Since it’s inception in 2019, AEW has done something that few major wrestling companies have before, and that’s not holding any house shows.
It was a odd idea after decades of seeing and hearing about the grind the WWE maintained with their talent being on the road for over 300 days a year, it seemed outlandish but it made sense as it’d save te talent wear and tear.
AEW Talent Wants to do House Shows and Jeff Jarrett Expected to Run Them
The wrestlers would be fresher for AEW Dark and Dynamite and then AEW Rampage, but it also meant they weren’t able to work together as much to get into synch. Not that it’s always needed, but it does help.
It also helped the company as they didn’t have to spend as much to travel around the country at a time when the WWE was claiming their house show income was dropping, and when the pandemic hit they didn’t have to worry about canceling dates or other plans.
With the addition of Jeff Jarrett to the AEW roster and back office as Director of Business Development, there is a belief that he could run the house shows for AEW.
Changing the format
If the AEW does this format, it’ll be interesting to see how many they do as so far they’ve only held one, and that was “The House Always Wins” which was their first and currently only live non-TV house show.
Given the company’s schedule, it could be difficult to work house shows into the routine, according to Dave Meltzer.
Meltzer also made sure to note that “Right now there are no definitive plans for AEW to do house shows, but a lot of the wrestlers on the roster would like to wrestle more and have expressed interest in them.”
As we mentioned above, doing house shows would give wrestlers the chance to work out what they want to do in the ring, but it’d also give younger wrestlers or those not seen as frequently more in ring reps.
It’d also lead to an increase in pay as wrestlers generally get paid part of the sales for the night on top of their contracts.
The downside is they’d need to have their top stars frequently appear, and it’ll be interesting to see if their top performers like Chris Jericho, Jon Moxley, Kenny Omega, and others would be open to that.
It could be a game changer as it could also bring in fresh eyes as fans that haven’t tuned into their shows on TV could get talked into going to a live show and become hooked. It’d also give fans more of a chance to see some of their favorites.
Do you think AEW should do some house shows or are they better off keeping it as is? Let us know in the comments below.
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