News: “All Elite Wrestling” Promotion Officially Announced, “Double or Nothing” Event Planned by Cody and Young Bucks, More Info
There’s a new wrestling promotion coming in 2019 and it’s called All Elite Wrestling. The announcement of the new promotion that will see Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) as major players is not a surprise. It has been expected since October and the group filed trademarks in November.
The promotion is expected to be funded by the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars co-owner Tony Khan, who is a billionaire and a huge pro wrestling fan. His father Shahid Khan is the principal owner of the Jaguars and Fulham FC of the Premier League in England. They decided to wait until New Year’s Day at 12am Pacific Time to make the official announcement. Here’s a photo of Tony with the glasses on and his father.
You can watch the announcement of this new promotion on the “Being The Elite” Youtube channel. The reveal is towards the end of the episode.
In the video, they also announced that there will be a major event called “Double or Nothing” that will be a sequel to the successful All In event that took place on September 1. That event sold over 10,000 tickets and was a huge success.
https://twitter.com/ALL_IN_2018/status/1080014727172960257
There was also this video on Twitter where they noted that on January 8 in Jacksonville, they will have more info on “Double or Nothing” at a rally that is free for fans to attend and it will have more info on the future of AEW. The rally will include a “special announcement from The Elite.” Some of the talents scheduled to attend are The Young Bucks, Cody & Brandi Rhodes, Hangman Page, Daniels, Kazarian, and Sky along with more special guests.
It’s interesting to note that WWE has Smackdown also in Jacksonville on January 8, so it should be a good day for wrestling fans in that area.
https://twitter.com/ALL_IN_2018/status/1080016187424006144
Here’s some more info on the promotion courtesy of the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer, who has provided a lot of information on the AEW promotion.
– There are already wrestlers signed to contracts including Cody. The Young Bucks aren’t officially signed, but they could be within 24-48 hours. They became free agents on January 1, so obviously they’ll sign deals. Meltzer noted that people are being signed to multi-year deals. Hangman Page likely has a deal as well since he was in the video.
– There is no TV deal for AEW yet, but there are “multiple offers” that the promotion is considering. Meltzer is confident that they will sign a TV deal soon.
– AEW would like to have a working relationship with New Japan Pro Wrestling (like Ring of Honor has had), but it’s not known if that will happen.
– The success of “All In” led to this happening and people in the TV industry were impressed by it.
– Ring of Honor wrestlers likely won’t be working with AEW because they will competing for talent. Meltzer noted that they wanted Bandido, but ROH got him.
Past rumors that have linked wrestling legends Chris Jericho and Jim Ross to the promotion. Jericho posted a pic of being at a Minnesota Vikings football game on Sunday and specifically thanked Tony Khan for it, so that adds to the rumors of Jericho being a part of it. Meltzer added that Jericho has not signed a deal as far as he knows, but it’s possible.
On a final note, AEW shirts are already available for sale on ProWrestlingTees, so check those out if you want to support this new promotion.
Analysis: I’m excited about this. I like the key players involved and if they get Jericho to be a part of it then that would be a huge boost as well.
What we don’t know is when any of this will really start or when Double or Nothing will take place, but I assume we will learn more about that during next week’s rally in Jacksonville.