AEW’s Forbidden Door pay-per-view takes place tonight at the United Center in Chicago. The show currently has 12 matches on the card, three of which are slotted for the Buy-In kickoff show. But following the complaints surrounding the runtime of Double or Nothing back in May, which clocked in at around five-and-a-half hours (counting the Buy-In), fans have been wondering if AEW President Tony Khan will cut back on how long his pay-per-views can get. But based on AEW’s YouTube channel, that doesn’t seem to be the case.ย
Tonight’s Buy-In is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. ET and the post-show media scrum’s live feed is set to begin at 12:30 a.m., meaning the show in its entirety will last roughly five hours. Obviously, plans can change, but Khan has defended his decision to keep the shows around that length in the past.
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“It was a little bit different. I ended up adding a little bit to the length of the show to help the show commercially and help the show make money,” Khan said following Double or Nothing. “I think it made, if not a seven-figure difference, at least a six-figure difference.”
Khan confirmed with ComicBook during Friday’s media conference call that he is already considering a Forbidden Door 2 event given the immediate success of the first show’s ticket sales. He also talked about entertaining the idea of a two-night event, something both WWE and New Japan have done in recent years with their WrestleMania and Wrestle Kingdom events.ย
“WWE had an interesting approach to it to be honest, I don’t think it’s something anybody in AEW besides me has ever entertained, but I see it’s not only lucrative business-wise but there are so many stars in AEW and frankly, there too. They thought they had enough people to do two nights of show. And now Wrestle Kingdom has gone to two nights. We’ve never done anything like that, but you’ve all told me that I try to pack a lot in four hours-plus in a pay-per-view. There’s so many people, it’s hard to do.”
Would you like to see AEW turn at least one of its annual pay-per-views into a two-night event? Would that show fall into the same pitfalls that both WrestleMania & Wrestle Kingdom have faced? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments!ย
