All Elite Wrestling will debut on TNT October 2

JACKSONVILLE, Fla./ATLANTA, Ga. (Heartland Newsfeed) — All Elite Wrestling made their broadcast plans official last week regarding its debut and broadcast time slot.

According to Dave Meltzer from Wrestling Observer, AEW revealed further details regarding their weekly Wednesday night broadcasts on TNT beginning October 2. The show is scheduled to air for two hours beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

The show is set to debut in Washington DC’s Capital One Center, considered an ambitious start given WWE sellout conditions based on a Raw or Smackdown configuration.

Meltzer described that the Capital One Center, at one point in time known as the Verizon Center, was once home to several Starrcade shows under the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) banner, with its biggest show being in 1997 featuring a match between Hulk Hogan and Sting.

A media standpoint views a midweek show as far more difficult and considered secondary to WWE’s Smackdown debut on the FOX broadcasting network two nights later.

AEW and TNT put together a two-and-a-half-minute trailer for the program about setting a new standard in professional wrestling by having the best talent and pushing themes toward harder hitting, higher-flying, a paradigm shift, a revolution and the development of “the best tag team division”. An emphasis is being made on the voice of wrestling broadcast legend Jim Ross, who signed a three-year contract in April.

While there was background information that the show would be called Wednesday Night Dynamite, it was not used in the release, but it was also confirmed by founder and president Tony Khan that All Elite Wrestling will not be the program name. The official name should be determined within the next two weeks.

The program will run weekly on TNT with the exception of Christmas Day and will be live from different sized arenas depending on building demand to hold between 6,000 and 11,000 with occasional unique location shows. A 30-minute pre-show will take place with one or two warmup matches before the TV program goes live.

The attendance range is considered ambitious, consider the current attendance levels for both of WWE’s major programs, which hover around or below 6,000. That may change this fall when Smackdown goes to FOX on Fridays.

Negotiations are being finalized for international TV deals, specifically ITV 4 in the United Kingdom, with an expect live broadcast time of 1 a.m. Thursday mornings. Deals with Canada and other markets are pending, although German television officials were present to make a deal at the Double or Nothing PPV event.

In the meantime, AEW will have to go head-to-head for three consecutive weeks against the Major League Baseball playoffs, but should the World Series go to Game 7, AEW could have a fourth week they’d have to compete against.

AEW’s upcoming PPV event All Out will take place August 31 at the Sears Center in the Chicagoland suburb of Hoffman Estates. While tickets are sold out for the event, there could be some last-minute offerings from people who can no longer attend via the Lyte platform.

While the card is still be working on in the month that remains until the show, here is the tentative card (in no particular order) for the show set to kick off at 7 p.m. Central (no announced matches as of this report for the Buy-In pre-show):

• Adam Page v. Chris Jericho for the AEW World Championship
• Jon Moxley v. Kenny Omega
• Best Friends (Chuck Taylor/Trent Beretta) v. The Dark Order (Evil Uno/Stu Grayson) for a first-round bye in the AEW World Tag Team Championship tournament
• Lucha Brothers (Pentagon Jr./Rey Fenix) v. The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) in an Escalera De La Muerte (ladder) match for the AAA World Tag Team Championship
• Cody Rhodes v. Shawn Spears (with Tully Blanchard)
• Triple threat match between Darby Allin, Joey Janela and Jimmy Havoc

Jake Leonard

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Jake Leonard, a broadcast media and journalism veteran, is the editor-in-chief of Heartland Newsfeed. Leonard is also GM and program director of Heartland Newsfeed Radio Network, wrestling editor and contributing writer for Ambush Sports, a contributing writer for My Sports Vote and Midwest Sports Network, and a former contributor to Bleacher Report and Overtime Heroics. He resides at home in Nokomis, Ill. with his dog Buster.

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