Select Answers: AEW/Max numbers, Underdiscussed moments in history, Counter programming

Welcome to Select Answers, a short feature that provides some of the answers to questions that were posed to Sean Ross Sapp in the most recent Fightful Weekly Q&A Podcast. The show drops every week on Fightful Select for subscribers.

When aggregating these posts please refer to it as "Fightful Select Answers Q&A" and tag Fightful, noting that it was in the Q&A format to avoid confusion.

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Does Tony really not know what’s going on specifically with the Max numbers or is that media answer? It seems wild to me that he wouldn’t and malpractice from their biggest partner

There is nothing to indicate that Tony Khan has those numbers. When I spoke to him personally, he said he didn't. When people in the company speak to him, they claim he's told them the same. Between myself and Andrew Zarian, we broke every single beat of the AEW-WBD talks and the story, and we've not spoken to anyone even into many high levels of WBD that have the numbers. I can't speak to additional reporting, but I've never been outright told what the numbers are.

What do you feel is an underdiscussed turning point in wrestling history? Something like McMahon's conquest of the territories or the nWo, but less well known.

Christian Cage leaving WWE for TNA. TNA was always a firm number two at that point, but people were ready for an alternative. Christian leaving WWE and choosing TNA on his own really paved the way for some people like Booker T, Rob Van Dam, Jeff Hardy, Sting, and Gail Kim to pick TNA. It also showed some released talent like Team 3D and Kurt Angle that there was a viable place to make money and moments. There are a million things TNA should have done differently, but as long as there is a dominant number one company, there will be room for a second company to be an alternative.

how does talent feel about counter programming? since everyone pretty much knows everyone and there's love across all shows.

It's usually not that much of a talking point. Everybody in WWE and AEW knows what is happening, and nobody denies it. It's usually just met with some eye rolling and "that's the job." Older talent and staff I talk to just say that it is the natural direction and course of competition within pro wrestling, and just show up and do their job.