This Saturday, WWE and AEW will hold big events in two different cities. AEW’s PPV All-Out will take place in Toronto while WWE’s Wrestlepalooza will be in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Its worthy to note that WWE had not planned one of its premium live event on September 20th until after AEW had its PPV ready for that date. As a result, AEW changed the start time for its event so that it would not conflict with WWE. AEW’s event will air during the day on Saturday and WWE will air Saturday night.
You might infer that AEW conceded the prime time spot in order to salvage as many PPV buys as possible. On the other hand, WWE is starting its new media rights deal with ESPN. The lucrative deal which was announced in August has WWE PLEs (Premium Live Events) on ESPN’s latest digital platform with the network paying $325 million per year for five years. The deal replaces Peacock’s previous partnership with WWE.
The counterprogramming could be seen several ways. First, WWE sees AEW as a threat to its market share. AEW’s Toni Storm thinks that it validates AEW’s importance as well being a part of competition in pro wrestling. Tony Khan gave a modest answer stating that he’s focusing on his own product and not competition. Bryan Danielson, a mainstay in WWE for years and now an AEW talent queried the motivation behind a billion dollar company going after AEW.
AEW’s existence started off hot from the start and has seemingly fizzled. The indicators to this include lower ratings in comparison to the first three years and the company running smaller arenas and multi-week residencies such as its latest one at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Also, the rise in popularity of WWE in the past 3 or so years since Vince McMahon left the company.
WWE is making sure that Wrestlepalooza is a huge success. ESPN programming will be centered around the company’s first PLE. It includes bringing ‘Sportscenter’ on site the day prior and a significant social media presence. WWE fan and Indiana Pacer, Tyrese Haliburton will be making an appearance on ESPN and don’t count out him participating in some form at the event.
Mark Shapiro indicated that he hopes Wrestlepalooza can be another tentpole event for WWE. Whether that is true or he is saying that in light of the competition from AEW is up for interpretation.
The TKO model seems to have no structure. Rather, its goal is to make as much money as possible and however that may be, including putting stickers on tables, having Travis Scott appear in a Wrestlmania main event or JellyRoll to wrestle in a match, it will do it.
Originally posted on Patreon
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