Cody Rhodes and Jim Ross both had separate interviews with Variety in weeks leading up to today’s announcement that All Elite Wrestling will be heading to TNT on a weekly basis in the fall and the publication covered their discussions with the two All Elite figures in an article dropped this morning. Cody talks about how important it is for AEW to define itself differently from WWE in regards to having a “sports-centric” mindset and the inclusion of analytics, while JR makes note that AEW won’t be in direct competition with WWE, that aspect is always good for wrestling. Quotes from the article are below:
Cody Rhodes on AEW being the alternative for wrestling fans:
“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 on why AEW is in a good spot and why competition is good for everyone:
“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.”
“Competition raises everybody’s game,” he said, “It will raise the wrestlers’ game, the creative people’s game, everybody. Everybody feels a sense of urgency when someone is competing with them.”
Cody talks the inclusion of analytics:
“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.”
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