For the first time, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) is coming to ESPN across Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands.
Announced last Friday, the agreement represents both the first time that the upstart wrestling promotion has sealed a broadcasting agreement in the region, as well as the first time that ESPN has reached an agreement to broadcast any wrestling company in the region.
Under the terms of the partnership, viewers will be able to watch AEW's flagship show AEW Dynamite on Thursdays AEDT and its one-hour show AEW Rampage on Saturdays, with same-day replays and episodes made available on-demand. Further, fans across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands will be able to access AEW's major pay-per-view events on a 30-day delay.
Talofa, Ia Orana, Kia Ora, Malo e Leilei, Bula Vainaka, Wominjeka, Yumalundi, Gurumba Bigi, Budyeri Kamari, & G'day. 👊🏼👍🏼🤙🏼 https://t.co/RHpovJ7oLW
— Samoa Joe (@SamoaJoe) February 10, 2023
But what is AEW? And why should you care? Is that the one with Lex Luger?
What is AEW?
AEW is a professional wrestling company founded in 2019 by American billionaire Shahid Khan, who also owns NFL franchise the Jacksonville Jaguars and Premier League club Fulham, and his son Tony, who holds the titles of AEW president, chief executive, general manager and executive producer.
Amusingly, its genesis can be traced back to a 2017 off-hand comment by professional wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer that no promotion aside from the WWE would be able to sell 10,000 tickets for a wrestling event in the modern market. Cue the Butterfly Effect. Cody Rhodes (now back with the WWE and is booked to main-event Wrestlemania) and The Young Bucks Matt and Nick Jackson - then members of a group known as The Elite - saw this as a challenge and subsequently partnered with independent promotion Ring of Honour (RoH) to stage a supershow christened All In in September 2018.
It sold out in 30 minutes, ended up being the biggest wrestling event not organised by a major promotion since 1993, and drew 11,263 fans.
Speculation mounted that the show would serve as the genesis for a new promotion and, sure enough, months later AEW was born with long-time wrestling fan Tony Kahn at its head and Rhodes, The Young Bucks, and fellow The Elite member Kenny Omega as co-Executive Vice Presidents.
Now, four years on, it exists as the first major alternative to the WWE in decades, with AEW Dynamite and AEW Rampage serving as weekly broadcast offerings, AEW Dark and AEW Dark: Elevation streaming for free on YouTube, and four major pay-per-view events per year.
What's the big deal about AEW?
The answer to that question probably lies all the way back in early 2001, a simpler year when Limp Bizkit could, unironically, provide the soundtrack to one of the greatest promotional videos of all time.
Then, there were three main wrestling companies in the United States: the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, which would later become the WWE), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW). Japan and Mexico had their own professional wrestling scenes as well, but these three organisations were the ones that dominated the English-speaking world.
However, a combination of mismanagement and creative missteps meant that WCW and ECW were on their last legs and, by the time of Wrestlemania X7 in April 2001, the duo had been absorbed into the now unchallenged giant that was the WWF. In the space of months, three major promotions all seeking to outdo each other and win fans over to their vision had become one. WWE was now the only game in town - despite Total Nonstop Action's (TNA) best efforts.
That was until AEW's emergence. It might not have the long-standing reputation and notoriety of its rival amongst the mainstream but, thanks to the strong financial backing from its billionaire owners - which admittedly means that it can't exactly consider itself a plucky underdog by any stretch of the imagination - it nonetheless has the resourcing to actually present itself as a viable alternative or supplement to the WWE.
Who is in AEW?
In short, there are a lot of people. AEW's official roster page features over 120 competitors, in addition to a broadcast team featuring lead commentator Excalibur and well-known voices such as former ECW Champion and WWE caller Taz, former voice of WCW Tony Schiavone, and 'Good Ol JR' Jim Ross.
In the ring, some of the faces, if not the names, might be familiar. The promotion serving as the only game in town for so long, a great many built up most of their notoriety in the WWE; figures such as Chris Jericho, Matt and Jeff Hardy, Bryan Danielson (known to WWE fans as Daniel Bryan), Jon Moxley (Dean Ambrose), and Saraya (Paige). AEW's position as an alternative, however, also means that there are plenty of performers that paid their dues elsewhere. A participant in several matches critically considered some of the best of all time, The Best Bout Machine Omega is managed by Don Callis and is still competing with The Elite alongside the brash Young Bucks.
Hangman Adam Page is a former AEW champion and there are well-known veterans of the independent scene, RoH and TNA on hand such as Jay Lethal, The Best Friends Chuck Taylor and Trent Baretta, Danhausen (Very nice, very evil), Adam Cole, Britt Baker D.M.D (yes she's also a qualified dentist), and Eddie Kingston.
Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF), Absolute Ricky Starks, Darby Allen, Jungle Boy Jack Perry, Sammy Guevara, Hook (the son of Taz), Wheeler Yuta, Tay Melo, and Jamie Hayter are part of a new generation of talent being built up.
And of course, there's The Icon, WCW legend Sting still going around.
Who are the Champions?
There's also a lot.
MJF is the current AEW World Champion, cheating to win the title off Moxley at the Full Gear pay-per-view in November last year. Fond of telling both the audience and his opponents that he's better than them and they know it, the Burberry-clad champion, despite his habit of not breaking character in public appearances outside of AEW, is known for blurring the lines between performance and reality in his talking segments and bending the rules in his matches.
Hayter also won her title at last year's Full Gear, defeating Australian Toni Storm to claim the AEW Women's World Championship. Emerging out of the shadow of Baker to become one of AEW's most popular performers.
Of the secondary belts named after the networks AEW is shown on in the US, Jade Cargill, who looks like she was carved out of granite to wrestle, is the only TBS Champion in the promotion's history, while industry veteran Samoa Joe is the TNT Champion.
Orange Cassidy, a unique performer whose style is best described as 'incredibly lazy bloke sort of accidentally competes in matches and ends up winning a lot of them' is the AEW All-Atlantic Champion and though not an official title, Hook is the current holder of the FTW Title, a belt that his father made famous while in ECW. The Gunns, Austin Gunn and Gunn (sons of Billy), recently became the AEW World Tag Team Champions, and The Elite are the AEW Six-Man Tag Team Champions.
However, Tony Kahn recently saving RoH from liquidation, there are a number of champions associated with the venerable indy promotion on show. Claudio Castagnoli (Cesaro in WWE) is the current RoH World Champion, while Athena (Ember Moon) is the Women's Champion, Samoa Joe is the World Television Champion, Yuta holds its Pure Title, and The Embassy (Brian Cage, Kaun, and Toa Liona) hold the Six-Man Championship.
Mark and Jay Briscoe are the current RoH Tag Team Champions. Jay, however, recently passed away in a tragic car accident - AEW staging an emotional tribute show in which his brother Mark carried his and his brother's titles into his win over Lethal in the main event.
What Should I Expect?
AEW as a general rule places a heavy focus on its matches and pre- and post-match brawls and beatdowns, preferring to advance its storylines through them rather than backstage segments and highlight packages. And with so many on the roster, there are numerous groups, alliances, and tag teams of various degrees of cohesion that many of the performers have been sorted into.
But at its core professional wrestling is still a product of the carnivals of the dawn of the 20th century, and that means there are different styles and different acts for many different tastes. There are showmen (Omega, Cole), acrobats (Bandido, Top Flight), strongmen (Wardlow, Castagnoli), freaks (Danhausen, Luchasaurus), and more. It's a spectacle. Sometimes violent, sometimes ridiculous, but always attempting to come across as larger than life.
Yet, at the same time and if you care to look, there's a layer of depth.
Page, for instance, is arguably the main protagonist of AEW. Week to week and month to month he's involved in storylines, but his journey overall is a tale of someone struggling with anxiety, alcohol, depression and worthlessness; someone who has had to learn to accept and believe in himself while, at the same time, being prepared to trust in others and believe in friendship again after being betrayed and cast out. This being professional wrestling, though, it was lovable cult the Dark Order that helped him rediscover friendship.
Omega has for the better part of a decade and across multiple promotions been involved in a long, complex tale of friendship and unrequited love with his tag team partner Kota Ibushi, who is seemingly the only thing that can consistently fill the void in Omega he otherwise attempts to fill with a megalomaniacal desire for titles and recognition as the world's best.
And this is the beauty of pro wrestling. On a week-to-week, month-to-month basis, one can tune into a show and just it for what it is. But there's also storytelling stretching back years ready to be explored.