Cody Rhodes was one of the guests on this week’s episode of the Jim Ross Report ahead of tonight’s All Elite Wrestling ticket announcement party in Las Vegas.
Cody talked about some of the expectations for attendance with Double Or Nothing, saying they expect to sell just over 11,000 tickets to the event:
“Right now I have the building—MGM Grand Garden Arena—we scaled it for 11,600. That’s with, and some folks might know, that’s with if some seats come available because we thought we had a camera there, we kill that camera there, that might open up a few hundred seats. I can strongly estimate that we’re aiming to hit that 11,600, we want to be honest about our tickets from day one because it really easy for people this day and age to look it up, or just talk to the fire marshal.
You can’t really say we’ve got 100,000 people in the building anymore; 11,600 is the number. We were kicking ourselves over calling it ‘Double Or Nothing’ and we couldn’t find a building that had 20,000 to compete with the [10,000 from All In], but this building has wrestling history. I went to WCW pay-per-views here, Matt and Nick did as well. I’m really excited about bringing our fans, there are so many travelers that come to do events with us and The Elite. I’m excited for some of them to see Vegas for the first time, Vegas is a damn good time.”
Cody also addressed building out the roster, saying AEW hopes to gather a group of talent that might be familiar to some, but brand new to a worldwide audience. He continued by saying tonight’s event is not just about tickets, but to keep people excited about their May wrestling event:
“We’re looking for ‘fresh’ more than the equity-garnered individual that’s perhaps popped around various television shows already. We’re looking for someone that hasn’t been seen, that’s the directive. Of course there’s folks like a Chris Jericho, who is an absolute star, wrestling’s frickin’ rock star, and he’s done it all and seen it all. I want to have the juxtaposition to have somebody on that level seen with somebody that our audience may be seeing for the very first time ever. I’ll use Jimmy Havoc as an example—not that he’s not well-known—but perhaps he’s not universally known. That’s what we want to sell, that’s the message that we want to bring forward. I don’t want to say the ‘next generation’, it’s more this generation, disruptive, independent brands, and you’re seeing a pop-up all around. Jimmy Havoc as of yesterday, tomorrow at the ticket on-sale party, we want to give them more than ‘hey, here’s just the details on where you can buy tickets.’ There’s a few talent signings that we’ll be able to throw out there, I think they’re really going to mobilize folks and generate some excitement.
I’m really excited for [Brandi], who’s been recruiting the women from around the world. She’s been on a plane everyday, here and there—she’s got a signing tomorrow that I’m excited for her to present. We’re really going all hands on deck tomorrow. We don’t really want to keep standing up in front of the podium saying ‘the show is in May.’ We want to be doing stuff now that excites you and entertains you.”
The full episode of this week’s Jim Ross Report is available below:
(Transcription credit to Bill Pritchard for Wrestlezone.com)
