Bully Ray On How Long AEW Needs To See If Something Is 'Truly Catching On'

"AEW Dynamite" has surpassed 1 million viewers only twice thus far in 2023 — a far cry from the previous year when AEW's flagship show crossed the seven-figure mark on 13 different occasions, including a stretch of five consecutive weeks. "Dynamite" was averaging a bit over 950,000 viewers in 2022 compared to about 880,000 this year. That's closer to its 2021 average of around 890,000 viewers per episode. 

On "Busted Open Radio," Bully Ray congratulated AEW for nearly hitting such a benchmark again with this year's "Dynamite: Grand Slam." However, he cautioned the company against complacency, imploring AEW President Tony Khan to analyze the specific elements of the September event that drew more eyeballs than others — and accordingly recalibrate his creative plans. 

"Anybody who's got an ounce of knowledge in the wrestling industry will tell you that — despite the fact that [AEW] had one solid week — [it] does not [guarantee] progression forward," Bully Ray explained. "Normally, wrestling takes about a quarter — you need three months to know whether or not something is truly catching on [and] is truly moving some metric: a buyrate for a pay-per-view, a t-shirt, a whatever."

He believes that some casual AEW fans tuned back into the product just to watch "Grand Slam" and that the litmus test for AEW is whether or not those eyeballs are retained going forward. "If 'Dynamite' heads back into that high-700s, mid-800s range, then we're back to square one, where I don't know if the real issue has ever been put under the microscope as to what is it going to take for this company to move forward definitively with new eyes on the product."

Bully Ray's comments were made prior to this week's "Dynamite," which dropped nearly 130,000 viewers from the "Grand Slam" draw.