AEW has held a handful of stadium shows, including New York's Arthur Ashe Stadium and London's Wembley Stadium. While the company did reportedly manage to sell out the latter last year, 2024 ticket sales haven't been as strong and its shows in the Big Apple only ever peaked at 13,000 fans.
Attendance is believed to be at an all-time low for AEW, with even much smaller venues largely empty in recent months.
Needless to say, there was a lot of head-scratching earlier this week when news broke that the promotion might be eyeing a large-scale event in the Dallas/Arlington area next year!
Talking to ComicBook.com about what's been described as "AEW's biggest event," AEW President Tony Khan set the record straight.
"It's not something that we would be looking to do anytime here in the immediate future," he admitted. "But it is an exciting idea and something I think that we absolutely could do and something that would be very interesting. I can't comment on the accuracy of such reports or the immediate future, but we've had great shows over the years in Texas."
"We've never done an AEW pay-per-view in Texas. We've done a lot of Ring of Honor pay-per-views there. A lot of AEW's biggest TV episodes have been in Texas, but the one thing we've never brought is an AEW pay-per-view, and Lord knows there's a lot of demand for it," Khan added. "I think that would be a fascinating thing for us to try."
WWE being on such a hot streak has hurt AEW and it would be unwise to attempt a stadium show with ratings and attendance on such a sharp decline. We'll see what happens, though.
In the same interview, Khan was asked about the possibility of Ricochet signing with AEW when his WWE deal expires. He isn't expected to return to that company after last being seen being slammed through a car's windshield by Bron Breakker (rumour has it the former United States Champion has been unhappy with his role in WWE for some time now).
"I'm a huge fan of Ricochet," the executive acknowledged. "I think he's a great, great wrestler. He's been involved in matches against some of the top stars in AEW. He also has a great history in New Japan Pro Wrestling, as he's been a champion there and a top star. We have great collaboration there and I love the history of New Japan and I think he's a big part of it."
"During a great era when a lot of our top stars were wrestling there, he was a big part of it. I have a lot of admiration and respect for Ricochet and think he's one of the top athletes and one of the most exciting stars in all of wrestling," Khan concluded.
Stay tuned for updates as we have them.