AND MORE

By Mike Johnson on 2020-07-10 10:00:00

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Since the last few weeks of the AEW vs. NXT battle, I've seen fans on Twitter pointing out that NXT has won the last few weeks but others are saying AEW is winning because they win the demos.  What's more important?

From a network perspective, I can tell you that the demographics are more important.  Everyone wants to win when they are in competition, but for a network, the demographics are far more important as that is the data that they deliver and promise to advertisers, who want to know that their products are seen by the highly desired younger audience.  AEW on Wednesday night was #7 for the evening in the 18-34 demo - and was the tops in LOTS of other demos this week)- and I can tell you that from speaking to a lot of sources at Warner Media, they absolutely love AEW's performance and do so much that there's been a lot of talk in recent weeks about developing other ways to link AEW with additional corners of Warner properties.

Anyone who dismisses the demo numbers is either uneducated to their importance or they are looking for an incorrect way to prove themselves right.  If WWE Smackdown is last in the viewership in their timeslot but they win the demo, it's not like FOX is going to look at the series as failing that week - and it's not like WWE would then bemoan that Smackdown was in last place vs. NBC, ABC, CBS, etc.  The argument that AEW is "doing bad" in, in any way, is just plain silly and not rooted in reality.

As far as the overnight audience, it is important for bragging rights but it's also an outdated way of looking at things.  For fans indoctrinated in the way we all used to track Raw vs. Nitro, it's silly to act like it's 1995.  The overnight numbers are different now.  Unless there is access to the +3 and +7 numbers via DVR viewing (which we don't have access to) and streaming #s, we don't know the final audience levels for the shows.  So, the overnight numbers don't tell the story on viewership the way they did decades ago.

Lastly, it's Twitter.  Not exactly the place to go for nuanced, detailed breakdown or discussions!

Hey guys, love the site. My question is about JJ Dillion.  He's in the WWE Hall of Fame but is never utilized for cameos, talking heads on documentaries, etc. and I was wondering if there is heat with he and WWE?

JJ Dillon worked for a number of years alongside Vince McMahon and Pat Patterson as one of the top executives for the WWF.  In his excellent autobiography, Wrestlers Are Like Seagulls, Dillon wrote extensively about working on a one-on-one basis with McMahon and being put in the position to take the heat for McMahon's decisions when it upset the wrestlers working for the company.  Dillon noted in the book that he was concerned about being left in the open as a public scapegoat for the company's original drug testing plan since he was the administrator and if they didn't stick to the policy as written, it was on his head.  During the same time period, WWE reduced the salary of a number of their office staff and executives to stave off financial problems coming out of the Vince McMahon steroid trial era, which put Dillon, living in CT (which is expensive) behind the eight ball financially.  When his family was finally able to sell their home, Dillon tendered his resignation.  According to Dillon, McMahon, worried that Dillion was going to crap all over the company publicly (the same week as Shane McMahon's wedding) made an offer to take care of Dillon on the way out.  Dillon agreed and said he would sign following a family vacation that weekend. When he returned, the offer had been pulled because he had "allegedly" had discussions with WCW.  Dillon claimed in his book, those discussions were nothing more than his family running into Scott Hall's family while at the Magic Kingdom when both were on vacation.  He also claimed that McMahon lied about his departure, telling others that JJ had attempted to "extort" from the company.  Dillon said that he made a conscious decision at that point to never work for WWF again, and in his appearances on the Horsemen DVD and the Flair Farewell, were done more out of respect for history and wanting WWE to get the story and moment right, than in seeking out a paycheck.  Dillon did get inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, but has not done anything else for WWE since that I can recall.  I think someone, perhaps AEW, would be smart to pick his brain since he's now retired.

From what I read on the internet and hear from my friends ECW could do no wrong. So my question is, if ECW was as half as good as I heard it was, then home come they never became a bigger company than what they did?

A number of factors, most of which were captured perfectly by WWE's Rise and Fall of ECW, Jeremy Borash's Forever Hardcore and the Barbed Wire City documentaries  The company never had a solid financial infrastructure and was basically run out of Paul Heyman's bedroom for most of the run.  WWE and WCW taking talent and concepts hurt the company as well.  By the time the company had gotten a national timeslot on TNN, most of what brought them to the dance had been used elsewhere to death.  Still, for a company that had no multimillion dollar backing or national TV deal, they broke down the walls like no company before or after ever will.  From an artistic and creative standpoint, I still stand by my belief that from 1994-1997, ECW had the best weekly TV and live events I'd ever seen in my life up until that point.  No other company had launched itself on PPV and survived and ECW did for several years.  They developed more stars than they were given credit for at the time and the company was much, much more than the blood and guts most assume it was all about.  While some of the product doesn't hold up due to the passage of time, ECW would have been a much bigger company if timing had been different.

I know that at Wrestlemania 3, Hulk Hogan slammed Andre The Giant and the WWF said at the time that no one ever slammed Andre before. Now I know that isn't true. In Harley Race's Autobiography"King Of The Ring", Race said that he slammed Andre before Hogan did and had photo's of himself slamming Andre as well as Andre slamming Race. A friend of mine said that the first man ever to slam Andre was Stan"The Lariat"Hansen! Three questions. (1) Who was the first wrestler ever to Bodyslam Andre The Giant in a match?(2) How many other wrestlers besides Harley Race and possibly Stan Hansen bodyslammed Andre before Hogan and (3) Who were these wrestlers?

I don't know who was the first to slam Andre, but Hogan had slammed Andre prior to Wrestlemania, plus I can recall seeing photos of Harley Race and El Canek slamming him. WWF simply ignored the past to make their Wrestlemania III storyline work.  I would suggest checking out the excellent book on Andre by Bertrand Hebert and Patrick LaPrade, which will give you ALL the Andre details you would ever want to find.  It's a fantastic read.

Whatever happened to CW Anderson?

Anderson has retired and is moving on to the next stage of his life.

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