The WWE rival All Elite Wrestling is celebrating a sensational premiere in several ways: For the first time in its history, it will host a stadium show in September – which is also a historic attack on the long-standing stronghold of the market leader.
On September 22nd, the weekly TV show Dynamite will take place at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the US Open Arena in Queens. AEW is targeting the metropolis of New York City in “Dynamite: Grand Slam” – a powerful announcement in the competition with WWE.
AEW goes to New York – and thus goes further than WCW
The New York market is a historic core market of the former WWF, which was once a regional East Coast league – and which New York remained fortress as it expanded nationally.
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At the venerable Madison Square Garden, where the legendary Bruno Sammartino fought his greatest matches, WWE had exclusive access to wrestling for decades, and the former rival WCW has never put on such a big show in New York either there or anywhere else. The more southern-style doctorate generally found it difficult in the “Yankee Territory”.
AEW, which upholds the legacy of WCW and predecessor league Crockett Promotions in many ways, obviously has a different claim. And it won’t have to expect that the New York audience, known as frenetic and particularly opinionated, doesn’t know what to do with her: The action-packed AEW product, which is geared towards the needs of the hard core of the wrestling community, should be well received there ( So WCW went under through ego trips by Hulk Hogan and Co.).
And AEW boss Tony Khan will also be concerned with the atmosphere that can be expected when his stars like Jon Moxley, Kenny Omega, Darby Allin, Cody Rhodes, the Young Bucks, Chris Jericho, MJF, Britt Baker or even cult figures like Orange Cassidy, Eddie Kingston and the Jurassic Express with Jungle Boy meet New York fans.
Chris Jericho: “We do it a little differently than WWE”
“One of the reasons AEW is doing so well is that we do things a little differently than WWE,” ex-WWE star Jericho commented on the announcement in the New York Daily News: “You are a big, successful company and New York is a fortress for WWE. But I think there are a lot of people who would be excited if someone here does things a little differently from WWE. “
AEW deliberately chose a stadium in which WWE and other promotions have not yet held: “I’m sure we could have gone to the Garden or the Barclays Center, but there is a WWE feeling there.” The idea of AEW was: “Let’s go somewhere else, let’s go to Arthur Ashe Stadium and make it our AEW fortress in the middle of New York, in the middle of McMahon’s territory.”
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