All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and its weekly Wednesday night show “Dynamite” are set to pass a major milestone in the pro wrestling world.
The April 16 episode of “Dynamite” on TBS will mark the show’s 289th, meaning it has officially aired longer than the 288 episodes produced by WCW’s “Monday Nitro,” which aired on fellow Turner network TNT from 1995-2001.
“It had a major influence on anyone that was watching wrestling at that time,” AEW president, CEO and general manager Tony Khan said of “Nitro” in an interview with Variety. “Some of the real highlights of ’90s professional wrestling happened on that show.”
“Nitro” is one of the most important shows in wrestling history, having fueled the so-called Monday Night Wars against WWE and “Monday Night Raw” in the mid 1990s. A dedicated fan and student of pro wrestling, Khan in particular praised early “Nitro” storylines like “Macho Man,” Randy Savage’s feud with Ric Flair and the appearance of Lex Luger in the show’s debut as key moments in “Nitro’s” history beyond the formation of the NWO.
“You know, a common misconception is that WCW really picked up and started getting really hot when the NWO started, but the company had already gotten really hot when the NWO came in,” he said. Khan went on to say that many matches on “Nitro” featured a style of wrestling that was not something typically seen in the U.S. at the time, but that giving it a spotlight on the show has influenced generations of wrestlers since.
“There was a lot of really great athletes, and some of the highest flying, fastest-paced pro wrestling you could find of the era,” he said. “And I think that style has really evolved and risen to the top. The top pro wrestlers in the world aren’t necessarily 400 or 500 pound people anymore.”
And while “Nitro” aired its last episode nearly two decades before the launch of “Dynamite” on TNT (and later TBS), the two shows do share one major common factor.
“There were so many great moments with Sting [on ‘Nitro’],” Khan said. “Sting is a huge part of AEW, and long before there ever was an AEW, Sting was wrestling on TBS and TNT for many, many years… A lot of my favorite memories watching wrestling on TBS and TNT involved Ric Flair and Sting.”
“Dynamite” will originate from Boston on Wednesday with a special “Spring BreakThru” theme. The show will feature matches like AEW Trios champions the Death Riders (Jon Moxley, PAC and Claudio Castagnoli) taking on The Opps (Samoa Joe, Katsuyori Shibata and HOOK). Elsewhere on the card, multiple matches will be contested as part of the Owen Hart Cup tournament, including Hangman Page versus a Wild Card Entrant, Will Ospreay versus Konosuke Takeshita and Athena versus Mercedes Moné.
AEW is also a few months into their new rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, which saw AEW programming stream live on Max for the first time. Khan praised WBD head David Zaslav for the new deal, saying Zaslav personally told him, “I really want AEW here, I believe in AEW.”
“He’s given us that opportunity to, not only continue to hit this great milestone this week, but also reach this new audience with Max, which I believe is a huge part of the future,” Khan said.