AEW President Tony Khan has faced criticism for relying on Cagematch ratings for booking decisions. Despite receiving input from others in the company, Khan remains committed to his vision, occasionally leading to last-minute creative choices.
During a recent media call, Khan defended his use of Cagematch ratings, emphasizing their significance in gauging fan feedback and show quality:
“Recently, we’ve had some of our best shows we have ever done. And this year if you look at 2023 and just to use as samples, you can look at fan feedback from different shows. One site that measures fan feedback is Cagematch.
Look at the top 100 shows this year and look at how many of them are from AEW. And if you throw this version of ROH in there too, you get some more but it’s pretty incredible and the top 100 shows that I’ve over 50 votes, top 100 shows even more so than I have over 100 votes look at those and look at how many of them happened in 2023 from AEW or even a couple more from ROH, and that speaks pretty highly I thought but much more so I would talk TV ratings.”
USA Network took a playful jab at Khan, referring to a World Heavyweight Championship match between Jinder Mahal and Seth Rollins on next week’s RAW and asking about the Cagematch rating for that specific bout.
Raj Giri tweeted:
“These guys do have history. Seth Rollins defeated Jinder Mahal in the tournament finals to become the first NXT Champion.”
USA Network replied:
“What was the cagematch rating?”
Tony fired back at USA Network with the following on X:
“A double standard:
@730hook 28-1 career record, on winning streak calls out the Champ, a logical challenge sparks online outrage
Jinder has literally lost every single match he’s in for the past year, immediately gets title shot, where is the rage
#AEWDynamite TOMORROW on TBS
A moral victory for USA is one win more than their World Title challenger Jinder Mahal has in the past 364 days… because it’s been literally a full year since he won a match.
You really put AEW in our place getting Jinder Mahal in a big match on your tv show. Do it more often.”
Mahal tweeted the following after reading Tony’s tweet:
“Who tf is Hook?
WATCH MONDAY NIGHT RAW ON @USANETWORK MONDAY 8PM EST!!!”
Mahal deleted his tweet later.
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