Since the beginning of the fall, there have been rumors around the wrestling world that longtime WWE wrestler Bobby Lashley would take his talents to AEW (All Elite Wrestling). The move would elevate AEW, making it a more legitimate competitor to WWE, a multibillion-dollar company. Although there were moments that the debut of Lashley would have been well received, like at last month’s WrestleDream PPV or their 5th Anniversary Dynamite show, the decision to have Lashley come out on Dynamite the same night as the Dodgers vs. Yankees game five was a bit of a head-scratcher.
A Less Than Dynamite Crowd
On October 30th, AEW hosted their Dynamite show from the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, OH. From the very start, the show was as quiet as a library, and the spots where a crowd reaction was warranted did come, but the energy level just wasn’t there. Pictures from fans who attended showed an arena that wasn’t nearly as full as other weeks, which could have impacted the lack of energy inside the building.
The show was solid, but again, there was a head-scratching moment where AEW had a tag team title change on a night when the sports world’s attention was on the Dodgers vs. Yankees series. The time to have that title change was at WrestleDream, but instead, AEW has it take place on Dynamite with fewer eyeballs on the product. Why would you take the titles off the Young Bucks at that moment and not save that for a PPV? A question only the AEW brass could answer, more specifically, Tony Khan.
Back to Lashley, the moment was approaching towards the show’s end. Shelton Benjamin was in the ring with Swerve Strickland, and MVP made “a call” on his cell. Moments later, after the match, the big introduction of Lashley happens, but again, the pop was a fraction of what was anticipated from a moment like this. Lashley has had a recognizable run on WWE and is known worldwide, so the debut should have felt like the world had just shifted. The only thing is that it didn’t. It felt like any other debut and if we want to compare it to a more recent WWE wrestler debuting on AEW, Ricochet’s pop was way bigger. Yes, there were 50 times more fans in attendance, but even if you had 5,000 at Dynamite, you almost expected them to blow the roof, and they just didn’t.
Did The Wrestling World Oversell The Bobby Lashley Debut?
All of this begs the question: was the signing of Lashley not as big as wrestling fans may have expected, or was it just a case of wrong place, wrong time for a star like Lashley to debut? It’s hard to say, as Lashley was on TV for WWE almost right up to the point where his contract would end. His debut, as much as it was discussed on social media, should have hit differently.
What about the viewership numbers? They were lower than average that night, as AEW had 628,000 viewers. That is about 100,000 less than what they do on average every Wednesday. The World Series game had a little over 18 million viewers, which hurt Dynamite. Even with the World Series, one would think that a major superstar debut would still give the product a bump, but since it wasn’t announced ahead of time, AEW just banked on their audience to show up anyway, which was a mistake.
Lashley is now part of MVP’s “Hurt Syndicate,” including Shelton Benjamin. It’ll be interesting to see if this faction grows and how much of an impact they will have on the AEW program. We’ve seen factions like House of Black come and go, so will something that has worked in the past between MVP and Lashley get over with the AEW audience? That remains to be seen, but for now, Lashley’s career in AEW did not start off on the right foot.
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