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AEW commentator Jim Ross spoke about the current ratings war between Dynamite and NXT on the latest episode of Grilling JR Podcast.
Ross, who currently appears on AEW’s commentary team alongside Excalibur and Tony Schiavone talked about AEW & NXT’s ratings war, declaring that “Dynamite kicks NXT’s ass every week”
“How’s that working?”. “How’s that brilliant evil strategy? Going head to head is good in a boardroom, it’s good in a rah-rah meeting, but at the end of the day, you bring more people to a television set that are wrestling fans at 8 o’ clock eastern time on Wednesday night because you’ve got two brands now that the audience can sample”
“They can watch one, they can DVR one, they can switch back and forth, whatever the hell you do. But to think it’s going to cripple it? Look at the bigger picture. It’s been the excuse in wrestling forever. Unscrupulous, unethical situations are always justified by saying ‘it’s just business’. Well, it’s just business that we’re kicking your ass every [Wednesday] night.”
Ross continued by speaking about his issues with modern wrestling, mentioning how Jon Moxley still shows aspects of a brawler rather than a high flyer
“You see a guy today that all he knows how to do is acrobatics,” Ross said. “That’s what I believed to be the way of the world today, and I say it’s bull**it. Somebody is playing the role of a pro wrestler, and more specifically, what they perceive a pro wrestler to be. That is an acrobat, a leg slapper. They take out the emotional investment that you want your audience to make in you. There’s a lot of issues right now in pro wrestling, or trends.
“You see guys that are not going down that trend. Jon Moxley is a guy that’s a Stone Cold [Steve Austin] guy, basically fundamental hardness, intensity, physicality. You can tell by his face he’s a badass. He likes the competition and combat. But you’ve got other guys that you know what you’re going to get. Most of them don’t know how to counter a hammerlock.”
Ross finished up by speaking about how the high flyer style worked for indie wrestlers because of smaller crowds
“Some of the guys that have had success in the indies, in all of the companies, they did really good before 400 people,” Ross said. “Now they think they’ve had the audience in the palm of their hand – all 400 of them. Well, it’s good that all your belief is that all the audience was for you, but they never are and they never will be. There’s a difference between doing a national televised T.V. match and doing a match at a small venue of 300-400 people.”
Thanks to WrestlingInc for the transcription.