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Vince Russo has never shied away from criticizing AEW. In a recent podcast, the wrestling legend shared his opinion of foreign wrestlers ahead of AEWxNJPW: Forbidden Door.
With the upcoming Forbidden Door show, a slew of Japanese wrestlers are bursting into the Western wrestling scene. While hardcore fans aren't strangers to names such as Kazuchika Okada and Jay White, casual fans could be scratching their heads.
Vince Russo has always been a proponent of casual fans and noted how he doesn't know many of the new stars making their debuts. Appearing on the most recent episode of Writing With Russo, the wrestling veteran detailed his viewpoint on foreign wrestlers competing in the USA.
"It’s all about the connection with the audience. The fans have got to connect to the talent. Well, you’ve got major problems with a foreign-speaking talent. Number 1, you’ve got the language barrier. And number 2 – more back when I was writing – bro, a lot of the Mexican and Japanese wrestlers wore masks," Russo noted. (2:32 onward)
Check out the full episode below:
Russo also made a FRIENDS analogy while describing the situation:
"Let’s take the show FRIENDS. Say, the 7th friend was a foreign-speaking person and wore a mask over their face every episode? Out of the 7 characters, he’s probably gonna to be the least over! Okay, bro? The least amount of viewers are probably going to be able to connect with that person." (3:28 onward)
Not all masked wrestlers have been able to connect with fans over the years, while others have enjoyed significant success in the industry.
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Vince Russo believes AEW missed out on new fans since they haven't topped their first show's rating
During an episode of the Wrestle Buddy podcast, Vince Russo shared his belief that AEW has seemingly not grown since its first episode.
"They've never topped that very first show, where they did 1.4 million people. They could come up with the demos and this that whatever they want, the fact of the matter is that the first show did 1.4 million and in the last two and a half years, they haven't topped that." (01:05:32 onward)
Vince Russo also mentioned that the promotion had lost a significant portion of its audience.
"What that means is you've not grown your audience at all. As a matter of fact, you've lost audience because all you're doing is booking wrestling matches. The casual viewer is not interested in 20-25 minutes wrestling matches." (01:06:01 onward)
While Vince Russo is sticking to his guns on AEW's ratings, Tony Khan continues to praise his promotion's performance on social media. It will be interesting to see if the Jacksonville-based company manages to rope in a fresh set of audience in the near future.
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