Mike Mansury Talks About Changes To AEW Set Designs

2024 has been the year of new eras in professional wrestling. WWE's new direction is being dubbed "The Renaissance Era," while companies like STARDOM, NJPW, and TNA have all experienced big changes in management. For AEW, the company debuted a completely fresh look on the March 6 episode of "AEW Dynamite." A man who played a big part in that change in look was Co-Executive Producer Mike Mansury, who admitted on the "AEW Unrestricted" podcast that when he saw the original new look at the start of 2023, it reminded him of something.

"I saw the new graphics, and I'm not going to lie to you, and this has nothing to do with the fact that I spent the bulk of my career there, but I remember walking into Climate Pledge that day and when they were starting to run through elements and stuff, I looked and was like, 'That looks like a Survivor Series sort of look.'" Mansury revealed that Tony Khan was originally going for a look that was not too dissimilar to the original "American Gladiators" look.

Mansury said that after going with the throwback look for the 200th episode of "Dynamite" in 2023, the idea of changing the set for the rebrand in 2024 was to pay homage to the original look from 2019 but update it so it would stand alone five years on. However, there was one thing Khan wanted to bring back with a fresh twist. "Tony really wanted to bring the tunnels back."

Please credit "AEW Unrestricted" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.