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WWE Has Put Clauses In Arenas That Also Run AEW Events

WWE Triple H Vince McMahon

As WWE and AEW compete to entertain pro wrestling fans, World Wrestling Entertainment has put an interesting clause in certain arenas that both companies frequent.

Since All Elite Wrestling launched in January 2019, they have been going all around the United States as well as into Canada with their shows. In October 2019, they launched Dynamite on Wednesday nights and normally run that show live every week.

On June 17th, AEW will be adding a second weekly television show called Collision which will debut from the United Center in Chicago. Most Collision shows will be live on Saturday nights, but there is a Thursday night taping later this month as well.

Meanwhile, World Wrestling Entertainment runs Raw live on Mondays, Smackdown live on Fridays and weekend live events or Premium Live Events all year long. While AEW has started doing live events as well, they don’t do nearly as many as WWE.

In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote about a clause that World Wrestling Entertainment introduced to arenas that AEW may choose to run.

“There is an interesting note that in arenas that do rent to both AEW and WWE, WWE has put clauses in its deals that AEW can’t run a certain number of weeks before or after the WWE show, and also that AEW and the arena can’t announce the show or sell tickets until after the WWE show has taken place.”

That could be seen as WWE strong-arming AEW a bit, but since Vince McMahon’s company has been running shows all around the US and the world for over 40 years, they have leverage that AEW doesn’t have as a company that has been around for just over four years.