All Elite Wrestling: The 2019 upstart that gave WWE real competition

All Elite Wrestling

The 2019 upstart that gave WWE real competition. Born from a bet that independent wrestlers could fill an arena, AEW launched in 2019 and became the first serious national rival to WWE since WCW.

The entrance stage and video screens of the AEW Dynamite set in October 2019

The AEW Dynamite stage, October 2019: grenwail, CC BY 2.0

All In

In 2017 a wrestling journalist remarked that Ring of Honor could not sell 10,000 tickets to a show. Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson, took that as a challenge. In September 2018 they promoted an independent event called All In. It sold out in 30 minutes and drew the biggest crowd for a US wrestling show run by promoters outside WWE or WCW since 1993.

A new company

Clues leaked early: on November 5, 2018, trademarks for names such as All Elite Wrestling and Double or Nothing were filed in Jacksonville, Florida. Then, at midnight on January 1, 2019, an episode of the Elite's YouTube series Being the Elite revealed the AEW logo. Tony Khan, a lifelong fan whose billionaire family co-owns the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham, became president, with his father Shahid as lead investor. Rhodes, the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega became executive vice presidents.

AEW's first event, Double or Nothing, took place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on May 25, 2019, where Bret Hart unveiled the new AEW World Championship belt.

Wednesday nights

AEW Dynamite premiered live on TNT on October 2, 2019, from Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. It averaged 1.409 million viewers, TNT's biggest television debut in five years, on the same network that once aired WCW Nitro. With WWE's NXT airing on the same night, fans dubbed the battle the Wednesday Night Wars.

Dynamite moved to TBS on January 5, 2022, and since January 2025 it has also streamed live on HBO Max. A second weekly show, Collision, began in June 2023.

Growing up

On the March 2, 2022, episode of Dynamite, Tony Khan announced he had bought Ring of Honor, the promotion where many AEW stars had made their names, and the sale was completed that May. On August 27, 2023, AEW brought All In to London's Wembley Stadium, where 72,265 tickets were scanned at the gates, one of the largest crowds in wrestling history. AEW has had stormy moments, but it proved that fans would support a national alternative to WWE.