Cody & Jim Ross Comment On AEW TV Deal

Earlier today, Warner Media and AEW confirmed the new promotion will debut a weekly primetime 2-hour show on TNT this fall. AEW’s Cody and Jim Ross both spoke with Variety in regards to the recently announced deal with Turner.

“The term people are using is ‘alternative,’” Rhodes said. “For many years throughout my youth and plenty of other fans’ youths, pro wrestling has been essentially just one company and that’s not really the case. I want to be the sports-centric alternative in the pro wrestling world and I think we’re on a good path to get there.”

Jim Ross stated he believes the youthful leadership in the new promotion will help drive its success.

“AEW has a great opportunity because they’re not underfunded, the leadership has amazing vision, is young and youthful,” Ross said. “It’s probably the youngest group of decision makers ever in the business and I think that’s a pretty good statement because they’re going to be able to relate to that 18-34 demographic and 18-49 demographic very favorably.”

Ross said during the interview that AEW does not plan to compete with WWE. He noted that competition in the wrestling business is a good thing, however.

“Competition raises everybody’s game,” Ross continued. “It will raise the wrestlers’ game, the creative people’s game, everybody. Everybody feels a sense of urgency when someone is competing with them.”

AEW has been quick to say they will be a sport-centric product. Cody clarified what this means when speaking with Variety.

“One thing we really strongly want to present is wins and losses mattering again in pro wrestling. That takes more than the W and the L column,” he said.

“We’re talking about percentage of times someone loses to this particular maneuver, percentages against somebody of this height, a whole by-the-numbers approach that really intrigues me. It’s not a cornerstone of AEW necessarily but it’s a great peripheral element we’re working on and that’s going to be exclusive to us.”