Jim Ross says that AEW had plans to begin non-televised live events before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
JR was a guest on Wrestling Observer Live when he was asked about the possibility of AEW running ‘house show’ tours. Host Bryan Alvarez noted that there are positives and negatives to holding live events.
“What are your thoughts on should they be doing more house shows for everybody’s learning abilities?” Alvarez asked JR.
“Absolutely and I think that’s the plan,” Jim Ross responded. “There were some live events pencilled into the schedule before the virus. You can’t get better working one night a week, nobody, I don’t care who you are. There are some minor exceptions, like I don’t know that Chris Jericho needs to work 4 or 5 days a week to be great.”
“A lot of guys need to continue to work and they need to work under the supervision of the coaches in AEW so they can continue to re-learn some of the fundamentals, primarily slowing down, using more psychology and selling,” JR continued.
“Getting house shows are important for us to develop talent especially and for revenue going forward but who the hell knows when that’s going to be? It ain’t no time soon apparently.”
You can watch JR’s appearance on Wrestling Observer Live here:
Tony Khan on AEW Running House Shows
Last June, AEW President Tony Khan said if AEW does do house shows, they won’t be having their roster doing 5-6 of them a week.
“If you do see us do house shows, they are going to be top shows with the top people, which means we’re not going to be doing five or six a week of them,” Khan said.
“So when we get into weekly TV, I’d like to get into a good rhythm of where we’re doing, let’s say, between 100-120 shows a year, it’s pretty busy but it doesn’t mean every performer is going to be on every show. It means you’re going to get a combination of our top performers every night.”
