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WHAT I WOULD DO IT I WERE CM PUNK AND I WAS THE KEY TO WBD DOING THE NEW SHOW, WHAT I WOULD DO IF I WERE TONY KHAN THE BOOKER, THE DANGER OF GOING BACK TO PPV FOR WWE AND MORE

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What would you think if Tony Khan was about to get $200 million a year for his TV rights from Warner Brothers Discovery?

I think it would be an amazing achievement and Tony should be extremely proud.  If he gets to that point he will officially get to the place in my mind where I start talking about his booking the way I did about Vince McMahon’s.  I would have to say I think he is doing great from a business perspective but I think he’s leaving money on the table and could be doing more.  At that point, to me it would no longer be “his booking is costing them money” and that would be awesome.  I hope it happens.

I listened to you and Eps about AEW’s business being down year to year.  I admit, I loved AEW when it started but it’s become more and more missable to me.  If you were Tony Khan, what would you do to stop the slide?

If I am Tony, I know that I won’t fire myself as booker.  That is the main problem but you asked me what I would if I was Tony, not if I were me, but to be clear - the booking is the problem.  He is really bad at creating characters for fans outside of his bubble to invest in and his storylines are just, well, dull to people outside of the fan base that he has.  I think what’s clear now is that he has a core base of fans and how many of them tune in depends on what “dream matches” he puts on this week.  Think about what a flawed concept that is, dream matches.  There are only so many of them when a booker is doing a good job of getting stories and characters over.  When he isn’t?  He runs through them pretty quickly.  If I were him, as an analytics guy, I would listen to the numbers. I would start getting characters over in a way that would possibly draw fans that aren’t watching now.  What the hardcore AEW types don’t understand is that while love wrestling for the matches, Smackdown draws 2 to 3 times the viewers that they do because a lot of fans like the stories and characters.  That is a prime place for improvement for AEW.

With all of the talk of WBD wanting CM Punk to be the focal point of the rumored Saturday show, and maybe even the main or only reason that they want it, how would react if you were CM Punk if the old problems that led to the blow up started happening again?

Today is fun, I get to be other people!  OK, if I am CM Punk and I agree to come back and find out that the above rumors were facts, I would have a long talk with Tony Khan about how I think he lets his locker room act, leak to the press, etc.  I would make it clear to Tony that if any of that stuff happens again, I am leaving.  He can explain to WBD why I am gone.  I would also make it clear to Tony that if that happens and WBD contacts me, I will gladly tell THEM why I am gone.  Maybe then the childish stuff that happens behind the scenes far too often in AEW will come to an end.

Now that WWE is to be a part of Endeavor, what do you think will happen to PLE’s on Peacock? Should we expect Endeavor to try to charge for these as they do with UFC PPV’s on ESPN+?

They stay on Peacock for the duration of the deal with NBCU.  After that, they go to the highest bidder.  I think that falls in line with Endeavor's way of doing things and it makes sense.  If it's me, the deal would HAVE to be written in such a way where, in this case, Disney pays me a significant fee for the right to offer the PPVs, and then we have a split on the buys.  There is no way I would just jump back in time and turn down guaranteed money from some service to take a chance that people will want to go into their pockets to pay far more for the PPVs after getting them so cheaply for years now.  I would remember that part of the reason that we started the Network in the first place was because buy rates were down.  I would also remember that unlike UFC, WWE has five hours of first run TV every week that makes high priced PPVs something that a fan can skip.

What ever happened to Carmella and Lacey Evans? 

Carmella is pregnant and Lacey is apparently getting another reboot.

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