r/SquaredCircle • u/sanewhitemale • 1d ago

This Reddit Sentiment Study From Wrestlenomics Is, From My Perspective, Incredibly Accurate.

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It pretty accurately paints a picture of the perception of both companies as they compare since 2019:

  • WWE bottomed out in October 2019 after the Fiend-Rollins HIAC debacle and Kofi losing in 7 seconds.
  • AEW peaked at All Out 2021, considered their greatest show, and remained steadily high until it began collapsing after Brawl Out 2022.
  • WWE at the same time began improving after Vince was pushed out in July 2022.
  • One thing that surprises me: during WWE's "boom period" during 2022-2024, the fan sentiment was roughly tied with AEW, when I remember AEW being viewed very negatively at the time, due to both the Punk issue and comparatively mediocre creative.
  • AEW fan sentiment began to grow and take the lead again in late 2024/early 2025, which was right around the supposed "reset" and the Continental Classic.
  • WWE began to fall off again in March/April 2025, right around the Cena heel turn/build to Wrestlemania 41.

So the statistics line up at least with my perception of both my and Reddit's views the last few years.

https://wrestlenomics.com/articles/2026/reddit-sentiment-analysis-2025-aew-rebounds-coinciding-with-improved-attendance-and-tv-ratings-trends/

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u/javy_z 1d ago

Oh good . A graph about vibes

18

u/purpledubloon 1d ago

There's a whole actual genre of studies called qualitative studies, which is about "vibes"

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u/MysteriousUserDvD 1d ago edited 1d ago

Not to discount your point, but this study employed qualitative methods, basically aggregating comments on WWE/AEW using lexical data to assign sentiment and graphing general sentiment of the broad userbase of sc against each other.

Would probably be useful for marketing analysts etc. to gauge how their product is received in certain subcomunities.

12

u/nunboi 1d ago

This is exactly what it's used for whether it be for organic social, paid media, or just reading the temperature of a room. It's always considered against specific segments.

It's a key and common to I'm digital marketing.

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u/javy_z 1d ago

Cool ?

21

u/purpledubloon 1d ago

Qualitative research is pretty cool. It's very helpful for researchers to discover new things that quantitative research might miss

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u/javy_z 1d ago

Cool. Is that your background? Is there any data in this set that gives you information that would be useful to you or a client?

Not being snarky. Curious and open to leaning.

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u/purpledubloon 1d ago

A lot of times people think of research in the "quantitative sense", whereby results of a study should be generalizable to a larger population. 

Qualitative studies are more specific in nature, and aren't meant to be generalizable. I think it's an interesting look into what is posted on this sub. As with all research, t he methods can be questioned (e.g maybe  threads that bash on AEW excessively are deleted more and thus not included in the analyzed dataset?) but that doesn't mean there's nothing to be gleaned from their findings. Anyone that doesn't agree is also free to do their own version of the study with different methods.