All Elite Wrestling, LLC (AEW)[2] is an American professional wrestlingpromotion founded in 2019. Its inception was announced by entrepreneurs Shahid Khan and his son Tony, with the former acting as the promotion's lead investor, while the latter serves as president and CEO of the company. Professional wrestlers Cody as well as Matt and Nick Jackson, collectively known as The Elite, are the promotion's inaugural contracted talents, serving as both in-ring performers and executive vice presidents.
In May 2017, journalist Dave Meltzer made a comment that the American professional wrestling promotion Ring of Honor (ROH) could not sell 10,000 tickets for a professional wrestling event.[3] The comment was responded to by professional wrestlers Cody and The Young Bucks (the tag team of Matt and Nick Jackson), who were top stars signed to ROH and good friends both inside and outside of professional wrestling as part of the group Bullet Club (and, later, The Elite).[4] They promoted and held an independent professional wrestling event called "All In" in September 2018, featuring wrestlers from ROH as well as other promotions. The event sold out in 30 minutes and had the largest audience in attendance for a professional wrestling show in America held and organized by promoters not affiliated with WWE or World Championship Wrestling since 1993. It was also the largest crowd for a non-WWE wrestling event in America since World Championship Wrestling was acquired by WWE. The event was attended by 11,263 people.[5][6][7][8] The event was acclaimed, and it led to much online speculation that Cody and The Young Bucks would expand their ambitions and create their own professional wrestling promotion or do a second "All In" event and even certain people in the television industry were very impressed with the show.[9][10]
Formation
Nick (left) and Matt Jackson (right) teamed with Cody Rhodes to help start the promotion
On November 5, 2018, several trademarks were filed in Jacksonville, Florida that indicated the launch of All Elite Wrestling. Names filed for trademark included: All Elite Wrestling, AEW All Out, All Out, AEW, Double or Nothing, Tuesday Night Dynamite, AEW Double or Nothing, and several logos.[11][12][13] In December 2018, Cody, The Young Bucks and several other wrestlers left ROH.[14][15] The official announcement of AEW's creation came at midnight Pacific Time on January 1, 2019 in an episode of Being the Elite, a YouTubeweb series created by and featuring The Elite. Also announced in the episode was "Double or Nothing", AEW's inaugural event and sequel to "All In".[16][17][18] On January 2, 2019, Cody and The Young Bucks officially signed with the promotion, serving as AEW's executive vice presidents, while entrepreneur, football executive and longtime wrestling fan Tony Khan was announced as the president of the company.[19][20] Khan and his father, Shahid Khan, were reportedly backing the promotion.[21][22] The Khans are billionaires and part of the ownership group of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham F.C.[23]
^ abIn lucha libre the true identity, birth name etc. of masked wrestlers is kept secret to the general public. News does not report nor speculate on real names even if they may be able to find out out of respect for the Lucha Libre traditions.
^Johnson, Mike (May 13, 2018). "ALL IN.....SOLD OUT?". PWInsider. Archived from the original on May 15, 2018. Retrieved May 14, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
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