AEW Dark will be taped at former WCW home - Reports
AEW's YouTube show, AEW Dark, will be taped at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida in the near future, according to various reports from Dave Meltzer and Andrew Zarian.
Universal Studios was also the home of WCW and IMPACT Wrestling tapings.
IMPACT Wrestling used Soundstage 21 from 2004-13 while WCW used Universal Studios for WCW Pro, WCW Worldwide and WCW Saturday Night episodes, referring to the venue as WCW Arena.
Back in June, AEW boss Tony Khan confirmed on PWInsider that AEW Dark tapings will have a new location.
“Before Dynamite, we used to tape Dark. That’s going to change. I’m going to tape Elevation before Dynamite now,” Khan said. “So it’s going to be a shorter Elevation and I may add matches that I’ll explain where I’ll add them from. I’m going to procure a venue for use to tape Dark and other content that’ll be great. And I’m really looking forward to this. I think it’s going to be tremendous and it will be where we’ll shoot Dark and we’ll do tapings," said Tony Khan. (h/t: WrestlingInc)
Dark will be AEW's developmental program
AEW currently doesn't have a Performance Center like WWE. Tony Khan confirmed in the same interview that AEW Dark will be like a developmental program.
"It’ll be, as it’s been, it’s been a developmental situation and it’ll continue to be developmental. And it’s been great doing it all under one roof, all at one taping. And there’s been advantages, but there’ll be some advantages now to doing it as its own taping and being able to give 100% attention to these and not having also to think about Dynamite and soon Rampage and Elevation also,” said Tony Khan.
AEW Dark gives a lot of opportunities to stars lower down the card in the promotion and independent wrestlers to showcase their talent.
It has worked wonders for the likes of Fuego del Sol and Tay Conti, who became crowd favorites after their work on Dark and Dark: Elevation.