My live experience at the arena in Buffalo was a stark contrast between physical reality and what we’re inundated with online, mainly in the form of tweets, podcasts, or other media with perverse incentives.
But first I have to mention the attendance. There were no fans in the middle bowl 200-level seats at Key Bank Center on Wednesday night, except for some accumulated opposite the hard cam. Also opposite the hard cam, the 100 level was densely crowded, as you’d expect. Attendance was more parse in the rest of the lower bowl. There were no fans at all in the 300 level. The latest WrestleTix estimate as I write this is 4,045, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the attendance was lower as many sections were tarped which might not have been accounted for.
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I was told comps were made available for staff of the Sabres, Bills, and the Bandits (the latter is the lacrosse team that uses the arena). To put that in better context, though, I don’t know how normal that is for AEW in general in recent times.
Tony Khan came out on the stage before Dynamite, which he does at every show, as well as between tapings of Dynamite and Collision on this night. Intentionally or not it serves to reinforce that Khan is the company’s public face. He surveyed the crowd about Buffalo wrestling legend Ilio DiPaolo (whose name carries on locally thanks to his restaurant on South Park Avenue) and about whether fans in attendance tonight had been to prior shows. He referenced Timecop, which he called his favorite movie, as he did in Fairfax, as he reminded fans they’d be taping matches after Dynamite for Saturday’s Collision airing.
MJF and Daniel Garcia opened the show with strong reactions from the crowd, which was prone to be hot as the TV portion of the event opened. For disclosure, I helped train Garcia here in Buffalo. That segment was followed by a backstage promo from Swerve Strickland and Prince Nana, who could be seen by the crowd but not heard. I recall this seeming audio issue happening at previous AEW shows I’ve attended. At this point, I’m guessing it’s intentional. It had the effect of making the show seem like there were tech issues and got the wrong kind of heat.
What struck me most, though, about being there live were the shirts fans wore. There were a lot of CM Punk shirts. There were many WWE shirts. AEW shirts, for any AEW talent or brand, were the minority. The idea that there are AEW fans, exclusive of being WWE fans, is clearly an idea that exists online and meaningfully only online, if Buffalo is any indication. It was unmistakable as I walked around the concourse occasionally between segments. Despite Eric Bischoff being among the villains of the day to AEW partisans, one person who took the time and maybe money to attend this show was wearing a shirt that read, “I’m An Eric Bischoff Guy”.
The notion that AEW fans are more sophisticated or more knowledgeable was barely evident, despite Twitter users’ and media harnessing Nielsen data we’ve reported about income and education level of WWE and AEW viewers. The crowd in Buffalo didn’t react at all to the Los Ingobernables Team, Shingo Takagi among them, who were in the first match of the Dynamite taping. Tetsuya Naito got little reaction when he appeared to confront Jon Moxley.
I’ve mostly attended AEW pay-per-view events, which means many fans are traveling from outside the area. So attending this show seemed more like an indication of AEW’s weekly audience, unless Buffalo is just a patently unaware wrestling market. As a Buffalonian with enough local pessimism, I have to admit I’m open to the possibility.
In fairness, the crowd was appreciative and invested in Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Kyle O’Reilly, which was a strong technical match. It was a very unWWE match that’s hard to imagine happening in a WWE ring.
When Tomohiro Ishii came out to side with Orange Cassidy there was a brief and light “Ishii” chant. But some of the acts this audience strongly responded to are some of the same that are debated online among AEW diehards. The Acclaimed’s purportedly tired act brought people to their feet. Toni Storm was less but nearly as over. People were waving back at Chris Jericho, despite him being a heel and despite fans chanting “NDA” at him on pay-per-view at the end of last year.
AEW in this setting, in a building about a third full, definitively felt like a cold promotion, like a sports team in rebuilding mode. The tempting conceit with wrestling, though, lacking any undeniable scoreboard, is that everything is always “great”, a word Khan in his interactions with press is continually fond of. Alternatively, he could acknowledge what everyone can see for themselves, earn some credibility, and tell a story about how he’s addressing it. Because there’s reason to be hopeful.
Swerve and Will Ospreay were over to an impressive level in the main event. Watching and listening to the crowd, it became clear to me there’s a path to elevate Swerve, Ospreay, and MJF as the company’s three top stars for the long term, standing well above the rest, within whom star power can be concentrated into value that translates into better TV ratings and attendances. If so, whether Khan recognizes this and has the leadership to follow through is another question. AEW’s track record of developing talent, five years in, is marked by limited upward mobility, promising young wrestlers lost in the shuffle, and an inability to balance competing egos of wrestlers with different creative visions and a propensity for discontent.
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