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TONI STORM’S RETURN, WAS IT A GOOD MOVE FOR RICOCHET TO JUMP, AN OUT CLAUSE AND MORE

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It is no secret that recent AEW ratings are appalling. Rampage is doing record lows and seemingly will be cancelled in a few weeks. Collision is doing record lows. Dynamite is doing record lows and has lost to NXT in viewership 9 of the past 11 weeks. My question is, with that all in mind, do you think WBD has a potential out clause of their new deal? Surely it isn't an iron clad deal they have to honor if the numbers keep dropping. If Collision hits under 100k or if Dynamite starts to do 200k in primetime, as outlandish as that may seem, surely they can pull the plug, right?

I can’t say for sure since full details of the deal.  We have heard estimates from unnamed sources but nothing concrete.  All I can say is that if I were doing a deal with a cold product that had no other suitors, I would surely have put in clauses that I enact if the product kept getting colder, be it to pay them less or cancel the show altogether. Whether WBD did that or not, I can’t say.

Also, even if they don't pull the plug, do you think it's feasible they'd change days/time slots for some shows? For example, they could just move Collision to a Sunday or Saturday afternoon time slot to just get it out of prime time when more valuable programming can be played?

I would guess it’s possible, sure. At the end of the day, AEW doesn’t have a lot of leverage. It’s a cold product that has been slipping for a while now.  But if WBD doesn’t have anything better to air, maybe they will just accept it for what it is.

Toni Storm returned as a surprise at the end of Dynamite, I was happy to see her back to her old self and people online seemed excited, as did the dozens of fans in the arena. Then what does Tony do? He books her in an essentially unadvertised match on RAMPAGE. What on God's green earth is that booking? 

That is consistent with what Tony does.  He is a horrible booker with no instincts for the job. We should be surprised when he books something well, not surprised when he doesn’t.

Between Toni Storm being brought back that way and Jamie Hayter being brought back on a pre-show and promptly being sent to Collision and Rampage for weeks, do you think female wrestlers in AEW are looking at WWE and wondering when they can make the jump? Surely a Jamie or a Kris Statlander would want to go. 

I don’t know if they are but I sure would be. It would be the same thing if I were a male wrestler!  If WWE made me an offer, I would go in a second. But there are some people who like doing all of their spots as opposed to being fully fleshed out pro wrestlers so for them, AEW is their nirvana.

So Ricochet leaves WWE for presumably a bigger push, yet he’s still jobbing to other mid carders less than 4 full months after his debut? SMH. Well, at least he’s getting great TK money right? Talk about the grass not always being greener!

Yep.  But he is getting to do his moves and if that is important to him, he’s in the right place.  Only he knows what his motivation was to make the jump. If he is happy, that’s all that counts.

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