Following the WarnerMedia “Upfronts” on Wednesday where it was announced that All Elite Wrestling (AEW) would be airing on TNT this fall, Cody and Brandi Rhodes said it’s very possible that we won’t even see a single scripted promo in All Elite Wrestling. You can check out some highlights and a video from the interview below:
Cody on the TV deal: “This is serendipity how this is coming together. My family moved to Atlanta 20+ years ago because WCW was going to Turner. Here we are talking about All Elite Wrestling in 2019 going to Turner. It’s just wild how it works and the number 1 thing I discovered is we build the best team. That’s what led to all of this. All In happened, me, Matt and Nick, Kenny joining and then Tony Khan being the guy to say ‘hey, I believe in you guys. I’ll invest in you guys, I believe in wrestling outside of one company.’ That has put us here so I’m really excited.”
Cody on how Dusty Rhodes would feel about today: “These moments he would really really enjoy because, with his later work that he did at NXT, he genuinely want it not to be on him anymore.” Rhodes continued, “We have 40-something talent [and] some of whom you’ve never seen but you’ll never forget once you do. They’re all new fresh – fresh is like the keyword with All Elite. I think he’d be really interested in sitting back and being a show dad about it. Hopefully, he’s up there doing that right now.”
Brandi on if AEW will rotate wrestlers: “We’ve obviously been cautious in building our [women’s] division because we don’t want people to be sitting weeks and weeks out of the year not being active, not being used, not being having stories, not having reasons for you to like them. So we’ve been very careful to pick and choose competitors that we think we are gonna be able to keep moving in some sort of sense.”
Cody on how AEW plans to make Double Or Nothing an insane event: “Jim Ross has been really good about saying ‘it can’t be good, it’s gotta be great.’ He’s right and everyone in the group shares that sentiment. We gotta make this great and it’s just the beginning. It’s the perfect jumping in point for a brand new fan. There’s nothing before this, just jump in now and you’ll love it.”
On scripted promos and if we’ll see less of them in AEW:
Cody: “You may not see one scripted promo.”
Brandi: “We’re honest when we say that we want it to be very sports-centric. In order to do that, it has to be focused on the bell-to-bell, the actual matches, less of the drama and the behind-the-scenes.”
Cody: “When it comes to promos, if we invested you, we already know your voice. We just want to put the voice out there for more people to hear. There’s great coaches we have, great collaborators. Guys like Jim Ross, guys like Billy Gunn, a bunch of guys I can’t name. We have these great collaborators, plus all of us who want to make this work. Collaboration yes, micromanagement no, scripted no, that’s the best.”
