The Wednesday night wars of professional wrestling are begining to rage
Cody Phelps managing editor
The landscape of Professional Wrestling has changed forever.
Vince McMahon has held a monopoly on major American professional wrestling since 2001 when World Championship Wrestling [WCW] was purchased from Ted Turner by the McMahon family and merged with [formerly] the World Wrestling Federation, the company known as WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment]
That monopoly has been challenged throughout the years by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and Ring of Honor Wrestling, but neither was able to cripple the WWE. That all changed on New Year’s Eve when the group known as “The Elite” (consisting of Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega, Matt and Nick Jackson) announced a partnership with Jacksonville Jaguars owner Tony Khan. The announcement was a new wrestling promotion known as All Elite Wrestling. AEW has been testing the waters of the market over the past 10 months, growing the roster with talent from throughout the world while running pay-per-view events before landing a major television deal with TNT in October.
The first Elite supported event “All In” took place in collaboration with ROH and New Japan Pro Wrestling in October 2018, that event sold out an 11,000 seat arena in under 30 minutes. Something WWE has been unable to compete with since the “Money in the Bank” event in 2011 which saw the rise of fan favorite CM Punk.
AEWs first solo event “Double or Nothing” took place in the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. The event sold out in roughly 15 minutes and was a critical success. It saw the debut of Pro Wrestling legend, “The Ayatollah of Rock-and-Roll-ah” Chris Jericho. He made his professional debut in WCW nearly 30 years ago. He’s since won major championships in WWE and NJPW and is the inaugural AEW World Champion.
The event also saw the return to wrestling for fan favorite Jon Moxley
[formerly Dean Ambrose]
who departed WWE less than a month before debuting at Double or Nothing and attacking a member of The Elite and an executive vice-president for AEW in Kenny “The Cleaner” Omega.
AEW has done major events in several cities that all sold out including the sequel to “All In” cleverly titled “All Out” which took place in the Sears Center in Chicago.
During that event, the AEW production team announced the television deal with TNT, the show airs Wednesday nights at 6/7 Central. The show is called “Wednesday Night Dynamite” and airs head-to-head with WWEs newest brand NXT.
With AEW and WWE airing at the same time on Wednesdays, which brand will prevail and bring in the highest viewership on their respective networks? Only time can tell, but it is undoubtedly a great time to be a fan of the sport of Pro Wrestling.
Cody Phelps managing editor
The landscape of Professional Wrestling has changed forever.
Vince McMahon has held a monopoly on major American professional wrestling since 2001 when World Championship Wrestling [WCW] was purchased from Ted Turner by the McMahon family and merged with [formerly] the World Wrestling Federation, the company known as WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment]
That monopoly has been challenged throughout the years by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling and Ring of Honor Wrestling, but neither was able to cripple the WWE. That all changed on New Year’s Eve when the group known as “The Elite” (consisting of Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega, Matt and Nick Jackson) announced a partnership with Jacksonville Jaguars owner Tony Khan. The announcement was a new wrestling promotion known as All Elite Wrestling. AEW has been testing the waters of the market over the past 10 months, growing the roster with talent from throughout the world while running pay-per-view events before landing a major television deal with TNT in October.
The first Elite supported event “All In” took place in collaboration with ROH and New Japan Pro Wrestling in October 2018, that event sold out an 11,000 seat arena in under 30 minutes. Something WWE has been unable to compete with since the “Money in the Bank” event in 2011 which saw the rise of fan favorite CM Punk.
AEWs first solo event “Double or Nothing” took place in the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. The event sold out in roughly 15 minutes and was a critical success. It saw the debut of Pro Wrestling legend, “The Ayatollah of Rock-and-Roll-ah” Chris Jericho. He made his professional debut in WCW nearly 30 years ago. He’s since won major championships in WWE and NJPW and is the inaugural AEW World Champion.
The event also saw the return to wrestling for fan favorite Jon Moxley
who departed WWE less than a month before debuting at Double or Nothing and attacking a member of The Elite and an executive vice-president for AEW in Kenny “The Cleaner” Omega.
AEW has done major events in several cities that all sold out including the sequel to “All In” cleverly titled “All Out” which took place in the Sears Center in Chicago.
During that event, the AEW production team announced the television deal with TNT, the show airs Wednesday nights at 6/7 Central. The show is called “Wednesday Night Dynamite” and airs head-to-head with WWEs newest brand NXT.
With AEW and WWE airing at the same time on Wednesdays, which brand will prevail and bring in the highest viewership on their respective networks? Only time can tell, but it is undoubtedly a great time to be a fan of the sport of Pro Wrestling.
