AEW May Be On The Way To Suffering The Fate Of ECW

One WWE Hall of Famer thinks AEW could be on the road to oblivion, previously walked by ECW.

The future of AEW has been under more intense discussion in recent weeks after Netflix announced a deal to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery. WBD is the parent company of AEW’s US broadcast partners TBS and TNT, while the streaming giant is, of course, the global home of WWE.

However, that deal might not be as straightforward as first thought. Donald Trump noted he felt that it would be difficult before Paramount Skydance, led by rampant Trump supporter Larry Ellison’s son, announced their own attempts to acquire WBD.

Is ECW The Dark Blueprint For AEW?

Speaking on the Duke Loves Rasslin podcast, D-Von Dudley explained history could be about to repeat itself, recalling that TNN bumped ECW off the airwaves when it got the rights to air WWE Raw, something that contributed to the end of ECW:

Yeah. Well, I remember ECW being under TN—or was it called TNN? It went from TNN to Spike TV, yeah, right? And I remember there was controversy with that because WWE… was transferring over to TNN, and it knocked off ECW. They couldn’t do it anymore. So, they wind up cancelling the contract with ECW.

We lost our TV deal. That was one of the biggest things that ECW had to show for with all the hard work… for us to be knocked off because the WWE was coming to TNN… I think that really broke ECW.

AEW is not in any imminent danger when it comes to losing a TV deal, as it is still set to run for another two years. What happens after that, and who will own Warner Bros. Discovery at that time, remains to be seen.