AEW's Involvement in Shark Week 2022 Confirmed
AEW announced on Friday's edition of Rampage that Eddie Kingston and Chris Jericho will clash at Fyter Fest Night 2 on July 20 in a barbed wire deathmatch with the Jericho Appreciation Society all suspended above the ring in a shark cage. But why is AEW debuting this new stipulation? According to Dave Meltzer via Wrestling Observer Radio, it was thanks to a request from Warner Bros. Discovery to make a tie-in for this year's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. This year's Shark Week will run from July 24 through July 30.
"So we're going to have a bloodbath on TV, well they do that. The shark thing, I guess, is the gimmick having to do with Shark Week. Discovery asked them to do a tie-in, and so they came up with a match to do a tie-in in. That's a week from Wednesday," Meltzer explained.
It was confirmed on Monday that this year's Shark Week will have another pro wrestling tie-in as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson will be the Master of Ceremonies for this year's programming block. He wrote on Instagram, "I'm honored to be your first-ever Shark Week Master of Ceremonies. Our Seven Bucks Productions has partnered with Discovery to bring you a very special (and badass) Shark Week. I filmed exclusively in my home state of Hawaii, these beautiful predators, Aumakua (Gods), are deeply revered and respected in our Polynesian culture."
There's been plenty of speculation regarding AEW's future on TNT and TBS following the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. However, AEW President Tony Khan has remained optimistic about his promotion's future on television
"I'm incredibly grateful every day that AEW has this great relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery and we've done well for TBS and TNT with 'Dynamite' and 'Rampage' where we're a strong performer for Warner Bros. Discovery on a weekly basis. I think there is still a lot of time left for the next rights deal, but we have a great thing happening right now and I do believe our future media rights will be important and frankly a very large revenue stream for AEW going forward, and I think that's because of the great support we've had from the fans and the hard work of everybody backstage and the wrestlers every Wednesday and Friday, pulling it together and delivering great shows," Khan said in a recent interview with The New York Post.
"Whenever our next media right deal, the next one does kick in, it will be historic," he added. "It will be recorded in history because everything in wrestling is recorded in history into posterity. It will make history however it goes. Right now, everyone would expect very, very well. We expect it's going to go very well for us based on how strong we've been performing."