Dave Meltzer Assesses AEW Booking In Light Of Ratings, Need For 'Main Eventers'

AEW seemingly had a soft reset after WrestleDream on October 12, as the company looks to build up its stories for the future, while also attempting to boost its ratings, which have considerably dropped compared to last year. Dave Meltzer analysed AEW's situation on the "Wrestling Observer Radio," and using his account of witnessing the October 16 episode of "AEW Dynamite" live in person, he believes that the company lacks main event stars.

"Christian [Cage] and Jay White is not a main event," Meltzer said. "There's main eventers and there's good workers, and you can make people main eventers, but until they are, they're not main eventers. That was a perfect example...It wasn't a main event, and there was nothing really big advertised. As a show, it was an easy show to watch live, but there were no great matches, and there was no great storylines — I guess the follow up on Jon Moxley at the pay-per-view and the Adam Cole promo, and people saw the Adam Cole promo right at the very beginning. AEW does need good matches or people aren't going to watch the show." 

Meltzer's co-host, Bryan Alvarez, noted that there has been a renewed focus from AEW to advertise matches and shows in advance, with multiple matches already booked for events that are still weeks away at the time of writing. Meltzer admitted that is an improvement on what the company was doing, but in order to get people to watch and buy tickets, they have to be matches that people want to see, regardless of how well they are promoted.

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