AEW Planned To Start House Shows Before COVID-19

During their first year of business, AEW only put on weekly episodes of TV that are broadcast live on TNT, weekly episodes of Dark that are pretaped and streamed on YouTube, as well as special pay-per-view events around four times per year.

By comparison, WWE puts on weekly episodes of Raw, NXT, SmackDown, Main Event, 205 Live, NXT, a pay-per-view around once a month, as well as several house shows during the week which aren’t broadcast on TV or online in any capacity.

While not to the same level, AEW is moving more towards the WWE model of things. It was announced earlier this year before Coronavirus that TNT were going to be broadcasting a second-weekly AEW show at some stage this year. No official details have been confirmed for that right now.

However, that is not all, as AEW commentator Jim Ross has confirmed to Bryan Alvarez in an interview that prior to Coronavirus, AEW was planning to start house shows for fans that wouldn’t be broadcast on TV.

Speaking to Alvarez, JR revealed that prior to the pandemic, AEW had planned to begin putting on house shows for fans:

“Absolutely, I think that’s the plan…I know there were some live events penciled into the schedule before the virus. You can’t get better working one night a week. Nobody, I don’t care who you are.”

The legendary commentator and WWE Hall of Famer would go on to state that he isn’t sure, due to the current climate, when AEW is going to be able to put on their first live event:

“House shows are important for us. I think to develop talent especially, and revenue going forward. Who the hell knows when that’s gonna be? It’s not gonna be any time soon.

Ross also noted that some people wouldn’t be asked to work the live events, citing Chris Jericho as an example. However, it would certainly be great for guys like Private Party, who have heaps of potential but are a touch green due to their inexperience right now.