After last Friday’s double sellout of Philadelphia and Boston, wrestling fans were wondering where All Elite Wrestling would hold the shows from which they’d broadcast the fourth and fifth episodes of their weekly live series on TNT. They also debated how long the streak of quick sellouts would continue.
The latest episode of Being The Elite, “Country Roads”, gave us the answer to the “where”. And those locations - particularly the fifth show - will inform arguments about the “how long”, up to and maybe past the ticket on sale date this Friday (Aug. 23).
On Weds., Oct. 23, AEW will set up shop in Britt Baker’s hometown at the University of Pittsburgh’s Peterson Events Center. It’s primarily a college basketball venue, but a pretty big one, seating approximately 12,000. While not as populous as the cities/regions All Elite hit for their first three shows, the ‘Burgh’s a wrestling town.
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The real test may come on Weds., Oct. 30. West Virginians do love their rasslin, but Charleston is a city of about 50,000 people in a state of less than two million. It’s only about three hours down I-79 from Pittsburgh, and the Civic Center Coliseum is a sizeable building, holding 12 -13K.
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At this point I wouldn’t bet against Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, and Team AEW. But WWE’s reported move of NXT to USA Network as head-to-head live competition isn’t the only challenge they’ve got ahead of them.
We’ll start to see how they handle the task of packing houses outside the biggest cities in the Northeastern United States this Friday.