WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T Discusses Recent AEW Dynamite Ratings

AEW's TV ratings have been the subject of discussion for many years, both for good and bad reasons. There were days in 2021 where the company was very close to surpassing "WWE Raw" in total viewership, and had actually beaten WWE's longest-running show in the key 18-49 demographic. However, just three years later, AEW posted its lowest rating ever for an episode of "AEW Dynamite," as the June 19 installment averaged a total of 502,000 viewers.

Multiple factors were cited as potential explanations for the low rating, such as "The Big Bang Theory" not being the lead-in, the Juneteenth public holiday, and the Kendrick Lamar concert that streamed on Amazon. However, WWE Hall of Famer Booker T believes that there is more to it, as he said on his "Hall of Fame" podcast that the main problem the company faces isn't to do with any sort of advertising, it's the size of the roster.

"AEW's roster is so big, they have no way to really try to find a footing as far as trying to create stories because they've got way too much talent," Booker said. "Just like WCW had back in the day. The thing was WCW, like I say, was hiring that talent just to corner the market. Now is Tony Khan hiring all of this young talent just to corner the market? Perhaps, maybe, I don't know. But if he is, he's doing it the wrong way as well because why would you want to corner the market with a talent that's not even a star yet? That makes no sense to me." Booker used Darby Allin as an example of someone who hasn't been built to be the star that Booker believes he should be after five years with AEW.

Please credit "Hall of Fame" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.