Double or Nothing, one of All Elite Wrestling’s signature pay-per-views, is this weekend, with one more episode of Collision left to sell the show to the audience. The fact that Collision is bumped from its usually time slot this week more or less neutralizes any extra promotional efforts to spur fans to order the show. Now, maybe this is a rather moot point since the core AEW audience that’s willing to pay for their PPVs usually has a base of around 100,000 orders, with some increases, depending on the specifics of the card. On one hand, the consistency is very important, especially in terms of generating revenue. On the other hand, a ceiling or plateau in revenue, particular with the decreased TV viewership doesn’t send a good message about the status of the organization.
The ironic part of all of this is that six year ago, Double or Nothing was the official kickoff of the concept of All Elite Wrestling. The audience was stuck with a stagnant industry for years after Dixie Carter’s TNA almost collapsed, and Vince McMahon was so unchallenged in his role as the king of sports entertainment that he was afforded the luxury of shoehorning Roman Reigns into the John Cena spot regardless of how universally panned the baby face super push was at the time.
The bottom line was, if pro wrestling fans were going to watch the sport in America, they were going to watch WWE. It’s an unfortunate ripple effect of the purchase of World Championship Wrestling two decades earlier, there weren’t any other mainstream options for consumers, and despite some solid, albeit inconsistent efforts from TNA up until that point, an organization that tried to get off the ground in an industry where the competition is a publicly-traded corporation, ultimately imploded under the pressure to try to get a legitimate piece of the pie.
As much as All Elite Wrestling was a startup group six years ago for the first ever Double or Nothing pay-per-view, it was in a much better starting position than that collection of alphabet soup leagues that tried to make a splash on the national scene in the twenty years since WCW folded.
All Elite wasn’t simply trying to survive with a shoestring budget to stay afloat long enough to generate some hype for the product. The billionaire Khan family put enough money on the table to launch a national project. Along with that, Tony was going to offer comparable money and sometimes even more than that to secure talent, which is something TNA was rarely in the position to do. It’s a much different dynamic and sends a much different message about the product when a talent chooses to sign with AEW, as compared to inking a contract simply because they were looking for a job after they were cut from the WWE roster. As we know with Jeff Jarrett’s attempt at the original Global Force Wrestling venture, a television deal for a pro wrestling series is a difficult sell to networks, especially when the WWE is unanimously recognized as the top sports entertainment program. It’s tough to sell a network on the prospects to host the secondary league. Instead, Tony Khan already had proof of the concept with the initial All In event from the year prior, and his family’s ties to networks through its ownership of the Jacksonville Jaguars NFL franchise, allowed him to secure a television deal for the promotion. Furthermore, TNA was started at a time when many of the former WCW alumni were just beaten into powder less than a year earlier on WWF programming, and after the collapses of two national groups, WCW and ECW, in the span of just a few months, it was going to be difficult to sell former WCW talent and an alternative product to either networks or the fans. As mentioned, there was a growing animosity about how Vince McMahon treated his customers, they were going to embrace his vision of sports entertainment or pick a different hobby. Through that disdain that the fans had for the WWE product in 2018, the indy circuit and the Japanese scene garnered a portion of those disenfranchised fans. Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, and Kenny Omega, collectively known as The Elite faction, organically got over at the same time. The circumstances of the business were right, the talent that had spontaneously generated a following were free agents, and Tony Khan had the funding for a new company.
The point being, the first Double or Nothing had a chance to propel the original concept to establish a true alternative organization.
Everything from mismanagement, immature talent, booking flaws, underwhelming angles, and a clear decision to place vanity over profit caused the AEW concept to fall woefully short of its potential or expectations.
Sure, you can parse details on each of those portions individually, but generally speaking, Double or Nothing will be the historical starting point of Tony Khan’s promotion, and it’s not surprising that the card that he booked for this weekend represents many of the reasons that his vanity project didn’t materialize the way that many thought it would in 2019.
The biggest criticism of the All Elite on-screen product is that most of the time, the matches are thrown together with very little rhyme or reason. There are a few of them on the Double or Nothing card that more or less make those bouts skippable in the grand scheme of things.
I’ve said the same thing for years when the WWE pay-per-view calendar was littered with gimmick events that necessitated gimmick matches for no other reason than the fact that it was the name of the show. Thankfully, the current regime seems to have gotten away from most of that. For example, Drew McIntyre vs. CM Punk was a feud that justified a HIAC match, but for several years before that, the stipulation was wasted on matches that didn’t need it, which hindered the effectiveness of the gimmick. Anarchy in the Arena is such a specific stipulation that it’s rather difficult to find a way to logically book it each May because the nature of the match suggests faction feuds, but the justification for The Young Bucks aligning themselves with The Death Riders, more or less just to be able to book this stipulation, is flimsy at best. Furthermore, not that the majority of the audience would look forward to another Moxley title defense for the current reign, but it’s usually a weaker dynamic for a pay-per-view if the belt isn’t defended.
Dustin Rhodes and Sammy Guevara have been in Ring Of Honor purgatory for a year, is anyone going to consider them legitimate contenders for the tag titles against The Hurt Syndicate? In a similar fashion, is there really any reason Nigel McGuinness is going to get back in the ring for a random tag match with Daniel Garcia against FTR? Unless Nigel is planning a full-fledged return at almost 50, which he shouldn’t, how exactly does this get anyone over? If it’s a one-off, Garcia has nowhere to go from here either way, and if FTR loses to a throw together team, it makes them look irrelevant. This is a slapstick booking decision where nobody truly gets over, which is a prime example of why the vast majority of the AEW talent usually stay in the same position in the company.
Mark Briscoe vs. Ricochet should be a solid match, but given Tony’s track record, is there any indication that either one of these guys is going to move up the card? The same can be said for the Kazuchika Okada/Mike Bailey match. Sure, Dave Meltzer might give it 87 stars, but does the result truly matter in the big picture? Bailey is a tremendous athlete and a unique commodity, but if he’s only booked for these “dream match” scenarios without any progress or purpose, he will be stuck in the same rut that Konosuke Takeshita was in for a few years, great matches without any status in the company. I guess, in theory, this might set the stage for Okada/Kenny Omega at All In Texas, but with the way that Okada has coasted the majority of his All Elite tenure, it’s doubtful that the bout will recapture the hype that it had six or seven years ago.
Speaking of woefully underwhelming since their arrival in AEW, Mercedes Mone has yet to be the “game changer” that many thought she would be. With the exception of his last pay-per-view bout, she hasn’t delivered in the ring or on the mic. Jamie Hayter is a solid opponent, and the argument could be made that she might be the better choice to win the Women’s Owen Hart tournament final, but I wouldn’t bet that she’s willing to do the job on pay-per-view. So, she will win the tournament to get a title shot at All In, but her tenure has been so bland that it doesn’t make a major difference either way.
Will Ospreay vs. Adam Page is slotted to be the main event, with the winner not only getting the Owen Cup, but also a shot at the title in July. The easy choice is Ospreay, specifically because Page is still the whiny baby face that has been directionless for almost two years. The problem with this is, even if Ospreay wins at Double or Nothing and eventually dethrones Moxley, I don’t know if it will truly be a coronation for him as the world champion. The entire Moxley storyline has been so tedious, pointless, and quite frankly, boring that this isn’t a situation where the audience wants to see the heel lose, but rather just the end of a monotonous angle. Where does Ospreay go from there? The much bigger issue of if Moxley will drop the title is the fact that Tony Khan probably doesn’t have any plan for the follow-up on Ospreay’s title victory.
That’s where the entire situation goes full circle, when All Elite Wrestling officially launched at Double or Nothing in 2019, would anyone have guessed that Moxley would eventually be the boring champion that the fans just wanted to see the title reign end? Would anyone have guessed that the company that sold out events in minutes would be forced to run small venues so that it didn’t look empty on television? Did anyone guess that there would be a 40% decline in television viewership? In some ways, the 2025 edition of Double or Nothing is a benchmark for the decline, not the success of All Elite Wrestling. At the same time, very similar to how the dip in TV numbers doesn’t really affect the pay-per-view buy rates, the overall decline of the impact of AEW over the course of the past six years doesn’t really affect Tony Khan’s vanity project either.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
