AEW Considering Moving All Out
AEW All Out could find a new home due to Chicago hosting Forbidden Door in June
With AEW announcing the historic AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door PPV for Chicago’s United Center in June, questions started to be asked about whether AEW would be returning to Chicago in September for All Out, potentially saturating the market.
Tony Khan addressed this during an interview with TSN, suggesting he could give another city a shot at hosting what many regard as AEW’s premier PPV event:
“We’re going to talk more about that, but I think one thing for sure is that from the beginning, Chicago has been an awesome market for AEW and I’m very excited about doing lots of shows there,” Khan said. "I think All Out is the biggest show we’ve ever done so far before on pay-per-view and it’s another one of our landmark events where we’ve reached our highest highs so far. We’ve got a great history there at the NOW Arena, formerly the Sears Center, in Hoffman Estates near Schaumburg, the northwest suburbs of Chicago. I think we can continue that, potentially, but on the other hand, there’s a lot of places around the world where All Out would be a great show and we’re going to continue exploring options here.”
The initial All Out was held in Chicago’s NOW Arena in August 2019, with Khan pledging the future of the show to the city. In light of Forbidden Door and AEW’s continued growth, the time could be right to enter new territories, such as Toronto:
“I really want to get up to Toronto, and now I think travel restrictions hopefully will continue to ease and make it much more possible to bring in such a large crew of people – not just wrestlers, staff and coaches, but so many people involved in the production and backstage – with the travel and logistics involved," Khan said. “It’s far more manageable, I think, today than it was six months ago or especially a year ago. So, hopefully soon we can get up to Toronto.”
Toronto would be a good option, with AEW having their pick of the 19,800-seater Scotiabank Arena, or if they were feeling adventurous the near 40,000-seater BMO Field football/soccer stadium, or even the hallowed near 70,000-seater Skydome (now the Rogers Centre) home of WrestleMania VI and X-8, although the latter would certainly be a massive gamble at this point of AEW’s history.