AEW Tapes Potentially Months Worth Of Programming Before Stay-At-Home Deadline
Preparing for a potential period of inactivity...
Wade Keller of PWTorch has reported that AEW concluded a TV taping on Thursday night just before midnight in Norcross, GA. The timing is important because that's when the state's stay-at-home mandate for non-essential businesses (which is currently scheduled to run through Monday, April 13) went into effect.
Keller's report states that sources in AEW believe they have, "...enough footage taped to create storyline-advancing matches that can fill two hours of weekly TV for TNT every Wednesday night for weeks if not months if necessary."
The report indicates that those wrestlers present on Thursday were the same ones that were there Wednesday, with the only exception being Chris Jericho, who made it to the Thursday tapings.
AEW also taped extra footage in Jacksonville at Daily's Place last month, including the World title match pitting Jon Moxley and Jake Hager. That bout will air on the April 15 edition of Dynamite.
The company's strategy for the recent tapings was to create two distinct groups, leaving half of them off of the recent spate of shows. This would theoretically diminish the chance of having the entire roster require self-isolation (if it came to something that extreme), by keeping the two groups apart for at least two weeks.
Written by Justin Henry
In addition to writing lists and commentaries for Cultaholic, Justin is also a features writer and interviewer for Fighting Spirit Magazine, and is co-author of the WWE-related book Titan Screwed: Lost Smiles, Stunners, and Screwjobs.