Tony Khan set to implement HUGE change to AEW kicking off in 2025 - Reports
Tony Khan may be poised to bring about a crucial change in the staging of AEW's weekly shows. The modification in question pertains to the venues chosen for the Jacksonville-based promotion's televised programs.
All Elite Wrestling currently airs three television shows every week: Dynamite on Wednesdays, Rampage on Fridays, and Collision on Saturdays, with occasional exceptions. While the Jacksonville-based company's recent product has arguably generated much excitement among fans, critics continue to call out Tony Khan and his team for hosting and taping AEW events at larger venues despite not being able to fill them up to their capacities.
On a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Live, Bryan Alvarez revealed that AEW has opted to present its shows in bigger arenas so as to accommodate some of its larger set components. The latter is supposedly being modified for smaller venues, where the promotion will supposedly start airing and shooting its content starting next year, along with making other changes to its production.
"I have been told that there is headway being made in running smaller buildings. Now you hear that and think, ‘Why does headway need to be made? Just book smaller buildings.' Well apparently, there actually was a logistical reason why they were running a lot of larger buildings and it had to do with the set, and in particular, the lighting rig," Bryan Alvarez said.
The wrestling journalist went on:
"There was something that they had in their set that was basically too large and heavy to get into smaller buildings and so they have been working on retooling it so they can actually get their set into smaller buildings. So, I think as the year 2025 kind of starts coming in, they’ve been talking about different ideas for production and everything like that."
Former WWE head writer Vince Russo recently critiqued AEW President Tony Khan
Despite a hot start with its early programming and consistently featuring well-known names from the AEW roster, Rampage has been struggling with weekly ratings for some time now. Earlier this month, the Friday night show drew some of its lowest viewership figures ever, which prompted former WWE head writer Vince Russo to make a harsh assessment of Tony Khan's creative output on Sportskeeda Wrestling's Writing with Russo podcast.
"Bro, I swear if I was doing 172,000 viewers, I would tell Vince to fire me. I'm not lying. I knew if I did not deliver, I would be fired, and rightfully so. If I was doing those numbers, man, I would have fired myself. I would have been embarrassed," Vince Russo said. [2:27 - 2:55]
AEW will broadcast Dynamite this week in Reading, Pennsylvania, en route to its upcoming Full Gear 2024 Pay-Per-View.