Tony Kahn takes tons of flak for his comments about AEW being better here or there than WWE and much of it’s deserved as it was recently stated by Eric Bischoff that he’s not in direct competition with the WWE and Vince McMahon.
But that hasn’t kept Tony and others in AEW to drop near constant comments about the WWE, and some in WWE have responded, like Seth Rollins calling AEW’s constant digs reeking of desperation.
AEW is More Popular than WWE in UK
The most likely reason Tony keeps doing it is for this reason — to keep people talking about AEW. It’s worked out great so far, but there will eventually be a point where he goes so far.
Tony Schiavone can tell him about that with a reference to mockingly saying Mick Foley winning the WWE Championship “putting butts in the seats.”
But a lot of what Tony says makes sense and can be backed up in some ways if not others. The main problem is lack of information and Tony and Vince McMahon play it close to the vest unless it’s overwhelmingly positive.
AEW is bigger in Europe than WWE
This is Tony’s latest claim, and like his others, he’s kinda right.
Tony appeared on Swerve Strickland’s Swerve City podcast recently and he announced that AEW is already bigger than the WWE in different parts of the world.
The crux of his argument is that more people in the UK are watching the first showing of AEW Dynamite than they are WWE’s Raw and Smackdown.
Like his other claims, Tony didn’t point to what gave him the urge to say this, but one stat that does back him up are the ratings.
The UK is the second biggest market for AEW and WWE, and it would make sense for the WWE to have a stranglehold on the ratings over there like they do in the United States, but due show times and networks, it’s not working out in their favor.
Backbodydrop.com shows AEW is watched more.
More than the numbers
Here’s where the sort of part comes into play, as the WWE’s UK ratings are reported infrequently, but as of March 14, 2022 46.4k people watched Raw live and 50k watched Smackdown.
150k watched Dynamite’s first airing.
Those are hard numbers but there could be other reasons for them as well.
WWE’s shows don’t air live and because of that they don’t start until 1 a.m.. Dynamite only airs life on Fitetv subscription, so the first airing is on Friday at 11 p.m.
AEW also reportedly airs on ITV 4, which is a free to watch channel everyone can watch while the WWE are exclusive to BT Sport and they need a subscription.
To put it another way, Smackdown in the US gets the benefit of being on FOX, which is available to everyone and is often played in bars and other places because it’s free.
It’s one of the reasons many have pointed to Smackdown having higher ratings than Raw, though it is the superior show.
There’s always more to the story, and in this case it benefits AEW.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWmBk-1Y5I
