Backstage News From The AEW TV Tapings, TNT Title Tournament Update, AEW Dealing With Coronavirus
AEW reportedly finished their TV tapings in Norcross, Georgia on Thursday just before the midnight deadline for all non-essential businesses to close down due to the coronavirus pandemic and the shelter-in-place order, according to PWTorch.
AEW now has enough content taped to create storyline-advancing matches that can fill two hours of weekly Dynamite episodes for several weeks, if not months, if necessary. It was noted that some of the matches may end up airing on AEW Dark instead of Dynamite, if the stay-at-home orders ease up.
AEW President Tony Khan spoke to Wrestling Inc. earlier to provide exclusive comments on the tapings and a visit by Georgia state officials. You can click here to read our report with Khan's comments.
AEW has been rotating staff and wrestlers for several weeks, going back to the Dynamite tapings at Daily's Place in Jacksonville, FL. The process involved moving staff in to do their jobs, to help set up or do pre-tapes, and then moving them back out and replacing them with essential in-ring and on-air talent for the tapings and TV broadcasts. Wrestlers who worked matches at yesterday's tapings were the same ones who worked Dynamite on Wednesday. AEW did not have anyone else fly in or drive in, besides Chris Jericho, who reportedly did some commentary work.
The tapings in Georgia reportedly saw AEW tape up to the finals of the TNT Title tournament, which are currently scheduled for the Double Or Nothing 2020 pay-per-view on May 23.
AEW also taped content in Jacksonville in March, including the match between Jake Hager and AEW World Champion Jon Moxley, which will air in two weeks. Jim Ross was present to do commentary for that match, and others. This means AEW will be able to feature first-run matches with wrestlers besides the ones who appeared on Dynamite this week as they taped matches in Florida with a different crew last month. Most of the wrestlers at the Georgia tapings were either from the Southeast area of the country, and drove in themselves to avoid public transportation, or had been staying in the area even if they live away from it. A few people flew in for the tapings, but the report noted that they were not from "hot spots" such as Washington or New York. AEW talent who live outside of the Southeast, who aren't within reasonable driving distances, have been kept away on purpose so the company would have two distinct crews who hadn't intermingled for weeks. The idea was to have no chance of the entire AEW roster having to self-isolate at once by making sure there was a hard divide between the two crews for at least two weeks.
It was also noted by PWTorch that there is no knowledge of anyone in AEW having symptoms of the coronavirus. All wrestlers and staff are being instructed to go into isolation for two weeks before mixing with anyone else, that way they can be ready to produce new content without the concern of being exposed to the coronavirus by other people while they wait for AEW to hold more tapings later this month or in May, if they are able to.
The current plan is to mix matches from week to week, using the Georgia and Florida tapings, along with new interview footage and content from talents who are at home in isolation.