Brian Damage
This Week in Wrestling: Week 43 of 2025
Oh Brother…
The biggest story of the week has been the announcement that Warner Brothers Discovery are putting themselves up for sale. As we know, WBD is the broadcasting company that airs AEW programming. If WBD does go up for sale, what will that mean for All Elite Wrestling’s future? Warner Bros Discovery have been huge AEW supporters and paid Tony Khan good money to broadcast AEW Dynamite and Collision each and every week.
Would a new company that purchases WBD, be so inclined to keep the pro wrestling company onboard? I guess it’ll all depend on who were to buy WBD. There have been rumblings that Netflix has shown interest in buying it. If that were to happen, that could spell certain doom for AEW, as Netflix already has exclusive rights to WWE’s Monday Night Raw. I doubt that Netflix or their partners in WWE would welcome a rival wrestling company onto the same platform.
Some AEW fans have suggested that Tony Khan’s billionaire father Shahid Khan buy Warner Brothers for his son’s wrestling company to stay afloat. That seems like an interesting proposal, but in reality, will likely never happen. Whoever decides to make a bid on it will have to see what shows make money and what shows do not. Pro wrestling in general seems to not be as hot as it was a couple of years ago. At least in terms of anything not in some way connected to WWE. Ratings haven’t been stellar for Dynamite or Collision for a while now. How will that affect them in the future?
Without a solid television deal, AEW will almost certainly crumble. That is not a good thing. WBD has helped fund AEW and without that major cable and HBO Max streaming services airing the shows, AEW will suffer a great deal. Sure, Tony Khan has a lot of money, but at some point, he will need to see profits and not just continue to pour money into a promotion that doesn’t have a solid TV deal. Only time will tell what will happen, but AEW fans have reason to be concerned.
Photo Gallery
AJ Styles got a nice send off on his final trip to Japan during a WWE house show.
Raquel Rodriguez
Thunder Rosa
Lei Ying Lee fka Xia Li
Lacey Evans
Jakara Jackson
Jenni Neidhart
Nikki Bella
AEW’s Leila Grey
Video Gallery
A 1993 commercial for an All Japan Pro Wrestling video game…
David Fullam
AEW’s fate will depend on the new bosses. I can never forget when the AOL, Time Warner merger happened. WCW, while having lost the ratings war now, was still getting ratings that would make any network head proud. Unless you were the news bosses. Good ratings or not, they did not want that “wrasslin” crap on their prestigious networks. AEW should be super cautious.
Luke
By the way, is that Tony and Shad photo real? Tony looks like an actual human being for a change. Shad, on the other hand…
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Yes, that picture is legit. Shad and Tony posed for a picture with Orange Cassidy.
Luke
AEW is a non-profit… It will be fine as long as Shad and Tony are alive. The bigger problem would be if something happens to either of them.