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Today is the day the world changes.
All Elite Wrestling will hold their first event, their first PPV.
Change may seem immediate, but rarely does it really come without the inertia that has been building, sometimes unknown to all, in the background.
Twenty-five years ago, a young kid found himself in love with professional wrestling and like so many others, obsessively learned everything he could about what came before, what was then current and what was beyond his local reach. Through tapes and the internet and his own appetite for professional wrestling, Tony Khan, then a young teenager, learned of territories long gone, of stars and angles that pre-dated his young age and learned and dissected and absorbed everything he could about what made professional wrestling work in his mind.
Twenty-three years ago, Khan and his father, long before their family would go on to purchase the Jacksonville Jaguars and become massive sports figures, sat in a Lulu Temple and a dilapidated Bingo Hall to watch Chris Jericho’s final ECW matches. Before those bouts, they sat in a Q&A Session as Paul Heyman, with all his manic energy, controlled the crowd and espoused the virtues of ECW and it’s against the world philosophy. ECW and Heyman were in the midst of their height from a creative standpoint, the summer before Barely Legal, and Khan was sitting ringside taking it all in – firsthand observer, as a teenager, of what a true alternative to the norm in professional wrestling could be.
Eighteen years ago, Turner Broadcasting shut down WCW and sold it off to WWE. As recounted in Guy Evans’ amazing book Nitro, it was a death brought on by corporate mergers seeking to wipe all of the red out of ledger books that had become so complicated with the most inane AND insane Hollywood accounting in the history of well, anything, that WCW had to die for the sins of those who owned and mismanaged it. With the demise of WCW, WWE now had decades to educate an audience that they and their letters were the symbol of all pro wrestling on a global scale and that their way was the definition of what pro wrestling “should” be. Meanwhile, legions of fans moved on and found something else to do with their time.
Thirteen years ago, a talented Canadian wrestler had what should have been the dream job. He was where every independent wrestler wants to be – under a WWE contract. He ran through endless drills and worked countless shows in front of sparse cards in Georgia. It was a world away from home culturally and he was unhappy and restless, he sought to rectify those things yet another world away culturally from home. A WWE release in hand, Kenny Omega left for Japan.
Seven years ago, two talented brothers were working as Generation Me for TNA. Despite being on national TV and working the independent scene, financially, Matt and Nick Jackson were like a lot of other independent wrestlers, at the end of their rope financially and emotionally, surviving from booking to booking. The next day, the next match. Matt Jackson had a $2 credit card charge declined at an airport and it was his breaking point. Something had to change, or they were going to have to give up. The swagger and malcontent of their independent guises in Pro Wrestling Guerrilla began to seep into everything The Young Bucks did, creativity born out of desperation. The uptick in their bookings internationally, in their fan engagement and their endless procession of merchandise began shortly thereafter.
Four years ago, next month, Dusty Rhodes, one of the most charismatic talkers and creative minds in the history of pro wrestling left this world, leaving a void that no one could fill. Encyclopedias could be written about the endless ideas and angles and promos and matches that Rhodes brought to the table, but at the end of the day, his most important role in life was being a father and when he passed, one can’t fathom what that loss meant to his children, least of all his son Cody.
Three years ago, this month, Cody looked in a mirror, realized his WWE career was going nowhere and that he was likely never going to get the opportunity to truly be a top star like his father was. He wasn’t going to headline a Wrestlemania, he wasn’t going to be a pushed commodity, he was going to be just another talent floating aimlessly, a bloated, overlooked character with no discernable reason for existing within WWE storylines. No goals. No light at the end of the tunnel. So, he asked for and finally received a release, walking out into the great unknown. Like his father generations before, Rhodes was going to be a maverick.
Three years ago, the expectation among some was that Cody was going to just be another former WWE star who was going to milk the independents and make his money. That was the belief, that he would be the big babyface star who got his pops, did his spots and counted his money. After all, that’s what happens when former stars hit the independents. They do what everyone expects….except Rhodes didn’t. He landed in Bullet Club by the end of the year, turning heel (which no one expected) and changed the entire trajectory of his career forever. Bullet Club resurrected everything in Cody that had been rendered stagnant by Stardust.
One year ago, tomorrow, soccer team Fulham FC won the EFL Championship, a victory worth untold millions as the team rose into the Premier League. Under the ownership of the Khan family and under auspices of Tony Khan as Director of Football Operations, that kid who loved professional wrestling with all his heart had grown up to be an entirely successful sports figure, with his hands in the cookie jars of sports analytics and talent management companies, among other entities. He could do anything he wanted, but what he wanted was to change the thing he loved the most growing up, professional wrestling.
All of these personalities were put on a course that intersected with the result being the launch of All Elite Wrestling and today’s Double or Nothing PPV.
It’s been a long time since something this massive happened in professional wrestling. It’s quite the magnificent accomplishment that without running one show, the promotion, through Khan’s knowhow and connections, has secured a national television home with TNT. It’s equally magnificent that scores of fans are already sporting AEW garb as if it’s their home sports team with a rabid fandom not seen since the days of the original ECW, although this promises to be staged on a much larger scale than any ECW fan could have ever hoped for.
There’s a lot of hope, a lot of dismissal and a lot of criticism of AEW already. It’s either going to run WWE aground or it’s insane for charging $50-$60 for its debut PPV or no one is going to care about these talents or Vince McMahon is doomed. The opinions, the hyperbole and the excitement, multiplied a thousand-fold by social media, is enough to stagger anyone trying to sort through the madness. Fans believe it’s going to be the biggest thing ever or it’s a promotion that’s already too full of itself for asking fans to invest that much going in.
The reality is this though – the world changes today.
AEW is not an independent wrestling company. It’s a group with endless amount of funding behind it, that’s recruited some of the top talents across the world and is going to pay those talents far more than anyone else would have – and put them on one of the top cable networks in the United States. Forget that they already have a stronger TV deal in the United States than anyone but WWE, they’ve already secured a major partnership with ITV in Britain, which is the equivalent of landing a CBS or NBC here. If you think Khan and friends are content with just that, understand this - someone doesn’t stop trying to grow a project they obviously have a deep-seeded passion for. Ever.
An entire generation of talents cease being independent wrestlers today, especially if/when they end up being pulled from the Indy scene altogether as AEW’s schedule expands in the months and years to come. An entire group of pro wrestlers are going to have the chance to succeed or fail, in the ring and on the mic, on their own terms, in a new culture completely outside of what has been expected of pro wrestlers by WWE on that level. An entire generation of fans get not an alternative, but a new choice, on a TV level equal to WWE in terms of a cable footprint. An entire wrestling world gets to be rattled and terraformed as if a comet struck the Earth, changing the course of time forever.
The wrestling world will never be the same again.
None of this is written to predict that AEW will have a perfect show later today. It’s not written to assume this is the happy ending. No, Double or Nothing is only the beginning of a marathon that we haven’t seen in generations in professional wrestling. There will be victories and losses and there will be moments of bliss and arguments, some of which we will learn of and some of which will never leak, among the principals. There will be moments that blow people away and moments that fail so badly, they are quickly criticized and retconned out of existence.
This unique grouping who all made the fateful choices that led them to today must now learn to guide this ship, to present their vision on an endless weekly basis and figure out the most insane task presented to anyone in wrestling in years – how to take this group of talents, present them weekly in a way that can not only satiate the die-hards who brought them to the dance but also attract a larger gathering of fans who will want to discover (or return) to pro wrestling without diluting what will be special about them – and then convert those fans into paid consumers.
AEW doesn’t just need great ratings, they will need scores upon scores of fans to buy tickets when they tour, PPVs when they broadcast, merchandise they want to sport and the hardest accomplishment of all – get those fans to buy into AEW as a lifestyle brand. They don’t want to be just a team in the game. They want to be a dynasty, because the Khans aren’t doing this as a lark and those who have talked a big game about “changing the world” aren’t going to just become a complacent WCW roster because guaranteed contracts have come their way.
AEW doesn’t want to just sell tickets and run wrestling shows. They want to change the culture of pro wrestling, so that like ECW and WCW fans before them, there is an entire generation that grows up loving AEW, being inspired by it and wanting to carry it everywhere they go. They don’t want to just be there for pro wrestling fans. AEW wants to be absorbed into the bloodstream of the mainstream.
AEW’s Double or Nothing ad is running all over the Las Vegas strip and beyond this weekend. Marv Albert, Chris Jericho flub and all, plugged AEW during the NBA finals on TNT. These aren’t things that happen if you just want to run another wrestling company to join the independent wrestling alphabet soup – they are moves you make when you want to truly create change.
Change is here today, but the movement to get where we all stand began many years ago,
Win, lose or draw – AEW’s battle to inject themselves into the mainstream has already begun. The marathon will be long. The journey arduous. You may think their PPV is too expensive. You may think this is the greatest thing to ever happen. You may think everyone involved is too full of their own sh**. All of it may correct, but that doesn’t mean in the end, they won’t be victorious. After all, they promised to change the world.
Mission accomplished.
The race for AEW begins today. Some who begin this race today with them may not even be there for the entire run, because that’s life. Some will be forgotten. Some will be celebrated. All of that is secondary to what is about to unfold for today, good or bad or indifferent, the world has changed because of the journey those involved began, alone, all those years ago, before finding each other. Their lives and worlds intersected and today, they intersect with everyone who cares about and loves pro wrestling, because even if you aren’t watching Double or Nothing, the ripple effects will be felt for many years to come.
The book on AEW won't be written for many years. If pro wrestling is lucky, it will be one of victory, of the little sports team that could and did. If pro wrestling isn't lucky, it becomes another "what could have been" story. Either way, there will be accolades, criticism and scorn thrust upon every move the company makes....but a dynasty is not made in a day or a week or a month. It comes over the course of a lifetime
The butterfly effect of AEW officially begins today when Double or Nothing goes on the air. Khan, Rhodes, Omega, and The Bucks will roll the dice...and that is what we’ll trace back to when we reflect in one, three, four, seven, 13, 18, 23, 25 years time and beyond to see what ripple effects today will bring...because the world has changed. It started slowly, many years ago and led us to this day...and where we go from here, not even those five souls can predict.
No one can, because the world has changed, and once it's changed, it can never go back...ever.
Today, the world changes.
Thus, tomorrow becomes the great unknown.
Let the race begin.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com.
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