All Elite Wrestling has lived under the Warner Bros. umbrella for its entire televised existence. The young promotion began airing weekly episodes of the flagship AEW Dynamite on TNT in Fall 2019 and birthed auxiliary programs like AEW Rampage and AEW: All Access in the years to follow. While most major storylines progress on those aforementioned shows, AEW’s digital programs give an additional spotlight to developing talent as well as underutilized main roster stars. AEW Dark and AEW Dark: Elevation have aired on AEW’s YouTube channel as well as FITE TV for over two years now, but their futures were put in question when a recent show description alluded to the programs ending.
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That tease does seem to be coming to fruition. As reported by Andrew Zarian, both AEW Dark and AEW Dark: Elevation have “ended for the time being.” This is due to AEW inking a new contract for the upcoming Saturday show, AEW Collision. That new deal certifies that AEW wrestling content will “exclusively air on WBD.” This exclusivity deal does not include Tony Khan’s second promotion, Ring of Honor. It’s worth noting that Bleacher Report Live, AEW’s usual pay-per-view service, is also a WBD property.
Dark and Dark: Elevation both essentially served as AEW’s developmental, showcasing non-contracted talent in shorter matches for a taped audience. These two shows were typically shot ahead of a live AEW Dynamite or in front of a studio crowd at Universal Studios. Considering the fluidity between AEW and ROH, it is possible that the spirit of Dark and Dark: Elevation will continue on ROH TV tapings.
“We’ve got this great partnership with Warner Brothers Discovery, and we’ve got the rest of this year, and next year,” AEW President Tony Khan said in Fall 2022. “They have really been so good to us. And I feel, not only was the original leadership so great to take a chance on an unknown company, but then post-merger, the Discovery leadership has been so supportive. And we’re getting opportunities now, with the new management, even bigger than we have before.”
As Khan noted last fall, AEW’s current contract with Warner Bros. Discovery lasts until the end of this year. That said, this new AEW Collision deal will likely shake-up the long-term future of AEW on WBD, as it would be unorthodox for WBD to ink an exclusivity deal with AEW that only has a six-month duration.
Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for updates on AEW’s new deal with WBD.
