AEW: NWA Partnership Update, AEW Contracts Update, Jacksonville Rampage Event This October

Aug 13, 2022

AEW & NWA Partnership Status Update

Fightful Select held a recent interview with National Wrestling Alliance owner Billy Corgan. One of the topics discussed included Corgan’s thoughts on AEW CEO Tony Khan’s past public comments over his issues with the lack of recognition by NWA for his help in lending and paying for AEW talent for their Empowerrr event last year.

“It wasn’t a miscommunication. Tony has my number and honestly, I wish he had reached out privately on that if he had any issue with that. The fact that he went public with something and the other part of the equation was he talked about stuff without giving the other end of the equation. The other end of the equation I’ve never talked about publicly. So it would be like if you went—let’s pretend me and you were having a little bit of an issue—and you went public and said, ‘Billy should thank me for driving that car that he’s driving because I paid for the tires,’ right? So people might go, ‘Oh, yeah, Billy should thank him.’ If I don’t tell you the other end of the deal that was made, well, that does sound like it was kind of a one way street. But that’s not the deal. I’ve never talked about the other end of the deal. “I don’t think I should talk about the other end of the deal, but let’s put it this way—there was another end of the deal that he conveniently didn’t mentioned. I don’t have any issue with Tony. I think Tony’s done a tremendous job. Tony’s made it easier for me to operate in wrestling. When I go into business meetings with networks and talk to them, they look at AEW’s success as an indication that the market is shifting, that WWE doesn’t control the market like they did for twenty years. So I can only thank Tony [for making it easier] for me.

Corgan also stated that despite Khan’s past comments, both him and Khan are currently on good terms and neither has taken issue with what the other has said.

It was also reported that despite both companies not doing business with each other over the past year, the working partnership between both companies is also still fine.

AEW Contracts Status Update

As noted before, several former WWE talents are currently interested in the idea of potentially returning to the company following Paul “Triple H” Levesque recent promotions as the Head of Talent Relations and Creative.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that most of AEW’s key talent still have a lengthy amount of time remaining on their current deals. Meltzer reported that AEW’s original roster had been mostly signed to three year deals with two year options, meaning that the contracts of those like the Young Bucks, Hangman Adam Page, and MJF would not expire until the end of 2023.

In regards to Kenny Omega, Meltzer reported that his initial contract was for four years in length and is currently set to expire in February 2023. Meltzer also reported that Omega’s contract does contain terms allowing AEW the ability to extend contracts for injury time reasons but it is currently not known if this has been done or not. Should AEW invoke the terms, Omega’s contract reportedly would not expire until November of 2023 at the earliest.

AEW Announces Rampage Show This October for Jacksonville

During the broadcast of Friday’s NFL preseason game of Jacksonville Jaguars vs. Cleveland Browns, AEW CEO Tony Khan announced that the company will be holding a new episode of their AEW Rampage series on Friday, October 21st at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida.

While no other details were given, it is currently assumed that this will be a live show.

Tony Khan announced that AEW will be returning to Jacksonville on October 21st while in the booth for the Jaguars game.pic.twitter.com/M7gKGaqgAH
— JJ Williams (@JJWilliamsWON) August 13, 2022