Jim Cornette on AEW Grand Slam In Australia
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- Опубликовано: 11 фев 2025
- From Episode 379 of the Jim Cornette's Drive Thru
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Tony Khan: "Grand Scam is not a PPV!"
AEW Official Page: "Hey guys! 5 days until Grand Scam Australia PPV!!!!"
I laughed my ass off when I saw that.
If they sold out the stadium, it would have been a PPV. Since it didn’t, it’s Collision in an arena. If it gets any worse, it’ll be a ROH taping.
Actual Australian, one hour south of Brisbane here. You don’t book Suncorp for a house show or a TV taping. If WWE booked that stadium, we’d be getting a PLE for sure, probably not a WrestleMania and given the name, Summer Slam might not work, but at least a Survivor Series. This whole fiasco is a clear cut case of Tony Khan biting off more than he can chew and trying to save face after the fact. And I don’t expect him to own up to his screw up, but any fan, with no financial stake in AEW, that tries to spin this as anything but a failure… needs to rethink their life choices.🤦♂
Absolutely
They were never selling out Suncorp. Did TK honestly just look at Elimination Chamber and think "Oh I can do that"?
@@mickeyd8768 um… yes. TK is a trust fund brat who seems to have deluded himself into to thinking he has all that cash because he’s hyper competent. Give anyone a billion dollars and there’s nothing they won’t think they’re smart enough to do.
He’s not a con-man, he’s a fail-son. He would absolutely be that arrogant.
@@mickeyd8768 um… yes. TK is a trust fund brat who seems to have deluded himself into to thinking he has all that cash because he’s hyper competent. Give anyone a billion dollars and there’s nothing they won’t think they’re smart enough to do.
He’s not a con-man, he’s a fail-son. He would absolutely be that arrogant
@@mickeyd8768 um… absolutely 😕. TK is a trust fund baby who seems to think he has all that cash because he’s hyper competent. Give anyone a billion dollars and there’s nothing they won’t think they’re clever enough to do. He would totally be that arrogant.
The amount of goal post moving by AEW fans regarding this event has been insane. I've never seen a promotion fumble an event this badly before.
I don't watch any weekly show, but I bet it was never a ppv.
Their X account also typo'd the ad for this event and said it's a PPV. lmfao
It’s worse…
That was a scheduled tweet put on a timer months ago … when it was a ppv
Which Union Rugby team hosts Sun Corp Stadium?
I screenshot it ..They ain't lying
When is a PPV, not a PPV, but a glorified Collision masqueraded as a PPV. This whole show is a farce.
@@byronleroux3955 Queensland Reds play at Suncorp for Rugby Union and the Brisbane Broncos play there for Rugby League.
The last time AEW followed a big NBA event, they were dragged by the NBA fans. They went especially hard on Jericho
Because unlike AEW fans with Jericho especially, they're not in the AEW echo chamber who will back anything he does.
The Jericho tweets by NBA fans was the only time anything NBA related ever entertained me.
“Damn, Chris Jericho built like a baby mama”
@AnneHathawayRules love Ur name btw, ur so rite. I stopped watching the league a decade ago
Lmao
I’m In Australia………& ohhhh boy this has been handled bad! No buildup or promotion for it. At this point, tickets will be 90% mark-down
Another thing about Australia that no one at AEW thought to research first, is although Australia is a massive country their population is less than Texas, and its incredibly spread out. They were never going to draw a huge audience like they did in the UK because people would need to travel thousands of miles to go, which is a huge ask for a country not that interested in your product.
I'm not sure what each state government brought to the Negotiating table but it was probably a mistake to go with Brisbane as the host. There's definitely better international appeal and interest in both Sydney and Melbourne.
Is there a place that would be best if they were hoping for New Zealand visitors to come? That was the thing about the UK and London, it's a place that is easy to get to from Europe too. Australia is a big sparse body with no close neighbours, but maybe a big enough card could have got people to do a bit of travel from NZ too.
There's 4 million people in the Brisbane metro area and Suncorp stadium holds 50,000 and it's sold out regularly. If it was the WWE or UFC it would be a sellout!
@@XtotheKYou would guarantee a sellout in Melbourne.
@@neilbiggs1353 Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all have numerous direct flights to NZ's major metro cities, so there isn't really a place that would be better by flight metrics. But to answer your question, Sydney would be best because it is geographically the closest.
I’m just not buying that AEW didn’t originally intend for this to be a PPV. You don’t book a stadium and charge stadium prices if you intend to run a house show or a B show taping.
No grand slam has ever been a ppv bud.
@@billbrennan2347AEW's official X called it a PPV bud 😂
@@billbrennan2347 doesn't mean this wouldn't be a PPV. And it was clearly announced as one. You don't book a massive stadium for Collision 😅😅😅
@ u mean one post that was an error? Why has every grand slam never been a ppv? Just answer that. I’ll wait.
@ it’s not collision, it’s grandslam. Always been a tv event. Stop coping.
If you live in Australia, you know this isn't a wrestling country, it's a WWE country..........AEW is on our version of ESPN in a death slot at like 4pm on a Thursday (no consistent scheduling, always bumped for live sports) while WWE is premium cable programming that had it's own channel until recently (before everything went to Netflix)......it's just insane lack of research by AEW to think they'd fill a stadium here
It’s the same here In the uk & aew fans take pride in the fact it gets less than 200k
@@MrPaulf0x I think James (the host of the Dutch podcast) says our ratings for Dynamite in Australia, they peak at 20K viewers......not an average, that's the peak
Cousin-in-law said that Australia could be compared to Nevada. There's several BIG population centers (e.g. Vegas & Reno) and some smaller sparsely populated cities. Is that accurate?
@@juicyfruit6311 Definitely, there's large, large tracts of land with no one in it, then the big cities (Melbourne and Sydney) - I think if they'd treated it seriously, in those cities, they could have got a crowd, to go out and seen an event, but no way a stadium full......
Tony doesn't do research he just does what his notebook tells him and remembers what he did in his Fantasy Wrestling league.
More like AEW grand Scam amirate I'll see myself out lol 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
*baddum tsss*
@HeOfTheBeginning thanks lol.
Still seething about the royal fumble?
Royal Fumble 😂😂
Nah, but you *_are_* right though.
As an Aussie, no one was travelling to Brisbane to see AEW. It has been a poor decision by all parties involved
I was soooo close to going from Perth, thank God I didn't.
They may have had better luck in Sydney. Then again their viewership down here is apparently pathetic. At least in Sydney the SuperDome is next door to the Olympic Stadium if they had to downsize. Trying to come here when they’ve been in such bad decline was silly as well.
I feel bad for Toni Storm, Harley and Buddy, this isn't how they wanted to have a show at Home.
Yeah, as an American, can I ask how true would be that a non-wrestling fan would fly to see this event to go with a wrestling fan friend? Because that sounded insane to me in the email that was sent in.
@jfkisgr8 if they were coming from Melbourne or Sydney, it'd be around a two hour flight. Not too bad to catch up with people and hang out
Tony needs to make a fake Cm Punk and Fake Cody Rhodes along with a Fake Razor and Diesel and he’ll probably get more butts in the seats.
That would be insane. Tony Khan at this point should screw being a nice guy and fully embrace being the next Vince McMahon. He should have been when he fired CM Punk
He should have a Fake Punk and Fake Cody and then force Tony Schiavone to manage them.
But who is going to train them? Jim is not going to be available for that job again. I think he had more than his fill of fake "we own the IP" wrestler shenanigans with Razzer and Dye-sell in '96.
CM Junk and Country Rhodes for the win
He could hire Vince McMahon to do an appearance.
I sincerely appreciate Jim's very natural (and correct) pronunciation of 'Brisbane'.
It's been very refreshing hearing our yank friends pronounce Brisbane correctly.
@@kiloecholima7336 Bris-bin?
Man, Tony Klown is turning more and more into Herb Abrams every day.
Agreed
Including the coke
Facts
Tony will never become like Herb in terms of not paying his talent.
I can't picture a bloody Tony Khan screaming and threatening violence, in a promo, but maybe some day. Herb Abrams was a lunatic, on and off camera.
Dave's spin on this is going to be ridiculous
Well um, you know, plans change
"This is the fans' fault, for not buying enough tickets in the first place to make it a PPV."
@@HisBubbliness I love that one. The consumer spoke, but we're still correct. 🤣
Meltzer has been spinning this for months, but don't worry he'll flood Cage Match to give it an insanely higher rating and give every match 4+ stars
@@matthewhostetter8974 kenny, ospraey, v fletcher, takeshita is going to break Dave's star-o-meter
“But Elimination Chamber last year didn’t sell out”
No but it didn’t suffer such a catastrophe as Grand Slam.
The tickets they didn’t sell was only half of AEW’s total & they gave away tickets
I watched a video saying pointing out Dynamite gets 20k views a week. Australia has 27 million people, that means .07 percent of people there watch AEW.
Tony: We’ll do a stadium show!
Brilliant.
Give Tony some credit. He's the only promoter to kill a market before hosting a show there.
North Brisbane resident here (literally a 10 minute drive from the arena.) Bit of backstory here but normally when there is an event on at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre you can catch a train from the city out to Boondall where the arena is located, very easy. However in the last number of years Brisbane has been getting an "upgrade" to our train network. Which results in certain lines being shut-down for a few days normally over a weekend. Now this is where things go from bad to worse for AEW. The line to get out to the Entertainment Centre (Shorncliffe Line) is closed this weekend due to track upgrades so anyone attending this event will be shipped into buses and probably adding a minimum extra 30 minutes to their journey.
Isn't that just _great..._
I didn't even think of that... I saw Iron Maiden there last year. Because it finished after 10pm, I had to catch two buses and a train just to get back to Central. Took almost two hours
Pretty sure they advertised it has a legit PPV.
@@NaZtRdAmUs they never did
@@scentofslaughter8854They did accidentally tweet that it was a ppv. The reality is, he didn't know how to advertise it. It all depended on the attendance. Why else would he put Suncorp stadium as the centre for a tv taping? To understand how ridiculous it is, imagine WWE taping Raw in MetLife stadium. This show wasn't advertised as a collision show either. He changed his mind due to low attendance. I dont know what show he would have done, if he had sold out the show.
Instead of the stadium show it isn't even the "A" show, it's the B show. What's the main even? Pockets vs Raygun?
Pockets vs Raygun would unironically be amazing.
Raygun is All Elite...
The main event will be Mercedes Mone versus Australia's favorite Harley Cameron 🔥
I think Coffee Zilla could cover this Australian AEW show.
Facts
James Romero covered this whole thing over a few videos very well.
AEW's viewership peaks at around 20k. They were initially looking to fill a stadium.
They still think it is 2019. This company rests on its laurels so hard.
Tony has completely embarrassed himself.
Last year, WWE gave Australia a huge PLE with both a hometown hero in Rhea Ripley and one of their biggest stars who was champ at the time. AEW gives Australia a regular ol' Collision, their lowest viewed show in the states 💀
Going all the way to Australia and NOT bring in PPV money sums up Tony's business sense. When money has been a toy your whole life this is what happens.
The problem started when their original venue, a rugby stadium, was moved to an indoor arena. So people initially assumed it was a PPV, only to find out it was a Collision taping.
It was never said it was a ppv
thought people would have learned over the years grand slam was always a tv special, but made to feel like a PPV level card. maybe similar to Saturday night main event. a clear tv special, but made to look like a decent if not solid ppv card.
It was a ppv.. at no point did they call it collision until recently
They sold it during all in Wembley … at no point was advertising calling it collision
Yes it was all of the banners and announcements after All In was announced to be in Texas was that it was a ppv the first grand slam to be on ppv. They bait and switched after the ticket sales were bad
It wasn't a cricket stadium. It was a rugby stadium.
I told my Australian friends when they told me they were going to a wrestling show and it’s the same wrestling I watch I told them AEW is different from WWE I told them go do your research before you buy those tickets they were so excited they didn’t listen because they thought they were getting a WWE like spectacle now they’re trying to get their tickets refunded and are having trouble😅 and from the advertisement that they sent me which I have pictures of it says PPV🤷🏾♀️
Aussies got ripped off big time
If you watch WWE and AEW back to back, it instantly jumps out how much AEW SUCKS and is so hard to watch after you watch a real wrestling program.
Tony khan, in a TV Insider interview, said this downgraded show was the plan all along. What a klutz.
What do you expect he’s from Chicago. We know nobody decent comes out of that dump
@PhillyLeotardo25 He should have been honest and said something like 'we overestimated our reach in the Australian market, but I'm learning as we go and that we are a fledgling company, etc.
The timeline doesn’t add up to Tony’s excuse
He said it was arranged by design for wbd… yet when it was announced they hadn’t agreed a deal with wbd & the game hadn’t been announced or dated
It’s literally changed to a collision not due to poor sales but rather wbd didn’t want competition against themselves in a ppv vs game match up
Why would you go all the way to Australia for a TV show?! If this was the other way round, American fans would be pissing blood
Dude, my Australian friends are pissed! They might revolt over there. 😂😂😂
It was announced. Who books a stadium show for tv?
They sold like 20% of the tickets to fill the stadium.
...If they sold the original venue out, that would have been a PPV.
Tony saving face, by pissing off the ticket buyers, is impressive.
The people who think it was never supposed to be a big event are dense, it was gonna be in a big open air stadium!
He’s been doing this for 5 years and still can’t make a card, advertise or be a competent businessman. His father can give him ppl to do this for him but he chooses to fail!
Tony Khan presents AEW’s “Grand Scam”. Tony promises you a Taylor Swift Spectacular with a Demi Devato budget. From a Big Stadium PPV style event to a taped Collision episode following the NBA All-Star Show. Massive money loss event!
The aew grandslam Australian show was first called a major event (ppv) during all in week this past year.
@@SkylerRapier0 it was never a ppv why lie?
@@scentofslaughter8854Were you Australia during the promotion?
@@scentofslaughter8854it was originally announced as a stadium show. It’s not unreasonable to have assumed it would be a PPV. Why book a stadium for a tv taping? That makes no sense.
@@scentofslaughter8854 You don't book a 50k seat stadium for a Dynamite taping lmao. C'mon man, use your head.
@@scentofslaughter8854Why try to put any blame on the fans? Why be vague about the advertising instead of outright saying it is collision like every event that is marketed in the US that is extremely clear on what you are getting tickets for.
There is no way that this wasn't done intentionally to mislead and fleece fans that don't get a lot of live events.
The biggest proof this was always meant to be a ppv is the staidum. U dont shoot anything but a ppv in a stadium
I remember when this was part of AEW THE BIGGEST ANNOUNCEMENT EVER in Aug 2024. it was intentionally vague.
With the original Wembley show, there was uncertainty as to whether it would be a PPV for a while. It wasn’t until it had massive ticket sales that Tony made it a PPV (despite it being only a week away from “All Out”).
If they had come close to selling out the stadium, this would have been a PPV, no doubt.
Absolutely. They can lie but this would have been a PPV if it sold enough tickets. It's the refund refusal I think is illegal actually.
I remember they said it was gonna be a stadium show. Cause Toni storm was there for the announcement in Australia lol… look up Toni storm at suncorp stadium espn Australia lol
As an Aussie I wouldn’t even go and watch this shit
Why would you go overseas for Collision?
Because WWE can have a regular RAW and Smackdown from overseas so Tony decides to join in the fun and got burned because he assumed wrestling fans in Australia knew AEW, hence no promotion lol
@@marvinleong5902 Yeah, enough Australians actually watch WWE programming to make that feasible. AEW has a TV audience of around 20k there, for the entire country/continent, if I understood correctly what has been reported.
How on Earth can you plan to fill a 55K stadium in a country on the other side of the planet, where only 20k out of 27 million people care enough about you to watch your television? And most of those 20k people would have to fly in and stay in hotels, because the distances between the bigger cities are so enormous.
The AEW stans say "it's never been a PPV before" but it also was never a February in Australia in a stadium either. It wasn't a stadium show at all. They are flying people to run a 2 hour Collision episode. It's disgraceful and i think the crowd should boo the entire show. They killed a continent before one show.
Should rename it to AEW Fyre Festival
Who said that phrase? "I too was hustled, scammed, bamboozled, hood winked...."
If it starts at 5:30 pm Aussie time, that's 1:30 am est, so it can't be live right after the All-Star game without at least a 2-hour pre-show.
It's much worse than that. It would be 1:30 am est on the 15th as Brisbane is 15 hours ahead of USEST. So it will actually be tape delayed until after the Dunk contest which is also on the 15th.
The snowman the scam artist lmao ☠️
Operation grand slam, one of the greatest endeavours in criminal history.
lol I read this exact post on Reddit, I don’t think the original person sent that to him
It's going to be great
Ding!
Tony is the gift that keeps on giving 👌🏾
If you think that 52000 in Sydney would have been ň TV taping then there's no help for you, this was always going to be a PPV, but lack of interest turned it into a taping...
So Tony Khan is a tennis fan: Wembley, Arthur Ashe, Aussie Open.....when will AEW do a event in Paris, France?
Instead of Roland Garros will AEW do an event in Canada but call it the Ronnie Garvin Open?
I'd love for Tony to come out and give a pre-show speech, he'd get a great reaction. The fans would love him!
They made a big deal about it, especially having booked a stadium and strangely lacking any sort of Collision branding. It was always Grand Slam, not Collision: Grand Slam, not Special Collision episode until recently. Did Tony really think a Collision taping would fill a fucking Stadium?
Imagine Jim there in a Humungus costume: ..."Just walk away and there will be an end to the horror."
This is gonna be good!
it isnt after the all star game if jt is on saturday. it will be after the dunk contest. also, nba ratings are doing the same thing that aew ratings are doing so this should be interesting
Buying 3rd row floor seats, and then getting 2nd row 1st floor up for the makeup ticket is crazy. People should be mad
Oh good, i hoped they would cover this.
Tony better watch out for boomerangs.
This is honestly alot better than what they did for the english. Remember, the first time they booked Wembley they didn't announce any matches until the kast minute.
I recall almost a year ago, someone from Australia emailing Alvarez, saying that AEW only draws around 20,000 viewers a week for Dynamite in Australian viewership.
The thought they could do a stadium show was insane from the start. And the thought that a bunch of people from Japan would travel south to see some old NJPW talent or that people from across the globe would fly there for the show is even more insane.
I’m so glad I didn’t go ahead & buy tickets for this & Brisbane is a 2.5 hr flight for me.
I hope IF WWE does do a PPV for us Aussies, it’s gotta be on the East Coast (either Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne)
I could see no reason for a massive stadium show in Australia except they must have thought it was going to be their next WEMBLEY, but l could see no evidence that Australians in 2025 were going to replicate fans in the UK three years ago, when that very particular fanbase really had convinced themselves that AEW was now the number one wrestling promotion. And now they’ve absolutely butchered it even as a one night show in Australia.
Wait what it ended up just being a Collision!? Lmao. Nah they were definitely holding and promoting this as a PPV level event, it was meant to be on par (relatively) with Wembley initially.
WWE had over 50k for Elimination Chamber in Perth with Rhea Ripley headlining that show. Tony Clown thought he could sellout Suncorp Stadium with his glorified indy promotion, he's an idiot.
Me thinks Tony Con and his clown show won’t be returning to Australia any time soon. The ultimate Nepo baby clown.
Bait and Switch
I said after the success of Wembley to take a show anywhere else in the world and it proved my point, we turn out in the UK for big events, not so much elsewhere is it?
Why on earth would you book a stadium in Australia and not have it as a ppv?
Why would you originally book a stadium in Australia for a tv taping?
Because he's got more money 💸 than sense
A lot of people got screwed with the tickets as well. I saw people commenting that they spent $1100 on ringside seats, just for them to get their seats moved to the back with limited viewing
The way aew handled this Australia show is so sad. They killed a market before even going over there
"The best guy's Tony Khan!" - Dave Meltzer
Tony killing the territory before he even gets there and puts on a show is mighty impressive
It's not the all star game, it's all star weekend. The game is on Sunday
As some have pointed out, it's pretty obvious what happened: This Australia show was a test, that's why there was this "is it or isn't it a PPV" deal was going on. Basically they didn't want to totally come out and say it but I do think they were planning on making this a PPV but once the response and ticket sales were underwhelming, they figured, "screw it, make it a regular show" to cut the losses. It makes ZERO sense, even in TK logic, to fly everyone to another continent, hype it up, and then go "no. This was always meant to be our B show, that's going to be taped and broadcast at later time". Just doesn't gel. Oh and before I hear "Grand Slams have never been PPV". Yeah, well, Royal Rumble was first broadcast on regular cable (and one at a house show too, I think) and KOTR was a house show deal for years before it ever became a PPV. Anything can become a PPV/PLE.
I heard that it was originally slated as a PPV because Tony thought Australia was in the same time zone as England.
“We were presented with an amazing opportunity to partner up with the NBA for All Star Weekend. We jumped at the chance. This is going to be great!” Tony Khan
The NBA All-Star Game itself is the 16th. It will be airing after the NBA All-Star Saturday Night festivities the day before where they have the dunk contest, 3 point contest, etc.
It was never announced as a PPV. Tony said numerous times he didn't know what it would be, but certainly implied it would be bigger than just another weekly episode. He left it till a couple of weeks out to formally announce what it was. Its despicable, but be honest about what it was. AeW has fkd people on the tickets and the placements in the arena (compared to the original stadium seating) and they have sold tickets for a fraction of the original price for better seats. Again it's despicable, but talk to truths cause its already bad enough.
Probably would've been a good idea to announce it early on as a house show or taping. You don't normally fly talent there for a "C" show. You don't see the NFL or NBA going to Australia unless it's going to be big. Maybe, a NBL/NBA crossover. Did AEW lie? Not going to say he did. Should he have been more forthcoming and decisive? Without a doubt.
@juicyfruit6311 💯 agree
GRAND SCAM😂❤😂
I LOVE AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺
You just got SCAM 💀🤣
My best mate, loves AEW, booked tickets before they changed venues, now he wont go after they changed his seat for a much worse spot with no refund, way to kill your fan base AEW
Living in Brisbane, I can say that there's been next to no promoting of the event here. Especially when it got downgraded to the entertainment centre, people cared less.
.tonys a lifetime supply of " Bad idea jeans"
The fans should demand a refund. TK has refunded tickets before.
Is Corny cosplaying as Timothy Chalamet‘s take on Bob Dylan from “A Complete Unknown” or just in general Tony Khan? 🤣
AEW: Pay More for Less.
Aew Fyrefest
Tony's clueless enough to go out amid fan rage to give his rah rah speech.
Never mind how poorly they're treating their Aussie fans - thats bad enough and speaks for itself. But are they seriously shipping their entire production team, talent, etc just to do a taping of Collision???
So Tony Khan swerved the fans and now grand slam is a collision episode. Yikes. If Tony Khan goes out in that crowd he will get booed out of the building. This is awful and Tony should of known better. You can't promise fans a ppv event and then change it to an episode of collision. That's bad business and bad promotion.
As an Australian, I have known when and where I can watch WWE for the past 10 years.
I have no idea how to watch the AEW weekly's.
They just dont have the reach here that they do in other places
Everyone here was under the impression this was Wembley Australia basically.
lol only 7 minutes on the biggest scam of the year so far?
Tony is spending all this money TO TAPE COLLISION?!?!
considering how much he pays most of the roster, that doesn't seem like that big a deal in the overall scheme of things
@ sorry it’s just in nature for me
to be stupefied at such a monumental waste of
Money