Real Reasons Behind Backstage Negativity at AEW Disclosed

AEW made its debut back in 2019 with all the momentum in the world. It is a fact that the company was truly at its peak after All Out 2021 when many felt they were ready to take over the pro wrestling world. Those days are long gone now as AEW is struggling to sell tickets for their shows and now the reasons behind backstage negativity have been revealed.

“Restoring the feeling” of AEW has become a common saying among some AEW talent as of late, especially the World Champion MJF. However, the reality is far different from that direction.

While speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer addressed how attendance and ratings numbers dropping as well as recent firings have affected AEW backstage. It was noted that there is a lot of negativity backstage now, even though AEW is making more money than ever.

“They’re grossing a lot of money. It’s interesting because today I’ve gotten so much feedback from people in and around AEW, and it’s a lot of negativity right now.

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And I think some of that stems from the show Saturday night obviously was a very poor crowd. It’s interesting because there’s a lot of negativity while at the same time the company’s grossing more money by far than it ever has, the last couple of months. It’s been very, very successful in that sense. As far as turning profit, that’s a very different story. And as far as the value of the company… there’s economic aspects of the company that look really good, but there’s still this feeling (of negativity).

“Understandably in wrestling it’s always ‘who’s number one’, and they are far from number one right now. They were a lot more competitive in things like television ratings and attendance and things like that 18 months ago than they are now.

“So it’s kind of just a really interesting thing where you’ve got a negative perception. Which usually comes when the economics are bad, but the economics are not bad right now… but they’re still worrisome right now in the sense that when you look at the future and you look at the upcoming shows – you don’t see shows that look like you’re gonna be drawing big crowds in too many places.

Economically they’re doing much better than they were at that time (when they were competitive with WWE in ratings/attendance). But, the perception is that they’re not because the live shows (attendance) feed a lot of the perception, and the ratings do, because they’re the two numbers that people look at.”

This news comes after AEW All In has already sold close to 40K tickets for next year’s show in Wembley Stadium – which is still an incredible achievement. Regardless, we’ll have to wait and see what will become of the company in the coming months, as momentum is not on their side right now.

What’s your view on this AEW story? What do you think the company needs to improve on? Let us know in the comments section below!