All Elite Wrestling officially announced its television deal with WarnerMedia to put a live wrestling show back on TNT back on May 15. The show won’t premiere until the fall, and very little was revealed during the initial announcement about the show itself, such as what it will be called, how long it will be each week, what night it will air, etc. Cody Rhodes, one of AEW’s headliners and an executive vice president, gave a bit more information in an interview with Chris Van Vliet on Thursday.
“It’s really likely the show is going to be two hours,” Rhodes said. “That’s the sweet spot. In terms of the schedule, we’ll probably find out in the next few months for sure. And it will be in a great spot. To be in prime time on TNT, man they’ve really set us up. And now you’ve got to go, and the big thing we want to deliver is the bell-to-bell, and the sports-centric [action].
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“We should find out in probably the next few months. Another thing that’s really cool is you’ll be able to find out per market where we’re going to be, because we’re going to be all around,” he added, emphasizing that the show won’t have a home base for every taping like what Impact Wrestling did with the Impact Zone.
Later in the interview Rhodes explained how far ahead he and the other wrestlers have already written out storylines for television.
“Actually we’ve got a pretty good bearing on I’d say six months to a year,” he said. “Because longform storytelling is good in every medium, whether it be film, TV, whatever it may be. It’s to know [the story] and work backwards. We’ve got a good, what I call it, a syllabus, outline. There’s like a syllabus to what we’re going to do.
“But one thing that Matt Jackson is really good about pointing out is some stuff just catches fire,” he continued. :And one thing that we want to do differently than any other wrestling that’s out there is you can’t deny something when it catches. So if it catches, we’re going to push that, promote that.”
AEW’s first pay-per-view event, Double or Nothing, will take place this Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The headlining matches include Rhodes vs. his half-brother Dustin Rhodes, Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho and The Young Bucks vs. The Lucha Bros.