Original plans for AEW touring schedule included house shows

Since the launch of AEW, the promotion has only held TV and pay-per-view events with no house shows. Aside from dates for PPV events, AEW only runs once a week for Dynamite and Dark tapings.

AEW lead announcer Jim Ross was one of the first people to note that AEW actually had house shows penciled into their 2020 schedule before the coronavirus pandemic.

Those plans were scrapped as a result. It turns out that AEW President Tony Khan originally planned to do at least 20 house shows when the promotion first started.

During today’s Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer shared the news while talking about WWE releasing additional staff members last week, most of which were part of the live event department.

“WWE’s business has changed and AEW isn’t going to go run around doing house shows, I can tell you that. When they (AEW) first started…the original thing that Tony [Khan] told me was 52 TVs, four pay-per-views and about 20 house shows a year. Like you would do a house show maybe every other week. Originally, he was talking to me about how you would not do any house shows the week of New Japan (NJPW) big shows because your top guys would all go to New Japan. The big Sumo Hall’s and things like that and that didn’t exactly work out, unfortunately. Maybe things will change and they will.”

Meltzer pointed out how AEW could go on the road for weekly TV, but there are a lot of positives of running at Daily’s Place as it’s cheaper, most people are based out of Florida, etc.