All Elite Wrestling has been the talk of the pro wrestling world ever since Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks and Adam Page confirmed the creation of the promotion on New Year’s Day.
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Since then a boatload of information has come out, including which independent wrestlers have signed with the company, who will be funding it (Jacksonville Jaguars co-owners Shad and Tony Khan), when the first event will be (Double or Nothing on May 25 at the MGM Grand), how the stars will be paid (equal pay-scaling for male and female wrestlers), how full-time employees will receive health benefits and what the company’s goals are for the future.
But as stars like Chris Jericho, PAC (Neville in the WWE) and Joey Janela have announced their signings with the company, an important question has arisen — will wrestlers who sign with AEW be exclusively tied to just that promotion?
Executive vice president Cody Rhodes and chief brand officer Brandi Rhodes were both asked about those details in interviews after Tuesday’s rally. While they weren’t able to give full information of each wrestler’s contract situation. The two indicated that wrestlers would be allowed to work on other projects outside of AEW, with Cody confirming that Janela would continue to be involved in his WrestleMania weekend Spring Break shows while Jericho will continue to host wrestling cruise events similar to the Rock ‘n Wrestling Rager at Sea that took place in late 2018.
“I can actually confirm that Joey will be able to do his Spring Break shows,” Cody said. “Chris will be able to do his cruise.”
“The idea for us is to be friendly with a lot of people,” Brandi said. “We definitely don’t want to shut doors, there’s no reason to. We like a lot of people.”
While some wrestling companies (WWE) are very strict about having their talent be exclusively on their product, other companies have become more relaxed in recent shares with sharing wrestlers between companies i.e. New Japan’s deals with Ring of Honor and CMLL and Impact Wrestling’s deal with Lucha Underground.
“Some situations, it’s case-by-case,” Cody said. “You don’t want to get in a carbon copy of contracts. This is my first time licensing people, contracting people. So you want to know what they want, what their heart goes for, Chris (Jericho) for example and his cruise.”
But he added that the two of them had both signed long-term exclusive deals with the promotion.
“For me and for [Brandi], this is it though,” Cody said. “I looked at (my contract) the other day. It’s more years than any WWE contract I signed and I know why. I’m committing my life to this and so much is happening that I forget to remind myself of that.”
Photo: YouTube/@WrestlingINC
