They tried doing them for a little while there on weekends, and then they launched Collision, so abandoned them. They don't make anywhere near enough money to be running 3 (or more) live shows a week. When it comes down to it, they have so many partnerships with promotions all over the world who run multiple shows a week, that they don't need to run their own. They should send people who need reps abroad.

 

AEW had house shows and abandoned them because the attendance for them was even worse than it is now.

tiny had no testicular fortitude to tell the people he pays millions of dollars to work them so they had no stars to draw people to them.

this ignore training and let them get reps on the indies is the dumb Indy mentality that has AEW in the state it is today. If wrestlers are full time and not wrestling they should either be training and developing their craft on a full time basis so that when they do need to wrestle on national television for AEW it doesn’t come off as a sloppy mess.

 

They were apparently sparsely attended and a money loser. And unlike the money losing weekly Dynamite shows, they can’t even justify the financial losses on the gate by saying there’s a TV contract attached to it that makes it profitable.

Unfortunately, no house shows means the green talent mostly stay green by only sparsely working, rarely get to interact in front of a crowd to get better with promo/character work, and have slow development. Which is why people like HOOK don’t really ever show much improvement after 3 years.

 

What’s sad about that is AEW says ‘you can go wrestle on indie shows’ and then says ‘we only cover medical if you’re injured in an AEW ring’ — so if you aren’t being used and you need to get experience you’re on your own as far as risking getting an injury that, if you don’t have insurance, could wipe you out financially.

AEW needs to work out a partnership with an indie or buy one to use as developmental to get wrestlers in front of crowds so they can develop. Or, better yet, don’t sign wrestlers who aren’t ready for TV yet. Let them learn in the indies and sign them when they’re ready.

 

It was originally part of its appeal to talent for having the lighter schedule. But yeah you can see how house shows benefit guys not on TV or young talent to develop without pressure.

Tough one though, it’s one of those where I’m sure a lot of WWE guys would love to not have to work 3-4 days in a row, but on the flip side some AEW guys would love the chance to work more either for pay or to hone their skills.

AEW doing a mini tour every quarter wouldn’t be a bad shout. Film your TV then head off to Europe, Japan, Mexico etc for a few days to run house shows. Its good experience and not too demanding on the talent.

 

House Shows are mostly a thing of the past, even for WWE. BUT, the one good thing about House Shows (for any and every company) is that if you have some younger/green talent; it is the perfect place for them to hone their craft and work on and experiment with things. But with the lack of House Shows; those young-ins aren't really getting that experience and in certain cases (like Hook) the lack of improvement over the past 3 years is really obvious.

 

Collision essentially replaced whatever house show plans they had. And as of now AEW's weekly schedule is a bit weird anyways, usually taping live Wednesday and then live Saturday, with exceptions here and there.

Plus, part of the appeal of AEW for talents and what Tony has sold to them is lesser dates. I believe when Mox 1st signed back in 2019, he did a podcast and said a quote from Tony that was along the lines of "the days of 200 dates a year are a thing of the past", which is what Mox was working in like 2015/2016 WWE. Now, even WWE has cut back on the amount of house shows they do, but again, that was part of the appeal of AEW at the time.

If you do house shows, now those talent are expected to work more. And if they leave the big names off the shows, fans aren't going to want to go. And the few house shows they did, beyond the 1st one, weren't exactly greatly attended.

People mention talents getting more experience by doing house shows as a benefit, which is something that will help out someone like Jade a lot in WWE. Another benefit is being able to build up the fanbases in smaller markets, thus growing your overall fanbase. A lot of times at the house shows, you have a chance to make more of a connection with the fans as they're typically more laid back. All the babyfaces slap hands with the fans after the match, sign autographs, take pictures, etc. It's going that extra mile to build the fanbase. And I think that's something that AEW misses out on compared to WWE.

 

Problems with AEW's House Rules shows last year: not enough premium talent on them, barely any big matches (WWE puts bigger cards on their house shows than TV and treats them as non-canon, but AEW wanted its house shows to be canon like NJPW, referencing them on TV and even showing some highlights) and subsequently low attendances. They took a skeleton crew and had backstage/producers/helpers like Chris Daniels, Shawn Dean, JJ and Pat Buck filling out the undercards. Only the show in Ohio did a number anywhere close to TV level. Then came Collision and they stopped the house shows.

3/18/2023 (Troy, OH): 3,300
5/12/2023 (Corbin, KY): 1,672
5/13/2023 (Salem, VA): 2,132
6/2/2023 (Tupelo, MS): 1,576
6/3/2023 (Huntsville, AL): 2,237

If AEW ever wanted to create more of a roadmap/developmental process, the answer is in Jacksonville - Daily's Place. Like CMLL who own and run at Arena Mexico about 200 nights per year, AEW could run shows there every day if they wanted at almost no cost (offer $10 tickets, cheap monthly and yearly entrance cards, and bank on customers buying merch), but with valuable reps for the younger talents and indy + foreign talent invited for runs/tryouts.

 

Problems with AEW's House Rules shows last year: not enough premium talent on them, barely any big matches (WWE puts bigger cards on their house shows than TV and treats them as non-canon, but AEW wanted its house shows to be canon like NJPW, referencing them on TV and even showing some highlights) and subsequently low attendances. They took a skeleton crew and had backstage/producers/helpers like Chris Daniels, Shawn Dean, JJ and Pat Buck filling out the undercards. Only the show in Ohio did a number anywhere close to TV level. Then came Collision and they stopped the house shows.

3/18/2023 (Troy, OH): 3,300
5/12/2023 (Corbin, KY): 1,672
5/13/2023 (Salem, VA): 2,132
6/2/2023 (Tupelo, MS): 1,576
6/3/2023 (Huntsville, AL): 2,237

If AEW ever wanted to create more of a roadmap/developmental process, the answer is in Jacksonville - Daily's Place. Like CMLL who own and run at Arena Mexico about 200 nights per year, AEW could run shows there every day if they wanted at almost no cost (offer $10 tickets, cheap monthly and yearly entrance cards, and bank on customers buying merch), but with valuable reps for the younger talents and indy + foreign talent invited for runs/tryouts.

View attachment 231186

A friend and I talked about going to either Tupelo or Huntsville when they were announced — each is roughly 6 hours round-trip, give or take, from us, and we’ve gone as far as 8 hours or more round-trip for over-and-back treks to see ROH many times (pre-Khan ROH that is) and likewise for WWE PPVs.

But we decided to wait and see what kind of show we might get. We picked the Huntsville show since it was second and a night later so we’d be able to find some results on line and the cards would probably be similar with some talent switched around. Once we saw what the Tupelo show was like, we noped out.

You can’t put on a house show that has a Dark Elevator level card and expect people to come. I’m not alone in expecting something for my entertainment dollar. I don’t expect the world for a house show but if I’m buying a ticket — much less traveling and investing that much time — I do want to see some headliners. They can do 10-minute matches and unusual matchups and get a few younger people some experience, but don’t give me Pat Freaking Buck and Preston Vance and Jeff Jarrett and the Boys without Dalton.

AEW got exactly the kind of crowds they deserved for the product they put on these house shows. Better, actually, than they deserved.

 

The problem with house shows is that its just a bunch of junk shows full of dumbass smarks, its just a waste of time. If they would do better creatively, they would draw a better normal crowd and same is said with the other promotions, none of them are doing well creatively rn.

 

They can't fill an arena for Dynamite, what are they gonna get at a house show?

 

They can't fill an arena for Dynamite, what are they gonna get at a house show?

They can't fill an arena for Dynamite, what are they gonna get at a house show?

I came to say this

 

Problems with AEW's House Rules shows last year: not enough premium talent on them, barely any big matches (WWE puts bigger cards on their house shows than TV and treats them as non-canon, but AEW wanted its house shows to be canon like NJPW, referencing them on TV and even showing some highlights) and subsequently low attendances. They took a skeleton crew and had backstage/producers/helpers like Chris Daniels, Shawn Dean, JJ and Pat Buck filling out the undercards. Only the show in Ohio did a number anywhere close to TV level. Then came Collision and they stopped the house shows.

3/18/2023 (Troy, OH): 3,300
5/12/2023 (Corbin, KY): 1,672
5/13/2023 (Salem, VA): 2,132
6/2/2023 (Tupelo, MS): 1,576
6/3/2023 (Huntsville, AL): 2,237

If AEW ever wanted to create more of a roadmap/developmental process, the answer is in Jacksonville - Daily's Place. Like CMLL who own and run at Arena Mexico about 200 nights per year, AEW could run shows there every day if they wanted at almost no cost (offer $10 tickets, cheap monthly and yearly entrance cards, and bank on customers buying merch), but with valuable reps for the younger talents and indy + foreign talent invited for runs/tryouts.

View attachment 231186

AEW had house shows and abandoned them because the attendance for them was even worse than it is now.

tiny had no testicular fortitude to tell the people he pays millions of dollars to work them so they had no stars to draw people to them.

this ignore training and let them get reps on the indies is the dumb Indy mentality that has AEW in the state it is today. If wrestlers are full time and not wrestling they should either be training and developing their craft on a full time basis so that when they do need to wrestle on national television for AEW it doesn’t come off as a sloppy mess.

These. Alot of people think it's just the lack of attendance but that's false, the actual issue was that none of the actual stars actually wanted to do House Shows in the slightest despite Tony's paying them millions which means there was no real starpower behind any of the house shows which meant no attendances at all.
While WWE doesn't do as many house shows as they used to, there's a reason they still do house shows to this day(and they rarely acknowledge them unless it's meant to be something crazy happening at one of them) because it helps build up your future stars and green as hell wrestlers.

 

I think allowing their talent to do local shows is the way forward.

 

Aren't they already allowed to do that?