Tony Khan Details AEW Live Event Aspirations For 2023
Since its inception in 2019, All Elite Wrestling has been strictly a televised wrestling promotion. Tony Khan's company runs all of its events for both a live audience as well as at-home viewers, broadcasting AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage on TBS and TNT, respectively, while also holding its quarterly pay-per-views on B/R Live. AEW has also ventured to Universal Studios in Florida to tape episodes of AEW Dark and AEW Dark: Elevation for its YouTube channel. With the exception of the one-off AEW House Always Wins live event, every show that AEW has produced has been made available to the general public.
That is about to change in 2023. Speaking to In The Zone, AEW President Tony Khan revealed that AEW is actively discussing live events, noting there is significant interest from both the fans and the roster to produce more audience-exclusive shows.
"That's something we are talking about," Khan said. "We have a great live events team. It's something we've talked a lot about and building out the live event business. There is definitely a lot of demand for AEW live events, and now we have this great big strong roster that wants to do these live events, so it's something we're going to do."
Khan added that AEW already has the backstage infrastructure to do live events, with one new hire being integral to that process.
"We have a great live events team with Rafael Morffi, Chris Harrington, and a bunch of great people I work with," Khan continued. "Now, Jeff Jarretthas come in."
Jarrett, a WWE Hall of Famer and long-time wrestling promoter, inked with AEW this past November. While he has been an active competitor on television, Double J serves as the AEW Director of Business Development behind the scenes. Upon his hiring announcement, Khan proclaimed that he was looking forward "to expanding the AEW live events calendar in 2023."
The aforementioned AEW House Always Wins is the only live event that the young promotion has produced to this date. That show went down in April 2021 and featured top stars like MJF, Kenny Omega, Jade Cargill, Darby Allin, and Cody Rhodes all wrestling. One of the more notable names on AEW House Always Wins was Konosuke Takeshita, as the event was actually home to his AEW debut. Takeshita has since been signed to AEW, most recently wrestling Bryan Danielson on AEW Dynamite.