During a recent appearance on the “Busted Open Radio” podcast, House of Hardcore owner Tommy Dreamer commented on the new All Elite Wrestling (AEW) promotion and revealed why it will be good for the indie scene. You can check out some highlights and audio from the interview below. Thanks to Jeremy Thomas of 411 Mania for the transcript:
On what AEW should do in its first year: “I think they have an amazing roster. I think their next show is gonna be as good as the first. Where they’re going from here will be…it’s better. I like what they’re doing now. If it was me and I had [Tony] Khan…I would say I want to do like, two or three ‘All In’ events for the year and towards the end of the year be like, ‘Hey, we now have television,’ and take it from there. Because it’s gonna be hard. It really is, to start. Trust me, I’ve been trying to find my Khan for a long time. And starting to do television and all that stuff from the ground floor, it’s hard.”
On the importance of AEW maintaining a working relationship with other companies: “Absolutely. Because if not, most talent will then go to WWE. Egos — and I’m not talking about wrestlers, I’m talking about wrestling corporations, wrestling companies. I could see where they wouldn’t want their champion, let’s say John Morrison went to defend his title at All Elite Wrestling. And they [say], ‘Well, we want John Morrison to lose.’ ‘Well, he’s my champion.’ That becomes ego. But it could help, it could hurt. Like you said, Ring of Honor, New Japan, they have a great relationship. It helped, I feel, sell out Madison Square Garden, because they’re both hot companies. But you think of Nick and Matt [Jackson], and they have a great relationship with Ring of Honor. You never know what could happen.”
On talent sharing: “But then again, the beauty of All In was all wrestling promotions working together. Because they had the Lucha Brothers, who were signed under a deal with probably Triple A…Willie Mack works for me, he’s my champion. Not that I’m running as many shows, but he’s under contract with Lucha Underground, he’s now working with Impact. Rich Swann, he’s kind of doing the same. You need to because if you sever those relationships, then where are you going to get all this talent? Because the talent pool, you have to kind of share it and you’ve got to hope that you don’t have the egos. Because that’s what killed the beauty of all those super cards that we had.”
On wins and losses mattering in AEW: “I think it should be. And I always, with my House of Hardcore shows, would have my announcers say what a guy’s record is when you’re going for a title. But it’ll be interesting to see because I was just saying…wrestlers will always behind the scenes, we all politick for stuff. It’s not so much done anymore — it’s done, but not to the extent of how it was back then. It was ‘Pshh. You want me to to a job? See ya later! I’m going to Mid-South!’ ‘See ya later! I’ll going to Florida, see you later, I’ll go to Georgia.’ So a lot of politicking could happen with that. Hope it doesn’t.”
On the company being a positive for independent wrestling as a whole: “100%. Like I said, the business is wide open right now. The business is wide open for talent to shine. If you think about…to me, the biggest…what hurt Ring of Honor is their stars leaving, but then what did that do? It opened up the door for other wrestlers to go there. And, you know, with All Elite Wrestling they have this amazing roster. They’re also going to need other people to help fill out the card, fill out a roster. And you know, they announced what, one woman? Two women?”
