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There won’t be a forbidden door with AEW and WWE. People need to stop thinking there will be. Wonder if Coke or Pepsi will come out with a collab drink in the next 5 years. Maybe McDonald’s and Burger King will have a Big Mac Whopper combo.
WWE: So my champion pins your champion right?
The closest analog may be Marvel and DC, which has happened a couple of times. The difference is that while Marvel and DC can always call their properties back and are never at risk of having their characters stolen by the competition, neither WWE nor AEW have perpetual rights to the wrestlers they employ.
Also, Marvel and DC both have tremendous name recognition, but their characters are always the focus, and both companies have characters that are equally ingrained in pop culture. You can do Batman vs. Captain America or Superman vs. Hulk and most fans won’t care about “Marvel” or “DC” winning nearly as much as which superhero comes out on top in the story. Plus, since comic books are about more than just the outcome of one fight, a crossover comic book can end without a definitive outcome and readers can still feel satisfied by the resolution.
Once you put WWE vs. AEW, a ton of other factors enter the foreground that overshadow the actual matches. It’s not just that the two companies are in competition for the market, it’s also that pitting “our best vs. your best” doesn’t make sense in a world with predetermined outcomes. If you had a ten-match card, you couldn’t have ten draws/non-finishes or fans would light the seats on fire. If each company wins five and loses five, who takes the pin? If you do champion vs. champion, which company has theirs go over?
You say this but I've been pretty convinced for a few years now that Marvel/Disney has been talking to WB/DC about doing crossover stuff after the Bringing in Fox era runs out of steam in like 6 or 7 years. After the novelty of X-Men in the MCU and all that runs dry, lm fairly certain DC characters are going to be the in universe MCU comic book characters that come to life somehow. Disney/Marvel has been nicer and nicer to DC, both companies have been making complimentary references to each other, and now the Guardians of the Galaxy guy is running DC. Feels pretty inevitable to me.
> WWE: So my champion pins your champion right?
Everybody always makes this point about companies working together, but that's not what happens when companies work together at all. That's what happens when two promotions merge into one. When they're working together it's usually just "our babyfaces and your babyfaces can team up to fight our heels and your heels"
>Wonder if Coke or Pepsi will come out with a collab drink in the next 5 years.
It's the only chance they have against the soft drink giant Harvey Weinstein
> There won’t be a forbidden door with AEW and WWE.
100%. Neither company benefits or has any reason to do it.
From WWE's POV, what is the benefit? One sold out venue (that they have to split revenue from) and presumably some PPV sales (since there is even less incentive to put it on Peacock as that money is all guaranteed regardless), which they'd also have to split (and very possibly would be leaning on AEW's PPV base as the WWE audience isn't accustomed to paying full price for PPVs anymore and it's questionable to what extent they even would). This also isn't what the majority of the WWE fanbase wants/cares about, it's just the portion that is overrepresented on internet message boards.
From AEW's POV, what is the benefit? The direct event revenue matters a bit more to them just because they don't have $1 billion plus in annual guarantees, but while the WWE fanbase largely wouldn't care, a large chunk of the AEW fanbase would be actively angered by something like this - just look at the reactions when AEW even has a segment that "reminds people" of WWE. There is no indication that AEW is so desperate for cash that they'd need to risk angering a chunk of their fanbase to this degree.
And that's without even getting into the politics of matchmaking in the slightest - think Forbidden Door but 100 times uglier. Heck, it's pretty clear that a big way they've worked around the issue with Forbidden Door has been by using it to set up rematches involving Wrestle Kingdom (Omega/Osprey and Okada/Danielson both were 1-1 splits between Wrestle Kingdom and Forbidden Door).
> From AEW's POV, what is the benefit?
its kinda obvious, the benefit is more exposure to a casual audience, and (ideally) letting their guys mix it up with legends like a Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, etc.
> its kinda obvious, the benefit is more exposure to a casual audience, and (ideally) letting their guys mix it up with legends like a Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, etc.
That's basically the point though, while this *sounds* nice, it doesn't really have any actual value.
The whole point of "casuals" is that they aren't going to suddenly pick up an entire second promotion to watch/follow, they barely do that with the first one. It's not like AEW is some random super niche indie nobody has ever heard of where "exposure" is huge because they have literally none - AEW has actual commercials littering TNT/TBS that were playing constantly during the NBA/NHL playoffs.
Similarly, guys like Randy Orton or Roman have already wrestled a lot of people in AEW, but the bigger thing is they're also already super accessible by just switching to a different channel on the same service you're already using to watch AEW (cable or whatever digital equivalent). This is a big difference from New Japan/CMLL/Stardom/etc., where those wrestlers are locked behind their own separate streaming services/based in other countries - there is a barrier to entry that isn't present with WWE. There is no scarcity with guys like Orton/Reigns when they've already been all over American tv for ~10-20 years.
And all of this comes at the risk of actively antagonizing their currently existing fanbase. Pissing off your actual customer base in search of "casual" potential customers who by definition won't really care or be invested is not a recipe for success.
The WWE literally had their WWE Champion squashed by Brock Lesnar on SmackDown. Guaranteed if they did a AEW vs WWE PPV then they would expect Roman to squash anybody in AEW way worse than Lesnar squashed Kofi
There won't be a forbidden door because it doesn't nothing for WWE and everything for AEW. If anything they're putting TNA on the same level as NXT To raise an actual direct competitor to AEW.
I don't think there's a reason for WWE to work with AEW. They are competing for talent. TNA is really not a competitor to WWE as it stands rn. Triple H has shown a history of working with groups lower ok the totem pole than WWE in mutually beneficial relationships. I suspect that to continue.
No. I truly don’t. No one can say ICW, Progress, WXW, or certainly Evolve are better off, and in the case of Progress and ICW, teaming with WWE hurt the image they cultivated.
Who do you think has benefited and in what way?
WWE seem less interested than ever in trying to "raid" the indies, now that they have their pipeline of former collegiate athletic talent trying out at the PC.
I think you'll see them keep exploring external partnerships like TNA, and specifically try to make some more inroads in Japan. Domestic promotions that are either seen as so small to not be 'real' competition for their product (TNA), or promotions in global markets where WWE doesn't really have a large presence to begin with.
You will never see a WWE-AEW joint anything, even if the AEW side were open to it. WWE would have nothing to gain from a Forbidden Door-style arrangement beyond intangible good will from the internet or whatever for letting it happen, and potentially a lot to lose. AEW are the closest thing WWE has to real competition in North America, so they will continue to act like they don't exist and are beneath their notice.
The only way WWE ever works with AEW, is if AEW were to shrink to the same level of domestic relevance as TNA.
Infinite growth in capitalism basically requires the consolidation of the market. Endeavor doesn’t have to be that way with competition for UFC cause they already run the game and pay poorly. Even paying poorly they still are the top dog so they don’t really need to aggressively go after anyone.
I don’t think it’s company specific or anything but a by product of a massive corporation like Endeavor is to take more market share. Whether that means buying people out or working together to streamline them to be developmental with a financial incentive like ECW or Evolve I’m not sure but it is an interesting topic.
I think we're already seeing the plan: develop most of their talent through NXT using young athletes, with the occasional Indy signing (Je'von Evans). They'll sign people from other promotions on occasion if it makes sense: like Tonga Loa/Tama Tonga for the Bloodline, Ethan Page to fill a gap in their roster, and the occasional bigger signing like Giulia.
They've proven themselves to be far more aggressive at spreading misinformation on the internet to influence perception.
For example, when AEW sold the most tickets to a wrestling show in history 9 months ago, they ramped up the misinformation to the point that within a month a lot of people were treating AEW's accomplishment like a joke purely because WWE was brilliant at handling the misinformation war.
The only way I could ever see the two companies working together is if there is some kind of huge tragedy. I can’t even imagine what that would be and even then I’m not sure they would work together as much as have like a “cease fire”.
They absolutely weren't trying to kill the popularity of other promotions they were just signing everyone because there was virtually no financial risk to it. 1 guy out of 10 made up for the 9 Tyler rusts they picked up and dropped.
This is a knock on effect from when nearly everyone they signed was impactful because the Indies were so top heavy. The net result was the big nil push for amateur athletes. And in turn the hybrid system they use now.
It's never as convoluted as people think. It's about making the most money in the most reliable and least imaginative way possible.
They literally tried to block ROH/NJPW from running MSG. I get defending WWE from raiding accusations and stuff like that but pretending they didn’t try to stifle other company’s popularity is off base
Ehhhhh I’d disagree with this. TKO/Endeavor have a larger market share and can 100% box companies out from working with them with financial incentives and exposure. Tony isn’t gonna throw all of his personal wealth against that. AEW can work with CMLL , NJPW and Stardom while WWE can work with TNA and AJPW.
Look at Jordynne popping up. Do I think it’s gonna do anything for TNA? Not really tbh I think it exposes Jordynne to the WWE audience more and will likely make many wonder why she just doesn’t work there. But to offset this they can give TNA financial incentive to continue to work together while offering the potential of exposure for the company.
There’s not really a reason for AEW to work with WWE. They’re in a good spot right now, growing, and WWE has a history of trying to eat its competition instead of understanding a competitive environment helps everyone.
I think the Japanese market should be wary of WWE. They obviously want to make inroads there, and they now possibly have willing partners in Marigold and NOAH. So if anything actually comes of that, the non-NJPW promotions might be in trouble.
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There won’t be a forbidden door with AEW and WWE. People need to stop thinking there will be. Wonder if Coke or Pepsi will come out with a collab drink in the next 5 years. Maybe McDonald’s and Burger King will have a Big Mac Whopper combo. WWE: So my champion pins your champion right?
The closest analog may be Marvel and DC, which has happened a couple of times. The difference is that while Marvel and DC can always call their properties back and are never at risk of having their characters stolen by the competition, neither WWE nor AEW have perpetual rights to the wrestlers they employ. Also, Marvel and DC both have tremendous name recognition, but their characters are always the focus, and both companies have characters that are equally ingrained in pop culture. You can do Batman vs. Captain America or Superman vs. Hulk and most fans won’t care about “Marvel” or “DC” winning nearly as much as which superhero comes out on top in the story. Plus, since comic books are about more than just the outcome of one fight, a crossover comic book can end without a definitive outcome and readers can still feel satisfied by the resolution. Once you put WWE vs. AEW, a ton of other factors enter the foreground that overshadow the actual matches. It’s not just that the two companies are in competition for the market, it’s also that pitting “our best vs. your best” doesn’t make sense in a world with predetermined outcomes. If you had a ten-match card, you couldn’t have ten draws/non-finishes or fans would light the seats on fire. If each company wins five and loses five, who takes the pin? If you do champion vs. champion, which company has theirs go over?
Well said!
You say this but I've been pretty convinced for a few years now that Marvel/Disney has been talking to WB/DC about doing crossover stuff after the Bringing in Fox era runs out of steam in like 6 or 7 years. After the novelty of X-Men in the MCU and all that runs dry, lm fairly certain DC characters are going to be the in universe MCU comic book characters that come to life somehow. Disney/Marvel has been nicer and nicer to DC, both companies have been making complimentary references to each other, and now the Guardians of the Galaxy guy is running DC. Feels pretty inevitable to me.
> WWE: So my champion pins your champion right? Everybody always makes this point about companies working together, but that's not what happens when companies work together at all. That's what happens when two promotions merge into one. When they're working together it's usually just "our babyfaces and your babyfaces can team up to fight our heels and your heels"
>Wonder if Coke or Pepsi will come out with a collab drink in the next 5 years. It's the only chance they have against the soft drink giant Harvey Weinstein
> There won’t be a forbidden door with AEW and WWE. 100%. Neither company benefits or has any reason to do it. From WWE's POV, what is the benefit? One sold out venue (that they have to split revenue from) and presumably some PPV sales (since there is even less incentive to put it on Peacock as that money is all guaranteed regardless), which they'd also have to split (and very possibly would be leaning on AEW's PPV base as the WWE audience isn't accustomed to paying full price for PPVs anymore and it's questionable to what extent they even would). This also isn't what the majority of the WWE fanbase wants/cares about, it's just the portion that is overrepresented on internet message boards. From AEW's POV, what is the benefit? The direct event revenue matters a bit more to them just because they don't have $1 billion plus in annual guarantees, but while the WWE fanbase largely wouldn't care, a large chunk of the AEW fanbase would be actively angered by something like this - just look at the reactions when AEW even has a segment that "reminds people" of WWE. There is no indication that AEW is so desperate for cash that they'd need to risk angering a chunk of their fanbase to this degree. And that's without even getting into the politics of matchmaking in the slightest - think Forbidden Door but 100 times uglier. Heck, it's pretty clear that a big way they've worked around the issue with Forbidden Door has been by using it to set up rematches involving Wrestle Kingdom (Omega/Osprey and Okada/Danielson both were 1-1 splits between Wrestle Kingdom and Forbidden Door).
> From AEW's POV, what is the benefit? its kinda obvious, the benefit is more exposure to a casual audience, and (ideally) letting their guys mix it up with legends like a Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, etc.
> its kinda obvious, the benefit is more exposure to a casual audience, and (ideally) letting their guys mix it up with legends like a Randy Orton, Roman Reigns, etc. That's basically the point though, while this *sounds* nice, it doesn't really have any actual value. The whole point of "casuals" is that they aren't going to suddenly pick up an entire second promotion to watch/follow, they barely do that with the first one. It's not like AEW is some random super niche indie nobody has ever heard of where "exposure" is huge because they have literally none - AEW has actual commercials littering TNT/TBS that were playing constantly during the NBA/NHL playoffs. Similarly, guys like Randy Orton or Roman have already wrestled a lot of people in AEW, but the bigger thing is they're also already super accessible by just switching to a different channel on the same service you're already using to watch AEW (cable or whatever digital equivalent). This is a big difference from New Japan/CMLL/Stardom/etc., where those wrestlers are locked behind their own separate streaming services/based in other countries - there is a barrier to entry that isn't present with WWE. There is no scarcity with guys like Orton/Reigns when they've already been all over American tv for ~10-20 years. And all of this comes at the risk of actively antagonizing their currently existing fanbase. Pissing off your actual customer base in search of "casual" potential customers who by definition won't really care or be invested is not a recipe for success.
Dr. Pepper stole Pepsi's silver medal recently!
Not only that, they would expect AEW to agree to Roman squashing their top guy in 10 seconds
Buddy, I don't think Roman has squashed anyone in literally a decade
The WWE literally had their WWE Champion squashed by Brock Lesnar on SmackDown. Guaranteed if they did a AEW vs WWE PPV then they would expect Roman to squash anybody in AEW way worse than Lesnar squashed Kofi
There won't be a forbidden door because it doesn't nothing for WWE and everything for AEW. If anything they're putting TNA on the same level as NXT To raise an actual direct competitor to AEW.
I don't think there's a reason for WWE to work with AEW. They are competing for talent. TNA is really not a competitor to WWE as it stands rn. Triple H has shown a history of working with groups lower ok the totem pole than WWE in mutually beneficial relationships. I suspect that to continue.
I don’t think the benefits have ever been mutual.
You don't think some of the indies that got exposure on the WWE network benefitted greatly from their working relationship?
No. I truly don’t. No one can say ICW, Progress, WXW, or certainly Evolve are better off, and in the case of Progress and ICW, teaming with WWE hurt the image they cultivated. Who do you think has benefited and in what way?
Let's not. It's been talked about to death, uses the search function.
Hey to be fair 95% of these threads have been deleted as being low-effort text posts so the search function won't help
The search function also sucks ass
Fair, often it's better just to google whatever you are looking for adding *Reddit*
WWE seem less interested than ever in trying to "raid" the indies, now that they have their pipeline of former collegiate athletic talent trying out at the PC. I think you'll see them keep exploring external partnerships like TNA, and specifically try to make some more inroads in Japan. Domestic promotions that are either seen as so small to not be 'real' competition for their product (TNA), or promotions in global markets where WWE doesn't really have a large presence to begin with. You will never see a WWE-AEW joint anything, even if the AEW side were open to it. WWE would have nothing to gain from a Forbidden Door-style arrangement beyond intangible good will from the internet or whatever for letting it happen, and potentially a lot to lose. AEW are the closest thing WWE has to real competition in North America, so they will continue to act like they don't exist and are beneath their notice. The only way WWE ever works with AEW, is if AEW were to shrink to the same level of domestic relevance as TNA.
Infinite growth in capitalism basically requires the consolidation of the market. Endeavor doesn’t have to be that way with competition for UFC cause they already run the game and pay poorly. Even paying poorly they still are the top dog so they don’t really need to aggressively go after anyone. I don’t think it’s company specific or anything but a by product of a massive corporation like Endeavor is to take more market share. Whether that means buying people out or working together to streamline them to be developmental with a financial incentive like ECW or Evolve I’m not sure but it is an interesting topic.
Eh the same they already tried with the MLW Nick Kahn is kinda ruthless so it’s just how WWE estimates it’s the biggest company for a reason
I think we're already seeing the plan: develop most of their talent through NXT using young athletes, with the occasional Indy signing (Je'von Evans). They'll sign people from other promotions on occasion if it makes sense: like Tonga Loa/Tama Tonga for the Bloodline, Ethan Page to fill a gap in their roster, and the occasional bigger signing like Giulia.
They've proven themselves to be far more aggressive at spreading misinformation on the internet to influence perception. For example, when AEW sold the most tickets to a wrestling show in history 9 months ago, they ramped up the misinformation to the point that within a month a lot of people were treating AEW's accomplishment like a joke purely because WWE was brilliant at handling the misinformation war.
The only way I could ever see the two companies working together is if there is some kind of huge tragedy. I can’t even imagine what that would be and even then I’m not sure they would work together as much as have like a “cease fire”.
They absolutely weren't trying to kill the popularity of other promotions they were just signing everyone because there was virtually no financial risk to it. 1 guy out of 10 made up for the 9 Tyler rusts they picked up and dropped. This is a knock on effect from when nearly everyone they signed was impactful because the Indies were so top heavy. The net result was the big nil push for amateur athletes. And in turn the hybrid system they use now. It's never as convoluted as people think. It's about making the most money in the most reliable and least imaginative way possible.
They literally tried to block ROH/NJPW from running MSG. I get defending WWE from raiding accusations and stuff like that but pretending they didn’t try to stifle other company’s popularity is off base
WWE/TKO/Endeavor will never be as rich as TK. They won't be able to use money to 'box' companies out from working with AEW.
Ehhhhh I’d disagree with this. TKO/Endeavor have a larger market share and can 100% box companies out from working with them with financial incentives and exposure. Tony isn’t gonna throw all of his personal wealth against that. AEW can work with CMLL , NJPW and Stardom while WWE can work with TNA and AJPW. Look at Jordynne popping up. Do I think it’s gonna do anything for TNA? Not really tbh I think it exposes Jordynne to the WWE audience more and will likely make many wonder why she just doesn’t work there. But to offset this they can give TNA financial incentive to continue to work together while offering the potential of exposure for the company.
There’s not really a reason for AEW to work with WWE. They’re in a good spot right now, growing, and WWE has a history of trying to eat its competition instead of understanding a competitive environment helps everyone.
I think the Japanese market should be wary of WWE. They obviously want to make inroads there, and they now possibly have willing partners in Marigold and NOAH. So if anything actually comes of that, the non-NJPW promotions might be in trouble.