Mercedes Mone finally debuted in AEW this past week. She debuted to a super hyped crowd, excited internet reaction (especially from her stans), and… lower ratings than expected. Part of this is partially out of AEW’s control (Mercedes stans are notorious for over hyping her and making it seem like she’s bigger than she is) but a lot of this is on AEW too. It came out that she was under contract for two months and the only advertising they did was a few “wink wink” nods that would fly over the heads of people that don’t follow things online. It’s an attempted repeat of CM Punk’s debut but, and with no offense to Mercedes, she’s no Punk.

This has been a recurring trend with AEW lately. They dropped a dime on huge free agents like Mone, Kazuchika Okada, and Will Ospreay and the ratings haven’t noticeably gone up. That’s not to say that it’s bad that they’re hired (Ospreay has already put on two GOAT-level matches since signing with the company) but anyone hoping that this would finally push AEW out of its mini-slump has been left disappointed.

Still, ratings are good enough to keep Zaslov happy and the shows are usually good to great, so this isn’t a huge issue. Unless you’re one of the few but very loud that want AEW to be the number one wrestling promotion in the world, this won’t hurt anything.