AEW Planning To Make UK Debut This Year With "Mini-Tour"

AEW officials have discussed a possible "mini-tour" of the UK for 2020, and it looks like the overseas debut in Europe is planned for later this year.

AEW Promo Coach and Match Producer Dustin Rhodes recently spoke with Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT and revealed that AEW is set hold their first international tour in England later this year.

"Rumor has it that we may doing a little mini-tour over there in the UK," Rhodes revealed. "And I hope so, I hope that's true. Definitely want to hit London, man. London is a good town for us, good town for wrestling. All the UK is, man. The UK has got deep roots in wrestling and they love wrestling. So hopefully, sooner rather than later, we're going to get over there."

There's no word yet on when the tour might take place, but it could be booked around WWE's annual European tours in May and November. While The Young Bucks have expressed interest in possibly holding an AEW pay-per-view in the UK, Dustin told talkSPORT that the rumored "mini-tour" would likely just be live events, but they could end up shooting an episode of Dynamite while they were there.

"Probably just live events," Rhodes said when asked what kind of events the tour would include. "But you never know. We could be over there for a week and shoot a TV somewhere, I don't know."

AEW Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes appeared on Wrestling Observer Live yesterday and said AEW is definitely headed "across the pond" this year. Host Dave Meltzer asked if there's a timetable for AEW's debut in Europe, noting that AEW President & CEO Tony Khan has expressed interested to him in going to the UK from day one.

"Yeah, just a very vague 2020," Cody said in response. "But I will be kept... I'll hold my word as far as like... and Tony will hold his word, and The Young Bucks and Kenny [Omega], and everybody... we have to go. We have to go to London and Manchester, and there's a lot of great markets in the UK, but 2020 – we have to make those steps for sure, and I think we'll do well. Everyone onboard is excited about that. Jim Ross is coming back from the UK and the tour he just did with Inside The Ropes now, I was just talking to him."

As Dustin said above, Cody then revealed that AEW's debut in the UK will likely be the "mini-tour" with a series of shows. Cody recalled the fun they had on the recent events that were associated with AEW World Champion Chris Jericho's cruise last month.

"So, yeah, it'll definitely happen in 2020," Cody said of AEW going overseas. "And hopefully we get some more news about that. I will say it probably will be a series of shows, like a mini-tour, and I could totally be wrong here. This is... my goal would be to do a mini-tour because I think we had a lot of fun on our mini-tour that happened on the boat, and since we're not doing live events I think it's a good experience for the locker room, a good thing for the bonding of it all, and to have kick-ass shows in a great place that loves wrestling like the United Kingdom, and Europe in general."

Stay tuned for updates on when AEW might be headed to Europe.