The momentum that AEW once had has faded since its launch in 2019, as the promotion debuted at a critical time in wrestling history. The WWE product had become stale, with all significant business metrics – ratings, merchandise and ticket sales, and social media engagement – declining.
For years, fans rallied behind AEW, but things have changed since Triple H took over main roster WWE creative in the summer of 2022, and WWE’s business is on fire, while AEW’s business has seen declines across the board.
Vice President of Post Production Kevin Sullivan was let go on Monday, as Dave Meltzer had previously reported. Mike Mansury, Senior Vice President and Co-Executive Producer, made the decision.
Many people in AEW admired Sullivan, who had come over from Impact Wrestling years before. He established AEW’s post-production team. It was also stated that “the original AEW has changed greatly.”
Dave Meltzer discussed the internal reaction to the release and the feeling that AEW has changed from what it started out as on Wrestling Observer Radio.
“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. 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.”
Meltzer speculated that much of the criticism stems from the low attendance at AEW Collision last Saturday night, which was 2,025, according to WrestleTix. The negativity comes at a time when, despite lower merchandise, ratings, and ticket sales, the company is making more money than ever. In terms of ratings, AEW is no longer as close to WWE as it was 18 months ago.
“The whole post-production team was his team,” Meltzer explained. “As a result, many people were taken aback. There were a lot of people who were upset about this today, which is also one of the reasons, I believe, why there’s a lot of, you know, all day hearing negativity is because of him, because he’s been there since the beginning and there’s this feeling that the company is changing, which it always is and has to. You’ll always be changing. But there’s a sense that it’s changed and become something it wasn’t.”
Meltzer noted that this is yet another indication that they replaced an AEW original with a WWE employee, as Mansury previously worked in WWE and was ranked higher than Sullivan in AEW.
