ALL ELITE WRESTLING: Everything you need to know
AEW is here. 2019 has promised to be a game-changer for the entire business and right at the beginning of the the year, everything is about the change. A lot have tried to present a legit alternative to the WWE since WCW has folded in the year 2000. TNA Wrestling, Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro Wrestling among others, all of them had a fair shot, but WWE remains at the top of the totem pole, untouched, unbroken. A mixture of approach and finicial ressources have prevented that from happening. While WWE is as big has it's ever been, spreading their content all over the world, other promotion are happy with what they have achieved or are not able to come very far. That all seems to change, because: AEW is not there to take down WWE. They do not openly threat WWE, the take a long on the things you can do better and try to change it.
That starts with the overall presentation of things. AEW is not trying to copy WWE and is also not rolling out a 1:1 copy of indy-wrestling. If you take last year's ALL IN event as a preview on what is to come, its (dare i say it) the best of both world. Sports Entertainment, but with the at of wrestling as the main attraction. But it does not stop there. It is a know fact that WWE wrestlers a signed to independet contracts (while being banned from working for other promotions). This also saves WWE the money they would have to spend on insurances or health care. AEW wants to change this. Not only are they thinking about a a smaller tour schedule, the wanna sign wrestlers as employees and therefore paying them their insurances and everything that comes along with it. Also Chief Brand Officer Brand Rhodes promised equal pay for women and men and a strong women's division for the promotion.
AEW is a very expensive undertaking, so who is behind it? Jeff Jarrett? Tommy Dreamer? No.
Football Billionaire Tony Khan. The Khan Family actually has more money to their disposal than the McMahon Family. The business strategy Khan follows does seem very smart. He signed Cody Rhodes, Nick & Matt Jackson (The Young Bucks), Hangman Page and Brandi Rhodes for leading roles in his new promotion. The Bucks and The Rhodes even fill executive roles. They are the creators of 'Being the Elite' the YouTube-Hit-Series, that is seen as the spark of a new era of wrestling. Different, creative, funny and just good entertainment, that does not take itself to seriously. In other words: Ruining the business, like Jim Cornette would say.
Elite Facts:
Who is in charge:
- Tony Khan
- Cody Rhodes
- Nick Jackson
- Matt Jackson
- Brandi Rhodes
Who is signed as a talent:
- Cody Rhodes
- Nick Jackson
- Matt Jackson
- Brandi Rhodes
- Hangman Page
- MJF
- Joey Janella
- Chris Jericho
- Britt Baker
- PAC (formerly known as Neville)
- Christopher Daniels
- Frankie Kazarian
- Scorpio Sky
- Penelope Ford
- Takehiro Yamamura
- Cima
- El Lindaman
- T-Hawk
- Billy Gunn (as a producer)
- Jungle Boy
More to come
Who might be signed:
Heavy rumours on who will also sign with AEW in the future are:
- Goldberg
- The Revival (Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder)
- Zack Ryder
- Kenny Omega
- Marty Scurll
- Mike & Maria Kanellis
- Tommy Dreamer
TV Deal:
Impressed with the production of ALL IN in September 2018, a lot of TV channels are currently competing to host AEW's weekly show, rumoured to be named 'TuesdayNight Dynamite', which would move into the time-slot of SmackDown once this show moves to Fridays in FOX in Fall 2019.
Among the interested TV channels are WGN (which hosted ALL IN's Zero Hour and also WWE Superstars a few years ago) and SyFy (which was the home of WWE ECW, SmackDown and NXT). Currently it is unclear which channel will actually pick up the show, but a tv deal is essential to the company's success. In addition to that the Khan Family has connections to the bosses at the TNT Network, so the show might even end up there.
Pay-Per-Views:
The next/first PPV of AEW will be called 'Double or Nothing' and will take place on May 25th in Jacksonville, Florida, the home of the new promotion.
Relationship with other promotions:
- WWE: As soon as Chris Jericho's signing was announced, he was removed from the signature of the shows. Also WWE made The Young Bucks an unbelievable offer, that they still refused. The relationship is unlikely to be there at all.
- Impact Wrestling: Unknown. You might assume something could be done in the future, but Impact Wrestling also has a small relationship with WWE these days. We will see.
- Ring of Honor: ROH is loosing their position as the No.2 behind the WWE in the USA (remember, Impact Wrestling moved to Canada) and they also lost a number of talent to AEW. At a recent meeting with AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, ROH did not agree to a deal.
- New Japan Pro Wrestling: NJPW also did not agree to a deal, much like ROH, but they still might do. Kenny Omega is the key here. It is still unsure if he resigns with NJPW, goes to WWE or signs with AEW. It is clear that NJPW wanna keep Omega, so they might agree to a deal which allows Omega to compete on both AEW and NJPW.
- OWE (China): On January 12th AEW announced a relationship with chinese promotion OWE. China is a market, WWE was, despite their best efforts, not able to break in, yet. The deal with OWE could turn out huge for AEW, but also for OWE who have not been on the radar or international wrestling fans yet
The team behind All Elite Wrestling is driven to create an alternative to WWE for hardcore and mainstream fans alike, an interesting move as WWE is spreading it's wings to conquer the entire world with thing like NXT UK and probably NXT Germany/Europe in the future.
For a wrestling fan it just creates another world to explore and for wrestlers it creates a job. So let hope AEW sticks around.
Wanna talk about AEW? @Walu2go on Twitter is where to go.
