Everything there is to know about Fulham owners’ brand new All Elite Wrestling set to rival WWE

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All Elite Wrestling have made a firm statement of their intention to rival the WWE and give fans what they want from their new wrestling promotion following their rally in Jacksonville, Florida on Tuesday.

With the backing of Sahid and Tony Khan – co-owners of Fulham and the Jacksonville Jaguars – Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks – Nick and Matt Jackson – have launched a brand new wrestling promotion and given fans plenty to be exciting about already. Here’s everything we know about the new venture.

They have vast resources

Tony Khan has been confirmed as the company’s president and the Khan family have a fortune estimated at around $6.3 billion.

They already own Premier League club Fulham and NFL franchise Jacksonville Jaguars, but this is their first venture into professional wrestling. In contrast, WWE boss Vince McMahon is worth around $2.9 billion, so they can certainly compete.

Cody Rhodes and The Young Bucks’ roles in AEW

A statement released by Rhodes revealed that all three men would serve as executive vice presidents to the company and the Bucks would be responsible for booking the events.

All three are also, of course, contracted as in-ring talents. It will be interesting to see how The Young Bucks straddle the line of bookers and contenders.

AEW’s first event

As a follow-up to their ultra-successful All-In event, AEW have already announced Double or Nothing.

We have now learned that the event will take place on May 28 in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Seeing as this is likely to be the next big event for AEW, expect them to pull out all the stops to properly raise the curtain for the promotion.

Their first signees

Hangman Adam Page, alongside the inaugural trio of Rhodes and the Bucks, was the first to put pen to paper.

Days after, Rhodes’ wife, Brandi Rhodes, has signed as a performer and chief brand officer and Britt Baker – partner of Adam Cole – will join her in the women’s division. BJ Whitmer, Dana Massie have officially signed to work with the promotion in backstage roles, too.

Big name signings

Chris Jericho and PAC – aka Neville to WWE fans – are the two biggest signings the promotion has landed. On top of that, WWE legend Billy Gunn has come on board as a producer and SCU trio Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky have joined the fray from Ring of Honor, too. Joey Janela is another well-known independent name to sign on the dotted line.

Why hasn’t Kenny Omega signed with AEW?

The Elite have become big deals in the wrestling world for many reasons, but chief among them has to be their YouTube show Being The Elite.

Omega has been at the forefront of what The Elite has done up until this point and one would think he would have been the poster boy of the original announcement.

He’s certainly conspicuous by his absence and given that he dropped his IGWP Heavyweight title to Hiroshi Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom 13 and Dave Meltzer said WWE has made him a very good offer, he must be at least considering jumping to Vince McMahon and co. Chances are he’s still deciding.

WWE tried to sign Rhodes and Young Bucks just last month

Meltzer reported in December that Rhodes, The Bucks and indeed Page turned down major money deals from WWE, reported to be multi-year deals that were worth more than seven figures annually.

Whether the WWE saw AEW coming or not is up for debate, but given the buzz that had been created on the independents, they had to try.

Potential TV deal

To truly compete with the WWE, AEW will need a TV deal and a decent one.

While AEW do not have an official deal just yet, it’s rumoured that TNT/TBS are interested and Khan is pulling the strings in that deal. Having filed to trademark Tuesday Night Dynamite. It seems like a Tuesday Night War against SmackDown could be on the horizon.

How much money is Khan investing in AEW?

Initially, Tony Khan is injecting $100m of his own money.

Striking a TV deal and gaining some sponsors will obviously offset much of that in time, if possible. They were also the best merchandise sellers in the business in 2018, so the revenue streams are pretty evident for AEW. Khan’s money should go quite a long way in the first instance.

Tony Khan is a longtime wrestling fan

Old tweets from Khan show us that he has been paying attention to the independents for a long time and this is probably a passion project for him.

He talked about the likes of CM Punk, Daniel Bryan and Cesaro before they made it to WWE, so he is likely to be involved with recruitment, too. In a recent press release, Khan also referred the fact he has been watching wrestling since he was seven-years-old.