Cody Rhodes Talks Difficulty of Getting AEW Into East Coast Venues

AEW Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes recently appeared on Sirius XM’s Busted Open Radio show. During his interview with Dave LeGreca and WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry the discussion of AEW finally heading to the Tri-State area came up. All Elite will be taking their weekly Dynamite show to Newark, New Jersey on March 25th at the Prudential Center.

Although professional wrestling is no longer ‘territory’ based, it has been fairly common knowledge that the North East of the United States has been WWE country for quite some time. This relates as far back as the days of the WWWF with Bruno Sammartino, with WWE now having their headquarters based in Connecticut. Having been a part of the wrestling industry for most of his life Cody Rhodes is more than aware of this. and he discussed the difficulties of ‘loyalty’ for the buildings in that geographic area.

“I’m looking forward to the Prudential Center” Cody Rhodes began. “It’s a wonderful building. I was involved in some of the WWE events that were there. I was involved with Hell In a Cell there. Actually that was my only pay-per-view main event ever with WWE. But the building itself? I didn’t even go to that site survey” Cody revealed.

“I know that building well enough. I’m beyond excited to be in the New Jersey and the New York area.”

Cody Rhodes then talked about the ‘loyalties’ of staff in the buildings; “It’s not easy. As you guys know, in some of those buildings they’ve got long standing history [with WWE], there’s a lot of loyalty elements. There’s a lot of young men and women that want it in the offices. And a lot of old men and women who are you know; trepidatious about this wild disruptive wrestling company coming in. They [the younger generation] were the ones who said ‘no this is great. We’ve seen what they’re doing in these other venues. They’re filling them up and we want them.’ That first show is going to be…It’s going to be gangbusters.”

Cody Rhodes also revealed that this will not be the only event in the Tri-State area for the company; at least that is the current plan. “I’m really, really looking forward to that Tri-State debut. And…slowly chipping away on the area. But that Prudential building has a soft spot in my heart for being the ones to say ‘hey, doors are open.’

Tickets for the Prudential Center show go on sale January 24th.